Chrom wished he wasn't alone with his thoughts. They had locked him in one of the castle's spare rooms a few hours ago, and ever since then he had been doing nothing but let his mind go over and over the seemingly endless list of things that could go wrong today. He couldn't even exercise to distract himself, lest he risk wrinkling his finest set of clothes.
He had no aversions to marrying Sumia, quite the opposite in fact. That was one of the major problems. A simple political marriage could weather any sort of fiasco at the wedding and the only thing he would worry about was if it would affect the ensuing alliance, but since he was marrying somebody he very much loved, even the tiniest drawback would seem like an unprecedented disaster. They had gone through so much together in the war, and now he was spending half his life negotiating with his advisers. The least he felt he could do was provide her with a decent wedding.
Just as he was adding the three hundredth entry to his list of potential disasters, he heard the door unlock and open. He turned around to see Frederick, looking awkward and uncomfortable outside of his massive suit of armor, along with Robin, who was dressed in the closest thing he had to finery. Tharja was presumably showing restraint by remaining outside the room.
"We're going to start the ceremony in about fifteen minutes, milord," Frederick said.
"Frederick! Thank the gods you're here," Chrom said. "Please help convince me that everything won't go horribly, terribly wrong."
Frederick's back stiffened, called into his element. "There's no need to worry, milord. The guests are being seated as we speak with no notable absences. Those of us who are to participate in the ceremony are in position, aside from myself and Robin here, and we will be returning in our due time. In fourteen minutes you will be called forth to the altar. Sumia will shortly thereafter advance down the aisle, which Miriel has assured me is as close to a perfectly flat plane as can exist in our world. The ceremony will then be performed, and the two of you shall present yourself via the front balcony to the awaiting crowd currently surrounding the palace."
Frederick inhaled. "Nothing will go wrong because nothing can go wrong. Robin has meticulously laid out the plans under my diligent instruction, and we have ensured that the only possibility of failure lies in the sudden and spontaneous appearance of an enemy army numbering at least ten thousand men in strength, give or take five hundred."
He tapped Chrom sharply on the shoulder. "And with that, I'm afraid I must depart. I will further brief the others in the royal guard, and we will maneuver you to the ceremony in thirteen minutes. Robin will remain in this room until he takes his position eight minutes hence. Good luck, and congratulations to you and your bride." He turned on his heel and walked back out the door, leaving Robin looking rather nonplussed.
"He doesn't seem to grasp the romantic implications of the event, does he?" he said.
In the end, nothing did go horribly wrong during the ceremony. He was marched through what felt like several miles of the castle grounds, his escort passing by a crowd of citizens who had turned up to witness the spectacle, corralled effectively by the palace guard. Evidently there was a festival going on in the city- the populace of Ylisse hadn't quite taken to Chrom quite as well as they had to Emmeryn, but being a war hero certainly won him some admiration, and even the vilest royal's marriage would result in a day-long celebration, even if for no other reason than people will take any excuse they can get for frivolity.
Once he got to the palace's chapel, where the actual ceremony was performed, he didn't remember much. Snippets stood out- seeing Sumia come down the aisle, the priest announcing them as man and wife, standing on the balcony to greet a crowd of onlookers- but mostly all he could remember was being very, very happy.
Things began to get more distinct at the celebratory dinner in the great hall. Chrom didn't know just how many people had been invited in the end, but the huge room was bulging at the seams just to accommodate all of the guests. If they had added an extra course to the meal the roof would probably have caved in.
Chrom and Sumia of course sat at the head table, along with Lissa and a few more distant family members. Frederick had been offered a seat at the table as well, and he had attempted declined due to his own crippling humility. Lissa had found his reasoning less than adequate, and her intense badgering eventually wore down his resolve enough that a compromise was reached where he agreed to stand adjacent to the table, but made no promises to look happy.
The rest of the room was mostly Shepherds and lesser nobles, the former the more important in Chrom's eyes, though political factors made it crucially important that the latter never find out. It was sort of odd watching the two groups mingle: almost all of the Shepherds constantly laughed, argued, and generally shoveled food into their mouths as fast as they could, while being observed with quiet but unvoiced disdain by the non-Shepherds and Maribelle. He supposed they could have acted with more decorum, but considering the number of internal marriages that the Shepherds had gone through recently Chrom just counted himself lucky that they still bothered to wear dress clothes.
Robin and Tharja had found some creative solutions to the issue of formal clothes. The Shepherd's tactician was an appointed position rather than an actual military rank, so Robin didn't have anything in the way of an official dress uniform. Instead he had just worn some polished dress armor and adorned his coat with some gold trimmings, which was not the most comfortable-looking approach to high fashion but was at least a sign of a decent attempt. Meanwhile, Tharja was looking a bit more disgruntled in an Ylissean mage's outfit that she had borrowed from one of the other Shepherds, in accordance with a request by some of the staff that she not wear her usual outfit to the wedding. Chrom wasn't sure how she felt about that, but he was pretty sure that the robes hadn't been pitch black when they had been given to her.
The two of them were sitting towards the middle of the room, roughly between the Shepherds and various nobles. Chrom didn't think much of that until he realized why- a few tables away was that man Ortho, sitting with a group of older gentlemen and looking very much like he was the most comfortable person there. Even above the general hubbub in the hall, his booming voice occasionally drifted back up to Chrom with some proclamation of his family's long-standing friendship with the Ylisseans.
His thoughts drifted away from the seating arrangements when Frederick tapped him on his shoulder and told him that it was time to go greet the guests at the tables. It seemed a faintly onerous custom to Chrom, who would have very much preferred having all the guests come up to him, but since half the guests were people he had fought for his life beside and the other half were people that could be appeased by the most blandly diplomatic statements, he supposed it could have been worse.
He and Sumia drifted around the rooming, exchanging polite greetings and high-fives as the case might be. They didn't linger too much with anybody, considering that there was an entire room of people to get to, but Chrom did pause once they got to the table where Robin and Tharja were sitting.
"Congratulations, Chrom. We couldn't be happier for you," Robin said. Tharja murmured an agreement, but she seemed not quite committed to the idea. It was probably just the event, but the more unusual characteristics of her personality seemed to be manifesting more clearly today. Her and Robin's seats were pushed close together, she was holding on tight to his arm, and unless the table setters had made a horrible mistake, she had put all of her food onto his plate.
Chrom turned away from their table after a bit more idle chatter, towards the one where Ortho and his newfound friends were sitting. They were a group of lesser nobles who hadn't brought any guests to the celebration, and most of them looked like they were regretting their decision to leave their wives at home. Ortho was so engrossed in explaining subjects he found them ignorant in that he didn't even notice Chrom and Sumia approach.
"You overestimate my talents, my good friend. I should have no hope in 'taking over your mind' with as little preparation as I have had," he said, smiling widely, any trace of self-awareness absent from his face. "Curse's aren't like daggers, where one thrust is sufficient for all purposes. The more powerful the curse, the more lengthy the preparations. Given what I have available now I could probably manage to place a severe flu upon you at best. Now, if you could provide me with an account of your life story, your true name, and perhaps some incense, I could make some headway-"
"Hello everybody, I'm glad that you could make it," Chrom said loudly, trying to draw attention away from Ortho before the other people sitting at the table felt it necessary to flee.
Ortho turned around with a bright expression. "The good Exalt-in-waiting, and his own new bride! Might I offer my own personal congratulations? I must say that the ceremony was quite wondrous- of course, I haven't seen many of them conducted in the service of of Naga, but-"
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Chrom said, trying to head him off before he gained any momentum. "It's my personal wish that our people will be able to admire each other's traditions without having to resort to conflict in the future."
Ortho beamed. "Absolutely! There's nothing like a healthy exchange of ideas across cultures. Of course, the rest of the family and many of the other guests are probably going to have to insist that my niece's and your tactician's ceremony be performed with the traditional rites of Grima, but-"
This time it wasn't Chrom who had a chance to interrupt him. One of the nobles slammed his palms against the table and rose from his seat with a furious expression.
"That's quite enough!" he said, looking at Ortho, and then turned to Chrom. "Your majesty, I implore you to reconsider this travesty. I can accept diplomacy. I can accept consorting with the enemy if it means peace. But I will not allow the house of Ylisse that I have supported through such hardships allow its sacred institutions to be besmirched in order to appease those who have already been defeated."
He was speaking quite forcefully, and most of the tables around them were looking towards them curiously. Robin and a few of the other Shepherd's nearest cautiously stood up, putting their hands on any weapons they had nearby. A few of the palace guards were already making their way towards Chrom.
"Sir, please, we can talk this over like grown men," Chrom said, putting up his hands in appeasement.
"Grown men are not so naïve that they think any behavior out of their subordinates can be accepted. Grown men have enough respect for their traditions not to usurp them in their most holy of houses," the noble countered, his finger pointed steadfastly towards Robin. "I will not accept a king who allows his most trusted confidant to betray his god without question. I will not accept a military whose values can be undermined by the solitary endeavor of a foreign harlot."
By this point the palace guards had made their way towards them, and two of them surrounded the still-nameless noble on either side. He glanced their way and dropped his hand.
"In the interest of politeness, I will depart peacefully. But please, heed my words, Exalt. I assure you I am not the only one who feels this way." True to his word, he let the guards escort him to the door without raising a fuss.
The commotion died down soon after, and some of the Shepherd's treated the whole thing like a joke. But Chrom still felt uneasy. Ortho was right after all, most of the Plegian guests would expect a fellow Plegian to have a marriage performed with their traditional rites, and many of the Ylisseans would view exactly that as an insult to the royal house. There wasn't an easy solution this time, and he kept worrying about it on and off for the rest of the day. It was Sumia who finally gave him something close to peace of mind.
"You'll think of something," she said, several nights later while they were laying together in bed. "I wouldn't have married you if I thought there was a disaster you couldn't fix."