“Do.”
Alden looked up then, a grin coming slowly to his lips. “I swear you have the strangest things on your mind of late. Now that you mention it, she did seem more lively while Wilburt was here.”
“Corliss’s brother?” Royce was surprised, but after he digested that, he ventured, “Think you she would like him for husband?”
Alden whistled softly. “Does she know you are thinking along these lines?”
“How can she know what I am thinking when she will not talk to me?”
“Aye, she is not happy with you, but for that you would give her in marriage?”
“I cannot say I would not rather someone else be the recipient of her sulks, but do you not think ’tis time she wed?”
“Aye, long since time. But she will not, not until you do.”
“What has that to do with aught?” Royce demanded.
“Come now, Cousin. Why do you think she has refused all these years to let you arrange her a marriage? She is afraid that with no lady in this hall, ’twill fall into slovenly neglect, which is no doubt true.”
Royce grunted. “If you knew that was her reason, Cousin, as her brother, you should have told me ere now.”
“And have to deal with her sulks for revealing a confidence?” Alden looked appalled. “You jest, Cousin. But speaking of marriage, when do you commit to yours?”
“When I have the time,” Royce said tersely. “And do not say I have the time now, for I will tell you I do not.”
Alden shook his head. “If you do not want to marry her—”
“I never wanted to marry her, Alden. It just seemed the appropriate thing to do after…well, it seemed appropriate.”
“Then break it off.”
“Aye, easy words from a man not involved,” Royce said sourly.
Alden chuckled knowingly. “Life was certainly simpler here before the Vikings came.” For that he got a dark look and he laughed the harder.
The attention of both men was drawn abruptly to the front of the hall, where two of Royce’s men came in escorting a stranger. He was an extremely tall man, and a Celt by the look of him. Both factors made him of interest, especially the latter, after the recent trouble they had had with the Cornish Celts.
He was brought to stand before Royce as the report was given of how he was found west of here on Wyndhurst land. A search had been made far and wide to determine if he in truth traveled alone, as he claimed, and no one else had been found. He rode a broken-down nag that should have been kindly disposed of long ago. He carried no possessions save an old rusted sword, the hilt in an ancient Celtic design.
Royce accepted all that for what it was worth as he gazed thoughtfully at the man. He had never seen another man quite this handsome, for all his bedraggled appearance. His hair was overly long and tied back with a strip of leather. And he was dressed no better than the poorest serf, with loose long-sleeved tunic belted with a frayed rope, and threadbare chausses with ragged holes in them. Yet there was nothing subservient about his bearing. Dark-gray eyes met Royce’s boldly. There was no belligerence, no wariness, no slyness, nor even tension. It was a look Royce was more accustomed to from an equal, and it pricked his curiosity.
“Who are you?”
“I do not understand.”
Royce tensed, hearing the Celtic tongue. Most Celts west of here spoke the Saxon tongue, as they lived side by side with Saxon. Not so the Cornish Celts who so often raided his land.
He repeated the question in the stranger’s tongue.
“I am called Gaelan.”
“Of Cornwall?”
“Devon.”
“A freeman?”
“Yea.”
