The Summer Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Go?” Sparks said. “Go where, in the middle of Tammis’s wedding?”

  She looked at him, all the pleasure disappearing from her face. “I told you. I have a meeting with Capella Goodventure.”

  “Lady’s Eyes!” he said, frowning. “Why can’t she come to the wedding; then at least you could pretend your mind was on this.”

  “She won’t come to a Winter ceremony,” Moon said.

  Danaquil Lu glanced at the Queen as he moved into line beside his wife; seeing an unhappiness in her eyes that her voice did not reveal. He looked away again, down at the thing she had pressed into his hand—a startlingly lifelike three-dimensional image of Merovy and Tammis kissing, caught in some enchantment that held them perpetually in that moment of joy. He touched the image hesitantly, finding that his finger passed through it as if it were a hallucination, touching only a flat surface he could not see.

  “Smile!” Tor called, her voice slightly slurred.

  He looked up at the camera, but he was already smiling.

  * * *

  Sparks looked away from the camera’s pitiless eye as Tor finished trapping their souls inside it. (Some part of him would always think of it that way, the seed of superstition from his childhood, transformed by time into an uncomfortable pearl of irony.) Moon touched his arm briefly, as if in apology; but when he turned to look at her she was already disappearing into the crowd, on her way out.

  He frowned, looking back at Danaquil Lu and Clavally, who were head to head over the holo of their daughter and his son, as Tor passed them the one of themselves. Suddenly not wanting to see the picture, he moved away. The band on the other side of the room began to play another traditional song, and he reached into his belt pouch for his flute. He had taken it back from Ariele, because she seemed to have no real interest in it. Now, hearing the band play, he thought of joining them. It was one of the few privileges of his position that actually mattered to him—that when he asked to play, almost no one would refuse him. The awareness that he would not disgrace himself by his musicianship if he did was one of the few things in his life that he still felt justifiably proud of.

  “Da—”

  He turned, surprised by Ariele’s voice behind him. He looked at her, her clothing wrapping her like rainbows in bright arcs of fabric, her long hair bound up in an attempt to imitate an elaborate offworlder style. She had always reminded him of Moon when he looked at her, in a way that pinched his heart; but today she reminded him suddenly, strikingly, of someone else. Arienrhod. He blinked, forcing himself to see only his daughter, in love with the offworlders’ legacy, the way he had been once, in his youth. “What?” he asked.

  “Where did Mother go?”

  “To meet with Capella Goodventure.”

  Ariele made a face, and sighed. “Where’s Gran? Tammis said she was coming to the party with Borah. She was bringing me some tiller shells to make into combs. Isn’t she here yet?”

  He looked away, searching the crowd, surprised again as he realized that he had not seen either of them here, when he knew they had been expected. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Well, they should have left earlier, then,” she said, with an impatient shake of her head. “They’re missing everything.”

  “A storm could have delayed them.” Elco Teel Graymount came up behind Ariele, putting his hands on her familiarly, smirking as he glanced at her father.

  Sparks felt himself begin to frown; made no comment as Ariele only smiled and sidled closer to the boy. At least she showed no signs of taking a special interest in him, or anyone, yet; although Elco Teel was at her constantly, like an insect at a flower. Sparks had wondered more than once whether Elco Teel would have been half as interested in his daughter if she were not going to be the next Summer Queen. The prospect of having Kirard Set’s only son for a son-in-law did not appeal to him. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “The weather report said that the weather down the coast was fine.”

  Elco Teel shrugged. “There could be a storm. Squalls come up suddenly all the time, and swamp small boats. Especially when the ones sailing it are getting old…”

  Sparks glared at him, about to chastise him for speaking ill-luck about a journey. But he saw Merovy come up behind Ariele, her hair garlanded with flowers, her gray eyes glancing curiously from face to face. Sparks smiled instead, the way her father had smiled as he looked at her picture. Ariele and Elco Teel turned as they saw his smile, to stare at her with unreadable expressions. “Have you seen Tammis?” she asked.

  Sparks began to shake his head. “Not in a—”

  “I saw him,” Elco Teel said, and Sparks thought he heard a hint of malice in it. “He went upstairs. Brein wanted to congratulate him on his marriage.” He glanced at Ariele, raising his eyebrows, smiling as Merovy’s face pinched with some emotion Sparks couldn’t name.

  Ariele looked back at him, but she did not smile, this time. She pulled her arm free from his grasp. “I don’t care,” she said. “I want to dance.” She started away, leaving him behind. He scrambled after her through the crowd to the space where others were dancing already—old dances, offworlder dances, to music that had over time become a unique mixture of different heritages; like their world.

  Sparks looked back at Merovy, seeing something secret and forlorn fill her face as she watched them go off without a word. Sensing that there was more to it than simply the casual rudeness of youth, he touched her arm gently. “I’ll find him, and send him to you.”

  She nodded, smiling.

  He made his way through the party toward the stairway at the back of the room. Kirard Set intersected his course, leaning against the banister at the foot of the stairs as he reached it. Kirard Set’s smile was annoyingly like his son’s. “The facilities are free down here at the moment—” He gestured at the bathroom.

  Sparks felt his frown come back. “I’m looking for Tammis. Is he up there?”

  Kirard Set shrugged. “Yes.” He stepped aside, leaving the stairway clear, but his expression changed subtly. Sparks knew, with a sudden coldness in the pit of his stomach, that he should turn and walk away. But Kirard Set’s smile held him, gently mocking.

  Instead he climbed the stairs to the second story of the townhouse, hearing the sound of voices speaking softly, growing more distinct, until he recognized one as Tammis’s. He reached the top of the stairs and saw two figures embracing in the dim light. They broke apart, startled by his sudden appearance, so that he saw them clearly—Tammis, with his bright wedding shirt hanging open, and Brein, a Winter boy from the crowd he was always with, stroking his bare chest.

  He saw the sudden guilt, the sudden despair in Tammis’s eyes as son came face to face with father on his wedding day. Brein backed away, looking everywhere but at the two of them, and disappeared down the stairs.

  “Tammis,” Sparks said, and Tammis flinched as if he had been struck. “What was that—?” He gestured at the empty spot where Brein had stood.

  “Nothing. He was just … I…” Tammis flushed, pulling his shirt together, and hung his head. His trefoil was lost in the tangle of his clothes.

  “By the Lady and all the gods!” Sparks caught him by the shoulders, slamming him up against the wall. “You miserable— On your wedding day? When you have a beautiful wife who loves you searching for you downstairs? Why—?”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Tammis murmured. The words were almost inaudible. He fumbled with the laces of his shirt, trying to fasten them.

  “Damn it!” Sparks slapped his hands away. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  “Oh, don’t be so hard on the boy, Dawntreader,” Kirard Set’s voice said, behind him.

  Sparks turned, his own face flushing with anger and humiliation as Wayaways joined them at the top of the stairs.

  “You Summers are so narrow-minded about everything. You act as if there’s only one right answer to every question.” Kirard Set shook his head. “It’s only a little harmless flirtation. A boy’
s got to be sure he’s not missing anything, you know.”

  “Leave us alone, Wayaways.” Sparks turned his back on the other man, infuriatingly aware that Kirard Set made no move to depart, still hanging on every word and motion like a voyeur. Sparks caught Tammis by the jaw, forcing his son to look him in the eye, beyond caring what Kirard Set saw or heard or thought, now—sure that he had known it all along. “You are a Summer, a sibyl, by the Mother’s Will! Not some buggering Winter pervert, trying to make yourself smell like the offworlders by wallowing in shit!”

  “Like you—?” Tammis said, suddenly and furiously, his dark eyes burning. “Like you did, at Arienrhod’s court, while you were supposed to be pledged to my mother—?”

  Sparks froze, speechless, feeling the ice-taloned hand of the past reach into his chest and stop his heart. “Who…” he said at last, “who told you that about me?”

  Tammis’s eyes flickered away from his face, briefly touching on Kirard Set still watching and listening behind them, and back again. “He told me you liked it both ways. He said you used to laugh at Summers for being narrow and stupid, that you did things for Arienrhod that—”

  Sparks’s hand shot out, slapping his face, stopping the words. “Believe that if you want to,” he whispered, his mouth filled with bitterness. “But don’t ever use it as an excuse. Especially not with me.” He turned away, turning his back on his son’s anguish. Kirard Set shrugged as Sparks met his amused gaze. “Like father, like son…?” he said softly, and pursed his lips. He shook his head. Sparks moved past him, pushing him aside with a heedless elbow.

  Heading back down the steps, he barely registered the sight of Merovy, standing midway up the stairs, or the expression in her eyes as she watched him pass.

  TIAMAT: Clearwater Plantation

  “I can’t believe it.” Moon shook her head, standing knee-deep in water beside the canted hull of the abandoned boat. “I can’t.” Her mind refused to accept the obvious truth: that her grandmother was dead, as suddenly and as irrevocably as a wave broken against the shore. She ran her hand along the totem-creature on the boat’s prow, touching the third eye carved on its forehead above the other two in the Summer fashion. The Weather Eye, they always called it. Selen, her grandmother’s name, was painted on the stern; a boat was always called after a woman, because it pleased the Sea Mother.… But this time the Sea Mother had not been pleased, and the name on the stern of the abandoned craft left no doubt who had been taken away by the sudden, elemental sweep of Her hand.

  Moon turned back again to Sparks, who stood between her and the small cluster of plantation hands. The workers had been led to the boat by mers from the colony that sheltered along the plantation’s shore. There had been no sign of any bodies.

  Mers hovered near them in the water even now, or squatted on the beach a short distance away. Sparks shook his head, meeting her gaze, before his own gaze moved out across the sea. He squinted into the sun’s light, mirrored by a million chips of brilliance and thrown back again into his eyes by the changeable water surface. “Elco Teel said something about there being a storm down the coast, when we were at the wedding.”

  Moon saw the wedding feast suddenly in her mind’s eye; the happy faces, the happiness she had felt in her own heart— She looked back at the workers. “Was there a storm, after they set out?”

  They glanced at each other, murmuring and shrugging. “No, Lady, there wasn’t a storm,” a woman said. “The weather’s been clear down this way, for most of a week now.”

  Moon looked at Sparks again. “Elco Teel said that? Why would he say that?”

  Sparks shook his head again, and she saw his mouth pull down. “To make trouble,” he said sourly, glancing away. “To spoil someone’s moment. It’s what he lives for; like his father.”

  “It’s as if he knew something was going to happen.”

  “But there wasn’t a storm,” Sparks said.

  “No,” she murmured, and fell silent; feeling suspicion like a sudden spear of glass, puncturing the stupefaction of her loss. “There wasn’t a storm.” She looked away at the mers, their long necks pushed out of the water, their obsidian eyes fixed on her as she waded deeper, running her hand along the boat’s rail. There was no sign of damage to the craft, no evidence of anything at all. It was as if her grandmother and Borah had simply vanished. She looked at the mers again. “You saw, didn’t you?” she said. “If you could only tell me what you saw—”

  Sparks hesitated. He pulled the flute out of his belt pouch and put it to his lips. The workers looked at him, as she did, nonplussed. But as the odd run of notes he began to play registered on her ears, she realized that he was mimicking mer speech. The mers swiveled their heads to listen, obviously realizing the same thing. The workers murmured in surprise. The mers looked at each other once more as he finished, and trilling runs of sound passed between them.

  After a moment, something landed with a sodden thump near Sparks’s feet. It had come so quickly that Moon had not been able to track its course; but it had come from among the mers.

  Sparks picked it up, frowning in concentration, as Moon waded ashore. It was a wad of monofilament netting, the kind of Winters had taken to using to trawl for fish. He shook it out, tossing it to the workers.

  “Did this come off the Selen?” Moon asked; suddenly, presciently sure that it had not.

  The Winters passed the piece of net among themselves, fingering it, tugging on it. “No, Lady,” a man said. “Borah Clearwater wouldn’t let a piece of this stuff on his property.” He shook his head, with a rueful grimace. “The old man was stuck in his ways, gods rest him. He always says—said, he’d hang himself with monofilament before he’d use it on fish.”

  Moon felt her own mouth twitch with wry acknowledgment. “Yes,” she murmured, “that sounds like what he would always say.…” Her smile fell away. “Then it means there was another boat—probably crewed by other Winters.”

  Sparks shrugged, coming back to her side. He put his hand on her arm. “Maybe. Maybe it’s only something the mers found drifting. I asked them where the people in the boat are … but only the Sea knows if that’s what they heard.”

  “It could mean that someone used nets to drown them, too,” she said, her voice thickening. “You know that Kirard Set Wayaways has been after the Clearwater holdings since before Gran came to the city. Borah Clearwater would never sell them to him while he was alive—”

  “Moon,” he said gently. “You have no proof. I know what you think of Kirard Set. It’s no better than what I think. But murder—?”

  She looked toward the boat. “I never had a chance to say goodbye. I never even told Gran how much I…” Her voice broke. She shrugged his hand away, feeling her helpless grief hardening into anger, feeling its focus crystallize, as the memory of her grandmother’s face was overlain by the image of Kirard Set Wayaways. “No, I can’t prove that he bears the blame for anything, except the ill will to wish it would happen. But simply for that, I’ll keep my promise to Borah Clearwater, to protect his lands for as long as I live.” She turned away, starting back along the beach to the place where their own craft waited to carry them north to the city.

  KHAREMOUGH: Gundhalinu Estates

  “Pandhara!” Gundhalinu called, striding into the front hall, hearing his voice echo through the house. He draped his uniform jacket over the servo that had come to meet him at the door, settled his helmet onto its faceless head, grinning as it informed him lugubriously that it was not a hatrack. “Well, find one!” he said, laughing. He went on into the room, shouting his wife’s name again.

  “Gundhalinu-bhai is in the cutting garden, sir—” the servo droned behind him.

  He turned right at the dining room, went down through the study and the sun room and out onto the south wall patio. Pandhara climbed the steps from the cutting garden with an armload of flowers and stopped, her face filling with astonished delight. “BZ! Are thou here already? I wasn’t expecting thee until tomorrow.”
>
  He stopped too as he saw her expression, surprised and bemused by its bright eagerness. He was secretly relieved that the look on her face was not dismay; and that he had not interrupted her with a lover. “I wasn’t expecting to make the shuttle, but I did—by the skin of my teeth.” He started forward again, smiling. “The thought of two peaceful nights of uninterrupted sleep instead of one was enough to make me push it.”

  She lifted a hand to meet his upraised one, dropping flowers as they touched. He leaned down, picking them up and piling them carefully back onto her armload.

  “I picked them because thou were coming home,” she said, breathing in their fragrance. “I know how thou love them.”

  His smile widened; he held the doors for her as she carried them inside. She handed them over to a servo, sent it away with a “You know what to do—” She stood before him in baggy coveralls, smoothing back the dark strands of hair that had escaped from under her scarf with color-stained hands. “Oh, damn it all, BZ, nothing is ready! I have it all planned; everything was to be the way thou like it when thou arrived.… But I’ve been setting biosculpture all day. I haven’t even cleaned myself up.”

  He caught one of her gesturing hands, turned it over, studying the rough palms and the pattern of stains. “I like real hands…” he said, and looked up at her, to see if she still remembered their first meeting.

  Her look of blank surprise blossomed into sudden comprehension, and she grinned back at him, tilting her head.

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s always tomorrow. All I want tonight is normal conversation, and maybe a game of chama.” He let go of her hand, turned away to survey the room as he felt himself beginning to look at her for too long. “What’s new? Thou’ve done something to this room; it’s brighter.”

  “The walls are yellow, instead of gray, over there, and there … I bought some new settees and restored that reclining couch. I hung some of my statics.…”

  “I like it.”