Aileron was already up on his black horse, and she saw Loren the mage mount up as well. Her heart was beating very fast.
Diarmuid had come to her again last night by way of her window. He had brought her a flower. She had not thrown water at him, this time, and had been at pains to point that out. He professed gratitude and later, in a different voice, a great deal more.
Then he had said, “I am going to a difficult place, my dear. To do a difficult thing. It may be wiser if I speak to your father if we . . . after we return. I would not have you bound to me while I am—”
She had covered his mouth with her hand and then, turning in bed as if to kiss him, moved the hand away and bit his lower lip instead.
“Coward!” she said. “I knew you were afraid. You promised me a formal wooing and I am holding you to it.”
“Formal it is, then,” he said. “You want an Intercedent, as well?”
“Of course!” she said. And then, because she was crying, and couldn’t pretend any more, she said, “I was bound to you from Larai Rigal, Diar.”
He kissed her, gently and then with passion, and then his mouth began to travel her and eventually she lost track of time and place.
“Formally,” he’d said again, afterward. In a certain tone.
And now, in the morning light, amid the busy square, a figure suddenly pushed through the gathered crowd and began a purposeful walk toward her father. Sharra felt herself going red. She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing desperately that she had bit him harder, much, much harder. And in a different place. Then, in spite of herself, she began to giggle.
Formally, he had promised. Even to the Interceder who was to speak for him, after the old fashion. He had also warned her in Gwen Ystrat that he would never move to the measured gait, he would always have to play.
And so Tegid of Rhoden was his Intercedent.
The fat man—he was truly enormous—was blessedly sober. He had even trimmed his eccentric beard and donned a decent outfit in russet tones for his august mission. His round red face very serious, Tegid stopped directly in front of her father. His progress had been noted and marked by shouts and laughter. Now Tegid waited patiently for a modicum of silence. He absentmindedly scratched his behind, then remembered where he was and crossed his arms quickly on his chest.
Shalhassan regarded him with a mild, expressionless curiosity. Which became a wince a moment later as Tegid boomed out his title.
“Supreme Lord of Cathal,” Tegid repeated, a little more softly, for his mighty lungs had shaped a silence all around with that first shout, “have I your attendant ear?”
“You have,” her father said with grave courtesy.
“Then I am bid to tell you that I am sent here by a lord of infinite nobility, whose virtues I could number until the moon rose and set and rose again. I am sent to say to you, in this place and among the people here gathered in concourse, that the sun rises in your daughter’s eyes.”
There was a roar of astonishment.
“And who,” asked Shalhassan, still courteously, “is the lord of infinite nobility?”
“A figure of speech, that,” said Diarmuid, emerging from the crowd to their left. “And the moon business was his own idea. But he is my Intercedent and the heart of his message is true, and from my own heart. I would wed your daughter, Shalhassan.”
The noise in the square was quite uncontrollable now. It was hard to hear anything. Sharra saw her father turn slowly to her, a question in his eyes, and something else that it took her a moment to recognize as tenderness.
She nodded once. And with her lips shaped a “Yes,” for him to see.
The noise peaked and then slowly faded as Shalhassan waited beside his chariot, grave and unmoving. He looked at Diarmuid, whose own expression was sober now. He looked back at her.
He smiled. He smiled.