“He has been dead two years.”
Bria nodded. “Yes, but deep wounds heal slowly. We do not know how cruelly treated she was.”
“She will not talk to you?”
“She speaks of it to no one. But it is plain to see that all is not well. There are many who do not share the joy we know, and Esme is one of those who have traveled a most difficult road.”
“We will hear of it in time, I imagine. When she is ready, she will tell us.” Quentin yawned and stretched, and together the King and Queen went in to their bedchamber.
Quentin lay for a long time staring into the blackness of the darkened room, thinking about the events of the day past and those of the day to come. He fell asleep with a vision of the completed temple filling his eyes, and dreamed of the day when he would lead his countrymen into the temple to worship the Most High on its day of consecration.
SIX
THE DAY of the King’s Hunt dawned with melancholy reluctance; low dreary clouds spread over the Plain of Askelon and gray mists draped the treetops. Those camped abroad and those boarded in the town and in the castle feared rain would spoil the day. But as a wan yellow sun climbed higher into the great vault of the heavens, it gathered strength, flared brighter; its white-hot rays burned away the clouds and warmed the air. Travelers and townspeople streamed into the streets and began the trek to the field. Those still abed in Castle Askelon awakened and rushed to ready themselves for the day’s festivities. Lords and their ladies-from as far away as Endonny and Woodsend, and all places in between-dressed in their finest. Knights donned riding clothes of leather and saw to the grooming of their horses, plaiting tail and mane with ribbons of gold and silver entwined with bells, or dressing their steeds in brightly colored caparisons: red and blue, gold and green, violet and yellow.