One Crown & Two Thrones : The Dragons Egg ( Book Two)

Chapter Nineteen - The Letter - Sebeen

XX

The Letter

Sebeen

Sebeen leaned over the wide and elegantly curved rowing boat and observed her dismal reflection upon the rivers surface and sighed. In two days she and her betrothed would take part in the ancient blessing, in which they would be bound together by blood and feasting. It would be haunting, beautiful and ethereal, except for the fact that Sebeen felt anything but. She was about to enter into a politically motivated marriage based on nothing but alliance and security, and if that were not bad enough, Meerin laws of old that still applied to the refreshed legal system still required the wife and husband to fornicate in front of the inner council to ensure an heir. It was this intimate yet public display which she feared the most. She could say her vows and mean them, yet the daunting prospect of having to sleep with the prince was filling her with such anxiety that she felt physically ill. Worse still was that she was deemed plain, her body being too round, her looks too plain and her height too small. If she were as confident and as beautiful as the Lady Eithne, her new found friend and companion, then she would fear nothing. Still looking down at her reflection she gulped back the mouthful of vomit that seeped up her throat like a snake.

"Sebeen get up now!" Raged her demanding cousin, Lady Aisla who was ordering about her dress bearers. Lifting her head away from the water, Sebeen turned to her aunt.

"Yes?"

"You are meant to be sitting regally upon the bench!" Aisla said with fierce eyes as she made her way from the top of the long rowboat to where Sebeen sat, pale faced and in need of some time alone. With rough hands, Aisla forced Sebeen to her feet, much to the astonishment of the young ladies who looked on, frightened. The top of her arm burning with pain, Sebeen was guided back to her seat and shoved downwards. "Sit!" Aisla said with a hiss before moving away.

"Are you alright?" Lady Eithne enquired with a straight face, her eyes unfeeling of the emotions she felt.

"It's freezing and we have been at this for days!" Sebeen returned as another lady laid a blanket across her knees with a small smile upon her pristinely flawed face.

"The pain we ladies go through for men," Eithne said with a small shake of her head. She looked as always, beautiful and unfailing in Sebeen's envious eyes. "They in turn have to go through none of this, they simply show up and get drunk on laman, whilst we sit patiently in our tight fitting gowns and square shoes, trying to shield our pain with looks of contentment upon our innocent faces."

"Exactly," Sebeen returned with a pained expression, her large eyes upon the great palace ahead. The river has undergone a magnificent transformation in the last week, with great canopies of flowers dangling from one side to the other, the boats lined up upon the edges being transformed into works of art, large beacons lining the edges, the necks of pikes beautifully curved so that they looked like swans necks and the great wooden bridges, beautifully garnered and ready for the blessing.

"Tell me have you spoken with your aunt about you know..." Eithne leaned over to Sebeen and moved her eyes in a strange way.

"I have been over my vows so many times, I think I can say with certainty that I will not fail either myself or my aunt," Sebeen returned with a roll of her eyes.

"No that is not what I meant," Eithne said with a cold laugh. "No I mean about your wedding night."

"Well that is weeks away," Sebeen said nervously as her ladies in waiting now all leaned in with curious gazes.

"Still, you do know what happens, yes?"

"Yes, I am very aware of what goes on between and man and a women," Sebeen said with flushed cheeks.