<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ff99">He cradled her against his chest, rocking her as he had when she was a child -- and yet very aware that the cause of these sobs was not the childish grief of those days.  This was no skinned knee -- this was soul-deep wounding, the kind that no one suffered without also being changed by.  He'd never wanted that for her, but he understood it was beyond his power to change... beyond his power to do anything but stand beside her.<br/>
<br/>
"Let yourself grieve, bright heart," he murmured, stroking her hair.  "Outside these walls you can be Her Majesty the Queen, but not with me.  You need not be anything but Gwen with me, as I am but Cam with you, aye?"  His voice held no scorn, no derision -- it ached with grief of his own and a great empathy, but it was not that of someone who considered her grief unreasonable.  <br/>
<br/>
He didn't have an answer for the plague -- didn't have any easy answers for her at all.  But he did have something to offer.  "We, lassie.  It is not what you are to do -- I did not ride three weeks in rain and sleet to step aside and watch you suffer alone.  I came to stand with you, Gwen.  Whether you need me to guard your body as I did your childhood, to stimulate your mind as I did your father, or support your heart as I did your mother -- I am <i>with </i>you, Gwendolyn Amauri."</span></span>