“Well,” General Dayr said, with the first smile that had graced his visage since the successful crossing of the Vingaard. “That rather changes things, I should say.”
Selinda disdained the great temple in the center of Palanthas, and instead had selected a modest chapel of Kiri-Jolith for her wedding site. The whole city was celebrating the holiday, but there would be less than a hundred people who could actually crowd into the small building. Of these guests, virtually all were friends of the bride from the court or diplomats who represented places from across Ansalon.
The presiding cleric, Melissa du Juliette, a young priestess of Kiri-Jolith, was not the most experienced nor best-known member of the clergy. But she had been a young maid at the regent’s court when Lady du Chagne was alive, and there she had befriended and mentored the young princess. Now Selinda remembered her wisdom, affection, and kindness and asked Melissa to preside over the marriage ceremony. Melissa had warned Selinda that she would offend a number of the temple’s hierarchy by selecting the young priestess to perform the ceremony, but the princess had shrugged away her concern.
“I have offended them already,” Selinda said coolly. “Jaymes is not a nobleman, and this match is unthinkable to the hidebound who consider themselves the adjudicators of what is right and proper. But I love him… and I believe he is the greatest man of the age.”
“Marrying for love is good,” Melissa replied diplomatically. “Though your courtship did happen so quickly. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for a little time to pass?”
“No-we must marry now. We are both in a hurry. And he has a war to win!”
“This immediate wedding-was it his idea?” asked the priestess.
“I can’t even recall,” the princess declared. “No-he proposed to me, of course, but I insisted we marry at once, before he returns to the front. Oh, Melissa, I’m so happy!”
“I’m glad,” the cleric said, tenderly touching the younger woman on the cheek.
So the nuptials were arranged and commenced before sunset on that very day. The lord regent was present, looking splendid in a gold frock coat and powdered wig. He escorted his daughter down the aisle in the center of the great church, bowing-ever so slightly-as Lord Marshal Jaymes Markham stepped forward. The princess gave her father a peck on the cheek then took the arm of the man she was marrying.
If anyone noticed that neither Lord Inquisitor Frost nor the Kingfisher, Sir Moorvan, was in attendance, they did not remark on the fact. There were whispered comments, however, about the absence of Coryn the White-who was known to be in the city. She was a famous ally of the regent’s, a friend of the bride, and a steadfast companion of the groom’s, so where was she? Inevitably her absence provoked speculation. Was she jealous of the princess? Did she, in fact, love Jaymes Markham, as many gossiped? Or did she have secret reasons for objecting to the match?
The celebration was heightened when good news arrived from the battlefield. Carrier pigeons brought the first reports, but overnight several couriers arrived from the plains, riding their staggering horses through the city gates. Their dispatches were posted throughout the city, announcing the relief of Solanthus, the general retreat of Ankhar’s army, and the continued advance of the Army of Solamnia. Even without its famous commander, the steadfast Knights of the Rose, Crown, and Sword were liberating conquered lands and rekindling the legendary glories of their historic orders.
Everyone agreed the bridal couple made a splendid match-boding well for the future of the Solamnic nation. To the common people it mattered little that Jaymes Markham was not of the nobility. His martial air inspired awe and boosted by the good news from the front, fresh admiration. As for Selinda, she embodied the city’s legacy, symbolized by the lofty rank of lord regent held by her father, the highest ranking possible in the Solamnic territories, considering the kingship no longer existed.
When at last Jaymes and Selinda made their appearance outside the chapel, the citizens in the square cheered lustily. Selinda was radiant in a gown of white silk, embellished with gauze, accented with strands of pearls at her throat and wrapped around both wrists. Her golden hair, coiffed magnificently atop her head, sparkled with an array of diamond combs. Her happiness was plain to all, as she did not wear a veil.
The lord marshal, somewhat to the surprise of the few who knew him, was also resplendent. He wore a red coat, white trousers, and tall black horseman’s boots that had been shined to a fault. A black, knee-length cape accented his wedding garb. Jaymes wore a ceremonial sword-which the most astute recognized as the blade with which he had killed Lord Frankish in the duel-in a jeweled scabbard at his belt.
They stood at the plaza, accepting the accolades of the throng, for nearly half an hour, until people pressed so close that the honor guard of Rose Knights from the Palanthian Legion was forced back almost to the door of the little church. Before the couple turned to reenter the chapel, Jaymes leaned over and spoke briefly to the captain of the honor guard.
“Have the legion assemble outside the city tonight, in bivouac,” he said. “We march for the plains at first light.”
“As you command, my Lord Marshal,” replied the captain, awed and overwhelmed by his new leader. He and his men had been forced to cool their heels in the city for the past two years, while their counterparts in the three armies had been waging a glorious campaign for Solamnia. Now they would see action at last!
By the time the doors closed behind Jaymes and Selinda, the captain was already gathering his lieutenants, issuing orders, and ensuring the lord marshal’s command would be immediately obeyed.
The lights winked out in the great manor on Nobles Hill, except for the pale glow that emanated from the central alcove in the wizard’s laboratory. The image in the bowl had just been displaying the plaza, with its cheering throng and the newlywed couple, and now it returned to the interior view of the chapel of Kiri-Jolith, following through the door as Jaymes and Selinda passed inside, away from the adoring crowd.
The white wizard was very still as she watched the image, her hands tightening into white-knuckled fists that gripped each side of the porcelain bowl. Coryn watched as the couple passed into a darkened hallway, toward a side door that would emerge onto a quiet street where a carriage awaited, the conveyance that would take them up the hill to the regent’s palace for their wedding night.
Before they reached the door, the white wizard saw, Selinda paused and pulled on Jaymes’s arm to stop him. She looked up at him, her eyes, her whole face, radiating a transcendent happiness. With a sly smile-a smile Coryn had seen many times, very near to her own mouth-the lord marshal leaned down and kissed his bride. He gathered her into his strong arms in an embrace. The princess pulled him even closer, her arms reaching around his neck, pulling him down as they pressed their lips together.
Coryn splashed the wine with her fist, scattering the liquid around the room. Then she put her face into her hands and cried.
The next morning Jaymes rode out before dawn. The legion camp was already astir, as Captains Weaver and Roman had anticipated their new commander’s arrival.
“Tell me your numbers,” the lord marshal said as he dismounted, accepting a cup of steaming tea hurriedly brought by a captain’s aide.
“We have a little more than a thousand Knights of the Rose,” reported Weaver, “two thousand pikes, an equal number of longbows, and better than three thousand militia swordsmen, in companies of three hundred men apiece.”
“Good,” said the lord marshal. “Weaver, I hereby promote you to general. Captain Roman, you will be second in command. The legion will now be known as the Army of Palanthas, and we will be marching over the High Clerist’s Pass to the Vingaard and beyond.”
“Yes, my lord! Thank you!” declared the two officers.
“Now, let’s get these troops on the way. We have a war to win.”
CHAPTER TWENTY — THREE
‘Do you think it has a chance of working this time?” Sulfie asked, eyeing the bombard weapon skeptically. The weapon was a massive tube, half again as long as the previous versions and somewhat thicker. It was angled slightly upward, the muzzle facing in the general direction of a small lake in the valley below. “Even with all the
