‘The whole secret to wearing a daring dress is to be proud of what it reveals,’ Arell told me. ‘You’ve got a good figure. Flaunt it.’
‘This is Beldaran’s party, Arell,’ I protested. ‘She’s the one who’s supposed to attract attention, not me.’
‘Don’t be so coy, Polgara,’ she scolded me. ‘I’ve heard all about your little experiments in self-display in that large room down the hall, so don’t play innocent with me.’
‘At least I didn’t take my clothes off.’
‘You might as well have. Who designed those awful gowns you used to wear?’
‘Well – I needed a dress in Camaar, and father had a dressmaker sew one up for me. When we got here, I had another dressmaker copy it for the rest of them.’
‘I might have known,’ she sniffed. ‘Don’t ever let a Sendar design your clothes. They’re the prissiest people in the world. All right,’ she said then, ‘let’s get to work on the dresses for these other ladies.’ She squinted around at Beldaran’s attendants. ‘Green, I think,’ she mused. ‘We don’t want the dresses of the rest of the wedding party to clash with those of the bride and her sister.’
I’ve sometimes wondered about Arell. She was just a bit too domineering to be entirely an Alorn lady. I think I’ll talk with mother about that. Mother’s not above tampering with people at times.
Beldaran, of course, was nervous on the night before her wedding. It may not appear so, but brides are usually almost as nervous as grooms are on that particular night. Women are better at hiding things, though.
‘Don’t take it so seriously, Beldaran,’ Arell advised my sister. ‘A wedding’s a chance for others to enjoy themselves. The bride and groom aren’t much more than ornaments.’
‘I’m not feeling very ornamental right now, Arell,’ Beldaran replied. ‘Would you excuse me please? I think I’ll go throw up for a while.’
The night passed, as nights are in the habit of doing, and the day dawned clear and sunny – a rarity on the Isle of the Winds. It’s a nice island, but it has an almost impossible climate.
The wedding was scheduled for midday, largely because Alorn males celebrate on the night before a wedding, and they tend to feel a little delicate the following morning, so they need some time to pull themselves together.
We had plenty to keep us busy, though. Beldaran took the ritual pre-nuptial bath, and when she emerged, her attendants anointed her gleaming body with rosewater. Then there was all the business with hair, and that consumed most of the rest of the morning. Then we all sat around in our undergarments to avoid wrinkling our gowns.
At the last possible minute we all dressed, and Arell critically examined all of us. ‘It’ll do, I suppose,’ she noted. ‘Enjoy the wedding, girls. Now scoot.’
We all trooped on down to the antechamber just outside the Hall of the Rivan King, where the wedding was to take place.
I was a bit puzzled by my sister’s behavior once we entered that antechamber. She seemed almost inhumanly composed. All traces of her previous nervousness had vanished, and she seemed bemused and distant. Mother explained my sister’s detachment to me later. Much of what happened during the wedding was symbolic, and Beldaran was following some very precise instructions.
I kept watch at the door, and so it was that I saw the arrival of Riva, his father, and his brothers.
They were all dressed in chain mail, and there were swords bolted at their hips! I knew that Alorns were a warlike people, but really! In a sort of gesture to the formality of the occasion, their mail shirts were all brightly burnished. I hoped that they’d done something about the characteristic smell of armor, though. Armor of any kind has a very distinctive fragrance about it, and I didn’t think it’d be appropriate for all the ladies in Beldaran’s entourage to faint dead away during the ceremony.
Then father joined us, and he didn’t smell too strongly of beer. I often make an issue of my father’s bad habits, but I’ll concede that he doesn’t really drink all that much. Evidently his years on the waterfront in Camaar had gotten most of that out of his system. ‘Good morning, ladies,’ he greeted us. ‘You all look quite beautiful. Are we ready?’
‘As ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose,’ I replied. ‘Did you manage to keep Riva sober last night?’
‘I didn’t have to, Pol. I watched him rather closely, and he hardly drank anything at all.’
‘An Alorn who doesn’t try to plunge headfirst into every beer barrel he passes? Amazing!’
‘Excuse me,’ he said then. ‘I need to talk with Beldaran. Beldin and I’ve made a few preparations she needs to know about.’
I found out what he meant a little while later.
My father has an exquisite sense of timing. He gave the crowd in Riva’s throne room some time to settle down, and then I quite clearly heard the thought he sent out to uncle Beldin. ‘All right,’ he said silently, ‘we might as well get started.’
Uncle Beldin responded with a silvery fanfare played upon hundreds of phantom trumpets. The sound was impressive enough to silence all the wedding guests. The fanfare was followed by a wedding hymn sung very softly by an ethereal non-existent choir. I’m something of a musician myself, and I was enormously impressed by my dwarfed uncle’s complex harmony.
Then at a signal from father, Beldaran went out through the door of the antechamber and stepped into the center of the doorway to the Hall of the Rivan King. She stood there, allowing herself to be admired, and then the Master bestowed his benediction upon her in the form of a beam of bright white light.
When I think back on it, I realize now that the Master was blessing the entire Rivan line – the line that was to ultimately produce the Godslayer.
I removed my cloak, and father’s eyes grew a little wild. ‘Nice dress,’ he noted from between clenched teeth. Sometimes my father’s very inconsistent. He admires the attributes of other ladies, but he grows quite upset when I display mine.
We moved into place, one on either side of Beldaran, and walked with stately pace down the aisle that led past the pits where burning peat provided warmth to the front, where Riva and his family awaited us.
‘It’s going quite well, don’t you think?’ Mother’s voice asked me.
‘It’s not over yet, mother,’ I replied. “These are Alorns, after all, so there’s still an enormous potential for disaster.’