04/07/2023 - Wedding Day (1)

The Wedding Contests

The day of the wedding comes and all the guests gather at Torien Keep. They are welcomed by the host, Count Torien. Guests include all important people in the county and Prince Edmund Galandil of Cariele. He is on his way to a pilgrimage in the Five Peaks. Prince Sean Mhoried, younger son of Mhor Archibald, who was invited but chose to send Sean to represent him.

Liddell and Mathers Baird-MacGregor turn up even though they are mostly despised. Banquo finds himself drawn into an exchange of back-handed compliments with them, which he loses thanks to his limited wit. He sticks near to his friend Samuel and is careful for his own safety.

Tug-of-War

The first few days of the wedding are taken up by traditional celebration and contest events, including tossing the caber, tug-of-war, melee, archery and jousting.

The tug-of-war between MacRuaidhri and Allardice is the most interesting event of the first day. It is a very close and muddy affair, in which Cormac Allardice and his determination to impress his new bride is the deciding factor is giving final victory to his clan.

Afterwards a dirty and exhausted Cormac hugs Dougal MacRuaidhri, saying it was a good contest and offers to get his brother-in-law a drink. Guests agree that relations between the clans are definitely improving.

Melee

Banquo signs up for the melee, to show off his fighting skills. He does well initially, then finds himself in a fight with his relation, Mathers Baird-MacGregor. Although Banquo is the better fighter, Mathers cheats, cutting Banquo with a hidden blade that weakens him. Only blunt weapons are supposed to be used in the melee.

Banquo manages to defeat Mathers purely though grit and determination, much to his pleasure. However, he is so exhausted that he loses, coming second, to the final winner of the contest, Fraser MacRuaidhri.

Banquo is frustrated that he is unable to reveal Mathers as a cheater, as Mathers has enough time to dispose of his knife. He is glad though that the blade was not poisoned.

Archery

Malcolm Laphroaig takes part in the archery, as that is his main weapon. He gets through to the quarter finals by coming second in qualifying groups, but is then defeated.

Jousting

Banquo, despite his injuries in the melee, decide to still take part in the jousting as planned the next day. He does quite well, but his injury drags him down. After a few rounds, he falls off his horse and retires. The crowd though, and Count Torien, are impressed by his bravery and determination and give him a big round of applause. His Knight Guardian patron, Sir Simon Montrose, looks on with pride and congratulates him.

Cormac Has Doubts

Samuel is kept busy with best man duties. The night before the wedding, he is tasked with looking after Cormac and making sure he does not get too drunk. Cormac then reveals a vulnerable side, admitting he knows he is a useless leader of the clan and he just wants to hunt and drink. He thinks Samuel could do a better job and finds it too easy to let mother do everything.

Cormac starts to drink heavily. He becomes maudlin and all his self-doubts come to the surface. He is frightened that he will be a terrible husband and worse father. He does not want to disappoint his bride and he so deeply loves her.

It takes all of Samuel’s charm and persuasion to stop his brother getting so drunk that it would ruin the wedding the next day. He is able to cheer Cormac up and get him to go to bed.

Premonition of Disaster

Samuel is exhausted but decides to sit in a chair by the fire in his brother’s room for a while to make sure he gets to sleep. As he gazes into the flames, the fire seems to die rather quickly. He then senses a disturbing premonition that the wedding may not go well the next day.

The Day of the Wedding

The day starts with Cormac in a bad mood due to a hangover when Samuel comes to wake him up. His mother Olivia comes in and makes a snide remark at Cormac. This provokes a blazing row between the two of them, which is only settled when she leaves the room.

Events are behind schedule by the time Samuel has got Cormac up and fully dressed in his clan regalia. In a disaster of mistiming, Cormac passes his bride in the corridor, which is a bad omen and has the superstitious house staff and guests muttering. Samuel presses on regardless and tries to make the best of things.

Fraser Has a Word

As the wedding ceremony is beginning, Fraser manages to get near to Nairne, much to Logan’s annoyance. They seem to chat for a few minutes, Nairne shakes her head and he leaves.

The Ceremony

Nairne looks stunning in her wedding dress and although Cormac stumbles over his wedding vows, the ceremony is generally a success. After such a tense start, everyone is so pleased that things go well and there much happiness, relief and crying of women.

Samuel’s best man speech goes down well, despite public speaking not being his strong point. Count Torien, as the host, makes a small speech to give his blessing. He is not a great speaker either, but it is a good speech, probably written by his County Minister Malcolm Greenwood.

Wedding Feast

A huge feast then takes place following the ceremony. The food and drink are excellent and the Count’s servants provide good service. Malcolm Laphroaig sings songs and tells stories while playing the lute, which goes down well.

Logan is still a little nervous and stays near his sister as her designated protector. He also keeps an eye on his nephew Fraser, who does not look happy and constantly chats with his gang of like-minded friends.

Logan asks his sister when he gets a moment what Fraser said to her before the ceremony. She says he offered to take her away if she did not want to go ahead with the wedding. She told him she does want to get married and he left. Logan tells her he would have done the same, but the fact she has chosen to go through with it means he will back her all the way.

Samuel finally starts to relax as most of his duties are over. The only thing left is to make sure Cormac makes it to the bedroom sober enough to perform his “marital duties”. His moody younger brother, Gordon, who has not been a big fan of the wedding either, seems to finally relax and start taking part in the drinking. Sam remains haunted by the premonition he had last night in the fire.

Drinking Contest

Later on in the evening, when most of the food has been consumed, a drinking contest spontaneously breaks out between Allardice and MacRhaudhri. Samuel and Logan find themselves forced to take part, despite their reservations.

Clan Allardice has a reputation for taking their drink and Cormac's capacity for ale is huge. However, they are unable to drink the MacRhaudhris under the table, thanks to Logan managing to keep up with them. As the contest drags on and clan honour starts to become at stake, Count Torien intervenes to call it a draw. He reminds Cormac that he will need to keep his strength for the bed chamber. This goes down well with the crowd, disarming the tension and bringing the contest to an end.

Finally, Cormac takes his bride to bed, after a final drink with his brothers Samuel and Gordon. This brings an end to the evening and guests start to go to bed. Sean Mhoried heads home with his entourage, having said and done very little.

Now drunker than he planned, Logan finds a lady companion to take to his room for the night.

Death in the Night

Samuel goes to bed hoping that he has worried over nothing and soon falls asleep, feeling tired but relieved. During the night though he wakes up, feeling groggy and confused, but sure that he heard something outside his room, which is opposite to Cormac’s room. He initially thinks this is Cormac consummating his marriage, but then he hears the door open.

He pulls himself out of bed in his long-johns and stumbles to the door, nodding. He sees the door to Cormac’s room open. Fighting his drowsiness, Sam staggers over to see what is going on.

He sees Nairne lying on the floor of the bedroom, covered in blood. Cormac is fast asleep on the bed.

Attacked in his Bedroom

In his room not far away from this, Logan is asleep with his female guest, Lilly. He vaguely wakes up when he hears someone opening the door to his room, but before he can do much more, someone stabs him in the arm. Logan makes out that his attacker appears to be one of the Allardice clan.

Lilly screams at this and gets up. The intruder cuts her down, but this gives Logan a chance to grab something to defend himself.

Samuel hears the screams and heads in that direction, while Malcolm and Banquo are both woken by the noise and go to investigate. They find a number of guests have been woken and are confused about what is going on, but the Companions head for the source of the noise.

Gordon Allardice

Samuel arrives first and sees his younger brother, Gordon, wielding an odd-looking dagger and trying to kill Logan, who is using a candlestick to defend himself. He notices that Gordon’s fingers have gone white with the intensity with which he is holding the dagger.

Samuel plans to try to stop his brother, but is overwhelmed by a wave of unnatural tiredness and bumps into Gordon, passing out.

Gordon begins to shout abuse at the “MacRuaidhri scum” and attacks fiercely with his dagger, wounding Logan again. The cut seems to cause more pain that expected and Logan notices that the blade of the dagger appears to be clean despite cutting him twice. Gordon’s hand and arm, though, are covered in blood.

Cursed Weapon

Banquo and Malcolm arrive and Banquo, who instinctively picked up his sword, attacks Gordon from behind. Logan takes this opportunity to belt his attacker around the head and knock him down. Logan then reaches down to disarm the Allardice man, but the dagger is still being gripped too fiercely. He instead reaches for his sword.

Banquo then wakes Samuel up, who immediately realises that Logan is going to cut his brother’s hand off. He cries out saying no, but Logan slashes down with his sword and severs Gordon’s hand from his arm in a single blow.

The dagger rolls out of Gordon’s hand. They see that it is ornate but odd weapon, with a screaming skull at its pommel. The metal blade has a multi-hued tint. Malcolm tells them he recognises it from legends as a cursed dagger, forged from dark steal.

End of Episode One