But Demansk ignored it all. Sharbonow would figure out a way to tell the lies. And, in the meantime, it was one of the great moments of his life.
* * *
“You’re getting married a few days from now. In a great ceremony at the shrine of the Gray-Eyed Lady of the Stars.” Demansk drained his cup. “Remarried, I should say. The priests have agreed that your, ah, secret wedding in the cellar on Vase doesn’t preclude a more formal ceremony.” He blithely ignored the blank looks on the faces of his daughter and soon-to-be-even-if-he-already-was son-in-law. “Do be sure to get the details from Enry regarding the, ah, earlier wedding. No reason to confuse the priests at this point, seeing as how they’re being so cooperative.”
He set the cup down on the side table next to him and glanced around the salon. Eyeing, in turn, the other men in the room—Trae, Forent, Prit Sallivar and Enry Sharbonow.
Not a chance. The sole surviving Triumvir could not get one of his cohorts—not even his own son—to meet his gaze.
No help for it. Got to do it myself.
“I’d have preferred to have the wedding tomorrow. But . . .”
He cleared his throat. “But it’ll be a double wedding, as it happens, and the lady who will figure in the second wedding hasn’t arrived yet. She’s on her way here, from her estate in Hagga where she took refuge after Albrecht’s massacres in the capital. I’m not quite sure when she’ll get here. I received a letter yesterday from the commander of her escort saying that the journey would take a bit longer than expected. It seems the noble lady, ah, insisted on bringing along several wagonloads of art treasures. Twenty wagonloads, to be precise. Marble sculptures, mostly. And, ah—unusual, this—apparently quite a few wooden ones. Reedbottom carvings, as it happens. Seems that new cult of theirs—what’s it called? the ‘Young Word’?—is given to religious icons.”
“Sculptures?” choked Helga. “Icons?” Her eyes widened. “We’re in the middle of the worst civil war in history and some noblewoman is hauling useless crap through the countryside? To a wedding? What kind of lunatic—”
She broke off and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, the gods. Don’t tell me. Twenty wagonloads? There’s only one woman in the Confederacy rich enough for that. Not to mention crazy enough!”
Demansk thought it was time to pour himself another cup of wine. A full one.
“Well. Yes.” He attempted a look of stern fatherly reproof. “Though I believe the proper term for a lady of her station is ‘eccentric.’ Not, ah, ‘crazy.’ ” The patriarchal cluck of the tongue which followed sounded hollow, even to Demansk. “She’s hardly a peasant crone, Daughter. About as respectable and wealthy a widowed matron as exists, anywhere in the land.”
Helga chuckled. “To say the least. Wealthy, that is. I’m not sure how many of the Councillors—not to mention their wives—would call Arsule Knecht ‘respectable.’ ”
To Demansk’s relief, Prit Sallivar came to the rescue. “None at all, these days. Not in the capital, at any rate. The morning after Ion Jeschonyk and the others were massacred, Lady Knecht mounted a speakers’ platform in the Forum of the Virtuous Matrons and denounced Albrecht for a murderer and a traitor. She barely escaped from the city with her life. Wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t taken the precaution to bring her household troops—and if her husband hadn’t been one of the few to maintain his troops up to the legal limit.”
And now Enry Sharbonow sallied forth. “And if the lady herself hadn’t had the foresight to keep those forces up to strength, in the years since her husband died.” He straightened up in his chair. Unlike most of Demansk’s close counselors, though not Demansk himself, the Islander preferred chairs to couches. “I’ve met the lady, as it happens. Several times, the last of them quite recently. She’s really not the, ah—” He groped for words.
“Try ‘lunatic,’ ” suggested Helga. “As I recall, that’s usually the term I heard people use.”
Sharbonow’s frown was quite fierce. “A slander! Slander, I say. I admit the woman has her, ah, eccentricities, but—”