Disclaimer: If you recognise anything, it's Tamora Pierce's. (Or mine from a previous chapter, of course...!)
Thank you to reviewers! (Skip this bit if you like...)
AmayaNightRain11: thank you for such a long & well thought out review; and no, there are another 15 chapters to come!
Forget-me-not: thanks for the twins' names & the compliment!
Reaya: thanks for the names as well! Sorry you didn't like the duel, I agree it isn't Neal's thing but I thought in that situation he might become rather an officer and a gentleman... but it wasn't particularly well thought out, I admit!!!
Lady Satine: not very soon, sorry, but here you go!
Chapter Fifteen
Daine gazed into the long mirror and gasped. She saw her wedding dress.
A smooth bodice of pale yellow silk exposed fashionably white shoulders and the top of her bust. A simple A-line skirt fell from a high triangular waist to pool like liquid gold around her feet, encased in dainty silk slippers, tied with narrow green ribbon and just noticeable among the folds of her dress on the floor. She had held out for short, loose sleeves and had her way; they stopped halfway down her upper arm, ending with a wide, straight band of ribbon matching the silk of the dress. Cream silk gloves sheathed her slender arms to the elbows. The low neckline of the dress was emphasised by a delicate gold chain around her neck upon which hung a pendant of a single perfect emerald encased in pale gold. Around her right wrist was a loose bracelet, a filigree chain with links of gold and clasps of emerald; her left wrist was bare. She wore star-shaped earbobs of emeralds set in pale gold, just visible in the hair brushed into a mass of smoky-brown ringlets, tied around her head with a wide ribbon matching that on her shoes and then falling free to below her shoulders.
Alanna appeared behind her in the mirror.
"Daine, you look just too beautiful."
The bride laughed. "Who can look too beautiful for their wedding day?" she teased. "Do I really look all right?"
"You look perfect. The green-and-cream suits you, you look as if spring has come already!"
"Really? Oh, I am glad! I meant it to be gold, but the dye wasn't fast in the silk.." They both laughed.
"Even so, it's perfect. Can I have the address of your seamstress?" Smiling, Alanna got, slowly and almost steadily, to her feet with a sigh of regret. "I'd better go. There's only so long that the other six can save a seat! Especially when the bride's so very popular..."
"Ah, get away with you!" grinned Daine, as there came a knock on the door. She looked up. "Come in!"
It was the King, who was to give Daine away. She jumped as she saw him. "What's the time?" she demanded of him.
"The first bell after noon has just rung," he replied. "and it starts at twixt-bells, so you need to be there in less than three quarters of a bell."
"It's nowhere near long enough," said Daine thoughtfully, "and yet it's far too long to wait. How odd. I can't wait to marry Numair, and yet I don't want it to be so soon."
"It's the end of an era. You'll be very different in an hour's time. Of course you're scared," said Alanna as she leant, panting slightly, on the door, giving the bride a straight look that made her jump - Alanna knew why she wanted to be married quickly! "See you there, and don't be too scared!"
Daine licked her suddenly-dry lips and turned to the mirror for reassurance. The face that crowned the dress was pale and frightened, but even through the fear shone the greatest joy that she had ever seen.
It was a jolt when the two quarters rang out: it was twixt-bells already? She looked at the King as he stood up.
"Yes, it's twixt-bells and the wedding should be starting, my dear," he told her, "so you should be there fairly soon. Shall we start?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and they left.
Daine remembered very little of the walk to the chapel. She remembered almost tripping on her unaccustomed long skirts; remembered the long flight of stairs to the ground floor; remembered taking the bouquet of white lilac with its stems of pale green at the door of the chapel. The rest was merely a blur.
A blur, too, was most of the ceremony. Daine remembered walking a few paces up the aisle on King Jonathan's arm, then the sick and scared feeling when he left her; she remembered scanning the chapel for the faces of her friends and seeing them all there, every one, from Queen Thayet to Onua Chamtong, the Rider Horsemistress; she remembered oh, so vividly the breaks in Numair's light tenor as he vowed fidelity and honour, and her own voice quavering as she vowed in reply; she remembered the love in his beautiful dark face as he slipped the ring over her fourth finger, and as she mirrored the gesture. And then she was Veralidaine Sarrasri no more.
She and Numair - my husband, her mind reminded - left the chapel holding hands. At the door, they turned to each other and kissed.
"I feel even better now that I'm an honest woman!" murmured Daine, very low, into her husband's ear.
Roald and Neal, tho only pages to have attended the wedding, were much in demand that evening. They held court over supper and in their study group. The pages would be serving at the Feast in the evening of the next day, but this evening they were free... and quite definitely making the most of it!
"And guess who caught the bouquet!" finished Neal.
"One of the court ladies," guessed cautious Esmond.
"One of the Rider women..." opined Seaver.
"Maura of Dunlath!" decided impulsive Merric.
"None of them," said Neal triumphantly, "Princess Kalasin."
Kel looked at the Prince. "Highness? Is there a wedding arranged for her?"
"No. My mother said she would allow it once Kally reached thirteen, which as you know she did this year, but everyone knows how Mama feels about the whole matter. Kally's marriage is a last resort, a seal held in reserve for a particularly difficult treaty... which is very nice for Kally, I'm sure. I only wish they would extend the same courtesy to the prince."
"But, Highness, she is a year younger than you! And those arrangements were a last resort. Father spent months trying to organise it so that you needn't marry Princess Chisakami! And it all turned out all right, anyway, with her eloping with that sergeant... You needn't complain, Father's said that since a princess of the blood royal has broken the agreements of her father and counsellors, the Yamani Isles must not try to put another on the throne of Tortall for if they do we will take it as an attempt to weaken the realm by giving it a loose and ridiculous Queen..."
Kel trailed off as she saw the eyes of each one of her friends fixed on her. She grinned, "Neal, you've seen the letters I get from Father! He never writes of anything else. That's the letter I got last week and I was going to tell you all, except..." Last week rose unbidden to their minds, and silence fell.
Lying on the double bed, Daine looked around the room that she had left that morning. The walls were still magnolia, and the furniture hadn't been moved or the oak floor polished. The pictures were the same, the wardrobe door still wouldn't shout; even the blanket over them and the night-dress that she wasn't wearing were the same. But the suite was now the home of a married couple.
"Numair," she said, "Don't you thank there's something... odd... about the way nothing's changed? I could imagine it was yesterday still, but I know we've changed."
"I hope we stay the same in some ways!" said Numair flippantly, extending a hand to her, "But yes, I know what you mean. I feel as I used to feel on my birthday when I was a child, exactly the same as the day before... but I was a whole year older!"
"That's just it! It's just the same as yesterday, except... except that you're my husband."
"I thought I knew that, til I heard you say it. We are married! By all the gods, we're married, and nobody can ever take you away from me! Oh, Daine..."
"I'm so glad," and she looked it too from Numair's vantage point of a couple of inches away, "really glad that I haven't ruined everything for you."
"Magelet, it was I who pestered you for years to marry me! I was hoping that I hadn't spoiled things for you!"
"Numair! Never!"
"I can't tell you how glad I am... but Daine," he stopped stroking her, "I have to ask you something. Would you have accepted me if you hadn't... you know..."
"I don't know, actually. I've been thinking about that... somehow, I don't think I would have. Oh no! Not the way you mean, not that at all... it was more that, having resisted you for so long, I was justifying it to myself and I needed to excuse accepting you. I'll always be grateful that I forgot my charm, because it gave me that excuse."
"Oh, Daine! How I love you!"