Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (46 page)

Within moments Sioned saw herself alight with green fire. She could see nothing but the emeralds that pulsed with a life of their own. A black shadow crowned with golden hair moved to stand behind her, and as he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders their eyes met in the mirror.

“Only one thing missing,” Tobin said, coming forward with two thin circlets of silver that twisted open at the back. She gave them both to Rohan, who blinked in surprise before he smiled and kissed her cheek.

“Two things,” he corrected. “But one, in the end,” he added cryptically. Sioned smiled.

“Now, don’t either of you leave here until Chay and I can join you,” Tobin warned. “And where is he, anyway?”

“Dressed and waiting for you,” Rohan said absently, fingering the circlets. “Sioned, are you well? Truly?”

“Truly,” she answered. “But let’s make it an early night, shall we?” She winked at him in the mirror, and he grinned.

“Now I’m
positive
it’s you!”

Careful of the elaborate braids, he placed one of the circlets across her brow. Then, with a shy smile, he handed her the second one. Sioned bit her lip; this was her vision come to life at last. She gave him the mark of royalty, pulling strands of golden hair into place so the circlet gleamed visible only across his forehead. Princess in every fact but the actual ceremony, she looked into her prince’s eyes for a long, silent time without doubts or strivings, at peace.

Andrade left Urival to deal with Pandsala and the infant, secure in the knowledge that the former could not escape and the latter now had a wet nurse. Urival’s dismay had been almost funny; Andrade pitied him the impossible evening, left alone with a frantic princess, a newborn, and a girl chosen not for her brains but her breasts. But there was no one else she could trust to keep Pandsala in line. The girl had twice tried to run, getting as far as the outer row of Rohan’s tents before the
faradh’im
had caught up with her, the regular guards being wary of placing rough hands on a daughter of the High Prince. Urival had no such scruples. Andrade hoped he would spend the evening making a few realities clear to her. The girl was not inherently vicious, she thought—unlike Ianthe, who was so twisted it was a wonder her own guts didn’t strangle her.

The lesser nobility would have their own feast, as would all the servants but Lord Jervis’ own. As Andrade left her tent she sniffed appreciatively of the roasts and breads being readied for the two other banquets down near the river. But Jervis had chosen the marriage hilltop as the site of the princes’ Lastday banquet, and by the time Andrade had climbed the slope she was in need of refreshment. She chose a cup of fruit juice—unfermented, for she was still fighting off the effects of a sojourn on water, and of Crigo’s death. She remembered him: proud, ambitious, thrilled to be assigned an important post, a capable Sunrunner who had been perverted by Roelstra and his
dranath.

“Greetings, my Lady,” Prince Lleyn said at her shoulder, and she turned. “Will you do me the honor of sitting with me tonight, Andrade?” he went on less formally. “I’ve been hearing things I’d like to know the truth of, if you’d be so kind. We are, in a sense, joined in guardianship of the continent now.”

“I don’t envy you the task of sorting out border claims.”

He gave a grimace of a smile, the lines on his face softened by mellow evening light. “I give thanks that my island
is
an island—and all mine.”

“Kierst-Isel will be a problem,” she agreed. “If you wish, I’ll have my people go through the records at Goddess Keep and transmit anything of interest to your Sunrunner.”

“My thanks. But I give Eolie enough to do, poor child, finding the best fishing waters and shell beds for me, warning of storms, and the like.”

“And keeping track of what everyone else is up to,” Andrade finished wryly. “I assume you’re hinting for another
faradhi
. How about Meath? He’s the big youngster in my party who looks as if he could throttle a plow-elk barehanded.”

“I would be most grateful. Of course, he won’t much like crossing water—but I’ll provide him with a private cabin and his own bucket.” Lleyn grinned wickedly.

“
Too
kind!” Andrade glanced around at the growing darkness. Torches, lit by Clutha’s court Sunrunner, were a double row of Fire leading up to the gigantic tent at the crest of the hill. “By the looks of things, you princes are about to be trumpeted in to dinner. I’ll save a chair for you.”

Clutha and Jervis got more ambitious every year in the marvels that accompanied the Lastday banqueting. Andrade, as Lady of Goddess Keep, took precedence over everyone else and went inside the tent first to choose the best seat at the best table. The others would, in effect, be announced into her presence—an amusement she anticipated with more than the usual relish tonight.

A state banquet for fifty was never a simple event to arrange, especially as all of those present were accustomed to magnificence. At the
Rialla
they expected even greater splendor, which challenged the combined households of Meadowlord’s prince and Waes’ lord. From a simple outdoor meal to celebrate the successful conclusion of the
Rialla,
the Lastday feast had over the years become a showcase for culinary artisans and was now the full-time occupation of a suite of masters who commanded the resources of a princedom. Andrade, who had long since grown used to the display of riches, considered herself fairly inured to spectacles. But as she was bowed into the green tent, an exclamation of pure delight escaped her lips.

A dozen round tables were artfully placed around a deep green carpet so thick it felt like spring grass underfoot. At each corner of the tent waterfalls splashed down rock cairns designed not only with an eye to beauty but to cooling the diners once the torches had been lit. The perimeter was a grotto of ferns, flowers, and trees in great silver pots; greenery was strewn from the ceiling latticework and decorated with more blossoms. The whole place seemed alive.

But the real marvels were the enormous sculptures set around the tent. Each was a faithful reproduction in miniature of each prince’s major seat: Rohan’s Stronghold, Roelstra’s Castle Crag, Vissarion’s Summer River, Lleyn’s Graypearl, and all the rest. Andrade was surprised and flattered to find a rendering of Goddess Keep as well. The images had been worked in spun sugar and colored with the essences of a rainbow of herbs and flowers; masters of the confectioner’s art had reproduced the blue-gray waves below Andrade’s keep, the fine golden sand around Stronghold, the extensive formal gardens of Volog’s New Raetia in all their brilliant colors. Clutha’s
faradhi
must have assisted in the making of these master-works, for none but a Sunrunner could make such detailed observations of land and keep to be recreated thus.

Andrade chose a seat with the best view. The wives, sons, and daughters of the princes—those who had chosen to make the sometimes dangerous journey from their lands to Waes—filed in and exclaimed in wonder before remembering to bow to her. Tobin and Chay came in last, seated at this feast rather than the one for the
athr’im
by virtue of her relationship to Rohan and his importance in his own right. Andrade smiled as they bowed to her. Any other man would have used his unique position to establish his own princedom, but not Chay. Rohan was luckier than he knew.

Soon places were left only for the princes themselves, and after a pause three trumpets began a silvery fanfare. Each prince was announced by a short blasting chord and a bellow from Clutha’s high chamberlain that the Most Noble Prince So-and-so of Wherever graced the humble soil of Meadowlord, all hail His Highness’ Grace. A ceremony Andrade always found pompous at best suddenly moved her, for soon she would see Rohan make his entrance. A pity Sioned had evidently not been well enough to come tonight; she would have enjoyed it, too.

The breach of protocol might have been due to many things. Rohan might be pretending to be so young and inexperienced that he didn’t know a prince was supposed to enter alone; he might be so genuinely careless in his joy that he’d simply forgotten; or he might want only to show off his
faradhi
prize. But Andrade knew that he was putting everyone on notice that his wife would share his princely station and his power as well as his bed.

The high chamberlain was horrified. The trumpet chords had faded into the stunned silence before he drew a breath that nearly popped the laces of his tunic. “The Most Noble Prince Rohan of the Desert, and—and his Chosen Wife, the Lady Sioned!”

Rohan’s eyes snapped with glee at the shock he’d engineered. He was all in black and silver, the perfect foil for Sioned’s white and emeralds. They came forward to make their bows, and Andrade held back a gasp; each wore circlets of royalty. Rohan escorted his lady to the table where his sister and her lord sat, and at last the applause began for them as for the other princes. But there was wariness in some faces, and shock in others. Andrade’s gaze traveled around the tables, quelling all outward signs of rebellion. There would be no trouble, no protest at this marriage of prince and Sunrunner.

Roelstra’s own entrance immediately after was a complete anticlimax. The High Prince’s stony expression indicated his displeasure at being upstaged as well as out-maneuvered by the princeling. Lleyn, who had come in just before Rohan and Sioned, chuckled at Andrade’s side.

“Oh, he’s a crafty one, your Rohan. No shame to the boy at all. He’s ruined Roelstra’s digestion and the meal hasn’t even started yet.”

“If Zehava could see him now, he’d be laughing himself silly—or bursting with pride.” Not even Tobin and Chay—in vivid red and white with rubies and diamonds that made them a matched set in dress as in all else—were so regal and elegant a couple as Rohan and Sioned. It took all her self-control not to laugh in Roelstra’s face as he passed her table.

The first course was exhibited for due tribute by the amazed company before being passed around the tables. Lleyn sat back in his chair and gestured idly to the feast.

“Clutha told me this was to be a ‘light repast,’ ” he commented.

“I shudder to think what he considers a good, honest meal,” Andrade replied. “Did you bring those monstrous lobsters with you from Dorval?”

“
My
lobsters are much nobler creatures than these puny things from Snowcoves,” he retorted indignantly, while gesturing for the servant to heap more of the succulent golden shellfish onto his place. Andrade laughed.

During the first interval musicians assembled in the center of the tent to assist digestion with soothing melodies. Andrade was pleased and surprised to find Mardeem, one of her own
faradh’im,
singing to the accompaniment of strings and flutes. He honored each prince with a folk song from his lands. Andrade had heard him many times before and would listen to the wonder of his voice again, so she took the time to judge how Sioned was faring.

The girl looked magnificent, of course. But strain showed around her heavily made-up eyes, and beneath the artful pink salves her cheeks and lips were pale. Andrade prayed she would last the evening, and guessed that Rohan was thinking the same. His own looks were serene, but whenever he glanced at Sioned there was worry in his eyes and a tightness to his smile.

“An exquisite couple,” Lleyn observed. “The girl outshines the stars.”

Andrade sipped at a goblet of iced water and eyed him over its rim. “You’re about to start your interrogation, aren’t you?”

“ ‘Questioning’ is so much more polite a word,” he replied, unruffled. “They say many odd things about the fire on Roelstra’s ship.”

“Indeed.”

“A pity he lost his fabulous mistress—and her child.”

“The mistress,” Andrade answered curtly, “is cinders. But the child lives.”

“Ah.” He did not inquire further, and she knew it was a deliberate ploy to irritate her. Tonight, however, he could not succeed. She smiled at him and took another swallow of water.

But Lleyn was older than she, just as autocratic, and interested in the politics of the continent only for its entertainment value. He waited her out. Andrade knew he was waiting her out, and finally relented, but with another smile.

“Very well. I’ve taken the baby—and Pandsala, too. You don’t seem surprised.”

“At my age, very little surprises me. Roelstra has given it out privately that his daughter wishes to become a
faradhi,
so I already knew about Pandsala, you see. I’m curious, though.
Can
she learn your ways?”

“I haven’t tested her yet.” Singing and applause covered their conversation nicely, not that anyone around them was interested in the dull chat of two old folks. “Sickness on water is only the most obvious sign. Not every
faradhi
experiences it.”

“I thought only those who blanched at the very thought could become Sunrunners.”

“I have a theory about that,” she mused. “It might be a weakness that shows up so often because of inbreeding. We do tend to marry our own kind, you know.”

“Has it always been that way? The sickness on water, I mean.”

“For some, yes. But it seems to be getting more and more common since we left your island.” Andrade chuckled as the old man’s eyes widened. “Aha! I’ve caught you!
That’s
something you didn’t know, isn’t it? Meddling old gossip,” she accused teasingly.

“You fascinate me, my Lady,” he murmured. “Please continue.”

“You know the ruins on the other side of Dorval from Graypearl. A keep once stood there, even more imposing than the one I now rule. Its walls stood for a thousand years before the
farad-h’im
themselves tore the castle down.”

Lleyn nodded slowly. “My father and I did some poking around there when I was a lad. Wonderful old place. I still have a few coins and bits of tile I collected back then. Why did they leave?”