The Marriage Arrangement

She stood at the wall's edge, looking out over the mist-shrouded lands that lay beyond the castle. 'We are to marry,' she said, not looking at me.

'Yes.' I stood beside her at the wall, noticing her bodyguards, at a discreet distance from us, tensed and their hands inched closer to their weapons.

She turned to look at me. 'Do you think we should try to get to know each other first?'

I shrugged. 'It is not up to us, is it?'

She sighed and nodded towards the ramshackle town that had grown up outside the castle walls. 'The people out there, do you think they marry without knowing each other, without having met?'

'Maybe.' I shrugged again, what the ordinary people out there did matter so little when you stood at the wall looking down on them. There was a good brothel, though, down there. So if she turned out to be an unwilling or unwelcoming bride, there was always Sharla, down at The Bed of Roses, I knew she would not forget me. There were also several high-born women who would relish the prospect of becoming my mistress. Something the Lady Roena had pointed out last night as she lay in my bed, her husband so far away leading my troops under the king.

I turned to look at my prospective bride; she lowered her eyelids, and looked down. 'Look at me.'

At least she obeyed, that was something, but there was some defiance, some anger there.

'I don't want to marry you either,' I said, even as I wondered what she would look like naked on the wedding bed. 'But that is the way it is.' I saw some of the courtiers come out onto the battlements, gesturing for us to return to the main hall. I heard snatches of music and the sounds of revelry where every, but us two, was celebrating the announcement of our marriage. I offered my prospective bride my arm. After a moment's hesitation, she took it.

We strode back into the hall arm in arm to cheers from the guests gathered there, all raising their glasses to toast us as we returned to our seats.