Britamund says she will

Every time Britamund turned her head to peek at her father, she found him staring at her. Every time, the corners of his mouth lifted the corners of his beard into a sort of smile, but the corners of his eyes remained crinkled.

He seemed sad. He seemed sorry. She wanted to run to him, hook her fingers around the straps of his armor, and scream at him – to remind him that it had been his idea, that this was what he had wanted.

She also wanted to fling herself upon his lap and beg him, please Papa, to take her home.

But it was no longer her home.

After the wedding breakfast, all the servants and occupants of the castle had gathered at the gate to see her off. They were ostensibly assembled to protest this ceremonial kidnapping of the royal daughter, as had truly been done in times of old, and the clamor of the guards on the walls had made it seem very real to her. But they had only come to say goodbye.

She was startled to realize the Abbot had switched to English at some point – so soon? Dunstan was smiling strangely at her.

Her empty stomach turned over. Was she supposed to do something now? Had she missed something important?

The priest paused, and Britamund opened her mouth in mute terror.

Dunstan said, “I will.”

She took a deep breath. Her part was only coming now. She tried to listen, as she had tried to listen the day before when Father Aelfden had explained their roles. But yesterday she and Dunstan had been sitting side-​​by-​​side, holding hands, and he had let their hands lie in her lap, in the narrow valley made by her gown draped over her legs. In his mind he had been, perhaps, only holding her hand, but she had not been able to stop thinking about his hand lying almost between her closed thighs.

And she had done it again – she had missed everything.

“…keeping yourself to him only, as long as you and he shall live?”

“I will,” she breathed.

She could not help but glance at Theobald at that moment, for she had just put Brinstan away forever, before God. However, Theobald was sitting in the back with Sir Godefroy and Sir Egelric, Sir Sigefrith and Lord Colban: mighty and broad-​​handed men all.

They were men she knew; she had even ridden on the knees of some of them as a little girl. But their friendly smiles now flickered and wavered before her eyes, blending into the bared teeth of predators like the images on the two faces of a spinning coin.

She had just sworn before God that she would let no other man have her so long as Dunstan lived, but what she desperately wanted was for God to swear to her that He would let no other man have her.

Dunstan took her hand. He was no longer smiling; she could not see his teeth at all.

“I take you now, Britamund, to be my wife, to love and to honor, in the name of the Lord.”

Her part was almost the same.

“I take you now, Dunstan, to be my husband, to love and to obey, in the name of the Lord.”

She was horrified to hear how tiny her voice sounded. She had wanted to speak boldly, as Alred said her mother had. She could not: a stark emotion was clamped around her throat like an ungentle hand – not fear, but awe. They were the most potent words she, a woman, would ever speak.

The Abbot blessed the ring, and then Dunstan spoke further. His voice was not tiny, but it was not his everyday voice either: it was his voice when he recited some particularly moving poem, and she realized it was as beautiful as his father’s, though it was still high and clear where his father’s was mellow.

“With this ring I wed you, with my body worship you, with my riches endow you, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

The ring still bore a fat drop of holy water when he slipped it onto her first finger, but by the third it was dry, and it was her finger that was wet. She could feel it, cooler than the others.

Father Aelfden said gravely, “Oremus.”

Dunstan helped her to kneel, and the Latin seemed to flow out over their heads, scarcely reaching them. She and he hid below it, as if the blessing were truly a canopy of words meant to shelter them. They were still in the hot and crowded chapel before dozens of eyes, but she felt alone with her husband for the first time.

Her husband. Was he now?

He helped her to stand and let the priest put her hand into his.

Then Father Aelfden spoke the words that truly made him her husband and her his wife, first in Latin, and then, in a surprising innovation for the orthodox priest, in English.

“May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob unite you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”