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Updated: May 15, 2025
"We must provide you with a flock of these voyageur pigeons," said Savaric de Marsan. "Then, when you are shut up in your stronghold with the Welsh on one side and Saxon outlaws on the other, you can appeal to your friends for help." Alazais laughed her pretty rippling laugh. "The fortress is not yet built," she said with a toss of her golden head. "We are not going to live among the heathen."
Letters had been received at the castle that day. Sir Walter was on his way home, and with him an English knight who had been his friend for many years ever since they were squires together in Normandy. Lady Philippa looked rather sad and wistful when she spoke of Sir Hugh l'Estrange. He had married her dearest childhood friend, Alazais de Montfaucon, and Alazais was dead.
The way to Montfaucon lying in the same direction, it was decided that Alazais and her bridesmaids should return to her home under escort of the Count and his friends. When the banquet was over and the conference between Henry and his vassals in Guienne was concluded, the wedding guests would assemble at Montfaucon.
Furthermore he vouchsafed the information that the leader of the mercenaries intended to leave the castle next day for the nearest seaport, where he and his men would take a ship for Ireland. Lady Philippa was destined to be the bride of Biterres himself; Alazais was to marry the second in command, Griffon de Malemort.
"Lady Philippa," his cold harsh voice had fallen upon her ears like the grating of a key in a prison door, "your father once refused me your hand. I hope to find you more gracious, or at least more compliant. My captain, Malemort, stands ready to wed the Lady Alazais as I would wed you, at high noon to-morrow. The fate of the others depends upon you.
Afterward, the pigeons were all to be presented to Lady Alazais for her dovecote in the barbarous land to which she was exiled. Pigeons were very much the fashion for a time. Dainty demoiselles preened and paced on the short sweet turf, petting and feeding the birds, and looking rather like pigeons themselves.
This, at least, was the impression of Beatriz d'Acunha and Catalina d'Anduze, who were also to be bridesmaids. Philippa, having lived in England, looked at the matter less dolefully. Still, when all was said, it was an immense change for Alazais, and she herself declared that if any one but Hugh had proposed it she would not think of such a thing.
Alazais de Montfaucon was to be married, and had chosen her dearest friend Philippa to be maid of honor. None of her friends except Philippa had seen the bridegroom; he was an English knight, Hugh l'Estrange. He had lands on the Welsh marches, and the charming Alazais was to be carried off by him, to live among savages.
Lady Philippa, watching Eleanor's brown head and the boy's tousled tow-colored mop, as they consulted over a boat Roger was making, smiled and sighed. She wished that Alazais were there to see them play together. Not long after the disastrous building incident Sir Walter appeared one day with surprising news indeed.
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