swaggering assumption of intimacy that filled Will with foreboding.Now Will sighed. Even if he had been privy to John's plans, he could not have shared them with Ela. She was just fourteen, all elbows and knees and sudden blushes, a sweet child, he thought fondly, who'd brought him an earldom and deserved in turn to be sheltered and protected until she outgrew her little-girl awkwardness. But what to tell her, then? Will gazed at the parchment as if willing words to materialize of their own accord, at last gave up and elected instead to watch the game of tables in progress between John and Aymer Taillefer, Count of Angouleme.Aymer was staring down at the gameboard with unblinking blue eyes. He played as he did all else, with a competitive intensity that knew no quarter, and he sucked in his breath when the dice roll gave the game to John, paused too long before saying, "What do I owe Your Grace?""Shall we play again? Only this time let's double the stakes." John smiled as if oblivious to the other man's ill humor, and reached for the wine cup by his elbow. "Hugh tells me you've set a date for the wedding.""August twenty-sixth." Aymer tossed the dice onto the table. His were eyes as hard as stones, empty of all save suspicion. "Shall we speak plainly, YourGrace? Hugh de Lusignan may be a fool, but I am not. I know full well thatHugh's coming marriage to my daughter is not to your liking, that you would prevent it if you could. It is your right as my liege lord to speak against it, and if it is your wish, I will hear you out. But I think it only fair to tell you that I shall not change my mind, that I mean to see Isabelle asCountess of La Marche."John drank, studying Aymer all the while. "It is said that your daughter is uncommonly pretty. Is that true?""She is a beauty, Your Grace. Why?""Your daughter is a great heiress, will one day inherit all of Angouleme. And she is of high birth, her mother a first cousin to the King of France. Now you say she is a beauty in the bargain. What escapes my r119nderstanding is why you would waste such a girl on Hugh de LusigU n I should think you'd aim highermuch higher.""Your Grace?" Aymer was no longer feigning disinterest. "Just What are you saying?""I am saying that you'd be doing your daughter a grave disservice if you settled for Hugh de Lusignan." John paused; there was faint mockery now in his smile. "Unless, of course, you have no interest in seeing her as Queen ofEngland."Aymer's intake of breath was audible even to Will. He hastily cast his eyes down, but not in time; John caught the sudden hot light, the glimmer of bedazzled greed. "You overwhelm me, my liege, and do my daughter great honor.But you already have a Queen, have you not?""No," John corrected amiably, "I have a wife, not a Queen. Think you that Ineglected to have Avisa crowned with me through sheer oversight? It has long been my intent to end the marriage; I've merely been awaiting the opportune time."Aymer swallowed, so caught up in John's spell that he absentmindedly helped
himself to John's wine. "You do not foresee any difficulty in casting off theLady Avisa?"John laughed. "Unlike Philip, who's likely to be yoked to the martyredIngeborg for all eternity, I happen to be able to satisfy the most scrupulous papal conscience. Avisa and I are second cousins, you see, well within the prohibited degree of consanguinity, and we never did bother to get a papal dispensation for our marriage. Need I say more?" Aymer laughed, too, in that moment vulnerable as only a man could be who suddenly found reality exceeding all expectations, even the fantasy world of dreams. "It will afford me great pleasure, Your Grace, to give you my daughter. But what of de Lusignan? He makes an ugly enemy, is one to nurse a grudge to the grave. How shall we manage it?""Easily enough, I think. I understand the girl is now at Hugh's castle ofValence, no? Well, after you depart here, you need only ride to Valence, tell the de Lusignans you wish to take her back with you to Angouleme for a final visit with her mother ere the wedding. In the meantime I shall find some distant task for Hugh and his kin to undertake on my behalf. I daresay you've noticed that Hugh's acting much 'ike a cat that got into the cream. He's sure that he's basking in my royal favor, will see this charge as proof positive that he's truly won my trust, my friendship.""Indeed," Aymer said approvingly. "And then?" "From here I go to Bordeaux, where I'll have the Archbishop dec'are my marriage void ab initio. As you know, I plan to pass the summer °n Progress in my lady mother's domain. What would be more natural
220than to accept your hospitality when I reach Angouleme, at which time I shall right gladly plight troth with your pretty daughter ... on the twenty-sixth ofAugust, mayhap? After that, we need only decide whether we want to invite deLusignan to the wedding!"This time, however, Aymer did not join in John's laughter. "^ plight troth,"he echoed sharply. "Why not a wedding?"John hesitated. This was the only weakness he could see in his scheme. Aplight troth would give him all the political benefits of a marriagewould, as well, enable him to disavow Isabelle without difficulty should a better marital prospect appear at a later date. But the advantages of a plight troth were so blatantly one-sided that he was not at all sure Aymer would ever agree."Because of your daughter's extreme youth," he said earnestly. "She's but twelve, is she not? I think it only fair to give her time to adjust. It will be bound to come as a shock, to arrive in Angouleme expecting to marry Hugh, a
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