She smiled at the tiring maids, and thanked them for their help. Another knock on the door. “Time, my lord.” The door opened. The Master of Ceremonies looked her up and down. “Excellent,” he said. Behind him, a servant with a flat box. He opened it. “Your court chain of office.”
Unlike the ducal chain the prince had sent before, this was all gold, the links beaten into the shape of the Tsaian rose. She bent her head and he lifted it, then laid it on her shoulders. “Come along,” he said, as if to a child, and she followed him.
In the corridor near the Grange Hall, Knights of the Bells stood on either side, their mail shining, their swords belted on. The other nobles were milling about, chatting. Dorrin looked around. Duke Marrakai caught her eye and waved her over.
“We need to stay at this end, we dukes,” he said. “You’ve met everyone, I believe.” By “everyone” he meant the other dukes, Dorrin understood. Behind them, clusters of counts, and beyond that, barons. The dukes were easily the most resplendent.
And the hottest. Barons, Dorrin had noticed, had sleeveless court gowns, showing the puffs of their shirts, and only a narrow edging of fur at the neck. Even counts had less fur than the dukes, who were all, by now, fanning themselves. She had not brought a fan. Duke Marrakai offered his, but she shook her head, and in a moment a palace servant came up and handed her one.
The Master of Ceremonies reappeared, having gathered up some laggard barons, and chivvied them all into the right order. Dorrin was appalled to find herself at the head of the line, beside Duke Mahieran and behind the Lord Herald with his beribboned staff. “Don’t worry,” Mahieran said. “Just do what I do, only on the other side of the hall and right after.”
Then the Bells of Vérella rang out, chime after chime, followed by the blare of trumpets; servants pulled back the doors, and they went in. At the far end of the Hall, the crown prince, all in white, stood below the throne between—Dorrin blinked, not having expected this—the Marshal-General of Gird and the new Marshal-Judicar. Dorrin led her file of nobles to the right, around the roped-off area in the middle of the hall; when Duke Mahieran stopped, she turned to face him.
She had not imagined that a trial of arms would be part of the coronation ceremony, but the prince and Marshal-General exchanged blows that could be heard clearly throughout the Hall. The Marshal-General stepped back and saluted. “He is sound of body and skilled in arms,” she said loudly. “The Company of Gird accepts his sword.”
“Accepted,” the nobles said.
Then the lowest-ranking baron spoke up. “Is he without blemish, as a king must be?”
“Let it be shown,” Duke Mahieran said.
Servants stepped into the central area, folding the prince’s clothes as he took them off. He stood before them, bare as at birth, and turned. Dorrin could not take her eyes off that fair young body.
“He is without blemish,” the baron said. “The company of barons accepts him.”
The prince had dressed again. The lowest-ranking count spoke up. “Does he know the rule of law, or the rule of passion?”
“Let it be shown,” Duke Mahieran said again.
The Marshal-Judicar came forward. He asked questions, so many that Dorrin lost count.
“He is a man of law,” the count said finally. “The company of counts accepts him.”
Duke Mahieran turned to the dukes beside him, and then across from him. “What say you, Dukes of the realm: Do you accept this man, Mikeli Vostan Keriel, as your king?”
“We accept him!” they said, Dorrin as loud as the rest.
The prince walked back to the throne and turned; servants lifted the robe, deep red embroidered in silver, and he put his arms into it. Then he sat.
Mahieran stepped forward; the Marshal-General met him, and together they lifted the crown of Tsaia from its stand. Together they held it over his head.
“All here witness the High Lord’s blessing, Gird’s grace, and the consent of nobles of this realm, of the crowning of Mikeli, King of Tsaia.” They lowered the crown to his head and stepped back.
The Marshal-General handed him a different sword, this one obviously old, in a battered scabbard. “Gird’s sword: may you wield it to defend your realm.” He took it, kissed it, and handed it back to her.
Mahieran handed him a scepter. “The staff of law: may you wield it to defend the right.” Again Mikeli took it, kissed it, and handed it back. The Bells pealed again, a great clamor, and trumpets blew a deafening fanfare.
When silence fell again, Mikeli, now king of Tsaia, waited while servants removed the pillars and ropes. Then the nobles closed in from side to side, the two lines slightly offset so that Duke Mahieran was a half stride in front of Dorrin. As each knelt and gave the oath of fealty, he clasped their hands, and bent to kiss their heads as they kissed his hand. Dorrin found it more moving than she had expected.
After returning the court chain of office to the Master of Ceremonies and putting off the great robe, she mingled with other nobles and their families in the airy second-floor reception room before the formal procession. She’d been allowed to invite her distant relative Ganarrion Verrakai, cleared of any suspicion of conspiracy and freed from prison only a few days before she arrived in Vérella. He wore his Royal Guard uniform. They’d never met; they fumbled some time for a common topic before she mentioned Paksenarrion, and he brightened. “I met her, on her way to Lyonya,” he said. “Were you her commander, in Phelan’s company?”
Dorrin explained, and from there they chatted easily about military matters, horses, and the strange ways of the gods. The king had suggested Ganarrion as a possible heir; the more she talked to him, the more she was inclined to agree. They did not mention the Order of Attainder or the continuing search for their fugitive relatives. “Come stay with me in Verrakai’s city house,” she said.
“My pardon, my lord Duke, but I cannot. I am on duty, as we all are—this leave of a few hours is all I can spend with you. Please understand, it is not lack of respect.”
“Of course not,” Dorrin said. “But we should know each other better. Perhaps you can visit in the east—for Midwinter Feast, if that’s allowed. If not, I will understand.”
“Thank you, my lord,” he said. “When do you return to the east?”
“In a few days,” Dorrin said. “I have much to do there. I will return for Autumn Court, of course. I will be presenting an old friend, Jandelir Arcolin, who was Phelan’s senior captain and is now to gain a title and take over that domain.”
“I will try to come, though if I’m assigned once more to the northeast, I doubt very much it will be possible,” Ganarrion said. “I would like to meet—do you know his title?”
“No,” Dorrin said. “You should meet him, however; we’ve been friends a long time, and fought many campaigns together.”
A servant in the palace livery came up to them and handed Ganarrion a folded note. He read it and shook his head. “My lord, I’m sorry—I’m called for. I hope to see you again before you leave.”
“Go safely—I need not tell you to be careful.” She watched him go, and sent prayers after him.
Duke Mahieran bore down on her. “I didn’t want to interrupt while you were talking to your relative, but we need your advice about something.”
“Certainly,” Dorrin said. “What is it?”
“Let us find a quieter place.” He led her to a smaller room. A moment later, Duke Marrakai joined them; Dorrin felt a sudden tension.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You reported that some of your relatives could change from one body to another and thus go undetected—and that you had found a few such. How did you know?”
“I found the first evidence in the family rolls,” Dorrin said. “But those do not give the names—never the full name, and often no name at all—of the person whose body is taken. Those who make the transfer are marked as deaths in the rolls, with a special symbol.”