A Royal Marriage Read Free

dark out by then, Your Majesty,” one of the earlier naysayers cautioned. “A dangerous time to ride through the mountains.”
    “And it would be too late,” another naysayer noted. “You said she has to have the hare’s tongue by nightfall. You’d have to ride through the night to bring it back by dawn.”
    Princess Gisela thought quickly. She hadn’t faced a long journey and Saracen pirates just to be defeated by a horse ride. If she could have opened her eyes, she’d have taken a good look at the naysayers and had them chastised after she recovered. She had no intention of dying—not this day, nor any other soon to come.
    How could she make them understand she would do whatever was necessary? Already the hot fingers of fever clawed their way across her face. If the king’s herb could stop the pain, she’d make the journey herself. As for the expense, her father was a generous man. The Emperor Charlemagne would see that King John was handsomely rewarded.
    Princess Gisela licked her lips and tried to find her voice.
    Young Boden spoke first and sounded as though he might cry. “Then it has all been for nothing. My father has died, and we will lose the princess, too.”
    “You shall not lose me.” Gisela resented the weakness in her voice. She cleared her throat to muster enough volume to be heard. “I shall ride with the king. If I am with him, the hare’s tongue may be applied as soon as it is located—before dark, in time to stop the infection.”
    * * *
    John studied the face of the princess who spoke with apt appreciation of the situation. Her eyes were still closed—the one being swelled certainly shut, the other swollen as well and lidded out of sympathy. Even slumped in a bundle, Princess Gisela had an air of dignity and the shrewd intellect of her father.
    He found himself wanting to save her—not just for Boden’s sake, or her sake, or even to prevent war with the Illyrians, but to save this sensible, strong-willed woman. He wanted to heal her.
    But he’d felt that impulse before and still failed. He’d buried his skills since then. What was the use of trying to help someone, of offering them hope, only to have them linger a bit longer and die in pain?
    To his relief, the wimpled woman began discounting the idea immediately. “Your Highness, you can’t even open your eyes. How could you ride?”
    “It would be a grueling journey,” Urias added. “Surely in your present condition—”
    “She is a capable rider,” Boden offered. “But given her injuries...”
    Gisela raised her chin with a stubborn tilt. “I could share the king’s horse.”
    Her assertion brought a roar of disapproval from the courtiers, and even Boden’s men, who’d silently manned their oars all this time, appeared to have some difficulty maintaining their impassive expressions.
    Boden, especially, looked vexed. As Charlemagne’s acting captain, no doubt the man was expected to grant any request Gisela made. As the emperor’s daughter, she was of higher rank than anyone there, except for John himself, and that was only because they were in Lydia and not her father’s holdings. Had they been standing on the soil of the Roman Empire, he’d have bowed to her.
    Boden brushed the sweat from his brow. “Perhaps, Your Highness, you could be carried in a litter after the king. Your maid could accompany you.”
    “Litters travel slowly. There isn’t time. My maid can follow on another horse.” Princess Gisela spoke in a commanding voice and clearly expected her father’s servants to obey. “Now help me up. We must make haste. Already the day grows long.”
    The men laid down their oars and helped the maid from the boat first. Then they gingerly hoisted the princess toward the dock. She stood, half leaning on her maid, her injuries once again covered by the veil.
    John felt a sense of relief that the woman was able to stand. Perhaps she could stay on a horse. A litter, as she’d aptly noted, would be much too