Dangerous Waters (32 page)

‘I will agree to you marrying Ilysh, in name only, before you depart for Solura. You will leave a sealed grant of regency authorising me to manage Halferan in your absence.’ She fought not to look round as Raselle gasped in shock.

‘No one else is to know of it and only I will decide when and if to make any of these dealings public.’ Now Zurenne did look round, to fix the maidservant with a piercing gaze. Raselle nodded with fervent, mute assurance.

‘Of course,’ Corrain agreed.

‘Then we must go to the shrine.’ Zurenne thrust away the thought of Licanin’s wrath if he discovered her audacity.

Why didn’t she submit to his kindly dominion and trust the assembled wisdom of the barons to save Caladhria from the raiders? Because their noble lordships had shown no sign of defending the coast despite five years of corsair raids, more widespread and destructive each successive summer. Because their parliament’s debates on the subject had proved as worthless as echoes in an empty room. That’s what her husband had said and Halferan had been the wisest man whom Zurenne had ever known.

Her heart was pounding as she twisted the ring to open the door into the shrine from the dais. The glow of candlelight embraced them.

Zurenne looked at Halferan’s urn. He had put his trust in magecraft, even if vile treachery had led him to his death. Now Zurenne had seen what even a lady wizard’s magic could accomplish and knew that her husband had been right. Let Corrain prove his worth and redeem his oath to his dead lord by finding a mage who could be trusted.

She walked over to the shrine table and picked up the flowers she’d laid before Drianon that very morning; the delicate froth of Larasion’s lace and the milky bells of honeysilk. If she was doing the right thing, she had prayed to the goddess, then let Corrain come. If not, let Poldrion’s demons take him so he never showed his face in Halferan again.

Well, here he was but the goddess’s blank marble gaze offered Zurenne no reassurance that she wasn’t committing a heinous crime in this holy place. She turned to see Ilysh looking uncertainly at Corrain.

‘Where is your companion?’ Lysha’s voice trembled.

‘Kusint?’ He smiled down at her. ‘He’s keeping the boat safe, so we can go to Solura.’

‘My lady?’ Raselle was standing with her back to the great hall door, as if to bar it against attackers. She hugged the writing box in her arms. ‘If there’s to be a wedding—’ she sounded as though she didn’t entirely believe it ‘—where is the priest?’

Zurenne had asked herself the same question, when she’d been unable to shake off this outlandish notion. Her husband had been the hereditary priest of this manor, as was custom and practise across Caladhria. Every shrine within the barony had been within his gift, their priests owing him their allegiance. That was all very well but she wasn’t about to trust anyone else to keep this secret. Wasn’t that an end to it?

Not when she realised she would be performing the rites to welcome For-Summer. Any baron’s wife could do so in her husband’s absence. It was essential when the lords were travelling to gather for the quarterly parliament.

Any widowed mother could give her child in marriage in her husband’s stead. That was one of a mother’s very few privileges enshrined in law.

Did those separate decrees mean that Zurenne could perform this marriage? Well, she would do it and if their lordships didn’t agree, they could argue custom and precedent until their tongues turned black and, all the while they did so, Halferan and Ilysh would be safe from their interference.

‘We don’t need a priest,’ Zurenne said firmly.

Corrain nodded. ‘Then let’s get this done.’

But as he stepped forward, Ilysh didn’t move. She pressed her chin to her chest, her unbound hair falling forward to curtain her face.

‘My lady.’ Corrain had to sink to one knee in order to look up into her eyes. ‘I owed your father my duty even at the cost of my life. I swore that in this very shrine. Now my lord is dead, you are his heir and my duty is to you. To keep you and this barony safe.’

He offered her his open hand. ‘Marry me, in no more than name, and no one can forbid me from saving this barony as your father intended. I will see his name redeemed even if I die to do it.’

As Ilysh laid her slender white hand in Corrain’s calloused palm Zurenne was torn between relief and a frantic urge to rip her daughter away from this man.

It was so unlike her own wedding, when the shrine had been decked with flowers. The whole compound was bright with late-flowering blooms and the first sheaves of corn to herald the harvest, in honour of Drianon, goddess of hearth, home and storehouse.

Music and merrymaking filled five full days. The manor was full to bursting with Zurenne’s relatives and the Halferan barony’s friends and allies joining in the feasting, along with those neither friend nor ally but who might take dangerous offence at the insult of not being invited.

Those nights had been filled with the private bliss of discovering for herself what her mother had merely hinted at as a wife’s duty, and which her sisters had explained in more useful and intriguing, if unnerving, detail.

No, this wasn’t the wedding Zurenne had planned for her daughter: given to a man she could love and respect, with Halferan performing the rites and reminding that unknown bridegroom whom he would answer to in this life if he failed to cherish and adore Ilysh, regardless of any goddess’s chastisement.

‘My lady?’ Corrain prompted.

Zurenne cleared her throat. ‘Ilysh, come here.’

As well as the flowers, she had laid a comb and silk ribbons at the foot of Drianon’s statue. She deftly plaited Ilysh’s dark tresses, the ribbons golden in the candlelight. With her hair drawn back, Ilysh looked both more adult and more vulnerable.

Zurenne refused to falter. The shrine’s table was already laid with a linen cloth and unlit candles, while a new pair of scissors lay beside flint, steel, a loaf of bread and a shallow bowl of honey.

As Ilysh went back to stand beside Corrain, Zurenne lifted her chin. ‘Corrain, do you declare before all here present and in the eternal sight of the gods that you wish to take Ilysh beneath your roof as your beloved wife?’

‘I do,’ he replied.

‘Do you swear that you are free to do so, with no wife living under your protection?’

‘I do.’

Customarily, these questions were merely a genial invitation. Zurenne found herself looking Corrain in the eye, challenging him with the ritual’s demands.

‘Do you swear to provide her with shelter, fire and food even if you must go naked, cold and hungry?

‘Do you swear to comfort her in times of sorrow or sickness and to cherish her in times of joy?

‘Do you swear that your arm will always defend her and the children she may bear you?’

She nearly choked on those words but the ritual must be followed to the last detail if she and Raselle were ever to need to give their own oath on it.

Corrain didn’t blink. ‘I do so swear and may Drianon scourge me if I prove false.’

Zurenne couldn’t look Ilysh in the eye. She fixed her gaze on a nail head in the shrine’s door, left behind when some cloth token had fallen or been torn away, now snagging a glint of candlelight.

‘Ilysh, do you declare before all here present and in the eternal sight of all the gods that you wish to tend Corrain’s hearth as his obedient wife?’

‘I do,’ Ilysh whispered.

‘Do you swear that you are free to do so, not subject to any man save for the guardian who brings you here today?’

Zurenne didn’t wait for her daughter to answer, running swiftly through the rest of the rite, so meaningless in these circumstances yet so necessary for Halferan’s protection.

‘Do you swear to take diligent care of his hearth and household and to see him and the children you may bear him always clothed and fed before yourself?

‘Do you swear to comfort him in times of sorrow or sickness and to cherish him in times of joy? Do you swear never to shame him with inconstancy or profligacy?

‘Do you swear that you will be guided by his wisdom just as you are guarded by his strength?’

Zurenne couldn’t help it. She looked at Corrain. Did he see the question in her burning gaze?

Was this plan of his wisdom or arrant folly? Could he possibly return with a wizard to safeguard them all?

‘I do so swear and may Drianon scourge me if I prove false,’ Ilysh murmured with something perilously close to a shrug.

Zurenne was startled to see Corrain’s grim expression crack with a grin. She recovered herself.

‘Come before Drianon, that she may know you for man and wife. Always remember that the goddess is as sure-sighted as the eagles sacred to her.’

Had the goddess ever seen such an ill-assorted couple? What did she think of a mother bringing her daughter to such a wedding? Zurenne felt a new qualm. Never mind Lord Licanin. How might the goddess chastise her?

But it was too late. The oaths had been sworn and now Corrain was striking a spark from the flint, to light the candle set before him. He smiled as he handed it to Ilysh and she set the second one alight.

As her hand shook and the candle flame wavered, Zurenne caught her breath. If it were snuffed in this crucial moment, such misfortune would cast a pall over any true marriage. No matter. The flame had strengthened and the second candle was safely lit.

‘Ilysh—’

The girl had already handed Corrain the scissors, a plain workaday pair nothing like the gold ornamented ones that Zurenne treasured in her sewing box.

‘Not too short!’ Zurenne said hastily as Ilysh turned to offer him the ribbon-decked plait of her hair. ‘We can hardly keep this a secret if everyone sees her with a cropped head.’

‘Not too short.’ Corrain’s grin came and went again. He carefully cut barely a thumb-length and laid the dark hair at Drianon’s feet.

As Ilysh turned, he gave her back the scissors. According to the usual ribald wedding jokes, Drianon insisted that every wife kept hold of the means to geld a straying husband.

Candlelight dissolved into haze as Zurenne’s eyes filled with tears. She had revelled in the unaccustomed brush of the breeze on her neck, in the heady sensation of being relieved of the unexpected weight of her hair. Like every other bride, Zurenne had delighted in everyone seeing that she was newly married, welcoming well-meant advice from friends and strangers alike. That was what marriage should be, not this deceitful counterfeit.

Ilysh giggled and Zurenne blinked furiously to rid herself of the sparkling tears. What was going on?

Ilysh sought to feed Corrain the scrap of bread which she had torn from the loaf and dipped in the bowl of honey. He caught the sop between tongue and lip as she dropped it, snatching back her fingers as if she were feeding a hound of uncertain temper.

‘Thank you,’ he said drily. ‘Your turn.’

Ilysh watched as he pulled a morsel from the loaf and dipped it in the bowl. She giggled as he made a feint to stick it on her nose. Then she opened her mouth, as trusting as a nestling. As he fed it to her, his stained fingers brushed her cheek.

‘Good girl,’ he said absently.

As Zurenne looked at her daughter, a most unwelcome recollection struck her. Ilysh had often looked at her father like that. The girl missed him so desperately. Might this so-called marriage prompt some foolish daydream of Corrain somehow replacing Halferan?

Drianon was the goddess of hearth and home, of practical, sensible marriages. Larasion was the maiden goddess of love and luck, her symbol the moon so full of change and possibilities. Countless ballads wove her praises through tales of improbable romance, of brave deeds undertaken for the sake of beauteous maidens. Zurenne would cull those songs from their stock of sheet music, as soon as she got back to the clavichord.

Corrain bowed low, to Ilysh and then to Zurenne. ‘My lady. My lady. Forgive me but I must leave and ride through the night. If we sign and seal the contracts, this business can be done with.’

‘Of course.’ Zurenne breathed a little easier. ‘Raselle?’

The obedient maidservant brought the writing box to the table, setting out documents, ink and pens. Corrain carefully inscribed his name, once, twice and thrice, in a neater hand than she had expected.

Zurenne watched Ilysh sign her name, no trembling in her script. That was all to the good, should this marriage ever be challenged.

All the same, Zurenne silently swore to Drianon, to Larasion and any other gods taking heed. She would make certain that Ilysh knew this wedding was no more than a paper fiction, before the dust of Corrain’s departure had settled out on the road.

Zurenne wrote her own name. Taking up a stick of sealing wax, she melted the end in a candle’s flame. Fat drops fell sluggishly below her signature. She pressed Halferan’s baronial ring into their pliant sheen.

Not that these contracts were going into the barony’s archive, where Lord Licanin might stumble over the secret, searching for something in the muniment room. Zurenne had already decided to hide them among the shrine’s ledgers in the chest under the table. No one would find them there among the faded records of sanctified urns.

And she would see Corrain’s blood spilled, as darkly red as this wax, if he ever tried to seduce her daughter on the strength of this night’s work. He would wish he had never escaped those cursed Archipelagans.

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