Britamund is left with her ladies

Dunstan looked as if he had been kicked and was trying not to cry out in pain.

Britamund stared at him in horror. She scarcely recognized him. He was a man, just like any man, and she was not alone with him, though she soon would be.

She could feel her cheeks turning red, red, red.

“Perhaps, my lady,” Father Aelfden said, “if you have finished your tour, I may at last be permitted to bless this ‘grand bed’?”

“Of course,” Gwynn whimpered.

Dunstan laid a hand beneath Britamund’s elbow to help her kneel, as he had done several times in the chapel. This time, however, when she settled herself amid the folds of her gown, she remembered that it had been her mother’s gown.

Her mother had been married in this dress. Her mother had knelt before a bed in this dress, and minutes later it had been stripped from her body by Matilda, as it was about to be stripped from her daughter’s body by Matilda’s daughter.

Britamund sucked on her upper lip to keep from crying. Would everything be the same? Had she learned or inherited her mother’s share of sorrow, shame, and eventual madness?

Dunstan was lifting her elbow before she had even understood the blessing was over. Her gown was as heavy and awkward as a suit of armor as she rose, but she was about to lose it and go before him unarmed and undefended.

“Now we gentlemen shall leave the bride with her ladies,” the priest suggested, cutting off the giggles that were beginning to arise in the back between Gwynn and Ogive at something Malcolm had said.

Father Aelfden kissed her first. “May God bless you,” he whispered.

It had never before occurred to her that Aelfden knew how to whisper, and the sudden intimacy made her want to cling to him, to let him carry her out. Was it too late to enter a convent now?

But he had already moved on to Dunstan.

Eadwyn and Bertie and Malcolm came to claim the kisses that were their right, and last among the men came her brother.

Caedwulf kissed her and caressed her cheek. He had not been so gentle with her since before he had found her with Brinstan all those months ago.

“You look so much like Mother,” he said wistfully. She knew that it was the highest compliment he knew how to pay. “I’m proud of you, sister. Our father wanted me to tell you he is proud of you, too.”

She nodded.

He turned and smacked Dunstan’s arm.

“You’re coming too, sprout. Even you aren’t small enough to be inconspicuous in here.”

“I’m coming!” Dunstan grumbled.

“You’re looking a bit green, old man,” Caedwulf said as he led her husband away. “I know just what you need, and you happen to have pitcherfuls of it down in the hall.”

“Are you working for me or against me?” Dunstan asked.

Britamund did not understand what he meant, but she was now sorry she had scarcely touched any of the pitchers in the hall. She thought she would gladly exchange her consciousness for a queasy stomach just then. Her friends were already encircling her like predators.