A Princess of Landover (43 page)

He certainly didn’t waste time with small talk, she thought in dismay. “I have reconsidered,” she agreed. “His Eminence has been very persuasive.”

“A well-considered decision, Princess!” He was practically jumping up and down, his froggy eyes bulging, his tongue licking out. “And Crabbit! Excellent work, Crabbit!” He gave His Eminence a short bow of acknowledgment. “We must proceed immediately with the wedding, then!”

His Eminence ushered her all the way into the office and closed the door behind them. “Yes, well, there are a few legal matters to be settled first. Paperwork to be filled out, agreements to be signed, that sort of thing. A consent to the marriage agreed upon and signed by both parties is requisite.”

Laphroig flushed. “Well, get about preparing it then! Don’t keep the Princess waiting!”

His Eminence sat down to work while Laphroig crowded close to Mistaya, looking her up and down in the way a buyer might a new
horse, smiling as if all were right with the world. Or maybe just as if all were right with him. She tried not to shrink from him, did her best not to show her loathing, and held herself firmly in check.

“Would it be possible for you to free my hands?” she asked suddenly, looking not at His Eminence, but at Laphroig. “A bride on her wedding day shouldn’t appear in shackles.”

Laphroig glanced down and seemed to see for the first time the swirling ball of darkness that bound her hands. “What’s this, Crabbit?” he snapped. “What have you done to her?”

His Eminence glanced up, sighing. “It is for her own good. And yours.”

“Well, I don’t like it. How can it appear that consent is given voluntarily if she weds me looking as if she is shackled in some mysterious way? Even the appearance of coercion is unacceptable. Signing the consent is sufficient, I should think. Set her free!”

Craswell Crabbit shook his head firmly. “That would be immensely foolish, my Lord.”

“I promise not to try to escape,” Mistaya said quickly. “I won’t run from you. You have my word as a Princess of Landover. I have made my decision, and I will see the wedding through to its conclusion. But don’t make me marry you like this.”

She tried to sound pathetic and put upon instead of desperate, casting a pleading glance at The Frog.

“Crabbit seems rather convinced that it would better if you did.” Laphroig was experiencing doubts, as well. “The word of a Princess of Landover ought to count for something, I realize, but you are known for your troublesome nature, Princess.”

“But I promise! What more can I do?”

Laphroig smiled. “I am sure I could think of something.” He leered. Then he shrugged, refocusing on the matter at hand. “I can’t see that it would do any harm. Not if you give us your promise.”

His Eminence looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “You are seriously contemplating setting free a young woman with magic enough at her command to burn us all to ash? Have you lost your mind, Laphroig?”

“Watch your tongue, Crabbit! Unlike you, I am not afraid of a fifteen-year-old girl. I have fifty knights waiting just outside the door, and should she prove too troublesome, I might give her over to them for a bit of sport.” He gave Mistaya a look. “So I don’t think we need be concerned.”

“Your Eminence,” Mistaya said quickly, ignoring the threat. “My word is good. I will not break it. I have more than one reason not to do so, as you well know.” She flicked her eyes toward the office door, reaffirming her commitment to Thom. “Besides,” she added, “won’t I need my hands free to sign the documents of marriage? Won’t I need them in order to don my wedding dress? You do have a wedding dress for me, don’t you?”

His Eminence stared at her for a long moment. “Naturally, I shall provide you with a wedding dress, Princess. And since Lord Laphroig seems set on this, I shall set you free. But I warn you, disobedience at this juncture would be a big mistake. The matter is in your hands. Be careful.”

He made a few quick gestures, spoke a few short words, and the swirling ball that held her hands imprisoned faded away. She rubbed her wrists experimentally as His Eminence watched her like a hawk and then allowed them to drop harmlessly to her sides. “There, you see?” she said.

His Eminence went back to preparing the documents of marriage while Laphroig launched into a long, rhapsodic dissertation on the joys that awaited her once she was married to him. She nodded along agreeably, thinking through her plan as she did so. It was a risky gamble, but it was all she could do. If it failed, she was in deep trouble.

She found herself wishing momentarily that she could use her newfound freedom to break from the room, race to her bedroom, produce the rainbow crush, and stamp on it while calling for her father. But her father might be as much at risk as she was—perhaps more so, if what she had heard His Eminence say earlier was to be believed—so she would die before she summoned help from that quarter.

In any case, there was no time left for second-guessing and nothing to be gained by wishing for what might have been. She had made her choice, and she was going to have to live with it. If she were given half a chance, things would work out.

His Eminence straightened at his desk. “All done. Please sign on the lines here and here,” he advised Mistaya and Laphroig, indicating the required spaces.

Laphroig signed without reading, impatient to get on with things. Mistaya took her time, skimming quickly but thoroughly, and found the promise not to harm Thom embedded deep in the document in language that was clear and concise. Whatever happened to her, she would have protected Thom to the extent that she was able to do so. She took a deep breath and signed, knowing that if the marriage went through now, it would be binding on her and on her parents under Landover’s laws.

She sat back, thinking that if all else failed, perhaps she could leave Landover behind and go back to school at Carrington for the rest of her life.
As if
.

“Now, about my dress?” she queried His Eminence.

Crabbit moved her back a few steps, worked a quick conjuring with words and gestures, and she was suddenly clothed in a stunningly beautiful white gown that left Laphroig with his eyes wide, his mouth open, and his tongue hanging out.

“Princess, I have never seen anything—”

“Thank you, my Lord.” She cut him short with a perfunctory wave of her hand. “Shall we go outside into the open for the ceremony?”

Again, His Eminence didn’t look pleased with this suggestion, but Laphroig leaped on it like a starving dog on a bone and proclaimed that, indeed, the wedding must take place outdoors before his assembled knights, who would act as witnesses.

So out the office door they went, then down the hall to the front of the building and out into the sunlight. The knights still sat their horses, and the G’home Gnomes were still bound and gagged atop their mule. Cordstick had gone from looking distressed to looking
euphoric. Mistaya ignored them all, resisted the urge to look back for Thom, and kept her eyes fixed straight ahead as His Eminence marched her out to a small grove of rather wintry trees and placed her side by side with the Lord of Rhyndweir.

Craswell Crabbit cleared his throat. “Be it known, one and all, from the nearest to the farthest corners of the realm, that this man and this woman have consented …”

He droned on, but Mistaya wasn’t paying attention. She was thinking through her plan, knowing that she must put it into play quickly. If the wedding got too far along, there might not be enough time for things to come together as she needed them to.

Mistaya gazed out at the assembled knights, who had removed their helmets out of respect for the ceremony, whatever it was, and the girl, whoever she was, most of them obviously having no clear idea of what they were all doing there. The G’home Gnomes were moaning softly through their gags, and every so often the two guards bracketing them would lean over and cuff one or the other or both.

“Mistaya Holiday, Princess of Landover, do you take this man, Berwyn Laphroig, Lord of Rhyndweir to be—”

“What?” she asked, snapped back into the moment by the question. She looked blankly at His Eminence and then at Laphroig.

“Of course she does!” The Frog snapped. “Get on with it, Crabbit!”

Craswell Crabbit looked flummoxed. “Well, we need rings, then. One from each of you.”

Laphroig began pulling at the rings on his fingers, of which there were plenty, trying to loosen one to give to her. Mistaya glanced at her own fingers. She wore only two rings, both given to her by her parents as presents when she left home for Carrington. She grimaced at the thought of giving either up.

She made a show of trying to remove the rings, but in effect began the process of casting her spell, weaving her fingers and whispering the words of power. His Eminence was preoccupied with
watching Laphroig, who was thrashing wildly now in his efforts to loosen one of the rings he wore.

As he finally succeeded, turning back to Mistaya, reaching for her hand to slip the ring in place, she said abruptly, “My Lord, I lack a ring to seal our bargain, but I give you this gift instead!”

She wove her hands rapidly, completing the spell. His Eminence tried to stop her, but he was too slow and too late.

Crimson fire blossomed across the sky above them, an explosion of flames that dropped the wedding party to its knees and caused the mounts of the knights to rear and buck and finally bolt in terror.

“I warned you, Princess!” His Eminence shouted at her, covering his head with his hands as he did so. “I warned you!”

Laphroig had dropped flat against the ground, his eyes darting every which way at once, trying to discover what was going to happen to him. “You promised!” he screamed at Mistaya. “You gave your word!”

Overhead, the flames parted like the curtains on a stage, and the dragon Strabo appeared.

TILL DEATH DO US PART

S
trabo was the perfect incarnation of anyone’s worst nightmare, a huge black monster with spikes running up and down his back in a double row, a fearsome horn-encrusted head, claws and teeth the size of gate spikes, and armor plating that could withstand attacks from even the most powerful spear or longbow. He was impervious to heat and cold, no matter how extreme; he was able to fly high enough and far enough to transverse entire worlds whenever he chose. He was contemptuous of humans and fairy creatures alike, and he regarded their presence as an affront that he did not suffer gladly.

The dragon burst through the flames and swooped down toward the wedding party. Rhyndweir’s knights and their mounts scattered for a second time, taking the unfortunate G’home Gnomes with them. Cordstick dove for cover under the trees. Mistaya stood her ground, watching the dragon approach. Laphroig had flattened himself against the earth at her feet, screaming in a mix of fear and rage, and His Eminence was crouched to defend himself, apparently the only one prepared to do so.

For just an instant, Strabo loomed over Libiris and the surrounding woods like a huge dark cloud that threatened to engulf them all. Then he turned to smoke, vaporized in an instant without warning, and was gone.

There was a stunned silence as everyone but Mistaya waited for his return. Then, quite slowly and deliberately, Laphroig climbed back to his feet, brushed himself off, turned to Mistaya with a smile, and struck her as hard as he could across the face. She managed to partially deflect the blow, but went down anyway, her head ringing.

“You witch!” he hissed at her.

His Eminence stepped in front of Rhyndweir’s Lord, blocking his way. “Enough of that, Lord Laphroig. Remember our purpose here. Time enough for retribution later, after the wedding.”

Mistaya heard him and took his meaning, but pretended not to. She hung her head for a moment, waiting for the ringing to stop and her vision to clear, her eyes filled with tears.

Then she climbed back to her feet. “It was only pretend,” she said to Laphroig, brushing at her eyes. “It wasn’t meant to hurt anyone. I kept my word; I did not try to escape. I thought that a demonstration of what my magic can do might make your knights respect you even more. If you have a wife who can—”

“Spare us your bogus explanations,” Craswell Crabbit interrupted. “Your intention was to distract us and escape. The only reason you are still here is that your magic was insufficient to allow for it.”

He made a quick series of gestures, spoke a few brief words, and Mistaya’s hands were again bound, encased in the swirling mist. She stared at them in dismay, even though she had known that this would happen, that her momentary freedom would be taken away. But escape would have put Thom at risk, and she wasn’t about to do anything that would allow for that. Her plan was to see them both freed, and anything less was unacceptable.

Laphroig moved over to stand so close to her she could smell his mix of fear and rage. “When this is over, Princess,” he whispered, “I shall take whatever time it requires to teach you the manners you so badly need. And I shall enjoy doing it, although I doubt that you will.”

He stalked away, calling back his knights, some of whom still remained close enough to hear his voice. Those who responded he dispatched to gather up the others. The wedding would proceed with
all present, including those who had fled. Even Cordstick had managed to put himself back in the picture, standing by uneasily, trying to look as if nothing much had happened.