by Judith Tarr
“But it makes it difficult to get away from it when you need to.”
She stared at him, surprised. No one had ever understood that before.
He smiled and laid his palm against hers, unafraid, unaware that the brand could burn. His hand was broader, stronger, the color of bronze. It was warm.
His fingers wound with hers. His face behind its smile was austere, proud, with its sharp planes.
“Your people,” she said, “must be kin to our plainsmen. Did they come across the sea long ago and settle here, or did they begin here? How old is this world of yours?”
“Old,” he said. “Ancient beyond telling. And yours?”
“Maybe older than that. Maybe younger.” She clenched her fist. It wound their fingers tighter. “I’ll bed you if you want it. Happily.”
“I don’t want that,” he said. “Not for a night or a season. I want it with honor, in the marriage bed.”
“Why?”
“Because it should be so. Because you are worthy of it.”
“I the outlander. I the ugly one. I the mage.”
“All of that. And worthy. Do you not want me because I’m ugly to you, too?”
“No. I don’t want to marry.”
“Why?”
Her own question, returned with that ceaseless smile. “I don’t. That’s all. Someday I’ll have to, to get myself a consort—then it had better be someone suitable, who can share the throne and the duties, and rule in my name when I can’t be everywhere at once. How would you do that? You know nothing but Shurakan.”
“I could learn,” he said.
“And leave Shurakan?”
“Even that,” he said steadily, “I could do if I must.”
She wrenched free in sudden disgust. “You don’t have the faintest conception of what you mean when you say that. You’re not getting a wife if you get me, you lovestruck fool. You’re getting the heir to an empire, and the whole empire with her. If you were ambitious I’d understand it. But you don’t even know what my empire is. Nor do you care.”
“I said,” he said, “I can learn. And if we’re talking of politics, be politic now and think. I may not understand your empire, but I understand Su-Shaklan—and Su-Shaklan is about to become rather more dangerous for you and your embassy. Do you know that there are many who hate and fear foreigners, and you above all? They’re growing in numbers, and they’re growing powerful. The king has been resisting their persuasions, but he’s weakening fast. The least he’ll do, once he gives in, is lock you in prison. His counselors are begging him to kill you outright.”
“I know that,” she said impatiently. “I’ve known it since we came here.”
“You don’t know how close the king is to the edge.” Bundur took both her hands, though she resisted, and held them. “Listen to me. I visit the king often—he’s my mother’s brother, it’s expected. We’re fond of one another. But he’s immovably convinced that foreigners mean nothing but harm to Su-Shaklan, and foreigners of your ilk more than any other. This morning he told me that if I want to keep you safe, I had best marry you soon, and bring you all under the protection of Janabundur. Otherwise he can’t promise that any of you will escape this place alive.”
Daruya’s lip curled. “Oh, do tell me another. Why in the hells would the king tell you that, if he hates us so much? He’d be locking you up for a madman, for wanting to marry me at all.”
“He understands the soul-bond,” Bundur said. “He doesn’t like it, he doesn’t approve of it, but he can’t deny it. ‘Marry her,’ he said, ‘and seal it for all to see. Or see her hunted down and killed with all the rest of her kind.’” His hands tightened, bruising-hard. “Lady, Daruya, he’s not an evil man, but he’s a righteous one. And he’s beat upon day and night by those who hunger for your blood and the blood of all mages. It’s an old, old hate, from the beginning of the kingdom. He fights it, but he can’t fight it much longer.”
“Then how come you can?”
“Maybe,” he said, “because I’m not the king. My mind is my own. I can use it to think, and my eyes to see. You’re no more evil than any other child of men.”
“If no less.” Damn, thought Daruya. Her fingers were locked with his again. They seemed to think that that was the way of nature.
This must be what Vanyi felt when she was with Estarion—and forty years had done nothing to ease it, either. What Estarion felt with Vanyi, Daruya could not presume to know. He loved his empress, of that she was certain. He had refused an Asanian harem for her, but as she grew old but he did not, he had taken other lovers, with the empress’ knowledge and consent.
The first one or two, Daruya had reason to suspect, had been of the empress’ choosing. The empress was Asanian. She would have been perturbed, even offended, if he had forsaken all the pleasures of the bedchamber, simply because she was not herself able to share them.
None of those lovers had been Vanyi. With Vanyi it would have mattered too much.
Getting with child had been simple compared to this. Daruya chose the man, she found him willing, she took what she needed and bade him farewell, and that was that.
He went back to his doting wife. She went back to her grandfather, and to the splendor of a scandal.
This would be a scandal only insofar as the man was a foreigner. Her grandfather approved it, the more fool he. The Master of the Guild wanted it—pressed her to do it. They all saw the advantage in it: the embassy saved, and their lives too if Bundur spoke the truth. None of them seemed to comprehend that when a woman married, she married, one could hope, until she died.
Or she might not. She might leave her husband. Daruya might leave Shurakan when their embassy had done what it set out to do; leave him, go back to Starios, be princess-heir again without the pressure of urging that she marry and be respectable. Her child would have a father-in-name. The man who held that name . . .
“This is impossible,” she said. “We can’t do it.”
“We can,” he said, as she had known he would.
“Then why,” she inquired acidly, “don’t you marry Vanyi instead? She’d do anything to further this embassy. She’s not bound to any one place, she’s not heir to any empire, she’s not young, either, but she’s strong; she’ll live another thirty years, and keep you well satisfied, too.”
“The Lady Vanyi is not soulbound to me,” said Bundur, “or I might consider it.”
“If I said the words with you,” said Daruya through clenched teeth, “I could not promise to stay with you, or even to stay married to you for longer than necessity requires.”
“I could take that risk,” he said.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“On the contrary,” said Bundur, and for the first time she saw a hint of temper, “I do. Give me credit for a little wit, my lady. I understand all the arguments against this—I’ve had them from my kin, too. None of them matters. Nothing matters but that my soul bids me take you.”
“And that we’re in danger if I don’t.”
“Well,” he said. “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t push so hard or so fast. Too fast for you, I know. But the king never cries the alarm without excellent reason.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Daruya, pulling free as she always seemed to be doing, and leaving him before he could call her back.
20
Kimeri decided she did not hate Hani after all, even if he was a coward. He kept saying he had been going to get help, but she went away before he could come back—very well, she would say she believed him. It was true he was afraid of the tall woman, though why he should be, she could not imagine. The woman was of high rank, but then so was Kimeri; and Kimeri’s mother was as tall as most men, and quite terrifying too when she was in a temper.
Kimeri would be that tall someday, everybody said she would. She was looking forward to it. Then Hani would be afraid of her, and she would show him what an idiot he was.
They had called truce for the festival, and had
a splendid time, even if Hani’s grandmother had dragged them back home much too early and put them to bed in the same room. They were going to be sister and brother, Hani’s grandmother was thinking, because Kimeri’s mother was going to marry Hani’s father.
Kimeri had her doubts about that. Hani’s father was big and handsome, and he made the room brighter when he came into it, but Kimeri’s mother was very clever about escaping from people who wanted to marry her.
oOo
Kimeri had the same dream as always, the same dark place, the same presence that she knew was the Guardian in the Gate. As always, she was glad to wake up, but sorry, too: the Guardian’s sorrow, because while she dreamed he had company, but while she was awake he was all alone. It was hurting more, the longer he stayed in the Gate, but at the same time it was hurting less, as if he had stopped caring about being alive again.
She was surprised to wake up and find the walls all wrong, and the bed not the bed she had got used to. She was in Hani’s house, and Hani was sound asleep in the bed next to hers. Kimeri thought about waking him up, but if he stayed asleep she could have all of the tea with honey in it that a servant brought as soon as she got out of bed, and most of the redspice buns. She ended up leaving him some of each, because she was not as selfish as she might be.
There was an Olenyas sitting in a shadow the way they liked to do, waiting for her. It was a different one than had been there when she went to sleep.
“Rahai,” she said, touching his shoulder. His eyes were dark for an Olenyas’, almost brown. They smiled at her. He got to his feet in the way she tried to copy but never could, as if he had no bones at all, and followed her when she walked out of the room and the house.
He knew where to go once they were outside, which saved her trouble, because she wanted to dawdle and not pay attention to where she was going. The city was all quiet and rather tired, with bits of festival garland scattered everywhere, and sleepy-eyed people sweeping it up. Nearly everybody was still asleep, or just awake with a pounding headache. Grownfolk woke up like that when they had had too much wine the night before.
She wandered a bit, because she needed to think. She thought about going to the house where the Gate was, since she was outside the palace anyway, and Rahai might not stop her. But something said, Not yet. Soon, but not yet.
She thought of arguing, but the soon was very soon; she felt it. She kept on walking, then, without Rahai saying anything.
He had no headache. He had been asleep while everybody danced and played. She felt a little sorry for him, but not too much. Olenyai had their own games and their own festivals, and those kept them as happy as men could be; and meanwhile he was wide awake and pleased to be guarding her on this fine summer’s morning.
Bits of thought trickled through the protection all Olenyai had: right-here-nowness, high clear sky with a cloud here and there, mountain walls, air like wine chilled in snow. Shadows that were people: people-harmless, people-who-might-harm. Those latter he watched, ready to defend if there was need, but there never was.
They came to the palace eventually and went inside. The guards on the gates looked blurry-eyed and headachy. Kimeri gave them a festival gift, a touch that took the ache away. None of them knew where it came from, but that was the way it should be.
Rahai tried to lead her straight through to where the house was, but she was not ready to go there yet. Vanyi was there, just about to wake up. Her mother was just coming in, thinking about Bundur and not knowing she was doing it, nor wanting to if she had known. She was all in a tangle about him, wanting and not wanting, being part of him and not wanting to be a part of him at all.
Maybe she would marry him, Kimeri thought. She had never been like this about a man before, especially one who wanted to marry her. If she liked a man, she bedded him; if not, she told him to lose himself, and shut the door in his face. Kimeri had never seen her in such a confusion of wanting-not-wanting.
She did not want Kimeri to see her that way, either. Kimeri got out of her mind before she noticed the intruder, and went looking for somewhere to go that would not get in Daruya’s way.
oOo
The palace children were still asleep, like Hani, or being fussed over by their parents or their aunts or their cousins. Servants were up and working, but none of them would speak to Kimeri unless she spoke first, and they certainly would not play with her.
But there was someone who might be glad to see her. Whom she felt she might talk to, and maybe, finally, be listened to.
That someone was awake and had no headache, and was mildly bored herself. She was in the room she had told Kimeri to come to, reading a book she had read too many times before, and thinking about too many things at once. How Hani could be afraid of her, Kimeri could not imagine. Even if she was the queen.
She thought Kimeri did not know. She still thought it when Kimeri slipped through the back door, the one that was not supposed to open on anything at all, and Kimeri did not like to tell her she was wrong. She might be insulted.
She smiled, not knowing what Kimeri was thinking, and Kimeri was glad of that. “Good morning, child,” she said. “Good morning, shadow-man.”
Rahai bowed. He did not understand Borti’s language, since he had no magery to teach it to him, but he could tell when he was being spoken to. He was wary, his eyes watching everything at once.
Kimeri tried to tell him silently that he had nothing to be afraid of, but his protections kept him from hearing mage-words. He stayed close, on guard.
Kimeri ignored him. Borti, studying her, did the same. “Good morning,” said Kimeri. “Did you have a good festival?”
Borti’s smile stayed the same, but the thoughts in the front of her mind were full of sad things: a fight with a man who must be the king, a great number of people smiling but looking as if they had fangs, fear she could not put a name to. Kimeri tried not to listen, but when a person thought so loudly, it was very hard to shut one’s ears inside.
Borti’s thoughts were deeply troubling, but aloud she said, “I had a pleasant festival, I suppose. And you?”
“Very pleasant,” Kimeri said more honestly than Borti had. “My friend is my friend again—you know, the boy who ran away. He’s a coward, but I can forgive him that. He’s only a boy.”
“Wisely said,” said Borti. She reached for the box on the table next to her and opened it. A great odor of sweetness and spices wafted out. “These were a festival gift. Would you like to share them with me?”
Rahai slipped in before Kimeri could, and tasted one. Kimeri frowned at his rudeness, but Borti seemed to understand, and even to approve.
After an endless while he got out of the way and let Kimeri sit down and try the sweets. They were odd but wonderful, like Shurakan.
“You didn’t have a shadow-man before,” Borti said. “Did your mother give him to you for the festival?”
“Oh, he’s not a slave,” said Kimeri quickly. Rahai could hardly be insulted, since he did not speak Borti’s language, but she did not want Borti to think the wrong thing, either. “He’s a bred-warrior. He serves the emperor, and my mother since she’ll be empress someday, and me since I’ll be empress after her. He thinks we all need guarding.”
“You didn’t before?”
“I slipped away then,” Kimeri confessed. “This time I didn’t. Everyone’s getting more afraid instead of less, the longer we stay here.”
“Do you know why that is?” Borti asked.
She did want to know, not the why, but whether Kimeri knew it. Kimeri supposed she should be clever and pretend not to know, but she hated to tell lies. “Because we have enemies, and they hate us. They’re going to do something soon, aren’t they?”
“They might,” Borti said, meaning they would.
“Something like breaking the Gate,” Kimeri said. “That’s what they did before.”
“Gate?” asked Borti. “Which Gate is that?”
She was testing again. Kimeri hated it when people playe
d the testing game, but she decided not to get angry yet. “The Worldgate, the Gate the mages made. Mage is a dirty word here, isn’t it?”
“Some people think so,” Borti said. Thinking louder than ever: that it was foolish, but who knew what mages really were, or what they could do? Except raise their Gates.
She had seen the one in Shurakan. It was strange, but it had not felt evil. It looked like a door, but on the other side of it was a place that could not be as close as it was—a place on the other side of the world.
She came back to what Kimeri said. “The Gate is broken, you say?”
“You didn’t know it?” Kimeri asked her. “I thought everybody knew. That’s why we came here the way we did. We didn’t have a Gate to come through. Vanyi has been trying to get to y—to the queen and tell her, and ask her to help find out who did it. Her mages can’t find anything at all.”
Borti’s eyes narrowed. She looked frightening then, if Kimeri had been the kind of person to be scared by a face. “Is it so? Has the Gate broken and no one has told me? How did it break? Do you know that?”
“Something broke it,” said Kimeri. “I don’t know what. Nobody does. Nobody knows what happened inside it, either. Except me. The mage who was Guardian—they think he’s dead. Even he does. But he’s not. He’s trapped inside the Gate.”
“How do you know that?”
Kimeri swallowed the bit of sweet she had been chewing. It was too sweet suddenly, and too sticky. It gagged her going down. But once it was down, it stayed there.
Nobody ever listened to her, or paid attention when she talked about Gates. But Borti did—Borti was fixed on her without the least doubt in the world that she knew what she was talking about. That was so strange that for a moment Kimeri had no words in her, and no way to speak them if she had.
Her voice came back all at once, and her wits with it. “I know because I’m a mage, too. I felt the Gate break. I saw it trap Uruan. He’s still in it. I dream about him all the time, about how he’s in there, and he thinks he’s dead. He’s scared, when he remembers to be.”