Chapter 1307: LoveStruck(3)
The tribal drums, kindly offered and used by the Voghondai’s guests, were pounding and pounding in a relentless heartbeat, while the southron flutes wailed and the harps sang their bright, dizzying melodies. The roaring sound drifted off into the afternoon sky as the guests danced, ate, drank, and laughed with abandon.
There was great, unbridled merriment all around the palace gardens, the scandalous details of the missing priest completely lost beneath the heavy gallery of music echoing from below the great nut tree.
Was there ever such genuine merriment at my own marriage? the King wondered idly, watching the spinning colors of the court. Somehow, his memory gave him a flat, definitive no.
Still, Alpheo was not such a sour, resentful man as to take that realization in contempt. The times, of course, had been entirely different. Then, it had been a dangerous mercenary commander aggressively wedding the most eligible, high-born woman in the realm to secure a crown; today, it was a beloved princess uniting with a loyal legate. Just as his own wedding had been choked by a thick fog of envy and hidden daggers, here there was only pure joy.And a hell of a lot of it.
After all he had invited only friend to the crown this time..
Across the lawn, Alpheo spotted Lord Arnold executing a formal courtly turn,which came hard with his woobling. The man had a tight, thoroughly fixed smile plastered onto his face as he led his lady wife through the steps, the woman being intensely mindful of where she placed her feet on the uneven grass.
That had been a fiercely bittersweet marriage, riddled with so many sudden political overshoots and scandals that a man never truly knew which way the family fortunes were going to swerve. Still, in the end, it had all ended remarkably well. Their young daughter had been fully legitimized and the marriage legally reconfirmed with nothing but a swift, sealing letter from the Pontifex, a favor Alpheo had gladly squeezed out of the holy see. Lord Arnold had been more than profoundly thankful for that royal intervention.
Meanwhile, Arnold’s eldest daughter, the only one he had brought to court, leaving the youngest safely tucked away at their country estate, was currently spinning across the lawn. She was dancing with Basil to the quickening tune of the music.
The boy is a remarkably good dancer, Alpheo decided at once, a flicker of fatherly pride touching his chest. At the very least, Basil was a thousand times more graceful on his feet than Alpheo had ever been in his life. Arnold’s daughter, young Misia, was probably harboring that very same thought, and a good few others ones as well; the delicate way she smiled, demurely looking down at certain parts of the dance whenever their hands met, revealed far more of the latter than the former.
He is growing up to be a exceptionally fine man, Alpheo thought, watching his son speak something rather loudly to be heard above the roaring flutes. Whatever the fine jest was, it must have been a magnificent one, for the girl suddenly spluttered with a delighted burst of laughter.
Far less joyful, however, was the second Maimed Lion.
Thalien sat rigidly in a high-backed chair far from the dancing circle, his golden-etched cane laid with the visage of a lion carelessly across his knees. He clearly preferred to focus his entire remaining existence on the food and wine rather than the festivities around him. For obvious, brutal reasons, he could not dance. He ate very little, and exceptionally sparingly at that, the King noticed. The man’s pale fingers tore a small piece of bread to couple with a sliver of roasted beef, chewing with a rhythmic, detached slow-motion.
Most of the high-born courtiers were actively steering a wide berth around him, driven away either by the sour, freezing aura radiating from his seat or the dangerous weight of his name. The King, decided it was time to deign him with his presence.
Thalien had just taken a small piece of meat into his mouth when he spotted the shadow of the King approaching his table.
"Your Majesty," he said, his jaw tightening as he offered a curt nod of his head, his hands resting flat on his cane.
"Is the feast not to your liking, my lord?" Alpheo asked smoothly, pulling out a heavy wooden chair and taking a seat right beside the young fallen princeling.
Thalien’s shoulders trembled a fraction, his thin lips setting into a perfectly straight, hard line. "It is pleasant enough, I suppose. The food is remarkably good, and the music is even better. But... I am entirely certain you can understand why I am not out there spinning your ladies across the grass.Speaking of spinning my compliments to your daughter, she seems a fine dancer" The king followed his gaze to see Rosalind indeed spinning around like a top with a laughing Asag guiding her movement.
It warm her heart to see her so happy.
’’How much I would like that’’ Arnold said, as he tried his absolute best to hide the raw, bubbling sourness in his voice, but it was like trying to hide a massive warship taking on waves of water.
"What did the palace physicians say of the legs?" Alpheo asked, his tone dropping into a quiet, serious register.
"It is not what they said, Your Majesty, but what they deliberately did not," Thalien replied, his gaze fixed entirely on his silver plate. "In due time, perhaps, the sharpest of the pain will subsidize. Something tell me that is the only small grace the gods have seen fit to permit my flesh
He didn’t mention a single word about healing or walking, and Alpheo was far too smart a man not to realize exactly what that grim silence meant. He was a ruin.
"You fought bravely and worthily on the field, my lord," Alpheo said, placing a heavy, steady hand on the table. "You will always have my personal thanks for that day."
"Aye... I fought bravely, worthily, and vigorously," Thalien muttered, a bitter, mocking smile finally cutting through his sour expression. "I have officially lost count of how many times others have told me that exact phrase since I woke up in the sheets. Especially my household knight. You would think my given name was ’Bravely and Worthily’ by how many times the fool has repeated it to my face.I left him back home, if I heard one more time of that, I’d cut his tongue off."
The young man turned his head as he looked at his King. "Still, a fine lot of good that legendary bravery did for me. As things stand now, I cannot even mount a horse. I am forced to take a padded carriage like a delicate woman everywhere I need to go. And at every small rock or rut on the high road, Your Majesty, you would think a thousand iron needles were actively nesting inside my hips, biting into the bone, tearing at my flesh. And it is even worse with all this wretched cold."
Thalien let out a harsh, raspy breath, his knuckles whitening against the roaring lion handle of his cane. "Tell me, sire... what use is a warrior’s legendary worth when he cannot even stand to take a piss without a servant holding his elbow? It is one thing to be ancient and taken care of by your kin; it is another entirely to be still young, knowing every old man in the realm will be in better shape than you until the day you die."
The King found himself with nothing to say to that.
Thalien was smart enough to recognize the heavy, chilly silence that had instantly blanketed their corner of the table, and he shifted the topic before the air grew completely unbreathable.
"How about you, Your Grace?" the prince muttered, his tone shifting back to a forced neutrality. "Why are you sitting here with the broken, instead of out there dancing?"
"It is not for me, unfortunately," Alpheo replied, genuinely relieved that the conversation had swerved away from the ruined legs. "I have left the dancing to the younger, more nimble souls."
"Well, it seems to me that it is no longer your choice to make, sire," Thalien murmured.
He popped another small piece of bread into his mouth, using a grease-stained finger to point across the lawn. Alpheo followed the gesture. Lysandra was practically skittering across the grass toward them, her heavy wedding gown lifted slightly in her hands to keep from tripping, a wide, unstoppable smile fixed on her flushed face. She was clearly marching with a purpose, and that purpose was her King.
With immense, visible difficulty, Thalien began to hoist himself up from his chair.
’’My congratulations to the bride and the groom, sire.They are both a wonderful couple’’
Alpheo instinctively reached out a supportive hand, but the young fallen princeling sharply refused it with a stiff shake of his head. Gritting his teeth against the white-hot flash of pain that crossed his face, Thalien leaned heavily on his lion-headed cane, whispering something barely audible about needing the privy before hobbling off into the crowd, alone.
Alpheo watched him go, wishing he could have spoken more to him, perhaps to tell him that a sharp mind in many places mattered more than a strong leg.
He mayhaps should have told him a great deal of other things. Despite everything he treasured the man. He was sharp, intelligent and not worried to get himself dirty. Something that Alpheo could respect.
But he had no time to dwell on it, as suddenly, a pair of soft, determined hands grabbed him firmly by the forearm, completely shattering his thoughts and pulling him right out of his chair.