The nine men all wore their finest robes and most decorated (whether most useful or not) swords. The other six men-at-arms scattered about the chamber wore nothing to let anyone know that they served the Orders and Keeps. Their weapons were concealed, and their eyes continually roamed the room.
Niebar had come to Vuinlod with twenty knights and two hundred men-at-arms. When they heard of the change in the wedding plans, to the last man they begged the right to be guards on that day. Had he granted all those wishes, Sir Niebar knew, there would hardly have been room for the other wedding guests-although to be sure, they would have been very safe from hostile steel.
As it was, the fifteen were all who represented the knights But they were not the only ones standing between the wedding party and any would-be assassins. Most of the men in the chamber wore steel, and not a few were of the host of Vuinlod that Gildas Aurhinius would be leading to Suivinari.
Even Gildas Aurhinius himself, although older and stouter than Niebar, moved like a man who would hardly be helpless in a fight. That hypothetical assassin would have a very short life, and probably not even the consolation of succeeding before that life ended.
But now the drums began muttering softly, the lyres and harps rippled like spring water, and the brides and grooms entered, each with his or her oath-witness. Torvik Jemarsson was standing up for his mother and Gildas Aurhinius, while Sir Darin loomed behind Hawkbrother and Young Eskaia, Lady Eskaia's youngest daughter followed, bearing both rings on a silver tray. Pirvan and Haimya, in the traditional array of the champions of the brides, brought up the rear.
As the wedding party stepped onto the square of carpet marked off by braided rushes and scented seaweed (all that the season allowed), a male singer in the gallery above began:
"Let there be man and maid, ho!"
A woman's voice replied:
"Let there be maid and man, ho!"
Niebar recognized the woman singing as Rynthala. Well, singing that well-wishing song was an honor, and Niebar had known women to assassinate at least one another's reputations over singing it at a friend's wedding.
How many times had he heard it, Niebar wondered. Twenty times at least, usually for knights, but never for him. Of course, if Gildas Aurhinius could wed at his age, there was hope for even the Niebar the Talls of the world.
But hope meant little without the time to seek a worthy bride-unless one sought you, as had been the case with Eskaia and Aurhinius. Niebar did not expect such luck for himself. The luck he hoped for now was that the Grand Master would allow this to be his last quest on the secret affairs of the knights. Then he could find his modest chamber in some keep, and leave the work in the hands of a man who would do it better than he ever had.
That man also probably did not much like the thought of the burden, of course. But if Pirvan the Wayward had not wanted the work, he should not have done it so well.
Nuitari and Solinari splashed light across the floor of the chamber. Faint phosphorescence from the sea added another tint to the light.
It was just enough for Hawkbrother to see his wife's hair spread out across the pillow. She had grown it for the wedding until she swore that it would be long enough to twine through his fingers, although she had not promised she would leave it that way. It would need to fit under a helmet before they had been wed a month, she said, and he feared she was right.
But tonight…
"Am I welcome in your bed, my wife?" Hawkbrother said. His throat felt full of hot gravel, so that he was sure the words came out a croak.
Eskaia seemed to understand even his croaking.
"You are welcome in my bed, my husband," she said.
He turned his back to remove his robe, but by the time he turned back, Eskaia had thrown aside the blankets-as she had already thrown aside her own robe.
"You are welcome everywhere you wish to go, in truth," she said, with what sounded suspiciously like laughter in her voice.
Hawkbrother stood and looked, and felt a gentle warmth flowing through him, unlike anything he had ever felt before, But then, he had never been wed before, so why should he not feel that he was entering a whole new world and time?
Gildas Aurhinius and Lady Eskaia swore that on their wedding night they would do what they had never done before.
Nor were they foresworn. Weary, filled with good food and better wine, and content with what they had done for themselves and for the younger couple, they fell chastely to sleep in each other's arms.
Torvik Jemarsson walked along the beach, listening to the thunder roll of the surf and watching the breakers fling rocks the size of his fist into the air like feathers. When one of them nearly parted his hair, he turned his course inland.
From the cliffs above the beach, he had a view well out to sea. In the phosphorescence offshore, he thought he saw dark shapes rising and falling. They had to be whales, to be seen from this distance, and whales were kin to porpoises, and porpoises who spoke with the Dargonesti might carry messages to the Dimernesti. Were the whales here as scouts, to watch over the ships gathering in Vuinlod and bring word of when they sailed?
Torvik told himself that a long day and a surprisingly fine night for this time of year were filling him with fancies. He would go back to the town and find decent wine and perhaps a warm hearted woman.
Farther south, a messenger rode through the darkness. When he saw that he was approaching the hills around Vuinlod, he reined in, watered and wiped down his horse, and considered what to do next. The message he bore would reach Sir Pirvan if he simply rode into town and shouted it in the streets. So would it reach a howling mob of people, all eager to help or perhaps hinder him.
But how to go straight to Pirvan without anyone asking why he sought the knight? No one in Vuinlod knew him.
But Lady Eskaia was used to receiving messages, and would know where Pirvan was. She might even be able to summon Pirvan's men-at-arms, and once among those friends the messenger knew his secret would be safe.
Men had called him Wilthur the Brown because they could not come up with a better (or worse) name for a man who had worn the White, Red, and Black Robe, each at various times.
He had also commanded the magic of each, and forgotten none of it. What he had not commanded was himself, at least enough to avoid being corrupted by so much knowledge.
In the end he had fled beyond the knowledge of men, and now called Suivinari Island his home.
From atop the dormant volcano men called the Smoker, he watched the world beyond through the most potent scrying glass ever made. He still had to use the eyes of his body, but that might be about to change, if the expedition coming to his island left enough bodies of other men behind.
He would say nothing and think only a little about that particular ambition, however. His robe now was Black, so the Dragon Queen should not (in theory) object to what he was doing. But a human mage who could transcend the limits of the body as far as Wilthur hoped to was no friend to anyone. Not even to gods. Gods whom he might soon be able to bring into or expel from the world at will. And of all gods, Takhisis was the least likely to endure such a challenge.
Meanwhile, dawn was breaking over Vuinlod. The scrying, glass could not at such a distance show him single figures, but he could count the ships in the harbor.
Good. No more than the day before, although not all those who would be sailing against Suivinari would be coming to Vuinlod by ship. He considered taking a day or two to examine spells that might let him see farther into the town Perhaps even, with luck, penetrate the walls of dwellings and stables, to count men and horses.