The tribal drums, kindly offered and used by the Voghondai's guests, were pounding and pounding in a relentless heartbeat, while the southron flutes wailed and the harps sang their bright, dizzying melodies. The roaring sound drifted off into the afternoon sky as the guests danced, ate, drank, and laughed with abandon.
There was great, unbridled merriment all around the palace gardens, the scandalous details of the missing priest completely lost beneath the heavy gallery of music echoing from below the great nut tree.
Was there ever such genuine merriment at my own marriage? the King wondered idly, watching the spinning colors of the court. Somehow, his memory gave him a flat, definitive no.
