John Flanagan: Erak_s ransom

'Gorlog's beard!' he said, using a Skandian oath he had become quite fond of. 'How many people are here?'

Lady Pauline watched him serenely. 'Two hundred and three,' she said calmly.

He looked up from the list, appalled. 'Two hundred and three?' he repeated and she nodded. He shook his head and dropped the sheet of parchment on her desk.

'Well, we're going to have to pare it down,' he said.

Pauline frowned slightly in concentration as she considered his statement.'We could possibly get rid of the three,' she said. 'I'm not sure that I really need the Iberian ambassador and his two idiot daughters at my wedding.'

She took a quill and scored out the last three names on the list, then looked up at him and smiled brightly.

'There. All done. Wasn't that easy?'

Halt shook his head distractedly, taking the list again and scanning through it. 'But… two hundred people? Do we really need two hundred people to get married?'

'They're not getting married, dear. We are,' she said, deliberately misunderstanding him. He scowled at her. Normally, Halt's scowl was a fearsome thing. But it held no terrors for Lady Pauline. She raised one eyebrow at him and he realised he might as well drop the scowl. He went back to the list, jabbing his forefinger at one section.

'I mean… I suppose the King has to come,' he began.

'Of course he does. You are one of his oldest advisers,' she pointed out.

'And Evanlyn – well, Cassandra. She's a friend. But who are all these others? There must be fifteen in the royal party!'

'Seventeen,' Lady Pauline said. 'After all, the King can't travel without his retinue. He and Cassandra can't just hop on their horses and turn up one day saying, "We're here for the wedding. Where do we sit?" There's a certain amount of protocol involved.'

'Protocol!' Halt snorted derisively. 'What a load of rubbish!'

'Halt,' said the elegant diplomat, 'when you asked me to marry you, did you think we could just sneak off to a glade in the woods with a few close friends and get it done?'

Halt hesitated. 'Well, no… of course not.'

As a matter of fact, that was exactly what he had thought. A simple ceremony, a few friends, some good food and drink and then he and Pauline would be a couple. But he felt that it might not be wise to admit that right now.

The engagement of the grizzled Ranger and the beautiful Lady Pauline had been the talk of Redmont Fief for some weeks now.

People were amazed and delighted that this seemingly ill-matched, but well-respected, pair were to become man and wife. It was something to wonder about, to gossip about. Little else had been discussed in the Redmont dining hall for weeks.

There were those who pretended not to be surprised. Baron Arald of Redmont was one of them.

'Always knew it!' he told anyone who would listen. 'Always knew there was something going on with those two! Saw it coming years ago! Knew it before they did, probably.'

And indeed, there had been occasional vague rumours over the years that Halt and Pauline had been something more than friends in the past. But the majority of people had dismissed such talk. And neither Halt nor Pauline ever said anything about the matter. When it came to keeping secrets, few people could be more tight-lipped than Rangers and members of the Diplomatic Service.

But there came a day when Halt realised that time was slipping past with increasing speed. Will, his apprentice, was in his final year of training. In a few months he would be due for graduation and promotion to the Silver Oakleaf – the insignia of a fully fledged Ranger. And that meant Will would be moving away from Redmont. He would be assigned a fief of his own and Halt sensed that his day-to-day life, so full of energy and diversion with Will around, would become alarmingly empty. As the realisation had grown, he had unconsciously sought the company of Lady Pauline with increasing frequency.

She, in her turn, had seen his growing need for company and affection. A Ranger's life tended to be a lonely one – and one that he could discuss with few people. As a Courier, privy to many of the secrets of the fief and the Kingdom they both served, Pauline was one of those few. Halt could relax in her company. They could discuss each other's work and give counsel to each other. And there was, in fact, a certain history between them – an understanding, some might call it – which went back to a time when they were both younger.

To put it plainly, Lady Pauline had loved Halt for many years. Quietly and patiently, she had waited, knowing that one day he would propose.

Knowing also that, when he did, this incredibly shy and retiring man would view the prospect of a very public wedding with absolute horror.

'Who's this?' he said, coming across a name he didn't recognise. 'Lady Georgina of Sandalhurst? Why are we inviting her? I don't know her. Why are we asking people we don't know?'

'I know her,' Pauline replied. There was a certain steeliness in her voice that Halt would have done well to recognise. 'She's my aunt. Bit of an old stick, really, but I have to invite her.'

'You've never mentioned her before,' Halt challenged.

'True. I don't like her very much. As I said, she's a bit of an old stick.'

'Then why are we inviting her?'

'We're inviting her,' Lady Pauline explained, 'because Aunt Georgina has spent the last twenty years bemoaning the fact that I was unmarried. "Poor Pauline!" she'd cry to anyone who'd listen. "She'll be a lonely old maid! Married to her job! She'll never find a husband to look after her!" It's just too good an opportunity to miss.'

Halt's eyebrows came together in a frown. There might be a few things that would annoy him more than someone criticising the woman he loved, but for the moment, he couldn't think of one.

'Agreed,' he said. 'And let's sit her with the most boring people possible at the wedding feast.'

'Good thinking,' Lady Pauline said. She made a note on another sheet of paper. 'I'll make her the first person on the Bores' Table.'

'The Bores' Table?' Halt said. 'I'm not sure I've heard the term.'

'Every wedding has to have a Bores' Table,' his fiancee explained patiently. 'You take all the boring, annoying, bombastic people and sit them together. That way, they all bore each other and they don't bother the normal people you've asked.'

'Wouldn't it be simpler to just ask people you like?' Halt asked. 'Except Aunt Georgina, of course, there's. a good reason to ask her. But why ask other bores?'

'It's a family thing,' Lady Pauline said, adding a second and third name to the Bores' Table as she thought of them. 'You have to ask family and every family has its share of annoying bores. It's just part of organising a wedding.'

Halt dropped into a carved armchair, sitting slightly sideways with one leg hooked up over the arm. 'I thought weddings were supposed to be joyous occasions,' he muttered.

'They are. So long as you have a Bores' Table.' She smiled. She was about to add that he was lucky he didn't have family to invite, but she checked the statement in time. Halt hadn't seen any members of his family in over twenty years and she sensed that, deep down, the fact saddened him.

'The thing is,' she went on, veering away from the subject of families, 'now that the King is involved, the whole thing takes on a certain formality. There are people who must be invited – nobles, knights and their ladies, local dignitaries, village councillors and the like. They'd never forgive us if we robbed them of the chance to rub shoulders with royalty.'

'I really don't give a fig if they don't forgive me,' he said. 'Over the years, most of them have gone out of their way to avoid me.'

Lady Pauline leaned forward and touched his arm gently.

'Halt, it'll be the high point in their lives for some of them. After all, nothing much happens in the country. Would you really want to deprive them of a little bit of colour and glamour in their humdrum existence? I know I wouldn't.'