Brinstan picks the daffodil

Lord Brinstan peeked around the edge of the doorframe. The Princess was alone, idly lifting and dropping the sleeve of one of the dresses that were spread out on her bed. She did not have the look of a girl who could not decide which gown to wear, but rather one who could not make herself care. The Princess he used to know had never cared much about dresses, but that Princess never would have wasted a sunny April afternoon picking at them, either.

He took a step back so he could stride in properly.

“I recommend the yellow one,” he announced.

“Brin!”

“Brit!” he gasped, mimicking her own expression of surprise.

“What do you know about dresses?” she laughed. “Anyway, it’s not yellow, it’s daffodil.”

“Ohhhh!”

She planted her hands on her hips and pretended to scowl. “And what are you doing back already? You weren’t supposed to be back until dinner. I wanted to surprise you at table!”

“But, Brit!” He lifted his nose and sniffed the air. “How do you expect to surprise me? It smells like Princess all the way out to the fields.”

“And what does that smell like?”

He had taken her hand, but he paused just before he brought it to his mouth. “Smells like… raised pinky fingers, and silk pillow slips, and pearls. Also daffodils,” he added and kissed her hand.

It was true that the back of her wrist did have a certain perfume to it, but Brinstan was not the sort of boy who could say to what fair flower or fine spice it might have been due.

He thought it might indeed simply be the odor of Princess, though one certainly could not smell it as far away as the fields. One was required to hold her hand near one’s nose, and that was a privilege he never had more than once or twice a day, and only on a very few days out of the year.

“It should smell like horses and saddle leather more than anything, after that ride. But tell me,” she smiled. “Does it smell like Squire all the way out in the fields?”

“Ah! Eadwyn? I hope so! Did he come?”

“I don’t know how, but I managed to convince him to come and try!”

“You probably lifted your pinky finger at him,” he said. “That should be enough to bend a man to your will.”

Britamund snorted and waggled her little finger at him.

Just at that moment, as if she could bend housemaids too to her will, a pair of giggling servants came down the corridor and closed the door so that they could pass—and then neglected to open it again.

Brinstan found himself once more behind a closed door with his Princess, and once more she seemed utterly oblivious to the impropriety of the situation. Though he knew he risked landing himself in trouble one day, he was too shy to point it out to her. That would have required reminding her that she was “not a boy any more,” as her father liked to say, and that he still was.

“Your father hasn’t changed his mind?” she asked hopefully.

“You could try your little finger on him, Brit. But he hasn’t said a word about Ana’s marriage in weeks, neither with that fellow nor with our fellow.”

“But isn’t that a good sign? Shouldn’t they be preparing things if she’s to be married in the summer?”

“Don’t ask me! You’re the girl. I don’t know how long this wedding business takes.”

“How should I know? All I know is that nobody has started anything for mine, but that’s still two or three years away.” She rubbed her hands together and looked over at her dresses with a frown.

“I didn’t smell any young lordship out there today,” he said softly.

“How could you? Even with a good westerly wind, it’s a long way for his smell to blow, all the way from Dunellen. You didn’t think he would come for your birthday, did you?”

“Not if his father didn’t oblige him.”

“Even then! Even then he would find a way to get out of it. Because he knows I shall be here.”

The last phrase seemed almost an afterthought, but it was more important to Brinstan than anything that had come before. His Princess, who had always been so frank with him about everything else, scarcely spoke of herself any longer.

“It may be that it is because he knows I shall be here,” Brinstan suggested.

“That simply makes two reasons. But I like it that way!” She lifted her head suddenly, and the curling locks of hair on either side of her face shook like pennants. “There’s nothing worse than a boy who acts like a gentleman.”

“Better he act like a pig?”

“So long as he is a pig. I can admire an honest pig.”

Brinstan laughed. “That’s good news for me!”

“You’re not a pig! Anyway, it’s not the piggishness I admire, but the honesty.”

“Brit, honestly,” he said, gently again, “would you prefer he be an honest pig or a false gentleman?”

“He who?” she chirped and studied the back of her hand.

“Dunstan.”

“Brin!” She looked up at him for a moment, frowning. “Generally speaking, I do not think there is anything gentlemanly about acting like a gentleman if the acting shows. I think it’s kinder to refuse to dance with a girl than to dance with her and make her feel that it’s a sacrifice.”

“That’s true,” he muttered.

“So either way one is being a pig. A false gentleman is simply a dishonest pig. And I prefer the honest pig. A girl is permitted to dislike the honest pig.”

“So you’re saying…”

Did she mean to say she disliked Dunstan? Or wished she could?

He had always supposed she sighed over Dunstan like any girl who was in love with a man who didn’t love her in return.

He thought he ought to speak differently to the girl who disliked Dunstan. Or rather, he thought he might be allowed to speak differently to that girl.

“I mean, Brit…”

“A girl is permitted to make pork chops out of him!” she said, shaking her curls again. “And ham and bacon! And pork pie! A girl can do a lot with an honest pig!” she laughed.

He tried to smile. “Brit…”

“But I prefer a nice, fat quail, don’t you?” She poked him in the stomach. “What are we having today, for example?”

“An innocent lamb. But, Brit…”

“That will do well! Your hill lambs aren’t as fat as our valley lambs, but your cook has a way.”

“But—Brit! Slow down! What were we talking about here just a moment ago?”

“I don’t know. Dinner!” She smiled brightly, and her curls bounced against her cheeks.

That too was something different about her lately. For years she had been wearing her hair “just as Eadie did, when she was my age”. This knot of hair with its trailing locks was a new style all her own, and though he thought it pretty on her, it made her look as if she had aged years in only a few months. She seemed almost grown-​up. She was no longer the skinny, straggle-​haired, boyish Princess who told him everything. The worst of it was that she now had so much more to tell.

“I mean before that.”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m hungry! So I’ve dinner on my mind and nothing in my belly. Shall we go down?”

“Have you decided which dress you will wear?”

“Oh, I shall simply wear this one. What a bother! I don’t care what dress I wear anyway. It isn’t as if anyone here cares how I look.”

“I care, and I suppose I may decide, if you don’t care, since it’s my birthday.”

“That’s true! So which is it?”

“The daffodil one.”

“Very good!” she laughed. “You remembered! It’s not too late to train you up properly. But you’ll have to step out a moment, Brin. I am not a boy, I remind you.”