Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [137]
He bared yellowing teeth in a battle-grin. "Shall we dance?”
I shrugged. "As you wish.”
Goraidh came at me, flicking a quick, testing blow with the left end of his staff. I parried it easily. With an agile twist of his wrists, he reversed the staff and swung low at my legs, forcing me to skip backward. Some of the watchers jeered.
Goraidh laughed. "Stand and fight, lad!”
I sidled to the left, watching his head turn. Joscelin was right. "Not likely! I want to keep my face pretty for my wife on our wedding night.”
That drew a good laugh; even Goraidh chuckled. He was still turning to face me, cocking his head to get a fix on me with his good left eye, when I circled farther to his left, deft and sliding, and jabbed him hard in the kidney.
Mind your footwork.
Goraidh grunted. I spun back the other way and caught him wrong-footed and unready. His mouth gaped as I swung at his unprotected head.
At the last instant, I pulled the blow short and settled for a solid tap. "Will you do my wife a kindness and concede?”
I wasn't sure, for a moment, how he'd react. His blue-grey eyes narrowed and he tightened his grip on the staff. I settled into a defensive stance, smiling and watchful.
For a mercy, Goraidh decided to roar with laughter. "All right, lad! Since the lady likes your pretty face so well, I'll leave it be." Lowering his staff, he reached out to tousle my hair with rough familiarity. "You're a slippery devil, but you're all right.”
Thus passed the eve of my second wedding. My bout with Goraidh garnered respect and friendliness, which manifested itself in the form of a great deal of uisghe. At some point, I recall Talorcan placing an ancient steel-plated leather helmet with a boar's tusks protruding from the cheekplates on my head and proclaiming me an honorary brother among the Cullach Gorrym. This required that I toast each man present. The last thing I recall, before the hall began to slide sideways in my vision, was someone asking plaintively, "Are you sure we can't give him his warrior's mark?”
In the morning, I awoke with a roiling belly and an aching head. There was no mirror in the guest chamber, and Dorelei was still sequestered with the women. I felt at my forehead, unable to determine whether the pain there was the aftereffects of drink, or a fresh tattoo. When Joscelin came to fetch me, he caught me peering at the flat side of my dagger, trying to get a glimpse of my reflection.
"Did they …?" I gesturing at my brow.
"No, I wouldn't let them." He grinned. "Talorcan insisted on challenging me to a bout over it.”
I squinted at Joscelin. "How is he?”
He laughed. "Sore.”
The wedding itself took place in a park in the center of the city; a place held in trust for the folk of Alba, taisgaidh land left to grow wild and undisturbed. Anyone who wished was free to attend, and by exchanging our vows there, Dorelei and I offered a symbolic pledge that our union was made for the sake of Alba itself.
'Twas all very, very different from our D'Angeline nuptials. By the time we arrived in our separate parties, male and female, my head was clearing. Dorelei and I smiled at one another. She wore a simple saffron kirtle and a wreath of yellow celandine on her black hair. I was clad in the old Alban style in a pair of dark breeches, bare-chested, wearing naught but a red cloak over my shoulders.
There were two ollamhs presiding; Firdha and a man named Colum. They stood erect and unsmiling, both of them holding gilded oak branches. Beyond them, in a circle, were all the invited guests. The women looked fresh and lovely; I noted that the men looked rather worse for the wear, and Talorcan was sporting a sling on his right arm. Beyond the invited guests were the commonfolk who had chosen to attend, of whom there were quite a few. I was pleased to find that the mood seemed one of festive curiosity.
The ceremony began with a lengthy invocation of Alba's deities, great and small, belonging to all the Four Folk; gods and goddesses of the moon