The Bride of the Immortal (45 page)

“I do apologise,” Änlin said. “She’s just a child. Please proceed. It won’t happen again.”

Hilda gave Corinne a dig with the elbow. The young maid coughed and glared at her, not looking dangerous in the least. Luckily the reading had been short but silly as the girl was, it had been long enough for her to start crying. Her tears hadn’t stopped flowing as Father Adrijan had continued on, talking solemnly yet without showing any emotion, bestowing upon the celebration the air of a funeral. Even the exchanged wedding vows had been minimalistic and slightly peculiar, bearing the characteristics of a contract.

Hilda sighed. She didn’t know why she was so cranky and she caught herself almost wishing that Engelin would cause another scene like she had initiated with the fake sneeze. For the past few days she had been looking forward to the wedding but now that it was time, something felt wrong and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Mairin’s clumsy struggle with the ring conjured a wry smile on Vivian’s face. It was pitiful how her hands were nervously shaking and he inconspicuously tried to aid her.

Finally the ring was in place and it was the immortal’s turn to affirm Adrijan’s question. He did so without hesitation and while steadily keeping his eyes on the beautiful bride. The fateful words spoken, he gently supported Mairin’s hand and very gracefully put the ring on her finger. He had always enjoyed the satisfaction of carrying out whatever he did with perfection.

Vivian observed Mairin, waiting for her to recognise the special design Adrijan had chosen for the piece of jewellery. It should have been his brother standing here, discovering the spark in her eyes as she gazed at the symbol of their bond.

“I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.”

Vivian slightly tensed, awaiting what he knew would follow.

“You may now kiss the bride,” Adrijan stoically proclaimed.

Hearing these words from Ade’s mouth was certainly strange, but Vivian shrugged off the bothersome feeling and moved on like he always had.

Knowing Vivian’s temper she had expected his kiss to be passionate but his soft lips merely touched her mouth, gently and quickly like a fleeting dream.

Taken in by the experience of her first kiss, Mairin was unprepared when the master of
Mondstein
castle simply tore away her loosened veil. With a vigorous gesture he commanded the orchestra to play and while the first notes of the waltz resounded in the grand hall, he was already dragging her to the dance floor. Mairin gasped.

Adrijan gazed at the now empty place where the bridal pair had danced to the rhythm of the music.

One, two, three… One, two three…

What kind of evil sorcery was it, that allowed the tune to linger on even after the orchestra had already packed up and left?

Alone in the great hall, surrounded by a perceptible nothingness, Adrijan was still able to conjure up the scene of the never-ending waltz of bride and groom: Vivian taking the lead, Mairin’s hair flowing as her graceful figure was floating over the dance floor, the wings on her dress swaying just like an angel’s.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, reminding himself that the angel was gone, that the hall had been cleared – that it was over.

Adrijan straightened up and started to walk. His steps sounded through the emptiness – an emptiness that wasn’t unlike his own state of mind. Almost in the centre of the grand room he came to a halt.

A peculiar fatigue had taken hold of him and caused him to blink slowly, as if he couldn’t find the strength to open his eyes after closing them. He had hardly gotten any sleep the night before, but he knew that the exhaustion he felt was based on more than physical strain. Gradually Adrijan turned around and the walls slid past his view like single slides projected by a diascope. Daylight had become scarce yet he felt no urge to do something about the increasing darkness. More precisely, he didn’t feel the urge to do anything.

Adrijan was puzzled by his own unnatural calmness.

Wasn’t he supposed to panic at the thought that Mairin was about to spend her wedding night with Vivian? During the marriage ceremony he had felt like a drowning man and it had taken him a lot of effort to do what had to be done. Now it seemed that he was watching himself, the corpse floating in the watery depths, like a subject of study.

Not far away from where he stood Adrijan spotted a few instruments leaning against the wall. They had been brought in as substitutes and after they hadn’t been needed, the servants had obviously forgotten to put them away.

Slowly he walked over to them. There was no rush.

Examining his find, he discovered a violin case. Carefully he removed the stringed instrument. It wasn’t a very valuable violin but of course that wasn’t of importance. Unhurriedly he picked up the bow, put the lower bout on his shoulder and performed a few precise upward strokes to see if the instrument was tuned.

The small brush tickled on Mairin’s skin. For the past half-hour the artist had been preparing her for the – in her opinion early – wedding night by drawing a loose, arabesque pattern of rarely intertwined silver lines and dots on her body. It was a delicate floral motif that looked its best when Hilda directed the spotlight at Mairin’s skin, increasing the visibility of the ornament and causing it to sparkle like traces of magic.

Despite her own fascination with the beauty of the art Mairin was embarrassed having to let the middle-aged woman use her as a canvas. Absorbed by her work she stayed so close to her that Mairin was relieved to have taken a shower after all the dancing. Under the woman’s scrutinizing gaze she was also tremendously glad that she had been allowed to put on underwear. While it was certainly better than being naked, the white slip that was diaphanous – except for where it really mattered – and the very short and slightly transparent negligée of the same colour, were only of little comfort to her when she thought of what was going to happen once she was ready.

Finally the artist put away the brush and Hilda stepped closer to let Mairin’s long, wavy hair down. She extracted a few drops of oil from a small bottle and dispersed it, bestowing an unfamiliar but pleasant fragrance to the curls.

The maid encouragingly smiled at her mistress and handed her the strange flower she had used in the ceremony instead of a bouquet. Mairin took a deep breath.

It was time.

The room had been heated with regard to the planned preparations but she was shivering and her stomach was still trying to make her change her mind.

Hilda opened the door to the adjacent room where Vivian was already waiting for his bride. Reluctantly Mairin stepped through the opening and listened to the sound of the door being shut and locked behind her.

“So you’ve decided to come,” Vivian welcomed her in a soft voice.

Hilda was in a hurry to leave the room. Fearing that she would be involved in something she didn’t remotely want to know about, she wasn’t keen on staying close to what she called the ‘crime scene’ any longer than necessary. The mere thought that she had locked in her mistress and didn’t know if she was faring well, filled her with horror.

Donning a mask of professionalism she politely guided the hired artist outside, deciding that it would be early enough to clean up the mess they had made the following day.

“Her husband will certainly be pleased,” the woman noted smiling proudly.

Hilda was shivering. She tried to calm herself with the thought that the immortal certainly wasn’t an evil person. After all he attracted so many women and none of them had ever complained. Nevertheless she felt like she had abandoned Mairin and she wasn’t quite herself when she saw off the special guest.

On her way back upstairs, Hilda passed by the great hall to see if everything had been cleaned up properly and was surprised to hear the sound of a lonely violin.