She used the fan strike with her hand, whirled out of his grasp, and took a step. This time the force came up through her planted foot, centered in her hips, and her body torqued as she swung.
Then he caught her fist, and they grappled. Freed of all constraint she swung at him with all her might, and he fought back. Grunting with effort, her eyes stinging—why were tears always so close? She was angry! Angry… and the heat flared.
“Obliterate me,” she whispered, and sank her teeth into the palm of his hand.
Afterward she felt as if she’d tumbled into the air and sunlight. There was ache, but it was good, for her nerves were unsheathed, the more sensitive to the fading throb of climax. She floated free, empty of emotion.
Ivandred still lay beside her when she woke. She was not aware of moving, but she had discovered that even the sound of her breath changing would bring Ivandred instantly awake and aware, his body still, his fingers closed around the knife hilt never far from his reach.
She met his watchful gaze on the next pillow and smiled. “I dreamed of wings,” she whispered, habit making her sorrowful at the purpling scratch on his neck and on his shoulders. He always insisted he never noticed such things. It seemed to be true. He could not remember how he’d taken some of the scars she had examined with her fingers.
“Wings?” he whispered back. “How is that?”
She had not had one of these dreams since…
Her mind slid away from Kaidas and reached for the dream, whose images were already dissipating. But familiar patterns lingered: she always woke a little dizzy from seeing the land below, the wandering ribbon of streams, trees seen from overhead resembling round green sponges, the spires of the palace like spindles just below her fingertips. Dizzy but triumphant from the memory of happiness coursing through her veins as she drifted high on the air, the sun warm on her wings.
That memory of happiness always betrayed her, for there under the memory was the ember of anger. Where did it come from? She was not an angry person. Her earliest memories were Marnda’s kindly, firm tone whispering over her head as she sat on her ponder chair, Princesses are never angry. It makes them ugly, and princesses are always beautiful. She could not get up from the ponder chair until her anger was conquered—and the last time she’d had to sit on that chair, she was no older than eight.
“What can I do to help you?” she asked, willing away the memories.
“What can I do for you?” He searched her eyes, as if trying to find the thoughts behind them. For in his way he was sensitive to muscle movement, and he sensed the complexities of her mood, though he could not understand them. He wanted her to be happy. He would do anything to make her so. “You have already done much, from the moment you gave up your home to come here. I would have stayed in Colend for a year. I think you know that. But you gave that up for me, and so.” He opened his hand toward the bedchamber. “And so we wake up here, instead of arriving straight to a dungeon, with Danrid as king. I wake up every day grateful to you.”
“I want to be busy. I want work that matters. You must tell me what a queen does.”
His expression altered as he considered, his twitch of shoulder, upward glance a little helpless. “We don’t have any custom for a gunvaer, not anymore.”
“New custom is not welcome?”
“Right now, they must see a continuation of agreed-on custom, all according to law. Do you see? If I obey the law, that forces the others to do so.”
“Will continuation of Marloven custom end the troubles, then?”
“Continuation of custom might circumvent the most obvious problems,” he said. “There are two things that we must do immediately. One, the city needs to see a proper memorial for my father. And we need to make ready for the jarls to arrive for renewing their vows as I take the throne.”
“And after?”
“Olavair is going to make a move, I am certain of it. And in the south, I had no time to settle Totha. My father knew I did not have time. I hit two castles from which I suspect raiders have originated. Left one of those false Jevair-green tunics on a lance to let them know that I had seen through the ruse. I want that to suffice, but it probably won’t.”
The watch bell rang then, and it was time for him to rise and get on with his tasks.
Lasva went straightaway to her own chamber, and there, wrapped in silk and imprisoned inside a beautiful darkwood box with herons inlaid in cedar, lay the lover’s cup.
She craved the peace of emptiness. She lifted her hand to fling the lover’s cup into the fireplace, but the light caught in the fine porcelain, glowing like something alive—the wing of a butterfly, the fragile curve of the ear of a young girl, as heedless of her own beauty as she was of the beauty of summer sunshine. Living hands had ground the ingredients to make this cup, had shaped it and fired it; wishes and dreams had been set into its constituents, and every touch of brush had been laid on with…
Love does not last.
Why should art suffer, even if the humans who made the art were as transient as those butterflies? And so she dashed through to the private chamber where we did our fan form and thrust the box into my hands. “Hide it away,” she said, with tears along her lower lashes, her mouth tight. “Do not tell me where it is.” She whisked herself out.
I opened the box, lifted the heavy silk wrapper, and stared down in astonishment, recognizing at last one of the infamous lover’s cups Tiflis had chirped about. I took the thing to my own room and looked around desperately. I had three pieces of furniture: a bed, a desk, a trunk. How could I hide anything?
Magic, of course. I set the box on the desk, cast an illusion over it, and returned, where I found Lasva stretching, her voice brisk, her gaze bright. We worked through our fan forms in the old way, and then faced one another, striking and blocking in the dueling dance, as she talked about how our lives would change.
Lasva then faced me, and I knew that here was the conversation that I had been dreading.
But she had seen that. “We will not talk about my sister’s orders,” she said. “I understand the dilemma you were placed in. All of you, but you especially with this astonishing command to learn magic. It was to my protection. Ivandred was expressive in your praise. He was far too graphic in his description of what would have happened to you had the king discovered what you were doing, and he insisted that only my ignorance would have protected me from sharing the same sentence. So I comprehend your silence.”
I bowed low, wretched with my falsity, for I hadn’t known about that threat. However, I also knew that to speak was to worsen things.
She continued, “I will only say this: your duty is no longer to my sister. It is to me, and to Ivandred. Regard our wills as united.”
I made another full bow.
“He has spoken with you about magic,” she said, still with that intent gaze. “What about?”
“Only the tasks at hand. Except once. Before New Year’s. He was very tired. Rode with us as long as he could. But when we stopped, he took me aside and showed me Marlovar Bridge. He talked about Inda, who was Elgar the Fox.” And at her gesture, I repeated the entire conversation.
“He never said anything like that to me,” she observed, and I bowed again, sick with apprehension that yet again I’d done wrong. But she said quickly, “Oh, Emras. I think it’s entirely due to the way you scribes are trained. You are easy to talk to. Safe. You stand there so quietly, and we are raised knowing that you cannot interfere, that you must keep our secrets. Merely, I am surprised that he should find it so, having not been raised the same way.”
She took a step, hands under her elbows, and I was astonished and disturbed to see a fresh bruise where I thought the edge of her robe had cast a shadow at her collarbone. There was another on her wrist. Who could have bruised her but Ivandred? I had regarded him with the same wariness I regarded all the Marlovens, but also with the respect due his rank. Otherwise I spared him as little thought as ants think about the eagle drifting overhead.
The sight of that bruise, however, evoked repugnance, even loathing.
But Lasva’s severity eased—she did not have the demeanor I would expect from someone abused. “Though we talk—much—about the kingdom, he seldom speaks of his inner life, and I am trying to understand him. It will come.” She let out her breath. “You and I find ourselves in new ranks of life. You must make the transfer tokens he asked for, as they ease his tasks. But for me, you must search the archives for something on queens—gunvaers. The good ones. What do they consider good, here? Did they ride as warriors at the head of lancers? Even with the best of intentions, I do not see myself performing such a role well.”
“If I may suggest without attempting to interfere?” I hoped this contravention of the rules would please her.
She made an impatient gesture, dashing away Colendi custom.
I said, “You might write to Ivandred’s sister. Or to his aunt.”
“His sister was mostly raised by his aunt, and she spent summers in Enaeran,” Lasva said. “But Ingrid-Jarlan? That is a very good idea, Emras. If anyone knows what a gunvaer traditionally did, it would be she.”
The jarlan came almost at once, and it was apparent to both Lasva and me that she was cognizant of everything that had happened. It became clear that she’d had steady communication with the captain of the female guards.
Ingrid-Jarlan looked around with open curiosity, indicated her approval with quick open-palmed gestures, and then Lasva invited her to sit, gesturing me to the scribe’s post.
The jarlan dropped down cross-legged at the table, sipped the Sartoran steep and blinked, her head a little tipped. “That has an odd flavor,” she said. “The taste reminds me of the smell of summer grass after rain. Now. To your purpose. I have been thinking about it. You have to know that I am at a disadvantage. My father, who had grown up hearing about how the women assassinated one of the last of the Olavair kings, refused to send me to the Academy. No one will accept a ruler who hasn’t been trained,” she said.
“So there are no customs of queens?”
“The last truly great gunvaer was Hadand Deheldegarthe. In Colend, did all compare your sister to your famous great-grandmother?”
Lasva made The Peace as she considered her answer.
But the jarlan did not expect one. She leaned forward. “Hadand’s daughter-by-marriage, who grew up under her tutelage, when our female academy was as great as the men’s, was the worst gunvaer in history. Among her many culpabilities, she disbanded our academy.”
“What was its purpose?” Lasva asked.
“The girls spent two years here, the first to ensure that the quality of their training was universal, but the second was really for them to know one another, so that they might band together to communicate and defend the kingdom. When Fabern-Gunvaer disbanded their training so that she would have more free time to pursue her lovers, that communication was lost within a generation. And so was our influence. We have never regained it except in short periods, when a king’s mother or sister was very strong. But if you wish to understand what makes a great gunvaer, then you must read Hadand Deheldegarthe’s letters.”
Lasva said, “I have not found any such in the library here.”
“Tchah!” Ingrid lifted the back of her hand, a gesture of rudeness. “The Olavairs destroyed everything they could of my family’s greatness. But Hadand’s daughter and niece saw that coming, and they made it their own work to collect all her letters before they died. I have them in the Darchelde archive. I can send them over.” Her lip curled. “There are very many. And difficult, for the language has changed somewhat. But if you read them, I promise you will understand what a gunvaer does.”
The jarlan retired to rest before the midnight bonfire. Lasva summoned me to her own chamber, and said, “You saw the day the king died that the guards listened to me, but that was not because I had authority, it was because I spoke in an absence of authority, what they call a clear chain of command. Does that match your perception?” She had switched to Marloven.
I made The Peace.
She twisted her hands together, then flung them apart. “I made an oath. I mean to keep it. And melende requires me to establish my own authority, instead of relying on that which Ivandred gives me. I can achieve nothing here if he must endorse every command I might give.”
I bowed over my pressed palms, completely out of my depth, for all my training had been toward my absenting myself from influence—the Scribes’ First Rule.
Lasva gazed at the wide, flat Marloven plates on the table, then to the glimpse of barely-begun tapestry in the far room. “What can I achieve? I do not want authority just so that I can walk first through a door. I had a lifetime of that. Yet I am not and never will be, a war leader. Perhaps I can fill a need that they do not see. The Colendi have avoided war for centuries by refining the art of discourse, which becomes negotiation when the subject is a treaty.”
I bowed again.
Lasva got to her feet. “Go and rest. I have no idea how long this memorial bonfire might go, but judging from their usual habits, long or short, we will rise before the sun as always.”
SEVEN
OF THE ADUMBRATIONS OF POWER
E
mras: I am writing in Old Sartoran partly as practice (I am a herald again, as you shall discover) and partly because I have no idea how safe your circumstances are. There is a third “partly”: I vowed not to write until I was settled.
As soon as the residual stresses of the transfer magic cleared, we breathed the sweet air of Alsais again. Rejoicing at the sound of the carillons ringing the quarter after the Hour of Spice, Belimas began to weep, repeating “Home, home, I never thought I would see it again,” which matched the emotions in my heart.
Imagine the irony when we discovered that Alsais would only be home in memory. In truth, I do not think Belimas was there a full day before the queen gave her a year’s pay and sent her off. I heard this from my sister as I awaited my interview with the queen (something Belimas was not granted). I got much the same, though with thanks for my service. All honorable, polite, and definite: there was no place for me either in the palace or in Alsais.
I went straight to the heralds. What had I done wrong? Nothing. I went to Halimas, who had championed me during the days when you and I were students. What did I do wrong? Nothing.
So I took a boat into Alsais, made my way to the scribe shop, and used some of my new wealth to get myself a magical scrollcase, and then awarded myself a night in the finest inn that had space. Do you remember the Viridian Fane? From my room overlooking the Crown Skya Canal, I sent a note to my mother.
Within a day I had an answer: though I was welcome, she could only offer the customary week of family visitation time but no place. My sister who had never trained as a scribe? Gone as a caravan farrier for merchants. My mother suggested that I go to the Baron Lassiter, as our family had served them for generations.
So my third night was spent in my old bed at Lassiter House. I did not fit the bed any more than I fit the place, which was overrun with the staff of the Baron’s new lover, a Lady Yirlath. He interviewed me the next morning. Said he, “I can always find you something to do, for I owe your family that much, but you are too smart to serve as a postilion, and besides, you’re not handsome enough.”
“Handsome!” said I.
He laughed. “Yirlath’s daughter is trying to make a splash in Khanerenth’s court, and the fashion now is for matched sets of pretty horses and postilions. I suggest you go see my son, the Duke of Alarcansa. I think he’s still there—it’s early for court. He’s richer than most kings. If that poison-piece he’s married to boots you back down the stairs, come back to me, and I can put you out with the yearlings, at least, because I know you won’t break their gaits.”
Thus my fourth morning found me in Alarcansa, and though I braced myself to face the grown version of the Icicle Duchess (at the Hour of Stone, in a room so formal I would be intimidated just to breathe its air),
I found myself waved in by the Duke, whose impatient stride was a younger version of his father’s. “Your timing is excellent. I must return to my duties at court in two days,” he said to me, and then beckoned for me to walk by his side. “If you were a scribe, I’d send you back. I know it is unjust to judge them by the perfidy of a single member of the guild who betrayed my father, but I can’t look on those smooth scribal faces without wondering what machinations are going on behind them. They affect virtue, but do they practice it?”
He raised the three fingers in Insinuation, which caught me by surprise, after months of Marlovens and their largely meaningless gestures. Did your mind insist on ascribing meanings to them, too? “Heralds, though, I like. You either proclaim the news or you archive it. You don’t make it. My career as a queen-appointed commander is attached to the palace heralds…”
Oh, I could hear Birdy’s voice reading the words, which caused my throat to hurt. I could not prevent myself from wondering what he wrote to Anhar and if he wrote as much. Or maybe he wrote less, but revealed his inner self more?
… and then he indicated my stable-worn hands and said, “Your mission was obviously quite fraught. We can amend that, at least.”
I found myself in the bath alcove, sitting side by side with him as our nails were tended, and I don’t mean the quick trim and buff expected of us servants. We had the entire course, beginning with hot water with citrus blossoms, oils, and oh how good it felt to have the knots smoothed from my hands and feet, as we conversed.
He asked for my experience, and I told him, including the inexplicable ending to my career as a royal herald.
“No more inexplicable than my glorious career,” he said.
Have you ever heard the man speak? He’s a master of cordial irony.
“How,” I began, “if I may be permitted to ask—”
“Ask as you will,” he said, signing shadow-pardon for the interruption. “The queen apparently liked my style in my total failure to rescue the princess last summer, but not enough to keep me in Alsais over winter. She was here not quite three weeks on her progress. Heh! She was not best pleased with a supper of a single olive served on a five-hundred year old plate, surrounded by a wreath of lettuce, and poetry for dessert. The duchess and I extolled the art of austerity, wearing the same unadorned clothing for two weeks running. On her way out, the queen left orders for me to present myself again on Flower Day. So, what color is it to be?”
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