Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian (53 page)

“Your father asked me last night if I sought his permission to seek your hand in marriage,” he admitted.

Bethany gasped so suddenly and loudly, it turned into a hiccup. “He can be so,
hiccup
, exasperating! He has no sense of social skills,
hiccup
!” she placed her fingertips over her lips. “How could he jump to a conclusion like that? And that was at the
hiccup
same time he was telling you to serenade me?”

“Yes, at the end of our talk, he told me I had his permission,” Alec continued. “He said he’d trust your judgment if you chose to accept my proposal.”

Bethany looked around. She hiccupped again as she saw that Aristotle was now many paces behind them.

“So, what is your answer, Bethany?” Alec asked.

“You haven’t,
hiccup
, asked me a question, Alec,” she said with emphasis.

He started to retort, then thought better of it. “Bethany, will you marry me?” he asked. “I’ll love you forever and probably keep things exciting for a while,” he grinned. “And I promise not to sing to you ever again!”

“Yes Alec, I will marry you! I know you love me, and I love you too!” she said giddily. Alec leaned out of his saddle to give her a passionate kiss. “You can feel free to turn down the excitement level a little if you want,” she said, “but not just now.” She leaned into him and kissed him back.

“And what was it you wanted more of when I rode up to interrupt you and Ari?” she asked a minute later. “Is it something I can help with?”

Alec hesitated to answer.

“You can’t very well want to marry me,
hiccup
, if you can’t trust me, Alec,” Bethany told him. “You have to talk to me and tell me what you’re thinking.”

Alec took another deep breath. “I want freedom from the palace. Lord Bayeux told me that he believes my father was Prince Enguerrand, the son of King Gildevny. And when I was at the Pool of John Mark, the prince’s ghost told me he had left a secret heir; his story and Lord Bayeux’s match up precisely, which makes me the heir to the throne,” Alec explained. “But I don’t know if I want to be the next king of the Dominion!” He reached out and touched his fingertip to Bethany’s breastbone. “You can cure yourself of those hiccups, you know,” he said casually.

“You are the heir to the throne?” Bethany asked in astonishment. “You would be so good for the Dominion! You already are good!”

“But would the throne be good for me?” Alec asked as the trees thinned out and their road grew brighter. “Would you want to live in the palace forever and have guards follow you around everywhere you went, and have someone schedule everything you do every day?”

Ari rode up and rejoined them.

“Alec proposed to me!” Bethany squealed.

“What was your answer?” Ari asked solemnly.

“I told him I’d think about it,” Bethany said blithely. “No! Of course I said yes!”

“Did you set a date?” Ari asked.

“No,” Bethany said. “Alec when will we have the wedding?”

“I suppose after the war,” Alec responded.

“Where do you want to have it? In the palace or the cathedral?” she followed up.

“That’s a good question. I don’t know,” he said, worried about the flood of wedding questions that might potentially be unleashed upon him.

“So you will make Bethany your queen?” Ari asked.

“If I became king, she would become my queen. But Ari, I don’t have to become king if I don’t want to, do I?” Alec asked.

“Not if nobody finds out you’re the heir,” Ari answered. “Well, at least not immediately. But consider that even if you successfully keep it a secret, you’re going to go off on another mission and win another war, then you’ll come back and marry a beautiful girl,” he smiled at Bethany, “and there will obviously be no real heir available, so you can guess what is going to happen. The nobility and the church and the fiefdoms and even the ingenairii are going to make you the king anyway.”

“I’m not sure which is worse: thinking about being king, or thinking about planning the wedding,” Alec moaned.

“Hey!” Bethany loudly protested. “You’re the one who proposed marriage. Do you want to call it off?”

“No! No, not at all,” Alec assured her. “The marriage is the one thing out of all this that I know I want. It’s just the wedding and the kingship that I want to skip.”

“Will you be ready to leave this afternoon, to go Bondell?” Alec asked later, as they continued to ride along their way, while a gentle shower dampened the dust rising from the road.

“I’ll be ready,” Bethany said determinedly. “You’re not going to leave me behind or send me away again.

“You’re going to need healer ingenairii; will Rief come with us?” she asked.

“Yes Rief will, and I expect Rander will too,” he added. “I think he’s smitten with her right now.”

“She’s such a good person, I’m glad someone sees that in her already,” Bethany said with joy in her heart.

They continued to ride throughout the morning, and just past noon they returned to Oyster Bay. “I’m going to publically announce our engagement at the palace. Can you join me?” Alec declared.

“Alec! I have to pack for our trip,” Bethany replied. “Where will I find time to get dressed for an announcement like that?

“When will you make the announcement? I’ll try to get ready,” she asked seconds later.

“Can you meet me at the palace at five o-clock? We’ll arrange for everyone to be assembled for the announcement then,” Alec suggested. “Ari, can you invite the Ingenairii Council to attend?”

And so, at five o’clock, Alec stood in the largest hall in the palace, a great crowd of nobility, church leaders, ingenairii, palace officials and others gathered on very short notice to hear a mysterious announce-ment the crown protector was about to make. He stood on a raised platform, feeling and looking nervous, while he awaited Bethany’s arrival.

“He hasn’t told anyone anything about what he’s announcing,” Rander told Brannis and Rief as they stood in the front of the crowd. As Alec scanned the crowd just then, his eyes made contact with Rief’s, and the spark of joy and fear she saw in his eyes made her immediately voice her hunch to her companions.

He’s going to marry Bethany,” she said. She realized that she felt nothing but happiness for both he and Bethany as she contemplated a marriage between the two.

Rander looked at Rief. “You really think so? I knew they were close once, but then heard they had gone their separate ways.”

“I just saw the same look in Alec’s eyes that I saw when he met her in Frame,” Rief said, “and I knew then that he was in love with her.”

“She’s not here, though,” Brannis pointed out.

“She will be, and she’ll make an entrance,” Rief predicted, just as a stir in the rear of the hall caused heads to turn. A procession was moving through the center of the room, and as it reached the front, Bethany emerged from her convoy of water ingenairii, all dressed in blue. She too was wearing blue, a gown of stunning intricacy, as she mounted onto the stage and stood beside Alec.

“Wow!” Rander said, studying her appearance.

“Hold it together. Down boy,” Rief said as she placed her hand on his arm, pretending to hold him back.

Alec had taken Bethany’s hand in his as she reached him, and stood staring at her for many seconds, before slowly turning his head to face the audience. “Thank you all. Thank you for coming here on such short notice,” he began.

“You all look very pretty, I mean, Bethany looks awfully pretty,” Alec stumbled and grew red in the face, as nervous titters of laughter were sprinkled around the room. Bethany squeezed his hand. “Relax,” she murmured in his ear, “and just start over.”

Alec looked out. “I am a very lucky person,” he started again. “I have so many friends in this room, and you all have been important to me. And a lot of people not in this room have been important to me too.

“But I believe that no one is more important to me than Bethany, and so I want to announce our engagement to be married,” he said, and then said no more as loud and prolonged applause and cheers filled the hall for several minutes. “We will hold the marriage ceremony when we return from our campaign in Bondell. I hope you all will pray for our safety and success while we are traveling and fighting, and I hope you all will be ready to join us in making the Dominion a better place when we return.

“Thank you for coming, and God Bless you all,” he finished, as more applause spread through the hall. People were climbing up on stage and coming to shake Alec’s hands vigorously, or hug him. They all had something to say, and a ring of people surrounded him, but he positioned himself so that he always faced towards Bethany, could always keep an eye on her as she too was mobbed by well-wishers. He couldn’t help but look at her, entranced by the combination of her beautiful appearance and the circumstances of the moment.

Alec eventually began to force his way over to Bethany. “Our ship for Bondell is waiting for us to depart,” he told her as they came together.

“I’ll need to change, Alec,” she told him. “This isn’t a traveling outfit!”

“No. No it’s not,” Alec agreed appreciatively.

“Besides, almost everyone else who was supposed to be on the boat is still here too,” Bethany pointed out.

“Well, let me get my travel gear and I’ll go back to Ingenairii Hill with you,” Alec said. She reached out and took his hand, and together they eventually worked their way off the stage and out of the palace.

Chapter 47 – A Delaying Campaign

The
Witzig
sailed near the Bondell coast, five days out of Oyster Bay and expected to make landfall in the Bondell city harbor that evening. The ship carried a number of ingenairii and supplies, along with Alec’s horse, Walnut. It was expected to be the first ship of Alec’s armada to arrive in Bondell, driven by ingenairii breezes and currents to travel quickly to the city.

The trip had been a trying one for Alec in one sense, even though he was surrounded by friends and peers and accompanied by Bethany. One of the crew members was Chelv, an itinerate sailor who vividly told the story, repeatedly, of the time Alec had saved his life in a bar in the small harbor of Monoline. He frequently opened his shirt to show the small white scar that was the only evidence he had suffered a dagger wound deep in his chest, before Alec had miraculously healed him.

He also frequently and repeatedly told the story of the long night afterwards, when he and his companions had taken Alec out drinking and carousing, the only time Alec had ever done such a thing. Alec had suffered for days afterwards. Chelv poked Alec’s shoulder as he told of the tattoo they had persuaded him to receive and the battle over whether it should be the sword that it was, an anchor, a bottle of ale, or the name of the barmaid who had so affectionately served him that night.

“I don’t remember her name,” Alec had mumbled when Bethany asked him her name in the middle of Chelv reciting his story.

“If you had the tattoo done right, you would remember,” Chelv had rebutted to great laughter. “Not that she could hold a candle to your present lady,” he’d add with a bow to Bethany.