The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [153]
“I do keep thinking of our Jahdo,” Dera said. “I do wish with all my heart that he’d be here seeing his sister marry.”
Councilman Verrarc looked abruptly at the floor and started studying the planks.
“He’ll come home, sister,” Emla said. “Come the spring we’ll bring the god of the roads a sacrifice to see him safely home.”
Lael handed the bundle to Cronin, Demet’s father, who took it in both long, calloused hands.
“Come along, daughter,” Cronin said. “It be time to go home.”
Cronin and Emla led the way as Niffa, Demet, and the wedding guests left the house and her old family behind. When Niffa glanced back, she saw that Verrarc stayed, talking with Dera in the pool of firelight; then her father shut the door. Laughing and singing, the wedding procession wound its way down Citadel to the jetty at the lake shore, where much to everyone’s surprise, they found the Council barge waiting, all decked out with lanterns so that it glowed in the misty night.
“Councilman Verrarc’s orders,” the barge captain said. “Congratulations, young Niffa! Now come you all aboard, and we’ll set to poling you across.”
More laughter and a lot of cheers—Verrarc’s generosity had just spared the wedding party a long drunken row. As the barge pushed off, the men in the party began to sing, trading off verses of songs bawdy enough to make Niffa blush.
Demet’s family lived in a rambling compound built partly on stilts, partly on solid ground, over by the south city gate. In the big common room a fire lay ready in the hearth. As custom demanded, Demet knelt down to light it fresh while the guests threw off cloaks and headed for the second feast of the night, spread out on a pair of tables at the far side of the room.
“Come along, daughter,” Emla said. “And I’ll bestow upon you a chamber of your own.”
Since they were the youngest married couple in the compound, they received a plank room out over the lake. Although it stood the farthest from the central hearth, the warmth from the water filtered up through cracks in the floor. Niffa could hear the lake splashing against the pilings underneath, and the room sighed like a ship in the wind. The room held a wooden chest, where Niffa unpacked her dowry goods, and a big square bed. Emla hung the candle lantern from a long brass hook on the wall.
“There be no one to either side of you here,” she said with a wink. “You’d best be making yourself comfortable. Demet will be finishing that fire about now.”
With another wink Emla took herself off to her guests. Niffa laid her new blanket over the old ones, then hung her cloak on another hook near the door. Since the room turned out warmer than she’d been expecting, she took off her dresses as well and tossed them into the chest. With a little shiver for the cold sheets she slid into bed and found a nice warm hollow in the old mattress.
Distantly she heard the singing in the common room and more immediately the water sounds. They threatened to turn into omen-voices, whispering of secrets and danger, but Demet opened the door and slipped into the room.
“You do look so beautiful in my bed like that,” he said, smiling. “I’ll treasure this night forever.”
“And so will I. Come get warm.”
He hung his cloak over hers, then stripped off his tunic and threw it into the wood chest. When he sat down on the bed to unlace his boots, she ran a hand down his bare back and felt him tremble. At last he pulled the boots off and dropped them onto the floor, then stood to strip off his leggings. She held up the blankets and let him roll into bed.
“Cold!” he whispered. “Ah well, we’ll be warm soon enough.”
He engulfed her in his embrace so fiercely that for a moment she was frightened, but his familiar kisses soothed her. In the past month or so, knowing that their marriage was arranged past breaking, they’d touched each other often, at first shyly, then more boldly when they’d discovered the pleasure it brought them. Now, when she felt his hand sliding up her thigh, she let her legs ease apart and whimpered at his touch.
“Now,” she whispered. “Please?”