‘It’s my wedding, Dolmant. I can do anything I want to. I will have Sephrenia and Mirtai as attendants.’

‘I forbid it.’

‘Fine.’ Her eyes grew flinty. ‘No attendants, no wedding – and if there isn’t a wedding, my ring stays right where it is.’

‘That is an impossible young woman, Sparhawk,’ the Archprelate fumed as he stormed out of the room where Ehlana was making her preparations.

‘We prefer the term “spirited”, Sarathi,’ Sparhawk said mildly. Sparhawk was dressed in black velvet trimmed with silver. Ehlana had summarily rejected the idea of his being married in his armour. ‘I don’t want a blacksmith in our bed-chamber to help you get undressed, love,’ she had told him. ‘If you need help, I’ll provide it – but I don’t want to break all my fingernails in the process.’

There were noblemen by the score in the armies of western Eosia, and legions of clergy in the Basilica, and so that evening the vast, candlelit nave was almost as packed as it had been on the day of the funeral of the revered Cluvonus. The choir sang joyful anthems as the wedding guests filed in, and incense by the bale perfumed the air.

Sparhawk waited nervously in the vestry with those who were to attend him. His friends were all there, of course – Kalten, Tynian, Bevier, Ulath and the Domi, as well as Kurik, Berit and the Preceptors of the four orders. Ehlana’s attendants, appropriately, were, in addition to Sephrenia and Mirtai, the kings of western Eosia and, oddly enough, Platime, Stragen and Talen. The queen had given no reason for these selections. It was altogether possible that there were no reasons.

‘Don’t do that, Sparhawk,’ Kurik told his lord.

‘Do what?’

‘Don’t keep pulling at the neck of your doublet like that. You’ll rip it.’

‘The tailor cut it too tight. It feels like a noose.’

Kurik did not answer that. He did, however, give Sparhawk an amused look.

The door opened, and Emban thrust his sweating face into the room. He was grinning broadly. ‘Are we just about ready?’ he asked.

‘Let’s get on with it,’ Sparhawk said abruptly.

‘Our bridegroom grows impatient, I see,’ Emban said. ‘Ah, to be young again. The choir’s going to sing the traditional wedding hymn,’ he told them. ‘I’m sure that some of you are familiar with it. When they get to the final chord, I’ll open the door, and then you gentlemen can escort our sacrificial lamb here to the altar. Please don’t let him run away. That always disrupts the ceremony so much.’ He chuckled wickedly and closed the door again.

‘That’s a very nasty little man,’ Sparhawk grated.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Kalten said. ‘I sort of like him.’

The wedding hymn was one of the oldest pieces of sacred music in the Elene faith. It was a song filled with joy. Brides traditionally paid very close attention to it. Grooms, on the other hand, usually scarcely heard it.

As the last notes died away, Patriarch Emban opened the door with a flourish, and Sparhawk’s friends formed up around him to escort him into the nave. It would be perhaps inappropriate here to dwell upon the similarities of such a procession to the gathering of bailiffs escorting a condemned prisoner to the scaffold.

They proceeded directly across the front of the nave to the altar where Archprelate Dolmant, robed all in white trimmed with gold, awaited them. ‘Ah, my son,’ Dolmant said to Sparhawk with a faint smile, ‘so good of you to join us.’

Sparhawk did not trust himself to answer that. He did, however, reflect rather bitterly on the fact that all his friends viewed the occasion as one filled with an enormous potential for humour.

Then, after a suitable pause, during which all the wedding guests rose to their feet, fell silent and craned their necks to gaze towards the back of the nave, the choir broke into the processional hymn, and the bridal party emerged from either side of the vestibule. First, one from either side, came Sephrenia and Mirtai. The disparity of the size of the two women was not immediately noted by the onlookers. What was noted and what raised a shocked gasp from the crowd was the obvious fact that both were clearly heathens. Sephrenia’s white robe was almost defiantly Styric. A garland of flowers encircled her brow, and her face was calm. Mirtai’s gown was of a style unknown in Elenia. It was of a deep, royal blue and seemed to be unseamed. It was fastened at each shoulder with a jewelled clip, and a long gold chain caught it below the bust, crossed the Tamul woman’s back, encircled her waist and then hugged her hips to the intricate knot low in the front with the tasselled ends nearly reaching the floor. Her golden arms were bare to the shoulders, flawlessly smooth, yet solidly muscled. She wore golden sandals, and her now-unbraided and glossy black hair flowed smoothly down her back, reaching to mid-thigh. A simple silver band encircled her head. About her wrists she wore not bracelets but rather burnished steel cuffs embossed with gold. As a concession to Elene sensibilities, she was not visibly armed.

The Domi Kring sighed lustily as she entered and with Sephrenia at her side, paced slowly down the aisle towards the altar.

Again there was the customary pause, and then the bride, her left hand resting lightly on the arm of old King Obler, emerged from the vestibule to stop so that all present might view her – not so much as a woman, but as a work of art. Her gown was of white satin, but brides are almost always gowned in white satin. This particular gown was lined with gold lamé, and the long sleeves were turned back to reveal that contrast. The sleeves themselves were cut long at the backs of the arms, reaching quite nearly to the floor. Ehlana wore a wide belt of beaten mesh gold inlaid with precious gems about her waist. A fabulous golden cape descended to the floor behind her to add its weight to her gleaming satin train. Her pale blonde hair was surmounted by a crown, not the traditional royal crown of Elenia, but rather a lacework of gold mesh highlighted with small, brightly-coloured gems interspersed with pearls. The crown held her veil in place, a veil which reached to her bodice in the front and overlaid her shoulders in the back and was so delicate and fine as to be scarcely more than mist. She carried a single white flower, and her pale young face was radiant.

‘Where did they get the gowns on such short notice?’ Berit whispered to Kurik.

‘Sephrenia wriggled her fingers, I’d imagine.’

Dolmant gave the two of them a stern look, and they stopped whispering.

Following the Queen of Elenia there came the crowned kings, Wargun, Dregos, Soros and the Crown Prince of Lamorkand, who was standing in for his absent father, and by the ambassador of Cammoria, who was the representative of that kingdom. The Kingdom of Rendor was unrepresented, and no one had even thought to invite Otha of Zemoch.