Once off the drawbridge and out of sight of the crowd in the court, she demanded, "How could you compel me to ride this?"

"You had no choice." He brought his mount alongside the gray, who immediately slackened pace without the prod behind. "You can be sure the queen has at least one observer among the guests who keeps her informed of the proceedings, and she will certainly demand a full report from her messengers."

"But… but… but this is not a gift, it's an insult!" Ariel wailed, trying an experimental encouraging kick to the gray's withered flanks.

"Not according to Queen Anne," Simon declared with a grin. "As you are discovering, my dear, our dearly beloved sovereign is of a frugal temperament when it comes to acknowledging the services of her loyal subjects. I expect that pathetic beast was destined for the slaughterhouse and she thought of a better future for it… while it still had breath in its lungs."

"Breath is a debatable point," Ariel said. "I do not believe in cruelty to animals, Simon, and I will ride it no farther." She drew rein, which was hardly necessary since the animal was barely moving anyway, and dismounted. "If you insist upon going into Cambridge, then your horse will have to carry us both. He's powerful enough."

"Without doubt. But what are you going to do with Her Majesty's gift?"

"Tether him and let him graze until we come back." Ariel suited action to words, looping the nag's bridle over a spindly thornbush beside the dike. "If he's still extant when we return, which seems unlikely, I'll put him out to pasture."

"But you will write Her Majesty a suitably grateful letter of thanks?" Simon leaned down, holding out his hand.

"I shall endeavor to express my feelings in such a way that she won't have the faintest idea what I mean." Ariel took the proffered hand and sprang lightly upward, settling onto the saddle in front of Simon. "Why are we going into Cambridge?"

"I thought I might buy you a wedding gift." He slipped one arm around her waist and took the reins in his other hand.

Ariel was too surprised to say anything immediately. "I think I've had enough wedding gifts for one day, thank you," she managed eventually, trying to make a joke but wondering if instead she sounded merely ungracious. She was very aware of his body at her back and his breath whispering against her bare neck. It would be so natural to lean into his casual embrace, but instead she drew herself upright, stiffening her back, reminding herself that she was once more in possession of her senses, once more on track. The time for romantic dalliance with her husband was over, brought to an end by the loss of the mare.

Simon frowned as she drew away from him. "Is something the matter?"

"No," she returned with a light laugh. "What could be?"

"I'm asking you." When she didn't respond to the dry comment, he clicked his tongue and the piebald moved forward, his long, loping gait lengthening as he broke into a canter, clearly unhampered by the double weight.

"What kind of wedding gift?" Ariel inquired after a minute, trying again for a tone that would break the sudden tension.

"I thought you didn't want one." "Well, it depends what it is."

"Ah. Well, what would you like?"

"I don't know. No one's ever asked me such a question before. Ravenspeares don't really go in for gift giving." The serpentine bracelet on her wrist beneath her glove seemed suddenly heavy as she said this. The only valuable gift anyone had ever given her. And she didn't like it, for all its strange medieval beauty.

"Well, Hawkesmoors do go in for gift giving," Simon commented as they rode into Cambridge. "It's one of the great pleasures of life, I find." He turned his horse into the yard of the Bear Inn and dismounted, handing the reins to an ostler. Ariel slipped down unaided.

"Come fer the fair, m'lord?" the ostler inquired cheerfully. "On Parker's Piece, 'tis."

"Oh, a fair!" Ariel's face lit up and for a minute she forgot her dragging depression. "I haven't been to a fair since I was tiny. May we go?"

"By all means." Simon smiled at her enthusiasm. This almost childlike eagerness was a new side to his bride and infinitely preferable to the resurgence of that stiffness she hadn't shown since they'd consummated their marriage. She wasn't exactly hostile, he thought, but she was definitely not the warm and amusing companion he'd been growing accustomed to. "But shall we break our fast at the inn first?"

"Oh, no, let us buy a pie from a pieman… and some roasted chestnuts… and we can drink mulled wine from one of the stalls." She pranced ahead of him out of the inn yard, stopping in the lane outside as she remembered belatedly that her companion couldn't match her speed.

Simon was perfectly agreeable to anything that took her fancy and allowed her to lead the way through the narrow streets between the high gray stone walls of the colleges to the expanse of grass that went by the name of Parker's Piece. Braziers burned and the sweet smell of roasting chestnuts filled the cold air; hawkers called their wares, ringing their bells as they threaded through the crowd, who gathered around morris dancers, mummers, dancing bears, and various freaks who drew gasps of fascinated revulsion. Ariel darted hither and thither, slipping through the crowd where Simon couldn't easily go.

"There's a woman with two heads over there." After one of her forays, she returned to Simon's side. "She couldn't really have, could she?" She looked up at him in genuine inquiry.

"Why couldn't she?" he asked gravely, entranced by an ingenuousness so unlike her customary down-to-earth self.

Ariel shuddered deliciously. "It seems impossible, but I saw it with my own eyes. How horrible. Fancy having four eyes… and two tongues. Shall I buy us some pies? There's a pieman over by the mummers. Would you like venison… or beef… or kidney?"

"Venison."

She darted away and then almost immediately turned back. "Oh, I don't have any money."

Simon dug into his pocket and produced a shilling. She disappeared into the crowd and he paused, leaning against a trestle table, resting his leg for a minute. Fairs were not his idea of amusement, but Ariel in her enthusiasm was amusement enough.

But something was wrong. Ever since he'd returned from the stag hunt yesterday afternoon, he'd sensed that she was troubled, off-key in some way. Oh, they'd amused themselves wickedly at the banquet and she'd been her usual wonderfully responsive self both then and later that night in bed. But her face in repose, when she didn't know he was watching her, was tense, her mouth tight, her eyes shadowed with something he would have sworn was distress.

" 'Ow about a fairing, m'lord?" A peddler stopped beside him, his singsong voice breaking into Simon's reverie. The man carried a tray slung around his neck and pushed it close to Simon's chest… too close for comfort. Dark eyes glittered in a swarthy countenance and he grinned, exposing a black cavernous mouth with toothless gums. His tongue was startlingly red, poking between his grinning lips.

"See m'fairings, m'lord." He rattled the contents of his tray. "Every one a genuine treasure." He began to finger the trinkets, fixing Simon with a piercing stare that its recipient assumed was supposed to have some mesmerizing quality. "There's jewels from the Indies, an' a real live shrunken 'ead from the Africas." He picked up the latter disgusting object, holding it up by a hank of black hair. "Shockin' cannonballs they is in them parts. What d'ye fancy, m'lord?"

Simon's nose wrinkled at the fetid breath issuing from the black hole of the peddler's mouth. He was about to send him about his business when his eye fell on a small carved horse buried amid the jumble of colored glass, beads, and scarves. He picked it out with fastidious fingers and laid it on the palm of his hand.

"Genuine whalebone, m'lord," the peddler said eagerly. "I knew the very sailorman what catched the whale. Big as the Tower o' Lunnon, 'e said. 'E carved this off a rib. 'Uge ribs, they 'ave… or so I'm told." His voice faded as he saw his potential customer wasn't listening but was examining the object with considerable interest.

It was a very beautiful object, carved in full gallop, and the flowing mane, lovingly delineated, seemed to undulate with life and movement. The clean lines of the body rippled with muscular power. The dull ivory color of the bone had an opalescence to it. It seemed to emit a soft glow that breathed life into the carving.

Simon wondered what it was that reminded him so much of Ariel… whether it was the life and power of the horse, or its simple, unadorned beauty, or its creamy sheen. His fingers closed over it as it lay on his palm, and he reached with his free hand into his pocket. "How much?"

The peddler's eyes narrowed to a calculating gleam. " 'Alf a guinea, m'lord. Seein' as there's not another like it. The sailorman what carved it drownded." His mouth twisted into a travesty of a sorrowful grimace.

"I'll give you half a crown." It seemed somewhat unchivalrous to bargain over the price of a wedding gift to his bride, but Simon couldn't bring himself to accept being cheated by this unsavory individual, who was as likely to have robbed the sailor and helped him on his way to his heavenly reward as to have come by any of his wares honestly.

"I dunno I can go that low, sir," the man whined. "I've got ten nippers an' the wife's mortal bad. Three shillin' an' we'll call it a deal." He held out a filth-encrusted claw to shake on the bargain.

Simon glanced around. Ariel was pushing her way toward them. "Here." He slapped a crown into the man's filthy palm and turned away from him.