Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

21

The last royal wedding, in which Emperor Andreth married Crestienne the Fair of House Farrimont, was one of Joslyn’s earliest memories of life with her Master and Mistress. She could remember a few things before that – snippets of her birth mother singing to her and brushing out her hair, for instance, or of toddling along behind one of her brothers across the crest of a dune in the Great Desert – but the most vivid memory of her early childhood was of Port Lorsin, overflowing with people, color, food, wine, and music for the joyous occasion of the young Emperor’s marriage.

Even that royal wedding had been small by normal standards. Emperor Balus, Andreth’s father, had died suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving his twenty-year-old son to inherit a bloody civil war in the West and lingering political turmoil elsewhere. Royal weddings could temporarily double Port Lorsin’s population, bringing both commoners and highborn from all Four Realms flowing into its gates and swelling its inns, but the Western Rebellion meant that almost no one from the West dared to make the trip, even if they supported the crown, because the roads and rivers were simply too dangerous to travel.

For tinkers, of course, royal weddings were unprecedented opportunities to sell goods, mend broken items, and tell fortunes, so Master and Mistress set their bliva up just outside the city’s northern gate and traveled into Port Lorsin each day of the week-long celebration. And as was typical, Joslyn stayed with Tasmyn and Mistress, alternately begging for coins on street corners and assisting with card- and palm-readings the rest of the time.

The wedding was the first time Joslyn – barely six years old – had ever been to Port Lorsin, or actually any of the Empire’s largest cities. She remembered the food carts and feasts most of all; as a chronically underfed child, nothing else made quite the same impression as the sheer abundance of food flowing through the city’s streets – tables filled with bread, fruit, and olives set up by the Emperor’s people for the lowborn in poorest parts of the city, while in the Merchant and Ambassador’s Quarters, vendors sold everything from delicate, cream-filled pastries to fresh-cooked venison.

But if Andreth and Crestienne’s wedding was small by House of Dorsa standards, Tasia and Mace’s wedding was downright tiny. Besides the fact that Port Lorsin – along with large swaths of the rest of the Capital Lands and most of the East – had lost a great many citizens during the mass shadow-infection only a month prior, Tasia had given the Empire a scant three-week notice of her upcoming wedding, as opposed to the typical six months to a year of notice given for most royal weddings. Three weeks was barely enough time for the system of horse-mounted relay messengers to deliver news of the wedding to the Empire’s furthest reaches – places like Elgrad in the Central Steppes, Tergos in the East, and Handris beyond the Zaris Mountains in the Northeast – let alone enough time for the lords of those houses to make the journey to Port Lorsin.

Nevertheless, by the time of the wedding ceremony itself, the people of Port Lorsin had done their best to make the city clean and festive. The palace walls had all been hung with black banners emblazoned with the silver double-eagle and crescent moon of House Dorsa, alongside banners bearing the checked gold and white to represent House Gifford. In the streets that spread out in a messy web from the foot of the palace walls, every doorway bore wreaths woven of spring flowers, every alleyway had been swept clean by its owners, and every weed between cobblestones had been pulled. Crisscrossing above every major street were strings of lanterns, waiting to be lit for the festivities after the wedding that would last long into the night. Inside the palace, there would be a wedding feast and ball that would last nearly until dawn; outside the palace, the streets themselves would become great halls and ballrooms, with commoners reveling until the sun rose in the east or the lanterns above ran out of oil, whichever came first.

A royal wedding between an Empress and Emperor was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to celebrate, and Port Lorsin’s residents, recent tragedies and food shortages notwithstanding, were not going to turn that opportunity down.

The wedding would take place in the enormous amphitheater located a few city blocks from the palace. Joslyn hated this idea, arguing that having Tasia out in the open like that was far too risky.

“Must I remind you that an assassin nearly took your life mere weeks ago?” she’d said.

“Must I remind you that most of the citizenry found themselves trapped in the Shadowlands mere weeks before that?” Tasia had shot back. “Tens of thousands trapped inside a nightmare, and when they returned to their bodies in the mortal realm, they found blood on their hands and their neighbors dead at their feet. And a few months from now, I will ask their able-bodied sons, daughters, and husbands to go East with me to fight in a war that has lingered on for more than a decade.” She shook her head. “The wedding has to be outside, because it is a pageantry for them as much as for the highborn. It is a glimpse of normalcy and a promise that one day stability will return and nightmares will end.”

Joslyn didn’t argue again after that.

The amphitheater was one of the oldest structures in the city, built hundreds of years earlier by Emperor Albin. At the time it was constructed, it had been large enough to accommodate the city’s entire population. But the population of Port Lorsin eight hundred years ago was a fraction of what it was now. Even so, tens of thousands would find a seat within the amphitheater, and the rest of the city, along with any who lived near enough to make the journey in time, would pack the streets in every direction around it for blocks upon blocks.

No matter how many palace guardsmen and city guardsmen Joslyn had on duty, it wouldn’t be enough to protect Tasia. All she could do was stay close, and if she saw a blowgun in the crowd, she only hoped she would be able to fling her own body between the poison dart and Tasia fast enough.

Due to worries like these, Joslyn saw very little of the wedding itself. She was impervious to the smells of food and bright displays of color that had so captivated her as a child; she ignored the jaunty tunes of the street minstrels on every corner; she did not see the commoners dressed in their finest clothes, cheering the royal procession on their way to the amphitheater and throwing fistfuls of flower petals into the streets. She barely even saw Tasia and Mace, who waved at the crowd from inside the rarely used royal palanquins, broad smiles plastered on both their faces as though they were being carried towards the source of their greatest joy.

Once the procession arrived at the amphitheater and the hour-long ceremony itself began, Joslyn still saw very little. She stayed two paces behind Tasia the entire time, muscles twitching to dive atop the Empress or yank her bodily from the stage the moment she saw a threat. But she did not have to. The wedding, officiated by Brother Evrart and witnessed by several more of the palace’s junior Wise Men, was smooth and uneventful. When Evrart finished winding the strips of black and golden silk around Tasia and Mace’s clasped hands and then held their hands up for the audience to see, the assembled crowd went mad with happiness, and Joslyn allowed herself to relax by the smallest fraction of an inch.

The greatest time of danger had passed without incident.

As the ceremony ended and the crowd filed out of the amphitheater, the newly married couple climbed together into a single palanquin, hands still bound by black and gold silk and upraised for all to see and celebrate. The unruly and headstrong daughter of Emperor Andreth was married at last. Tamed at last.

Joslyn relaxed somewhat more once Tasia and Mace crossed through the North Gate back onto palace grounds, and relaxed more once the wedding feast began inside the palace’s largest ballroom. When the feast ended and the dancing began, Joslyn prowled the ballroom like the shadow of a restless mountain leopard, never straying too far from Tasia and Mace, never losing track of the locations of the other palace guardsmen spread throughout the great room.

Yet for all Joslyn’s outward tension, inside her heart was more at ease than perhaps it ever had been. Tasia would not share Mace’s bed. The private pain Joslyn had harbored for months around Tasia’s union with Mace had finally abated.

No lover had ever acknowledged Joslyn in front of others. Her love affairs before Tasia had always been secret and always short-lived, ending the moment it put her lover’s reputation at risk, or the moment the other woman either found (or made amends with) some suitable man. And what could Joslyn do but accept it? Women like her were more acceptable in some parts of the Empire than others, but in all parts of the Empire, love between women – as with love between men – was, at best, considered a temporary amusement or side affair. At worst, the Wise Men condemned it as against the natural order of things and punished all involved.

That latter attitude was the one that prevailed in Port Lorsin and most of the Capital Lands proper due to the strong influence there of the House of Wisdom. Joslyn had half-expected Mace to condemn them when Tasia had made her admission, but it turned out that Mace had his own reasons to be accepting.

Watching Mace spin Tasia around the ballroom dance floor was different tonight than it had been at the ball following Tasia’s coronation. Mace’s behavior had not changed: he still flirted charmingly with Tasia; he still whispered things in her ear to make her giggle, but it no longer upset Joslyn. If anything, Joslyn’s view of Mace had shifted from that of rival to that of ally. They were co-conspirators now – Joslyn, Tasia, and Mace – and Joslyn surprised herself by finding a sense of camaraderie within that conspiracy.

Somewhere close to midnight, the band of minstrels finally stopped for a break and the lords and ladies meandered away from the dance floor and back towards their respective tables. Mace also bowed to his new wife and offered his arm to her, leading her back to the raised table at the front of the room. Tasia caught Joslyn’s eye, beckoning her near with nothing but a glance.

“We will be leaving in a few minutes,” Tasia told Joslyn quietly when she reached the table. Her expression shifted into something Joslyn couldn’t read. “You do know what typically happens next, right?”

Joslyn glanced from Tasia to Mace. “I would assume that the new couple retires to the bedchamber to … consummate the marriage.”

“Yes, but there is slightly more to it than that.” Mace winced, hesitating a moment. “First, I carry my new wife towards the bedchamber.” He swept an arm out towards the room of nobles, who, Joslyn noticed, all seemed to be anticipating something. “They sing bawdy songs and follow right behind us. And then … well, then representatives from the families of both bride and groom remain just outside the bedchamber to ensure that the consummation takes place.”

Puzzled, Joslyn cocked her head at Tasia.

“The representatives … listen,” Tasia explained.

“Listen?” Joslyn repeated. She’d said it as if she didn’t understand, but she supposed it was more that she simply did not want to understand.

“For …” Tasia flicked a hand impatiently. “You know, the … sounds of consummation.”

“I … see.”

“Oh, don’t give me that face,” said Tasia, clicking her tongue. “We’ll figure something out. I sent Linna ahead with the instruments we discussed.”

“And who are the representatives left to … listen?” Joslyn asked, hoping it wouldn’t have to be Princess Adela.

“My father, of course,” Mace said, though he didn’t sound particularly pleased about it.

“And I asked my cousin Anna of House Aventia,” Tasia said. “Technically, it should be my nearest blood relative, but Adela is too young. Thank the gods.” Tasia rolled her eyes. “Anna’s been bragging about being chosen all night. Only she would consider it a symbol of high status to be forced to listen to someone else’s lovemaking.”

Joslyn doubted that Anna was the only noble in the crowd who would consider such a duty a symbol of high status. She followed Tasia’s gaze and located the young noblewoman in the crowd. Anna stood giggling daintily about something next to her dance partner, Bailey the Younger of House Tew, one hand resting lightly on the lordling’s forearm.

“Bailey’s stock has gone up since the Battle of Port Lorsin,” Tasia said, voice edged with cynicism. “Once he decided I didn’t deserve to be beheaded after all, he forged himself a new position as my most ardent supporter with a quickness. I think he and Anna would be perfect for each other.” She sighed and turned back to Joslyn and Mace. “I suppose we might as well get it over with.”

“I will prepare the guards for your exit,” Joslyn said.