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Fen appeared to digest this a moment. “Queen Armenal said the only woman the King has ever really loved is his old nurse, Bathilde,” said Fen.

Oswald paused in the act of pulling off his boots. “She said that?” In his experience the Queen was rarely so frank.

“Well…” Fen plucked at the bedsheets. “Not in so many words, but …pretty much.”

He stripped down the last of his clothes and swiftly blew out the candles as he rolled into bed. “Is something bothering you?” he asked as he arranged himself around her. Oswald was dog-tired from his efforts to rush through the agreements about the Princess coming to court. He was facing a lot of opposition, not least from the King. Even so, he could tell Fenella was troubled. She sighed softly. “Not really. Are you tired?”

His libidinous body perked up, despite his mental fatigue. She was as delightfully soft and cushiony as ever. “It depends,” he grunted. Gods, that was churlish. Sometimes he shocked even himself! “What do you need?” He hoped it was something simple, like his cock.

“You’re not going to arrange a royal divorce, are you?” she asked in a small voice.

“No,” he answered. “Put that from your mind.”

She breathed out. “I’m glad.”

For some reason that touched him on the raw. “I fail to see why you should feel sensitive around the subject,” he said. “I told you, you’ve never even been divorced.”

Fen lay still, no doubt stunned by his lack of sensitivity.

“Is that it?” he asked. “Or is there more?” He was being sarcastic, but clearly his wife took it as an invitation to ramble on at him about a bunch of random things before he was to be permitted to sleep.

“How can I make the King look favorably on me?” she asked suddenly, completely blind-siding him.

“Why the hell would you want to do that?” he asked in a harsher tone than he’d intended.

Fen turned to look at him over her shoulder in surprise. “I thought that was what you wanted,” she said in confusion. “You said-”

“No, it bloody well isn’t!” he interrupted her rudely. “You should be worrying more about pleasing me, than the King!”

Fen stared at him. “Well, I-” she started, but got no further as he finished irritably with:

“Now perhaps you’ll lie still and let me get some sleep.” His tone was cold and angry. Fen’s expression froze and she quickly turned her face away and lowered her head to the pillow, trying to hold herself stiffly away from him. Oswald let her, rolling onto his back away from her. He heard her take a shuddering breath and then nothing.

Oswald lay in the dark. He was bone weary, but sleep didn’t come. He lay listening to his wife’s hitched breathing, until it evened out and she drifted off to a blameless sleep, while he lay feeling ashamed of being such a prick. He knew what he had to do before he could sleep. He reached out and seized her waist, pulling her firmly back into his hard body, tucking her in tight against him. He had no sooner curled around her warm body, than his eyelids drifted down, heavy with sleep.

The next morning he did not wake her, but rose swiftly and proceeded to the Council Chambers for an early gathering. His morning was as difficult as he’d anticipated. The other lords were appalled that he was rushing things through so fast. He started off calm and collected in the face of their many objections, but it was not without a price. The tic in his jaw was pronounced, before he’d been in there for more than a few moments. Any modicum of calm was merely a mask.

“What about the added expense to the royal household, eh?” blustered Lord Lowan. “Are the King’s coffers expected to pay the expenses for her own court to join his?”

“Her court at present consists of one blind old servant,” said Oswald blandly, once the furor that greeted Lord Lowan’s words had died down. “Who has been with her since birth.” That rather damped down the outrage of his fellow privy members, but did not stamp it out altogether.

“What about the will of the people?” demanded a red-faced Sir Barret Covington-Bart. “They will not stand for another Blechmarsh hovering so close to the throne, depend upon it! There will be a public uproar of epic proportion!” He looked around at the sea of faces barking ‘hear, hear’ and ‘Quite right!’

Oswald waited for the hub-bub to die down. “Do you think so?” he asked mildly. “That is not what my men on the ground are reporting.” A hush fell over the room at the allusion to his spy network. He paused for effect. “It seems the populace at large view the idea of the Blechmarsh princess as a figure of sympathy and even, dare I say, romance?” He let his eye travel over the room as the council fidgeted and fumed in their seats.

“And do you not see the danger in that, sirrah?” burst out Lord Catesby. “Allowing such a person to capture the imagination of the unwashed masses? We could have an uprising on our hands! A rebellion! You seem to forget we have seen our country torn asunder by war…”

“Some of us,” Oswald interrupted him coolly. “Have seen those battlefields at rather closer quarters than others.”

The inference was clearly felt by all present as they shuffled their feet and cleared their throats. Not one of them had ever served in his majesty’s army, as he had.

“None of us disputes that you have an informed opinion, Vawdrey,” said Lord Schaeffer hastily. “However, you are not the only one qualified to sway the King’s opinion on these matters and…”

“Whoever has an alternative solution to the problem has had the past month to approach the King,” said Oswald in a loud, stern voice. “His highness has informed me that he has heard none, save the chopping block!” You could have heard a pin drop. “The King has accepted the idea that marriage to a commoner is the only effective way to neutralize the Blechmarsh threat to his throne and that, gentlemen, is the solution we will be actively pursuing.” He ignored the low mutters and groans. “I would have preferred her safely married before we received her here, but none of us have managed to put forward a candidate the King will endorse.” He held aloft a piece of paper with the King’s seal displayed on it. “I have here, proof of King Wymer’s authorization. The Blechmarsh princess has already begun her journey to a point of rendezvous where she will be received by the King and then escorted back to the Winter Palace.” Shock and consternation greeted his words.

“Already begun her journey?” cried out Lord Lowan in horror.

“Quiet!” bellowed Oswald. He waited with furious eyes for the tumult to hush. “Is there any here, would gainsay the will of the King?” he roared. “If so, approach me now!” A deathly silence greeted his words. He let his gaze travel slowly and coldly over the length and breadth of the room. “I thought not,” he said nastily. “The meeting is now concluded. We will reconvene at two o’clock to decide who will accompany the King and act as escort.” He marched across the room and it wasn’t until he’d shut it behind him, that he heard the murmur of conversation started up again.