Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [110]
He took Draya’s hand and led her over the threshold. She crossed without incident, and everyone applauded.
Skylan sat down in the chair of honor at the head of one of the long tables. Draya performed her first duty as wife by serving her new husband mead in a bowl with two handles formed of dragons in honor of Vindrash. Skylan raised the bowl into the air, offering the first sip symbolically to Torval, and then he drank from it. He handed the bowl to Draya, and she raised the bowl to Vindrash before she drank. Everyone took up their drinking horns and drank to the health and happiness of the couple. After that, the feasting and merriment began in earnest.
The hall was hot, noisy, and crowded. Once the ceremony of the loving cup was concluded, Skylan was free to enjoy himself. He searched the crowd and finally saw Aylaen sitting with her sister among a group of Bone Priestesses. Skylan caught Aylaen’s eye. She smiled at him, then turned back to an animated conversation with her sister and another woman.
Skylan rose to his feet. Under cover of the laughter, he said in a low voice to Garn, “I’m going to go talk to Aylaen.”
Garn seized hold of him by the sleeve. “No,” he said, “you’re not.”
Skylan looked defiant, and Garn added emphatically, “A bridegroom does not leave his bride’s side during the feasting, Skylan, especially to go talk to an unmarried woman. It would be unseemly.”
Skylan realized Garn was right, and he slowly sat back down in his chair.
His new wife had seen him start to stand, and she turned to him, smiling. “Is everything to your liking, my husband? Do you want anything?”
Draya leaned closer to him. Her leg pressed against his thigh. Skylan squirmed in his chair, moving as far from her as possible. Her hand moved toward his hand, and he quickly grabbed his knife and speared a hunk of meat and began to eat as though he were starving. Shortly after that, Treia left the feast and Aylaen went with her.
The sun sank. The moon rose. The bard, Balin, sang of the joys of married life. Husbands and wives held hands and shared loving glances. The wedding day would end with the bedding of the happy couple.
In anticipation of that, Skylan got very drunk.
CHAPTER
2
In a torchlit procession, men of the bride’s party escorted Draya to the dwelling of the Chief of Chiefs, which was always in the lord city of Vindraholm. Horg’s possessions had been hastily removed, and the longhouse had been thoroughly cleaned by Fria. She had burned all the bedding, replaced it with new. The mattress was scented with perfumed oil, and women had spread flowers over the blankets.
Draya’s friends led her to the dwelling. Once there, they removed her shoes and stockings, her surcoat and her dress, leaving her linen shift. She left the fond embraces of her friends and slipped demurely under the blankets and waited in heart-throbbing anticipation for her new husband.
The groom’s procession—considerably rowdier than the bride’s—came next. Skylan had drunk a considerable amount of mead and ale, and he was unsteady on his feet. He draped his arms around his friends, and they lurched toward the longhouse, bawling out the bawdy songs that traditionally accompanied the bedding.
Draya was not so drunk as Skylan, but she had also been drinking. The honey mead was sweet on her lips, and she looked forward with thrills of desire to more sweetness still. She had been unable to take her eyes off her handsome young husband. Draya did not even mind that Skylan was drunk. Unlike Horg, who was mean and surly when he was drinking, Skylan was boisterous and cheerful, fond of boasting of his exploits in battle to her or anyone who would listen. He even acted these out, jumping to his feet at one point during the feast to demonstrate with an eating knife how he had decapitated the ogre godlord.
Draya’s friends opened the door