The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [193]
She hesitated; then her lips firmed. “I shall start as I mean to go on.” Her voice was suddenly not soft at all, but steel-edged. She gestured at the contract. “The substance of our equality is there, Uncle. My pride demands no greater show. We shall exchange the kisses of welcome, each to each, upon our hands alone.” The darkness uncurled a little; Cazaril felt an odd shiver, as though some predatory shadow had passed over his head and flown on, thwarted.
“An admirable discretion,” Cazaril endorsed this in relief.
The page, dancing from foot to foot, held open the door for the provincar, who swept out in haste.
“Lord Cazaril, how was your journey?” Betriz taxed him in this interlude. “You look so…tired.”
“A weary lot of riding, but it all went well enough.” He shifted in his seat and smiled up at her.
Her dark brows arched. “I think we must have Ferda and Foix in, to tell us more. Surely it was not so plain and dull as that.”
“Well, we had a little trouble with brigands in the mountains. Dy Jironal’s doing, I’m fairly sure. Bergon acquitted himself very well. The Fox…went easier than I expected, for a reason I didn’t.” He leaned forward, and lowered his voice to them both. “You remember my benchmate on the galleys I told of, Danni, the boy of good family?”
Betriz nodded, and Iselle said, “I am not likely to forget.”
“I didn’t guess how good a family. Danni was an alias Bergon gave, to keep himself secret from his captors. It seems his kidnapping was a ploy of Ibra’s late Heir. Bergon recognized me when I stood before the Ibran court—he had changed and grown almost out of reckoning.”
Iselle’s lips parted in astonishment. After a moment she breathed, “Surely the goddess gave you to me.”
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “I’ve come to that conclusion myself.”
Her eyes turned toward the double doors on the opposite side of the chamber. Her hands twisted in her lap in a sudden flush of nerves. “How shall I recognize him? Is he—is he well-favored?”
“I don’t know how ladies judge such things—”
The doors swung wide. A great mob of persons surged through: pages, hangers-on, dy Baocia and his wife, Bergon and dy Sould and dy Tagille, and Palli bringing up the rear. The Ibrans had been treated to baths as well, and wore the best clothes they’d managed to pack in their meager bags, supplemented, Cazaril was fairly sure, with some judicious emergency borrowings. Bergon’s eyes flicked in a smiling panic from Betriz to Iselle, and settled on Iselle. Iselle gazed from face to face among the three strange Ibrans in a momentary terror.
Tall Palli, standing behind Bergon, pointed at the royse and mouthed, This one! Iselle’s gray eyes brightened, and her pale cheeks flooded with color.
Iselle held out her hands. “My lord Bergon dy Ibra,” she said in a voice that only quavered a little. “Welcome to Chalion.”
“My lady Iselle dy Chalion,” Bergon, striding up to her, returned breathlessly. “Dy Ibra thanks you.” He knelt to one knee, and kissed her hands. She bent her head, and kissed his.
Bergon rose again and introduced his companions, who bowed properly. With a slight scrape, the provincar and the archdivine, with their own hands, brought up a chair for Bergon and set it by Iselle’s on the other side from Cazaril. From a leather pouch dy Tagille held out, Bergon produced his royal greeting-gift, a necklace of fine emeralds—one of the last of his mother’s pieces not pawned by the Fox to buy arms. The white horses unfortunately were still back on the road somewhere. Bergon had been going to bring a rope of new Ibran pearls, but had made the substitution on Cazaril’s most earnest advice.
Dy Baocia made a little speech of welcome, which would have been rather longer if Iselle’s aunt, catching her niece’s eye, had not seized a pause in his periods to invite the assembled company into the next room to partake of refreshments. The young couple was left to have some private speech, and bent their heads together, largely inaudible to the eager eavesdroppers