"Oh, you are simply betrothed to someone, often before meeting them. Marriages are made for alliances. Love matches are a luxury of the lowborn, I'm afraid, because someone like me was always going to get married off to the highest bidder. My lord father would not have let it be someone cruel, though, and I think that is the difference," she says.

"My parents did not know one another when they married but they grew to love one another. I always wanted that for myself. I wanted to marry someone brave and handsome and strong and my father assured me that this man existed. I am not so certain about that any longer but I certainly believed it once. I was fond of the romantic songs and tales when I was a girl."