Lair of Beasts [Book I in the Curse Of Blood Saga]

Chapter XXI - Wedding Feast

The wedding day: 1370 — my seventeenth year.

"Blessings to all and merry meet." The stout little abbot swayed on unsteady legs as he continued his fustian intonations with pious self-importance.

Was the doddering old fool drunk? I had not seen him standing except on the day he arrived. If not inebriated, then he surely possessed a pathetic constitution; his legs seemed unable to support his portly frame. He was dressed in a baggy houpeland of deep purple, his gnarled hands moving animatedly through his elaborate wide cuffs and long sleeves.

The rest of his plebeian audience, myself and Lucian included, stood in stoic attendance, facing the great chapel doors which stood tall and imposing behind the decrepit ecclesiastic as he began the ceremony on the steps of the church, the air outside crisp and foggy withal.

I stood to Lucian's left, the side whence Adam's rib had once been removed, and peeked up at him nervously; he appeared as haughty as ever, and wholly indifferent to the proceedings. However, nothing remained of the butcher I'd stumbled upon the same night I'd seen the beast — Lucian was all calmness; he seemed, to all the world, no more sinister than the perfectly immaculate and stoic groom he now portrayed.

Feeling the pressure of my eyes, he turned surreptitiously toward me, but I looked away quickly, finding I could not meet his keen assessment.

My betrothed was dressed in dark reds and golds while the Greybacks of Skådrokk, Fendrel's kin, wore their gilded greens. Each family patriarch seemed to favor the colors of his familial crest, this day particularly, and therefore the members of their respective households bore them too. Lucian was no exception.

His lavish silk doublet was deep vermillion and buttoned up the front and up his sleeves with opalescent buttons. It was cold out — as dour as his expression, in fact — and, in deference to the frost that still lay glittering in the muted sunlight, he also sported a golden surcote, and a short, crimson mantle, his cape displaying the same wolf pattern that embellished mine.

His tawny hair stirred wildly as the breeze swept through the courtyard, like a chilly ariel. I grudgingly noted that he was veritably magnificent in his fine raiments. Magnificent and forbidding. The sterling wolf brooch, securing his mantle at his neck, matched the black and silver signet ring that sat snugly on his left pinky. Were he not so frightening, I might have considered him beautiful.

The late afternoon was dreary in honor of this significant day; the sky was overcast and leaden with grey, but this did not seem to darken the mood of those around us. The courtyard and chapel was decorated with plenty of ivy, family heraldic banners, garlands of dried flowers and pretty baskets of whatever colorful and verdant fauna was yet growing in the snow — which was not much! I'd never heard of a wedding in winter...

The atmosphere was quite lively despite the abbot's mundane tone of voice:

"Lucian Godwinsson, of the Clan Greyback, art thou here this day in pledged troth of thy own free will and choice?"

"Aye, Father," came the cool response.

"Ariana Carasdóttir, art thou here this day in pledged troth of thy own free will and choice?"

Carasdóttir? But that was not my surname?

I looked up at Lucian, nonplussed and wary, but he merely offered a subtle nod. Perhaps this too was a custom I had not been aware of. I then turned to glance over my right shoulder, meeting Godwin's eyes directly. He seemed equally unperturbed. If both Lucian and Godwin were unconcerned by the abbot's reference, then I supposed there could be no reason I should question the issue further.