Chapter 2

Tailors and purveyors of costly goods were having a prosperous winter… first the royal wedding and now the wedding of Rusyn of Panys with Luriel of Murandys.

Luriel, who had come within a vow of being queen of Ylesuin, would yield nothing to a royal bride in show or extravagance: she was absolutely determined to have a pageantry to erase all memory of her disgrace, and her expense in satin cloth might have sustained the villages of her province through a far worse winter.

Cefwyn watched the bustle and hurry with a cautious eye, wondering himself just how much show and pageantry Lord Murandys would allow, and how much Luriel dared, with a keen eye as to whether at any point it went over that fine distinction between the redemption of Luriel and an affront to his wife.

Most of all he was glad that the to-ing and fro-ing and measuring now involved another bridegroom— and yet, and yet… to his astonishment the piles of fabric in the old scriptorium, the Royal Consort’s domain, brought down another controversy of petticoats, beginning with the fact that Luriel had chosen the traditional gown, and had not modeled herself off the fashion of the consort.

It was a decision which might have signified the bride’s desire simply to avoid controversy, and to avoid a slavish flattery of her royal patron, who, among other things, had no reason to invite comparison with her lord’s former lover.

But that lack of adherence to Ninévrisë’s side of the petticoat controversy ended up angering him, curious notion. Hewas offended, when Ninévrisë refused to take offense, and he could not lay his finger on what in Luriel’s choice annoyed him.

The fact was, the ladies did whisper that Luriel wished a traditionalwedding, with all the Quinalt blessing: so the rumor reached him through Idrys, of all unlikely sources, and he was incensed, all but ready to signal his disfavor of Luriel in a public snub.

But he was not willing to bring the Majesty of Ylesuin to the issue, not ready to stamp the royal seal on a decree, gods help him, regarding ladies’ petticoats. There were limits. He had fought his battles on that ground once, and Ninévrisë had, and he told himself it was done.

And just as they held back, Fiselle, Ninévrisë’s maid, vain and feckless girl, unwittingly struck the telling blow in the fray, prattling on to Luriel’s maid how Her Grace refrained from sweets and heavy foods to keep her lovely figure, which one of course had to have, in order to wear Her Grace’s shape-revealing clothes.

A siege engine could hardly have kicked up more consternation, and as of one morning’s news, two of the ladies werewearing Ninévrisë’s single petticoats.

Then Luriel cast all hers away, down to a shift, even taking two panels from the gown.

If wishes were mangonels, bodies would lie like cordwood.

But everyone sincerely praised Luriel’s form, and the single petticoats had, in a sevenday, scandalized the Quinalt.

The frivolity of women, certain priests called it, and the flaunting of immorality.

Then, on royal suggestion, His Holiness countered from the pulpit that certain priests spent too much time considering frivolity and not enough attending the needs of the people.

Seven days of shot and countershot, and, portentous surely, while the snow piled higher across the river, the wind blew steadily warm in Ylesuin until most of the hills were bare. Sorcery, some said, and blessed sigils turned up on doors, and candles burned a sweet savor to the Quinalt, the prayers of the honest faithful, while the priests fired barbs at one another in a doctrinal war that had begun in the women’s court in the issue of petticoats and tradition and continued over the uncommon weather.

It made the king’s court seem lately quiet by comparison, and in the absence of controversy on his own doorstep, Cefwyn found himself spending untroubled evenings at his own fireside… comfortable and pleasant evenings, in which he might sit in private with his own wife and dine without the constant intervention of ill tidings from the riverside or the Quinaltine.

Without, too, the clack and clatter of court proceedings, since the lords seemed weary, also, hoping only to pass the wedding without disarrangement of the arrangements that had settled a winter truce. At last they knew where they stood, at least in the middle lands. At last they knew what they must do, beyond all the furor Ryssand had kicked up—and that was to see their young men equipped for war and their lands so arranged that the fisheries and the orchards would not much suffer for the young men’s absence for a season. The grain lands were exempt from the muster, and also the royal granaries would open, giving out the abundance they had stored in the good years previous.

It would be enough, all taken together.

In the meanwhile he looked forward to Luriel’s marriage for very private reasons: there seemed something mildly indecent in hearing from his own wife’s lips the doings of his former mistress and confidante, and while both of them could find wry humor in the situation—Luriel was a witty, wonderful young hothead, if it were someone else at whom her malice aimed—he was very ready to have an end of Luriel’s crises.

She might be some sober use when she had settled in as a married lady, for as often as not her shafts of wit flew at her uncle, for now that she was marrying well, she gained a voice, and her uncle had to worry whether Luriel the featherwit had any interests beyond finery.

“She’s likely gathering a fine dowry from her uncle,” Ninévrisë remarked, “just from her silence. One wonders what she knows.”

“Murandys has approached Panys seeking a conference,” Cefwyn said, holding her close, the two of them in night robes, and the fire crackling and friendly. “But Lord Maudyn isn’t guesting with him. He’s staying at the river in his tent until the Wedding, not even coming to the capital. Gods send me a dozen like Lord Panys.”

The damned cartshad come home, thank the gods, undamaged, not mired on the roads or lost in snowdrifts… with a discontent lot of carters complaining of the high-handedness of the duke of Amerel, true, but Idrys had been ready for them, this time. With no more than a day’s sojourn in the town, the discontent carters had gone on to Lord Maudyn.

So the offended carters, ousted prematurely from the joys of Guelemara, surely spread rumors among the troops. But the guardsmen stationed there had the sobering sight of the river before them, and would surely find no fault in Tristen for making strong preparations in the south… not when they faced the eerily snowy shore of Elwynor just a wooden span away from their fair-weather side. And they would not fault a little friendly wizard-work in the distant south, when sorcery was a constantly rumored threat from across the river. Many of them were veterans, and the carters themselves might sing a different tune when the veteran guardsmen told their Midwinter tales.

Meanwhile, too, another simmering stew, the negotiations between Efanor and Corswyndam of Ryssand meandered on, and as yet Efanor signed no document. Ryssand was still aghast, perhaps, nothaving expected his proposal to be seriously considered… let alone accepted. More, there was the queasiness of a wedding preparation during an official mourning: Ryssand was high enough to set convention aside; Efanor certainly could… but by now Artisane had launched her own campaign, sure she would come back to court in all her glory.

Efanor had not broken to the lady the news that he had a fine estate wanting a lady’s hand, oh, at the remote end of Guelessar.

And in genuine courtesy to Luriel’s moment, they delayed the official announcement… but now with couriers rushing back and forth, necessarily through Murandys, Murandys ached to know what was in the messages… and evidently Ryssand had held Murandys, his old ally, from knowing anything.