WINDKEEPER (61 page)

Their gazes went back to the veiled woman and narrowed with dislike. If she meant to hobble their Prince, she’d have another thing coming! Mumbling among themselves, casting long, furious looks at Liza’s veiled person, the crowd’s disposition changed.

"I think they don’t like her," Galen said and chuckled from the gallery.

"With good reason, I would imagine," Kaileel answered. "They think she’s castrated him!"

Conar held up his hand, his eyes amused, for he thought he understood why his people were casting such vile looks Liza’s way. "Now that I have your pardons, there is something else I must tell you."

An angry hiss went through the crowd this time.

"It concerns this lady and another lady."

A gasp went through the crowd and all ears turned to him. What lady?

Conar saw his father start forward, a red scowl of pure rage on his face. He pointed his finger at his father. "Before our people, Your Grace, I must insist you hear what I have to say. If, when I have finished, you wish to see me punished, then I will gladly go to the whipping post." He heard Liza’s gasp of dismay and reached for her hand, squeezing it.

"Conar," she warned softly. "Be careful how you say this."

King Gerren’s hands doubled into fists as he looked about at his people watching him with curiosity. If he caused a scene, did not allow Conar to have his say, the people might well wonder what terrible thing Conar had done to warrant being censored. In desperation he looked to Hern.

"Let the brat have his say," Hern advised. "You owe him that much."

Gerren looked back to his son and nodded once, but his face was dark with fury.

"Thank you, Sire." Conar took another calming breathe and looked out over the crowd.

"I have wed this lady and that can never be undone. It is sealed by the Temple and by the gods, Themselves. This past night I was bound legally to her in the presence of my family and hers and I can not deny that. I have no intention of denying my Joining to her. But I do have something to say that will explain to you why it was that I did not wish to marry her in the first place."

King Gerren hissed, clenching his fists.

"I don’t think there is a one of you here who does not know that this marriage was not what I wanted. In fact, if I could have, I would have prevented it from ever taking place."

"Conar!" his father shouted and eyes turned to the King’s raging countenance.

"Papa, our people are not fools. They know well that I did not wish to marry. I did as I was ordered, as was my responsibility to this land and to our people. Now, you owe me the right to speak. If this lady beside me has agreed to hear me out, can you not do the same? Will you silence me before them and then ask later why they do not trust me to govern them?"

The King’s breath was hard and shallow. He had never known an anger so deep and abiding as the one he felt at the moment. He glanced at Hern, saw encouragement there; looked to Dyreil, saw a quiet warning and wanted to scream.

"There is a reason I did not want to marry this lady. Part of it was because of what I had learned concerning her when I sent a man to Oceania to look her over for me. That was cowardly, as she has told me, as my father has told me on countless occasions. I should have gone to Oceania to meet with her and her family, but I did not because I had no desire to see for myself what Rayle Loure, the gods rest his good soul, told me I would find."

The eyes of the crowd shifted from the Prince to his bride, narrowed with speculation and locked on the veiled woman. Had this new change in attitude something to do with what their Prince had seen beneath that thick veil? If so, it would well explain why he looked so pale and shaken this afternoon. It was rumored the bitch was as ugly as a toad. That being the case, it was obvious why the Prince had not wanted to marry her.

"But the majority of the reason I did not want to marry this woman was because I had met another lady, a lady with whom I have fallen very much in love."

Eyes shifted again, but this time, they were wide with wonder. The Prince? In love? With one woman? With any woman? Well, no wonder he was so pale this morning. That had to be a new experience for him. Flicking a quick look to the Princess, every man and woman there was even more curious about her looks. If the bitch was that ugly, and the Prince couldn’t abide an ugly woman, then it was obvious why he loved the other woman. She had to be more beautiful than any woman alive.

"Aye, she was beautiful," he told them and saw them smile almost in unison. "She was unselfish and understanding. She was caring and compassionate. She saved my life, not once, but many times. She was my friend, my companion, my confidant, and she was my lover."

Gerren sucked in his breath with a snarl.

"She was my heart and my soul and, when she left me, she took that heart and soul with her. I was beyond myself with grief, for I had found what most of you have found. Love. And when I was denied that love after so long a time wanting it, needing it, and not even knowing that I did, it was devastating and it pained me to the core of my being. If I could have, I would have wed her; I would have been proud to call her wife, and you would have been proud of her, as well."

Brown, blue, gray, green, black eyes, and every color in between flicked once more to the Princess. Weren’t they to be proud of this one? Obviously not or the Prince wouldn’t have minded marrying the bitch.

"But if I had done as I had wanted to do, if I had kept her with me, shamed you, my people, by keeping her as my mistress against the tenets of our religion and against the laws of our Tribunal, I would have been stripped of my honor. I would have shamed my family, my wife-to-be’s family and my mother’s memory, for it was her desire that I wed this lady and join our two families.

"But I was not allowed to do that. And it was not my father, nor our Tribunal, nor my new wife’s family, that stopped me. It was my lady, my lovely lost lady, who gave me no choice in the matter. She left rather than see me do such damage." He looked at one woman, then another, then another, then still another in the crowd. "How many of you would be willing to give up your lover or husband to another woman so his honor was not ruined?" He pointed his finger. "You? You? How about you?

"When she left me, I thought my heart would break. I felt as though the very light of my existence had been extinguished. I did not have it within this broken heart to take another woman to me when I had lost what I truly loved more than my own life."

Here and there, a hand went up to a weeping face. A soft sob could be heard at the back of the crowd. At the front. Somewhere near the center. Their bonny boy gave up happiness, perhaps the only true happiness he would ever know, for them.

"I will only have one love in my lifetime, one woman who will always possess my heart and soul."

King Gerren felt Hern’s hand on his shoulder and, although he snarled, he stood still.

"Her name was Liza. And that woman is gone forever."

Gerren relaxed. Maybe it would be all right, after all.

"This woman who stands beside me, who is my wife, will never possess me in the same way Liza did. She can’t. But I have told her I will protect her, defend her, keep her safe, for she has given me something no other woman could." He stepped in front of her and took the edge of the veil in his hands.

Everywhere heads turned, necks craned, bodies shifted to get a better look at the young Prince and his veiled wife.

"This woman’s name is Anya Elizabeth, but I don’t like that name. I never have," he spoke over his shoulder, "so we’ll have to find another name to call her." Lifting the veil, Conar blocked everyone’s view with his broad back and raised arms as he pushed Liza’s veil over her head and looked down into her smiling face.

He stepped back so the crowd could see her.

An audible gasp went through the crowd. Whatever they had been expecting, it was certainly not this!

The afternoon sun shone on her blue-black hair as it tumbled down her back and shoulders. Her deep green eyes were sparkling with tears, but were alive and bright with warmth. Her pretty rose-tinted lips were lifted in a sweet, happy smile that melted nearly every heart in the courtyard.

Here was no ogress! No toad! Here was a stunning beauty whose breath-taking face matched the promise of the slim, curvaceous body they had seen the evening before. Here was the stuff of legends. Here was the Sea-Lady come to Join with the Wind-Prince! Here was the siren about whom sonnets would be written and songs sung for centuries. This was the woman of whom the ancients had spoken. Here was Serenia’s Glory!

Gerren shook his spinning head in wonder. How could his son not love such a vision of beauty? Could this girl, Liza, be that much more beautiful?

" ’Twas worth all the secrecy to see this, husband," Medea joked.

Shaz agreed. "Even that godawful limerick!"

"You need a name to call this pretty lady." Conar turned around and faced his people as he slipped his arm around his wife’s waist and drew her to him. "I have decided you shall call her Liza."

Confusion lowered over the shocked and surprised faces. Not even Prince Conar would be so cruel as to call his lady-wife after one of his light-o’-loves, no matter how well he had loved the tart! Their hearts filled with sorrow and pity for the lovely vision standing so proudly before them, her pretty head on the Prince’s shoulder, then ached with disappointment at their Prince.

Conar looked about him with surprise. "What?—no welcome for the lady?"

A mumble was heard, a greeting slurred with downcast eyes, shuffling feet. He glanced at his father’s smug face and realized the King was content with seeing the people disappointed in him.

Conar looked to Legion and Teal and Thom who stood with their mouths open, not believing what they were seeing. "Legion! Teal du Mer! Won’t you come forward and welcome my lady-wife?" Conar called to them, watching Legion flinch, laughing at his brother’s shocked expression. Never once had he ever seen Legion speechless.

He looked into the frosty, furious gaze of his twin. A slow, cruel smile touched Conar’s lips. "What about you, Galen? You, who have met my lost love, Liza. You, who vowed to find the lady and wed her yourself. Won’t you come down and greet your new sister-in-law?"

Galen looked as though he had been kicked in the stomach. This was the woman he loved. This was the woman he had wanted. Seeing his brother with her, knowing they were truly wed, brought a pain deeper than anything he had ever known. He could only stare with hate.

Conar laughed, hugging Liza to him before swooping down and claiming her lips in a kiss that brought a gasp of stunned surprise to the crowd. Silence stretched out as the Prince’s full lips played seductively over the Princess’, as their two bodies molded together as though a flash of intense heat had locked them together.

Galen whimpered, a heartsick groan, as he turned away, fleeing the sight, running from the gallery as fast as he could.

Conar released her lips and faced the crowd, though did not relinquish his hold on his wife.

Liza looked to the crowd and smiled. Her voice—soft and sweet—carried to the outer reaches of the courtyard. "To bring the stag to ground, you must first get his attention. And Conar’s attention was hard to capture, but I managed to do so well enough. If it wanders again, I’ll tack his head to the Great Hall’s collection!"

"And this is the woman who could." Conar laughed. "Her hand on a crossbow rivals mine." He grinned, his face smug and content. "What think you of the Prince’s Lost Lady?" Conar called.

A gasp ran through the crowd and then pandemonium broke out. The people finally understood what he had said and their cheers were deafening, their hand claps and foot stomping thunderous as they put the seal heir approval to their Prince’s woman.

Coron slapped Dyllon on the back as the younger man slid down from the stone lion with a look of disbelief. "Here is a woman worthy of our big brother, wouldn’t you say?" Coron asked.

"Our brother has the luck of the Chales," Dyllon agreed.

Empress Dyreil put her head on her husband’s shoulder.

"You knew, didn’t you," her husband, Tran, asked.

"Her mother told me last eve. Isn’t she a beauty, Tran? She’ll make him a fine mate, eh?"

Tran nodded. "Quite a pair," he said earnestly, looking at the blazing blond hair and deep midnight velvet blending in the bright sunlight. "Shall we go inside and toast the young couple?"

Dyreil looked up at her husband’s beloved face and grinned. "I can think of a better way to get warm, Tran."

Sighing, the Emperor raised his eyes to the heavens. "Is that all you McGregors ever think about?" He looked down at her. "Well," he sighed, "if I have to, I have to."

All along the canopy, Conar’s children were giggling and clapping. It wouldn’t have mattered to them if she had not been the beauty she obviously was, for her heart and soul were beautiful and they knew that already.

Gerren was watching the couple as they walked about the crowd greeting their people and he was stunned. This was the girl he had almost had kidnapped and taken out of his son’s life forever?

"Come, Gerren," Shaz said, draping an arm about his friend’s shoulder. "Let us tell you all about our headstrong daughter and the man she was determined to have love her."

Legion sat on a bench and shook his head. "I can’t believe this."

"Neither can I," Teal replied

"Liza is the Princess," Thom said, his voice filled with wonder. "The Toad is Conar’s Liza!"

Cayn chuckled. He’d brought that little boy into the world twenty years ago, but looking at his smiling face now, was like looking back in time. That face had the look of having played the very best of practical jokes on everyone there.

Hern Arbra nodded. The smile on the brat’s face was beatific. The girl was lovelier than he remembered. He dared not tell either father or son that he had known all along who Liza was. How did he explain not taking Rayle Loure’s word for what the Princess looked like and going to Oceania himself? How did one go about explaining how a long talk with a certain young Princess had set an old warrior’s mind to rest? And how did you explain giving directions to the young Princess so she could find her Prince at a certain tavern, on a certain day, at a certain time? Or how he had made sure Rayle Loure and his men had left them alone on their journey to Norus together? He saw the lady in question turn her pretty smile to him and he nodded in greeting, smiling with a rare warmth to her. He watched her smile grow sweet and wide and he nodded again, knowing she understood his best wishes for her. As he turned, his eyes met those of a friend in the crowd and the smile on his friend’s face mirrored Hern’s.