Dark Haven (23 page)

Kept gawkers out of the courtyard and away from the windows. It’s early enough that I’m betting most of them

aren’t out of bed yet, after how much ale they drank last night!”

Tris grimaced. “The last thing we need is a major incident with a house full of royalty. As it is, I’ve got my hands full explaining this to Donelan—and Kalcen, too, I’ll wager.”

“You’ll have more to explain if you’re late for your own wedding,” Jonmarc observed. “How about if we get you back there, and worry later.”

Tris, Jonmarc, Cam, Soterius, and twenty of the soldiers rode back at full gallop, while Harrtuck and the remaining guards stayed behind to clean up the battlefield. To Tris’s great relief, the bailey was quiet when they arrived. Tris dismounted, and fell.

“I can recommend a good healer,” Jonmarc remarked dryly as he helped Tris up.

“If we bind up the ankle, maybe I can get through this without everyone knowing,” Tris grumbled, accepting Jonmarc’s help to get across the courtyard. “I’m not bleeding, and the bruises won’t show.”

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“You have an odd way of getting ready for a wedding.”

Tris shot him a sidelong glance. “Oh really? What about you? Are congratulations in order yet?”

“Nah. We didn’t want to steal your big day.”

“I hope your day is less eventful than ours is shaping up to be.” With Cam and Jonmarc’s help, Tris made it up the back stairs, out of sight of the partygoers. He was not surprised to find Carina with Kiara, nor to see that Donelan and Kalcen were in the sitting room. Tris’s dogs padded to the door, following him into the room, nuzzling close as if they sensed that something was wrong.

“Tris! Thank the Lady you’re safe!” Kiara rushed over, then stopped and took in his torn clothes and his injured leg. Carina bustled closer with her healer’s bag. Jonmarc helped ease Tris into a chair as Carina reached for his boot and gentled it off, revealing a badly swollen ankle.

“It’s broken,” Carina pronounced. “I can do some healing and wrap if for you to get you through the ceremony, but try to avoid dancing—and long receiving lines.”

“Any idea who was behind it?” Donelan did not move from where he and Kalcen sat by the fire.

“The men were bewitched,” Tris replied, gritting his teeth as Carina worked on his ankle.

“Memories wiped clean. No idea who sent them. Even the ghosts couldn’t say.”

“Our guards are instructed to be of whatever help they can in securing the festivities,” added Kalcen. “If your enemies were bold enough to strike in Staden’s court at Winter‐stide, a gathering such as this one may be irresistible.”

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“We thought we’d taken every precaution,” Tris said, feeling the warmth of Carina’s healing magic ease the pain in his ankle. Kiara took his hand. “Are you all right?”

“just a little shaken up. So much for wedding day jitters!”

He kissed the back of her hand. “Still game to go through with it?”

“Absolutely,” she said, bending to kiss his cheek.

“We’re guessing that whoever sent the soldiers hoped for an incident to cause Isencroft to force its princess to return home,” remarked Kalcen.

“At least if the attackers were Margolense, we know they’re not those damned Isencroft divisionists,” Donelan replied. “Kalcen and I are agreed: the best thing is to show our solidarity with Margolan.”

“Thank you,” Tris said raggedly as Carina completed her healing.

“See if you can put weight on it without help,” Carina prompted. Tris stood and shifted his weight, finding that he could stand without wincing. “I’m afraid that’s all there’s time for—we’re due for the ceremony in a candlemark. If there’s time later, I can do more.”

“This should get me through,” Tris said. He looked down at his ruined clothes. “The wags at court will talk more if I show up looking like this than if I had an arrow in my back. I’d better go get ready, and leave Kiara to her preparations.”

Jonmarc stood as Tris headed for the door. “I was headed that direction anyhow. I’ll make sure 197

you get where you’re going.”

“You know, you’re supposed to be a guest.”

“Old habits are hard to break.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“THERE’S AN easier way to do this,” Jon‐ marc said to Carina as they waited for the royal wedding to begin.

“What, elope?” Carina shot back. Beside her, Cam snickered.

Trumpets blared as the guests in Shekerishet’s great room jostled for a good look at the bride and groom. Tris and Kiara entered together. Kiara’s wedding gown was in the Isencroft tradition; red silk, slim cut, slit almost to the hip, and below that, billowing silk trousers in vibrant orange, the colors of flame, sacred to the Aspect Chenne. The colors made her dusky skin glow. A wide, ornately embroidered sash accentuated Kiara’s waist, and flowing sleeves almost covered her hands. Her auburn hair was loose and long, and a lace‐like headdress of golden mail, finely crafted and embellished with small gems, fitted closely over her hair, framing her face. Around her neck glittered an opulent necklace in the Eastmark style with matching earrings of gold that cascaded nearly to her shoulders. On her right hand was the signet ring of the heir to the Isencroft throne.

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“I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be this complicated,” Jonmarc replied. “Out in the borderlands, it’s a lot simpler. Make and accept the proposal, give a gift and make a vow, ‘act’ on the commitment—and that’s it. You’re married.”

“You wouldn’t expect anything at court to be that simple, would you?” Cam whispered with a grin. “It would put people out of work.”

Tris tugged at his waistcoat. Jonmarc knew it had taken Crevan and Coalan nearly the full candlemark to put together a suitable replacement for his ruined wedding finery, and despite his dislike for court politics, he was well aware that the gossips would be alert for any impropriety.

Coalan and Crevan had made a suitable replacement. Tris wore a long coat of black brocade with wide cuffed sleeves ornamented with golden buttons and trim. The coat reached below his knees over high black boots and black breeches. A waistcoat of midnight blue gave a nod to Margolan’s traditional wedding colors. His sword hung beneath the long coat, less noticeable but easily within reach,

and the waistcoat and high, ruffled silk shirt hid a layer of thin mail beneath it. A more formal crown replaced the circlet he preferred. On his right hand, Tris wore a gold ring with the seal of the crown of Margolan. At his throat, Jonmarc knew Tris wore the metal chit on a leather strap that they had found on their journey, the talisman that dispelled magicked beasts. Tris confided that he had not removed it since discovering its meaning at the Library in Westmarch, and saw no reason to set it aside now. From the way Tris walked, Jonmarc could guess that his ankle was throbbing.

“So tell me, Jonmarc. How are weddings done in Dark Haven?” Cam asked in a casual tone.

Jonmarc swallowed wrong on his wine and began to cough. Carina glared at Cam and slapped Jonmarc on the back.

“Cam,” Carina said warningly. Jae, who was curled up on Carina’s lap until Kiara and Tris were finished with the ceremony, raised his head questioningly, and then lay down again.

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Cam grinned. “Just checking. If the guests are supposed to bring armor or drink blood, I just want to be prepared.”

Jonmarc cleared his throat and took a sip of water. “I leave that kind of stuff up to Gabriel. But I don’t think we’d get this many people if we invited everyone in Dark Haven.”

The great room was crowded with the kings and their retinues and with the invited nobility and special guests. Hundreds more filled the bailey, anxious for a glimpse of the royal couple.

Carroway and his band of minstrels performed from a stage in one corner of the room. Candles and mirrors glittered, filling the room with light. Velvet banners and colorful ribbon streamers hung from the ceiling.

Tris and Kiara moved down the center aisle on a wide blue carpet that marked the way to the dais at the front. The dais was banked in candles over reflecting basins of water. Large vases filled with fresh flowers made a semi circle within the banks of candles. Out‐of‐season blooms were the handiwork of a land mage. Their sweet smell filled the room.

“I’ve been to a lot of Isencroft weddings, and they didn’t look like this,” Cam said to Carina.

“It’s a ritual wedding. Most of the weddings you’ve seen are closer to what Jonmarc talked about. They’re a handfasting. It’s all most people bother with. A ritual wedding joins soul as well as heart,” Carina replied. Jonmarc took her hand and met her eyes so intently that she blushed and looked down, giving his hand a squeeze.

Tris and Kiara reached the dais. They knelt facing each other. Tris heard it rumored that a ritual wedding bound the soul. Now, as a Sum‐moner, he was sure of it, just as he was equally sure it 200

was the commitment he wanted to make.

Sister Landis spread her hands in blessing as they knelt, and made the sign of the Lady above their heads. She began to chant and walked a protective circle around the wedding couple. Tris could feel the warding she set in place. Within the circle of power, Landis took a heavy chalice from a small altar. Landis raised the chalice four times, one to each corner of the room. Then from a flagon on the altar, Landis poured red wine into the chalice.

“Blessed be the elements. Wine from the soil. Fire from the sun.” A tongue of flame flickered briefly over the chalice. “Waters of the oceans,” she said, magicking a stream of water from her cupped palm into the chalice, “and the winds of the sky.” She made a swirling motion with her free hand, palm down, over the cup, so that its contents made a vortex.

“Do you consent to be bound in life and in death, in body and soul?”

Tris and Kiara answered as one. “We do.”

Landis took Tris’s left hand and turned it palm up. From a sheath at her belt, she withdrew a ceremonial dagger. Landis drew the tip of the blade across his palm, opening a thin red cut in one half of the Lady’s symbol. She flicked droplets of the blood into the chalice, repeating the same action with Kiara. Then Landis took the mantle from around her shoulders. She pressed Tris and Kiara’s hands together so that their palms touched, wrapped her mantle around their wrists, and folded it over their hands. “Drink.”

Landis held the cup first for Tris and then for Kiara. All around him, Tris could feel the aura of old, strong magic. His palm burned where the fresh cut mingled their blood. He remembered what it had felt like during the final battle with the Obsidian King, when he had entwined Kiara’s soul with his own. And while he spoke no words of power himself, he felt something shift in his own soul, a sense of her presence. Landis held the cup for Kiara, and on the Plains of Spirit, Tris could feel the nearness of Kiara’s spirit as the wine made its bond. Landis lifted the chalice toward the sky,” and a wave of fire swept across the banks of candles.

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“Rejoice,” Landis proclaimed. “You are joined in the law of the kingdoms and in the presence of the Lady, in life and in death—and beyond.”

Tris leaned forward and kissed Kiara, and the crowd cheered. Landis removed the stole from around their wrists, and when they unclasped their hands, the cuts were healed on their palms except for a thin pink scar.

As Tris and Kiara descended from the dais, the minstrels’ music shifted into one of Mar‐golan’s traditional wedding dances. There was no way to avoid having to join in the dances. Tris found himself swept into a fast‐moving circle dance between Cam and Donelan, while Kiara was whisked away by Berry into a circle with Carina, Alle, and Lady Eadoin. Tris gritted his teeth and used a flicker of magic to reinforce the binding Carina had used on his ankle, hoping to make it through the dance before his ankle gave out on him. Servants moved through the crowd with goblets of wine and. pitchers of ale, and Tris could smell roasting venison. One dance tune followed another, each more quick of step and complicated than the last. Dancers moved from circles to lines and back once more as the music dictated. The music and dancing continued until Crevan came to the great room door. With a flourish of trumpets, the seneschal announced that the banquet was served.

It took all of Tris’s will not to limp as he clasped Kiara’s hand and led the procession into the banquet hall. Once again, Carroway and Crevan had outdone themselves. Long tables glistened with candles on mirrored trays. A profusion of colorful flowers were strewn down the tables.

Out of season fresh flowers, impossible to get without magic, festooned the large chandeliers, and floral garlands made a canopy overhead. It was, Tris thought appreciatively, an extremely showy display requiring a bit of magic and very little gold.

Carroway performed with the musicians and directed the procession of jugglers, acrobats, dancers, and entertainers that kept the guests amused through the many courses of the long, formal meal. The feasting would continue into the night, when vayash moru and vyrkin in their human form would join the festivities. Tris sipped his wine, wishing for something stronger as his 202

ankle throbbed.

“Carroway’s really outdone himself,” Kiara murmured to Tris. “Can you knight him in appreciation?”

Tris chuckled. “He’s already ‘Lord High Bard’ and ‘Margolan’s Master Minstrel’. I’m running out of titles.”

When the servants cleared away the eighth course of the formal dinner, a large table laden with gifts was wheeled in. Tris escorted Kiara down from the head table to richly upholstered chairs where they would receive the gifts of their guests. Try as Tris might to avoid the show of competitive generosity, Crevan would not forego this portion of the event, fearing that to do so would be to give offense to the guests.

Donelan’s gift could not be boxed. He had given two mares and two stallions of the horses for which Isencroft was famed. Unmatched for speed, without equal for beauty, the bloodlines of the Isencroft horses were regarded to be as precious as the crown jewels of the kingdom. Fitted with the incomparable tack for which Isencroft was also known, the horses were indeed worthy of a king, and the gift of breeding stock was symbolic of the union between the two kingdoms that would occur upon Donelan’s death.