Lovers and Beloveds

by MeiLin Miranda

  "Are you like the rest? You do not seem so to me, at least, not yet."

  "It's what I am," he mumbled. "I should get it over with now, just go with Fennows to his stupid brothel and get it over with. Then I can go see Allis and Issak and do whatever it is I can do there, and then go home and be a good princeling and turn into my father."

  "Is that what you want?"

  "No, it fucking well isn't what I want!" Temmin said, banging his fist on the table top.

  "I will excuse your improper outburst, this time," said Teacher, unperturbed. "What, then, do you want?"

  "I want to go home. I want my best friend back. I want Jenks! I want Allis and Issak, and in the right way, not some state visit. I want to hit someone! And I want Fennows to go fu--to go back to Corland!"

  "You cannot go home. Alvo in time will be allowed to come to you. Jenks returns in a few days. Allis and Issak would welcome you as a Supplicant, especially now that they have dealt with Lord Litta. You may arrange with Brother Mardus to hit someone, but someone will undoubtedly hit you back. And Fennows returns to Corland on tomorrow's train."

  "What? Wait, slow down," said Temmin in astonishment: a great deal of news to absorb at once. "Fennows is leaving?"

  "He told His Majesty that pressing business takes him to Corland."

  "Merciful Amma, there's a sweet bit of news!" he said. "As to the rest, I don't care if someone hits me back, a few days are too many, and what about Litta?"

  "Do you not read the papers?"

  "I hate newspapers," said Temmin.

  Teacher pulled a slim tabloid from an inner pocket of the black robe, and tossed it on the table. The Afternoon Spectator, said the ornate nameplate at the top of the front page. Beneath it, a headline in large type, stretching over two columns: A Terrible Trade--Lovers' Embodiments Call for Ministerial Action--Dreadful Suffering of Children.

  Temmin clutched at the newsprint, wrinkling it almost beyond legibility. "Oh, gods, Litta did it. Why did he do it? I did what he said!"

  "Read it."

  "I already know what it says!" But Temmin did as he was told, scanning the columns. "They told a newspaper--they told everyone! Why would they do that?"

  "To remove the only weapon anyone had against them. It went quite well, actually. Almost every newspaper in the kingdom is calling for a crackdown on certain brothels. Litta and your father are powerless against the Obbys now. In fact, they are stronger than ever."

  Temmin sat back in his chair and squinted. "I thought you weren't supposed to advise me on this."

  "I am not. I am merely stating where affairs stand." A pause; Teacher moved away from the light to sit on the edge of the table, and resolved from a black figure to a pale one again. "Is your brain a-whirl, or may we return to study?"

  The story. Just today, he'd wished he were more like Warin, that he had Warin's charisma and decisiveness. "Yes," he said slowly, "I think I'd like to study. Ugh, the book's sticky!" He rubbed at the old red leather with a handkerchief. "I don't know, though. Warin and Emmae were so angry with one another. I almost don't want to know how bad their marriage was."

  Temmin opened the book, and fell in.

  * * * * *

  In the aftermath of his ascension, Warin weeded out the faithful from the traitorous. To everyone's shock, he spared the Duke of Valleysmouth and his family, who had raised Hildin and Gian, and gave Old Meg an honorable entry to the Hill, but he tracked down the family of the archer who'd killed Fredrik of Leute and slew all its men. Even so, the hooks above Marketgate went largely empty; few had stood with the Usurper.

  The rest of the Travelers caught up with their Queen, making camp at the edge of the King's Woods; their caravans flickered bright among the cool green leaves of late spring. "Will you not let me entertain you at the Keep?" said Warin.

  "No Traveler may spend the night beneath a solid roof, Your Majesty," said the Traveler Queen, "but thank you."

  "Well then, take the freedom of these Woods as a reward for your service, now and always."

  "Thank you, cousin," said Connin with a bow, his leg extended just into mockery.

  "In return," said the Traveler Queen, "and to protect ourselves, I will set an enchantment on the far side of the Woods. Anyone may leave them, but only your direct descendents, and my own people, may enter from that side. With your consent, of course." Warin gave it, the usefulness of such a thing undeniable; with such an enchantment, the Keep became unassailable, bounded by the Feather and Shadow Rivers, by the steep cliff overlooking the City, and now by the impenetrable Woods.

  Warin kept his distance from the grieving Edmerka, Dowager Queen of Tremont and Princess Royal of Leute. There were those in his court who whispered that perhaps Edmerka’s tears and black dress were tears of regret for killing her husband, not tears of grief for her father; they also whispered that perhaps the black veils hid a belly swelling with the Usurper’s child. The new King made it clear there was to be no such talk, but after a spoke of rumors, Edmerka herself bowed to the advice of the Eldest Sister and submitted to an examination; the Sister’s Temple subsequently announced that the Usurper had left no offspring. The whispers ended.

  For her part, Edmerka's first act was to take the marriage cord that had bound her to Hildin and burn it. She kept to her bower and refused to dine in company, and would admit no man for some weeks. She finally bent enough to allow her own nobles to visit her, though she pulled a mourning veil over her face. She surreptitiously watched through her window for sightings of Warin on the grounds, or in the courtyard--her spacious rooms had views of both--but let no one know that she yearned for him, her pride at odds with her heart.

  An uneasy triad of nobles, all sworn to relinquish the reins of the kingdom to Edmerka's eventual husband, returned to Leute to rule it in her absence; Hendas of Holset remained behind as Her Majesty's advisor. "I don't see why I mightn't rule by myself," Edmerka said to Holset one day in late summer. They sat in the breeze of an uncovered window on the garden side of her receiving room, and he noted the restless eyes watching for any movement among the flowers and hedges.

  "Lady, the nobility will stand with tradition," answered Holset. "Two spokes have passed. Fall's Beginning approaches, and Leute remains without a king. You must remarry soon and give us one."

  "I wish never to marry again," she answered, savagely stabbing her embroidery in its tambour frame.

  "You will not even consider the hand of King Warin?"

  She pushed away the tambour. "Warin is a false man. And he has no partiality for me now." She drew the ends of her braids through her fingers under her long black veil.

  Holset smiled; so Warin still might hope. "No, madame, Warin is true to you, in spite of your over-proud conduct. Yes, I say it, and you may storm and rage all you like: you are well-matched, the two of you. Your lords will give you until Fall's Beginning to make up your mind. After that, I cannot guarantee their patience."

  So he repeated to Warin that night. "She loves you still, Your Majesty, I would stake my life on it. All that is needed is some wooing. Yield to your own inclination, sire. You cannot tell me you do not love her."

  The next day, Warin waited at a hidden intersection in the garden among the late season flowers; Edmerka had taken to walking there alone, and when she passed, he fell in step beside her. She stiffened, but did not run. "How long do you intend to stay in mourning, sister queen?" he said.

  "Until I am done, brother king," she answered. "It is tradition."

  "Did you love your husband so very much?"

  Her startling blue eyes pinned him through the veil. "I despised him even as I loved my father."

  "Your father was a lighthearted man. I am sure he would have you put aside mourning. I myself look forward to seeing you in colors again."

  "Do you," she said. She pulled a little curved knife from the tasseled belt at her hips, and began to cut the asters, white and violet, that spilled onto the graveled pathway.

  Warin struggled for words. He
couldn't see her face through the veil, though he recognized the way she stood, the slight tremble of frustration and temper that used to run through her at the cottage. "Emmae--"

  "Don't call me that!"

  "Very well, then, Your Majesty." He watched her hack at the flowers. "I...I am sorry."

  "Indeed? For what?" she said, seemingly intent on her task.

  "For not telling you who I am, or what had happened to you."

  "You should be," she said, pointing the knife at him. "You should be very sorry!" She returned to butchering the flowers. The little knife was none too sharp, and crushed more than cut the stems; the air filled with their astringent, green and somewhat bitter smell.

  Her trembling increased, though whether from fury or misery he couldn't tell; it wrung his heart, and broke his pride. "And how might I express that sorrow to you?" he said. "I will do anything you want, anything to earn your forgiveness and love. What must I do?"

  "I don't know if there is anything you can do," she choked. She dropped the flowers and ran back to the Keep's courtyard, her long mourning veil tangling so badly in the rose bushes that she left it behind.

  After a moment, Warin bent down and picked up the discarded flowers. He tried to untangle the veil, but in the end, he ripped it from the thorns and trod it underfoot as he stomped back to the Keep, through the courtyard to the tower stairs leading to the upper hall, and finally to pace and brood in his own quarters.

  "Let her come to you again in her own time, Your Majesty," came a voice at his elbow.

  "I don't think she will, Teacher," said Warin heavily.

  "She is wounded, and you have let the wound fester. Show her your love, but be steadfast and patient."

  Warin fingered the flowers in his hand. "I waited for her to heal from a wound I gave her once. I can do it again, but I wonder if she will heal a second time."

  "It is the same wound, sire," murmured Teacher.

  That night as she sat down to eat in her bower, the Dowager Queen found the flowers she had dropped, in a little nosegay tied up in simple ribbons and placed atop her tray. A note beside it read:

  These are the ribbons I bought with our furs. They belong to you.

  At first, the maidservant thought Edmerka would throw the flowers across the room. Instead, the Queen took one long breath in, let it out, and gave the nosegay to the maid to put in water. When the flowers died, Edmerka slipped the ribbons unseen into the silk purse she wore at her waist.

  Warin let a day go by before he sent another gift: a tiny, delicate wooden rabbit, the twin of the one carved into her broomhandle, and clearly from the King's own hands. It, too, went into the purse with the ribbons. She gave no thanks, and when the King inquired of her women whether Edmerka had accepted the gifts, they told him truthfully they had no idea what she'd done with them.

  Undaunted, Warin sent a gift every day. He sent her a rabbit fur pillow, stuffed with lavender from the bushes outside their old cottage, and her unfinished embroidery fetched on the same trip back through the silver tray. He sent her a length of silk for a new dress, the same color as the flowers she favored in the garden, with a note: "Asters are for patience." Many small gifts he sent, none returned, until finally he sent her the ring he'd bought with their furs in the village: a simple, golden band.

  That night, the Dowager Queen joined the company at dinner for the first time. She sat at the King's left hand, as was proper, but said only, "Tolerably well, Your Majesty, thank you," when asked how she did. There was some small progress: she had exchanged black for gray and set aside her veil, though she kept her hair covered in a widow's coif. Her right-hand ring finger remained bare, where his promise to her should have shone in gold.

  From that day, Edmerka rejoined the daily life of the Keep. She walked more often in the garden, ate in the Great Hall, and dressed in colors, if drab ones, but she rebuffed every attempt Warin made to engage her in conversation. "I am not inclined to speak privately with you, Your Majesty," was all she would say, until finally Hendas of Holset came to her in frustration.

  "Lady, I am here to tell you that you will either marry King Warin, or you will marry the Leutan lord of your choosing," he said, settling his thick frame into an equally thick chair in her bower.

  "And if I choose none?" she said.

  "Then you bring civil war to your kingdom, or worse. The lords ruling in your name will only do it for so long before their ambition overtakes them. And if you reject him, the King may decide to take Leute by force in his anger. Either way, you will destroy your people. Thousands will die, either by the sword or from the starvation and sickness that always follow war."

  "I will not be threatened into marrying Warin of Tremont!" she said, stomping her foot. The ring clinked faintly against the little wooden rabbit inside her silk purse.

  "No threat, Lady, merely a statement of fact. I will tell you this: Whoever wins the war will either force you into marriage, a Temple, or Harla's Hill. I would not see the daughter of an old friend meet such an end," said Holset. "Several Leutan lords and envoys remain in hopes of winning you. Make up your mind, and soon."

  "And you?" she said, lip curled. "Will you bid for my hand, Lord Hendas?"

  "No, Lady," he answered promptly, "for I have a wife, and I love her." He stood, and he cast such a stern, cold gaze over her that she froze inwardly. "Be assured that if war comes to Leute, I will be in its thick, either fighting to win the throne for the worthiest man, or fighting to save our people from Tremontine swords."

  She pondered this conversation until dinner. Once, Edmerka would have screamed and thrown things faced with choices that were no choices at all, but she had changed, fundamentally.

  Seated beside Warin at dinner, she waited for a pause in the general conversation. "Your Majesty," she said.

  Warin turned, instantly attentive. "Yes, my Lady?"

  "I recognize there is wide interest in my future. Before I decide what my future might be, I must speak with you before this company." Her voice was heard so infrequently that the diners fell silent, some studying their plates, some the Dowager and the King, Hendas of Holset among them. "You have said you would do me any service I might require, brother king," said Edmerka.

  Into the quiet, Warin said, "You know I would do anything in my power to accommodate you, sister queen."

  "Then make me a promise." She stressed each word, first in Tremontine, and then in Leutish. "Swear that no matter what I decide for my future, you will not march against Leute as a result."

  Several Tremontine lords rumbled deep in their throats; one put his hand on his dagger, but the Leutans sat straighter. "My friend," one whispered gleefully to another, "she must have decided against him in favor of one of us."

  Warin put down his wine goblet and frowned. "I do not speak Leutish well," he answered slowly. "So you will have to translate for those who can't understand me, Lady." He stood. "On my honor, and that of my kingdom, I swear I will not march against Leute if you decide against me. For that's what you mean, isn't it?" he added more quietly to her. She coolly translated all but the last for the few Leutans who didn't speak Tremontine.

  The Tremontines broke out in angry exclamations; the Leutans called for wine and noisily toasted the King in both languages. Edmerka smiled to herself and slipped out of the Great Hall.

  "I have enraged my lords, Teacher, and am not entirely sure they are wrong," sighed Warin late that night.

  "Your Majesty, you have cleared the way for the lady to make a true choice. You have proven yourself an honorable man."

  Warin shook his head. "I wasn't sure what my final gift to her should be until tonight. If she doesn't accept my wooing then, I am done."

  "A bird?" said Edmerka to her maidservant the next morning. "He sent me a bird?" She peered into the cage in the maid's hands.

  "A nightingale, Your Majesty," beamed the maid. She hung the cage near a window. "They sing, oh, it's so beautiful! It'll break your heart, it will. They say they sing for their
lost loves."

  "We have nightingales in Leute," Edmerka snapped. She stomped out of her bower, down the stairs to the upper hall where the King met with his counselors, and demanded entrance.

  Inside, Warin and several Tremontine lords bent low over a map. "Should civil war come to Leute," the King was saying, "we must be on guard against attempts to take these castles along our borders--" He straightened as Edmerka burst through the door, a protesting servant at her heels. Her eyes were bright with anger; he might have expected this.

  "Explain yourself, sir!" she said, stuttering on the words.

  "Explain myself, how, my Lady?" he said. "Perhaps you may excuse us, my lords?"

  "Let them hear how cruel you are! What do you mean, to give me--me!--something in a cage! Something that sings because it cannot help itself--crude, cruel, unthinking man, explain yourself!"

  "My lords, please excuse us," said Warin firmly. He took Edmerka by the elbow and steered her under protest into his private chambers, where she did her best to straighten the coif that had gone askew in her rush to confront him. He longed to take it off entirely, to remove the last reminder of his brother. Perhaps that was why she wore it--to remind him.

  "Well?" she said. "What do you mean by this?"

  "I bought it from a bird trader in the City. He had hundreds of songbirds, all kinds."

  "And you thought I'd like to keep one locked up in a cage for my amusement?"

  "No," he said quietly, "I thought you might like to set it free."

  Her mouth dropped open in astonishment, and she stared for a good while. The angry splotchiness of her face resolved into a full blush before retreating altogether. "Yes," she said finally, "I think I might." She extended a shy hand. "Would...would you care to open his cage with me?"

  They met in the pleasure gardens his mother had planted, Edmerka bearing the cage, Warin keeping a careful but approachable distance. "Should you not still be in conference, sire?" she said.

  "This is more important," he answered. He took the cage from her hands. "Whenever you are ready, my Lady."

  Edmerka looked in at the little dun-colored bird. He peered back at her with one black eye, then the other, ruffled up the feathers at his neck, and let out a trill, modulating to a sob. "Such a lovely song," she whispered. "Go sing it to your ladylove." She fumbled with the latch. The nightingale stopped singing and hopped back in alarm. "Now, it's all right, just give me a moment--there!"