of the bride, I came next.
‘Strip,’ Arell commanded me.
‘What?’ I exclaimed. I didn’t really think I could be shocked, but
was wrong.
‘Take off your clothes. Polgara,’ she said quite firmly. ‘I need to
see what I’m working with.’
I actually blushed, but I did as she told me to.
She studied my near naked body with pursed lips and a
speculative eye. ‘Not too bad,’ she observed.
That was hardly complimentary.
‘You’re lucky, Polgara,’ she told me. ‘Most girls your age are quite
flat-chested. I think we might want to take advantage of that to
draw attention away from the fact that you’re just a little hippy.’
‘I’m what?’ I exclaimed.
‘You were built to bear children, Polgara. It’s useful, but it makes
your clothes hang all wrong.’
‘Is she telling me the truth?’ I asked Beldaran, speaking in ‘twin’
so that Arell couldn’t understand me.
‘You are sort of round down there, Pol,’ Beldaran replied. Then
she grinned a naughty little grin at me. ‘If we cut your gown
low enough in the back, we could show off the dimples on your
bottom.’
‘I’ll get you for that, Beldaran,’ I threatened.
‘No you won’t, Pol,’ she said, stealing a favorite joke from uncle
Beldin and our father. ‘You’re just saying that to make me feel
better.’
My gown was blue, and Arell’s design left my shoulders and a
significant part of my upper torso bare. It was trimmed with snowy
lace, and it was really a very nice gown. I almost choked when I
first tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror, however. ‘I can’t
wear this in public!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m half naked!’
‘Don’t be such a goose, Polgara,’ Arell told me. ‘A well-designed
gown’s supposed to highlight a woman’s best features. You’ve
got a shapely bosom. I’m not going to let you hide it in a canvas
bag.’
‘It really looks very nice, Pol,’ Beldaran assured me. ‘Nobody’s
going to be looking at your hips if you wear that.’
‘I’m getting just a little tired of all this talk about hips, Beldaran,’
I said acidly. ‘You’re not exactly scrawny yourself, you know.’
‘The whole secret to wearing a daring dress is to be proud of
what it reveals,’ Arell told me. ‘You’ve got a good figure. Flaunt it.’
‘This is Beldaran’s party, Arell,’ I protested. ‘She’s the one who’s
supposed to attract attention, not me.’
‘Don’t be so coy, Polgara,’ she scolded me. ‘I’ve heard all about
your little experiments in self-display in that large room down the
hall, so don’t play innocent with me.’
‘At least I didn’t take my clothes off.’
‘You might as well have. Who designed those awful gowns you
used to wear?’
‘Well – I needed a dress in Camaar, and father had a dressmaker
sew one up for me. When we got here, I had another dressmaker
copy it for the rest of them.’
‘I might have known,’ she sniffed. ‘Don’t ever let a Sendar design
your clothes. They’re the prissiest people in the world. All right,’
she said then, ‘let’s get to work on the dresses for these other ladies.’
She squinted around at beldaran’s attendants. ‘Green, I think,’ she
mused. ‘We don’t want the dresses of the rest of the wedding party
to clash with those of the bride and her sister.’
I’ve sometimes wondered about Arell. She was just a bit too
domineering to be entirely an Alorn lady. I think I’ll talk with
mother about that. Mother’s not above tampering with people at
times.
Beldaran, of course, was nervous on the night before her wedding.
It may not appear so, but brides are usually almost as nervous as
grooms are on that particular night. Women are better at hiding
things, though.
‘Don’t take it so seriously, Beldaran,’ Arell advised my sister. ‘A
wedding’s a chance for others to enjoy themselves. The bride and
groom aren’t much more than ornaments.’
‘I’m not feeling very ornamental right now, Arell,’ Beldaran
replied. ‘Would you excuse me please? I think I’ll go throw up for
a while.’
The night passed, as nights are in the habit of doing, and the day
dawned clear and sunny – a rarity on the Isle of the Winds. It’s a
nice island, but it has an almost impossible climate.
The wedding was scheduled for midday, largely because Alorn
males celebrate on the night before a wedding, and they tend to feel
a little delicate the following morning, so they need some time to
pull themselves together.
We had plenty to keep us busy, though. Beldaran took the ritual
pre-nuptial bath, and when she emerged, her attendants anointed
her gleaming body with rosewater. Then there was all the business
with hair, and that consumed most of the rest of the morning. Then
we all sat around in our undergarments to avoid wrinkling our
gowns.
At the last possible minute we all dressed, and Arell critically
examined all of us. ‘It’ll do, I suppose,’ she noted. ‘Enjoy the
wedding, girls. Now scoot.’
We all trooped on down to the antechamber just outside the Hall
of the Rivan King, where the wedding was to take place.
I was a bit puzzled by my sister’s behavior once we entered that
antechamber. She seemed almost inhumanly composed. All traces
of her previous nervousness had vanished, and she seemed bemused
and distant. Mother explained my sister’s detachment to me later.
Much of what happened during the wedding was symbolic, and
Beldaran was following some very precise instructions.
I kept watch at the door, and so it was that I saw the arrival of
Riva, his father, and his brothers.
They were all dressed in chain mail, and there were swords bolted
at their hips! I knew that Alorns were a warlike people, but really!
In a sort of gesture to the formality of the occasion, their mail shirts
were all brightly burnished. I hoped that they’d done something
about the characteristic smell of armor, though. Armor of any kind
has a very distinctive fragrance about it, and I didn’t think it’d be
appropriate for all the ladies in Beldaran’s entourage to faint dead
away during the ceremony.
Then father joined us, and he didn’t smell too strongly of beer. I
often make an issue of my father’s bad habits, but I’ll concede that
he doesn’t really drink all that much. Evidently his years on the
waterfront in Camaar had gotten most of that out of his system.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ he greeted us. ‘You all look quite beautiful.
Are we ready?’
‘As ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose,’ I replied. ‘Did you manage
to keep Riva sober last night?’
‘I didn’t have to, Pol. I watched him rather closely, and he hardly
drank anything at all.’
‘An Alorn who doesn’t try to plunge headfirst into every beer
barrel he passes? Amazing!’
‘Excuse me,’ he said then. ‘I need to talk with beldaran. Beldin
and I’ve made a few preparations she needs to know about.’
I found out what he meant a little while later.
My father has an exquisite sense of timing. He gave the crowd in
Riva’s throne room some time to settle down, and then I quite clearly
heard the thought he sent out to uncle Beldin. ‘All right,’ he said
silently, ‘we might as well get started.’
Uncle Beldin responded with a silvery fanfare played upon
hundreds of phantom trumpets. The sound was impressive enough to
silence all the wedding guests. The fanfare was followed by a
wedding hymn sung very softly by an ethereal non-existent choir. I’m
something of a musician myself, and I was enormously impressed
by my dwarfed uncle’s complex harmony.
Then at a signal from father, Beldaran went out through the door
of the antechamber and stepped into the center of the doorway to
the Hall of the Rivan King. She stood there, allowing herself to be
admired, and then the Master bestowed his benediction upon her
in the form of a beam of bright white light.
When I think back on it, I realize now that the Master was blessing
the entire Rivan line – the line that was to ultimately produce the
Godslayer.
I removed my cloak, and father’s eyes grew a little wild. ‘Nice
dress,’ he noted from between clenched teeth. Sometimes my father’s
very inconsistent. He admires the attributes of other ladies, but he
grows quite upset when I display mine.
We moved into place, one on either side of Beldaran, and walked
with stately pace down the aisle that led past the pits where burning
peat provided warmth to the front, where Riva and his family
awaited us.
‘It’s going quite well, don’t you think?’ Mother’s voice asked me.
‘It’s not over yet, mother,’ I replied. ‘These are Alorns, after all, so
there’s still an enormous potential for disaster.’
‘Cynic,’ she accused.
Then I noticed the Master’s Orb on the pommel of a massive
sword hanging point down above the throne. It was a little hard to