A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [45]
While Bellyra changed into her purple dress and arranged her kirtle to hide the gravy stains from its previous incarnation as a banqueting cloth, Nevyn wandered off and found a serving lass to press into service as a lady’s maid to do her hair. Since she had no mirror, Bellyra had to accept their word for it that she looked both lovely and years older with her hair combed down and clasped at the nape of her neck.
“Why don’t you have a proper mirror, anyway?” Nevyn said.
“I’m not supposed to look into them. Since I was born on Samaen everyone’s afraid that if I look into a mirror, I won’t have any reflection at all, or maybe even I’ll see a fiend looking back at me or some such thing.”
“O ye gods! What utter nonsense!” He turned to the servant. “Here, lass, you run down to the dowager’s hall and get a mirror. Now don’t you argue with me! No doubt the dowager’s fallen into a drunken sleep, and she’ll never even know.”
Even though she crossed her fingers to ward off witchcraft first, the lass did follow his orders, returning in a few minutes with a hand mirror of polished bronze glazed in Bardek silver. It took Bellyra a few minutes more, though, to overcome her fear and look. Although she knew she wasn’t a fiend, she truly was afraid that she’d see nothing at all. Instead she found a remarkably pretty lass with wavy blond hair and big green eyes staring back with her delicate lips half-parted in surprise.
“Is that truly me?”
“It is.” Nevyn got behind her and looked over her shoulder. “The reflection I see looks just like the princess I see.”
Only then could she believe him.
As they came down the stairs she could hear a happy uproar, loud talk and louder laughter, from the great hall. At the little door she froze. If Nevyn hadn’t been right behind her, she would have turned and bolted again.
“Come now, child, you know you’ve got the strength for this. When the priest asks you if you’ll take him as your betrothed, all you have to do is say I will and let him kiss you—Maryn, I mean, not the priest. Kissing Nicedd would give me pause, too.”
Bellyra managed a giggle, but only just.
When they walked out together onto the dais, men gasped and turned to stare. Everywhere she heard whispers: Is that the princess? Has to be, couldn’t be, why here we never noticed how beautiful she is. She would never forget that moment; no matter what happened later in her life, she would always be able to pull it out of her mind like a jewel out of a treasure chest, the moment when she stepped through the little door into her womanhood, and the entire great hall fell silent to watch.
Maryn was sitting at the head of the table of honor, and some servant or other had found a cloak in the red, silver, and black plaid of Cerrmor to drape his chair, and a shirt embroidered with the ship blazon of Cerrmor for him to wear, so that when he rose to greet her he was already the king in the eyes of every man there. He bowed, caught her hand and kissed it, and smiled at her in a way that set her hand shaking in his.
“My lady,” he whispered. “I’m lucky as well as honored that you’re the Princess of the Blood.” And then he winked at her, as cheeky as a page.
For an answer she could only smile, the blood hot in her face, and she felt as if she were falling from the highest tower in ail of Dun Cerrmor, falling and falling, down and down into the little garden at its heart, falling toward yet never reaching the safety of the old willow and the tiny stream. He had conquered her, ridden in and captured her as well as the men without ever unsheathing his sword, and made her his prisoner for life. Although she was too young to see it at the time, only a few years later she realized that her Wyrd had given her an obsessive love that most women would have called a great treasure, but some, the wise ones, a cancer growing in her heart.
With the summer’s battle season coming on, the priests lost no time in marrying the royal couple and investing Maryn as king.