Wedding (12 page)

“Miss the day?” Eleonora said, as if I had
proposed canceling the entire observance. “The longest day of the
year, the day of abundance, of fruition?” Her eyes narrowed and her
mouth sneered in a frightening resemblance to her handsome, cruel
father whose portrait hung next to Dominic’s. “If you
want
to humiliate Dominic, that’s the surest way to go about it,
canceling the principal feast of the year in his name.” Since she
wasn’t totally convinced that I didn’t want that, she added, “I
warn you, if you propose it, the household will rise up in a revolt
that will make this Eris nuisance look like a wedding party by
contrast.”

The absent men apparently agreed with her,
scheduling their journey home to arrive at midday on the day
itself. Eleonora and I would greet them at the inner gate, the
traditional reception that she had given her brother and me on our
arrival. Between our respective gifts, we knew to the minute when
we could expect them to reach the outer gate, and had ample time to
make ourselves presentable.

Fattened by pregnancy, leisure and rich food,
I had to stuff myself into my formal gown that had made so notable
if unwelcome an impression at La Sapienza. Katrina worked
painstakingly at my hair. “See, my lady,” she said triumphantly,
“if I use a few extra pins, you can wear the comb.” She had managed
to bunch my hair thickly enough at the back of my neck that, with a
little ingenuity in placing hairpins, it would support Dominic’s
betrothal gift. She held a hand mirror so I could see the effect. I
looked like a real ’Gravina now. Like ’Gravina Aranyi.

Eleonora inspected me as I came running out
at the last minute, in my mad scramble forgetting to put on my
boots or wear a shawl. She had been ready early, had thrown a light
cloak over her shoulders and had stood enjoying the warm fresh air
while I was still fussing with my hair and clothes. The glass comb
made her eyes widen in surprise. “Did Dominic tell you the history
of that piece of jewelry?” she asked.

I shook my head, felt a hairpin give way, and
tried to maintain a dignified, motionless composure. “Not
completely,” I said. “He thought I understood when he gave it to
me.”

“And did you?” She pursued her quarry, unsure
if she really wanted to catch it.

“No,” I answered honestly. “Not then.” I
caught my breath after all the rushing around and heard the sound
of approaching horses. “But I figured it out eventually,” I added,
just in time for Eleonora’s glare to give way to a smile of welcome
as Dominic returned the salute of the guard at the inner gate and
rode in.

The men came through the narrow gate in
groups of two and three, Dominic and Josh and a younger man in the
lead, and stopped in front of Eleonora and me. Dominic wore riding
gloves, and I could see he controlled the horse with his right
hand. When he dismounted he put his weight all on the right, an
unnatural posture for him, and his descent was not as graceful as
usual. The young man who had been riding beside him jumped down to
help Dominic, who frowned at this exposure of his disability.
Dominic softened the harsh look, however, giving the boy an
affectionate pat on the rear, and moved to embrace first Eleonora,
then me.

Seeing Dominic at last, I could hardly
contain all my emotions. I hugged him tightly, working my right arm
in between his left arm and his body so as not cause him any more
pain. Our communion was odd, stronger than I had dared to hope, but
with more hidden places in Dominic’s mind.
My love
, I
thought to him, looking up into his face, so many questions I
couldn’t ask in front of everybody. I touched a fingertip to his
gloved left hand that hung useless at his side. The sense of
burning was as intense as on the day it happened, the image of Eris
shimmying in front of Dominic’s face for one awful moment before he
shook his head and stepped gently out of my embrace to introduce
the boy. “Stefan Ormonde, my
companion.
”

As Dominic clearly wished to turn attention
from himself, I accepted the postponement, yet again, of meaningful
communion with him, and looked at Stefan. He was a small young man
with dark, curly hair, the type Dominic had always preferred.
Regular, neat features, the promise of compact muscularity not yet
fully realized, the growth spurt yet to come—I had seen him before.
He was the handsome cadet Dominic had been with when I had intruded
on him telepathically from La Sapienza.

Relief made my heart skip, the blood not
reaching my brain for a beat or two. Dominic had not had to suffer
alone in his strange wounding. And if he felt confident enough to
keep a lover with him, especially so young a man who would be
unlikely to be capable of real empathy, things were perhaps not as
terrible as I had imagined.

Stefan had meanwhile bowed properly low to
Eleonora, sibyl and sister to Margrave Aranyi. As he made his bow
to me, I smiled and, in my pleasure at recognizing him, extended my
hand in the usual Terran way while repeating my name.

The young man stood momentarily paralyzed by
my strange gesture. On Terra there is no graceful way to avoid the
handshake. I had simply had to put up with it, and initiating it
had become automatic with me. Stefan, needing guidance, looked to
Dominic, who nodded for him to reciprocate. By then I had realized
my mistake but thought it discourteous to withdraw. It wasn’t
simply my own comfort that mattered here, as with Magali or
Katrina. Stefan was gifted too, or Dominic would not have chosen
him as a companion. But he followed Dominic’s unspoken command,
touching my hand briefly with the tips of his fingers while he
muttered something I couldn’t catch.

Our encounter was a revelation to both of us.
Unexpectedly cool and pleasant, his touch had none of the usual
shock effect, but was almost like a muted version of what I felt
with Dominic. In a way it was as if Dominic was involved; the link
seemed to encompass him, passing through him and bringing Stefan
and me together in a completion of something that until now had
been unfinished, imperfect, insubstantial. Only later, however,
what with all that followed, did I trace back to this event as the
moment when my sympathetic pain from Dominic’s wound ended.

Stefan and I looked into each other’s eyes as
the surprising sensation enveloped us, and we formed an immediate
communion. Intimate scenes displayed in our minds before we could
shield our thoughts:
Dominic seducing me in the barracks of the
’Graven Military Academy, Dominic making telepathic love to Stefan
in a bedroom in La Sapienza
. No, we had things reversed, had
swapped memories for our moment of connection. It was like my
meeting with Dominic, when we had seen ourselves through the
other’s perceptions. Now Stefan and I shared with each other our
first occasions of love with Dominic, an unconventional method of
introduction that our bodies had apparently dictated and our minds
obeyed.

Horses stamped on the cobblestones and
jingled their harnesses; men coughed and spoke in low voices. Lost
in familiarity, reaching toward a young man who was already
shrinking from the closeness, I was brought back to real life by
prosaic sounds and impatient thoughts from the growing crowd of
arrivals. Stefan and I dropped our hands and straightened from our
slight bow and inclination to the other, blushing at the knowledge
that every gifted person present, unless very polite indeed, had
partaken of our memories. “Welcome to Aranyi Fortress,” I said in a
faint voice, imitating Eleonora’s original greeting to me. “I hope
you did not find the journey tiring.”

People were staring, some open-mouthed in
astonishment, others expectantly, as if waiting for the punch line
of a long joke I had been telling. My gesture and the subsequent
communion must have been unspeakably rude, especially as they had
led Stefan into error as well, although no one appeared to be
angry. Perhaps I had simply omitted an essential expression of
hospitality that by saying now I could make things right again.

In desperation I turned to Eleonora; I could
rely on her to correct me, if no one else would. But she was not
looking at me. Dominic, a triumphant gleam in his eyes, and
Eleonora, who appeared almost humble, were engaged in an intense
moment of non-verbal communication. It was useless trying to figure
this one out.

Somehow we all got inside, and the men went
upstairs to bathe and change their clothes. Eleonora used this
opportunity to take me aside. “In case you are not as familiar with
our language and customs as you pretend,” she said in her old
superior manner, “Stefan is Dominic’s lover. You must seat him at
Dominic’s left hand at the high table, and give him the Companion’s
room next to Dominic’s.”

“Thank you for telling me,” I said. “I was
going to put Stefan at the last table with the youngest servants
and tell him to bunk with the stable hands. I’m so glad you caught
my mistake in time.”

My sarcasm made her laugh. “All right, I
underestimated you,” she said. “But a
companion
is more than
just a sex partner. You really don’t know what you’re up against
with my brother.”

So that was the mystery. She still thought I
didn’t know Dominic, that his having a male lover would upset me.
“Maybe not,” I said, remembering similar conversations with Edwige.
“But I know more than you imagine.” I had learned some control, was
unwilling to pick a fight with Eleonora the minute Dominic came
home. “Believe me when I say that I love him as he is.” The
statement embraced both his fundamental nature and his new, damaged
condition. “And please, let’s try to be, if not friends, at least
not enemies.”

“Agreed,” Eleonora said, knowing what such a
request cost me. “Not enemies.” She held up her left hand, palm
out, in the traditional sign of peace. “The feast will begin
shortly. We mustn’t keep people waiting.”

Now that Eleonora had guaranteed my bad
temper her satisfied smile returned, and she glided back to the
crush of servants and guests assembling outside the great hall. I
followed uncertainly, wishing I had accompanied Dominic upstairs.
He might need my help for bathing and dressing now that he was
essentially one-armed, I told myself, conveniently forgetting
Stefan and Ranulf, who had stood a few steps behind Dominic during
that whole strange scene in the courtyard, saying nothing but
observing all. Before I had made up my mind to fight the crowds on
the stairs, Dominic appeared on the landing wearing a fresh
uniform, his hair damp, an equally scrubbed Stefan beside him.

The crowd parted for Dominic to descend. He
spoke softly to Stefan, offered me his right arm, and was escorting
me into the hall while I was still too flustered to speak. I looked
up at his face, the furrows that ran from nose to chin deeper than
I remembered, from pain no doubt, the silvery inner eyelids
somewhat clouded. Communion flickered around us like flames with
the touch of my hand on his arm.

There was little of the depression and
bitterness I had expected to find in Dominic after his debilitating
wound, only a slight embarrassment, more of a half-buried
excitement, shame mixed with a discovery that made the whole
incident into a temporary inconvenience, worthwhile in the end
because of an expected, but still most welcome result.
What is
it?
I wanted to ask.
Tell me
. But in the noisy, laughing
crowd of the Midsummer feast it was difficult for me to block all
else out and concentrate on him.
Gods!
I wished we could be
alone for a while.

Beloved
, Dominic answered my wish,
projected far too forcefully considering our proximity,
it will
not be much longer, I promise.
His mouth turned up at one
corner as I remembered, ironic and amiable at the same time. He
noticed the glass comb in my hair. “I am glad to see,” he said,
“that my gift is no longer wasted on you.” There was a slight catch
in his deep voice as he quoted my own words back to me. We were
seated before I could think of an appropriate response, and by then
it was too late.

Tonight, with the return of the men, there
were five of us from the family, along with local gentry, to make
up a party at the high table. While I had been the only ’Graven in
residence, sitting there alone had been insupportable, apart from
all the other diners, exposed and self-conscious. After the first
miserable dinner, Magali had acceded to my request to sit instead
at the head of the first servants’ table. I could maintain my
status there, while enjoying companionship and conversation.
Eleonora, on her return, had accepted this arrangement for both of
us, with the excuse that it saved the work of setting and clearing
an extra table and laundering the additional tablecloth.

Now we were forced back to the regular
practice. With the full household restored, a substantial
contingent of guests from the surrounding manors and the allied
troops who would celebrate the festival at Aranyi, the room was
filled to capacity, three rows of tables running down toward the
entrance instead of the usual two. Dominic occupied the carved,
throne-like chair at the center of the high table. Stefan sat, as
had been made clear, on Dominic’s left; I sat on his right.
Eleonora and Josh occupied a corner, partly facing each other.

The highest-ranking independent landowners
took the remaining seats. Lucretia, Lady Ladakh, the widow of a
local gentleman with a substantial estate, was escorted by her
eldest son, Myron, a young man of twenty. The other honored guests
were Stefan’s parents, Sir Karl Ormonde and Luisa, Lady Ormonde, a
dignified middle-aged pair; and a handsome couple from the northern
border, Sir Nicholas Galloway, with the loudest voice I had ever
heard that was not electronically amplified, and his wife, Clara.
Niall, their son, Sir Nicholas explained to us, the rest of the
room, and everyone else within a five-mile radius, had recently
begun his training at La Sapienza, or he would not have missed so
glorious a celebration.