by Judith Tarr
He was enjoying himself, was William. Not Aidan alone would welcome the spectacle of Heraclius plucked from his comfort in Jerusalem, haled away to bless the union of a witch and an Assassin. That their haste was unseemly, not to mention ungodly, troubled him not at all. He went in his own person to speak to the canons of the cathedral, to bid them wreak a miracle.
o0o
Elen was happy—more than happy—to know that Aidan could have his lady at last and with the pope’s blessing. She wished that she could have been as happy for herself.
Gwydion brought the news to them all. He did not speak directly to Elen. He had no glance to spare for her.
Certainly he had cause to be distracted. There was much to do, and precious little time to do it in. But Elen knew the many colors of his silences. This was indigo, with a flicker of scarlet: storm colors, thunder colors. His majesty of Rhiyana was not pleased with his kinswoman.
There was no comfort in Raihan. He was gone about his prince’s business; he would hardly welcome her presence in his shadow, even if she could have followed him.
She told herself that it was best. She had had a little joy, more than either of them was entitled to. Now she must put it aside. Her body was her family’s again, to bestow to its best advantage.
Her heart was her own, and it knew surely what it wanted. She was woman grown and no giddy girl; she could not fall out of love as easily as she had fallen into it. She did not think, in the quiet of herself, that she would ever fall out of it at all.
Sweet saints, she had a virtue. She had a constant heart. Alas for her good name, that it had fixed itself on so unsuitable an object.
“He is not unsuitable!”
There was no one to hear or to stare. She was in the garden cutting roses for the wedding. A thorn stabbed her finger, last and worst of many.
She straightened abruptly. “Enough of this,” she said. Patience was not an art she knew much of; and she had never seen the good in suffering, still less in silence. Her secret was uncovered; her king was displeased. So then: let there be an end to it.
She was not entirely lost to good sense. She took the basket of roses to the kitchen, set them in the basin of water which waited for them, paused to smooth her hair and her gown. Someone called to her. She pretended not to hear.
Calm, she could hardly call herself. But composed—yes, she was that, as a princess should be. She went in search of his majesty the king.
o0o
His majesty was in the room in which they entertained guests, hidden away behind the hall. For a miracle, he was alone. He had been dispatching messages—a pair of pages had shot past her as she approached the solar, nearly oversetting her—but he seemed to have paused, perhaps for a moment’s quiet.
He would have it when she was done. She sank down in a curtsy, as if this had been his hall and the plain hard chair his throne. He regarded her steadily.
She stood erect. She had meant to lower her gaze like a proper meek woman, but her eyes had a will of their own. They met his boldly, and would not turn away.
Her tongue was as willful as her eyes. It would not keep silence or wait humbly for him to speak. It said, “I am sorry that I caused you hurt. I cannot repent of what I did.”
“So you informed me.” His voice was quiet; calm. Cold.
“I would,” she said, “if I could. I will pay the penalty as you decree.”
“Will you, then? Will you take a husband if I command it?”
She faced him steadily. “I will do my duty to you and to our family.”
“Duty only? Nothing more?”
“Can there be more?”
For a moment she thought she saw his eyes flicker. Then they were cold again, hard, grey as stones beside the sea. “What if I bid you wed the Lord Amalric de Lusignan?”
Her breath caught in her throat. She could not swallow. She choked out the words as she must, as her pride demanded. “I will do as my king commands.”
Gwydion rose, paced to the far wall, turned. So would his brother have done. It was altogether unlike Gwydion. “Will you? Will you do so much?”
“He is a suitable match,” she said.
“He has asked for you.”
“It is my king’s right to bestow me as he wishes.”
“You cannot abide him.”
“Does it matter?”
She heard the hiss of his breath. She meant what she said. She would do as he bade, as she had been bred and raised to do.
“I failed of my duty,” she said, “but that is done. You may be assured that I shall not transgress again.”
Gwydion’s eyes were wide and very pale, almost silver. “You would do it,” he said. “You honestly would.” He approached her slowly. When they were face to face, not quite close enough to touch, he halted. “What if I set you free to choose?”
“Why ask, when you will not?”
“What do you know of what I will or will not do?”
He spoke softly, but his words stung. Her own were all the more haughty for it. “You will do what your majesty must do.”
“You have a brother,” he said. “Your brother has sons.”
At first she did not understand him. It was all her mind could do to sustain her shell of coldness, let alone to comprehend his subtlety. When she began to understand, she did not believe what she understood. Rhodri had a son, that was true. “What, is Luned pregnant again?”
“She was. They are two. Boys both, and as strong as anyone could wish for.”
“Twins run in our blood,” said Elen, hardly heeding her own words. Three sons. After Aidan, Rhodri was Gwydion’s heir, unless Gwydion sired a son himself. Then Rhodri’s sons. Then—
“I am still a valuable property,” she said.
“You will always be that.”
But not, any longer, quite so precious to the line. He was telling her that she was free. That she could choose.
“Then I choose Raihan,” she said.
Gwydion’s eyes were level on her. “Was there no man of your own faith to take, that you must have an infidel?”
“Did you think I had a choice?”
“You might,” he said. “You well might.”
“No,” she said. “No more than you, or Aidan, or Morgiana. Humans can love, too, my lord. Sometimes even eternally.”
There was no reading Gwydion, ever, unless he wished it. He was pure inhuman stillness. His eyes were grey as rain.
His silence, his mute intransigence, made her angry. And anger made her forget to be wise. “Apart from the cut of his privates and the count of his lineage, he is a thousandfold the man that your fine Lord Constable will ever be.”
To her profound astonishment, the king laughed. “Truly, one bandit’s son is very like another; even if one calls himself a lord.” He stilled; he was unreadable again. “Do you expect that I will go to war in Rome for you, to win yet another dispensation?”
“No,” she said.
“You know that without the Holy Father’s decree, you cannot marry him.”
“Then I will not marry him.” She paused. “I will not marry anyone at all.”
“Your children will be bastards.”
“There is no bastardy in Islam.”
“You would go so far?”
“I could,” she said. Knowing it. Somewhat appalled herself, to see how shallow her piety ran.
“I have always done my duty,” she said. “As child, as daughter, as wife. Even in my heart I have never asked aught but to be what a woman of my line should be. Now I know myself for a hypocrite. I was never sinless; I was merely untempted.”
He did not deny it. He said, “I will not force you to wed against your will. Any man in Christendom whom you may wish to wed, you may have, whether he be king or carpenter, and I will bless you.”
“But not Raihan.”
He reached for her. She started. He laid his hand against her cheek. “Child,” he said. “I never wanted you to be unhappy. When I saw how you were heale
d, here in Outremer, I was heart-glad.”
“Until you saw the one who healed me.”
He shook his head. The stillness had gone out of him; and with it a subtle, thrumming tension. “He was not,” he said, “the one I would have chosen for you. But God is wiser than I.”
Elen stared at him. “You’re not angry. You’re not angry at all.” No: he was not. No more did he repent of his letting her suffer so painfully, and for naught.
For naught? His glance denied it. She glared. “You were testing me!”
“No,” he said. “You tested yourself. I was never more than the mirror of your conscience.”
True; but that was only half of it. “You are too wise a king,” she said, “for the likes of me.” She looked him full in the face. “Do we have your blessing?”
He barely hesitated. “You have it,” he said. “You have always had it.”
Her throat went tight. He opened his arms. She hung back, resisting. He did not move. She flung herself into his embrace.
There in the safety of his presence, with his blessing on her, all her temper shrank and faded. If he had tested her, then she had tried him sorely. He was man enough, and king enough, to forgive her. Could she do any less?
Such wisdom to come to, all late and unlooked for. It might almost have been witchery.
She stepped back, out of his arms. “May I go, my lord?”
“To your Saracen?”
His eyes glinted. She lowered her own. Her cheeks were warm. “Not if you forbid me.”
“I set you free.”
Like a hawk off the fist. She leaped; she soared; she flew.
o0o
“Well done,” said the voice which Gwydion knew better than any in the world.
Gwydion turned, barely ruffled. Aidan grinned at him. Gwydion spared him the glimmer of a smile. “You’ll bless our catling’s sinning, then?” Gwydion asked him.
“How can I not?” Aidan said. “Raihan is almost good enough for her. He’ll try to talk her out of this, you know.”
“And fail.”
“No man is proof against a determined woman.” Aidan wandered to the winetable, found a bowl with pomegranates in it, took up a rose-red fruit and tossed it from hand to hand. “They’ll probably call in a qadi and marry as Muslims do. Will you try to stop them?”
“Will you?”
“I am hardly in a position,” said Aidan, “to preach against the marrying of infidels.”
Gwydion plucked the pomegranate out of the air, cut it open with his dagger. They shared it between them, finding it ripe and honey-sweet.
“It could have been worse,” Gwydion said. “She could have insisted on taking Messire Amalric.”
“She could indeed,” said Aidan. “And been wretched ever after.”
“But properly, Christianly wedded.”
“I don’t feel very proper or Christian when I think of that man.” Aidan licked his scarlet-stained fingers, frowning at the air. “He’s in Tyre. Did you know that?”
“I know it,” said Gwydion. “I saw him this morning.”
“Did you?” said Aidan. He paused. “Do you know what his mind reminds me of?”
“Yes,” Gwydion said. “A certain late conspiracy.”
Aidan was not surprised that Gwydion had thought of it before him. Gwydion had always been the quicker to think, as Aidan was to act. “And yet,” said Aidan, “none of them said a word about him. Not even Messer Seco.”
“As if he had bought their silence,” Gwydion said, “or been given it of their prudence. He is, after all, the only lord among them. That he would play so many sides in this game...that, I can easily believe. He asked for Elen this morning.”
“Again?”
“Again. And for passage west, ostensibly to preach the Crusade.”
“Bold,” said Aidan, “if he had a hand in the forgery. And arrogant, to think that you would even consider him after what his brother did to this kingdom.”
“Ambitious, and well convinced of his own worth.” Gwydion met his brother’s eyes. “Shall I summon him to hear the lady’s answer for himself?”
Aidan smiled slowly. “You can do better. You can send me to fetch him. He’ll fancy himself properly escorted.”
“No,” said Gwydion. “I think that I shall send Messire Raihan. If you will lend him to me.”
“And tell him what, and why?”
“If you will.”
Aidan’s smile widened to a grin. “I do. Oh, I do indeed.”
o0o
Amalric de Lusignan, though ambitious, was not a fool. He came warily, and he came in his own good time. The brothers were waiting for him, Aidan stretched out lazily at Gwydion’s feet. Amalric raised his brows at the picture they made. “You should be woven in a tapestry,” he said.
Aidan smiled with a white gleam of teeth. Gwydion wore no expression. He gestured; Amalric, after a moment’s pause, sat where he was bidden. His smile was remarkably free of strain. “I’ve heard the news,” he said. “I’m glad.”
Aidan nodded, but did not speak. He did not trust himself to be wise.
Gwydion shifted slightly. Amalric’s eyes flicked to him. Quietly he said, “I have considered what you asked of me. The lady has been spoken to. The choice, in the end, is hers. You may speak with her if you wish.”
Amalric eased perceptibly. So, then: he had expected other tidings. Of her refusal? Or perhaps of a certain conspiracy? “I’ll speak with her, sire,” he said.
Gwydion bent his glance on Raihan. The mamluk bowed low and departed.
They waited in silence. The brothers would not break it; Amalric, in courtesy, could not. He sat straight in the tall chair. Still though he was, he seemed subtly to fidget.
His mind was a buzzing nothingness.
That, said Gwydion for Aidan to hear, walled the king from me at Cresson.
Aidan’s response was wordless affirmation. It was indeed what he had sensed then and, like the fool he was, disregarded. It was like Brother Thomas’ sleights of mind: not power, but not-power. But stronger. How much stronger, Aidan had only begun to see.
He laid his arm across his brother’s knees, as much for reassurance as for his body’s comfort. On the surface Amalric’s mind seemed all harmless nothing-in-particular. Beneath, it was madness.
Gwydion was calmer, less openly revolted. The man is eminently sane. The walls he raises are madness and confusion for any of our kind who may trespass.
And he doesn’t even know it. Aidan shivered in his skin.
I think he knows, Gwydion said. His mind-voice was deathly quiet. Not what he is, but how; and why.
Raihan returned, shadowing Elen. It seemed perfectly proper: the servant, deferential; the lady, regally gracious. When she made her reverence to her uncles, greeted the Constable, sat composedly under all their eyes, the mamluk took station behind her. A guardsman’s place; or a watchful lover’s.
Gwydion perceived it. A spark kindled in his eye, mate to that in Elen’s. “My lady,” he said. “Messire Amalric wishes to hear what you have chosen. Will you accept his suit? Make this, perhaps, an occasion for doubled rejoicing?”
She was not unduly disconcerted to have it direct, without the usual dance of preliminaries. She did not, Aidan noticed, glance at her lover. Raihan stood as a guard should stand, light and erect, at ease but alert; but his hand on his swordhilt was white about the knuckles.
Amalric was hardly more composed. His eyes flicked from face to face, avoiding the lady’s. Until she spoke; then they fixed on her as if they had no power to move.
“I have considered,” she said, “and pondered long. I am honored that so high a lord should seek my hand, and I once widowed already, and no proof that I can bear him healthy sons.”
“As to that, my lady,” said Amalric, “I’m sure I needn’t be concerned.”
She regarded him coolly, with no visible disfavor. “My lord is kind.”
He rose and bowed with a passable flourish. “My lady is
worthy of every kindness.”
Elen inclined her head. “That is for my lord to judge.”
“I hope I may do more than that,” Amalric said.
Raihan quivered like an arrow in a target. Aidan wondered that Amalric could not see it and know it for what it was.
To Messire Amalric, no doubt, the mamluk was invisible: dark-faced, bearded, turbaned, Saracen.
Elen, well aware of all of them, glanced briefly at her younger uncle. He tried to warm her with a smile. She eased a very little and raised her chin a fraction higher. “My lord may hope,” she said, “but alas, I fear I cannot be so gracious. My husband whom I loved is scarce a year in his tomb. To contemplate another in his place...” Her voice trembled. It was not all feigned. She was exerting all her will to keep her eyes down and not to feast them on the one who had taken her dear lord’s place. “My lord, I pray your kind indulgence. You offer me honor and glory far above my poor deserts. How can I accept them? I would but bring a third into our marriage bed, a ghost who would be ever between us.”
A very solid ghost, Aidan thought, with eyes the color of sulfur burning.
Amalric mustered a clenched-teeth smile. “My lady may find that there is no better exorcism for a lover’s ghost than a new and living lover.”
Elen’s cheeks flushed faintly. “That may be so, my lord. But it is too soon. Please, my lord, if truly you have any regard for me. Someday, perhaps, when the pain is not so fresh...but now, my lord, now I cannot bear to think of it.”
Gently, Aidan willed her. Not too broad a mime of grief, or milord would scent the mockery in it.
Milord, it seemed, was blind enough to take her at her word. She was distractingly lovely in her plain somber gown and her white wimple, with the slightest quivering in her chin, the slightest shimmer of dampness in her eye. She rose with pure unconscious grace and held out a slender hand. “My lord, I am most honored, you must remember that. I wish you well. I pray that you may find a lady who is worthy of you.”
Her departure was graceful, queenly, and rather more precipitous than it looked. Aidan knew what she did once she was past the door: fell into Raihan’s arms, choking with mingled laughter and tears.
Raihan would look after her. Aidan thought well of that pairing, now that he had seen them together. Christian marriage, no, they could not have that while Raihan held to his faith, but it would hardly stop them.