Some time has passed and Mulls has not been idle in her "mission" duties.
The High Princess Michiana has been sponsoring gatherings for the study of the book that had traveled from the old library to a beach across the channel and back. The cover was cracking and sections of pages were falling out, but some well-heeled Ladies that were taking an interest in its contents had commissioned several copies of the book to be produced. It was more an art project than transcription, for no one really reads or writes, so the commoners that did the job just made the letters, words, and paragraphs look the same, the copies being more faithful to the original than our educated Catholic monks could produce. This meant that any non-reading person wanting to know the intent of the book had to come to meetings and hear Mullicynda or Weslyn read the stories.
Michiana was acquainted with Weslyn through his early employer, Lanolylc, who was happy to come to the High Princess' bed often. There was a mutual appreciation of what each could bring in gravitas to the other, but the entrance of Weslyn into the situation was something more than distracting. Mulls needed another reader and her son, whose relationship was more than a strange concept to the Convocation, was an engaging reader, bringing the book's stories and pronouncements to life, as if Kiyami the author was standing before each gathering.
The High Princess was beyond mesmerized with Weslyn, to put it mildly.
There were a group of about two dozen Ladies, with a sprinkling of baroness and duchess that came less faithfully. Michiana was always present and often led discussions on what was read, ramifications that were discovered, and even a few arguments over how the contents of the book should alter the affairs of the Convocation.
Even before the book came to light, traditions were already changing. The Matrons, who used to spend their energy manipulating their assigned Ladies, had begun to be more deferential to the increasing aristocratic regency, who were making their own decisions over their households. Deaths on birthing tables had significantly reduced and the fables that Ladies only birthed further Ladies and dames were replaced with the reality of boys and girls both being born to Firsthome's royalty. No one knew exactly what to do with the boys, so they were being farmed out to common families for raising in lieu of any other solution. Girls continued to be raised by the Convocation school.
The book made clear that parents raised their own children and that there was no Convocation nursery or school during the life of the first Queen Saradyo. Women and men "married" in some sort of vaguely recorded ceremony, after young lives of celibacy, and a "husband" and "wife" and their birthed children lived together as a "family". The discussion around this pre-Convocation social form was particularly heated, the gatherings dividing into a number of camps, all the way from wholesale "conservative" rejection of marriage and family, to a few nervous Ladies who felt quite ready to toss the Convocation standard aside and embrace the form that Kiyami, interpreted by Weslyn, described. Michiana kept herself in the middle area of these divisions, though was intrigued enough to side at times with the "Marriage camp" as it called itself.
"I find the whole idea repugnant!" This from a more prudish Duchess. "It is strange enough that some want the contests scaled back and royalty made hereditary, but the idea that some burley consort should have any ability to influence a Lady's daughters is unthinkable!"
Michiana nodded. "The ideals of marriage would result in disruptive alterations to our ways. I, for one, would be hard-pressed to be a proper teacher to the girls I have birthed. I'm happy and relieved to hand my daughters over to the nursery for their education. I couldn't keep up with my social schedule if I had little ones about, looking to me for their needs."
"However," one of the radicals piped up, "Kiyami makes it clear that parents should be the prime influence in the lives of their children..."
The prudish Duchess flinched. "There is that word again - parents. How could a healthy Lady choose only one consort to..." she spat the word out like bile, "'father' the next generation of Ladies? What contesting tips could a man give that would be anything more than ignorantly misinformed? How could this improve on our Convocation school?"
Another radical piped up. "Kiyami speaks of no schools or contests, much less the Convocation itself. The Blessed Queen Saradyo had daughters and sons, whom she and her brother King Treychaen raised with the help of servants."
"King?!?" It was spat out. "I don't have words for the abomination to speak so flippantly! You would have us tear down centuries of calm and settled society to institute these families that obviously failed and were were replaced by ruling Ladies in every place that enjoys civilization."
Weslyn, always wise to keep himself out of these womanly debates in the past, could be silent no longer. "You mean Waykeep, Duchess? That village is outside of your civilization? The covenanted families who still protect this 'civilization' you revere?"
Mulls laid her hand on Wes' knee to stay him. It didn't help.
The Duchess turned red. "Another of these wild-men speaks! He and that perverse sport-fighter come to destroy everything beautiful about our lives. This is why men should quietly serve and defer. The Commoners Council and this book are destined to destroy the tranquility all enjoy."
"Some enjoy." Wes dropped it like a rock into the center of the gathering and there was an awkward moment. Changes that had already come to the Convocation were ones instigated by some of the Ladies present, rejecting traditional Matronly persuasion and instigating their own preferences.
The Duchess could only huff, her face now near-violet and her breath seemingly strangled. No words seemed appropriate for a man actually countering a highly-placed Convocation Lady.
Michiana gave the only man in the room a sly grin and a wink.
"You certainly put the Duchess in her place." The gathering had concluded and Michiana had beckoned Wes to follow her.
The high princess and Weslyn ended up closeted in her private apartment, not far from her still made bed.
She was getting a little closer to the man who was nervously working his way to the far end of the couch. "My man Lanolylc would have punished you severely for such an outburst to one so highly placed and esteemed."
"Lucky for me, he isn't my employer anymore." The man gulped. "There are some perks to holding a seat on the Commoner's Council. We are peers now."
Michiana inched closer. "I suppose that could be true, but holding such a rank would never give you access to my private chambers, much less so close to my bed." It was too dark to really see well, but perhaps the high princess was leering. She had already kick off one pump and was preparing to kick off the other. "That is reserved for a different class of man, and one of my choosing."
"It was you who invited me here." Wes was almost uncharacteristically timid. He had no experience with Convocation royalty and their easy quasi-sexual confidence. "I am one of those 'celibate' men that Kiyami wrote about. You would have to marry me before you could bed me."
Mich breathed out an almost petulant breath. "I thought as much. However, that is one of your more alluring qualities. No girl's consort, you." Her words didn't stop her from kicking away the final pump and coming even closer. "We may need to explore this idea of marriage more closely."
The high princess wasn't easily redirected. To her, this marriage thing was only an slightly extended foreplay to a traditional Convocation bedding. The whole concept of a holy covenant didn't seem to be part of her mindset.
"My own parents never married. Their conception of me was more of a Lady's tryst, done before my parents understood the old ways."
These revelations didn't deter Michiana's advances in the slightest. She seemed to channel the hungry cat, eyeing her next meal. Her reserve and deliberating caution shown in the gathering were completely left at her apartment threshold.
Weslyn leapt to his feet, there being no more space on the couch in which to escape. "I have kept the propriety of Waykeep all my days, Lady."
The woman brushed her bangs back in frustration and hissed. "Never has any man resisted me so stridently! It's like...like you don't desire joining with me!" She pursed her lips. "I will make the time more than pleasurable."
The man had his hands out before him as if he were warding off an animal. "You are very beautiful, but there are other considerations before entering a marriage. We don't really even know each other!"
Mich slumped over the back of the couch. "What is there to know? I am the high princess, next in line to the throne, and I have summoned you to my bed! Any man would be ravenous to have this opportunity and brag about his accomplishment to his fellows!" She curled her feet under herself in consternation. "I don't understand you."
"That is my point," Wes breathed out in relief. "You don't know me well enough to enter into a relationship like marriage." He began to pace about the room, carefully avoiding the bed. "We need to get to know each other first."
"Fine," she sighed with resignation. "I hope this doesn't take too long. I am already beginning to lose interest."
Weslyn smiled. "That is a first requirement for a good marriage, I'm told. It rides out the initial wave of infatuation. A union must build on something more enduring."
Michiana threw up her arms in resignation. "Whatever."
The attitude of men towards marriage seems to have parallels no matter what culture approaches it. If a man is looking forward to his upcoming marriage, his tendency will always be to do it as soon as possible. As this may take a long time to arrange, the less-excited groom may be willing to hold off for months and months as the bride glides gently through the defining phase of her existence, battling various mothers and wedding professionals to make this one event the most special moment of her life.
Michiana is the high princess, and even though this ceremony was going to be done in seclusion far from Convocation eyes, she had commissioned a dress beyond the avarice of accomplished beauty contest royalty. As this was the first marriage to take place in hundreds of years, the party needed to negotiate how this was to proceed.
For his part, Weslyn was happy to do a perfunctory Waykeep sort of wedding, shoehorned somewhere between executing invaders in the pass and hunting for the game that somehow kept everyone fed. I'm sure the brides of convocation warriors commiserated with each other over the beautiful spectacle that they didn't know they were missing. In this case, Wes was missing large chunks of life as Enis and Mich did battle. Mulls ended up serving as as some sort of mediator in all this.
"This is completely impractical." Enis appeared to say something like this every few minutes.
Michiana's regular response was "If we are bringing back the glory of Saradyo's union, we need to make it unforgettable!"
The man would squeeze his eyes shut. "We will never be able to have another wedding. All the money and cloth and food would be used up." It would always end with "I need to go and train," and Michiana would keep doing exactly what she wanted in his absence, expect that Mulls preached some half-hearted moderation.
"It just seems so excessive. No one is really going to see this."
Mich scoffed. "I will see it! A standard must be set especially when royalty is involved. This is being done in the palace and a certain grandeur is required."
It might have been interesting if Weslyn weighed in with his thoughts, but the groom was nowhere to be found. He wisely made excuses for non-existent Council business and was being more and more scarce. As long as this was being handled with Royal resources, he deferred to that.
Establishing new traditions was a sticking point. Wes was a proponent of massive disjoints toward austere Waykeep methods, where Michiana liked the idea of gradual moves toward older ways, moves nearly glacial and measured in centuries. Things were already changing; though not fast enough for Wes and a Conclave, much too quickly for Mich and her beloved Convocation.
In the end, the wedding was a strange admixture. In deference to Wes, there was a marriage at all which he felt pressed into, and Enis officiated. For the most part, Michiana got her way in pageantry, her groom kneeling before her during the entire ceremony, and complete secrecy.
For all the world to see, the High Princess had successfully bedded the most difficult to catch and prized man on Firsthome and was keeping him uncharacteristically close to her.