Samuel was softly shaken awake in the early dawn light. Around him most of the company slumbered on. Markus reached a hand down to him and hauled him up onto his feet. Rearranging Samuel's clothes and cloak for him until they settled comfortably on the young man's spare frame. He then beckoned Samuel to follow and led him through the encampment to the southern end of the Hall. Ahead of them they could see the older prince and a few other guards and cronies riding off into the trees. A man sat on a horse at the tree line, and held two other horses by their reins. Markus led them right up to them before turning around and fishing at his belt. Pulling a canteen off its belt loop, he uncorked it and held it out to Samuel. Taking it, Samuel drank the cold clear water he’d been offered, slaking his morning thirst. Handing the flask back, a piece of fresh, warm bread was pushed into his hand. Samuel ate it without a word. Markus looked over his shoulder, not hurrying him, waiting for him to finish his meagre breakfast. It still amounted to about the only thing Samuel thought he could have stomached at that moment.

Having finished the bread, Markus sent him off into the tree-line to relieve himself. He didn’t follow. He may be a gaoler but he seemed to know that Samuel wouldn’t run off, and sure enough, Samuel came back without a demur. As Markus indicated that he was to get onto the horse, and helped him up, a look of concern passed over his face. He helped to adjust the stirrups before swinging himself up onto his own mount.

‘He probably thinks I’m broken,’ thought Samuel to himself; and it was this thought that finally cleared the morning stupor from his face and pulled him back to himself. He was no willing lamb to the slaughter, and something of a resolve passed over him. This might be the only way forward for now. But! That was what the prince had said last night: ‘For now!’ They had been the prince’s words, and they would become Samuel’s motto and his goal.

Markus seemed to cheer up at whatever glint of life he now saw spark in Samuel’s eyes. The old guard got something of his previous day’s jauntiness back, as they set off following their guide into the forest, Samuel could swear he even heard the man whistling.

They rode along at a brisk pace. Luckily for Samuel his mount seemed to be calm and well-trained, trotting easily with the group. It took a while but eventually Samuel relaxed into the movement and the dewy morning air soon brought him fully awake.

“Where are we going then?” he asked eventually, half knowing the answer.

“Aersk, finally! Straight to the church.” Markus supplied, glancing at his younger charge.

Samuel took a deep breath at the confirmation of what he’d suspected, setting his face with resolve. “Why does it have to happen so quickly? Do you know?” he asked, neither whinging nor whining, but as someone genuinely interested in an answer.

Markus cleared his throat. “We don’t know how soon they’ll send someone for you. If you’re not married, they can take you back, claim you. It all has to get done, and done now!”

“But surely it would take a day or two, a few days before anyone will know anything. Why can’t we do it tomorrow even?” Samuel stumbled around the possibilities.

Markus looked pained and uncomfortable, as though the admission he was about to make was something he didn’t want to admit to. Finally, guiltily, he faced Samuel. “The truth is, we can’t guarantee there aren’t people in Aersk who wouldn’t try to take you.”

“What!” Samuel couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“There might be city spies who’d grab you the first chance they got. Or some of the more disreputable sorts of our own people who might get it into their heads that they could whisk you away and trade you for some ransom or other. The minute you step into Aersk you’ll be singled out, and everyone will know who you are. Why do you think we couldn’t allow the other guards and Prince’s Company to go home last night; why do you think we’ve ridden out before most of them are even awake. The minute they get home they’ll talk, the minute they talk questions’ll be asked. You need to be safe before the talk starts.” It was straightforward, the summary demonstrating only too well Markus’ surprisingly insightful manner. Samuel nodded in understanding, and they rode on, the three of them riding just a little faster as a result.

They had made up the distance and were practically a part of the prince’s party by the time they came out of the forest path. Ahead of them lay Aersk, its collection of scattered buildings set behind some sort of ditch and palisade and strung out between the steeply rising slopes of The Nicer Sisters. Around them though were open fields of lush grass and grain and flowers.

“The Sisters’ Garden indeed,” Samuel murmured to himself.

Beside him Markus huffed a good-natured laugh, “This is nothing, you just wait and see what things are like on the other side.”

Samuel even managed a smile at that, the man’s obvious joy at being home again only too apparent. Almost contentedly they continued to ride across the open meadow, approaching the city, or town, or whatever Aersk was, just ahead. Samuel strained to see through the palisade at what his new, for now, home might look like, but it was impossible. They didn’t even make it to the ditch, the guide turning them and setting them on a path into the lee of the eastern Sister. 

As they rode along, ahead of them another collection of buildings came into view. A few poor huts, huddled around a larger, more imposing wooden structure, built into something resembling an upside-down boat. Still insignificant in relation to the city, but nonetheless, a piece of genuine architecture.

“The Augustine Monastery,” Markus supplied quizzically, “the prince mustn’t even want you in the city until you’re married. Normally this would all happen in the main basilica.” 

Little else was said until they had reached their destination at the foot of the mountain. There the Sovereign Prince dismounted and was ushered away in a flurry of bows and salutes amidst the sudden appearance of a large number of seemingly important people who crowded around their ruler. Samuel, meanwhile, was taken away from Markus and deposited in a small room set off the side of the church’s vestibule. In a small grate a fire burned warmly, and Samuel was pleased to have a few moments to himself, the first time he’d been alone in what felt like an age. He breathed, sank down in front of the fire, and tried not to think about anything.

A gentle cough behind him alerted Samuel to the fact that he was no longer alone. Whirling upright he found himself facing three women. They had entered the room so quietly, he hadn’t even heard the whisper of the door. One of the women was older, she had kind eyes, and looked at him warmly. The other two were younger, one holding a steaming basin of water, and the other towels and other implements. 

“Sir, we’re from the Household, His Serene Highness has sent us to get you ready.” The older woman smiled at him before taking things in hand. He didn’t know what to do, or say. So instead, Samuel stood mute and still, enduring one of the most awkward encounters of his life to date. The three women didn’t seem to know anything about the concept of personal space. Instead they proceeded to strip him to his underpants in a trice, followed by such a scrubbing that he was sure they could get a job stripping paint from walls. 

Following this he was given a moment to tie some sort of flimsy modesty garment into place before the door was opened and a man with a tray and a handful of brushes was ushered in. He proceeded to walk all around Samuel, seemingly examining every square inch of him, before stepping up, and beginning with the finest brush that Samuel had ever seen, to trace a fine line of grey-silver pigment onto his hipbone. Samuel went to swipe the man away, but the older woman gave him a baleful glare that made it clear he was to do no such thing. Instead Samuel stood there and endured the agonising minutes that the man spent drawing some unknown pattern onto his skin.

As the time dragged on, Samuel thought back to the extraordinary tattoo that he’d seen painted on Prince  Nikolaus' body at the party. Was he going to be covered in an ivy tendril now? Samuel glanced down to try and see the pattern, but the man below him tutted and so the subject looked back up again, holding himself rigid and straight, a perfect unmoving canvas. He loathed the brush! Samuel had always been ticklish and now the artist’s strokes were driving him insane. As the man worked his way across Samuel’s chest and up the curve of his neck, Samuel bit back the giggle that threatened to burst out of him.

After an age the man was done. He looked for a long moment at his work, Samuel quite invisible to him, only the lines and curls of pigment holding any interest, and with a final approving nod he turned and left. Samuel blinked, the three women blinked back, before moving in on him again. They cinched his waist with some sort of boned and structured belt, it didn’t hurt, but sat firm. A cage of fine wire was lifted over his head and tied around the belt making him feel huge and ungainly, and then layers of cloth followed, piled around him. The final layers of silver and blue matched the pigment on his skin. All was completed by the addition of a silver-medallion belt, and thick torques around his neck and biceps.

Samuel had always been lean and wiry, but for some reason he was now inordinately glad that he’d put enough effort in at the gym that his arms weren’t just spindles. His top half felt horribly exposed, while his bottom half felt engulfed, as though he was wading through water, or navigating a ship with his body. 

Finally the women dragged something through his hair, combing it back and setting it with some sort of wax so that it wouldn’t move. Over top, they placed a thick wig of straight white horsehair. Samuel wondered if it would fall off if he shook his head. He wasn’t prepared to risk it. He felt very small inside all of this.

Once done, the women eyed him all over, adjusting as they walked around him in a dizzying circle; and then, as quietly as they’d appeared, they left. He stood there feeling decidedly uncomfortable, and entirely unsure how he was even meant to move in all of this, let alone sit or do anything else.

At last the door opened once more and Markus was there again. He smiled and nodded at seeing Samuel, and for some reason Samuel felt far better about things for a moment.

“They haven’t given me any shoes,” he said plaintively, the first thing that came into his head.

“It’s all to do with your wedding, and being on holy ground. You’ll get shoes later on.” Markus half-explained, comfortingly.

“It’s all about to begin now,” the man continued, “all you have to do is walk in, and then, just follow Prince Nikolaus’ lead. Say ‘I do’ when you’re asked, repeat the words they ask you to repeat, just stand or kneel when and where they tell you to. And then it will all be done.”

Samuel nodded stiffly, it was suddenly very very real.

With a final encouraging nod and a broad smile, Markus strode away. Samuel would not speak to the man again, for a very long time.