In Which Dalston Loses a Possible Moment

May 3, 1165

It was not unheard of for men to find their wives less attractive as they aged, but Dalston could not claim to understand this. Celina was thirty-two, approaching thirty-three, and not a day had past that Dalston had not woken to find a woman even lovelier than she who had lain beside him the night before. She was a mother of five children and a wife of ten and a half years, and as was invariably the case, she was not immune to time. Still, it was rare for him to find a gray hair among her thick chestnut locks, or a wrinkle upon her youthful face. He had known many a pretty girl to whom age had been nothing but ruthless, but his Lina was not one of them. If possible, she was even more divine now than she had been ten and a half years earlier.

Over the course of their decade together, Dalston had grown to appreciate these occasions his active self had once dreaded, these moments of having nothing to do--nothing, that was, except for just being with her, her and their children. As much as he had hated this feeling of stasis before his marriage, Dalston too had been prey to time, and he found that each year had made him wiser. There would always be work; there would always be concerned pensioners, irate taxpayers, and census results to be reviewed. In these troubled times, however, he could not say how long his family would remain as content and protected as it was, and as such, he planned to spend every possible moment with his wife and children.

Much to his dismay, however, Aldhein's knock told him that this was not, in fact, a possible moment. Dalston sighed. "Enter."

Aldhein swept inside with all the gloom and foreboding of some spectral messenger, closing the door with a swift brush of his arm against it. As it snapped shut, the flame of the nearest candle vanished. "Your grace, my lord, my lady," the steward addressed Celina and the children in turn before resting his eyes on Dalston. "Your grace... you have to come with me. The baron and his lordship are all ready en route."

Dalston raised an eyebrow. "What has happened?"

"I don't see fit to explain in front of your children," Aldhein dismissed. "I'll tell you on the way. It suffices to say that the king himself has sent for all of you."

Dalston's heart froze abruptly, like a horse approaching a fence it had only just realized it could not jump. Roderick had sent for him? Knowing Roderick's tendency to gravely underestimate the seriousness of dire situations, it must have been horrific indeed. "Well, we shall not keep him waiting."

He pressed a gentle kiss to three-year-old Rona's forehead, then set her down on the floor. "Take care of Mama and your baby brother, all right? Your older siblings should be back soon."

Rona answered with a toothy grin; he couldn't help but wonder how many more of those smiles he would ever see. "Yes, Papa."

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