Isold blinked down doubtfully at herself. “Do you think so?”
“I do.” Savine did not. Isold’s dress was a triumph of optimism over taste and accentuated all her worst features. But its inferiority to her own would be so utterly obvious to anyone watching there was no point in saying so.
“That’s such an unusual necklace.”
“Runes.” Savine stretched out her throat as Zuri gave an infinitesimal tweak to the way they sat. Everyone here had diamonds, after all, but these gave her a dash of the exotic. She was the least superstitious person alive, but they felt like good luck, somehow. “They were a gift from…” An old lover of my husband’s did not sound quite right, so she settled for, “A friend from the North.”
“Will your parents be here?”
A more complicated question than Isold probably realised, since one of Savine’s fathers was dead and the other not actually her father. She settled for, “Both of them.”
“You’re so lucky. I have hardly any family left. My uncle died before I was born, on campaign in the North, then my father last year, and my mother a few months after. I never had any siblings.” Leaving her, no doubt, with quite the inheritance. Savine began to divine what made her so irresistible to Lord Isher. “I only wish one of them had lived to see this…”
“I am sure they would have been proud.” And somewhat relieved to be rid of her. Savine took her gently by the shoulders. “Today you will gain a whole new family. I know your husband to be a good man.” She suspected him of being a devious scorpion. “And from the way he talks, he is very much in love with you.”
Isold blinked up at her. “Do you think so?”
Savine did not. “How could it be otherwise?” she asked, chucking Isold under the chin and making her smile. “Zuri, could one of the girls help Isold with her powder?”
“Blessed is she who gives succour to the needy, Lady Savine…”
“I’m sorry…” croaked out Isold as May attended to her face, “I don’t mean to be a burden—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Savine. “I should be the one apologising, for stealing half of your big day. And with so little notice. It has been… quite the whirlwind.”
“It’s good to have someone to share it with.” Isold looked down at her shoes. “To take some of the attention.”
“I understand entirely.” Though there had never been enough attention in the Circle of the World to satisfy Savine.
“The Lords’ Round.” Isold stared at the huge doors. Beyond they could hear the vague murmur of the gathering witnesses. Almost as many as had witnessed Wetterlant’s trial. “So many people watching.”
“Everyone who’s anyone.” Savine had spent several hours poring over the guest list with Zuri and her mother in order to make absolutely sure of it.
“The king is here,” whispered Isold.
Savine found her nonchalance slipping a little at that. “Yes.”
“Do you know him?”
“We… have met. He is a good man, regardless of what you hear.”
“My husband-to-be doesn’t seem to think so.”
For some reason, that caused Savine a stab of anger. “Luckily, I am not obliged to agree with Lord Isher.”
“I am,” said Isold, in a tiny voice.
By the Fates, her eyes were already brimming again, making her powder run. It can be pleasant to have someone weak leaning on you. It can make you feel strong. But there comes a point when they become a dead weight to carry. Savine was happy to play big sister but she drew the line at motherhood. She would have her own child to worry about soon enough.
“You are being married to the man,” she said, less gently now, “not sold to him.”
“I suppose.” Isold took a heavy breath. “I wish I had your… grit.”
Savine was far from sure that grittiness was the quality most sought for in a bride. She took Isold by her limp little hands. “Act as if everything is going exactly according to your plans. As if you are the most confident person in the world. As if you never had a doubt in your life.” Savine forced her shoulders back, her chin up and faced the door. “It works for me.”
“Does it?” asked Isold. “Really?”
Savine paused a moment, mouth half-open. Then she slipped the box of pearl dust from her sleeve and offered it out. “There’s always this.”
“Ready, my friend?” asked Isher.
Leo forced a watery smile towards High Justice Bruckel, standing by to officiate, his robes trimmed with so much fur he looked like a giant, disapproving badger. “Can’t wait.”
Leo had always reckoned himself the bravest man in any company. They called him the Young Lion, after all. But standing here, on the marble floor of the Lords’ Round, well dressed, well fed, well attended and in no danger of violent death, he was terrified.
There are different kinds of courage, maybe, and the kind that lets you fling yourself into a thicket of spears has nothing to do with the kind that lets you stand smiling in front of a thousand people and give your life to a woman you hardly know.
He wished his friends were there. His real friends. Antaup, with his endless chatter about women, and Glaward, with his endless chatter about weapons, and Whitewater Jin with his beard and his belly laugh, and good old Jurand, most of all. Jurand, with his caution and good sense. Jurand, with his endless patience and support. Jurand, with the fine shape of his jaw, and his hair falling in that artless mess, and the perfect definition of his lips… Leo shook himself. He even wished he could hear Barniva wax on about the horrors of war one more time but, as if to prove his own point, the poor bastard had got himself killed. In a war.
And none of them were invited anyway. There had been no time to send for them. Leo had come to Adua to attend Lord Isher’s wedding and make new friends. Not to make an enemy of the king and get bloody married himself.
He felt another surge of nerves. Could you call it cowardice? He found he was glancing about for some route of escape, more little rabbit than Young Lion. He caught sight of his mother, who gave him an encouraging nod. Then Lady Ardee, who gave him an encouraging wink. Then her husband the Arch Lector, who gave him a bitter glare which entirely undid all the ladies’ support. Finally, King Orso, slouching on his cushions in the middle of the front row, jaw angrily clenched.
Leo turned his back on them, mouthing the over-rehearsed apology Savine had arranged for him to give later. “Your Majesty, I’m a soldier, not a courtier. A simple soldier. I can only apologise. I let my passions get the better of me. No excuse. Will never happen again—”
“Please rise!” bellowed Bruckel.
There was a rustling as the hundreds of witnesses stood, an echoing fanfare from the gallery garlanded with spring flowers, and a mighty creaking as the doors were heaved open and the two brides stepped into the light.
Whenever Leo saw Savine she was somehow more than he remembered, but now, in ten thousand marks or more of Suljuk silk, Osprian lace and pearls from the distant Thousand Isles, advancing so proudly, so gracefully, so dauntlessly down the aisle, he couldn’t take his eyes away.
No one could. The future Lady Isher was a simpering little girl by comparison, the blushing maid beside the peerless empress. Savine was doing her best not to outpace her, to hold her hand, to show her off to best advantage, but poor Isold was utterly upstaged at her own wedding.