Finally it ceased; and there was a day of perfect quietness, terrible coldness and blue sky. Then the wind began again, worse than before, this time from the southeast; and on the second day it blew Sir Brian Neville-Smythe in through the now-open doors of Malencontri.

The blacksmith and one of the men-at-arms from the gate led Brian, still on his horse, across the courtyard to the entrance to the Great Hall and helped him (stiffly) down from his horse, helped beat the ice off his outer garments, where it clung thickly to those parts of his over-robe that covered armor underneath; and the man-at-arms took the horse off to the warm stables. The blacksmith, since he clearly outranked an ordinary man-at-arms, went in with Sir Brian to announce him.

But the blacksmith never got the chance. Because once they were within the Hall they saw Lady Angela Eckert, wife to Sir James Eckert, Lord of Malencontri and all its lands, taking her mid-day meal there and she, in the same moment, recognized the visitor.

“Brian!” she called from the far end of the long hall. “Where did you come from?”

“Outside,” said Brian, who was a literal-minded person.

He advanced on the high table, set on a platform raised above the hall floor and looking down the two long tables at right angles before it, and stretching away toward Brian, to accommodate diners of lesser rank-but empty at the moment Angie was lunching alone, but in all proper state.

“I can see that,” said Angie, lowering her voice as he came closer. “But where did you start from?”

“From Castle Smythe. My home,” replied Brian, with a touch of impatience; for where else would he be coming from at this, the end of January after a heavy winter storm?

The impatience was only momentary, however, for he was already eyeing the food and drink before Angie on the high table. To Brian, what Angie-who, like her husband, Jim, had been an involuntary importee from the twentieth century to this fourteenth-century world, some three years before-thought of as lunch time, was dinner time. It was the main meal of his day; and he had had nothing since breakfast, shortly after dawn on this icy morning.

“Well, come sit down, and have something to eat and drink,” said Angie. “You must be frozen to the bone.”

“Hah!” said Brian, his eyes lighting up at the invitation-expected though it was.

The table servants were already readying a place for him at one end of the table, so he and Angie could half face each other; for she sat behind the length of the table, itself, close to that end. Even as he sat down, another servant ran in from the serving room with a steaming pitcher, from which he poured hot wine into a mazer-a large, square metal goblet placed before Brian.

“Mulled wine, by God!” said Brian happily.

He took several hearty swallows from the mazer, to check on what his nose had already told him. Putting the mazer back down, he beamed at Angie with affectionate goodwill. Another of the table servants put a meat pie in front of him and spooned a large serving from it on to his trencher, the large, thick slice of coarse bread which served as his plate. He nodded approvingly, neatly picked out the largest piece of meat and wiped his fingers afterwards neatly on his napkin by the trencher.

“I thought to find you dining in your solar when you were alone, Angela,” he said, as soon as his mouth was empty.

“I have done that,” said Angie. “But it’s more convenient here.”

Her eyes met Brian’s and a look of complete understanding passed between them, twentieth century and fourteenth century for once in complete agreement.

Servants. Angie would by far have preferred to eat in the solar-which was the bed-sitting chamber at the top of Malencontri’s tower and the private chamber of the Lord and Lady of the castle.

The solar was a warm, comfortable place, with its windows tightly glazed against the weather with actual glass, and the floor heated under foot by a reconstruction by her husband of the type of hypocaust that the earlier Roman conquerors of Britain had used to heat their homes, but which the Middle Ages had forgotten. It was simply a space between two stone floors where air could circulate that had been warmed by continuous fires burning in fireplaces outside the room.

There also was an actual large fireplace in the solar itself-ornamental as well as useful in weather like this.

The Great Hall, of course, had fireplaces of its own. Three, in fact, huge ones. One behind the high table where Angie sat right now, and two others; one each halfway down the long walls of the hall. At the moment all three were burning brightly with fires in them, because Angie was there; but the hall was still cold for all that.

Still, against their real preferences, Jim and Angie had taken to eating at least their mid-day meals here. No servant had come to them on bended knee and pleaded with them to eat in state in the Hall; though there had been veiled references made to the convenience of the serving room-so close to the high table-so that food could be brought in hot. But no one had officially protested.

But there were still invisible limits to what a Lord and Lady could do- even if the Lord was a famous knight and magician. Those who served the gentry would obey any order. Men-at-arms would go forth and die for their feudal superiors. But neither servants nor men-at-arms, nor tenants, nor serfs, nor anyone else on the estate, would go against custom. When custom spoke, everybody obeyed; right up to the throne of the King himself.

And at Malencontri, a general attitude, unspoken but very clearly felt, had finally had its way with Angie and Jim. A Lord and Lady of a castle like this were supposed to eat their mid-day meal in proper fashion, in the proper place. That was what the hall was there for. The table servants who had to bring food from the outside kitchen to the serving room might freeze in the process. That was beside the point. There was a way things should be done; and that was the way it should be done here.

“Where’s James?” Brian asked after a few moments, having managed to take on at least enough meat pie and wine to begin satisfying his clamoring stomach.

“He’ll be along shortly,” said Angle. “Right now he’s up there.”

She pointed her finger vertically.

“Ah, yes,” said Brian, meaning he understood. This gesture of Angle’s, which might have either baffled a stranger or seemed to imply Angle’s husband had left this earthly scene, was something completely reasonable and understood between these two.

“He thought he should take a look at our people on the lands outside the castle,” said Angie, “and make sure all of them came through the storm all right.”

Brian nodded, his mouth full. He swallowed.

“Then, with your pardon, my Lady, I shall wait until he comes back,” Brian said, “and tell you both at the same time what I came to say. I would like the two of you to hear it together. It is great news, indeed. You will grant me mercy if I do not speak of it now?”

“Certainly,” said Angie. In spite of the courtly question at the end of Brian’s little speech, Angie knew that Brian had no intention of speaking until her husband got back; and that was a red flag to her. If Brian wanted to talk to the two of them together, he wanted or needed something from Jim; and in that case experience had taught Angie to be ready to resist. Forewarned was forearmed.

“He should be back soon,” she said.