:Oh, good thought, Mags,: Dallen agreed, picking up what Mags was considering. :Go ahead.:
“I don’t know what you—eep!” Amily squeaked, as Mags put both hands around her waist and hoisted her up onto Dallen’s back.
“There. Now ye kin see, an’ yer safe as houses,” Mags said with satisfaction. Amily stared down at him with round eyes.
“I’ve never ridden bareback—” she said faintly.
“Then shame on yer Pa’s Companion fer not teachin’ ye,” Mags retorted, handing a toasted sausage on a stick to her, and holding out a roasted apple on another for Dallen to nibble. “‘Sides, ’tis a Companion. Ye know ye won’t fall. He won’t let ye, an’ that’s a fact.” He found a wooden bucket and overturned it to stand on.
From their vantage point, they could see everything. The musicians, who looked and sounded professional, struck up a very fast and lively dancing tune. Some folk began a ring dance around the fire, which then broke and turned into a spiral dance with people being added to the end of it when the rearmost reached out and grabbed them. They watched Lydia and Marc get added to it, and laughed to see them romping like children. The dance kept snaking out longer and longer as more people were added to the end. Finally, it reached the point where those at the end couldn’t keep up, but rather than falling apart, it broke into two with Lydia at the front of one. It looked like fun, but Mags was not going to desert Amily and Dallen. The dancers wound around and around the fire, as sparks flew all about them, with the two chains snaking in and out and around those who weren’t dancing. At last, the musicians themselves ran out of breath and brought it to a halt by the simple expedient of stopping the tune.
That was when someone—Mags didn’t recognize who—spotted Amily sitting regally atop Dallen, and set up a cry.
“The Midwinter Queen! The Midwinter Queen! She looks like a Queen on her throne! Make Amily the Queen!”
Literally everyone seemed to think this was a fine plan. Soon everyone was shouting the same thing; some people ran off and came back with evergreens in their hands. Blushing furiously, trying to protest, Amily laughed as the whole crowd converged on them. Dallen soon found his neck hung with garlands of soft cedar and apples, and Amily was adorned with a crown of holly on her head. Then the two of them were paraded ceremoniously three times clockwise around the fire while the musicians played a march, Amily was handed a branch twined with ivy for a scepter, and the entire gathering knelt in homage to her.
“Tell us your decree, O Queen of Misrule!” Lydia laughed. “Rule us! Rule us!”
Everyone else took up the chant. “Rule us! Rule us! Rule us!” until Amily waved her branch for them to be silent.
Amily’s eyes sparkled, although her cheeks were crimson. “I say that since we ladies get fair weary of waiting to be asked to dance, now every woman who wishes to tread a measure must choose a man to her liking and dance! And no man may deny her! Musicians! Let the dance be ‘Sir Tyral Devale’!”
Cheers greeted this pronouncement, and Dallen ambled genially to one side as there was a mad scramble for desirable partners which Mags escaped by virtue of the fact that there were more men than women. The musicians started up again, and the dancers cavorted in the space around the fire in pairs. Mags made his way to Amily and Dallen’s side again. She glowed, as much from happiness and pleasure as from the firelight. Dallen stood like a statue, his neck curved proudly.
“Ye make a good Queen,” he said, looking up at her. She flushed.
“It’s usually Lydia,” she replied, almost apologetically. “I don’t know what they were thinking ...”
“That ye’d make a good Queen,” he said, and felt gratified when she ducked her head with modest confusion. “Just as simple as that. What’re ye supposed t’ do, bein’ Queen an’ all?”
“Think of things they should do.” She laughed. “It needs to be things that will keep them awake! Lydia always had them dancing most of the time.”
“Well, ye’re a clever one. I reckon ye c’n think of somethin’.” He nodded.
The rest of the night was taken up with games and other nonsense that Amily devised, as silly as possible. She was a very good Queen, since that was what the Midwinter Queen was supposed to do. After the first dance was over, she called out, “Duck, Duck, Goose! And Marc is Goose!” That was utterly incomprehensible to Mags, but shouts of laughter erupted, and soon the entire company was arranged in a circle around the fire, watching covertly as Marc walked behind them all. He tapped each person he passed on the shoulder, solemnly pronouncing the word “duck” each time. That is, until he came to one of the twins. “GOOSE!” he shouted, and ran. The twin chased after him but was unable to catch him, and Marc dashed into his place. Then the twin repeated the formula.
It must have been a children’s game, but that seemed to be what people wanted. When Amily judged that people were wearying of it, she decreed another dance, this time with the oldest dancing with the youngest. And then, another game. She seemed to be enjoying herself, too, and Mags wondered if part of her quietude most of the time was because she worked just a little too hard at being overlooked. He didn’t know a lot about girls, but one thing he was sure of—no matter how hard they might work at being in the background, deep in their hearts they really wanted to be seen and made much of once in a while.
As for himself, he got a great deal of enjoyment out of her pleasure, and when at last the sun crested the horizon and was greeted with cheers and toasts, he felt as if he had done a very good thing, putting her up on Dallen’s back to be noticed like that.
Nor was she allowed to hobble back into the building on her own as they toasted the sun and the new year with the last of the cider, shared in the breakfast feast that was brought out from the kitchen, and then went off to their beds. The twins hoisted her up onto their own shoulders and carried her in triumph at the head of another parade back to her room. Smiling, Mags divested Dallen of his garlands, led him back to the stable, and made sure he had hay and water and was warmly covered in his blanket.
:That was well done,: Dallen said as Mags refilled the manger. :I’ve not seen her have that much fun in a very long time.:
:How long’s she been like that?: Mags asked. :Crippled, I mean.:
:Since the accident that killed her mother when she was very small. There were no expert Healers where they were, and by the time they got her into good hands, it was deemed too painful to rebreak the bones and reset them.: Dallen sighed.: There are many who are surprised she wasn’t Chosen.:
Mags pondered that. :There’s a good reason, aye?:
:Her father. She is the light of his life, and being a Herald is dangerous. He has more than enough to worry about, being King’s Own. If Amily was Chosen, and he had to worry about all the dangers she faced along with all the cares of the King, he might kill himself with the strain.: Dallen shook his head. :Amily knows why, and she agrees this is for the best. We had to tell her, of course. It didn’t seem fair, when she was pining over the Field every day.: