Five Hundred Years Before:

Out on the white sea a white ship sailed, slender and sleek, with her prow held high and arrogant as she skipped the waves. A man stood in the prow, his long peat-brown hair streaming behind him, tangling with salt spray. He held his head up to the wind, though a closer look would have revealed his knuckles white with fear as they gripped the ship's sides and a greenish tinge to his high-nosed, sharp-boned face. Salt encrusted his thick lashes and his full, firm lips. He licked them clear and tried not to listen to the creaking of the ship’s wooden bones. Every snap and crack set his nerves on edge.

She'd battled through the storm with dogged valiance, her timbers creaking and heaving and crusted with salt. Estienne needn't have worried about being wrecked. The helmsman had ridden them straight through and now they skimmed along the coast, purple skies behind them and silver-gold ones before.

Estienne slid his way over the deck to stand beside the helmsman.

"How long?" he asked with chattering teeth. He'd pulled his cloak tight about his shoulders against the freezing winter winds, and still shivered uncontrollably. He'd begun to think he should have waited until spring after all. It wasn't really all that long before the new buds would show and the bright grass poke through the dark earth.

"Half a day," was the answer from the pale-haired mariner, accompanied by a shrug of strong, blue-tattooed shoulders. He steered with one hand on the tiller and not the two anybody else would have needed, and he'd turned his face to the wind, his head uncovered and bare to the elements. "The storm is behind us now so we should have an easy ride – unless you want me to take her along the Sound?"

Madmen! All of them, mad! 

"No, no," Estienne said. "I'm eager to meet my new wife in one piece. For as long as I can manage it!’

The helmsman chuckled wickedly, and Estienne hurried back to his cabin below, vowing to remain on land until spring came again. One journey like that was quite enough, though he was sure that as soon as he disembarked, the ship would indeed be run out along the Sound, to "blow the cobwebs out of her rigging", as the captain would be bound to say. These rough seafarers seemed to enjoy seeking out the worst channels and then riding them, winning bets that most people would have known better than to place.

The queen should tax their winnings, he thought grimly, but knowing full well that would only encourage the sport as more trips were made and more bets won to compensate for the taxes taken from them. He sighed and scrambled into his bunk, feeling sick again.

The lamp swung above him, a filigree pattern of light and shadow flickering on the bare walls of his cabin as the ship lurched and leaped. Shapes of dragons and fell beasts, of spring flowers and lady's lace. Estienne closed his eyes.

A dream. All that I want, is a distant and impossible dream. Vaihar, bring me sleep and respite from this nightmare!

The captain shook him awake.

'My lord, we've docked at Caer Tor,' he said, and Estienne rolled stiffly out of his bunk.

'Already? But I thought we were hours away still.'

'No, my lord. You've been asleep longer than you think, that is all.'

Estienne gripped the doorjamb, still feeling sick. He'd tried to emulate the rolling gait of the sailors, but his knees would lock and tremble, and he'd have to cling to something or fall.

'Very well,' he said, feeling the perspiration of sickness slick his brow. He wiped it on his sleeve and took a deep, rather shaky breath. 'Run out my banners. Let's get this over with.'

‘We have done this already, my lord. They await your arrival.’

Caer Tor surprised him, and so did the princess Alena Caladwen. He'd been half-prepared for a monster, so eager had she been to be married without waiting for spring, but to his delight he found her beautiful, if she stirred no particular desire in him. It was true that her hair was not a colour he had any word for in his mother's language, being neither brown nor golden, and the colour of her eyes would not have inspired any of his court bards, but the smile she gave him dazzled him to his toes and made him think that perhaps the awful sea-trip was almost worth it.

She came forward with her small white hands outstretched and curtseyed to him.

"Welcome to my land, my lord," she said. Her voice was light and silvery, and he smiled and took her hands in his.

"The honour is mine, and the pleasure too," he said courteously, his eyes fixed on hers as if caught in a dream. ‘You…you are more beautiful than…my bards lied to me, I think.’

She simpered prettily and made him another curtsey. ‘My lord is too generous with his praise.’

Feeling as though he was still at sea, he allowed himself to be led into the lofty hall, servants already fussing at him with comb and perfume, solicitous fingers plucking at his thick sea-farer’s robes, chattering about the contents of his cedar chests, the grey salt crusting his tooled leather coat, his boots, his stubbled cheeks. He was scrubbed smooth again in the privacy of a spacious suite of rooms. They dabbed oil on him and combed his hair, blushed crimson at the virility of his form, and darkened his eyes with charcoal. They slapped and pinched his cheeks and dusted ground silver across his eyelids and wove silk into his braided hair. They plucked the hair they deemed a coarse peasant blemish and scented his balls and under his arms with distilled rose water. They adorned every finger with golden rings and hung beads around his neck and ribbons around his waist.

He felt like a maiden when they were done. If they expected him to admire their handiwork in the looking-glass, he disappointed them.

He picked at the delicacies offered on silver platters, but he tasted nothing, though it weighed like lead on his stomach. Already he felt like a bird in a gilded cage, and knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

He’d been sold.

He wished he’d seen it that way before he’d accepted the bill of sale.

Too late now. Turning back would be an act of war.

‘The Princess will receive you now, my lord.’

He turned as a servant appeared at his elbow: a high-ranking official from the look of his robes, which were trimmed in winter fox fur and embroidered in scarlet. A long white beard aproned his chest, gold glittering beneath. He looked with hard eyes at Estienne and forced the corners of his mouth upwards. ‘This way. The princess and her mother would like to inspect you.’

Estienne’s magic rose within him, and before he could stop himself, he let it out with a roar of molten rage.