After savoring the rich Canary, the churchman remarked, “Your mind assuredly be on weightier matters, my son. You won but five of this night’s seven encounters. Or doth my skill so wax, eh?”
Foster sipped politely, then set the silver goblet down. He would have preferred ale or even water to the sweet, sweet wine. He nodded. “Your game is definitely improving, Your Eminence. But you’re right, I am thinking about something else.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘The Lady Krystal and I, we … well, we must be married, and soon”
The Archbishop leaned back against the tall, canopied
backrest of his heavy chair, his bushy-white eyebrows arching up. Smiling gently, he said, “May I ask the reason for this precipitate haste … or must I guess?” But when Foster would have replied, he waved his hand. “No, my son, that question was rhetorical. Of course you two shall be wed, by me, and this very night, and you so wish it.”
But the wedding—a simple, beautiful ceremony—took place three nights later in one of the smaller chapels of the cathedral complex.
And at noon the following day, Reichsherzog Wolfgang arrived from the north.
Foster heard of the arrival long before the newcomers reached the Archbishop’s commodious stone residence, and so was in the courtyard to greet the big, gruff German. For all that increasing numbers of Scot reavers had begun to roam the Northumbrian Marches, making life chancy and increasingly hazardous for natives and travelers alike, the Emperor’s brother had, it developed, ridden that deadly gauntlet with but eight of his Mongol troopers.
Six of the flat-faced, bowlegged little men still rode at his back, though Foster noted that at least one was tied into his saddle, his jaws clenched and his black eyes dulled with pain. To two other saddles were lashed the frozen bodies of dead Mongols, while a rough, largish bundle covered with tartan was packed upon another riderless horse.
Wolfgang handled the reins of his tired charger with his right hand; his left arm was wrapped in dirty, blood-crusty bandages and tucked under his baldric, but his blue eyes lit with pleasure when he espied Foster in the doorway, and, tossing his reins to a waiting groom, he slid from the saddle and strode over, smiling.
“Ach, Herr Hauptmann Forster, to see again old friends iss gut, ja? Ach, jaJ Gut hunting had mein jungen and me, sree-und-tventy heads of Scots, ve bring to decorate the gates. You veil are? Und the scharming Mistress Krystal von Kent?”
For all the royal duke’s_bluff heartiness, however, Foster saw him stumble twice as he ascended the steps, and the gauntleted hand that gripped his own was weak, devoid of the famous crushing grip.
Foster turned to the young pageboy assigned him. “Oliver, my compliments to my lady wife. Please tell her that I will be shortly arriving with Reichsherzog Wolfgang. Tell her as well that the Reichsherzog be wounded.”
“Nonsense,” snapped Wolfgang as the little page scuttled off. He gestured at the immobilized left arm. “This but a trifle be, the bones in the forearm broke, but the edge from my flesh my gut mail gauntlets kept; the other a clean vound iss, through muscle the bail vent und out und the bone unscathed iss.”
Then belatedly, comprehension of what he had heard manifested itself in a yellow-toothed grin. “Lady vife? You? Und Mistress Krystal? Ach, goot, goot. My congratulations.”
The two men proceeded toward Foster’s quarters, Foster himself moving far more deliberately than usual, in order to spare Wolfgang’s obviously failing strength. “And your godson, my lord? Egon, what of him? He was still too infirm to ride down with you?”
The big man vented a gasping chuckle. “Sound as a suit of proof iss the Jung, but stubborn, like all his House, hah! Mit me he rode into Schottlandt, to the hall of those schweinhun-den who hiss troopers killed und to take him for ransom tried. Efery man ve slew, their spawn into the snow ve drove out und their women too . . . vhen done mit them ve vere.” He grinned wolfishly, then went on. “Goot looting vas that hall und a fine fire it made, after.