“I stand before you now a queen, and beside my husband as protector of our faith. Lanyarch is like my child to me, and I will not see it fall beneath Reformation rule. I will be mother to this brave northern country and mother to its heir, standing beside my lord until God finds it fit to help us all shake off the law that has been so cruelly brought down upon us. I have received the blessing of our beloved church, but now I beg of you to share your own blessings of hearth and home with me. I come from a warm country far to the south. Let me now know the warmth that is Lanyarch!”

All the voices that had babbled in contempt now rise in a furor, raw welcoming cheers and stamping feet, tartaned men sending ear-shattering whistles to drive back the sound of rain. They swear fealty, one after the other, while Charles stands at Sandalia’s side, distant and polite. He doesn’t see the masses before him; his gaze is cast to the glorious stained glass windows that tell of Christ’s suffering. He thinks not of his country’s future, but of his own part in the King of Heaven’s tale.

Sandalia, her absent king at her side, rides the breadth and width of Lanyarch all through the winter, chapping her fine skin and accepting dark bread and ale as her nightly meals. She sleeps before the fire in common rooms and learns, poorly, to weave a tartan, but most of all she learns the laughter of the crude Lanyarchan people, and learns to share it.

In the springtime she retreats to the capital city of Agned, insisting she can hardly be expected to bear an heir when she and Charles spend their nights crowded into common rooms with little time to themselves. The people whistle and roar and share ribald winks, all of them more than half in love with the dusky princess from the south, and grant her privacy to tend to the serious business of making a child.