Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“Come along, Sam,” Rhapsody said, pulling at her groom’s hand. “Let’s find His Grace somewhere to rest; he’s come from farther away than you think. And we’ll tell you the whole story. You may be surprised to learn how the new Patriarch had a hand in killing the F’dor.”

Gwydion stared at her in amazement before following them up the path. “You know, Rhapsody, you certainly know how to ruin a surprise.”

Urue to her word, Rhapsody had requested a simple dress, as she told Gwydion she would after the royal wedding in Bethany. It had only enough train to brush the ground two or so feet behind her, and left her shoulders open to the sun for the wedding taking place on the first day after the season dedicated to it had passed.

Despite the dress’s seeming simplicity, the seamstresses of Tyrian had worked endlessly on it. Miresylle had found a bolt of Canderian brushed silk, white with a gleaming blush undertone that touched off the sunrise coloring of Rhapsody’s rosy golden skin perfectly. It was trimmed judiciously, sparingly, a sign of true craftsmanship, as Rhapsody had explained to her incredulous groom, who wondered rudely aloud why she was having a seventh fitting for this allegedly simple dress.

“It’s not all covered with beadwork and lace; many seamstresses use that stuff to hide the imperfections in the fabric or the workmanship. Miresylle’s a perfectionist.”

Gwydion had taken his bride into his arms and kissed her. “I’m sure. And I’m sure I’ll like the dress, despite it being responsible for keeping you away from me so much.”

“You’re so time-greedy,” she scowled at him jokingly. “You’d probably prefer I didn’t wear anything at all.”

“How right you are.”

Gwydion himself had been faced with a sartorial dilemma. Though the design for his wedding garment was easy enough to come by, he had been besieged with gifts from the various family factions, fighting units, and political groups to which he had belonged over his lifetime, each an emblem or a symbol of his honored status, conferred on him with the expectation that he would wear each of them at his wedding. Rhapsody had gone into a giggling fit as he indignantly displayed them, spread out on the vast meeting table in the Great Hall of Tyrian. The table was over twenty feet in length, and every inch of it was covered with some sort of item he needed to exhibit somewhere on his person.

“You had better start eating; you’ll need to add to your size ten times over,” she laughed, her eyes taking in the hundreds of hats, daggers, staves, ceremonial swords, crowns, and codpieces littering the table. She picked up one of the twenty-one signet rings in a pile in the middle of the spread. “Now let’s see; one on each finger, one on each toe, and one on your—

“Don’t say it,” he threatened jokingly. “That might be even more uncomfortable for you later that night, my dear. I might choose the one with the biggest prongs.”

“This gift is my very favorite,” Rhapsody said, lifting a hideous Nain war mask. “Do they really wear these things in battle?”

“Yes, and worse.” He looked around the table and sighed in dismay. “I’ll look ridiculous if I wear any of these emblems, Aria. If I wear some of them, I risk offending anyone whose symbol I didn’t choose. And if I wear none of them, I will offend everyone. What am I going to do? Is it too late to elope?”

“We did that already, remember? This is just the official ceremony; you and I already did the important one alone.” She smiled at him, hoping to ease his distress. “Here, I’ll take care of it. Let’s sort through these things together, and you can tell me who they’re from and what they represent.”

A month later, on the morning before the wedding rehearsal, she presented him with a velvet-covered box.

“This is for all your patience with the endless fittings of my wedding dress,” she said as he kissed her. “Open it and see if it solves your dilemma.”

In the box was a segmented necklace of state, a chain-like series of uniform hexagonal pieces wrought in red-gold, jointed together to a length that would drape about the neck and shoulders, inlaid with the symbols of each of the groups that had presented him with emblems to wear. Even the hideous war mask of the Nain of the Sardonyx Mountain had been painstakingly rendered in tiny gems and enameled scrolling on one of the small segments; Gwydion had burst out laughing at the thought of the jeweler working long hours to find a colored stone the same hue as the mucus dripping from the miniature war mask’s nostrils.

“As with everything about you, it’s perfect,” he said, drawing her close.

“Oh, good. So does this mean I’m to be spared from those big prongs now?”

“All but one.”

Gwydion lugged the bucket to the door of the hidden room behind the waterfall and heaved the cleaning water outside into the grass. How does she do this ? he wondered incredulously as he sank into his comfortable old chair with a groan. He had helped her clean house in Elysian, but somehow that had been a pleasure. Gwydion shook his head and laughed. Being branded with a hot iron might be a pleasure, as long as she was there to hold his hand.

The memory of drowsy summer mornings a year before came back to him, the scent of coffee brewing and spicy aromas floating by, accompanied by the smell of soap and the sweet sound of singing. She had always been up before dawn, tidying Elysian, pressing clothes, tending her gardens, long before normal people had cracked an eyelid; it was the farm girl in her, she had said as he protested, pulling her back into bed if she came close by. These memories of simple domesticity were among his favorite, images of normalcy and sanity in a world run amok. He signed, anticipating the return of those days with glee.

He looked around his room and felt a sense of satisfaction. The messy man-cottage was spotless, the new double bed gleaming under the fresh satin bedspread he had bought for her in Navarne. He had carted all the new furnishings here himself by night to maintain the hidden room’s security, a sort of western Elysian, a place they could be alone when in these provinces.

This place needs a woman’s oversight — or a ma-id , she had said. The first he had provided by duplicating many of the comfortable accessories and ornaments she had used in decorating Elysian; even now the cottage was unrecognizable in its warmth and charm. The second he had assured by spending four hours on the day before his wedding sprucing up the place; it had taken her about half an hour to produce better results that day a year and a half before, but he knew she would appreciate the effort.

Gwydion rose with a creak and made a final inspection. The wine was in the chilling bucket, the crystal goblets on the table, the fire laid with sweet-smelling spices, waiting to be set ablaze. He would need to build a room with a tub if they were to use this place in winter, even though the prospect of Rhapsody’s warmth heating the waterfall’s pool amid the snow was tantalizing. He pulled out the finishing touch, a sackful of pink and white rose petals he had convinced her to work her magic on without telling her why. She had spoken the words to preserve their freshness and given him an odd look; he imagined the expression on her face the next night as he scattered them across the bed and the floor, leading to the threshold.

A romantic dragon; isn’t that a contradiction in terms’?

Yes. Do you love me anyway’?

Always.

When the bed was covered with the petals he took one more look around. Then he left the cabin and locked the door carefully, whistling all the way back to where he had hidden the horse and cart.