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This was not a bath day, so there would be no dinner with the King either. And finally fed up past bearing with the boredom, today she had ordered a servant to bring her the fletching materials from the armory. He hadn’t wanted to, but there was no reason why he shouldn’t, so at last she bullied him into it.

At least she was getting something constructive done. She had not seen one single arrow in Arthur’s forces that was any better than hers. None of these women had ever seen fletching done, much less put feathers to arrows themselves, so there would be no undoing what she had done.

Arthur finally had something to say to her besides a curt greeting when he turned up that night and the doors closed behind him. He looked at her, as she was waiting patiently in the far-too-luxurious bed, and frowned slightly. The bedroom was—like everything else—in the Roman style. It was long and narrow, with the bed under a vaulted ceiling at the far end. The floors were warm enough to go barefooted on them, but the alcove with the bed was a little drafty, and she pulled the fur up around her shoulders. Every night her women put her naked into this bed; every night the King turned up to perform like a bored stallion and depart.

“I heard an odd thing from Kai, my lady,” he said, carefully, making no move to disrobe, although she was already naked beneath the covers. “This afternoon, he said, you ordered certain materials brought to you. You were . . . fletching?”

She nodded and wondered how much of her expression he could read in the light from the single oil lamp at the bedside. “I was.”

He paused. “I should like to know why. It seems . . . an odd occupation.”

“Because—” she took a deep breath. “Because it was better to make arrows than to pick up small objects and begin flinging them at the heads of those vacuous, simpering, gossiping idiots that I am supposed to be polite to.”

His mouth dropped open, and he looked at her in astonishment.

“Husband, I am not one of these women!” she exclaimed passionately. “I was not made, nor trained, for idleness! I am a warrior, trained from childhood to be a warrior. I have not one thing in common with them. I do not believe that any of them has done a single piece of simple, practical work in all her life! They have no thoughts beyond dress and gossip. I do not find gossip to be entertaining! I am a warrior! And being caged up in these rooms, hour after hour, day after day, doing nothing with any meaning to it, hearing nothing but trivialities discussed as if they were matters of the realm, is driving me mad!”

“I—see—” he said. Finally he walked heavily to the bedside and sat down on the foot of it.

“Husband, I am stifled. I cannot breathe here. My clothing weighs upon me, heavier than any armor; the rooms are too warm, the food so rich it makes me ill. I feel that if I do not see the sun and feel the wind, I will lose the few wits I have left to me.” She looked at him with pleading. “Surely you can see now what is wrong.”

And then she saw understanding dawn on him, and he smiled a little. “Yes, wife, I do see!” He picked up her hand and squeezed it. “I understand. I shall leave orders I think will please you, and I expect after such a stressful day, you will want some sleep. I shall leave you to your rest.”

And with no other words than that, he left her. This time, without the . . . the “servicing” that was so automatic that it felt like nothing more than a tedious chore for both of them.

Relief suffused her like the warmth from the floor. Finally, he realized what kind of a person he had taken to wife. And he was truly as good and kind a man as she had seen him be with others. She blew out the lamp and pulled the covers about her, thinking happily of the hunting she would do tomorrow and of being, at last, part of his councils.

She awoke to silence.

Her first thought was gleeful. He had sent those awful chattering women away! Or at least, told them to take their unwelcome company elsewhere. The servant that slept in the chamber attached to hers woke up as soon