Matt wrote:Or one finds a pliant (Laranian) priest and marry her. Never heard of a Harnic divorce. Abductions for such were known to have happened in the Middle Ages. Some even succeeded.
Probably easier to accomplish if the priest were ignorant of the rank of the lady, given the ensuing ramifications if the Earl of Vemion finds out you married his heir against his (and possibly against her) wishes. Hence the image of Sir Rollard riding hard for another shire, kingdom, land mass...
Something else that occurs to me, though. Considering Sir Rollard a suspect, and finding his announcement that Thilisa had made her choice a bit odd, has caused me to overlook an obvious possibility. What if Rollard was telling the truth, she has made her choice, and word has started to circulate about who her choice is? And we, still in the dark, are the last to know? The "Abduct and Marry" scenario then makes more sense, if one of the disappointed blokes has decided to truss up Thilisa and high-tail it to daddy's barony, earldom, whatever and get the local Laranian to marry them proper before Vemion can do anything about it.
But what about another angle on Rollard's announcement? If word has
not yet become public, say, but Sir Rollard instead appears to have spilled the beans prematurely, then doesn't it make it less likely that those sitting at the table with Sir Ewen would be inclined to frame Sir Ewen for a crime? I mean, they all have reason to believe he's been knocked out of the running, no? And wouldn't we expect word of what happened at the table to have spread yesterday evening, to the ears of those who were not at the table?
"Sir Ewen's out of the running, did you hear, the lady's captain himself let it slip!" So, doesn't it seem odd that someone would go to the trouble of getting Sir Ewen arrested after word has spread that he is no longer a threat? It just seems too risky, gratuitous, or desperate when Ewen's already been knocked out of contention, no?
To me, that reasoning shortens the list considerably, or at least demotes the other suitors in terms of the odds, save for Sir Toren Curo, whose father has a whole nuther bone to pick with Sir Ewen. Does this logic follow??