Gropf’s thin mouth smiled at those gowns and he flicked his eyes at the bride when she kissed her husband. Five months pregnant? Sweeting, that’s what the overgown is for! He had no one to tell that his greatest triumph as a cloth cutter now came in front of a patriarch in the Imperial Palace – two years after he’d turned his back on his trade and gone to war.
But he couldn’t stop smiling.
Neither could Wilful Murder, who’d just received the fullest pay day of his adult life and not a sequin in stoppages. He wandered the feast, wagering on anything that anyone would accept a wager on – the time in pater nosters until the bride next kissed the groom was a favourite. He offered odds that the whole company would march the next morning at sunrise.
Mag had a brief and sobering interview with the Captain, and took notes – but the moment the service began and she saw Kaitlin Lanthorn, whom she’d known as a puking, tiny baby not expected to live, now going to the altar to wed a man who was arguably the wealthiest young man of his generation, in front of some of the most famous people in Christendom, she cried. She cried steadily through the service. But she’d made every stitch of linen the bride was wearing, and she’d woven in every scrap of happiness she could draw from the aether. And she’d made a weather working too – her first – that roofed the Outer Court like a bowl of fire.
When the wine began to flow and people walked about freely, the Patriarch came and sat by her. ‘They tell me you cast that,’ he said pleasantly.
She smiled and looked at her feet.
‘These same people tell me you’ve never had an education in the ars magicka.’ He smiled.
She almost said she’d been tutored in Dar-as-Salaam – it was on her lips, one of Harmodius’s memories imprinted in her head. She hadn’t fully assimilated what she’d learned from Harmodius and from the Abbess in the last days of the siege, but she spent time working through what she could remember, every day. Hence her first weather working. But as usual, she found it easiest to be silent.
So she raised her eyes.
They met, eye to eye, for a moment.
The Patriarch broke the contact politely, and shook his head. ‘The north of Alba must be rolling in talents,’ he said.
Mag nodded. ‘It is,’ she agreed.
‘May I invite you to visit the Academy?’ he asked. ‘For more than two thousand years, we have served the needs of men and women with special gifts – hermetical, or scientific, or musical, or scholarly.’
She smiled and looked at her hands. ‘Do you offer a course in embroidery?’ she asked, thinking that he sounded just a little like the dragon on the mountain.
After the boards were cleared, the musicians – who had eaten the dinner and watched the wedding with everyone else – came forward. While they tuned their instruments, the students gave a display of the hermetical art – air bursts of fire, tableaux of the heroes of the past striding across the yard – Saint Aetius fought a great horned irk twice his height, and fought so well that the soldiers roared their applause-
‘I told you that nothing would look as good as a real fight,’ Derkensun said, picking himself off the second-storey floor of the Imperial horse barn. It was not just a new working but a set of nested new workings – it had taken four of them, the two Comnena nuns, Baldesce and Mortirmir. Mortirmir had fought – sparred, at least – with Derkensun, and the working had transmitted their images – subtly altered – to the courtyard below. As the soldiers roared their approval, Mortirmir embraced the Nordikan.
He laughed his great laugh. ‘Bah – it was you witches who made the glamour!’ But he accepted their plaudits, and he and Anna sat with the students for the next course.
Anna put her hand on Derkensun’s arm suddenly – they were being served beautiful custards, obviously the product of the Imperial kitchens. Anna was ignoring the magical shows to enjoy the food – she’d never had enough to eat in in her entire life and the custards-
But a woman in a plain brown overgown had appeared by Megas Ducas’ side. Anna noticed her immediately.
She pointed, her mouth full of delicious custard.
Beside her, Derkensun was grinning at an Ordinary. ‘Is that Quaveh?’ he asked.
The servant bowed. ‘It is, sir.’
‘Anna, this is Quaveh from the other side of Ifriqu’ya!’ he turned. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘Who is that woman?’ Anna asked.
The Megas Ducas was enjoying himself far more than he’d expected to. Some of the drugs worked – and Harmodius was obviously doing his best to hide himself. While the Duke suspected that had to do with the presence of the Patriarch – just a sword’s length away in his throne of ebony and gold – a holiday was a holiday. He was alone.
Or at least, he felt alone.
He was considering sending Toby for his lyre when he caught a hint of scent and then she was at his side.
‘I am incognito,’ declared Princess Irene. ‘Please call me Zoe.’
The Duke girded himself. So much for being alone.
Ser Gavin was sitting with the groom’s party and flirting somewhat automatically with the Lanthorn girls. Ranald Lachlan was staring into darkness and drinking steadily and being a dull companion.
Ser Alison leaned back her chair. She was dressed as a woman – magnificently dressed – except for the knight’s belt at her hips. ‘Who’s that sitting with the Captain?’ she asked.
Gavin did a double-take and smiled knowingly. ‘Well, well,’ he said. He dug an elbow into Ranald, who looked and shrugged.
Ser Michael was an arm’s length away, kissing his wife. He rose for air and caught Gavin’s eye.
‘Get a room,’ said Gavin.
‘We have one,’ said Michael, brightly. ‘What are you and Sauce staring at?’
Kaitlin, who looked like an angel come to earth, leaned forward, being exceptionally careful of her train and her ermine and her jewels and all the other things that didn’t matter as much as the man who had just kissed her, and said, ‘It’s the-’
Ser Giorgios paled, and his new wife had to use years of courtly training not to spit her wine. ‘The Porphyrogenetrix!’ she said. ‘At my wedding!’
Gavin grinned. ‘Good. That’s what I thought, too.’
Ser Thomas appeared and leaned down among them, bowing to – of all people – Sauce. ‘May I have the honour of a dance?’ he asked.
‘Horse or foot?’ Sauce said, automatically. She was ready to fight, and despite her gown and her tight kirtle, she looked like a warrior in that moment.
Bad Tom just laughed. ‘Got you. But-’ he swept a comically exaggerated bow ‘-but I mean it. They’re about to play for dancing. Come and dance.’
‘Why?’ Sauce asked suspiciously. ‘Ain’t you doing Sukey?’
Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘Not for another few hours. Come on, Sauce – come and dance.’ He looked at Gavin. ‘What are you all looking at?’ he asked with his usual air.
‘Not you,’ Gavin said. He indicated the Patriarch’s table without actually pointing.
‘All the big hats,’ Tom agreed.
‘So who’s sitting with the Captain?’ Sauce asked. She rose to her feet and put her hand on Tom’s arm. ‘If you make this a mockery of me, I’ll have your guts out right here, so help me God and all the saints.’
Bad Tom grinned. ‘Are you like this with all the boys?’ he asked. Then his half-mocking grin vanished. ‘Sweet Jesu, it’s the princess.’
‘Got it in one, boyo,’ drawled Sauce.
While Bad Tom was gawking, Ser Jehan and Ser Milus came around the wedding table and each took their turn to kiss the brides and kneel before Kaitlin, slap Michael and Giorgios on the back, and then – Jehan first – crave a dance of Sauce.
‘Am I the only girl you boys know?’ she asked.