by Judith Tarr
oOo
People were staring at her. Some looked ready to bolt for help. Others—Vanyi foremost—knew her too well to think that she would ever take her life in such ignominious fashion. She stood up in the basin, water sheeting from her, and reached for a drying-cloth. Some of the people staring were servants; they scrambled to serve her.
They were all women, she noticed. Two of them were Bundur’s sisters. They tried to pretend that they were not staring at her, how strange she was, the color of pale honey all over, and curly golden patches under her arms and between her thighs as well as on her head. She was thinner than they liked to see, lithe like a boy, with training scars that she had never tried to hide, and a real scar taken in battle: the deep gouge of an arrow in her hip.
“It wouldn’t have scarred,” she said with careful amiability, “if I’d let the healers at it; but I had to keep riding, you see, and fighting, and being too brave for belief.”
The sisters regarded her without comprehension. She tried a smile. They did not smile back.
They disliked her, and no wonder. This, soul-bound to their beautiful brother. This, accepting him with the strident opposite of grace, needing to be dragged kicking and struggling into the arms of a prince who could have had, willing, any Shurakani bride he chose.
Daruya could have asked why he had not taken one of those willing brides, except that she already had, and had been answered. He wanted her. He had a strong streak of the contrary in him, too.
“In that,” said Vanyi, “the two of you are beautifully matched.”
Daruya’s smile was very, very sweet. “Aren’t we?”
“Ah, child,” Vanyi said sighing. “Times are when I’m glad your grandfather is as long-lived as he looks to be. You’ll need all those years to grow out of your crotchets.”
That stung. Daruya kept her smile, but with an effort. “Maybe I wasn’t meant to inherit.”
“You’re not that fortunate,” Vanyi said. She took the ivory comb from the hand of the servant who wielded it, struggling with hair that curled in most unnatural and lively fashion. She did not make undue effort to be gentle, but neither was she baffled by all the sudden knots and tangles. She made order out of them as competently as she did all else, and with dispatch, too.
There was no time for braids. A cap had to do, of deep blue silk embroidered with golden beads in a pattern much like the Sun in her hand. The garments that went with it were of like color and kind, fashion of her own country for once, but close to what the women wore here. Soft plain shirt of raw silk tucked into loose trousers the color of the sky at evening, but brocaded all over with golden suns. Shoes for her feet, silken slippers such as a lady would wear in her palace, deep blue, golden suns. And over them the coat, blue silk, brocaded suns round the edges, but sleeves and coat proper sewn of panels of silk the color of bronze and copper and gold, and each, again, sun-brocaded. She had not even known that Vanyi carried such a thing in her baggage, or that it would have been cut to Daruya’s height and slimness.
She stood up in it while a servant clasped the amber necklace about her neck, and met Vanyi’s calm ironic stare. “I had it made today,” the Guildmaster said. “It’s the same pattern as your riding clothes, more or less. Easy enough for a handful of good needlewomen to manage.”
“It’s very handsome,” Daruya said.
“It suits you,” said Vanyi. From her, that was high praise.
oOo
It was deep night by the time they all gathered again in the hall with its ancient hangings, in front of the dragon tapestry. There were a great number of them to Daruya’s eyes, what with all the embassy that had survived the Gate, and the servants and the women of House Janabundur, but not—to Daruya’s faint shock—Bundur.
She knew a moment’s wild hope that he had turned coward and fled. But he would hardly do that now, after all he had done to win her.
As she took the place she was pushed and prodded to, in front of the rest, Bundur appeared at the inner door. He was wearing the black-and- bronze splendor of the festival. The cut on his cheek had been stitched up neatly and washed clean. His chin was shaven, his mustaches brought to order, oiled and persuaded to hang politely on either side of his mouth.
He had not, she noticed, succumbed to any urge to make his hair fashionable. It was sleeked smooth and clubbed at his nape as always, bound with cords of green and glimmering bronze.
He was really quite beautiful in his way, like a big sleek cat. He was not prostrate with nerves that she could see, though he was trembling around the edges of her magery—a trembling to match her own. He smiled as he came toward her and held out his hand. Her own hand had reached to clasp his before her mind came into it at all.
Lady Nandi stood in front of them with an air of solemn ceremony. She spoke words that Daruya did not afterward remember. Nor, she thought, did Bundur. Something about the gods; something about souls and bonds and women and men. Nothing about love, Daruya did notice that. Was it nothing they thought of here? Or did they so take it for granted that they saw no need to name it?
He had both her hands now, or she had his. Damn, she thought. Damn, damn, damn. But beneath that: Yes, yes, yes.
Bundur repeated the words his mother spoke. His mind was not thinking of them. Only of her face, of the golden shining thing that she was, for all her tempers and crotchets and follies.
But you don’t know me, she tried to say. You don’t know me at all.
I know what matters, he said deep inside of her. I know what you fear.
Her heart clenched. “What? What—”
“Say after me,” Lady Nandi said with considerable patience: “‘Thy soul mine, my soul thine, from life unto life, to the worlds’ ending.’”
Life unto life? But—
Bundur’s eyes were dark, resting on her, driving sense, logic, even rebellion straight out of her head. She heard her voice speaking, faint and breathless but clear. “‘Thy soul mine, my soul thine, from life unto life, to the worlds’ ending.’”
Nothing happened. It was not a spell, not a magery. It described, that was all; told the others what was true, or what they believed to be true. What Daruya believed . . .
No one cared. She had said all that she needed to say. The lady said the rest. Then not the lady. Someone else, a woman whose face Daruya had seen somewhere before, but she did not know where.
A narrow face, stern, with eyes that cherished some deep anger and some deeper grief. But the voice was clear, level, deep for a woman’s and firm. “I bless you both in the name of all the gods; I grant you the grace of heaven, and such protection as heaven may give. May you prosper and live long, and be reborn as children of the gods.”
Daruya came out of her fog abruptly—as abruptly as Bundur had. No one was staring at them any longer, but at the woman in the dark plain cloak with its hood on her shoulders, and garments under it that might have been a servant’s.
She returned their stares with massive calm. Her hands rose—narrow hands, beautiful as her face was not, with slender elegant fingers—and came to rest on Daruya’s head and on Bundur’s. She was tall; she did not have to reach far, nor did she struggle to follow as he knelt, drawing Daruya with him whether she would or no. “May the gods protect you,” she said, “and honor your marriage.”
Bundur’s head bowed under her hand, then came up. “I should think they would, now,” he said. “Borti. Lady. How in the world—”
“She helped me wake the Gate,” Kimeri said from beside the stranger. “She listened to me.”
“Imp,” said Vanyi, with mirth in it. “Oh, imp! Have you been hiding her all this time?”
“Yes,” Kimeri said, keeping her chin up and her eyes level, not on Vanyi but on her mother. “She insisted she had to say the blessing. To make it stick.”
“It will now,” Bundur said. Laughter burst out of him, rich and infectious. “Borti! Thank all the gods. We were sure you were dead.”
“I might have been,” the w
oman said.
The queen. Daruya read that in the minds around her, the queen’s strongest of all. How like Kimeri, she thought, to find and befriend the person in Shurakan whom they needed most, and to produce her in the very nick of time, too, and never a word before then.
The queen said, “I fled, I thought, to distract myself from fear of what would happen—what did happen while I was gone. The gods were guiding me. Or this child of theirs was.”
“Does that mean we’re kin?” Kimeri asked. “I like that. Mother, can we be Borti’s cousins? Avaryan must be her goddess’ brother at least. Or maybe he is her goddess.”
“In the end all gods are one,” Daruya said. She rose from her knees, where she should not have been; no queen was equal to the princess-heir of the Sunborn’s line. Borti was not indeed much shorter than she.
“Lady,” said Daruya, inclining her head. “I thank you for your blessing. It was generously given.”
“It was my thank-offering for my escape,” Borti said. “As little thankful as I feel now—I live, and that, I’m sure, no one expected. Nephew, half-sister, you have full freedom to cast me out. The king they’ve raised in the palace will be bringing in his sister to claim my place and my office; she’ll want my life if she can get it, and the life of anyone who shelters me.”
“I don’t think so,” Bundur said. “They were going to crown Shagyan, which would have brought in Mandi, but he developed a backbone when they murdered the king. They hacked it, and him, in two. Paltai took the crown from the king’s hand and set it on his head before anyone else could move.”
“And Paltai,” said Borti, “has no sister.” Her eyes closed; she drew a breath. “Goddess! And we thought his family cursed by heaven, because it begot only sons.”
“Heaven curses the king who rules alone,” said the Lady Nandi. “That was ill done, to let him take the crown and keep it.”
“Not for us,” said Bundur. “Not for many who may accept a deed done before they could prevent it, but who may be inclined to support us if we challenge it.”
“Dare we challenge?” Lady Nandi demanded.
“Dare we not?” he shot back.
“I think,” said Vanyi, “that this needs a council of war, and sustenance to help it along. Here’s the wedding feast spread, and it looks splendid considering how hastily it was cobbled together. Shall we eat it while we talk?”
Everyone looked startled, but no one quarreled with her eminent good sense—Daruya least of all. The queen’s presence here changed everything. It was no longer only a wedding in haste, an expedient adopted to save the lives of a mere foreign embassy. Now they were honestly at war with the faction in the palace.
And in war, even weddings could lose themselves to necessity.
oOo
They sat to a feast that, with Brightmoon setting and Greatmoon hanging low and dawn paling the eastern sky, could well do duty for an early breakfast. Hasty it might have been, but there was plenty of it, too much for most until they discovered a quite unexpected hunger. Even the Olenyai partook of it, as awkward as that could be for people whose honor forbade them to unveil before strangers.
For a while no one spoke except to call for another basket of bread, or to ask a neighbor to pass the wine. Borti ate, too, as they all did, reluctantly at first and then as if she were starving.
No one stared, or waited on her with slavish adoration, or treated her otherwise than as a kinswoman of rank. Daruya might have expected more servility, as rigorously as these people had kept their rulers from the taint of foreign eyes, but the ruler in her own person stood no more on ceremony than Daruya herself did.
It was well, Daruya thought, filling a fold of bread with spiced meats and cheese and handing it to Borti while she prepared another for herself. She could almost ignore the man on her other side in considering this stranger who was a queen.
A ruler who kept to the strictures of old Asanian royalty, or who believed too much in her own divinity, might be difficult to deal with. This plain sensible woman with her solid appetite and clear affection for Kimeri was much to Daruya’s liking—and would be to Estarion’s, too, Daruya suspected.
Gods. She was thinking of what Estarion would like, and not sulking over it. Had she grown up so much? Or had she merely replaced Estarion-as-adversary with Bundur?
Her husband, they were all thinking when their eyes fell on the two of them. Her protector from the king’s murderers.
It made her ill to read such thoughts. She flung up her shields and rested in the quiet behind them, listening to voices that were only voices, watching faces that showed little of the minds behind.
“So then,” said Vanyi, taking the lead as she always seemed to do, “we’re best advised to wait, you think.”
“Yes,” said Lady Nandi. “Now that you have the protection of our name and kinship, no one from the palace will move directly against you, since that is also against us.”
“In any case,” Bundur said, “the fighting isn’t likely to get this far. Palace coups here always restrict themselves politely to the palace.”
“Then I didn’t need to marry you at all,” Daruya burst out. “We could simply have come here and been safe.”
“No,” he said. “You would have been pursued—maybe not at once, but soon enough. Now that you are part of House Janabundur, that changes things. That gives you power in the kingdom; it equips you with allies and defenses, to all of which you’re entitled, since as my wife you rule this house and everyone in it.”
“I do not,” Daruya said. “Nor would I displace the lady whose house it is.”
“That is the way of the world,” Lady Nandi said. “If you wish me to continue, but in your name, then that’s well, and sensible of you, too. But you rule. You are House Janabundur, as is your husband.”
“You do see,” Bundur said. “Don’t you? Before, you were an outlander, nothing and no one, no matter what power you might hold in your own country. Now you hold the power of the second house in Su-Shaklan.”
“You’ll pardon me if I don’t let it go to my head,” Daruya said.
“I’d never forgive you if you did,” he said. He was grinning at her again. His white teeth and his bright dark eyes could make her knees buckle. Damn them. Damn him.
“I see,” said Borti beside her, “that these two are indeed soulbound. It’s an old binding, and strong. I’ve never seen a stronger.”
“Nor I,” said Lady Nandi with the same air of resignation with which she had confirmed Daruya’s sudden new rank. “And she fights it, which only adds to its strength.”
“No.” It escaped before Daruya could stop it. She bit her tongue before it betrayed her further.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Vanyi said. “As far as I can tell, and mind you I’ve never thought of matings in quite this way, your kind of resistance simply encourages it.”
“Then if I give in, it will go away?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Vanyi said.
Daruya had thought not. She finished rolling meat and cheese in bread and bit into it. Her hunger did not care if she was angry or happy or a mad mingling of both.
“So we wait,” said Vanyi, taking up where they had left off. “And see what the palace does.”
“And watch, and keep Borti hidden,” Bundur said. “That, we have to do, I think. They’ll be hunting her for a goodly while, and wanting her dead.”
“Luckily,” said Borti, “very few people have any idea what I really look like. They only ever see me in court, when I’m robed to immobility and weighted with wig and crown, and painted to look like a mask of the goddess. Who would know a tall plain woman in a servant’s coat, doing servant’s duties in Janabundur?”
“You can’t do that,” Bundur said, shocked.
She laughed at him. For a moment they looked very much alike. “Of course I can! I do it more often than anyone would want to know. It’s a convenient way to learn what people are saying, and it gives me something to do. It’s mas
sively dull on the throne and behind the screens that are supposed to protect me from common eyes, with ministers speaking for me, and making all my decisions, too.”
“Not all of them,” Vanyi said, “I don’t think. If you speak, you’re listened to. When it suits you to speak.”
“When I’m given knowledge enough to speak.” Borti sighed. “When I stop to think—now I have leisure for it—I realize that we used to see much more of our common subjects. We’ve been closed in, walled about, cut off. Cleverly, too, and imperceptibly, till it was too late for my brother and almost for me.”
“It was a common expedient once in our Golden Empire,” Daruya said, “when a man wished to be emperor, to do just as your traitors did, and cut off the emperor who was, and destroy him.”
“But not any longer?” asked Borti.
“The Golden Empire is gone,” Daruya said. “I’m all that’s left of it, I and my daughter. Now we have assassins, though not of late, and the occasional rebellion. Our rulers walk out where anyone can see, and everyone knows their faces.”
“That was true here, once,” said Borti. She looked suddenly exhausted, hollow-eyed and pale under the bronze sheen of her skin. “I shall sleep, I think. Then think again, and consider what to do.”
“So should we all,” Lady Nandi said, rising. Her glance at Bundur was bright, suddenly, and full of mirth that echoed his own. “With possible exceptions.”
No, thought Daruya. But her mouth was full of spiced meat and festival wine, and Bundur was pulling her to her feet, and the Shurakani were singing, out of nowhere and none too tunefully, what must be a wedding song. The sun was coming up—it was morning. How could there be a wedding night?
Bundur swung her up in his arms, swept her clean off her feet. He was laughing. They all were. Except Daruya, who was rigid with shock and resistance; too rigid to fight. Even when he carried her away, and no one followed, not one. Not even an Olenyas.