Stranger at the Wedding

by Barbara Hambly

  Two footmen came out of the kitchen door bearing furled banners between them, in tandem like fence rails; they set them upright against the wall with the slowness of men who had had too little sleep. Kyra felt a pang of sympathy. Their voices and the uneasy stirrings of activity in the house below had formed a continuous background to her thoughts the previous night. She remembered neither those sounds ceasing nor falling asleep herself.

  The grooms rugged the Earthwygg and Nysett horses but didn't unhitch them; Lord Earthwygg's matched blacks tossed their heads, breathing faint puffs of white steam. Casting her mind down through the floor below her, Kyra heard the laborious chanting of women's voices attempting to read in unison from copied crib sheets:

  Let me bow my head to kiss my husband's knee,

  Let me still my voice that his singing may be heard;

  Let me shear my hair that he may wind of it bowstrings

  and take up in his help the sword, the plow, the

  distaff…

  "As if women haven't been serving as warriors, working in factories, and managing businesses on their own for two hundred years," Kyra muttered, who had never had any real intention of participating in the ceremony.

  Someone scratched at the door, and Kyra walked over to admit the dark-haired maid with cans of hot water for her own, thankfully nonritual, bath. The maid, too, had faint blue lines of sleeplessness beneath her eyes, but that, of course, might simply have been due to the musicians. Past her, Kyra could see Lily and the blond maid whose name Kyra didn't know carefully bearing the crimson wedding gown down the stairs, the saffron veil trailing behind like a river of sunshine. In their wake the laundrywoman carried a freshly ironed chemise and the saffron stockings prescribed by the rite. She noted also that the gallery rail had been twined with ivy and vines.

  Kyra washed and dressed quickly, choosing one of her simplest gowns, a narrow dress of purple and black that made her, in the mirror, seem older, ageless and thin; it gave her the stern, remote wizard face she knew from the masters at the Citadel. In a way it comforted her, as if she had looked ahead into the future and saw herself there, calmly ensconced in her chosen position, like skipping ahead to the end of a book and reassuring herself that yes, she did indeed live happily ever after.

  Yet in her heart she felt a streak of uneasiness as the voices of Tellie, Frittilaire, Cira, and Esmin rose, giggling now as the solemn part of the rite was done. She remembered one of the poems Algeron had written, a falconer's love song to a hawk, and the look in Alix's eyes when she spoke his name.

  "Don't be silly," she told herself aloud, and applied the brush to the dark, coppery tangle of her hair. "That's why you became a wizard in the first place, to avoid foolishness like that. Pain like that. You'll never have to put up with that kind of nonsense." And she pushed aside a kinesthetic memory of a man's strength lifting her up before she could identify who it had been.

  Blore Spenson and his father were in the hall when Kyra descended the long flight of marble steps. On the second-floor gallery she encountered Lady Earthwygg, just leaving the small dining room with the four white-gowned bridesmaids, aunts Sethwit and Hoppina, and their female descendants. As usual, Aunt Sethwit was garishly overdressed for the occasion in the wrong shade of purple and Aunt Hoppina looked as if her gown had been made at home seven or eight years ago and had been worn regularly since. Leppice's panniers were so fashionable, they almost entirely blocked the gallery and she had to turn sideways to let the bridesmaids pass.

  "A lovely gown, my dear," Lady Earthwygg purred poisonously, surveying Kyra's plain black and violet through her lorgnette; she was impeccably clothed in the pale blues and yellows of her house, just enough diamonds flashing among her predominant pearls to let everyone know that the family could afford them. "And so suitable. Did you make it yourself?"

  "Oh, I'm afraid I never learned to set stitches, just design," Kyra replied airily. "After all, that's what Hylette gets paid for—when she does get paid, that is." Having observed the Lady and her daughter over a number of days, she was virtually certain that between them they owed that most expensive dressmaker hundreds, if not thousands, of royals.

  Footmen and pages filled the hall, clothed in the powder-blue livery of the Earthwyggs or the dark red of the Spensons and moving carefully among the long tables with their snowy cloths. The air was filled with the smells of hair powder, gardenias, and smoking lamps. The light from the windows was growing and through the upper ones Kyra could glimpse blue sky, but the candles still burned in their sconces along the walls and the three porcelain chandeliers overhead cast a chilly, restless glitter over metal buttons, stiffened ruffles, serried ranks of candlesticks and silverware, and buckles polished so that they winked like gems. Garlands swagged every wall, every stair, every pillar of the hall, festooned the Holy Widow Wortle's sacred niche, and ran like petaled green snakes down the centers of every table, and when Briory, clothed in her best yellow and purple, came through from the kitchen, she was followed by a soft whiff of steam irons and cinnamon.

  "Not going?" Kyra's father kept his voice lowered, isolating himself and Kyra in an island of quiet at the foot of the stairs. "You came all this way to attend the wedding and now you say you're not going to attend?"

  "Well, isn't that how you'd prefer it?" Kyra folded her hands over the carven pineapple on the newel post and tilted her head inquiringly.

  His face reddened, clashing severely with the purple velvet of the formal gown he wore over his new suit—purple also, the color of the house—and his yellow waistcoat thick with embroidered violets, pansies, and irises. "You might have told me that before I rented a sedan chair for you."

  She shrugged. "If you'd simply arranged for me to ride in the carriage with Mother…"

  "I couldn't ask Lady Earthwygg to share the carriage with you, and you know it."

  "I suppose not, after she'd offered me four hundred crowns a year to put spells upon Master Spenson to cause him to jilt my sister. Still, no harm done, and this way you won't have people pointing at this lone sedan chair among the carriages and whispering, There goes the witch. You weren't expecting me to put a cloaking-spell around the sedan chair so nobody would notice it, were you? Because if it went wrong, nobody would notice the entire procession, and considering how much you've spent on the banners and things, that would be a dreadful waste of money."

  "Gives me an idea, though." Spenson appeared in the book-room door, laced into a white velvet suit that made him look like a piglet set for roasting. His cravat was extravagant with lace and was tied in a butterfly style far too high for his muscular neck; in one hand he held a small cut-crystal goblet of cordial, and sweat stood out on his brow. Beyond him, Uncle Murdwym's bellowing voice could be heard.

  "… simple enough, you know. I'm not in trade, but I say if a man can master the accounting for a farm, he can master that for a merchant voyage. It's all the same."

  "In the future," Spenson went on, "say, for the naming of your eldest niece, I'll hire you to make everyone think that our single carriage and two footmen are… oh, two coaches-and-four, eight footmen before and four behind, and new banners. Can you do that?"

  "You'd have to give me accurate sketches of the banners," Kyra said judiciously, "and describe the sort of clothing and livery you want everyone to believe you and Alix are wearing, and whether the footmen are handsome or ugly. For an extra hundred crowns I'll make everyone believe that your first daughter is an incomparable beauty, when in point of fact she'll probably be as hideous as most babies are."

  Spens frowned. "Could you make her passable for fifty?"

  "Depends on how ugly she is to begin with."

  "Hmm. I'll book your services in advance for her when she has her come-out."

  In the doorway behind him Lord Mayor Spenson was looking shocked. Gordam said hastily, "Very well, Kyra; if you aren't coming to the church, have it as you will. I'll let your mother and sister know."

  "You aren't coming?" Spenson's frown de
epened.

  "No." She gave him a brilliant smile. "I'm absolutely crushed to miss it, of course, but I think I feel a touch of smallpox or something coming on."

  She was turning to go. His square, heavy hand touched her wrist, the fingers warm, and his eyes looking into hers were grave, as they had been the previous night on the gallery. Very quietly, he said, "If you want to be there don't let your father keep you away."

  The flippancy faded from her face, and her body relaxed a little. "Do you think I would?"

  One corner of his mouth tucked up a little. "Not ordinarily. But I know one gets worn down." With his father, she thought, he'd know all about that, and she remembered again that he'd gone to sea when he was little more than twenty. "But Alix will miss you."

  "Nonsense! She'll be in such a frenzy, she won't even notice whether I get into that sedan chair or not."

  He looked startled. "She will?"

  "Of course. All brides are in a frenzy at their weddings. They see nothing of the ceremonies, or who's there, or what the decorations are like. Why do you think they keep looking at their wedding dresses before-hand? Because otherwise they wouldn't remember them, either. Besides, her carriage will leave the court before she even expects me to come out."

  The musicians came trooping down the stairs past them, a barbaric welter of pink and gold and green with ribbons fluttering everywhere. Cousin Plennin's two children followed, clothed as pages and scratching furiously, the baskets of rose petals they bore surrounding them in a traveling curtain of scent. Four crowns per basket, Kyra thought automatically, and fresh this morning. More roses bowered the dais at one end of the room, where the musicians would play for the dancing and the feast.

  "I do hope Father sends refreshments out to those poor Witchfinders who're watching the house," Kyra remarked. "Perhaps they should be invited to the feast."

  Spenson's eyes sparkled. "Shall I ask him to?"

  "The gentlemen's procession is forming!" Lord Earthwygg's stentorian valet called out, deputizing for his soft-voiced master by the great doors. "Gentlemen, your carriages await."

  "Will I see you at the banquet?" Spenson's voice lowered under the surging buzz of imminent departure.

  Kyra hesitated. She was fairly sure she could get most of the lower floors searched for a wizard's mark while the procession was on its way to St. Creel but didn't know how long it would take to check through the upper.

  She didn't let herself think about what she would do if she found nothing.

  More softly still, he said again, "Don't let your father keep you from being there to wish your sister well. I know you love her. I'll speak with him if you want."

  She raised her brows. "You think I can't deal with my father?"

  "I know you can't seem to deal with your father without quarreling. At least I've never seen you do it."

  Her mouth twisted in a wry grin. "At least I quarrel with mine instead of giving him what he wants."

  Spenson opened his mouth to retort, then closed it in silence. She saw his eyes change.

  Her own hand raised to her lips as if belatedly trying to cover her mouth against her words. "Oh," she whispered. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

  He returned the cordial glass to a servant's tray, not even looking at it, as if it were not there. The expression on his face did not alter, if expression it could be called; there was only a kind of grimness about the mouth, a kind of weariness in the lines at the corners of the sea-blue eyes.

  Silence lay between them as if they had stepped into another room away from the crowds of their families, away from those who expected them to be what they were supposed to be and not what they were.

  "Just because it's convenient for my father," Spenson said slowly, "doesn't mean it isn't the right thing for me to do. I've… spent a lot of my life running away. I can't do so forever."

  "No." Kyra felt that somehow her lungs had ceased to draw breath. "No, of course not. And I had no business saying that. I suppose, having spent so many years fighting my own father, I see his tyranny everywhere. Please forget…"

  Spenson shook his head. "No," he said gently. "Because in a way you are right."

  "Come along, Spens." Lord Mayor Spenson came creaking up to his son, steely eyes darting right and left as he caught the white velvet sleeve in the iron band of his grip. Under an embroidered cap his thin white hair and densely wrinkled face were framed by the black marten fur of the collar of his gown; the rocaille embroidery on his dark red suit would not have disgraced a king. He held out the white velvet groom's cap prescribed by tradition; after a long moment Spenson put it on.

  "The whole town's waiting to see the procession." the old man said in a satisfied voice. "It's not every day they see the Lord Mayor's son married; it's a show I've looked forward to for a long time now. We mustn't be late."

  "Oh, of course not, sir," Cousin Wyrdlees agreed, hovering reverently at the old man's elbow. "I must say, just looking at the carriages is enough to take my breath away." In his hands he clutched the gilded box that contained one of the House Peldyrin's ancestral masks; the House Spenson males carried similar boxes—older, Kyra noted, and far more elaborately jeweled. In a way, Lord Mayor Spenson constituted an ancestral mask himself.

  "Come along, Spens," Uncle Murdwym added with an excess of joviality. "They can't bring down the bride while you're here, you know."

  His face like carven wood, Spenson started to follow them to the door. Kyra caught his sleeve and resettled the cap at a more becoming angle. For a moment their eyes met.

  Then he was gone, the men streaming out in his wake to their waiting carriages. Through the front doors Kyra glimpsed the flash of colored banners and brilliant livery, the glint of morning sunlight on gilding and glass. It would be good, she thought, to have this man as her brother. How Alix could prefer that… that pale morsel of unbaked pastry…

  A dovelike murmur of voices at the top of the stairs made Kyra turn her head. Against the white cloud of bridesmaids, Alix's crimson gown and golden veils stood out like the flame of the rising sun. The traditional jewels—beryl, topaz, tourmaline, and jasper—flashed from tiaras and necklaces, and the bullion stitching along the edges of the lace had a sharp sparkle, almost like glass. Through the saffron gauze it was difficult to see Alix's face, but Kyra did see her turn and say something to Tellie Wishrom, and her movement was light and graceful, as if she had deliberately put sorrow aside.

  Kyra glanced quickly at the door that led into the kitchens and drying room. The maids were grouped around it, watching with envy, tears, and whispering delight, but if Algeron was in the kitchen, he was evidently willing to forgo this last sight of the girl he loved so that the ill luck of having her seen by any man would be avoided.

  Conscious of how her own dark dress would stand out among the bright colors of the women surrounding Alix, Kyra stepped quietly back through the book-room door and closed it almost to. Her pulses had begun to race again, her mind fleeing ahead in time—shelves, rooms, furniture, knick-knacks… All that endless chatter before they'd leave!

  Through the heavily curtained book-room windows she could see Baynorth Square, where the entire neighborhood had gathered around the painted carriage with its flower garden of banners and its dangling tassels and charms of gold and brass. Lord Mayor Spenson was quite right. It wasn't every day, or even every year, that a wedding in the strict form took place. As ruled by tradition, the footmen on every carriage bore baskets of candies, flowers, and small coins to be thrown to the crowd—a guarantee, she reflected as she watched Alix move down the steps beneath her canopy of yellow silk, of the slowest possible progress toward the Church of St. Creel in Little Cheevy Street.

  She should have two hours at least.

  After the procession jolted away across the square, the house was very silent. In the kitchen Imper Joblin still blustered and chided the scullions in the final preparations for the feast. Kyra wrapped herself in spells of averted attention and walked carefully to avoid knocking into an
y of the banquet tables in the hall or tripping over the kitchen threshold as she ghosted past them and down the cellar steps. In his corner Algeron was working silently, putting the last touches on the varicolored splendor of the cake; none of them so much as glanced at her as she passed.

  In the dark, cool quiet of the cellars, she thought again about the magic of ill.

  A wizard seeking to plant a talisman or draw a sigil or an Eye of Evil—according to Nandiharrow's lecture on the subject—would naturally seek out the most obscure spot in the house to hide it: the bottom of a wine bottle or the underside of a shelf. A talisman of death inscribed with the victim's name might be thrust into the middle of a sack of grain or a barrel of potatoes or hidden under a loose flagstone or tucked behind Merrivale's jars of jelly. From there its subtle influence, though undetectable save by the strongest and most experienced of wizards, could spread throughout the house.

  "There are many forms of death-marks and Ill-Eyes," Nandiharrow had said, "but all contain the victim's name and something of the victim's. Hair or nail parings are the most favored, of course, followed by clothing, bedclothes—especially pillow slips—jewelry…"

  But I've already looked through her jewelry, felt of her pillow slips! Kyra thought despairingly.

  "… anything the victim wears or touches, and the more frequently, the better. These marks usually contain secondary masking-spells as well, to keep their influence hidden, until a key—a prescribed set of circumstances dictated in the spell—unlocks a surge of power. This key could be a phase of the moon, a day of the week, a word spoken by the wizard himself, passing in the street."