Chapter 37

“You look quite nice, Lady Bellinger.”

We stood in an antechamber to the rear of Saint Bartholemew’s Cathedral, a bridesmaid and I, milling around with the rest of the wedding party, waiting for the ceremony to begin. I was miserable, corseted and powdered and coiffed and swathed in more lace than the entire village of Maundley possessed, but all I could think of was Clair, in the bay, banned from the wedding. I couldn’t hear his thoughts from this far away, and his absence was worse than a headache.

“Thank you,” I told the bridesmaid, whose name I’d never learned. “You look nice also.”

She nodded and drifted on, not in the mood for conversation. The feeling was mutual.

I peeked through an opening in the wall to see thousands of wedding guests, gorgeously dressed and peering through opera glasses at one another, no doubt comparing tailors. All the wealthy and noble of Pylander were gathered there, as well as guests from neighboring kingdoms. The aisle, which seemed long enough during yesterday’s rehearsal, now stretched a hundred miles past those staring eyes to the nave with the altar, where priests prepared bread and wine for the bishop, who would perform the wedding mass. And I, Evie Pomeroy, who until recently was no more than a schoolgirl from Maundley, must walk that lonely aisle in minutes, as the closest attendant to the princess. Soon, queen.

The orchestra began to play the first processional song.

“My garters!” Annalise whispered to the other ladies. “I’ve forgotten to wear my wedding garters!”

The bridesmaids erupted into shocked whispers at this news.

“I must have my garters before the wedding reception,” she said.

“I know where they are,” I said. “I’ll get them for you as soon as we’re back.”

A bridesmaid peered through a gap between the doors, saw the terrifying spectacle I’d just seen, and fainted, tumbling onto the floor and crushing her bouquet. The knights present all offered competing suggestions, while the ladies gasped beautifully.

How could people be so useless? I dropped my bouquet and rolled the girl over onto her back, straightening out her legs comfortably, and fanning the air in front of her face.

“Has anyone got smelling salts?” I asked the room at large. Of course no one did. I examined the pink mark on her forehead where she’d hit the floor, and determined that no serious swelling seemed to be taking place. She’d do no worse than bruise, it seemed.

“I knew I’d seen you before!”

I was too busy fanning the girl’s face with my hand to pay much attention. It was a man’s voice speaking, but whose, I didn’t have time to find out.

“You’ll have to tell the orchestra to play another song,” Annalise told someone. “Quickly. We won’t be ready to start.”

“This girl hasn’t revived yet,” I said to anyone listening. “That should be our first concern.”

“You’re the healer girl. From … Maundley. Oh, what was her name?” The king was no longer addressing me, but consulting his own memory.

Oh, no.

I looked to Annalise for my cue, but her mouth was set in a line. “Darling, which knight could sit out and tend Joan? It won’t do to have an imbalanced number of men and ladies.”

“Evelyn,” the undistracted king said. “You said your name was Evelyn. I see by your expression that I am right.”

The fainted girl in my arms took a sudden, noisy breath, and at last I could do the same.

“What happened?” she said, noting the other bridesmaids glaring at her.

“You fainted and hit your head,” I said. “You would benefit from some rest. You’d probably better not walk down the aisle.”

The girl nodded. She wouldn’t need to be told twice.

“Darling,” the king said to Annalise, who clutched his arm, “you told me she was your cousin Marie, from Merlia. Yet I saw her myself, in the Pylandrian provinces, performing school recitations. One of my own subjects.”

I dreaded to see Annalise’s face. Her eyes flashed at me with annoyance for just a moment, then she reached up on tiptoe and kissed the king’s cheek.

“The music has begun, my love,” she said, her voice musical. “I can explain all of this, this harmless little misunderstanding. But pray, let us not keep our royal subjects waiting. In less than an hour, the king of my heart will also be king of my hand and body, and then there will be all the time in the world for explanations.”

King Leopold looked back and forth between us. A priest appeared, beckoning him and his knights to follow him down the long aisle and take their places at the altar. The king hesitated, then kissed Annalise’s hand and followed the holy father down the aisle. One by one, the bridesmaids began their parade to the altar.

Annalise blew out a breath, and I ran to her side. I was still stinging from her look at me and eager to make amends, though confused at where my blame lay.

“I feared this,” I began.

“Then that fear,” she whispered in strident tones, “should have given you pause before putting on a show of heroics because some giddy bridesmaid has fainted. Think what you jeopardized!”

I was stung. “How could I not help her? No one else was! It was never my idea to—”

Annalise lay a finger over my lips. “Hush. There isn’t time. Forgive me, child, I am in error here. It is not I that speaks to you so harshly. It’s the terrors of a wedding morning. And such a wedding as this!” She nodded toward the open doors. “It’s your turn, my love. Have no fear. I will repair everything. Now, go.”

The last bridesmaid had left. It was time for me to walk into the abyss. I forgave her freely. Of course she was agitated by the wedding. The king’s discovery had rattled me too.

Through the chapel doors I passed. One step. And step again. Right foot, pause. Then left, pause. I held my head high and straight, as the wedding coach had harangued, and painted on my lips the angelic, modest, maidenly smile we’d practiced. One step. And step again.

Ten thousand eyes were glued to me for that entire long walk, until I reached the priest, and then Annalise would enter and divert their attention from me.

The chapel itself was a daunting thing, with a painted ceiling soaring into the heavens and marble columns bearing it up. The walls were lush with splendid carvings and gilt detail. All of it was so vast, so opulent, as to remind mankind of its small and temporary state, contrasted with the infinite. It surely worked on me that morning.

Every twenty steps or so I passed a pair of stained glass windows, in which artists had created huge, vivid reconstructions of scripture scenes.

Jonah being swallowed by the great fish of the deep.

David slaying Goliath with a stone.

Moses, holding the tablets of the law, and the rod with the brass serpent, which would heal those bitten by fiery serpents, if they’d only look.

Abraham, and Isaac, and the altar, and the ram in the thicket.

Noah, and the ark of animals.

The creation of the world.

Adam, and Eve, and the fruit. And the serpent.

I dared not look at the windows anymore. Instead, I looked back at the faces watching me. Step, pause, and step again.

I stumbled. There, at the end of an aisle, and dressed in an elegant suit, with smoldering brown eyes with golden centers that bored holes through me, was he.

The highwayman.