Owain let his gaze sweep the central chamber of the cathedral, cataloguing the state of the assembled court with the same cold precision he used to assess a battlefield before committing his forces.
The lords and their families occupied the front rows of pews, arranged by rank and station, with their knights and retainers filling the rows behind them. Further back, the wealthy merchants and guild masters who had been invited to attend sat in clusters, their fine clothing a half-step below the nobility in quality but compensating with an enthusiasm for color and embellishment that bordered on the garish.
Too many of them, Owain realized, had been torn between dressing for a funeral and dressing for the wedding to follow, and while he appreciated that they had dressed to celebrate his ascendance, at the moment, many of them appeared as though they were celebrating his father's demise.
