And Sulriggan was not the only member of the court to return to grace. Tonight marked another act of royal clemency and courtly redemption.
Oh, indeed Prichwarrin, Lord Murandys, was here…Prich-warrin, whose niece, Luriel, was that second matter of royal compassion tonight. Luriel had indeed arrived in Guelemara, in court, and on this evening, all exactly as her sovereign had requested. Luriel would have walked here barefoot through snowdrifts at that invitation, Cefwyn was quite sure, quite as surely as Prichwarrin, Lord Murandys would have walked barefoot through hell to prevent it.
The pipers played a lively tune, and Cefwyn, reaching aside for his bride’s hand, met eyes (gray with a deception of violet) that danced with candlelight. What more than such a look could a man want, and what need a king fear from any former love, when love so sure and serene looked back at him? If there was anything more than love a man dared wish in a bride, he had it all in Ninévrisë, and the thought of offense to her was the only consideration that remotely gave him pause tonight.
Not queen, indeed, but Royal Consort…the Quinalt and the barons had denied her the queenship,
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but in a last round of argument had agreed to royal, acknowledging the difference between burghers’ daughters and a sovereign with her own lands to rule. It was not queen, and the lords were satisfied; it was a distinct precedent, and he was satisfied, for Ninévrisë had, in the absence of good Quinalt records, no proof of any royal descent…a ridiculous objection.
The house of Syrillas, her house, might be a lineage older than his own…a lineage older, and magic-gifted and gods-knew-what-else that the orthodoxy of the Quinalt had rather not know or acknowledge it knew. But the house of Syrillas had not been listed in the Quinalt’s documents, so it had not been royal until the Quinalt wrote it down, sealed, and incontrovertible in Quinalt records for all cases yet to come.
So her dignity was assured in whatever challenges his quarrels with the barons might bring…safe as the sanctity of the Quinaltine Patriarch, such as it was, purchasable as it was: lo, Sulriggan, now beaming with his restoration, and perhaps about to advance to the throne at this very moment to express his gratitude.
Appalling sight, and one he had as lief not face. He stood, to forestall that predatory advance, drew his Royal Consort to her feet, and called to the musicians for a romantic paselle.
With Ninévrisë he descended the dais to the floor, and the heraldic and festive array of the court spun slowly, gracefully, beautifully into a pause before him.
The music sparkled into the courtly and intricate dance, as couples bowed aside from them and gave them the floor to themselves.
Ninévrisë danced with grace and delighted assurance. Cefwyn counted himself at least no discommoding partner; and the sparkle and flash of dower jewels by candle-gleam scarcely equaled the amused flash of her eyes as the dance wove them past one another and
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arm in arm and hand in hand and out and back again in this public display, this challenge to the interests that had tried to prevent this night. The single petticoat which had so scandalized the court did so again, with the king as willing accomplice, and Ninévrisë was the center of all attention, all gossip, all estimation…what would she do? What would she say? ran the hall like a current under the music.
And when the dance was done he lingered to bestow on his bride a very public and passionate kiss that wrung first a murmur of dismay and then laughter and applause from no few young folk of the court. Laughter of that sort was their friend if they could countenance it without blushing; and along with the wilder, less pious young folk, it was the burgess wives that most accepted Ninévrisë’s royalty, they, and the rural lords and their common-born ladies, most older women, wed above their station in a day when customs were more forgiving than in this modern narrowness of doctrine. Many of the old midlands couples understood a lovers’ kiss within marriage, and approved and applauded with the young folk; and many knew, too, what the great lords of the north had done to prevent the marriage. Certainly the northern lords’ applause was late and limp and brief.
“This is my bride,” he said defiantly to the assembled court, holding forth their joined hands. “This is my very dear bride,”
he said as they ascended the dais a second time, and he turned to face the court. “My bride whose forces fought beside us at Lewenbrook…” It was not quite so, since her few men had perished before the main battle, but it was a good turn of speech and true as far as noble sacrifice. “This is our neighbor, this true and pious and puissant lady, sole heir of the house of Syrillas, joined in love and amity to the Marhanen line. Peace, peace and an end to the wars that have been the rule of all our years;
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peace on our borders, good hope to our descendants, justice to the righteous, and reward to the pious…” This last was for the priests. “Gods bless Ylesuin! ”
“Gods bless the king,” was the appropriate response, which came from one throat first, then in a general murmur that might cloak any less enthusiastic recital on the part of, say, Murandys.
Ninévrisë’s black-robed priest yonder, so conspicuous in his darkness by the pillar, saluted them, too, wine cup in hand, gods help them…not that he had lacked a full cup at the common supper. Father Benwyn was a Bryaltine, that one priest given sober charge of Her Grace’s soul in spiritual counsel; a male priest, most specifically, from a creed at least recognized by the Quinalt records. It satisfied the Patriarch, gave him a way to avoid admitting the priesthood of women, and necessitated no further bending of the already ravaged rules. Get me a Bryaltine, Cefwyn had said, in haste and urgency on almost the last night before the wedding, so we can sign this damned agreement.
But, good gods, Cefwyn thought, could they not have found me a sober one?
Gods bless the king, indeed. There might not be another Bryaltine within the court, except this one…maybe not another this side of Assurnbrook: Bryaltines did not prosper among Guelenfolk, and did not except converts. That one existed at all had been a relief.
He signed quietly to a page, leaned forward. “Bid the guard assist Father Benwyn to his quarters. Give him a pitcher there.”
That would keep him safely in the room and snoring until dawn, gods willing.
And that cleared the way for the other loneliest man at court: Prichwarrin, who occupied a place by a col FORTRESS OF OWLS / 89
umn, and not a soul willing to come close to him and converse, either.
The king and Royal Consort had had their dance, and satisfied custom by public celebration, proclaiming the royal marriage a sennight old and, by implication, consummated. This exhibition of the blissful couple was the Guelen custom, from throne to village commons, in varying degrees of drunken rev-elry…hence, too, the ready applause of the country gentry, whose tradition was all but bawdy. The rustic romantics of the court, none of them, alas, in ducal office, had come in their simplicity to sigh over their happiness, the sots like Father Benwyn had come to sup wine and eat…the young folk had come to dance and show their finery; and the great dukes who had survived the royal betrothal with their influence intact had gathered to plot next steps around Prichwarrin’s fate.
For something had to happen. The king had paid many of his debts, but not the one that was on carefully shielded lips and in the whispers that ran beneath the music. A lady had come to this festivity, ostensibly to celebrate with the rest, but was not in the hall…and now, now or surely soon came that matter of retribution and satisfaction. The whole court knew that the king had summoned his former, unwed, and disgraced lover to court to meet his bride on this festive occasion, a matter for the delectation of every scandalmonger and gossip in court.
And it lent some hope of seeing Ninévrisë of Elwynor offended: that, too, in the harder, colder eyes of the great ladies of the realm.
But Ninévrisë smiled and talked to a page who offered her water in a crystal vessel. The pipers and ha
rpers, following custom, had immediately begun a dance in which all could join. Movement swirled through the hall, the glitter of jewels and the rich color
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of festive finery as couples made their lines, still casting looks toward the dais to be sure they missed nothing.
And sure enough, amid the flash and gleam of brocades and velvets Cefwyn coldly caught Prichwarrin’s eye, and this time beckoned, the slight crook of a finger, the true potency of a crowned, wedded, and lingeringly angry monarch. The second most powerful lord in the north cast his king an anxious look, as if there could be any doubt of the summons, then slunk forward from the side of the room, past the dancers, doubtless hoping for anonymity beneath the music.
But lords and ladies about the fringes of the hall spied that movement and their hawk-sharp stares attracted others, so that heads turned in a moving silence that spread across the hall.
Even the dancers craned and maneuvered for view amid their turns, then slowed, and the fine order of the complex dance was broken. The pipers, just having begun, squalled off to silence.
Silence and attention was not what Lord Prichwarrin had wanted. The lord of Murandys had rather be snowbound in a drift twixt here and Sassury as standing before his monarch, the cynosure of every conversation and movement in the hall.
Cefwyn reached to the side and across the arm of his chair to rest his hand, publicly and pointedly, on his Elwynim bride’s hand, while Prichwarrin, at the foot of the dais and standing even farther below his king by reason of the stone block his ally, Ryssand, had insisted on, looked as if he had something caught in his throat, something he foreknew would be indigestible…perhaps even fatal.
“Lord Murandys.”
“Your Majesty,” Prichwarrin said, and such was Lord Murandys’ disarray and so deep was his isolation and his fear at the moment that he even added, “Your
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Grace,” for Ninévrisë, and nearly choked on it.
“Lord Prichwarrin,” Cefwyn said, his hand thus set on Ninévrisë’s. “We were anticipating your lovely niece. We were given to understand she had come from your capital. Is she here?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Then in what doubt does she delay?”
It was all a show of relative powers, his, and Prichwarrin’s.
He, Ninévrisë, and everyone in the hall knew very well that Luriel had come to court, and why she had come to court, and under what cloud she had come to court. As his Lord Commander of the Guard, that black crow, Idrys, had informed him from the very beginning of the evening, the lady was awaiting a summons in the outer hall, but the great lords of the north and their ladies behaved as if they truly believed their king and his bride were ignorant of her presence and her waiting.
He might at any moment choose to become so, of course, thus wrecking the lady and setting Prichwarrin in a yet more uncomfortable position, one from which he must defy the king or deal with the scandal in his house.
Perhaps, the listening courtiers must think, that was the intent here, and they were about to witness a destruction…perhaps Her Grace’s revenge on a rival.
Yet Lady Luriel had traveled to Guelemara on her hope and on her high pride, bravely so, for there was no private royal assurance what her welcome would be, whether cruel, public disgrace, or (some even whispered) to take up her former position within the court and within reach of the king’s bedroom, to the bride’s sure discomfort. Certain women and certain men would not believe otherwise, by their own natures; and the supposition was even reasonable: the king might have his foreign bride and yet maintain a northern 92 / C. J. CHERRYH
Guelen mistress to keep Murandys close to his side…if he were so inclined, or less in love with his bride.
Even to this hour Murandys was not utterly sure of his intentions, Cefwyn was sure, and he enjoyed every instant of it, modest recompense for the damage Murandys had done in his obdurate opposition to the marriage. That opposition had not stopped short of slander, which was why Lord Ryssand was home mourning a son this winter season; but since Murandys had gotten off alive and unscathed, and vengeance was yet unvisited, Murandys was learning that the king, like his grandfather, observed, remembered, and had very sudden limits to his tolerance.
“Shall I bring her?” Prichwarrin asked faintly, not loudly enough for the satisfaction of every listener leaning forward to hear, and Cefwyn cocked his head on a side, affecting not to hear, himself, so Prichwarrin said it again, clearing his throat.
“She accepts Your Majesty’s gracious invitation.”
Oh, there still was a defiance. Indeed, and depend on it, the bitter bile could still from time to time seep out of Murandys…not a grand, battlefield sort of spirit, rather a mean dagger on the stairs sort of courage.
Luriel, his niece, had both kinds.
“Invitation?” Cefwyn echoed him, casting mild aspersion, loudly enough to be gossiped about, and gave Prichwarrin no chance to amend himself…fool, to challenge him here, and under the circumstances; but Prichwarrin had not proved himself the keenest wit in court, and the lack of Ryssand’s guidance tonight was evident. “Bring your niece in,” Cefwyn said, “yes, pray do. Let us see her.”
“Your Majesty,” Prichwarrin said, his face quite rigid, and turned and walked through a widening gauntlet of spectators toward the doors. A small whisper of anticipated misfortune followed him.
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The doors opened, and the hall stayed fixed on the sight of Prichwarrin going out, and immediately on Prichwarrin coming back, not escorting his niece, rather stepping aside as if he had just admitted the plague.
Luriel had evidently waited cloaked, for a moderate gasp went up as she appeared: the lady came not in modest repentance, but in jewels and a russet gown that blazed in the soft candle glow of the hall. Her fair hair was swept up in braids and pinned with gold; her cloak was trimmed with fox and embroidered in gold thread.
Fox-colors to cover a vixen heart, Cefwyn thought, well remembering that wonderful hair tumbled on a pillow, and that silken body luxuriant by faintest candlelight…how could a man not recall those nights, even a man faithful and sworn? Luriel wore the russet gown like a bright blazon in a hall listening and watching for her destruction. She wore it before all the good Quinalt women who would die rather than yield the virtue she had freely abandoned in a Marhanen’s bed; and she wore it before all the good pious Quinalt men who now longed to breach that defense for themselves. She was a battle cry in motion as she walked to the steps of the dais, and there with a pale, set countenance, she bowed her head and sank in a deep reverence from which majesty alone could bid her rise forgiven or damned.
“Lady Luriel,” Cefwyn said, “rise. We delight to see you.
Welcome, most happily.”
“My lord king,” she said, looking up and rising indeed with a high flush on her cheeks. He had not been king when last they had seen one another, when she had left Henas’amef in grand dudgeon and ridden home…all because he would not pass last winter in revels and spend the Amefin treasury on her gowns.
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She had hated the provincials of Amefel, calling them heretics, hated their rusticity, and despised the generally dark-haired Amefin lords and their ladies, calling them peasant farmers no matter their ancient blood.
Luriel now looked up at an Elwynim woman, the Elwynim being closer kin to the Amefin than not, a dark-haired, gray-eyed woman who was her rival in beauty, who had every motive to detest her, and who sat where she had hoped to sit as a crowned queen.
And what bitter and foreboding thoughts might not pass through Luriel’s heart? Or seeking what redress had she written those letters asking him to bring her to court, when her uncle’s order held her immured in his hall, in disgrace for her adventure?
Of all the ploys her uncle had used to prevent the wedding of him with Ninévrisë, however, her uncle had not brought Luriel’s lost virtue into it, and with reaso
n: Luriel hated her uncle Prichwarrin from childhood and would take any opportunity to set him at disadvantage.
The question in everyone’s mind, however, was not Lord Murandys’ view of his niece: power lay in other hands at this moment. Cefwyn maintained a studiedly calm benevolence as his bride and his former lover first crossed glances.
“Lady,” Ninévrisë said, and gallant and wise as she was, even held out her hand, bidding Luriel come toward her. She rose from her lesser throne as Luriel mounted the steps like a prisoner to the scaffold. The whole great hall held its collective breath as Ninévrisë took Luriel’s hands to prevent her second, confused curtsy.
To a stunned murmur from the hall, Ninévrisë leaned down and kissed Luriel of Murandys on either pallid cheek.
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her life, certainly the thorn in her uncle’s flesh; but Luriel stood eye-to-eye with Ninévrisë, and found not a word to say, beyond a faint, “Your Grace,” as the court maintained its deathly hush.
“How lovely you are,” Ninévrisë said. “I shall look forward to seeing you among the ladies in my court. No, better still, I command it.”
“Your Grace,” Luriel said again, blushing, actually blushing in confusion and perhaps in dread of women’s vengeance. Thus released, russet skirts gathered, she ebbed down the steps, having been publicly welcomed at highest authority into the society of the consort’s court, women who must under other circumstances ostracize her for her breach of rules; a society which, perversely, would have welcomed her with discreet silence on her sins were she to become the king’s mistress, and under the king’s protection. But absent the king’s furtive approval, she could not enter that society without the consort’s express invitation or some man’s patronage. Her kinship to Murandys was not sufficient for a woman under such a cloud. She would have had to find a connection or a liaison, probably furtive, likely less than her station, so that she could breach that female society on someone else’s privilege.
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