The Nuptial Litter was borne by the younger and more boisterous members of the nobility, all the way from the Monastery Church to the settlement of Aersk. Along the way one set of young people gave way to the next and the next, as they kept on, bearing the Prince and his new husband home. Around the married couple onlookers cheered and called out prayers and good wishes. The poorer members of the crowd threw wild flowers onto the litter, while the wealthier among them threw gold chains, precious stones, and finely worked stuff of all sorts.

Samuel was confused by the mounting piles of detritus and the ever-moving and changing crowds.

“Wedding gifts,” Nikolaus mentioned gruffly, seeing Samuel’s confusion. 

Jostling across the bridge that spanned the deep and protective outer-ditch, Samuel was curious to see what was through the gateway, and behind the palisade that he’d seen earlier. Coming through the gate, Samuel’s heart sank. All around was trampled dirt and mud, a mishmash of cottages and rickety houses, workshops and storerooms. The town appeared as a tangled maze, connected by wooden sleepers that were set together in the ground forming rudimentary walkways between buildings. Here and there were attempts at squares and courtyards, but they were all rough and half-made. Samuel closed his eyes, not knowing how much more he could bear to see. The day had already been too much. Beside him he felt Nikolaus stir. Perhaps the Prince had seen Samuel’s reaction. Either way, he didn’t press the matter any further, but rather let Samuel be. 

After a while, with the crowds still jostling and calling their names, they found their way onto smoother ground. Samuel opened his eyes. They were now in a flattened courtyard of sorts, and ahead of them, on a raised foundation of stone and rubble, was a long building, geometric and angular. It seemed built out of pointed arches, mostly of thick timber, but with stone too in places. It reached up high.

“The Hearth-Hall,” Nikolaus explained. “My father’s palace.”

“This is a palace?” asked Samuel with incredulity.

The only answer he got was the grinding of his husband’s teeth.

Others ran ahead of them, through the great outer portals and into the high, enclosed porch, pushing open the inner doors that led into the main body of the building: the Great Hall. The litter-bearers brought the two newlyweds right inside the Hall, and while Samuel wished they’d finally be put down, the young men instead trotted them around and around the great fireplace that burned merrily in the centre of the room.

People were scattered all through the long hall: nobles, servants, tradesmen and all-sorts who had pushed their way in to witness the homecoming and hearthing of the princely couple. They stared and laughed and clapped their hands. Pleased to enjoy the day’s unforeseen holiday.

Finally, with the arrival of the Sovereign Prince, Alexandre, the young men and women gave up  their antics and the litter was let down to the ground with a thud. Nikolaus deftly sprang up, his large robes like a second skin after so many years. Samuel was not so lucky, he felt as though he’d been rolled up in three different quilts and had no idea how to move in any of it. He lumbered to his feet, scrabbling to push himself up. Almost overbalancing in the process, and falling against Nikolaus, whose broad form steadied and held him upright. 

Jumping away from the unexpected contact, Samuel blushed as the crowds hooted and even Prince Alexandre was seen to smirk. Unperturbed by the whole thing, Nikolaus found Samuel’s arm and walked him down the length of the long hall towards the shallow dais that ran along the far screen wall. There, on the dais, were sat two great oaken thrones, set under the coat-of-arms of the Principality. Beside the right one, two smaller, but equally-ornate carved chairs had been wrestled into position. 

Nikolaus pushed Samuel to the furthest of the smaller chairs, and took the one between Samuel and what turned out to be Prince Alexandre’s throne. Samuel tried to sit, but was quickly stopped from doing so until the Sovereign Prince himself had found his way to the dais and taken his own seat. Samuel sank into the chair with a sigh at last. Wriggling and trying to find a way to sit comfortably.

“My son has married; and now there is a new prince in Aersk,” Alexandre intoned joyfully. The people who were continuing to crowd into the hall cheered at the prince’s words.

“Let today be for us a holiday, and let you all eat at my board!” even greater cheers went up at this announcement.

While people came up to wish the new couple well, kneeling and curtsying, and bobbing their heads; and as Samuel smiled and squirmed and wished he could be anywhere else; trestles were quickly set up around the hall, and servants appeared with great platters of food and jugs of drink. Others called for trestles to be set up outside, and for barrels to be opened in the courtyard. One could assume that food and drink was spread out all over the place. Meanwhile musicians struck up a tune in the corner and some likely lads and lasses set to dancing, making the wooden floor tap and sing to the sound of their feet.

The Sovereign Prince smiled benevolently down upon his people, as his ear was chewed off by longtime advisors, friends and old compatriots. Before long Nikolaus had risen from his seat and gone to mingle and move among people he’d known his entire life; sharing jokes and stories and catching up on all that had happened while he’d been away in the Megacity.

This was how the day passed, in merry-making and fun. Food and wine. Meanwhile, through most of it, Samuel sat on his little chair and stared out at the throng before him, feeling quite alone. 

He ventured a few times to the trestles, to find there an assortment of bread, butter, pickles, crumbly cheese, olives, figs, eggs; any number of things, but little that was cooked and almost no meat. He glanced over to find Nikolaus joining him at the board at one point. 

“There’s no hot food?” he had queried.

Nikolaus smiled at him, “No, but there’s plenty of what there is.” He’d taken a little bit of wine, and was feeling its warming effects. “If we have cooked food, then the servants can’t get any sort of holiday at all.”

‘So that was it,’ thought Samuel to himself. He supposed it made sense. Was probably very good of them then. He nodded in understanding, before scooping a great wad of cheese onto some flatbread for himself. 

He returned to his chair, comfortable for the moment to watch his husband out of the corner of his eye. Nikolaus seemed almost warm and friendly in this environment, so different to how he’d been up till then. This was his home, his land, Samuel supposed. Nikolaus would be more comfortable here!

More than one person tried to strike up a conversation with Samuel that day; but the conversations didn’t generally move past a first few sentences. What could they ever talk about, these people from another world and him. They didn’t know the cities or the latest books, or dramas, or games; and what did he know of farming and living under a single-storey thatched roof, and scrabbling one's life away in the dirt. 

What’s more, Samuel was finding it impossible to get over the bowing, and the “Grace, Grace, Grace,” that followed him everywhere. He had come to realise that while his husband was ‘His Highness The Prince August, Nikolaus of Aerska en Cantaer’, as Nikolaus’ husband he had now become ‘His Serene Grace The Prince Constans, Samuel of Nikolaus-Aerska’. He didn’t really understand how the title worked or what it meant, except it seemed as though his name had now expanded to include any number of variants, degrees, and extra titles and tittles. Depending on who was talking to him, everyone seemed to have a different way of addressing him, and he couldn’t work out what the rules were. It was yet another reminder that he had been put on a path to a very different life. A life he didn’t want. Not wanting to face any of it, he kept to himself, cut off conversations as soon as he could, and willed for the day to be over.