All The Queen's Ladies [NaNoWriMo Project]

Cerys, Queen and Wife

One week later, as news of another great victory in the north starts to roll through the city streets, a golden flag is raised above the High Palace. Queen Cerys Laith, daughter of Alys and George, descends from her tower in a blur of white silks and lace, trailing the smell of rosewater. Her train is borne by Lady Alice Wagstaffe and Lady Branwen Clare. The only colour in her is the hazel of her eyes, lowered, and a comely blush in her cheeks. Instead of a hood she wears a veil that gives her the appearance of being hidden behind wisps of cloud. It is pinned down not by one of her public coronets but by a crown, silver set with diamonds and sapphires; the crown her mother wore.

Outside, a path has been cleared through the slush and a carpet laid along the route from the royal tower to the Hall of Ceremonies, some ten minutes' walk away. Cerys has refused to be carried in a coach or litter, so despite the cold she will make her way through the city on foot, herself. At the gates guards assemble around her and Alice and Branwen lower her train and produce a long cloak of fine white fur, which they wrap around her shoulders tenderly. A few words are exchanged, and then the procession moves on. Beyond the palace Nicolas' men are scattering largesse, coins and bread and scraps of fine cloth, but they move aside and kneel as they approach. Cerys walks at the trough of a wave of people with their knees grazing the ground and their eyes turned down. Her expression, behind the veil, is distant, but then this is her first marriage, and what else should people expect? Even the kind words of Lady Branwen and the blunter, more raucous ones of Lady Eliyne Marr will have gone only some way to addressing the turmoil of the virgin bride. But her progress is steady and her step is surefooted and confident. All gazes that linger after her are admiring. Does the leader of the northmen, who refuses to style himself as a king, have any daughters even half so beautiful, so elegant? Did the Princess of the Straits, her who has seven husbands and four still living, ever have such a touching blush? You cannot see her and not swell with pride.

The Hall of Ceremonies is decked out richly, all sconces blazing, the Laith and Wrainby coats of arms fluttering from every available surface. The ancient Ceremonial waits on the platform in his scarlet robes of duty. He is an elderly man, not frail in the way some men get, but expansive, hard to knock over but presumably easy to role, and he bears the chains of his office with pride as he waits for people to settle. The crowd froths and glitters, the realm's premier nobles - or their wives or other representatives, as is more often the case, with the men still north - jostling to be heard and seen, to be noted as being there. There are gentlemen, too, bright and brash as parrots, their wives startling in feathers and watching the noblewomen with narrowed eyes, for fashions they can take back to their friends. The court waits up in the gallery, men and women mingling; notes could be passed, hands squeezed, arms brushed, for a royal wedding means feasting, and feasting means all normal behaviours are put aside, just for this once. A narrow window, for those who wish to exploit it. Not that any would admit to it; not that anybody, glancing up at the gallery from below, would be able to tell.

All these people, but they are just faces, just blurs; they don't matter, really. What matters is Nicolas, handsome in his agitation, constantly lifting a hand to check his habitual crown of acorns is not slipping, and Cerys emerging through the door to the rustling of a thousand people kneeling, Cerys, lifting her eyes, making her way down the hall with only the two ladies for company, Cerys, holding out her hand, and letting him place his on it. He says something, she says something, nobody knows what but it makes them both smile. The ladies drop the train and move aside, to kneel in sight, their hands brushing each other's skirts and their faces beaming with pride. Up here on the platform they look curiously exposed, with their dress and expression visible to all, as neither wears a veil. Both are muted in colour, deep dusky purples lined with greys, so as not to detract from Cerys' shining, ethereal appearance. Alice's eyes rove around; whatever she is looking for, she doesn't see it, so she keeps looking in quick darting glimpses, giving those watching her the slightest flash of green-grey eyes before she moves on. Branwen gives only one short glance to the gallery and then turns her attention to the queen. In a thousand heads, notes are scribbled. Who is she looking for, up in the gallery? Or, if not a person, what does she expect to find? By the end of the day this one look will have taken on dozens of different meanings. People see her now, when once they wouldn't have done. She seems impervious. Look closely, though. You may see the smallest twitch, the merest of tugs on her sleeves, to convince you otherwise.