by Lara Blunte
"Don't stab Lode with that or you will be sorry," she hissed sideways.
When her eyes caught Harry's again, there was not only anger, but a look of longing in his. She thought how unfair it was that she could not marry Harry, who knew her and understood her, with whom she shared so many tastes, ideas and objectives, whom she loved with all her heart, and that instead she would have an idle prince as a husband.
Husband was a word to be cherished, she thought, but could she ever cherish him?
Eventually the dinner ended, and it had taken far too long in Isobel's opinion. They would have another dinner two days hence to celebrate, if such a word could be used, her wedding. She wondered if her life would be spent in such gatherings, in endless dinners and dances, with nothing useful to do.
Isobel paused a moment to remember that she didn't know how to dance in the southern way, that she had hardly ever danced at all. The Lathian women in their tight dresses, loose hair and bejeweled necks and hands clearly never did anything but talk and dance, and she would look ridiculous at her own wedding!
When the dinner broke up the local lords and ladies left, and the guests in the castle started to say goodnight to their hosts. Feeling tired and unhappy, Isobel sneaked up the stairs, trying to reach the chamber she had been given unnoticed. But suddenly she was lifted up from behind and carried into a chamber.
She turned to attack whoever was dealing with her in such a manner and found herself looking at Harry. He closed the door behind them, and she remembered how much he had been drinking.
"Harry! What are you doing?"
"You know what I am doing. You must know that I couldn't let it happen...I couldn't let you get married without talking to you again!"
"Oh, Harry don't torture yourself, don't torture me. Nothing can be changed! It's too late!"
"It isn't!"
"I have pledged myself to him, not just through my father, but also with my own lips."
"As you swear you never did to me," he said bitterly.
She tried to move but he kept her where she was.
"I don't want to blame you for anything, I just want you to see that we still have a chance. You haven't made that other oath yet, the oath before God..."
"You made an oath before God that you would have nothing to do with me!"
"I made an oath that you must come to me a free woman, and you are still free!"
"I am not, Harry" she said miserably, her head bowed. "I am bound by vows and promises that mean the difference between life and death to a great number of people."
Harry stepped back and made a sweeping motion with his arm.
"Look around you, Bell. Look where you are. Do you like anything about this court? Do you like anything about that prince? He is prettier than a girl! You have more courage in your little finger than he has in his whole body! He will do nothing but drink and pose all his life, and choose sleeves, and doublets, and hose. Can you bear any of this?"
"I can, for the sake of peace, for the sake of my brothers, of our people!"
"But who can guarantee peace? There might be another rebellion, and another and another. There will be! It's the way things are!"
"No, Harry! Look what they have achieved here! They may be soft and silly, but they have food, warmth, a great city. Look at our grim land, at how hungry people are, how tired!"
"I would still not exchange it for this!"
"Even if there are rebellions and more war, together Stonemount and Lathia can defeat any enemies. There will eventually be too few left, and too puny to come at us. It is the future, Harry!"
She looked at him with deep regret, while he looked at her with all the intensity of his passion. He didn't want to hear any reasonable arguments. "Come away with me," he said. "Come with me now. Your father and the king will not fight, and the prince won't give a damn. He just wants his wine and his whores, he can never appreciate you. Your father and his will come to an agreement, they will stay friends!"
He took Isobel's arm and caressed her face, "Come with me, my love! No one can love you as I do, no one ever will! And I can't love anyone else. Why should happiness start later, always later, always for someone else? Let it begin now, for us! I will never forsake you, I will never make you unhappy. Come away with me!"
Isobel held her tears back. She loved his words because all she wanted was to be with Harry forever. She imagined herself grabbing his hand and running down the stairs and out of the castle; she imagined that they never would stop running till they found their horses, then they would ride through the night and dawn would find them far away and together.
Instead, she whispered, "Harry, have pity on me. Don't ask me anymore. Have mercy!"
Harry moved backwards, his eyes going dead, and he nodded, "If it makes you suffer so much that you beg for mercy, I will never ask you again. Be happy, Bell, if you can."
He turned from her, as he had done before, opened the door and left. She stood, still struggling to contain her tears before she went to her own room where Dorthe was waiting.
A lazy voice drifted easily to her from the neighboring chamber, "God's Teeth, I don't know how you resisted that!" Tameas came to stand at the threshold, leaning against the door frame. "I vow that I felt like going with him myself!"
Isobel gasped. "How...How dare you spy on me!"
He raised one eyebrow, "I can't help hearing what people say when they choose to have their trysts in my room."
"This is your...?"
"You stand in my antechamber, and I in my private chamber. I was innocently preparing for bed when I heard this most revealing dialogue."
"You should have..." Isobel cursed the fact that she was blushing.
"I wouldn't have missed that for the world. And Sir...Harry, is it? Sir Harry is absolutely right in all that he said. Really, I am surprised you have not accepted such a...passionate offer!"
She drew herself up. "I have accepted the marriage..."
He waved a hand, "I know, I know, for the same reason I did, to maintain the peace, to consolidate the kingdom, to extend the Lathian way of life throughout all lands, though it does make one rather soft, and cowardly, and useless!"
"Sir Harry didn't mean...sometimes he speaks hastily..."
"Sir Harry did mean, and he speaks as he finds," Tameas said calmly, smiling at her with a wicked little light in his eyes. "He has the prerogative of being sincere, since he isn't betraying all his opinions and principles through this marriage. Now you," he added as tilted his head. "You seem bent on gaining whatever needs to be gained, and you didn't go with him. So I think, really, that you ought to stop having that permanent look of protest about your brows." His smile widened. "Don't you?"
She really could not think what to say, as wit was not her forte. At this point, were he someone else, she would probably have removed a shoe and thrown it or, in the absence of any object she might hurl, she might have let out an insult in a thundering voice.
But she only stood there as the prince turned and smiled at her again over his shoulder, then closed the door to this room.
GIFTS
"I like the prince," said Kayetan.
Isobel looked at him. She had been half worrying about Lodewicus, who had stayed too long in the sun and felt hot, and half enjoying the fact that he was happy to lie with his head on her lap and let her stroke his hair. It had been a while since he had allowed her to show him affection, as boys in Stonemount were mercilessly taunted if they were seen being coddled by women in any way.
"I do too," Lodewicus said sleepily. His face was quite red.
"Why?" Isobel asked them.
Kayetan walked on the edge of a stone bench in his sister's room with his arms out for balance as he replied, "He showed us his horse, it's beautiful. It's all white, and has a gray mane and tail."
"He showed us why it's called Dancer," Lodewicus added, "because it can move very slightly in any direction at the prince's command, then very fast...it really looks as though it's dancing."
"Its mane is braided..." Kayetan said.
Lodewicus looked at Isobel upside down. "His friend said that the prince can ride faster than anyone!"
Isobel refrained from making a noise of derision.
"And they showed us how to play a game with wooden balls..."
"I liked it!" Lodewicus added.
"And this is why you stood in the sun, and got burnt!" Dorthe said sternly from her chair, where she sat embroidering a wimple.
"I like the sun," Lodewicus said, wonder in his voice.
"It’s very hot here," Kayetan contributed.
"The prince said you seem like a very sweet girl," Lodewicus was saying.
"Did he?" Isobel could feel an angry flush rising to her face. That knave she was to marry felt comfortable enough to mock her to her brothers!
"I don't know how he can think that," Kayetan said.
Isobel opened her mouth to chastise him, but just then Queen Elinor entered, followed by her ladies-in-waiting.
"Don't get up!" she said with a wave of her long, ringed hand.
Isobel was already on her feet, having deposited Lodewicus' head on a pillow. The queen gave him a cursory glance. "Is the boy not well?"
"Just a little too much sun," Isobel replied.
Elinor raised one eyebrow as if she had already lost interest in the subject and looked around the room, asking in her dry manner, "Are you quite happy with your wedding chest, Isobel?"
She was referring to the many dresses that had been brought to Isobel that morning, together with cloaks, shoes, nightgowns, underwear and several boxes of jewels. Isobel had thought there were not enough days in the year for so many dresses, and not enough appendages on her body from which to hang such a variety of trinkets.
"It is more than anyone could expect. Your Grace is too generous."
"Be sure to thank the king, and the prince," Elinor said absently, still looking around.
And yet Isobel was quite sure that a much more thoughtful person had arranged it all, and suspected that it had been the same loving girl who had arranged a hasty dance lesson for her that afternoon.
"I must know how you plan to dress tomorrow, for the wedding," Queen Elinor was asking. Her dark eyes finally alighted on Isobel's face. "I am sure you don't mean to wear your own clothes?"
Isobel saw Dorthe turn red behind the ladies-in-waiting, but she calmly faced the queen.
"I mean, not the clothes you brought," Elinor was clarifying. "I am sure you mean to wear the clothes you have been given..."
Why does she have to make it sound as if I need charity? Isobel wondered. She also wondered if this were a provocation, or some sort of display of power on the queen's part, as if she were putting the girl in her place.
"Of course, Your Grace, I shall be wearing one of the lovely gowns generously given to me," Isobel said in a deceptively sweet tone. "I must show how happy I am to belong to this land, which is receiving me so kindly."
Elinor's dark eyes swept over Isobel and she finally only said, "And the headdress, child. It won't do. Find a veil, something not so...large."
Isobel curtsied again and the queen nodded, turning around with a hiss of exquisite silk to walk toward the door and out of it, followed by her colorful ladies.
Dorthe, who was almost purple from holding her breath, let it out in outrage, "Dress in those...wisps!" she blurted, her eyes popping. "In church! Before the altar, before the cross, and the eye of God! And with your head uncovered like a...like a..." She looked at the boys, who were both staring up in complete silence for once, and said in a loud whisper, "You know which word I mean!"
Isobel's eyes were lost in contemplation as she said slowly, "Oh, we must give the queen what she demands..."
"What are you talking about?" Dorthe asked.
"I shall wear one of those wisps!"
"You, looking like a...Over my dead body!" Dorthe shouted.
"Then it will be over your dead body!" Isobel roared back, so loudly that both her brothers covered their ears.
In Tameas' room, in the meantime, the gifts that had been presented to him by his bride's family were not faring much better.
Wooden crates with a magnificent sword, knives, long daggers and a breastplate bearing the intricately carved image of the phoenix rousant were set on the long table. All the steel glinted in the light and made Tameas wince with one eye closed. He had probably drunk too much the night before.
"My, I could murder a lot of people with these," Tameas said idly. "Maybe I could cut my way out of the wedding tomorrow and ride for the hills!"
"Maybe Sir Harry will ask you to go with him," Don laughed, looking eagerly at the gifts.
"I don't know why you don't ask me," Tameas said, pulling his robe about him and perching on the windowsill.
"You are probably the worst bargain that was ever struck," Don said, holding a dagger up. "And Lady Isobel knows it!"
"True, otherwise I can't but think that someone would invite me to run away..."
"Hasn't Alyon?"
"Alyon is too wise, too good, too beautiful," Tameas said with a sigh. "She doesn't get involved in the things that the king wants from me."
Don had finally picked up the long sword, "What a beauty this is! Stonemount steel!"
He moved around the room swinging the sword swiftly, pretending to parry and thrust, holding it with one hand, then two. "Extraordinary, light and strong at the same time! It makes me almost weep that you should have such a weapon instead of me."
"I wish I could pass it all on to you, everything but that long sword, which might be very useful to separate me from my new wife in bed tomorrow night."
Donnet paused his exercise for a moment. "Come, Tom, unless she is hiding snakes under that head thing, she is hardly repulsive."
"Then I wish I could pass her on to you as well. You have always liked the wild ones, but it isn't in my nature to be taming beasts. I like my women soft and loving from the start."
Donnet smiled and walked towards Tameas with the sword. "Come, hold it for a moment, make me happy!"
He handed the hilt to Tameas, who took it, but immediately let the tip of the sword descend to the floor with a clang. Donnet shook his head in amused disapproval as Tameas swung his legs to the ground and walked towards the jug of wine on the table, dragging the sword with him as it made a grating noise against the stone.
"You would have been the happiest boy in the world once, to have a sword like that," Donnet told him, almost sadly.
Tameas poured himself some wine. "There are toys I like better nowadays," he said.
"Still, what will you call it? It must have a name!"
Tameas considered the sword, which he raised suddenly by the hilt with some dexterity and smiled. "Hellcat," he said.
THE WEDDING
The cathedral was not finished, but the nave and the altar had a roof, the ground was all laid, most walls were up, and the king wanted his son to be married in it.
It was a day as fair as May had ever produced, and the nobles of Lathia once more turned up in their finery and sat to the right of the aisle, with the king ahead of them on a more imposing pew, the queen by his side and Agnetta by hers. The nobles of Stonemount sat to the left, and there were few ladies among them. Though the men had trimmed their beards and combed their hair, they still wore dark clothes in this festive occasion because they had nothing else.
The altar, too, was dressed for the wedding in a fine linen cloth with red and gold embroidery. The archbishop stood in full regalia, his tall hat gleaming; bishops and priests stood behind him. A choir of boys, perched above the pews on both sides, waited to begin singing.
At the altar, Prince Tameas looked handsome in his blue doublet and dark purple cloak. He hoped that he was not squinting too much at the bright morning that was invading the cathedral through the windows that had not yet been fitted with stained glass. Again he had drunk a little too much the night before, though he was sure that he had meant to stop long
before he had.
He closed his eyes in pain when a flourish from the trumpets at the door announced that the bride was about to enter the cathedral, and felt thankful when the harsh sound was replaced by the angelic voices of the boys in the choir, softly accompanied by lutes.
And then the thing happened which would be talked about for a long, long time, which would be sung and depicted in tapestries, and told in books for generations to come
Isobel entered alone, her head bare, dressed in a simple white gown.
Her hair cascaded down her back in soft waves, and it was as magnificent as the sun. It seemed to capture all the considerable light in the cathedral, so that she shone as if she were enveloped in a heavenly light. Her dress also seemed to glow, and it clung to a body of exquisite perfection: to breasts that were round and high, to a small waist and to hips and thighs that were like softly rolling hills.
She walked slowly but confidently, her face solemn and serene, her gait regal.
"Gadzooks!"
Tameas heard Donnet's whispered exclamation and suddenly remembered where he was, and what was happening. For more than a moment he had been utterly suspended, like everyone else ─ even, it seemed, the archbishop.
Isobel's beauty couldn't be described as anything else than a triumph. Her father, who had seemed a little shocked at first, now looked proud and a little superior to the people who had been dazzling him for two days. They knew that nothing in the world was as breathtaking as a truly beautiful living creature.
Through this gesture Isobel would probably earn the ill will of many ladies who could not, in all their luxuries, ever compare to her. Only Agnetta had a face full of delight, beaming at the vision who was about to become her sister.
The queen, who had unwittingly provoked this crushing display, bowed her head as if understanding that she had been vanquished, at least for the moment, yet stared with displeased eyes at the girl who was making her way to the altar.