by Lori Martin
His tracing of Rendell’s footsteps had given him not more but even less of an understanding of his brother. Temhas was accustomed to think of him as a pedant, over conscientious, someone who meddled in his life and tried to subdue him, the son who was loved by their father. He knew by his own eyes that this everlasting virtue was committing a terrible sin, possibly throwing away his career or worse, risking shame and disgrace, offending the very gods he so devotedly followed. It made no sense. What was it for? What powers of persuasion did the relas have? She wasn’t really beautiful.
Night after night in the spring they had repeated the same procedure. The girl from the palace came; Rendell took her horse; the girl slept in his deserted bed until the morning, when he returned. The report had excited Sillus so much so that Temhas and Carden were forced to spend weary hours creeping around the palace after nightfall, trying to discover where they met. There was no secret entrance in; it seemed the relas always slipped out – though they hadn’t been able to catch her. Waiting in the courtyards, in the stables, in the greenhouses, roaming the land around Marlos-An without discovering them. And then one night Temhas had waited alone in the orchards, flowering now, untended in the darkness. He heard a horse, and whispering figures, and stayed just long enough to be sure of the truth.
He knew who the father of the relas’s child was – if indeed she was carrying, and he had better reason than most to believe it. But in the end he was not the one who had told Sillus. He had gone one more night to the orchard, drawn there in disbelief, and this time Carden had followed him. Clumsy as usual, Carden had made too much noise; the relas had taken warning and left. When Rendell came she was gone. Still, it had been enough for even Carden to put the pieces together, and tell his father. Temhas did not know or ask himself if, alone, he would have carried the tale.
He could scarcely credit what was happening, and the outcome was beyond his seeing. The relas would make up some story, perhaps, if the child were normal – though if you believed in the Book it was doubtful – and nothing would change, so long as they had the sense to end it between them. Sillus, he suspected, was planning to use the information to blackmail Dalleena into marrying Carden. Temhas tried again to imagine Carden as king and failed. But Rendell would be unharmed.
If Temhas had been older, more accustomed to the treachery of politics and ambition, more evil, even, inside of himself, he might have seen a thousand dangers. But his reasoning on the subject advanced only this far. The relas – a woman he had spoken with only once – might have to make an inconvenient marriage; Sillus might rise in power; Rendell might find himself out of luck with women. None of it made much difference to him. Temhas, dropping petals, ran through these thoughts only as a sort of preliminary, before he fastened on what he really wanted to think about: the girl.
When he was let free of prowling the palace he stayed sleepless at home, waiting for the small sounds that told him Rendell’s visitor had come. He had dark circles under his eyes from sitting up time after fruitless time. But the nights would come when she was there. Two or three times he had been able to get close enough to hear a few words. Lilli, Rendell had called her. Lilli. She slept in Rendell’s bed, her long auburn hair splashed out among the pillows. With infinite patience he would walk slowly, slowly, soundlessly, to the bed, and stand at the foot, watching her. As the nights grew warmer he could see that she stopped wearing her robe; her naked shoulders seemed whiter than marble in the light of the one candle she burned, but very soft. Once she had turned a little in her dreams and the coverlet had fallen, exposing her breast for a moment, before she turned again.
He thought that she was beautiful. And she had courage, risking herself on these missions to satisfy someone else’s hunger for love. She must know how to love herself, how to give the soul, to be able to do it. Temhas knew that he did not; he lied to everyone, but rarely to himself. Vague and dusky, he could still call up a feeling of being loved, the presence of a small fair woman he had known as his mother; sometimes he could even hear her voice. The feeling of being cherished had gone with her, wherever she had gone, and the little boy he had been had looked for both without result. But Lilli looked at peace with herself, loyal to a deep personal attachment. With his own loyalties hopelessly entangled, Temhas had come to value this trait. And he had heard her laugh – just once, from the throat. She was stepping quietly up the stairs, staying to the left, and he was hidden in the shadows above. At the bottom Rendell called a soft question up to her. She turned, her cloak thrown off her shoulders; he saw her face light up suddenly, and heard the sweet and gentle sound. Rendell had shushed her quickly.
There was, of course, no way to approach her. He had been presented at court by Sillus, the enemy of the relas, and that made both of them her enemy too. And she looked a little older than he was himself. She would think he was a boy. Temhas frowned and touched his mustache. He knew it didn’t really make him look any older.
A guard went by whistling, to take his turn at the gates. He glanced over at the fountain, the water scented now from the flowers. Temhas ignored him. He tossed in the last relasii. It floated for a brief moment and caught on the fountain’s side. He realized he had never seen the color of her eyes.
Temhas’s analysis of Sillus’s intentions was accurate, or at least it had been. He had merely been expanding his usual plots, learning anything he could about anything. At court, for many of the councilors, it mattered who you knew. For someone in his position it was more important what you knew. What you knew and how you used it brought councilors to your side. Treat them generously and they would follow you. Keep up appearances. Sillus’s estate was magnificent, lavish in all its appointments. His horse carriages surpassed the royals’ own, and he knew it annoyed his brother. Baiting the king was a lifelong habit.
Sillus tapped his pipe against his teeth. From the window he could see the boy sitting at the fountain, but Temhas was not important today. Now – now they were saying Dalleena carried a child. An Armasii child, it had to be. No – a Nialian and an Armasii child. The knowledge actually frightened him. As a man who bothered very little with ethics or morals he was not particularly religious, but he was superstitious. He believed quite literally in the story of Lissor, the unnatural child of the Nialian priestess and the Armasii priest. What kind of demon was Dalleena carrying?
His fear was genuine and, when he thought too long about it, acute. But still it suited his purpose. Dalleena disgraced, or dead. His ambition needed only that image to begin to give rise to a larger plot. His overwhelming need for power was all the stronger for the fact that he was not fully capable of wielding it. It would mean staking a great deal. Perhaps everything, if once it started to fall apart. Yet the prize was enormous.
Sillus was consumed with greed. Outside his pondering rooms, summer came to Lindahne.
Summer also came to Mendale. Outside the Assembly, Boessus was directing the servants as they loaded the horses. It was time to go home.
“I wanted to thank you for all the help you’ve given us,” Pillyn said. “You’ve been so kind.”
“You’re very welcome,” Nichos answered. “I only wish all my duties were as pleasant. I’ve enjoyed your company very much. I hope the little one hasn’t been disappointed?”
“Oh no, no chance of that. Baili loves it here. I’m afraid I might have to tie him to the cart to get him home.”
Nichos smiled and took a step closer. They were alone. His red clothing, thin for the warm air, flamed on his dark skin. “And you?”
“It’s been lovely here for me, you know that. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you, but I didn’t really want to come at first. I thought Mendales were – well, it doesn’t matter. I know better now.”
He took her hand. “Show me again. Like this?”
“Yes.”
He bent down and raised her hand to press it against his forehead, the Lindahne way. In the Mendale fashion she would have turned her palms up, and he would have kissed the fingertips.
>
“Pillyn Lista, daughter of Boessus of the Third Hill, I would like us to be friends.”
“So we are, Nichos Mendale, herald of the Assembly.”
They stood together. Suddenly Nichos’s face changed. He turned away from her and looked out at the train of horses. His hands moved restlessly.
“Nichos?”
He looked at her, and she saw again that strange expression of sadness.
“Nichos, is something wrong?”
He shook his head. He spoke slowly and with difficulty. “Pillyn, I want you to know something. I want you to know that I respect your people. I believe friendship is always better than – well, than not being friends.”
“So do I. So do our king and queen.”
“Yes, I know. But what I’m trying to say is that whatever happens, in the times ahead, to both or either of our countries, I want you to remember that you can always come to me. You can always come to me for help.”
Pillyn watched him. A Mendale, and a strange one, the only list-tel she had ever known, but she sensed his pain. It was incomprehensible to her. He added simply, “I care for you a great deal.”
Outside, the Trio had come to say farewell to their honored guests. Nesmin’s voice boomed cheerfully and indistinctly.
“I have to go,” Pillyn said.
“Yes, come, I’ll escort you. But you will remember? That you can come to me?”
“I don’t understand, Nichos. But I will remember.”
CHAPTER 14
The cheerful gossip became malicious.
The King’s temper betrayed them. At first the palace had waited, happy in speculation, but the quarrels in the royal family continued. As days passed without even an official acknowledgement of the pregnancy, eyebrows were raised. Marlos-An was not a place for privacy; no one knew it better than Raynii, but when he lost his temper he found his voice, and more than one servant could hear him. The rumors were confirmed.
The king and queen did not know who the father was.
It seemed impossible. It was one thing to wait until the birth to name the man, quite another not to inform her own royal parents. There couldn’t be any good reason for it.
At this point one of the youngest councilors made a mistake he had long leisure to regret. He was reckless, and lulled into a mistaken security by the king’s obvious regard for him. To the astonishment of all those present he actually suggested, in council, that the king should put an end to the talk by having the relas publicly name the father. The queen flung up her hands; Raynii’s towering rage vibrated off the marble walls. By the end of the afternoon the hapless councilor was permanently dismissed from office and on his way home.
No one, of course, even breathed the subject in a royal presence after that, but now there was no stopping the tales that sprang up to fill the void of real information. The man was married and a high official; he was terribly old; he was a mere child she had seduced; he was the lowliest of the servants and a disgrace to the household. This last solution was the most popular. The handsome stable boy Linner suddenly found himself in the center of a whirlwind. Traehi, remembering the relas’s face as she looked at Linner, found it amazingly easy to imagine more and more. The market for his stories was excellent; one of the kitchen girls slapped Linner in the face the next time she saw him. Within a few more days Linner was dismissed from his job for quarreling with the other boys and blackening both of Traehi’s eyes. He stamped home, ignoring all taunts, only to be met at the door by his mother. Her knuckles were pressed to her mouth, lavish tears flowing freely. She believed it too.
Dalleena was only in her fourth month. It’s much too early to be noticeable, she told herself, but the mirror insisted on giving a different answer. She was continually nauseated now and dizzy. Her fingers and feet were stiff and swollen. The heat of midsummer left her with little inclination to leave her apartments, and she used the seclusion as a refuge against the tense atmosphere of the palace. Lilli was present almost constantly. Under the pretext of keeping her company she was in reality guarding her. She permitted Adrell to perform only the most basic of her duties and never let Phenna into the room. “The girl tells anyone anything,” she said firmly, “and everyone’s eager to listen.”
Like Sillus, Lilli was frightened. She was not a deep religious thinker, but it didn’t need much contemplation to realize how great a transgression against the gods this child would be. “Nialia’s will,” Dalleena had said, but Lilli was not a priestess. Her own strainings into the future were guided by her mortal, morbid imaginings. She still wondered how someone like Dalleena had committed such a crime – and how had she herself aided it? It was a madness, that was all, and a catching one. Her fears were intensified by Dalleena’s ill health. Was it proof that the child – creature, even – that she carried was an evil force?
“I need him now even more,” Dalleena said. “And now I have no way to see him.” She sat with her feet up, her gown pulled up over her knees, hoping for a breeze across her legs. There was none. The air was still and humid. The window draperies never moved.
“I don’t think anyone ever saw us, at night. We could try it again.” Lilli sat next to her, holding a forgotten fan.
“No, it’s too dangerous. It was one thing when we were all free to come and go, but everyone’s watching me now. And don’t fool yourself – they’re noticing you, too. You’re too close with me to escape it. One thing we’re lucky in: no one’s remembered my behavior at the festival or linked it to this. After all,” she continued dryly, “no matter what they’re saying about me, no one would credit a story about an Armasii. No one would believe I could do something that terrible.”
“Then where’s the harm in – ”
“Because that’s still no reason to drag him into it. We can’t see each other. If he came within an hour’s travel of Marlos-An we’d force people to remember. He must know it. I’ll bet he’s hardly left his estate since the news broke. So we’re both cooped up. By the love of Reulas, it’s hot.”
Lilli remembered the fan and swished it slowly back and forth. “You shouldn’t be feeling so unwell, Dalleena. Well, don’t deny it, I can see it in your face. It’s one thing to be a little ill at first in the morning. I know my mother always was. But your hands and your feet – I don’t understand. Would you feel better if you could see Ren –”
“Hush, don’t say his name. Of course I would, but what’s the use?”
The fan stopped again as she thought it out, then started with renewed vigor. “I’ll find a way to get him here.”
“Lilli, that’s impossible.”
“I will, you’ll see. I will.”
The door behind them was thrust open. The queen stood framed in the doorway.
“There’s to be a council meeting tomorrow. Full council. All attending.”
Lilli felt a slight dig in her side from Dalleena’s elbow. She was startled from her paralysis out of her chair and into a curtsy.
“Yes?” Dalleena said.
“It’s been specially called by your Uncle Sillus.” Since the trouble had begun, Ayenna’s normally vibrant voice had taken on a harsh grating quality, which intensified whenever she spoke to her daughter. “He has requested your presence as well, and the king has granted it. Tomorrow after sundown.”
“Mother –”
“After sundown.” She went as suddenly as she had come.
They looked at each other.
“What has Sillus to do with it?”
“I don’t know, Lilli.” She leaned back, her face lined with weariness. “We’ll find out tomorrow. Why does it have to be so hot?”
The two evening guards were distracted from their conversation as riders approached the gates. “Show yourself,” the first one called. The horses were reined in.
“It’s all right,” said the second. “Good even’ to you, mistress.”
“Good even’, Cailon,” Lilli said. “Another hot night.”
“Seems that way, mistress. Is that t
he relas’s horse the young man’s on?”
“Yes, it is. This is my older brother, in from his fishing on the Fourth to visit. Jiusus, this is Cailon and Derlin.”
“Good even’.” The blond head bowed.
“Good even’, Master Jiusus. Welcome to Marlos-An. I expect you don’t get here too often.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Lilli said. Her brother had in fact been at the palace only three times, the last five years previously, when he had left the family residence on the First to live near the coast of the Sea. He was still there.
They rode through and left the horses at the stable. There was no more difficulty leaving the animals than when Lilli had taken them; the stable workers seemed to be in some kind of confusion. At a side entrance of Marlos-An two more guards greeted them. Lilli smiled and made the same introduction. The man with her was taciturn, acknowledging them with a slight nod of his head. He was dressed in the same teal and white as Lilli. “Good even’,” they said again all around.
On the night of the festival, Marlos-An had struck Rendell as a labyrinth of hallways and doors, jutting staircases and unexpected terraces. It struck him the same way now. They entered a side passageway and crossed into another offshoot, ill lit by spluttering wall torches. Lilli was moving more quickly. Another turn, a curving wall, and a standing statue of Armas. “It seemed suitable,” she said with humor, but keeping her voice low. From the shadows behind it she produced two bundles. “Here’s yours, and I hope it fits. Turn your head.” He glanced away and felt her thin robe flick through the air as she yanked it up over her head. When he looked back she was in lavender, with a deeper purple trim, unflattering against her auburn hair. The robe in his own hands was a pale and liquid red. “Hurry up,” she urged. As he changed she peered forward, watching against someone coming. “I’m too well known here,” she muttered. She twisted her hair up under a matching net, obscuring its color, but it was hardly a disguise. “If it were only winter we’d be hooded,” she said. “Are you ready?”