The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [151]
Demet’s family, a veritable crowd of brothers and sisters, their wives, husbands, and children, came hurrying across the plaza, all talking and laughing except for Demet, who was smiling in tight triumph. When she saw him, Niffa felt her own blood pounding at her throat. He looked so handsome that night, blond and tall, and they had shared so many kisses and caresses. Tonight, finally—
“Niffa!” Dera’s voice snapped. “Stop smirking like that! It be unseemly.”
“I will, Mam.” Niffa wiped her smile away and tried to look composed and aloof. “I do apologize.”
Demet and his family stood on one side of the bonfire while Niffa and hers took the other. Werda’s manservant knelt and began fussing with flint and tinderbox; in this cold he struggled to raise a spark, but a wedding fire had to be kindled fresh, not lit from a hearth. Niffa looked round at the crowd of guests and saw off to one side Verrarc and Raena, splendid in a blue wool cloak with a huge clasp of gold and moonstones at one shoulder.
“What be her business here?” Niffa whispered to her mother.
“Well, it were needful I invite Verro for the formality of the thing. Never did I think he’d come, but if he did, well then, his woman be welcome, too.”
“No one did ask me if she be welcome.”
“Hush! And will you start your married life a miser, grudging hospitality?”
Niffa scowled down at the snow. She refused to apologize. Never would I have asked a viper to my wedding, either, she thought. Yet why was she so sure that Raena would somehow bite and poison them all? The patch of snow she so assiduously studied suddenly turned gold, and she heard the crackling of flames on kindling. She looked up to find fire blazing in the center of the heaped-up wood and spreading gold flames along the tendrils of dry twigs. It seemed to her that she saw the doom of Cerr Cawnen in that fire, that Raena would be the spark that burnt them all.
“What troubles you?” Dera caught her arm. “You look like death.”
“Naught, naught.” Niffa swallowed hard. “I uh, I well, I’ll be missing you, Mam, and living at home with you and the weasels.”
“Ah.” Dera patted her arm. “It be a hard thing, to leave your mother’s hearth, but truly, you’ll dwell nearby, just across the lake. At least you’ll not be going to some strange village. And we can spare you a ferret for a pet, like, when a litter comes.”
“If my new mother do allow.”
Demet’s mother, Emla, was standing next to her son. She smiled and waved at Dera and Niffa impartially. A tall grey-haired woman with a long sharp jaw, she was beaming with excitement. At least Demet’s family had wholeheartedly approved of his choice for a wife rather than spurning the ratter’s girl. Since Demet’s father had married a cousin, their family carried a strong stamp: like Demet they were all tall, blond, and rangy, even young Cotzi at ten summers, with angular faces that were handsome on the men if a bit unfortunate on the women. Small and dark as she was, Niffa felt like a ferret about to frolic with greyhounds. She could only hope they wouldn’t bite.
The ceremony itself went fast. With a sweep of one arm Werda called Niffa and Demet up to stand next to her near the fire. The crowd stood facing the three of them.
“Before us stand a young man and a young woman who would marry,” Werda began. “When we fled our homeland, when our homes were stolen from us by the Slavers, our gods did travel with us to the free lands. Thanks to them we did survive, and in return, they demand of us that we grow mighty in numbers, that we may worship them always and tend their earthly homes. Demet, a man must father many sons to gain the favor of the