She had covered his mouth with her hand and then, turning in bed as if to kiss him, moved the hand away and bit his lower lip instead.
“Coward!” she said. “I knew you were afraid. You promised me a formal wooing and I am holding you to it.”
“Formal it is, then,” he said. “You want an Intercedent, as well?”
“Of course!” she said. And then, because she was crying, and couldn’t pretend any more, she said, “I was bound to you from Larai Rigal, Diar.”
He kissed her, gently and then with passion, and then his mouth began to travel her and eventually she lost track of time and place.
“Formally,” he’d said again, afterward. In a certain tone.
And now, in the morning light, amid the busy square, a figure suddenly pushed through the gathered crowd and began a purposeful walk toward her father. Sharra felt herself going red. She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing desperately that she had bit him harder, much, much harder. And in a different place. Then, in spite of herself, she began to giggle.
Formally, he had promised. Even to the Interceder who was to speak for him, after the old fashion. He had also warned her in Gwen Ystrat that he would never move to the measured gait, he would always have to play.
And so Tegid of Rhoden was his Intercedent.
The fat man—he was truly enormous—was blessedly sober. He had even trimmed his eccentric beard and donned a decent outfit in russet tones for his august mission. His round red face very serious, Tegid stopped directly in front of her father. His progress had been noted and marked by shouts and laughter. Now Tegid waited patiently for a modicum of silence. He absentmindedly scratched his behind, then remembered where he was and crossed his arms quickly on his chest.
Shalhassan regarded him with a mild, expressionless curiosity. Which became a wince a moment later as Tegid boomed out his title.
“Supreme Lord of Cathal,” Tegid repeated, a little more softly, for his mighty lungs had shaped a silence all around with that first shout, “have I your attendant ear?”
“You have,” her father said with grave courtesy.
“Then I am bid to tell you that I am sent here by a lord of infinite nobility, whose virtues I could number until the moon rose and set and rose again. I am sent to say to you, in this place and among the people here gathered in concourse, that the sun rises in your daughter’s eyes.”
There was a roar of astonishment.
“And who,” asked Shalhassan, still courteously, “is the lord of infinite nobility?”
“A figure of speech, that,” said Diarmuid, emerging from the crowd to their left. “And the moon business was his own idea. But he is my Intercedent and the heart of his message is true, and from my own heart. I would wed your daughter, Shalhassan.”
The noise in the square was quite uncontrollable now. It was hard to hear anything. Sharra saw her father turn slowly to her, a question in his eyes, and something else that it took her a moment to recognize as tenderness.
She nodded once. And with her lips shaped a “Yes,” for him to see.
The noise peaked and then slowly faded as Shalhassan waited beside his chariot, grave and unmoving. He looked at Diarmuid, whose own expression was sober now. He looked back at her.
He smiled. He smiled.
“Praise be to the Weaver and all the gods!” said Shalhassan of Cathal. “Finally she’s done something adult!” And striding forward, he embraced Diarmuid is the manner of the ritual.
So it was amid laughter and joy that that company set forth to ride to Taerlindel, where a ship lay waiting to bear fifty men to a place of death.
Diarmuid’s men, of course. It hadn’t even been a subject of discussion. It had been assumed, automatic. If Coll was sailing the ship, then Diarmuid was commanding it and the men of South Keep were going to Cader Sedat.
Riding alone near the back of the party, Paul saw them, laughing and lighthearted, singing, even, at the promise of action. He looked at Coll and red Averren, the lieutenants; at Garde and greying Rothe and lean, agile Erron; at the other forty the Prince had named. He wondered if they knew what they were going to; he wondered if he knew, himself.
Up at the front, Diarmuid glanced back to check on the company, and Paul met his blue gaze for a moment. He didn’t move forward, though, and Diarmuid didn’t drop back. Kevin’s absence was a hollow place within his chest. He felt quite alone. Thinking of Kim, far away and riding east, made it even worse.
Shalhassan left them in the afternoon at Seresh. He would be ferried across to Cynan, almost immediately. The mild, beneficent sunshine was a constant reminder of the need for haste.
They turned north on the highway to Rhoden. A number of people were coming to see them off: Aileron, of course, and Na-Brendel of Daniloth. Sharra was coming as well; she would return to Paras Derval with Aileron and wait for her father there. Teyrnon and Barak, he saw, were deep in conversation with Loren and Matt. Only the latter two were sailing; the younger mage would stay with the King. They were spreading themselves very thin, Paul thought.
They didn’t really have much choice.
Not far ahead he saw Tegid bouncing along in one of the Cathalian war chariots, and for a moment he smiled at the sight. Shalhassan had proved human, after all, and he had a sense of humor. Beyond the fat man rode Jaelle, also alone. He thought briefly of catching up to her. He didn’t, though—he had too much to think about without trying to apologize to the Priestess. He could guess how she’d respond. A bit of a surprise, her coming, though: the provinces of Dana came to an end at the sea.
Which led him to thoughts of whose provinces began and of his statement to the Council the morning before. “I think I can deal with that,” he’d said, in the quiet tones of the Twiceborn. Quiet, yes, but very, very rash. And they would be counting on him now.
Reflecting this, his features carefully unrevealing, Paul saw that they were turning west again, off the highway onto a smaller road. They had had the rich grainlands of the Seresh hinterland on their right until now, but, as they turned, the land began to drop slowly down in unfolding ridges. He saw sheep and goats and another grazing animal he couldn’t recognize and then, before he saw it, he heard the sea.
They came to Taerlindel late in the day and the sun had led them there. It was out over the sea. The breeze was salt and fresh and the tide was in, the white-capped waves rolling up to the line of sandy beaches stretching away to the south toward Seresh and the Saeren mouth.
In front of them lay the harbor of Taerlindel, northward facing, sheltered by a promontory from the wind and surf. There were small fishing boats bobbing at anchor, a few larger ones, and one ship, painted gold and red, that would be Prydwen.
Once, Loren had told him, a fleet had anchored here. But the last war with Cathal had decimated the navies of both countries, and after the truce no ships had been built to replace them. And with Andarien a wasteland for a thousand years there was no longer any need, the mage had explained, to sail to Linden Bay.
A number of houses ringed the harbor and a few more ran back away from the sea into the sloping hills. The town was very beautiful in the late afternoon light. He only gave it a brief glance, though, before he stopped his horse to let the last of the party pass him by. On the road above Taerlindel his gaze went out, as far as it might, over the grey-green sea.
They had let the light flare again from Atronel the past three nights, to celebrate and honor the spring returned. Now, toward evening of this fourth day, Leyse of the Swan Mark walked, in white for the white swan, Lauriel, beside the luminous figure of Ra-Tenniel, and they were alone by Celyn Lake gathering sylvain, red and silver.