Hours After the Wedding

Before the sun set, the servants set to work transforming the throne room into a banquet hall greater than any in the Stormlands. Men carried long tables into the room through the double doors, placing them parallel to the pedestal upon which the throne sat. Before it they sat another table, and lined it with chairs for the Durrandons and the Lannisters in attendance.

Servers brought pitchers upon pitchers of ale and wine from the kitchens, preparing each table for the wedding guests. Fragrances, exotic and domestic, began to emanate from the kitchens as the main dishes were prepared-- boar, as promised by Lord Trant, from the Stormwood-- with some of the spices procured for the feast from Essos, primarily their firmest trading partners in Lys.

One-by-one dishes began to emerge to sit, steaming, on the grand buffet table at the center of the room, covered in gold and crimson tablecloth. Boar chops, seasoned with rosemary and served with wild onions. Apple pies, lemon cakes, and candied plums followed, along with acorn squash spiced with cinnamon and pumpkin baked with sugar. A cauldron of potage made from wheat, leeks, carrots, and scallions sat alongside a small mountain of bowls and iron spoons. Bakers provided hot, freshly-baked loaves of bread. The autumn harvests had come in, and the foods reflected it.

As servants busied themselves at the tables, the minstrels arrived and began to tune their lute, test their flutes, and tighten the head of the drum in preparation for a long night of playing.

At long last the first of the guests returned to the transformed throne room, where the candles were replaced and burning brightly on rearranged candelabras. Two new braziers burned behind and to the sides of the royal table, illuminating the guards milling about in the back of the room.

The minstrels chose their first song-- My Lady Wife, a fitting enough song to begin the wedding feast. As people sat and ate, the tunes turned more bawdy. By the third or forth horn of ale, they had turned to Bessa the Barmaid and, naturally, The Bear and the Maiden Fair. Ever more drunk men began to sing along, and the atmosphere became one of frivolity.