“We are to depart now to the Long House for our wedding. The Priest of the Sun is stubborn, I know not why, save that he has been balked of the blood of all of you on his altar. He is very blood-thirsty. He is the Sun Priest, but he is possessed of little reason. I have report that he is striving to turn the people against our wedding——the dog!” She clinched her hands, her face set, and her eyes blazed with royal fury. “He shall marry us, by the ancient custom, before the Long House, at the Altar of the Sun.”
“It’s not too late, Francis, to change your mind,” Henry urged. “Besides, it is not fair. The short straw was mine. Am I not right, Leoncia?”
Leoncia could not reply. They stood in a group, at the forefront of the assembled Lost Souls, before the altar. Inside the Long House the Queen and the Sun Priest were closeted.
“You wouldn’t want to see Henry marry her, would you, Leoncia?” Francis argued.
“Nor you, either,” Leoncia countered. “Torres is the only one I’d like to have seen marry her. I don’t like her. I would not care to see any friend of mine her husband.”
“You’re almost jealous,” commented Henry. “Just the same, Francis doesn’t seem so very cast down over his fate.”
“She’s not at all bad,” Francis retorted. “And I can accept my fate with dignity, if not with equanimity. And I’ll tell you something else, Henry, now that you are harping on this strain: she wouldn’t marry you if you asked her.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Henry began.
“Then ask her,” was the challenge. “Here she comes now. Look at her eyes. There’s trouble brewing. And the priest’s black as thunder. You just propose to her and see what chance you’ve got while I’m around.”