Her eyes were bright with appreciation. “I thank you, Cazaril.” She glanced up at her uncle’s secretary. “Fetch a chair for my ambassador, please. He has ridden long and hard, with little rest.” She began folding back the silk.
The secretary brought up a chair with a wool-stuffed cushion. Cazaril smiled rather fixedly in thanks and considered the problem of getting up again gracefully. Rather to his embarrassment, Betriz knelt to his side, and after a second more, the archdivine to his other, and both contrived to hoist him up. Betriz’s dark eyes searched him, lingering briefly and fearfully on his tumor-distended midsection, but she could do no more here than smile in encouragement.
Iselle was reading the marriage contract, though she spared a moment as Cazaril seated himself to cast a small smile in his direction. Cazaril watched and waited. As she finished each page she handed the rectangle of calligraphed and ink-stamped parchment up to her hovering uncle, who had them fairly snatched in turn by the archdivine. The secretary was last in line, but no less intent in his perusal. He collected the pages reverently back into order as they came to him.
Dy Baocia clutched his hands together and watched as the archdivine’s eyes sped down the last page. He held the parchment out silently to the stout secretary.
“Well?” said the provincar.
“She hasn’t sold Chalion.” The archdivine signed himself and opened both hands palm out in thanks to the gods. “She’s bought Ibra! My congratulations, Royesse, to your ambassador—and to you.”
“To us all,” said dy Baocia. All three men were looking vastly more cheerful.
Cazaril cleared his throat. “Indeed, but I trust you will not say as much to Royse Bergon. The treaties are potentially advantageous to both sides, after all.” He glanced at dy Baocia’s secretary. “Though perhaps it would allay people’s fears to have the articles copied out in a large fair hand and posted on the wall beside your palace doors, for everyone to read.”
Dy Baocia frowned uncertainly, but the archdivine nodded, and said, “A very wise suggestion, Castillar.”
“It would please me very much,” said Iselle in a soft voice. “I pray you, Uncle, have it seen to.”
A breathless page burst into the chamber, to skid to a stop before dy Baocia and blurt, “Your lady says Royse Bergon’s party ’proaches at the gate, and you are to ’tend on her at once to welcome him.”
“I’m on my way.” The provincar took a breath and smiled at his niece. “And so we bring your lover to you. Remember now, you must demand all the kisses of submission, brow, hands, and feet. Chalion must be seen to rule Ibra. Guard the pride and honor of your House. We must not let him put himself above you, or he will quickly become overweening. You must start as you mean to go on.”
Iselle’s eyes narrowed. Around her, the shadow darkened, seeming to tighten its grip.
Cazaril sat up, and shot her a look of alarm and a tiny headshake. “Royse Bergon has pride also, no less honorable than your own, Royesse. And he will stand before his own lords here, too.”
She hesitated; then her lips firmed. “I shall start as I mean to go on.” Her voice was suddenly not soft at all, but steel-edged. She gestured at the contract. “The substance of our equality is there, Uncle. My pride demands no greater show. We shall exchange the kisses of welcome, each to each, upon our hands alone.” The darkness uncurled a little; Cazaril felt an odd shiver, as though some predatory shadow had passed over his head and flown on, thwarted.
“An admirable discretion,” Cazaril endorsed this in relief.
The page, dancing from foot to foot, held open the door for the provincar, who swept out in haste.
“Lord Cazaril, how was your journey?” Betriz taxed him in this interlude. “You look so . . . tired.”
“A weary lot of riding, but it all went well enough.” He shifted in his seat and smiled up at her.
Her dark brows arched. “I think we must have Ferda and Foix in, to tell us more. Surely it was not so plain and dull as that.”
“Well, we had a little trouble with brigands in the mountains. Dy Jironal’s doing, I’m fairly sure. Bergon acquitted himself very well. The Fox . . . went easier than I expected, for a reason I didn’t.” He leaned forward, and lowered his voice to them both. “You remember my benchmate on the galleys I told of, Danni, the boy of good family?”
Betriz nodded, and Iselle said, “I am not likely to forget.”
“I didn’t guess how good a family. Danni was an alias Bergon gave, to keep himself secret from his captors. It seems his kidnapping was a ploy of Ibra’s late Heir. Bergon recognized me when I stood before the Ibran court—he had changed and grown almost out of reckoning.”
Iselle’s lips parted in astonishment. After a moment she breathed, “Surely the goddess gave you to me.”
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “I’ve come to that conclusion myself.”
Her eyes turned toward the double doors on the opposite side of the chamber. Her hands twisted in her lap in a sudden flush of nerves. “How shall I recognize him? Is he—is he well-favored?”
“I don’t know how ladies judge such things—”
The doors swung wide. A great mob of persons surged through: pages, hangers-on, dy Baocia and his wife, Bergon and dy Sould and dy Tagille, and Palli bringing up the rear. The Ibrans had been treated to baths as well, and wore the best clothes they’d managed to pack in their meager bags, supplemented, Cazaril was fairly sure, with some judicious emergency borrowings. Bergon’s eyes flicked in a smiling panic from Betriz to Iselle, and settled on Iselle. Iselle gazed from face to face among the three strange Ibrans in a momentary terror.
Tall Palli, standing behind Bergon, pointed at the royse and mouthed, This one! Iselle’s gray eyes brightened, and her pale cheeks flooded with color.
Iselle held out her hands. “My lord Bergon dy Ibra,” she said in a voice that only quavered a little. “Welcome to Chalion.”
“My lady Iselle dy Chalion,” Bergon, striding up to her, returned breathlessly. “Dy Ibra thanks you.” He knelt to one knee, and kissed her hands. She bent her head, and kissed his.
Bergon rose again and introduced his companions, who bowed properly. With a slight scrape, the provincar and the archdivine, with their own hands, brought up a chair for Bergon and set it by Iselle’s on the other side from Cazaril. From a leather pouch dy Tagille held out, Bergon produced his royal greeting-gift, a necklace of fine emeralds—one of the last of his mother’s pieces not pawned by the Fox to buy arms. The white horses unfortunately were still back on the road somewhere. Bergon had been going to bring a rope of new Ibran pearls, but had made the substitution on Cazaril’s most earnest advice.
Dy Baocia made a little speech of welcome, which would have been rather longer if Iselle’s aunt, catching her niece’s eye, had not seized a pause in his periods to invite the assembled company into the next room to partake of refreshments. The young couple was left to have some private speech, and bent their heads together, largely inaudible to the eager eavesdroppers who lingered by the open doors and frequently peeked in to see how they were getting along.
Cazaril was not least forward among this number, craning his neck anxiously from his repositioned chair and alternating between nibbling on little cakes and biting his knuckles. Their voices grew sometimes louder, sometimes softer; Bergon gestured, and Iselle twice laughed out loud, and three times drew in her breath, her hands going to her lips, eyes widening. Iselle lowered her voice and spoke earnestly; Bergon tilted his head and listened intently, and never took his eyes from her face, except twice to glance out at Cazaril, after which they lowered their voices still further.