He didn’t manage to answer. The bell in the belfry began to toll deafeningly, striking ten times. Then trumpets sounded a loud, brassy and slightly cacophonous fanfare. The crowd of guests was parted by blue and red guardsmen forming a double file. The marshal of the court appeared beneath the portico in the entrance to the palace wearing a gold chain around his neck and holding a staff as a big as a fence post. Behind him strode heralds and behind the heralds, seneschals. And behind the seneschals, wearing a sable calpac and holding a sceptre, marched Belohun, King of Kerack, in bony and wiry person. At his side walked a willowy young blonde in a veil, who could only have been the royal betrothed, and in the very near future his wife and queen. The blonde was wearing a snow-white dress and was bedecked in diamonds, perhaps rather too lavishly, in a rather nouveau-riche and rather tasteless style. Like the king, she bore on her shoulders an ermine cloak which was held by pages.

The royal family followed on behind the royal couple, at least a dozen paces behind the pages holding the train, which spoke volumes about their status. Egmund was there, naturally, and beside him a man as fair-skinned as an albino, who could only have been his brother Xander. Beyond the brothers walked the rest of the relatives: several men, several women, and a few teenaged boys and girls, evidently the king’s legitimate and illegitimate offspring.

Amid the bowing male and low-curtsying female guests, the royal procession reached its destination, which was a raised platform somewhat resembling a scaffold. Two thrones had been placed on the platform, which was roofed over by a canopy and covered at the sides by tapestries. The king and the bride sat down on the thrones. The rest of the family had to stand.

The trumpets assaulted the ears a second time with their brassy braying. The marshal of the court—brandishing his arms like a conductor in front of an orchestra—encouraged the guests to shout, cheer and toast the duo. The guests and courtiers tried to outdo each other by showering the soon-to-be-wed couple from all sides with wishes for eternal good health, happiness, success, long, longer and even longer lives. King Belohun maintained his haughty and huffy expression, and only demonstrated his pleasure with the good wishes, compliments and praises being sung to him and his bride-to-be by subtle twitches of his sceptre.