Time would tell as to whether or not their talk was just idle chatter.
Or, if they were serious.
Built along the banks of the River Eden, the city of Carlisle was a large, bustling burg. Being that it was so close to the border with Scotland, it had its fair share of Scots. The farmers from the borders would bring their produce and livestock to the Carlisle market every Saturday because a buyer was a buyer as far as they were concerned, and they didn’t care if a man was English or Scottish as long as his money was good.
The city had a cosmopolitan flavor to it because it was the largest city this far north, and it also had a large fish market because of its proximity to the Solway Firth. There had been a heavy rain the night before and black clouds were still hanging in the sky to the north but, for the moment, the rain stopped. The inhabitants of the city quickly went about their business before the next round of rain began.
The party from Blackpool Castle had departed at dawn, just as the rain was letting up. Tor brought a contingent of thirty heavily armed men, not including himself and Fraser, and they were armed to the teeth. Tor did not travel outside of the walls of Blackpool without being heavily armed because the Scots were so volatile in this area. Given that they were going into a town that was known to have a heavy Scottish presence, he wasn’t going to take any chances with Isalyn and her father along.
It was a bit of a dichotomy with Gilbert because he was a man who did business in Carlisle on a regular basis, Scots and English alike, and he didn’t see the need for such a heavily armed contingent. He had his own knight in Fraser, and he had a personal fifty-man army that was one of the most well supplied armies in all the north to protect his goods, but that was completely different than riding into town escorted by a de Wolfe contingent with enough weapons to start a small war. As he had commented more than once, he felt like the king and his own personal escort.
Isalyn, on the other hand, was even worse. She hated riding with an escort and Tor knew it, so he kept glancing at her, winking at her now and again. Isalyn was certain that he was waiting for her to ride off and escape the escort, but she had no intention of doing so. Even if she did hate having a bunch of armed men around her.
But she settled down quickly and, in truth, she really didn’t mind. She was flattered that Tor thought enough of her to ensure that she was well taken care of. The previous day had been such a whirlwind and she was still trying to come to grips with a drastic change her life had taken and just a few short hours.
When she had come to Blackpool, it had been with the intention of seeing Tor again and perhaps getting to know him better, but a betrothal had never been on her mind. She could still hardly believe it, but every time Tor turned around to look at her and give her a saucy wink, her excitement in the path that her life had taken was even greater and the moment before.
It all seemed like a dream.
Isalyn had spent the previous evening in the great hall of Blackpool, the center of a celebration with her father leading the toasts. There had been very little conversation between her and Tor because her father seemed intent to monopolize all of the conversation. He was quite drunk early on and, in truth, she didn’t blame him. The man had had a week of excessive upheaval, losing a son and now losing a daughter in marriage.
Gilbert’s emotions were at the extremes and the alcohol helped him vent those emotions, and even embrace them, because it was a week that had seen both grief and joy. Although Isalyn didn’t know her father as well as she probably should have, she knew him well enough to know that he was still reeling from the events of the week and trying to find his footing.
Tor seemed to know that, too. Her betrothed was a man a few words, but he was also a man who seemed quite intuitive. He let Gilbert carry on, cheering the coming wedding and telling stories of Isalyn when she was very young in an attempt to poke fun at her. Considering he and his wife had split when Isalyn had been young, those were the only stories of his daughter that he knew. Isalyn relived stories that she didn’t quite remember in some cases, like a little girl who had hoarded a litter of messy kittens in her chamber, or the child who liked to steal pickled onions.
As much as she wanted to stay up all night with Tor and enjoy the celebration, unfortunately, Isalyn grew quite weary early on and was forced to retire when she simply couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Isabella, who was also at the feast, retired with her and the two of them retreated back to the chamber they now shared. Isalyn was so tired that she fell asleep somewhere in the middle of Isabella’s excited chatter about Fraser and how handsome the man was.
Poor Isabella was left talking to herself.
But this morning, she was feeling quite rested, and she had dressed carefully in a sapphire blue gown that reflected the color of her eyes. Her long blonde hair was carefully dressed as it always was, with braids and ribbons, and she knew that she must have done a good job because Tor kept looking at her. By the time they reached the merchant district of Carlisle, he could hardly wait to pull her off her horse.
While a few of the soldiers took the horses to the nearest livery, Gilbert took off down the avenue as he headed for his merchant’s stall. As he had explained to Tor, he had an army of servants who manned his stall because he was not there on a daily basis, so his large merchant business had a majordomo and a clerk who essentially ran the day-to-day operations. They were very good at business and had made Gilbert quite rich.
Gilbert’s stall was the largest one in the merchant district, directly south of Carlisle Castle. The building was a two-storied structure with every manner of goods that one could wish for, and there was a board over the entry that had the word “Featherstone” burned into it. Once they reached the wattle and daub building, Gilbert welcomed Tor into his stall in the grandest fashion.
As the de Wolfe escort took up positions outside, Tor entered the establishment with Isalyn on his arm. Fraser brought up the rear, as his usual position was to shadow Gilbert everywhere he went as the man’s personal protection.
The interior of the stall was very crowded. Tor had been to Carlisle, many times, but he’d never stopped at de Featherstone’s stall, so both the size and the content was of some surprise to him. Everything seemed to be in organized sections – items for women, fabric, combs, and things of that nature, and even items for men – but there was so much of it that it was overwhelming. It wasn’t so much a single merchant’s stall as it was a great bazaar.
But Tor knew what he wanted so it was simply a matter of having Gilbert point him in the right direction. At this hour of the morning, the stall was already full of women shopping. Most of what Gilbert had seemed to be for women and when Tor question him about it, he stated that women were the ones that usually controlled the purse strings in a family, so everything he carried was designed to catch their attention.
And that included the pre-made dresses.
One entire wall was full of such garments. There was a rope strung from one end of the wall to the other with a few posts in the middle to help support the weight of all of the garments that were hanging on the rope. Gilbert had invented a type of hanging frame for these garments that filled them out so women could see them as they were meant to be. It looked like a square made out of wood that hung from a rope.
It was quite inventive and Tor went to the hanging dresses to look for one that he liked. He could have had Isalyn select the dress but as he had told her, he wanted to do it. He wanted to select it and he wanted to pay for it because it was a gift to his wife on their wedding day, and he didn’t want any help in selecting it.