Tales of Gallanol : Ch.6 The Party (Part 1)

Chapter 6 : The Party

Part 1

 

     As it was still winter the party was held in the Great Hall, at the southwest end of the Palace on the third level. The gigantic wooden doors were left firmly closed against the cold. The Great Hall was massive in every sense. The ceiling was high above, supported by four rows of symmetrical Creadd style columns in fawn Agal stone. It was truly a palace fit for gods because of its size. Around the walls were carvings of Creadd society, on a smaller scale than on the outside of the Palace, but there were more numerous representations as a result. There were also trees, hills, and animals represented. The Creadds had been nature lovers. They had worshipped the outdoors in a sense. The floor was intricate and symmetrically patterned marble in many colours -.orange, red, purple, blue, turquoise, brown, yellow and cream. There were tables placed symmetrically around the Great Hall – some for couples, others for groups of six or twelve.

 

     Deneldinhew had bought foods from the Caerellans to show his goodwill. Palace servants prepared it and offered it at intervals to the guests. Bleddyn liked it. He had come north expecting hardship and fighting. Instead an easy victory, not properly earned, but very welcome! And now a party! It was as if they had never left Emywid. He felt at home.

 

     At first the place had been empty, and Bleddyn had wondered if the locals had boycotted it in a last act of bravado and defiance: he was wrong of course. The Caerellans were going to make a good impression on the High King because it was in their interest to do so. Bleddyn was pleased. Wounds were already healed. Caerella had good reason to welcome Deneldinhew. He was Gallanol’s future! A strong High King meant a strong Gallanol, and a lot of trade. Even Martainia would remain tributary if Gallanol was united and prosperous.

 

     There were all the great merchant families over the age of about sixteen or seventeen from Caerella, and rich civil servants and their wives. There were numerous young women from these families. The most attractive ones were, as Bleddyn noted, the ones who wore the latest fashions. It was the same in Caerella as it was in Emywid, Ellion, Laer, Wedol, Dalint or Gorn. Current female trend were for tight, body-hugging dresses of varying styles. Some were in two pieces, some were buttoned, others completely one pieced, which they had to climb into. They came, generally, to the knee. Below that were tights in winter and comfortable furry skin boots. The dress colours and patterns were commonly plain. Many of them were striped, others completely one colour. Favourite colours seemed to be greens and blues. Long hair was tied up prettily at the back and left loose and fringed at the front, so that exquisite ears were uncovered, but bounded occasionally by rogue strands of hair. The most daring ladies had dabs of facial colouring on their cheeks and their lips, and even around their eyes, but these were only an elite few. Less fashionable ladies wore the looser long dresses, and long, centrally parted hair of years not long since past, but often watered down and not provocatively styled in deference to more recent trends. These women tended to have something wrong with them in Bleddyn’s view. They were either plump, large breasted, too tall, or freckled, or they had curly hair, which did not really fit with modern styles. A lot of the older women up to about forty years of age had opted for the new fashions, although Bleddyn had to admit some of that age group who stuck rigidly to the older styles were rather stunning.

 

     Bleddyn’s attention was turned when he noticed Owen and Deneldinhew enter the Great Hall. He almost felt like laughing when he saw them approach some stiff-looking merchants in greys, blacks and whites, who, for a moment, seemed not to want to meet the High King. Obviously awed by his physical presence, they soon decided that they must make a good impression.

 

     Bleddyn looked around for Jovian. Owen had asked him to keep an eye on him. Jovian was sitting a couple of tables away, talking earnestly it seemed, to a couple of young Caerella men. It was unusual to find him in a sociable mood, Bleddyn thought. To him Jovian was an outsider, a loner. His appearance, all in black once again, was, Bleddyn thought, unsociable and elitist. What Bleddyn disliked about him was his distant elitism, which Bleddyn thought gave him a violent and wary aura. Bleddyn was sorry that Owen should have taken it upon himself to persecute the man, but Jovian had no place in the High King’s staff. He had no great ability, and he certainly had no humility or sense of taste.

 

     Bleddyn believed that the sooner Jovian was ejected from the High King’s society the better it would be for Owen, and the better it would be for Jovian. That Jovian was getting on well with the locals might be a good excuse to get him dismissed, if Owen suggested the right things to Deneldinhew. The incident at Girithon was another good reason why Jovian should be ejected as soon as possible from the High King’s company. Deneldinhew had admitted his liking for Ywain only about a year ago to Bleddyn, and he happened to know that Owen desired to marry Ywain to Deneldinhew. Bleddyn leaned back against one of the pillars, took another sip from his goblet, and continued to watch everything around him.

 

     As the Great Hall filled up, the party warmed. For a short time a Caerellan balladeer sang love songs in a clear and pure accented Elladeini voice, strumming his guitar gently, and was backed by a couple of soft violins. The man was very young, only about twenty, and dressed in the most fashionable Gallanolian styles. He wore striped green and blue tights, blue shoes, and a tight fitting pale green sleeveless tunic, which came down only to the centre of his hips. He was beardless, his black hair was short and his arms were bare. He held the attention of the younger generation, and when he had finished Deneldinhew went and congratulated him. The High King enjoyed music. Afterwards more violinists and some other instruments played stately dance music, and many couples danced.

 

     Bleddyn watched as one of Jovian’s Elladeini companions left the table and went over to greet four young women in their mid twenties who he obviously knew. He brought them over to the table, and Jovian offered them drinks. They grew merry and were joined by another friend.

 

     Owen came up to Bleddyn and said good humouredly, “Our friend seems to have more in common with Caerella than Emywid!” He had a twinkle in his eye.

 

     “Has Deneldinhew noticed yet?” asked Bleddyn.

 

     “I do not think so, not yet. I will mention it though,” he replied. “This could be what we are looking for. I have been speaking to Eric just now, and he agrees with us.” Owen moved off urgently in another direction.

 

     Jovian stood up unsteadily to dance with one of the young women, taller than the rest and very fine featured. She was obviously pleased to accept his offer, and she led him onto the dance floor. She was a graceful dancer, Bleddyn noted, and he wondered who she was.

 

     Deneldinhew and Prince Llewelyn were also on the dance floor. They each danced with numerous partners, pursuing their object of gaining local favour. Both were in fashionable blue clothes. Hew, Rhodri and Morgan were over on the far side, on a table with some older Caerellans. Eric Cadwallon was sitting on a far table with a couple of young men he seemed to know. He had travelled to Elladein before on trade business.

 

     After a while, when Bleddyn looked for Jovian, he noticed that his partner had returned to his table and she was waiting for him. He had obviously gone to relieve himself. Bleddyn then noticed Cynan in green and black, angling across the dance floor towards the young woman, and he instinctively knew this was part of Owen’s plan. Cynan politely asked the young woman for a dance. She shook her head. She was obviously very keen on Jovian. Cynan grabbed her arm and tugged, pretending no doubt that he was drunk. At that moment Jovian was approaching. He rushed angrily towards the table, and furiously pushed Cynan over.

 

     Immediately Idwal and a couple of Emywid White Guard officers flung themselves at Jovian, restraining him, although he no longer needed restraining. Of course now that he was being restrained Jovian was resisting.

 

     Bleddyn looked over to Deneldinhew to see if he had been watching. Skilfully Owen had drawn his attention to the event just as Jovian had pushed Cynan. It would look to Deneldinhew that Jovian was misbehaving, causing trouble. Bleddyn smiled. It had worked. They were beginning to change Deneldinhew’s mind about Jovian.

 

     Jovian walked away. Idwal and the White Guards let go of Jovian. Eric Cadwallon walked over to Jovian and, Bleddyn presumed, told him to behave himself. Jovian and the young woman left the party. Not everyone had noticed. The party went on.

 

     Later Bleddyn asked Owen if he knew who the young woman was. “Yes, unfortunately she’s the daughter of one of the most important merchants in Caerella – Hew Dunough – someone we ought not anger. No doubt though, he will not favour Jovian. I hope not anyway. Who would want a son in law like that?”

 

 

 

      “Why did they pick on you like that?” asked Rowarna, the daughter of Hew Dunough, as Jovian led her hurriedly out of the Palace and down the steep Agal stairway to the wall and the barracks. They could hear the sounds of merriment emanating from the barracks below.

 

      “They hate me,” he replied venomously. He was visibly upset. “It’s Owen Gireald! He means me no good. He wants to ruin my career. He thinks I am no good for the High King, and he controls them all. It seems to me that he’s the power behind Deneldinhew.”

 

      “Why does he hate you? Is he jealous?” she asked sympathetically. Jovian remained silent and put his arm around her as they passed the White Guards at the gateway. “Where are we going?” she asked.

 

      “To your place for now. I must think. I need to stay away from them.” He had not asked.

 

      “Rowarna said, “We hardly know each other.”

 

      “Then we must get to know each other better,” he said, and she turned to him and kissed him. They hugged tenderly below the wall.

 

      “Come, it’s cold,” he said, and she led him along the wide road below the wall, which took them to the first peak of Caerella, the richest district, where House Dunough had its city dwelling.

 

      It was a long walk. The road led them past the houses of the rich and began to wind up the steep first peak, where there were more trees and the houses were larger, more spread out, and there were snow covered gardens. It reminded Jovian of the steep precipitous climb to House Gireald in Girithon. House Dunough was perched in the centre of the first peak in the dip in the elongated peak. Its grounds fell away behind it towards the northeast and the Inner City Wall lower down the mountain. It was too dark to see beyond, but the lights of households where people were still awake beyond the Inner Wall could be seen, and Rowarna pointed to the lights of the guardhouses of the Outer City Wall. “On a clear day you can see the plain to the North for many miles, right into the pine forests of Nardyrria,” said Rowarna, “but its not all flat.”

 

     Servants let them into the house, expressing surprise that Rowarna had not returned by carriage, but without surprise that she had returned with a man. Later that night, long after they had heard her father, mother and brother return from the Party, Jovian told her the immediate reason for Owen’s hatred. She was surprised, disappointed that she was not the only one, and yet why should she be surprised? She had only known Jovian for a few hours herself. Indeed she was lucky. There was no way Jovian would be going back to Girithon, and for now she had him all to herself.

 

     “But he dislikes me for more than that, and so do the others,” Jovian went on. “I don’t really share their devotion to Unification, and I don’t conform to their club standards. I am not suitable, although until now Deneldinhew only showed me welcome.”

 

     “Why did you want to serve Deneldinhew in the first place? You could have stayed in Gorn, or you could have gone to work for King Lewden in Paldein.”

 

     “I was impressed by what I heard of the man. King Alentin said he admired him greatly, and of course King Alentin is the ruler my own Kingdom of Galdellyn, so I work for him and follow his orders. Deneldinhew is the High King and there is no way Lewden or Lew could have prevented his gaining power. Politically I had no strong opinions to begin with,” replied Jovian.

 

     “But now they are turning him against you,” suggested Rowarna. “Why don’t you stay here with me?”

 

      “I cannot stay here. I have given up hope of a good career with Deneldinhew. I still serve Alentin and I am expected to fight when necessary. Deneldinhew is a good man. I will stay with his army. Who knows, I may survive Owen Gireald.”