by A. R. Henle
The first time Stevan had glanced at it, his eyes had traced the intertwining lines of green and blue without end. His body swayed as the blue called to him, so strong and straight no matter how the green swung in loops around.
Amara stretched up onto her tiptoes and covered his eyes with her hands. The sudden darkness sent him whirling and he wound up on the ground in a heap.
Just the memory kept him wary and disinclined to glance too close.
Instead, he looked up and away. If his gaze happened to pass in the direction of the nearby village, so much the better. Distant sounds and smells indicated the villagers woke late to the day even as the camp did. The sun still hung low in the sky, not too warm yet. Although goose bumps formed along his arms, shoulders, and legs, he waited a moment or two.
Long enough to spot the gap between trees where the trail led over to the village. Perhaps Gisela slept still. Alone, or had she sought someone else after he declined?
A light touch on his back broke his reverie.
“That will wait. First let us wake to the day and place.” She jerked her head toward the open area behind her tent. Where he wore only a loincloth, she’d covered her body with a plain, unbound tunic that fell to mid-calf and halfway down her forearms. Even so, she shivered. Her limbs seemed little more than bone and thin layers of muscles beneath strained lavender skin although he knew, as the day progressed, she’d grow more flush and rosy. As though surviving the night stole from her and the day gave back.
As soon as they reached the cleared space she started on a course of stretches. No words, just movement.
He fell into the patterns a few beats behind her. This represented progress. The first two days, she’d had to stop between exercises so that he could catch up.
Now the routine had begun to seep into his bones. Starting slow then speeding up and back down.
Feet on the ground, reach high. Arms out, wide, as the branches of the tree. Reach, reach for the sky.
Trace the paths of moon and sun, leaning to the east then the west.
Turn in a circle. Become a bird, with arms rising, rippling. Feel the burn in the muscles as shoulders and back, chest and arms all engage.
Sink low and adore the earth. Belly down, arms and legs up. Roll and ripple again, lifting chest lifting legs. Raise a leg, lower it over the other then back. Same on the other side.
More variations. Lift and stretch. Contract and release.
Sweat covered him, as his exertions warmed the air near as much as the sun rising above. His body became an extension of the earth, all appendages. From easy breathing, he passed to dragging in deep breaths and feeling the muscles of his belly expand to take in a greater capacity of air.
At which point, movement left and he lay prone on the earth his feet and exertion had worn bare. Let a different warmth seep up into him.
A stillness.
Darkness, as his eyes closed. Yet new awareness filled him. Bit by bit, portions of the world impinged upon him. Made him aware of their stillness and movement.
Bees. Flies. Ants.
Birds.
Cats in the woods, hunting.
Dogs in the village.
Humans, many many humans. Footsteps on the earth. Hard here, heavy there, and . . .
Oh, warm and light. Bouncing, yet with a connection to the element below in every press of heel and toe.
Gisela, rising. No sense of anyone near. Just her.
A stiff finger rapped his head.
He jolted, all connection with the earth lost. Rubbing the sore spot with the back of a hand, he rose to his knees. His breath came in uneven heaves. All his earlier grouchiness returned, body suddenly chill with the absence of the earth and the brush of air along his sweaty skin.
“What’d you do that for?”
“You’re learning an awareness of the world, that’s wonderful.” She dropped to kneel opposite him, tunic hem fluttering against the dirt. Only a few glimmers of moisture shone on her forehead. A few strands of white hair had escaped her braid, but otherwise she remained much as she always was. “But it’s important never to go so far as to completely give up sense of self as well. Spirits cannot live on wind alone.”
Stevan shook his head, her words so at odds with his experience. “That wasn’t what I was doing.”
“No? You didn’t seep deep into earth?” She patted the ground.
“Not deep.” A faint ache settled between his shoulders, so he rolled them to keep his muscles loose.
“Then what were you doing?”
“Checking on the future princess.”
“Very well.” Amara tilted her head to the side and gave a half smile. “You could have stayed with her last night, or brought her to the tent here. I would have turned a blind eye.”
“No, it would’ve been wrong.” He pulled back, stretching his arms behind and clasping his wrists. To further exercise his shoulders, true, but also to resist the sudden wish to leap back in time and change his actions. “Not when I knew things about her that she didn’t and had no chance of learning until after.”
Amara startled. Her mouth open and shut once, twice, three times. Eyes big, she swallowed so hard a big lump passed down her throat. Her head drooped, neck extending and shoulders rolling down.
“I hadn't . . .” Her voice lowered, to a mere whisper. Shaking herself, she returned to her former posture—but with a hint of moisture in her eyes. “Hold that kind of thought when we return to the palace, for there are too few who would agree with you. Even I have lost so much that I did not think as you at first.”
“She is the princess, is she not?” Sudden fear rose in his mind, that he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion and Amara had her eye on someone else. That would mean he’d pulled back for nothing. More, he would have to escort the other woman to the palace, and then rush back by the full moon to give Gisela a chance to offer again or offer himself.
One night, nothing more than a set of dances, yet the way they’d matched each other mattered as much or more than the reason he’d come here. Hardly anything he’d have imagined might strike him, but so it had.
“Oh yes, she is a princess.” Amara gave a sharp nod, smile kind. “At least, she will be when she agrees.”
Stevan hadn’t wasted his moral qualms. He would have opportunities along the return trip to court her. By the next full moon—or possibly the one after—she might be ready to offer him a second chance.
Chapter 9
A small gray tom with a demanding miaou insisted Gisela stop and pet him just outside the council house. The general chatter passing over her assured her the meeting had yet to begin. The sun beat down. Other villagers, whether newly awakened or well into their days, rushed by this way and that, raising low breezes and causing dust to eddy around, so she wound up with clothes less clean than before regardless. Still, she was but the council scribe—the attention during the meeting would be upon the councilors, not her.
A trio of other cats pelted from the council chamber with squawks and miaous. As soon as they passed through the doorway, their swift movements slowed to a saunter. The gray abandoned her to join them in a twisting mass of feline irritation.
Gisela stood and let her skirts fall. Brushed at the hairs and dust, then gave up. She grasped the basket handle and slipped into the council chamber. Head down and shoulders hunched, she made her way around the edges to her usual seat. Set her basket down and settled in, then glanced up and saw at a glance one potential cause for the cats' displeasure: there were too many human equivalents to cats in the room for the true cats to have room to pose.
Most council members had much in common with cats. Firstly, being curious and apt to stick their noses in anywhere. Secondly, enjoying playing with their food or victims. Thirdly and most evident this morning: difficult to herd into place for collective consideration and action.
Gisela had an excellent view of the situation from her place at the side of the chamber. She tucked a blue, down-filled cushion on the hard
bench before taking her seat and didn’t dare rise again. The cushion cover had worn so thin that every time she rose, additional pieces of down escaped. It offered little protection compared with the thicker pillows set out for the councilors, but was better than sitting the whole meeting on the hard wooden seat.
Her tunics offered little cushioning, but draped well. Her arms rested lightly on the small table. Close at hand sat several tablets covered in thin layers of wax on which to take notes with a stylus. A small pile of documents covered half of the table—tax tallies, yearly balance notations, and, in case there was time after the royal representatives presented their business, scribbled notes of who had and hadn’t shown up for the dancing and mating at the feast.
Gisela was not thinking about that last, not a bit. Even when the courtiers in their lovely robes with elegant trim passed through the doorway—the one tall and bright and casting all others into shadow—she was not remembering the night before at all.
Though she might peep over at Stevan as he and Amara greeted the councilors individually and accepted some of the food pressed upon them. Perhaps a ripple of energy stroked up her spine at the sound of his deep voice. Or the hairs along her arms and at the back of her neck stood up when he passed near and nodded in greeting.
That was all. They did not speak.
Instead of glancing his way, she tracked the progress of the eleven councilors who had yet to assemble for business.
Only four of the councilors sat at the table at any given moment—which four changing several times. The rest meandered around the room, nibbling on delicacies and scattering crumbs, and talking to whomever they encountered. For they followed the unwritten but often invoked rule of food before business except in the most serious of matters.
Individually, Gisela loved each and every councilor to some degree and found some measure of joy in working with them. Several had served among the nursery guardians when she was young. Two others nurtured her during her blooming years, and dear Fissil taken her as apprentice scribe several years before his wrists and knuckles began to swell with the damp and make writing so difficult and painful he had to give his position over to her.
But even she acknowledged that when they gathered—or worse, one was faced with attempting to assemble them together—they were a thorough pain.
At least Gisela didn’t have the task of coaxing them into some semblance of order. That was the right and privilege of the youngest of them, whomever he, she, or they were at any given time. The intent behind the design, according to the nursery guardians who'd raised her, was that all councilors pass through leadership of the council before stepping back to form part of the whole and thus have mercy upon each other.
The idea failed miserably more often than it succeeded. A person had to have a very strong will to make the older councilors bend in line even so far as to sit down and allow the council begin work in a timely manner.
The council as a whole drew only from those who’d passed a minimum of fifty years in life, except during those times when disease or famine or war harrowed the elders.
The four oldest village members still capable of making their way to the council chamber and acknowledging their names claimed seats by right of seniority. Whether or not they required assistance to reach the chamber did not matter, although they did have to speak or sign in their own right when their names were read.
The other seven councilors were chosen for three-year terms, two or three each year, from among all eligible persons by lot. The process always featured grumbling over the result both from those who wanted to be selected and never were and those whose numbers kept coming up whether or not they wished it. Ilburna had the reputation, and record, of spending only one year off the council since turning fifty, even before she received a guaranteed seat by virtue of her age as the third eldest.
Only when all councilors had greeted each other individually and eaten their fill, did the head councilor succeed at convincing them to take their places behind the long council table. Stevan and Amara accepted seats on mismatched cushioned chairs hastily brought from two of the councilors’ rooms nearby. Their guards stood watch along the wall.
Villagers and visitors who chose to attend the session sat scattered over long, uncushioned benches and maintained a low level of noise through the scrape of sandals against the wood floor and their eager consumption of the remaining food. Even with the lure of the courtiers and food, the audience ranks were thin. This spoke to a good festival night, leaving many exhausted from their fevered exertions.
But Gisela wasn’t thinking about that either, as she refused to dwell on what others did that she did not.
“We gather.” The head councilor, Alvi, who also oversaw the mill, wiped sweat from their brow.
“We are gathered.”
“Surely every thing’s as good as settled, and we’ve no need to waste dust on it.” Dur, the fourth eldest and most crotchety of the councilors leaned against the table, head on his hands. “We can forgo the formalities this once.”
All the other councilors began debating the matter until Ilburna thumped her cane hard three times.
“No, we cannot skip the formalities.” She glared the others down. “All must be heard through and deliberated with care.”
“And then we can vote yes.” Dur waved a hand at Ilburna from the far end of the table.
“And then, if you are still of a mind, you may vote yes,” Alvi said, before Ilburna could continue.
Their mouth moved without making additional noises, a keen and practiced gesture. The councilors leaned in, as they couldn’t read Alvi’s lips from where they sat—just as well for Alvi muttered, for the umpteenth time, about looking forward to stepping off the council at the fall drawing of lots.
Still standing, Alvi picked up a small covered bowl from the table and elevated it with both hands. One of the few artifacts surviving from the villagers’ prior home, it was plain and unmarked. Nevertheless, it drew the eyes even against the backdrop of Alvi’s best over-tunic—a thick purple wool trimmed with black ribbon that partially explained the sweat still beading their brow. The room had already begun to grow warm and close. Gisela patted at the unexpected moisture on her forehead.
“Let us remember and cherish that which we have, for the moment that we have it.” Lifting the cover of the bowl, Alvi blew lightly. Several glittering motes of dust flew out to dance in the air. “We meet.”
“We are met.” The councilors nodded.
“This morn we consider and deliberate with care upon a proposal from the Terparchon. Shall we permit her representatives to speak for her?”
Amara rose and moved forward to stand before the council. Stylus stiff within her grasp and tablet steady, Gisela prepared to take notes.
“I come to you from the Court of the Terparchon and the Marchon, under whose care you live.” Amara turned in a graceful circle, her arm gestures encompassing all in the room. “Who in their wisdom oversee all that lies between the eastern hills and the western river, the northern fastness and the southern sea. Their care encompasses this village along with very many others, great and small.”
Even as she worked her stylus into the wax, Gisela rocked to the rhythm of Amara’s formal declarations.
“Now, as all may know, the land has enjoyed immeasurable peace and prosperity these many generations. This is due, of course, to the wise guidance and leadership of our rulers—but also to those who serve them and in particular to the twelve Dancing Princesses.”
Amara lifted her hands over her head and clapped once. Lifted a sandaled foot and pointed off to the west.
The pose sent a quick chill through Gisela.
“No doubt you have heard of them, but I come here to say to you that whatever you have heard, good or ill, is but a shadow of their import. For it is they who, under the leadership of the Terparchon, mediate between land and people. Who gentle the fury of storms.”
A flicker of darkness and rumble of thunder passed o
ver the chamber, and was gone.
“Coax sufficient water to survive the harshest of droughts.”
Thick humidity infused the air for a moment, before dissolving into warm dryness.
“Calm the mightiest of fires.”
Flames crackled and a haze of smoke filled the room. Two or three councilors coughed, and Gisela’s throat ached, but a light breeze whisked the smoke away.
“And in all ways make the lives of those who live in this land far easier and more pleasant than otherwise.”
Amara lowered her hands and foot. Although she paused take in a deep breath, no one interrupted her.
“They do this through deep connections with the primal forces around us—connections which they shape with unparalleled grace through the medium of movement. Through Dance.”
Once again, the dam posed. This time, her body mimicked the stance taken by the leaders of the first circle dance the night before. Flashes of the night before tugged at Gisela—the beat of the drums, meeting Stevan’s eyes across the circle, the shock of their first touch. She shook her head hard. Gritted her teeth and dug her fingers into the tablet as she held it steady.
“No matter the means and manner of their birth, their age or breeding, they are royal by virtue of that connection to which many aspire but few are granted. Rarely more than thirteen, seventeen, or nineteen possess the gift at any time, insofar as the Terparchon and her predecessors have been able to determine. In every generation some receive the gift of dance magic, though alas we do not know why they are chosen while others not.”
“As bad as lots.”
Gisela couldn’t determine who’d given voice to the muttered words.
“It is well-documented that there must be twelve.” Amara inclined her head but did not respond to the aside. “With their attendant partners to ground them, to accomplish any but the most minor and local of magics.”
“Twelve’s not a prime number.” Dur’s head shot up. The creak of his back straightening rang out alongside his words. “It can be divided several times over. All I ever heard of the Terparchon and Marchon said they knew the power of numbers. Why is twelve magic for the dancers when it’s never magic anywhere else? Even we gather only as seven or eleven.”