“We have heard your promises, Robinton and Kasia,” Melongel said, stern in his capacity as Lord Holder.
“And have witnessed them,” said Master Minnarden while the other CraftMasters murmured their traditional response. The observers cried congratulations and shouted, “Good luck!”
Melongel’s face relaxed in a smile as he shook their hands before moving to the next expectant couple. “Brother,” he murmured slyly to Robinton.
“So kiss her!” F’lon cried. When neither Robinton nor Kasia moved, he took them by the shoulders and pushed them together.
The lightning that passed from lip to lip seemed to encompass Robinton’s entire body – and hers as well, leaning so trustingly against him. He was almost annoyed when F’lon’s hands pulled them apart.
“I’m so happy, my dear daughter,” Merelan was saying as she embraced a bemused Kasia. There were tears in Merelan’s eyes, but she had always been able to cry and remain beautiful. She changed places with Brashia, who hugged her daughter tightly, weeping so profusely that she couldn’t speak at all. Bourdon was shaking Robinton’s hand fit to render it useless for any playing.
F’lon was insisting that he definitely had the right to kiss Kasia -just this once, to show her what she’d missed. Then Merelan was hugging Robinton so tightly that he had to seize her arms to be released.
“Be as happy as I have been with your father,” Merelan whispered for his ear alone; and when he tensed, she held him slightly away, giving him a hard, long look. “For we have been happy …
together.” And he realized that she spoke the truth: that it had always been he who had been the problem with his father. “You’re the heart big enough to love an entire world,” she added. Then she released him.
Groghe, rather shyly, kissed Kasia on the cheek and told her she’d be very welcome whenever she came to Fort Hold. Which he hoped would be often.
By then, three more couples had had their vows witnessed to choruses of cheers.
“I need a drink,” F’lon announced and began herding them all out of the crowd and towards the Gather tables set around the dance square. There were two tables set upon platforms on either side of the players’ dais. The right-hand one was for the newly espoused, and it was there that F’lon led his little group.
A beaming wineman met them halfway, his tray of glasses clinking against each other.
“I know I shouldn’t, but I’m serving the Benden wine, which the dragonrider said I must give you,” he said, leaning forward to murmur this treachery to them. He beamed warmly at Kasia and held the tray out to her. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling, even as she sipped the deliciously cold, crisp Benden white.
They were all served and then took their places at the table as kitcheners rushed forward to serve them.
Robinton never remembered the rest of the table filling up. It was all a blur of happiness: Kasia was his and he was hers, and his mother was here. Her parents were quite nice folk, and he no longer felt uneasy with them, listening to the snippets of advice Bourdon was giving him about sailing. But if F’lon didn’t stop teasing him, he’d land him one in the jaw very soon, although Kasia laughed as hard at his witticisms as her parents and his mother.
The MasterSinger led off the singing with one of the love songs Robinton had written for Kasia, though his mother kindly did not mention that. She was accompanied by Minnarden, Ifor, Mumolon and several local instrumentalists. It was received with rapturous applause and determined shouts for more. Brashia looked stunned as the truly lovely voice rose in joyous phrase and shook her head, murmuring, “She’s every bit as good as they said, every bit!”
“Proud of your mother, aren’t you?” Bourdon said, leaning across the table, his face flushed with pleasure and the good Benden wine. “Every reason to be.”
“And she of him,” Kasia said proudly, clasping both hands around Robinton’s arm and resting her face against it for a moment.
Their legs were twined under the table so tightly that Robinton hoped no one could see under the cloth – and that he wouldn’t be asked to stand. Fortunately he wasn’t. Prepared as he was for the necessity of taking a turn, he was pointedly ignored by Minnarden when the musicians changed round.