Roland bore up admirably under the onslaught of well-wishes from his father’s guests, who were many and seemed, to Joanna’s eye, to be divided between those who welcomed the match for reasons strategical or sentimental, and those who were eager to court His Majesty’s good opinion by pretending to do so. The reaction of the rest of His Majesty’s Privy Council, upon the betrothal’s being announced to that august body in the course of the previous month, had been very much as Joanna might have predicted. Sir Aled ap Gwyn and young Karaez pronounced it shrewd strategy; Lord Craven, whose lands were nearest the Roman Wall, took sober thought on the matter and cautiously agreed. Essex and Angers wished to know why Roland’s bride should have been sought outside the kingdom; and Bayeux and the Vicomte de Cotentin were instantly persuaded that the King had been taken in by some manner of Alban plot, aimed at gaining a political foothold in Britain. It was at least, Joanna reflected, a change from their insistent beating upon the single drum of Breizhek sedition.
