The great hall was nearly empty, occupied mainly by brides and attendants. If a storm had struck, the ceremony would have been held inside the hall, but the archmage-diviner had insisted the drizzling rain would clear up at any moment, and the duke had chosen to believe him. An outdoor ceremony in the bailey courtyard was preferable in that it allowed more of the duke’s subjects to see the spectacle and celebrate.
As she jogged through the hall, skirt hiked up in her hands, Rose considered the political implications of the sunlit wedding. The fact that the greatest social occasion since the duke’s hasty coronation would take place during sunlight would highlight exactly which nobles and other prominent citizens did and did not suffer from the aristocratic disease. No wealthy family of York could be seen to snub the duke on his wedding day, and Rose suspected that would be exceedingly awkward for some of them.
Rose spun in front of Anna, her loose light brown hair flaring along with the black velvet dress. “There—I nearly forgot in all the fuss. Now, we match.”
“It looks lovely on you,” Anna shook her head, green eyes peering down at her own black velvet dress, blue and green glass beadwork echoing the embroidery on the dress that Rose now wore. “I just… I always expected that dress to be what I wore at my wedding. Not that this is—Madame Jocosa has done an admirable job, and—” Anna paused, fingering the teardrop-shaped turquoise pendant resting dead center of the square-cut décolletage of the dress. “Thank you for this, especially.”
Rose nodded shyly. “If it really is—I hope it will.” She cut herself off, glancing around at the other brides. According to Madame Jocosa, it was a genuine moon rock from the second expedition, bearing a power to ensure fertility—but Rose didn’t want to talk about that in front of seven other brides, any or all of whom might disapprove of Anna conceiving a child for the duke before they did.
Anna pulled her hand away from the pendant, pushed an errant dark curl back over her ear, and smoothed her dress against her body. “It is a very pretty necklace, at least, and if it is really from the moon, you got it at a very kind price. It makes me feel quite beyond my station.”
“Your new station will be as her equal,” Rose said, gesturing over in the general direction of Johanna de Mathieu.
The baron’s granddaughter’s emerald-green silk gown glittered with goldwork and cloth of gold. She had on several necklaces, including a pearl choker and a golden chain bearing an antique t-shaped amulet punctuated with a brilliant central diamond and six emeralds—one to the left, one to the right, one above, and three below.
Johanna was presently engaged in a discussion with her father Joseph, who was pale, shaking, and sweating in spite of the drafty chill of the great hall. The end result of that conversation was the exit of the younger Joseph from the hall, assisted by his wife Charlotte, leaving just Johanna and her grandfather, the elder Joseph.
“I guess I won’t be the only one walking without her father,” Anna muttered under her breath.
Rose sighed, patting her friend on the shoulder. “Your father has an honorable excuse—nobody can shame him for being injured in defense of York. And at least your father will be in the audience,” she said, tipping her head subtly in the direction of Sabine de Lancaster.
The blonde woman, sixth in line for the throne of Lancaster, stood conspicuously alone in her vermilion dress, having already dismissed her maids. Her face was a stationary, serene mask, blue eyes fixed on some distant point a thousand miles away.
Anna shuddered. “I don’t know if I could stand to be married two days after my father died.”
Rose gave Anna a measuring look. “I’d always thought nothing would stand in your way.”
“Maybe,” Anna said. “There has been one uncanny surprise after another. I used to dream about my destiny—now, it seems I have walked a dark and tragic path, shrouded with death and danger.”
“Well, you still have time to change your mind,” Rose said.
“Several days yet, if I decide to ask for annulment on the grounds of non-consummation,” Anna said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m the one who leaves to bring us down to Fiona’s seven true brides.”
Rose looked around for the quarter-elven wizard for a moment before spotting her. The redhead was dressed in her sea-green gown but was kneeling in the corner, the long, draping silk sleeves carelessly dragging against the floor of the great hall as she folded up a square of colored paper.
“My mother would kill me if I treated a fine gown like that,” Rose said.
“Oh?” Anna looked at Rose, then followed her gaze. “Enchanted against dirt and damage. And if it isn’t, she surely has a spell to fix it.”
A clangor of metal drew Rose’s attention to the side exit of the great hall. Lady Maude was there with Sir Marcus.
“It must be nearly time,” Anna said, nervously touching her hair. “Is everything staying in place?”
“Yes,” Rose said. “As long as you don’t keep touching it.”
“Sorry,” Anna said, then glanced back over at the side exit.
Sir Marcus now had Sabine on his arm, lining up four abreast next to the very massive Earl Ricard of Northumbria and his petite daughter Elizabeth, both dressed in blue. Behind them, Lady Maude was engaged in a vigorous discussion with Johanna, the gray-haired half-elf blocking the emerald-eyed woman’s path.
“I thought we were going to process in the order of the queue,” Anna said, briskly walking in the direction of the exit. Rose hastened to keep up.
“Lady Sabine de Lancaster and Lady Elizabeth de Northumbria.” The stentorian bellow of Aildag, the duke’s bellman, was clearly audible.
Lady Maude met them halfway. “You will walk with Merilda,” the gray-haired half-elf said brusquely. “It will be grossly unbalanced, especially since you—where is your father?”
“His leg is not quite reliable yet, Lady Maude,” Anna said. “Rose will be escorting me down the aisle.”
Lady Maude stopped in her tracks. “If you—but—wait.” She sighed. “Very well. Isolde will serve as Merilda’s escort; that will be the best I can do to try to balance that arrangement.”
“I am concerned about—” Anna said.
“Go stand behind Helen, please,” Lady Maude said as she turned, walking briskly in the direction of the redheaded wizard. The woman in the sea-green gown was still kneeling on the floor and still intently focused on folding paper.
“Once the wedding itself is over,” Rose said consolingly, “you can start giving her orders. But Avery did give her free rein to manage the details of the ceremony, and marching by rank instead of the brides’ queue is more of a snub to Johanna than it is to you. Does she look angry?”
“She looks smug to me,” Anna said. “Though maybe that’s my imagining.”
“I would feel smug in her shoes,” Rose said. “She’s still first in line as far as the duke himself is concerned—”
“Lady Johanna de Mathieu!” Aildag’s voice cut across what Rose had intended to say.
Merilda walked up next to Rose’s left side. “We’re supposed to walk together,” the large blonde woman said quietly, her gray eyes peering down at Rose. “Unless—is something wrong?”
“No, no,” Anna said, glancing back at Fiona. “I was borrowing offense on behalf of someone else, and Rose was rightly settling my nerves.”
Isolde leaned forward to talk around Merilda. “If it settles your nerves any, I would wager His Grace is as nervous as all eight of you put together. I’ve never known him to be this close-minded.”
Anna blinked. “How is being stubborn the same as being nervous?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Oh.” Isolde shook her head. “I meant—never mind, I don’t think I can explain what I meant by close-minded right now. Maybe I should have said close-mouthed. But trust me—speaking as his foster sister, I have not seen him this nervous in years.”
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Standing next to his chief clerk, an imperial notary, and another imperial official whose precise title and role he wasn’t sure of, Avery stared at the discreet row of four wooden platforms of varying heights and widths. Aunt Maude had impressed on him that any deviation from her plans could have dire political consequences he did not fully understand.
The widest platform was meant to support both Helen and Althea, calibrated to bring the shorter Helen up to Anna’s height. On the opposite side was a taller platform meant to match Johanna’s height to that of Merilda. The middle two platforms would put Sabine and Elizabeth eye-to-eye with Avery, ensuring that they would have a couple of inches of elevation over a grounded Merilda and a platformed Althea.
Aunt Maude had strong opinions about the symbolic importance of height. It seemed silly to Avery; he was more concerned with the fact that of the investors of the York Textile Company, two were still unaccounted for. Master Warin had indicated both were alive, with Alric having decamped to Cumbria and Jacob remaining somewhere at large in the duchy of York, albeit outside of the city.
Also unaccounted for was the Scottish-style zombie that had delivered the poison gas to the Golden Fleece—thought to belong to Master Alric, but not found in his office at the collegium or his upstairs apartment. Competing with his worries over safety was the worry that his brides would think ill of him, a consideration that had come into sharp focus the previous night. Johanna’s bright blue eyes had looked up at him with a level of devotion and affection that he had never before felt and that he now felt obliged to reciprocate.
He nervously adjusted his new and hastily fitted ceremonial armor as Aildag’s stentorian bellow interrupted his thoughts.
“Sabine de Lancaster and Elizabeth de Northumbria!”
Avery’s chest pushed out as two pairs of bright blue eyes focused on him from a distance, drawing nearer along with their owners. Petite Elizabeth, looking even smaller next to her oversized father, was wearing an azure dress that matched her eyes, the bodice and accents in silver lamé, her hair an elegant waterfall of blonde down her back.
Voluptuous Sabine with her intricate braids was hanging on Sir Marcus’s arm. She wore red and gold that contrasted with her eyes, the deep, daring, vee-shaped décolletage drawing Avery’s gaze in a process that seemed wholly out of his control. The ruby anchoring her necklace winked back at him from between perfectly sculpted feminine flesh barely contained by vermillion and cloth of gold.
Avery bowed to both and offered a supporting hand to Elizabeth—her platform was tall enough that she clearly needed help mounting it. When he turned back to Sabine, he found that the Lancastrian woman had her hand out and a smoldering smile focused on him. Belatedly, he gripped her hand, offering the woman what seemed like wholly unnecessary assistance in mounting her shorter block with her longer legs.
You will need to offer each of them your hand as you put them in their places, now, Sir Marcus sent. Once you helped Elizabeth—it becomes symbolism, you understand?
Avery did not, but he knew well enough not to argue the point. An explanation could come later, when he had less on his mind.
“Johanna de Mathieu!” Aildag’s bellow announced the next arrival.
Distracted, Avery left the link to Sir Marcus open as he looked down the courtyard to the side entrance of the great hall. A woman wearing an emerald-green dress advanced, her eyes modestly downcast as she clung to her grandfather’s arm, the dress so heavily worked with gold that it seemed to be gleaming in the sunlight in spite of the overcast weather. When he offered his hand to Johanna, a smile broke out on her face, and she looked up.
Emerald-green eyes peered into his. Eyes that were as far from blue as they could be while remaining green rather than brown or hazel.
Last night—was that a dream? Avery tried hard to keep his shock from showing on his face as Johanna settled herself on the wooden platform.
I don’t know what you dreamed last night. Sir Marcus’s mental voice sounded confused as it echoed in Avery’s head, then Avery hastily cut the still-open link, embarrassed, shuttering his mind tightly with shields.
Althea and Helen were approaching, each accompanied by their father, the border baronets decked out in attire every bit as martial as Avery’s own. Uncertain which of the two had precedence, he reached for Althea’s hand, and the willowy brunette’s hazel eyes flicked to the ground as she took his hand and stepped next to Sabine.
Then he reached for the hand of Helen, noting her bright blue eyes beneath strawberry-blonde curls. Could they be the same blue eyes that had met his the previous night? As Helen stepped onto the platform, Avery’s gaze dropped downwards and he minutely shook his head—Helen was shorter than his nighttime visitor. Her movements were springy and energetic, but the scale of the secondary motion of her bodice only confirmed that her figure was less generous than what he had seen—and briefly felt—the previous night.
Aildag’s voice again drew his attention. Avery watched closely as Anna and Merilda approached, guiding each into her proper place with his right hand. They had no platforms to step on and blushed to take his hand as he ceremoniously steered them into their designated places. By her size and figure, Anna could have been his nighttime visitor—but her eyes were as green as Johanna’s, and the dark curly mass of her hair looked too substantial to conceal beneath a light-brown wig.
As for Merilda—she matched Marcus’s height and was unequivocally too large to have been his late-night visitor, even if her straight flaxen hair in its tight braid looked easily enough hidden beneath a wig. Her eyes were gray—close to blue, but not quite what he remembered.
“Fiona the Red!” Aildag’s voice cut through Avery’s thoughts one last time, though there could be no mistaking the identity of the auburn-haired woman in the sea-green silk gown with its old-fashioned semicircular neckline, her exposed collarbones as pale as porcelain. Her eyes were not far from the shade of her dress, seeming closer to a watery blue one moment and closer to a pale green the next.
Her delicate figure and pointed ears would have been unmistakable as belonging to her over any other bride if they had been presented to him as they were—but she was a wizard. Perhaps only a journeyman wizard, but one whose skill had earned her a name. He did not know the limits of her magical abilities; for all he knew, she could transform herself into a fox, much less a differently-shaped woman with round ears and a generosity of proportions that the elfblood lacked.
As he grasped her hand to steer her into her position—on the far side of Merilda from the crowd, where most of the crowd would not even see her—Avery pried open the tight shield he’d clamped around his mind and sent a delicate tendril of thought into the quarter-elf’s head. Did you visit me last night?
In response, Fiona blushed, her skin turning a delicate shade of pink that contrasted poorly against her sea-green dress. No—though I dreamed of you. Were you dreaming of me?
Avery clamped the connection shut, offering only a minute shake of his head as he stepped away. The brides were all in their proper places, precisely where Maude had told him each should stand. The woman who had visited him last night—had she been Johanna after all? Eyes could seem different colors in different light. Even if the face had been the product of an illusion of some kind, he had recognized Johanna’s dress—there would not be two separate dresses so alike yet tailored to such distinctive tastes.
Elizabeth was clearly too small to wear one of Johanna’s dresses, and as for Sabine—Avery’s gaze flickered back and forth between the tightly fitted bodice Johanna wore and Sabine’s daringly deep décolletage—it seemed it would be difficult for her to wear one of Johanna’s dresses for a wholly different reason. But dresses can be altered, he reminded himself.
His eyes flickered back to Sabine’s chest one more time before rising to meet Sabine’s face, which bore a serene smile. Staring into her eyes, Avery reached out with his mind, a mixture of at least two different passions thrumming through his chest as he delicately opened the shields he’d been holding tight around his mind. Sabine, he sent, then paused as a pair of brilliant blue eyes suddenly crossed, the Lancastrian’s pert mouth dropping open in surprise.
Thus distracted, he did not notice the cloaked figure in the courtyard behind his brides, raising a springbow; what drew his notice was a metallic clang a scant instant before Fiona plowed face-first into the grass behind Elizabeth.
Then he saw the hooded figure struggling to reload a springbow. “Down!” he shouted both verbally and mentally as Merilda turned, looking down at the chaotic spill of red hair and green silk on the grass.
In defiance of his order, Merilda ran forward. Sabine fell like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut and Anna dropped into a crouch. For a moment that seemed far too long, the rest of the brides looked about in confusion. Avery stepped over Sabine’s prone form and onto her platform, pushing back on the other three brides with his outstretched arms.
The hooded figure fired the springbow again, bolt plowing into the dirt in front of Merilda as Althea, Helen, and Johanna stepped away and ducked low, making themselves smaller targets. Merilda swung her fist, and there was a loud crunching noise as Avery started to run forward, frost forming on the grass in his wake.
The steady drizzle of rain stopped, and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds as Avery looked down at the unmoving figure of Beatrice Taylor, a clearly broken finger wrapped in the trigger guard of the springbow. She was still warm, but when he held his hand in front of her mouth, no breath fogged the silvery surface of the back of his hand.
“She’s dead,” Avery said, looking up at Merilda.
“Sorry, Your Grace,” Merilda said, looking down at her feet. “I—I just wanted to stop her from shooting. And—and I was angry that she shot Fiona. Are you going to send me back to my father?”
Avery shook his head, grasping Merilda’s hand in his. “No. Not unless that is what you wish from me. You did the right thing,” he said. “And I think it is what your father would have done under similar circumstances—he is not known for hesitation.”
He looked around; in the sunlight, he could see no other threatening figures, and the guards were coming now. Avery continued to hold Merilda’s hand as they walked back to his other brides.