Senneth thought it over. “I like that idea,” she said. “At least then he’d understand why I’ve been gone so long. When can you leave?”
“Within the hour, if you want.”
“Stay till morning,” Tayse said. His voice was so laced with significance that they all quickly looked at him in inquiry and concern.
All except Cammon, whose gaze flicked between Tayse and Senneth, sitting across the table from each other. Then the younger man smiled so broadly he could have been laughing, but he didn’t say a word.
Tayse’s face wore its usual severe expression. “Justin knows that it’s tradition among the Riders to fail to ask their king for permission to wed,” he said gravely. “As a rule, they elope, so that when they return as married men or women, the king must accept their unions with some kind of grace.”
Now Kirra gave a little squeal and practically began dancing in her seat. Senneth’s face was flushed with color, but her smile was almost wicked. Tayse’s face and voice both remained utterly serious.
“I have obtained her family’s permission to marry Senneth,” he went on. “I had not expected to find a time so soon that the six of us were all together, and I had been reluctant to try to schedule a marriage without the four of you as witnesses. But here we all are. Conveniently, in the house of the magistrate of this town. I asked Faeber this morning. He is willing to perform the ceremony tonight.”
He stood up and bowed very low in Senneth’s direction. “So if, serra Senneth, you are willing to marry a humble soldier in the king’s army—”
Senneth jumped up so fast that her chair fell over behind her. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, and darted around the table to throw herself in his arms. The rest of them stood up, clapping and cheering and stomping their feet. Justin thought their voices could probably be heard all the way out to the street. That was the way of joy, he decided; it was always louder than grief.
Kirra was already making plans. “What time is it? Past noon! When do you want to have this ceremony? Senneth, you just leave off kissing him right now. You and I have preparations to make. You can’t possibly have anything to wear.”
Senneth laughed and pulled free. She was still blushing, but she looked entirely happy. “I’ll be married in travel clothes and muddy boots,” she said.
“Well, you won’t,” Kirra said firmly. “Come with me. The rest of you—oh, you all look like the rat-catcher’s cousins. Come find me half an hour or so before the ceremony. You, too, Tayse. You don’t want to shame your highborn bride.”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
THAT was a strange day, hard to live through for so many reasons. Cammon and Donnal disappeared into the kitchen to see what Marney had in the way of feast food, and they sent Tayse out to the butcher’s on his wedding day. Justin, still in hiding, couldn’t help run errands, so he fetched bathwater for Senneth and performed other chores as Kirra directed him. This included rearranging furniture in the small parlor downstairs and gathering as many candles as he could find in other rooms and placing them in strategic spots in the makeshift chapel.
All the while he was worrying about Ellynor, wondering if she had arrived in time to save serra Paulina or at least ease her way. Hoping she would not foolishly use up what little strength she had managed to regain. Missing her.
About an hour before dark, Marney returned alone. Justin met her at the door, closing it quickly to shut out the eager wind. “Where’s Ellynor?” he asked.
Marney was rubbing her hands together, trying to generate some heat. “How can it be this cold?” she wondered.
“Where’s Ellynor?” he asked again.
“She wanted to stay till morning. It’s very clear that the serramarra will not make it through the night, but she was alert enough to recognize Ellynor, at least when we arrived. Ellynor couldn’t bring herself to leave.”
Justin felt something clamp tight on his rib cage. “I wish she had.”
“Yes, so do I, but she’s rather a strong-willed girl. I could hardly make a fuss by dragging her out behind me, since we were trying to avoid drawing any extra attention. But she was right. No one appeared to recognize her except Paulina herself. And she knows you want to leave in the morning. She told me to tell you she would be ready to go whenever you came by.”
“I want to go by now,” he said grimly. When Marney looked dismayed, he forced his features to relax. “It’s just that I’m worried.”
“I know.”
“And she’ll miss the celebration tonight.”
“Celebration? What’s happening?”
Justin smiled, trying to let go of his anxiety. “You must have left before Tayse talked to your husband. Faeber’s going to perform a marriage tonight between Tayse and Senneth. Cammon and Donnal are cooking even as we speak, and I’ve been decorating your front room. I hope you don’t mind.”
But she looked quite delighted and came to inspect his work. “Oh, I’ve got some garlands up in the attic—let me bring those down—and a couple of houseplants in my room. Not too festive, but then again, we didn’t have much time! Does she have something to wear?”
Women always focused on the most inconsequential things, Justin thought. “Kirra’s taking care of that,” he assured her.
“Then I’ll see what those young men have done to my kitchen.”
A few hours later, everything was ready. Cammon and Donnal slipped upstairs and returned, outfitted in clean trousers and starched white shirts that Kirra had manufactured from their ragged travel clothes. Justin and Tayse presented themselves next, and she dressed both of them all in black. They had dug their Riders’ sashes from their luggage, so now they each draped their embroidered golden lions over one shoulder and strapped on their sword belts. Kirra fluttered around Tayse with a small pair of scissors, snipping carefully at the most untameable strands of black hair, but she merely looked at Justin and shook her head.
“Your hair’s too long and I don’t have time to give you a good cut. Just tie it back and make sure you shave.”
“I did shave!”
“Well, you might do it again.”
Finally, most of them were assembled in the transformed parlor. Faeber had put on fine clothes of his own and wore them so easily that Justin almost didn’t recognize him. He stood before the fireplace; Marney sat at a miniature harpsichord and played a simple tune with a sunny melody. The groom and his attendants ranged themselves on one side of the room, all eyes turned expectantly toward the door. Tayse seemed taller, darker, more silent than ever. His expression was so watchful that he might have been lying in ambush. Justin thought he was merely trying to conceal a leaping emotion, an excitement almost too great to contain.
At least, that’s how Justin would have felt in the same situation.
“They’re coming,” Cammon whispered. Moments later, Kirra swept into the room. She was wearing Danalustrous red in some plush winter fabric. Her ruby pendant hung against her skin just above the deep neckline of the dress, covering the housemark branded into her flesh. Senneth followed, and everybody looked away from Kirra to watch her. She wore a dress that shimmered between blue and silver; her normally untidy hair had been bound with ribbons of a matching color. Justin thought Kirra must have found or produced cosmetics, for there was more color than usual on Senneth’s cheeks and eyes and lips. The only jewelry she wore was her grandmother’s gold pendant, hanging, like Kirra’s, just where her housemark would be. Justin noticed that, for this occasion, she had even taken off her moonstone bracelet. Maybe that, more than anything, accounted for the color in her face. Her magic had been unchained; the heat that always ran in her body was burning just under the skin.
The music stopped. Faeber lifted his hands and spoke more formally than Justin had ever heard him. “You who have chosen to marry should come stand before me and tell me your names and stations.”
Tayse caught Senneth’s hand in his and they shared a private smile before turning to face the
magistrate. “My name is Tayse. I am a King’s Rider.”
“Senneth Brassenthwaite. Serramarra of the realm.”
Justin heard Marney’s quick gasp; Faeber looked briefly startled, though he recovered quickly. Clearly they had had no idea how exalted some of their guests were. Probably didn’t know Kirra’s heritage, either—though, with the way she was dressed tonight, they would likely figure it out.
“What is your purpose in coming here tonight?”
“To marry,” they replied in unison.
“Tayse, why would you take Senneth to be your bride?”
Tayse turned to face Senneth and pulled her hand so that it rested against his heart. “Because I love her.”
“Senneth, why would you take Tayse to be your husband?”
Justin could see the smile that touched her lips then as she gazed back at the Rider. “Because he knows my secrets. Because he knows my strengths and weaknesses. Because I know his. Because he will hold me if I fall. Because he will turn to me if he is falling. Because my life is not complete if he is not in it. Because I love him.”
“Have you brought friends who will act as witnesses to your wedding? Who will counsel you when you quarrel, rejoice when you celebrate, and comfort you when you grieve?”
“We have.”
“Let them identify themselves.”
Tayse glanced back at Justin, who had to keep scowling in order to control his expression. “I’m Justin,” he said.
The others spoke up in turn. “Cammon.”
“Donnal.”
“Kirra.”
Faeber consulted a book open in his hands. “Let all of you be bound together in fellowship in recognition of this compact. For a marriage is a living thing and must be tended. You who bear witness bear also the responsibility for reminding this man and this woman that marriage is not a step undertaken lightly. Remind them to seek reconciliation when they are far apart, to sue for tenderness when they are tempted to be unkind, and to cherish each other no matter what trials or troubles the outside world affords.”
“Well, that should be easy enough,” Kirra said under her breath, and the rest of them, even Faeber, had to fight to keep from laughing.
The magistrate poured wine into a goblet and offered it to Senneth. “First you drink. Then Tayse. Then pass the cup among your friends.”
She drank from it as if tasting nectar for the first time and handed the goblet to Tayse. He turned it so that his lips rested exactly where hers had, and he took a single sip. Impossible to believe, but the goblet seemed to be trembling in Tayse’s hand as he held it out to Justin, so Justin took it quickly so nobody else would see. A swallow, then he handed the cup to Cammon. Each of the others drank, and Kirra handed the cup back to Senneth.
“Bound together in friendship,” Faeber said, and it was true. Justin felt peculiar, light-headed, as if there had been some additive in the wine—as if, for a moment, he could see and hear the people around him with the same heightened perceptions that guided Cammon. Not Faeber and Marney—only the other five, the Rider, the mystics. He could sense Tayse’s heartbeat, steady and strong but a measure too fast, that iron will concealing a rising excitement. Senneth was a blaze of heat, red-gold and ecstatic; Kirra stood quietly, so pleased she was almost purring. From Donnal there emanated a low, silent hum of happiness. From Cammon, deep delight barely held in check. Justin wondered what the others were picking up from him.
“Bound together in marriage,” Faeber was saying now. He had laid one hand on Tayse’s head, one on Senneth’s. “From this day forward, you will be known as husband and wife.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Cammon released a whoop of excitement. Marney’s hands crashed down on the keyboard in a chord of celebration, and then she was playing some kind of skirling music. Justin supposed people were meant to dance to it. No one did, of course. Kirra had thrown her arms around Senneth and seemed to be crying into the carefully styled hair, while Donnal and then Cammon came up to shake Tayse’s hand. Kirra pushed them both aside so she could hug Tayse, whispering something in his ear that made him laugh. Donnal and Cammon moved to stand on either side of Senneth, first one of them kissing her on the cheek, then the other.
Justin shoved Kirra aside so he could take Tayse’s hand. They beamed at each other like idiots; no wonder the king didn’t want his Riders getting married in Ghosenhall. The whole lot of them would look like sentimental fools.
“A splendid day,” Justin said, still smiling broadly as he dropped Tayse’s hand.
“The standard by which to measure them all,” Tayse replied.
Senneth came up behind him, put an arm around Justin’s waist, and kissed him on the jaw. “Next we’ve got to see to your wedding,” she murmured. “But I have a feeling you’ll come back to Ghosenhall a married man.”
That made him want to blush, but he concentrated and the heat receded from his face. “Oh, but I liked this,” he said, pointing his finger around the room. “The binding with all the friends present.”
“We’re already bound together,” Senneth said. “Nothing else could make the circle stronger.” She kissed him again and released him. “So go ahead and marry her in front of her family. Just in case you weren’t sure what to do when the moment arrived.”
CHAPTER 36
THEY ate the wedding feast, they offered an increasingly sillier litany of toasts to the newly wedded couple, they complimented Kirra on her couture and Faeber on his ritual. Despite the availability of the wine, none of them drank much, except the host and hostess. The rest of them planned to leave in the morning. They wanted their wits at their sharpest as they navigated the dangerous lands here in the southern territories.
Eventually Tayse and Senneth left them for the bridal bower, which Justin imagined was just the room they’d been sharing for the past few days with perhaps a few of Marney’s potted plants scattered around to add ambiance. Kirra declared she was too excited to sleep, so she found a deck of cards and convinced Cammon and Donnal to play with her.
“I’m hot,” Justin said. “I want to take a walk outside.”
“Cool you off fast enough,” Donnal commented, shuffling and dealing. “It’s pretty cold.”
“He’s been cooped up inside for days,” Kirra said. “I’d be going crazy myself.”
But Cammon looked up at him quickly and looked away. Cammon knew where he was going.
Donnal was right—it was downright freezing on the deserted streets of Neft. Justin hunched his shoulders inside his coat and went face-first into a driving wind. His muscles didn’t respond as quickly or as effortlessly as he would have liked, but they were working. The deepest wound, the one on his chest, cramped in protest, but he ignored it. He’d have Kirra douse him with a little magic tomorrow before they started out, accelerate the healing process even more. He was in better shape than a man would be without sorcery, but he was still weaker than he liked. He hated the sensation of being anything but entirely healthy.
It didn’t take too long to find a cross street that he knew— he’d never been to Faeber’s house before, but Neft wasn’t that big—and then head in the direction he wanted. Two turns, and then up the hill, until he was standing right outside Jenetta Gisseltess’s house.
All the rooms that faced the street were dark. The shrubbery shivered in the rattling wind, and even the wrought-iron fence looked cold. Justin wrapped his hands around two of the thin black poles anyway, staring at the house, willing someone to be awake and watching for him. He knew which room was serra Paulina’s, and he kept his eyes on the drawn curtains, wanting with all his heart to see them stir and be pulled aside.
The curtain fluttered. A shadow stepped to the window and glanced out.
Justin caught his breath and stood there motionless, afraid to move or otherwise draw attention in case it wasn’t Ellynor at the window. But it was. She pushed the curtain back farther so he could see her face; she lifted her hand and flattened her fingers against the glass. He
knew she could see him and so he raised his own hand and held it out as if, across the whole courtyard, he was touching his palm to hers. They stood that way for a long time, hands outstretched, Ellynor in the house and Justin at the gate. As if reminding each other that they had closed the distance between them once before. As if promising each other that they could do so again. As if pledging devotion. As if sealing a pact.