We wound down wide, stone staircases. We marched down dark, echoing halls.

Down and down we went. The smells changed from incense and wood smoke to damp stone and wet hay. Modern magelamps gave way to pitch-fueled torches, which sputtered and flicked from iron sconces set in the walls.

You could trace the paths of centuries of feet by the soot ground slick and shiny into the stones.

At last, we reached a wide, short hall. At the far end stood a single, ancient door.

Behind that, the faint sounds of laughter and voices raised in what sounded like normal conversation.

I let out the breath I’d been holding. An aged priest scampered on ahead, muttered something at the door, and then stood back as it swung ponderously open.

It was bright within. The air smelled of summer with a hint of recent lightning, and I knew magelamps were lighting the place. The room was not just big but cavernous.

I stepped inside, and the door swung shut behind me.

Men turned and looked. Each wore a ridiculous twin to the groom’s hat on my own fool head. I’d been warned not to take mine off, but I’d also comforted myself with the idea that such a rule was the first of the rules to be broken.

But the sight of a dozen groom’s hats rendered that hope a lie.

“Welcome to the party,” stated one worthy, hefting his glass of what appeared to be water in a grim salute.

“Did you bring us anything to drink?”

“Did you bring a pick and a shovel?”

Laughter sounded. Old Father Wickens himself came scurrying to the fore at the last remark.

“Now, now, gentlemen. Let’s not forget why we’re here.”

“Good morning, Father,” I began.

He darted forward, caught my sleeve and hauled me past the gathered grooms and toward the back of one of the monstrous columns that kept the roof from meeting the floor.

“I believe this is the man you seek,” whispered the Father as we walked. “Frankly, sir, I thought you had exaggerated the poor soul's condition. But as you can see-”

And there he was, slumped in a simple folding chair, his hat over his eyes, snoring.

Carris Lethway, alive if not well.

He was dressed as I was, save for the lace at his neck and sleeves and the white spats around his custom-made shoes. The felt of his hat was new, and the leather of his gloves didn’t bear a single scuff or stain.

I knelt down, wary of the man and his sudden bursts of energy.

“Carris,” I said. “Carris Lethway. Wake up.”

He made an inarticulate moan, and shuffled a bit in his chair, but did not awaken.

“He’s been like this since he arrived,” said Father Wickens. “Frankly, sir, I don’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t smell of liquor.”

I pushed back his head, and got no response. I pinched his nose. He didn’t react.

I smelled the faint odor of peppermint.

“He’s not drunk,” I said. “I’ve seen this before. He’s dosed himself with what the Army docs used to call a Witherspoon.”

“A what?”

“A Witherspoon. It’s medicine. A dose will keep you on your feet for a day, maybe more. But first you have to sleep it off. Like this.”

I pinched his nose again.

He didn’t flinch.

“Goodness, what’s in such a concoction?”

“Damned-um, I have no idea,” I said. “He’ll wake up soon. They usually do.”

“They usually do? And when will he awaken? I am to lead the grooms in the Prayers of the Husband!”

“You go ahead, Father. I’ll keep an eye on Sleeping Beauty here. Got another chair?”

The Father nodded and tottered away.

He’d been right about Carris and his condition, though. The kid looked awful. His color was blotchy and his breathing was too fast and if he didn’t have a fever it was only because the Witherspoon and Angels know what else were masking it.

And that would work. For a while.

But such measures never really solved the problem.

They just put off dealing with it.

The Father arrived, scooting a battered old chair behind him. I took it and planted myself across from Carris after making sure I could see the door from where I sat.

The old priest watched me and nodded approvingly.

“There is no other door,” he said, chuckling. “I make sure to point that out, you know. This is a room from which there is no exit.”

“You’re a barrel of laughs, Father.”

“Your young woman is quite taken with you, you know.”

“So she tells me. Odds are she’ll grow out of that.”

“I have a gift,” said the Father. “Do you know I can spot which marriages will last, and which will not, simply by watching the couple in question? Well, I can. I only need a moment. I am never mistaken. Do you want to know my foretelling of you and your Miss Tomas, young man?”

“Don’t you have a prayer to lead?”

He shook his head. “Yours is a union that will last for the rest of both your lives,” he said. “I see that, plain as day. Mock if you must. But that is the truth.”

“I think your grooms are getting out of hand, Father. They’re plotting to remove their hats. I also heard mention of fermented spirits.”

The old man laughed and patted me absently on the knee. Then he doddered off to dispense prayers and sage admonitions to pick up one’s own socks.

I’d eyed the grooms and their hatless guests as we entered. None were armed, obviously or not. Most weren’t old enough to be involved with the likes of Japeth Stricken or mean enough to be in the pay of Lethway. I wasn’t writing them off completely as threats, but I was ready to turn my attention back to Carris.

All he did was snore. I rifled his pockets. I found another bottle, cap sealed with wax, filled with the signature blue liquid that marked it as Witherspoon. That bottle went into my pocket.

I’d seen men die after drinking too many of the foul things.

Otherwise, Carris had a goodly amount of paper money, just enough coin to tip cabmen and so forth, and a ring, in a small sturdy box covered in black velvet.

I had a look. This wasn’t the same ring I’d seen his room, which meant he’d had to buy another. The boy hadn’t skimped. The stone was big and clear, set amid a starburst of lesser stones on a twisting gold band. I figured I could buy a nice house with half of the lesser stones, never mind the big rock or the gold band.

I snapped the box shut and put it back where I found it. The kid mumbled and tried to push my hand away. I pulled him up straight in his chair and had a look at his wounds.

The glove concealed the damage to his hand. The empty glove-finger was stuffed with something, and I hoped it was cincee. His missing ear was bandaged beneath black silk, and I was glad to see the skin around it was no longer red and puffy.

Whoever had treated him did a good job. I judged he’d recover, if we both survived the wedding.

Father Wickens raised his arms and called for silence. The assembled required three such admonitions before they fell quiet.

“Let us recite the Prayers of the Husband,” said the good Father. “I will speak the prayer. You will then repeat it. But you will do more than just mouth the words, gentlemen. You will ponder them. And gentlemen, you will take them with you, if you are wise. You are committing to a lifetime, as husband, as father. These words will always serve you well, if you will let them.”

Someone snickered. It wasn’t me.

“Omnesium gallatas versos de poxitan verlos,” intoned the Father in the tongue of the Church. “Sageum nox moralis, somto en versoten.”

“First, be a shield,” he repeated in plain Kingdom. I’d never heard a priest do that before. “Guard your wife as though a treasure, for that she is.”

“Be a lamp in her dark, as she is the light in your heart.”

“Let no night pass in anger. Let no day begin with words of reproach.”

“Wilt thee lift thine own hand against thyself? Wilt thee raise thine own voice in rage against thyself? Then do not these same things against thy wife, who thou hast taken as thine own flesh.”