He told himself that rather firmly and wondered why he couldn’t get himself to take his own word for it.
It wasn’t that he doubted that the majority of Corisande accepted the truth of who’d murdered Prince Hektor and his older son, who’d tried to murder Prince Daivyn and Princess Irys, and who’d saved the heir to the throne and his sister. Nor did he doubt that most of that majority accepted Parliament’s decision to integrate Corisande into the Charisian Empire. That acceptance was more grudging than he might have liked for many of them, but it would have been unrealistic to expect otherwise. It was going to take a while for the Princedom’s people to get past the fact that they’d been annexed by an opponent who’d defeated them with humiliating ease and speed.
I probably shouldn’t blame any of them for feeling that way, he thought, surveying the packed square and listening to the enormous crowd. After all, I was the one in command of the army that got its arse kicked so expeditiously.
His lips twitched with a little much-needed amusement as he recalled just how speedily Emperor Cayleb had kicked the arse in question. He’d seen enough since then to know which side he supported in Charis’ war against the Group of Four, however, despite any damage to his pride. Besides, getting oneself trounced by someone like Cayleb Ahrmahk was hardly something to be ashamed of. In fact, Gahrvai took a certain pride from the fact that it had taken five months for Cayleb to finish him off.
That was better than anyone else had done against the Charisian emperor.
And if you let anything happen to his adopted son and Princess Irys on their wedding day, you’d better find a really deep hole to hide in, he told himself, and discovered he no longer felt the least temptation to smile.
It wasn’t anything he could put a finger on, nothing so definite as a clear suspicion and certainly not the result of anything remotely like evidence, yet he couldn’t suppress that crawling sensation between his shoulder blades. Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s “Rakurai” had killed close to a thousand civilians right here in Corisande, after all. Of course, they’d been careful to leave notes emphasizing that they were attacking only Charisian targets—striking back at the invaders of their homeland (despite the fact that precious few of them had been born in Corisande)—and that any civilian casualties had been unavoidable. The clear implication had been that anyone who got close enough to the heretical enemy to be killed or injured in an attack had probably had it coming, yet they had drawn the distinction. It seemed unlikely they could be stupid enough to attack someone as beloved as Princess Irys on her wedding day, and they hadn’t attacked anyone in over three months, yet that crawling sensation persisted stubbornly.…
He’d been over and over the security planning, rehearsed his men and officers, altered the pattern each time in subtle ways to throw off anyone who might have been watching and timing them. He’d scanned every note from the network of seijins Merlin Athrawes had established here in Corisande and put a thousand of his men into civilian clothes, scattered throughout the crowd to watch for anything remotely out of the ordinary. There was nothing he’d left undone, no indication of anything approaching a plot, and yet … and yet.…
You’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop out of sheer nerves, he told himself yet again. Probably because of what almost happened to Sharleyan and some perverse fear of history repeating itself. Well, and because it’s a lot better to worry about something that doesn’t happen than to overlook something that does. I’ll settle for the insomnia and be glad of it if staying up nights worrying gets us through this in one piece.
They’d gotten past young Daivyn’s coronation without disaster, he reminded himself. And the enlarged Regency Council had been seated, the newly crowned Prince of Corisande had affixed his signature to the writ seeking membership in the Charisian Empire, and Empress Sharleyan was due in Corisande in the next month or two to formally accept Daivyn’s oath. The wedding was the last hurdle they had to clear before her arrival, and he scolded himself once more for feeling so anxious. A certain amount of concern was one thing. Indeed, as the senior officer of the reconstituted Royal Corisandian Army, it was his responsibility to feel that concern. And—
The cheering rose to a crescendo that drowned the street music and buried the trumpet fanfare, as Princess Irys and the Duke of Darcos emerged from Manchyr Palace and started across the square.
* * *
I wonder if she’s nervous, Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk thought as he forced himself to maintain the properly decorous pace down the wide, shallow steps with Irys’ featherlight fingers on his left forearm. He concentrated on the count in his head, timing the paces properly and trying not to think about the havoc Cayleb would cheerfully have wrought upon the wedding planners’ precious protocol, since laughter would probably have screwed up his count. He’d really rather be Cayleb, though, he admitted wistfully.
Of course she’s nervous, he scolded himself. On the other hand, she’s probably a lot less nervous than you are. She couldn’t possibly be more nervous! Why couldn’t this be something simple like leading a boarding action or quelling a mutiny or fighting a hurricane on a lee shore?
The thought actually made him feel better, and he darted a glance at her from the corner of his eye. The fussy little man who’d drilled him on proper procedure had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t supposed to actually look at Irys until they got into the Cathedral. Which was pretty stupid, in Hektor’s opinion. If he wasn’t supposed to look at her, why hadn’t the people in charge—and who was in charge, anyway? The one thing he knew for certain was that neither he nor Irys were!—made sure they arrived at the Cathedral separately? What? He was supposed to pretend he didn’t want to look at her? That she was a complete stranger he’d just happened to meet on the way to church this morning? No doubt political theater had its place, but he was pretty sure he and Irys weren’t fooling anyone about their feelings. Besides, the Corisandian press had become quite a bit freer since Hektor Daykyn’s death, and the broadsheets had wasted an inordinate amount of ink gushing over the “love match” between the princess and her “heroic Charisian rescuer.”
Blech.
For once, though, they’d actually gotten something right. Hektor would have preferred a lot less emphasis on his “heroism,” and no doubt the more cynical among his fiancée’s people figured it was all a coldly calculated marriage of state, with everyone playing his or her scripted role, no matter what anyone said. That was fair enough in some ways, he supposed, since it was a marriage of state. But he knew his adoptive mother too well to think for one minute that it had sprung solely from Sharleyan Ahrmahk’s cold calculation. He’d seen her and Cayleb together too often to believe she would condemn him or Irys to a loveless match purely for matters of state. And hard as it had been for him to believe it, Irys Daykyn did love him. Beautiful, smart, poised, graceful, insightful, courageous, and with a core of unyielding steel, she actually loved him.
Thank You, God, he thought very quietly and sincerely, and the butterflies beating about so fiercely in his middle stilled their wings. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but thank You.
Voices roared on every hand as he and Irys crossed Cathedral Square down the cleared lane between the lines of handpicked members of the Royal Corisandian Army. The rifles coming up to port arms in formal salute as he and Irys passed were polished, but he had no doubt they were loaded, and those glittering bayonets had a far more serious purpose than mere ceremony. He saw eyes watching the crowd alertly, and mounted cavalry sat their horses, elevated enough to see far out over the cheering Corisandians who packed the square. There were no Charisian troops present today. This day belonged to Corisande and to Princess Irys Daykyn, and if he wasn’t supposed to look at her he could at least glance at the intense, focused expressions of the men charged to keep the two of them safe on the endless walk to the Cathedral where Klairmant Gairlyng and Maikel Staynair awaited them. They were very reassuring, those expressions, especially with so many thousands of voices b
attering them with thunder.
* * *
Koryn Gahrvai breathed a huge sigh of relief as his princess and the duke made it safely to the Cathedral. If it had been left up to him, they would have made the trip in a closed coach with three other coaches in the same procession as decoys. He didn’t care if it was scarcely two hundred yards from the Palace to the Cathedral! For that matter, if it had been left up to him, he would have sent their coach to Charis to be plated with the same armor they’d put on those ironclads of theirs! And then he would have posted a dozen riflemen on top of all four of the frigging coaches. And after that—
Oh, stop it! He shook his head. Next thing you’ll want is twelve-pounders on both sides of the square! Irys was pissed off enough when you hinted that it might be a good idea to use one carriage. She’d’ve ripped your head off and shoved it up a handy bodily orifice if you’d even suggested using four of them!
No doubt she would have, yet over the last few five-days, he’d found himself deeply in sympathy with Seijin Merlin and Sergeant Seahamper. And unless he could escape to the Imperial Army, he was going to be stuck with overseeing their security—and Daivyn’s—indefinitely. On the one hand, he loved his cousins and would never begrudge any duty to them. On the other, he really wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Far better to put Charlz Doyal in charge of it. Well, Charlz and Earl Coris. If anyone could keep them safe, that was the pair for it. And if finding the very best qualified people and putting them in charge just happened to let Sir Koryn Gahrvai sneak off to the Army, well.…
He snorted and maintained his position. He truly regretted missing the ceremony, but his father was there to represent them both and his time was best spent out here, keeping an eye on things.
* * *
The airy Cathedral was a blaze of tropical sunlight through stained glass, its jewel-colored beams striking down through a drifting canopy of incense while the choir’s voices rose in hymns of celebration. Hektor and Irys walked slowly, steadily down the central aisle into that music and chiaroscuro of colored light, flanked by heaps of cut flowers and packed pews. Even here, Guardsmen and soldiers in immaculate uniforms stood watch along the Cathedral’s walls. They would have been there for Irys under any circumstances, Hektor thought, but in another time and another world their tension level probably would have been far lower. And they certainly wouldn’t have been worried about him.
It had taken time for that truth to sink home. He was no longer merely a junior naval officer who happened to have added the name Ahrmahk to his own. He was no longer even a duke who was also a serving officer, expected to take his chances in the Crown’s service like any other officer. He was still both of those things, but in another hour, he would also be a husband, married to the Prince of Corisande’s sister, and those guards, those watchful, intent soldiers dedicated to keeping him alive, were about to become an inescapable part of his life. It was something Irys had always had to put up with, but it wasn’t something about which Hektor Aplyn had ever worried his head, and a part of him longed to return to who he’d been before the Battle of Darcos Sound. Wanted desperately to run away from the responsibilities and burdens of who he’d become instead. A sense not of panic but of dread flowed through him like a minor descant, a thread of darkness weaving itself into the day’s blazing joy and somehow making it even more precious. Everything in life carried its own price, he thought, and anyone who was unwilling to pay that price was unworthy of those who loved him.
* * *
Maikel Staynair stood in the sanctuary beside Klairmant Gairlyng and watched the absurdly young couple walk gravely towards them. Young Hektor had become another son to him long ago, and Irys had become a beloved daughter during her time as his guest in Tellesberg.
No one would ever guess looking at them that they felt the least uncertainty, the tiniest trace of anxiety, he thought. Hektor would never be a handsome man, and he still had quite a bit of filling out to do. Yet today, in his lieutenant’s dress uniform, his sword at his side, he looked every inch the man—not the boy—who’d saved the lives of Daivyn and Irys Daykyn. Few people had ever grown up as hard and as quickly as Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk, and fewer still had paid the price he had to do it, but God had builded well in that young man.
And beside him, as if she’d been born to stand at his side, Irys Daykyn with her hazel eyes, dark hair, strong chin, and composed, almost serene expression. Not yet quite twenty, and she’d seen so much, paid a price every bit as hard as Hektor’s. His king had died in his arms, killed by the Navy her father had launched at the Kingdom of Charis’ throat; her father and brother had been cut down by assassins in the streets of their own capital, and she’d known beyond any shadow of a doubt that Cayleb and Sharleyan Ahrmahk had ordered that assassination. She’d sworn her life to vengeance upon them … and today she was marrying their adopted son. Not because anyone had required her to, but because she wanted to. Because she’d had the strength and courage to look beyond what she’d known to see the truth she hadn’t known. It would have been far easier for her to cling to the hatred, close her eyes to that truth, yet instead she’d found the bravery to trust the promise of her father’s mortal enemies to protect her baby brother and prince, and in the process, she’d made their cause her own.
As the two of them reached the sanctuary, he remembered another wedding four years and seven thousand miles away from this one. Cayleb and Sharleyan hadn’t been that much older than Irys and Hektor, and theirs, too, had been a “marriage of state,” yet they’d found the strength and surety they’d needed in one another. So would Irys and Hektor, he thought. So would Irys and Hektor.
They stopped at the flower-decked rail, and he smiled upon them. One of the greatest joys of his priesthood were all the sons and daughters it had added to his life, and he’d been prouder of none of them than of the two who stood before him this day with their hands clasped, their heads high, and their eyes bright. But this was not his church, and this was not a Charisian wedding, and so he simply bowed ever so slightly to both of them and stood at Gairlyng’s shoulder to assist.
“My children,” the Archbishop of Corisande’s voice rolled clearly through the cathedral, “this is a great and joyous day! These two young people have come before you and before God and the Archangels to be joined in holy matrimony. It is the marriage of two people who I may tell you of my own personal knowledge love and respect one another deeply. It is the marriage of two hearts who wish to become one, to stand together in the face of all of life’s tempests and temptations, sorrows and joys. And it is also the marriage of Corisande and Charis. Not because it was forced upon them, not because of calculation or ambition, but because in these two people’s love for one another and in their determination to stand for the Light against all the works of Darkness, even in the face of Hell itself, we see ourselves and our future. Join them now, as they reach out to the Light from whence all of us came and to which in the fullness of time every true child of God must return. Celebrate with them, share their joy, witness their promise to one another, and pledge yourselves to that same great and glorious cause. Open your hearts, experience their love, and let all of us prove ourselves as fearless as they, willing—eager—as God’s true children to follow where they lead.”
It was very still, almost hushed throughout the enormous cathedral, and then Gairlyng smiled broadly and raised his hands.
“And now, dearly beloved,” he said, “we have gathered together here in the sight of God and the Archangels, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God and the Archangels, signifying unto us the mystical union that is between God and His Church; which is a holy estate which the Archangel Langhorne adorned and beautified with his presence in his time here upon Safehold, and is commended of the Archangel Bédard to be honorable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in
the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”
* * *
Irys Aplyn-Ahrmahk wondered if her smile was going to split her face as she floated from Manchyr Cathedral on the wings of the organ’s wedding march. She clung to Hektor’s arm far more tightly—and possessively—than she’d allowed herself to do on the way into the Cathedral. That was probably a breach of protocol, but he was hers now, all hers, and this was their wedding day. All those political calculations, all those details of procedure and protocol and court etiquette, could take themselves somewhere else. She’d worry about them again after the honeymoon.
She giggled—positively, she giggled—at the thought, stretching inside like a cat-lizard, reaching for the joy she’d known was lost forever in those dreary years in Delferahk. The sunlight beaming down was no more brilliant, no more warming than the sunlight filling every nook and cranny of her heart. Her brother was safe, confirmed in his crown, and she, after so many storms and so much despair, had come into the safe harbor of the young man she’d discovered so unexpectedly that she loved. It was—
She had absolutely no warning, but suddenly Hektor had his arms wrapped around her, twisting her off her feet, throwing her toward the ground. She stiffened, shock whiplashing through her, and there was a crack of thunder like the end of the world, a brilliant flash half screened by Hektor’s body, a sound like a thousand hissing serpents, another sound like a baseball hitting a catcher’s mitt, and his sudden, convulsive gasp. There were the beginnings of screams, the sudden realization of terror, and then his weight was coming down upon her, horribly and horrifyingly limp. Something hot and wet sprayed across her wedding gown, her head struck the cathedral step, and her own frantic cry of denial spiraled into the darkness with her.