“Your ma told you to go with Delganor, so you say. So, you’ll be going with Delganor. Your ma never said marry Delganor, did she now?”
Genevieve shook her head. “No, Delia. But she said the way would be hard, and if I’m married to Aufors, it won’t be hard at all. That’s what’s kept me from it, all this time.”
“Ha,”snorted Delia. “So that’s it! If you think being married isn’t hard, no matter to who, you’re still a child. Marriage is about the hardest thing in the world, girl. If people knew all about marriage in advance, likely they never would. They do it when they’re green in hope, like you, with the sap of passion flowing. So do it while you’ve got the incentive!”
Aufors had the necessary documents. He had had them with him since first leaving Havenor in search of her. He took them, as soon as they were filled out, to the archives to have them recorded, thus making it official. Under the laws of Haven, this was all that was required for commoners to marry.
Since Genevieve would be traveling through Bliggen, she considered stopping at the Ahmenaj estate, where Glorieta and Carlotta would no doubt be spending the impending holidays. After some thought, she decided against it. There was too much on her mind,- her school friends were too perceptive not to see she was distracted and too pertinacious to let it be.
She had not figured on Carlotta, who had her own network of spies and informants. When Genevieve arrived at Poolwich, at the mouth of the Reusal, Carlotta was there, determined to accompany her the rest of the way to Bliggen.
“I had to get away from home,” she confided, almost at once. “I couldn’t bear it any longer. Glorieta is in mourning . . .”
“What? Who?” Genevieve cried.
“Oh, no one’s died, though you’d think the plague had taken half the family the way she goes on. No, it’s Willum. He grew tired of allowing Glorieta her youth and eloped with our schoolmate, guess who?”
“I had heard that from my dressmaker,” said Genevieve, remembering that last soiree but one, Barbara in Willum’s arms on the dance floor. “There was evidently some gossip about it at court.”
Carlotta pinched her lips together angrily. “Barbara’s pregnant already. Maybe she was pregnant before! She may have even had the child by now. Well, she said she’d elope and she did. She said she’d run off and get pregnant, and she did. I wish her the joy of it. If Willum could do that to my sister, I have no doubt he’ll end doing something worse to Barbara!”
“Did he explain? Did he offer any reason?”
Carlotta snorted. “What reason could he offer? His father, Earl Blufeld, wanted him married, Willum wanted a wife in his bed, and he didn’t want to wait ten years for her. All Glorieta does is sniff and say she’d have given up her youth for him, but he wouldn’t let her. All he did was tell her he loved her and ask her to have faith in him. Faith. Fah.”
Genevieve felt a premonitory stirring, that uncertain tremor that presaged a vision. “I could have sworn he loved her. I saw his face, looking at her. I could have sworn . . .”
“Let’s talk about something else, Jenny. I’m so glad to see you, fat though you are! Speaking of elopements, you did get the handsome Colonel after all, father or no father.”
The tremor vanished, blown away by this spate, like a candle flame in a gust of wind, and Genevieve was content to talk about Aufors, even allowing herself, when asked, to say that her father was reconciled to the match and the Prince had consented to it. Beyond that she did not say. It was good to have a friend beside her again, but she did not want more talk than was necessary about herself and the Marshal, the Prince, and Aufors.
As they went down the Danian coast aboard the Tern, they saw several bargeloads of cargo from Bliggen, destined for the Lord Paramount, so it was said by the bargemen. Both the barges and theTern tied up at a mooring between Poolwich and Wellsport while the provincial taxmen examined the cargoes of both. The process seemed interminable, and Genevieve leaned across the railing to talk to a garrulous oldster below. “So where did the goods come from?” Genevieve asked. “Come down in a sky-ship, they did,” said the bearded bargeman. “Just like always, on the prairie out there in Bliggen. And from there, they come to the shore on drays, and when we get ’em to Poolwich, they’ll go on drays again, up across the Reusal onto the Wellservale road.”