Grinning, Tayse dropped his saddlebags to the floor beside the bed. “I slept inside the walls at Brassen Court,” he said. “I suppose I can do Danan Hall the same honor.”
Kirra’s laughter pealed out. “And, of course, it is an honor to have a Rider staying under our roof again!”
“Who else is here?” Senneth asked. “All the Houses?”
Kirra shook her head, suddenly sober. “My father and Kiernan decided it would be unfair to ask marlords and marladies to leave their own properties when the realm is in such turmoil. Well, can you imagine? Ariane certainly wouldn’t want to desert Rappen Manor at a time like this! So they have sent out announcements proclaiming the wedding will be this day but saying that they have decided upon a private ceremony. That way, no one has to turn them down.”
“Good strategy,” Tayse said.
“Are all my brothers here?”
Kirra shook her head again. “Only Kiernan and Harris. Nate stayed behind. Officially, he is ill, but Kiernan told my father honestly that he wanted to leave one of his brothers in place in case there should be trouble.”
“And that neatly solves the problem of whether or not to bring Sabina Gisseltess with him,” Senneth said. “More excellent strategic thinking!”
“I would not want to match wits with Kiernan,” Kirra confessed. “I like Will so much better!”
“Though Will is not stupid, either,” Senneth warned. “He just doesn’t have Kiernan’s ruthlessness.”
“No, Casserah will supply that,” Kirra said.
“What’s on the schedule? Does something happen tonight?”
“Just a dinner for everyone staying in the manor. The wedding will be tomorrow at noon. There might be a hundred people present-vassals from Brassenthwaite who made the journey, and some of our own lesser lords.”
“So we can leave tomorrow afternoon?” Senneth said. Tayse laughed, but Kirra was horrified.
“Of course you can’t! How rude! There will be another dinner tomorrow night, and of course there will be dancing afterward, and I must see you take a turn around the ballroom in Kiernan’s arms! And then the following day there will be a breakfast, and I think there will be a hunt for those who can’t force themselves to leave, but I would think you could be on your way as soon as the breakfast is over.”
“I want to get back to Ghosenhall with all speed,” Senneth said.
“Did something else happen?”
Tayse didn’t quite laugh. “It’s a long tale,” he said. “Where’s Donnal? I’ll leave Senneth to fill you in.”
Kirra immediately settled herself in the middle of the maroon bedspread. “Yes. Sit down. We have at least an hour before we have to dress for dinner. Tell me everything.”
THE meal was lavish, delicious, and surprisingly informal. Forty people sat at the two long tables, but they were all the most trusted vassals of two friendly Houses, and so there was little pomp, little posturing. Then, too, Senneth reflected, neither Malcolm Danalustrous nor her brother Kiernan had much use for frills or ostentation. If Kiernan had had his way, no doubt he would have seen Will and Casserah married in some hasty ceremony in a back parlor with only a handful of close friends in attendance, and he would have sent them out the door the very next day to go on with the unromantic business of ordinary life.
Much the way Senneth herself had gotten married.
Though it actually had been the most romantic evening of her life.
She found herself given the chair next to Malcolm Danalustrous, a high honor. Customarily, a husband and wife were not seated together, so she looked around to see where poor Tayse had landed. Ah-he had been well-placed between Kiernan’s wife, Chelley, who was quite kind and who liked Tayse, and Malcolm’s vassal Erin Sohta. Erin was a silly and fawning sort of woman, but she fancied herself an intimate of the marlord’s and always loved to be granted special privileges. She was just the sort of woman who would be delighted at a chance to be seated next to a King’s Rider at a dinner party and then gossip about it for the next two years.
Heartlessly, Senneth ignored both Tayse and the Brassenthwaite lord sitting on her other side, and talked to her host the entire night. Malcolm was the man she respected most, after the king; his House was the one she would have taken sanctuary in, if she had ever needed it. He was stern, stubborn, willful, fair-minded, and absolutely devoted to the land he owned. Kirra said his veins ran with Danalustrous river water and his heart was made from a curiously animate lump of Danalustrous clay. He had bequeathed his blue eyes, his black hair, his iron will, and his fierce commitment to the land to his daughter Casserah. Neither of them was comfortable to talk to. Both of them were easy to understand. Respect Danalustrous, or be gone.
“Tell me the news,” he said. “Kirra says war is on the doorstep.”
So she repeated everything she had told Kirra-except the parts about Amalie and Cammon, which were more interesting in their way but less important from Malcolm’s point of view. He listened intently, asked sharp questions, and shook his head when she asked if he planned to raise an army for the king.
“I want to close the borders,” he said. “And once my esteemed guests are gone, that is exactly what I plan to do.”
She toyed with her wineglass. “I don’t know how you think you can do that. You have miles of coastline, and you cannot possibly defend every inch. Your soldiers line every road that leads into Danalustrous, I’m assuming, but there are so many places a small troop could creep across the border in stealth! Your boundaries are porous, Malcolm.”
He gave her a faint smile. “And you don’t think I would know if hostile forces came stepping across those boundaries, no matter how secret their approach? You underestimate me, Senneth. I feel every footstep as it falls on Danalustrous soil. I will not be surprised by strangers.”
She sat back in her chair and regarded him with her head tilted to one side. “And do you still believe,” she said in a soft voice, “that Kirra inherited her magic from her mother? I have always thought you had some kind of mystical connection to your land. Maybe you’re the one with sorcery. If what you say is true.”
His smiled widened. “If so, then every marlord in Gillengaria, including your brother, has been touched by magic,” he said. “For they all have that same sense of kinship with their property. Talk to Heffel Coravann sometime if you don’t believe me. Talk to Ariane.”
She laughed back at him. “And if that is true, then how ironic it is that so many marlords have joined the campaign to eradicate mystics! My father, for instance. Banished me from Brassen Court when he could have been accused of the very same crime!”
Malcolm nodded. “And did you never wonder why Kiernan wished to reconcile with you after your father died? He had come to understand that he was attuned to Brassenthwaite in a way that could not be explained away by anything other than magic. That he was no different than you were-no, and your father had not been, either.”
“Bright Mother burn me in ashes to the ground,” she swore.
“I don’t expect he’d ever admit it, though,” Malcolm added.
She laughed again. “And I don’t expect I’ll ever ask.”
She did make her way to Kiernan’s side after the meal, though, and found him with her brother Harris. They all exchanged cool but civil greetings. Kiernan had the same sort of stubbornness she had always seen in Malcolm, but less charm and less humor. Still, in the past year she had been forced to admit that his virtues-loyalty, intelligence, and a passion for justice-outweighed most of his flaws, and they had cautiously rebuilt a relationship of sorts. She still had no patience for her brother Nate, and Harris was practically a stranger. But Kiernan she respected, if grudgingly so. He was a powerfully built man with heavy features partially obscured by a neat beard; his eyes betrayed nothing but a watchful shrewdness.