The servant was interrupted as the dour, hawk-faced cleric pushed past her. “My dear princess,” he declared haughtily. “The hour is nigh upon midnight! I beg of you to consider your reputation, your standing in this fair city. You cannot allow this man to remain here! I fear considerable damage has already been done to your prestige. If you won’t send him away for your own sake, think about your father!” The inquisitor turned stiffly to regard the lord marshal. “I beg you, my lord, leave immediately.”
Jaymes stared at the priest with an expression of wry amusement on his face. Selinda, however, glared at him in fury. “How dare you intrude here? Does my father know?”
“It is your father, dear child, who sent me,” Frost replied mildly.
“Where is he? I’m going to speak to him immediately!”
“You will find him in his private drawing room, I believe. I suggest you go there at once.”
Selinda didn’t even take time to throw on a shawl. She rushed toward the door, pushed past the cleric, and started through the palace hall. She didn’t glance back, didn’t notice Jaymes Markham and Inquisitor Frost eyeing each other very carefully indeed.
“Good evening, my lord,” said the cleric… eventually. He bowed stiffly.
“Actually, let us walk together,” the lord marshal said, brushing past the inquisitor then turning to beckon him with a wave. “It’s time we all went and had a talk with the lord regent.”
“Father, you had no business sending the inquisitor to my apartments!” Selinda declared hotly as soon as she had entered the drawing room, trailed by one of the two guards.
“I’m sorry, Excellency!” the guard apologized. “I told her you couldn’t be-”
“That’s all right, Roland. You may go now. Good evening, my dear,” said du Chagne coolly, rising from his chair beside the dark hearth. “I can see that you’re upset, but surely you will understand that it was for your own good.”
“I see nothing of the sort!” she retorted. “We were having a pleasant dinner, and poor Jaymes is terribly weary from the war, from his travels. We were doing nothing wrong!”
“Of course not, child. I trust you implicitly. But you know how people talk!”
“Let them talk,” she replied, drawing herself to her full height-she was an inch taller than her father. “I’ll have something to say to them when the time is right, but for now I will say it to you in private.”
“Yes?” the regent said warily.
“I intend to marry that man,” she announced. “And there is nothing you can do to stop me!”
Her father took the news surprisingly well, she thought. He merely gave her a sharp look and sat down in his chair again. Father and daughter both turned to the door as it opened abruptly, allowing Jaymes and the lord inquisitor to enter the room.
“What are you doing here?” du Chagne demanded of the lord marshal.
“Time is short; I need to return to the front. This is no time to stand on ceremony. We might as well get some matters settled right now,” Jaymes replied evenly.
“What matters are those?”
“Your daughter and I intend to be married.”
“She was just now telling me something about that,” du Chagne replied dryly.
“Did she tell you that the ceremony is going to take place tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Impossible!” This, at last, brought the lord regent to his feet, his face purpling. As for the lord inquisitor, he looked stunned and at a loss for words.
“Tomorrow!” cried Selinda, astonished and as pleased as her father was shocked. She threw her arms around Jaymes’s neck and hugged him close. “Yes-it must be so!”
“There’s no way the arrangements can be made so quickly,” the lord inquisitor interposed, forcing himself to sound reasonable. “There are auguries to be made; an auspicious date must be determined. And of course, this is a matter of high statecraft and diplomacy-surely you’ll want to have representatives from the other Solamnic realms, at least? And Sancrist? The Grand Master himself will certainly wish to be present!”
“There’s no time for that, for any of that,” Jaymes responded curtly. “The campaign is at a crucial stage, and I must return to my army at once.”
“Why not get married when matters in the field have been resolved?” Inquisitor Frost asked after a long pause, finally finding his voice.
“Because this marriage is a key step in the ultimate victory of my army,” Jaymes replied firmly.
“I should think you’d have more important things to do than to argue this matter while your troops are still on the battlefield and the enemy is ringed around Solanthus!” Lord Regent du Chagne declared. “Ankhar remains a formidable opponent.”
Jaymes shrugged. “I have his measure. He’s formidable, indeed, but so am I. This fight won’t take much longer. But I am here to make two demands of you.”
“Demands?” The lord regent’s eyebrows rose in an expression of disdain. “Aren’t you busy enough, fighting a battle for the future of Solamnia? What else do you want besides the hand of my daughter? I suppose you’d like a dowry, a gift of gold as well!”
“I am not interested in your gold. But I am risking my army on the field of battle. Indeed, I am risking my life. I am fairly confident that my passing would not be terribly mourned by your lordship.”
Du Chagne gestured impatiently for Jaymes to get to the point.
“Two things: One, your daughter will marry me tomorrow-you see yourself that she wants it to be so and has agreed. The wedding will take place immediately… before I return to the plains.”
Du Chagne’s jaw tightened, but he said merely, “And the other demand?”
“Lord Frankish commanded the Palanthian Legion. You will recall, the general challenged me, and he paid for that mistake with his life. I believe his legion is currently without a commanding officer. I claim the legion in lieu of a dowry. There is no one more deserving of that post, no one more appropriate to command your private army.”
The lord regent appeared to consider the stakes very carefully before he spoke tersely. “Very well. You shall have the legion. Now get out of here, and let me speak to my daughter and my high priest. There is much that we have to arrange.”
Jaymes was already heading toward the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY — TWO
The lord marshal visited the Crier’s Guild before dawn on the following day. With the expenditure of a single sparkling stone, he contracted two dozen heralds, and by sunrise these men and women were abroad in the city, announcing the news of the royal wedding that very evening. This development stunned and excited the people of Palanthas.
By the time Jaymes returned to the lord regent’s palace at noon, riding the white gelding that Donny had tended for him, the population was joyously thronging in the street. Their displeasure with the progress of the war had been forgotten; they cheered and hailed him as he passed, and lined the roadway leading down from the palace, eagerly anticipating the wedding procession they expected to witness later in the day.
Within the palace, the lord marshal went immediately to Bakkard du Chagne.
The marshal was received by the regent in the palace drawing room. Du Chagne sat sullenly and listened to the lord marshal outline his intentions.
“I will take command of the legion immediately,” Jaymes informed du Chagne. “I intend to use an honor guard from the legion for the wedding. Immediately following the ceremony, the entire force will march with me to the plains, where I will launch the final phase of the war.”
“So you really intend to go through with this sham of a marriage? This mockery?” said du Chagne, finally finding his voice.
“Your daughter seems to be happy; I should think that would please you. She has chosen a setting for the event and has asked a priestess, a friend of hers, to preside over the vows. And yes, of course I intend to be there and as you put it, go through with it.”