At last Alisande straightened and stepped away, smiling and wiping her eyes. “You must forgive me, milady Mama. It must be the stress of this little war.”
“A queen is always subject to great stress,” Mama said, voice firm but sympathetic. “You must be able to weep with someone, my dear, or you will explode with your feelings.”
“Yes. I thank you.” Alisande smiled and sat again, taking another sip of the coffee. Its bite helped restore her. “Dare I hope, though, that your new grandchild has something to do with your decision to stay?”
“The child, and his mother,” Mama told her, smiling gently. “Family is the true vocation of both Papa and myself, my dear, far more important to us than anything else—and since both my parents and Papa’s have passed away, and Matt is our only child, and our new daughter-in-law is so very nice... Well, of course!” Then she stared, facts suddenly connecting. “The tears... It is not only the stress of the campaign that has brought you to weeping, is it?”
Alisande stared at her. “How did you know?”
“You forget, my dear, that I have been there before you! Come now, no hiding the truth! Out with it!”
“Well, yes.” Alisande looked down into her coffee. “I cannot be sure yet, but I think that you shall have another grandchild before next summer’s heat.”
“And you went on campaign!” Mama cried, then seized a cushion and tucked it behind Alisande’s head, pulled a hassock over and propped the queen’s feet on it. “You must be sure to dine well now, though not too much—that old wives’ tale about eating for two has caused many women to gain weight they could lose only with great difficulty! And no wine, or at least only a little! How foolish I was, to introduce you to coffee! And you must not worry, you must leave as much as possible to your ministers, and anything they cannot manage, you must assign to Papa and myself...”
Her voice flowed on, and her hands were very soothing as they massaged temples, touched wrist to measure pulse, tucked a lap robe about her—all completely unnecessary, of course, but Alisande leaned back and luxuriated in the attention, deciding that it really was very nice to have a mother again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"A wandering Catholic, aye,
A thing of texts and catches."
Early in life, Christopher Stasheff found a catch in almost every point of Catholic dogma except the main ones, and was been spiritually wandering ever since. He had a lot of doubts about the Church, but only questions about the faith.
One day, he realized that most of the medieval fantasies he read seldom mentioned the Devil, and never God. He vehemently maintained that wasn't the way medieval Christians really saw the world—they saw God everywhere, in everything, and the Devil always lurking, looking for an opening—and that authors really ought to write their fantasies a little closer to reality. Then he realized that, being a fantasy author, he was stuck with writing his next story that way.
Christopher Stasheff spent his early childhood in Mount Vernon, New York, but spent the rest of his formative years in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He always had difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality and tried to compensate by teaching college. When teaching proved too real, he gave it up in favor of writing full time. He tried to pre-script his life, but couldn't understand why other people never got their lines right. This caused a fair amount of misunderstanding with his wife and four children. He wrote novels because it was the only way he could be the director, the designer, and all the actors too.
More Kobo eBooks by Christopher Stasheff...
Escape Velocity
The Warlock's Grandfather
The Warlock in Spite of Himself
King Kobold Revived
The Warlock Unlocked
The Warlock Enraged
The Warlock Wandering
The Warlock Is Missing
The Warlock Heretical
The Warlock's Companion
The Warlock Insane
The Warlock Rock
Warlock and Son
The Warlock's Last Ride
A Wizard in Absentia
M'Lady Witch
Here Be Monsters
A Wizard in Absentia
A Wizard in Mind
A Wizard in Bedlam
A Wizard in War
A Wizard in Peace
A Wizard in Chaos
A Wizard in Midgard
A Wizard and a Warlord
A Wizard in the Way
A Wizard in a Feud
Her Majesty's Wizard
The Oathbound Wizard
The Witch Doctor
The Secular Wizard
My Son, the Wizard
The Haunted Wizard
The Crusading Wizard
The Feline Wizard
Saint Vidicon to the Rescue
Mind Out of Time
The Crafters (volume 1)
The Crafters (volume 2)
My Son, the Wizard Page 37