He certainly didn’t waste time with small talk, she thought in dismay. “I have reconsidered,” she agreed. “His Eminence has been very persuasive.”
“A well-considered decision, Princess!” He was practically jumping up and down, his froggy eyes bulging, his tongue licking out. “And Crabbit! Excellent work, Crabbit!” He gave His Eminence a short bow of acknowledgment. “We must proceed immediately with the wedding, then!”
His Eminence ushered her all the way into the office and closed the door behind them. “Yes, well, there are a few legal matters to be settled first. Paperwork to be filled out, agreements to be signed, that sort of thing. A consent to the marriage agreed upon and signed by both parties is requisite.”
Laphroig flushed. “Well, get about preparing it then! Don’t keep the Princess waiting!”
His Eminence sat down to work while Laphroig crowded close to Mistaya, looking her up and down in the way a buyer might a new horse, smiling as if all were right with the world. Or maybe just as if all were right with him. She tried not to shrink from him, did her best not to show her loathing, and held herself firmly in check.
“Would it be possible for you to free my hands?” she asked suddenly, looking not at His Eminence, but at Laphroig. “A bride on her wedding day shouldn’t appear in shackles.”
Laphroig glanced down and seemed to see for the first time the swirling ball of darkness that bound her hands. “What’s this, Crabbit?” he snapped. “What have you done to her?”
His Eminence glanced up, sighing. “It is for her own good. And yours.”
“Well, I don’t like it. How can it appear that consent is given voluntarily if she weds me looking as if she is shackled in some mysterious way? Even the appearance of coercion is unacceptable. Signing the consent is sufficient, I should think. Set her free!”
Craswell Crabbit shook his head firmly. “That would be immensely foolish, my Lord.”
“I promise not to try to escape,” Mistaya said quickly. “I won’t run from you. You have my word as a Princess of Landover. I have made my decision, and I will see the wedding through to its conclusion. But don’t make me marry you like this.”
She tried to sound pathetic and put upon instead of desperate, casting a pleading glance at The Frog.
“Crabbit seems rather convinced that it would better if you did.” Laphroig was experiencing doubts, as well. “The word of a Princess of Landover ought to count for something, I realize, but you are known for your troublesome nature, Princess.”
“But I promise! What more can I do?”
Laphroig smiled. “I am sure I could think of something.” He leered. Then he shrugged, refocusing on the matter at hand. “I can’t see that it would do any harm. Not if you give us your promise.”
His Eminence looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “You are seriously contemplating setting free a young woman with magic enough at her command to burn us all to ash? Have you lost your mind, Laphroig?”
“Watch your tongue, Crabbit! Unlike you, I am not afraid of a fifteen-year-old girl. I have fifty knights waiting just outside the door, and should she prove too troublesome, I might give her over to them for a bit of sport.” He gave Mistaya a look. “So I don’t think we need be concerned.”
“Your Eminence,” Mistaya said quickly, ignoring the threat. “My word is good. I will not break it. I have more than one reason not to do so, as you well know.” She flicked her eyes toward the office door, reaffirming her commitment to Thom. “Besides,” she added, “won’t I need my hands free to sign the documents of marriage? Won’t I need them in order to don my wedding dress? You do have a wedding dress for me, don’t you?”
His Eminence stared at her for a long moment. “Naturally, I shall provide you with a wedding dress, Princess. And since Lord Laphroig seems set on this, I shall set you free. But I warn you, disobedience at this juncture would be a big mistake. The matter is in your hands. Be careful.”
He made a few quick gestures, spoke a few short words, and the swirling ball that held her hands imprisoned faded away. She rubbed her wrists experimentally as His Eminence watched her like a hawk and then allowed them to drop harmlessly to her sides. “There, you see?” she said.
His Eminence went back to preparing the documents of marriage while Laphroig launched into a long, rhapsodic dissertation on the joys that awaited her once she was married to him. She nodded along agreeably, thinking through her plan as she did so. It was a risky gamble, but it was all she could do. If it failed, she was in deep trouble.
She found herself wishing momentarily that she could use her newfound freedom to break from the room, race to her bedroom, produce the rainbow crush, and stamp on it while calling for her father. But her father might be as much at risk as she was—perhaps more so, if what she had heard His Eminence say earlier was to be believed—so she would die before she summoned help from that quarter.
In any case, there was no time left for second-guessing and nothing to be gained by wishing for what might have been. She had made her choice, and she was going to have to live with it. If she were given half a chance, things would work out.
His Eminence straightened at his desk. “All done. Please sign on the lines here and here,” he advised Mistaya and Laphroig, indicating the required spaces.
Laphroig signed without reading, impatient to get on with things. Mistaya took her time, skimming quickly but thoroughly, and found the promise not to harm Thom embedded deep in the document in language that was clear and concise. Whatever happened to her, she would have protected Thom to the extent that she was able to do so. She took a deep breath and signed, knowing that if the marriage went through now, it would be binding on her and on her parents under Landover’s laws.
She sat back, thinking that if all else failed, perhaps she could leave Landover behind and go back to school at Carrington for the rest of her life. As if.
“Now, about my dress?” she queried His Eminence.
Crabbit moved her back a few steps, worked a quick conjuring with words and gestures, and she was suddenly clothed in a stunningly beautiful white gown that left Laphroig with his eyes wide, his mouth open, and his tongue hanging out.
“Princess, I have never seen anything—”
“Thank you, my Lord.” She cut him short with a perfunctory wave of her hand. “Shall we go outside into the open for the ceremony?”
Again, His Eminence didn’t look pleased with this suggestion, but Laphroig leaped on it like a starving dog on a bone and proclaimed that, indeed, the wedding must take place outdoors before his assembled knights, who would act as witnesses.
So out the office door they went, then down the hall to the front of the building and out into the sunlight. The knights still sat their horses, and the G’home Gnomes were still bound and gagged atop their mule. Cordstick had gone from looking distressed to looking euphoric. Mistaya ignored them all, resisted the urge to look back for Thom, and kept her eyes fixed straight ahead as His Eminence marched her out to a small grove of rather wintry trees and placed her side by side with the Lord of Rhyndweir.
Craswell Crabbit cleared his throat. “Be it known, one and all, from the nearest to the farthest corners of the realm, that this man and this woman have consented …”
He droned on, but Mistaya wasn’t paying attention. She was thinking through her plan, knowing that she must put it into play quickly. If the wedding got too far along, there might not be enough time for things to come together as she needed them to.
Mistaya gazed out at the assembled knights, who had removed their helmets out of respect for the ceremony, whatever it was, and the girl, whoever she was, most of them obviously having no clear idea of what they were all doing there. The G’home Gnomes were moaning softly through their gags, and every so often the two guards bracketing them would lean over and cuff one or the other or both.