by Judith Tarr
“They should. The witch’s familiar gave them to me.” Elian held out her hands. “Take me now. The sooner I see the king, the better.”
“Not with your face like that,” said Cuthan, stubborn. “Even if I could allow it, the king would have my hide.”
She sighed and submitted. He himself cleaned her cheek and salved it with numbroot, clicking his tongue the while, mourning her poor marred beauty.
His hands were light and skilled. Elian found herself smiling at him, crookedly, numbed as she was.
“Bind him,” snapped the Asanian, who had never taken his eyes from them. “Or should I? You’re half in love with him already.”
Cuthan seemed unoffended. “No need of that. I’m taking him where he wants to go.”
“And if he knifes you in the back?”
“I’ll chance it.”
Beneath Cuthan’s lightness lay steel. The Asanian subsided with the swiftness of wisdom.
oOo
Elian was honored with trust. She had a senel to herself, no cord to bind her and no leadrein to bind her mount, and Cuthan’s guardianship was light to invisibility. He rode beside her or ahead of her, sometimes silent, more often singing. His voice was very pleasant to hear.
In one of his silences she asked him, “Is it common for a captain of scouts to proclaim his presence to the whole realm?”
“If the realm is his king’s own,” answered Cuthan, “yes.”
Elian’s breath shortened. She had kept herself from thinking. That she was almost there. In front of Mirain. Telling him why she had come.
I told you that I would.
I keep my promises.
I want to fight for you.
Or most shameful, and closest to the truth: There was a man, I was as much as commanded to marry him, I could have done it in all gladness, and for the sheer terror of it I ran away.
As far as she could, as far into her childhood as she might. Running to Mirain as she had then, to be held and rocked and maybe chided a little, maybe more than a little, but always granted his indulgence.
Truth. It burned. I promised. My first promise. I would marry you, or I would marry no one at all.
And no one could so easily, so appallingly easily, have become someone, a face carved in ivory, lamplight in golden eyes.
She fixed her stare on Cuthan, for distraction, for exorcism. He was singing again. She made herself think of nothing but his song.
oOo
In spite of all the tales, the army of the Sunborn was no barbarian horde. Each nation and tribe and mercenary company had its place in the encampment, even to the camp followers: merchants and artisans, women and boys, singers and dancers and talespinners. It was like a city set on the moor, a city with order and discipline under the rule of a strong king.
Elian almost turned at the edge of it and bolted southward. It was not good sense that held her. Far from it. Good sense would have kept her in Han-Gilen and wedded her to the Asanian prince.
Pride brought her into the camp, and temper steadied her within. The king would not oblige her by waiting docilely in his tent. Everyone knew where he was, and everyone named a different place. Cuthan seemed content, even pleased, to play the hunter; and why not? He was a captain of scouts.
“Is this common?” Elian demanded after the fourth guide had led them to a space full of men and arms and seneldi but empty of the king.
Cuthan had the effrontery to laugh. “He’s not easy to keep up with, is my lord.” He said it lightly, but the respect behind it came close to worship. “Come now. I know where he may be.”
This city, like any other, had its market: wide and varied enough to rouse even Elian’s respect. She found herself loitering by a stall spilling over with gaudy silks, stretched into a trot to catch Cuthan.
She had matched his grin before she thought. She flushed; her grin twisted into a scowl. He laughed and led her deeper into the maze of tents and stalls and booths.
Its heart was not its center. A stall with a reek of wine about it; a clamor of men and the odd shriek of a woman’s laughter; someone singing, the clatter of a drum, the sudden sweetness of a flute.
The faces were all northern faces, like a gathering of black eagles. Elian saw more gold on one man than a whole band of women would flaunt in Han-Gilen. And beneath it, more bare skin than she had ever seen in one place.
One of the women wore nothing but ornaments. Her nipples were gilded. Elian blushed and looked away.
At, it chanced, one of the more bedizened of the men. He was tall and he was handsome even among these tall handsome people, beautiful indeed, so that Elian’s eye caught and lingered. He lounged on the bench like some long-limbed hunting cat, awkwardness transmuted into grace, and although he wore the full, barbaric, copper-clashing finery of his people, he wore it as easily as he wore his skin; one could not envision him without it.
He met her gaze with no expression that she could read, not staring as others did at her bright hair and her torn face, simply returning look for look. He was young, perhaps. Under the beard and the baubles it was hard to tell. His skin was smooth, his face unlined; but his eyes were ancient. Or newborn.
He was not a mage. He was not born to magic, nor trained to it. Yet there was power in him, on him, part of him. He would wield it as he breathed, because he could do no other. Elian had never seen anything like him.
She looked away from him. Clamor burst upon her.
Only he had eyes for her. Everyone else was fixed on someone whom she could not see, a shadow in shadow, with a voice that came suddenly clear. A black-velvet voice, sweet as the honey of the southlands, saying words that mattered too little for remembrance.
A question. The answer was shrill beside it, and harsh, thick with outland consonants.
Elian’s feet took her out of the sunlight. New eyes found her, widened. She took no notice.
The dark sweet voice rippled into laughter. Its bearer rose out of the tall man’s shadow, leaning on the glittering shoulder, glittering himself, white teeth flashing in the face she knew best of any in the world.
He had always called it ugly. It had never sunk to prettiness; it was too irregular to be handsome. All Ianon was in that bladed curve of nose, in those cheekbones carved fierce and high, in those brows set level over the deep eyes.
Why, she thought. He had hardly changed at all.
But ah, he had.
He was neither the dwarf nor the giant of his legend. He stood a little taller than she, middling for a man in Han-Gilen. His hair submitted no more tamely than ever to its priestly braid; his body was slender still, a swordsman’s body or a dancer’s, graceful even at rest.
The difference was not in his eyes. God’s eyes; no one had ever found it easy to meet them. Nor was it his face. All northern faces were made for arrogance. Nor was it even that he had forsaken the good plain clothes of the south for the gaudy near-nakedness of the north, so that the torque of his father’s priesthood seemed lost amid the extravagance of copper and gold.
No; the change ran deeper than that. She had bidden farewell to a boy, her brother. This was a man and a king.
He drained his cup, still leaning lightly on his companion. Their eyes met for an instant as he lowered the cup; a spark leaped in the meeting.
It was nothing as feeble as passion, nothing as shallow as love. As one’s self would meet one’s self; as brother to soul’s brother.
Elian knew then who the tall man must be. Vadin alVadin, Lord of Asan-Geitan in the kingdom of Ianon. He, next to Mirain himself, was the heart of the legend that was An-Sh’Endor.
Commanded by the old King of Ianon to serve an upstart, southern-born prince, he had obeyed with utmost reluctance. Reluctantly he had seen the prince raised to king, and continued as squire and unwilling confidant; and he had died for his master, taking the assassin’s spear that had been meant for Mirain.
But Mirain had brought him back, and he had discovered that his reluctance was lost, and that he loved h
is outland king. They had sworn the oath of brothers-in-blood; and more, people said, but that, no one had ever proved.
No one needed to prove it. To the eyes of power they were like the halves of a single shining creature.
Elian did not understand why her heart constricted. It was not fear of the visible and palpable power that dwelt in the man. She was mageborn herself, and stronger than he would ever be. And if they were sworn brothers, if somewhere among the long campaigns they had been lovers, what could it matter to her?
It could matter. He stood where she had sworn to stand. He had what she had come to take.
Mirain was laughing again, refusing a new cup of wine. “No, no, I’ve had my fill already, and I’ve a pack of lords clamoring for their king. What will they say if I reel in like a drunken soldier?”
“You?” someone called out. “Drunken? Never!”
“Ah,” he said, wicked. “I’ll tell you a secret, Bredan: I can’t hold my wine at all. I slip it to my brother.”
They roared at that, but they let him go. He seemed not to see the hands that reached as he passed, touching him as by accident, or falling short; loving him.
Elian knew the precise instant when he saw her. He checked, the merest hesitation. His face betrayed nothing. He passed her without a glance, striding into the sunlight.
Someone touched her. She wheeled, hand to hilt. Cuthan beckoned. And when she did not move, he set his hand on her shoulder, light but inescapable.
oOo
Beyond the wine stall was a space like an alleyway, a joining of blank walls, deserted. Mirain stood there alone.
In the glare of the Sun his father, he was no one she knew. God’s son, conqueror, Ianyn king. His eyes were level upon her, and cold, and still.
His hand rose, gestured. Sun-gold blinded her.
Cuthan was gone. Where he had been was the coldness of absence, and curiosity rigidly restrained, and a flicker of fear for her, melting like a mist in the sun.
She stood mute, with her chin at its most defiant angle. Let this stranger cast her out. Let him even kill her. She had gone too far to care.
Mirain’s head tilted. His lips quirked, the old not-quite-smile. “Well?” he asked her. The Gileni word. In a tone she knew so well that the hearing of it was like pain.
“Well?” she countered, angry at nothing and everything. “Now you can dispose of me. Majesty.”
“So I might,” he agreed. Damn him. He folded his arms, looked her up and down. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
She clenched her jaw before it could drop. “How in the hells—”
He seemed not to have heard. “You took your time about it. I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten. You were very young when you swore on my hand that you would follow me to Ianon.”
“I thought you had forgotten,” she said. “With so much to think of—a world to conquer—”
His hand silenced her. She stood, awkward, on the edge between anger and flight. His eyes had stilled again.
He held out his hands.
She stared at them.
He smiled. His eyes were dancing.
She leaped, laughing, and spun with him in a long, breathless, delighted embrace.
At length and as one they stepped apart. Again Mirain looked at her, and now he was not cold at all. “You’ve grown,” he said.
“So have you.”
“The whole half of a handspan,” he said a little wryly. He ran a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Redder than ever. And your temper?”
“Worse than ever.”
“Impossible.” She bared her teeth at him; he grinned, looking for a moment no older than she.
“How is Foster-father? And Hal? And—”
“All well and all prospering. Hal has two strapping sons, and another child coming: a daughter, he says. He takes his dynastic duties seriously.”
Her tone must have betrayed something. His glance sharpened. “And you? You look a little the worse for wear. Were you beset upon the road?”
“I was beset,” she answered steadily, and as calmly as she could. “I ran afoul of your old enemy.”
He frowned slightly. Of course he would have forgotten; it had been so long ago. “The one who lost her name and her eyes for denying you. My kinswoman, whom my father drove out. She caught me, but I escaped her. She hates you, Mirain.”
“So,” Mirain said softly, as if to himself. “It begins.” He looked up, sudden enough to make her gasp. “And you have cast in your lot with me. Your father might forgive me for allowing it. Would your mother?”
Elian swallowed hard. Her mind was empty. It made her words as light as she could have wished them to be. “Mother is preeminently practical. Better you, she’ll judge, than some of the alternatives. At least you’ll see that my virtue remains intact.”
“Will I?”
Her face was hot. She tried to laugh. “You had better, if you want to be forgiven.”
He bent to pluck a sprig of heather, sweet and startling in this trampled place. “Then I must try, mustn’t I?” He turned the blossom in his fingers. “My regents in Ianon are waiting for you. Both are great ladies, and Alidan bears arms. You’d like one another, I think.”
“No!” Her vehemence brought him about. She tried to speak more softly. “I don’t want to be packed off like—like baggage. I came to see you. To fight for you. I came to be free.”
“You are free.” Her chin was set, stubborn; he faced her with stubbornness no less. “You vowed to come to Ianon.”
“I vowed to fight for you.”
“Elian,” he said with mighty patience, “I can’t assign you to one of my companies. Even if your disguise would outlast the first river crossing, you make far too handsome a boy to thrust among an army.”
“I thought you would understand. But you’re like all the rest.” She thrust her hands in his face. “Tie me up then. Send me back to Han-Gilen. See me wrapped in silks till I can’t move at all, and auctioned off to the highest bidder.”
“Elian.” He spoke quietly, but his tone was like a slap. “I do not send either women or fair-faced boys to eat and sleep and fight with my veterans, unless they are well prepared to contend with the consequences. Which you, my lady of Han-Gilen, are not.” She was silent, eyes blazing; he continued implacably, “There is a place for you in Ianon; I can provide an escort to take you there, or to return you to your family, as you choose.”
She could have railed at him; she could have burst into tears. She struck him with all her trained strength.
He rocked under the blow but did not fall.
She stood still, shaking, beginning to be appalled. She had raised her hand against a king.
Suddenly he laughed.
She hit him again. Still laughing, he caught her hand; then the other. She hurled her weight against him.
They rolled in the trampled grass, he laughing like a madman, she kicking and spitting and cursing him in every tongue she knew.
A stone caught her. She lay gasping, hating him.
There were tears on his cheeks, tears of laughter. But his face had sobered; his eyes met hers, dark and bottomless. Abruptly he was gone.
She rose shakily. He stood a little apart, watching her. His face was cold and still.
Either he had grown or the world had shrunk. He towered over her, lofty, unreachable, royal. “By the laws of war you are my captive, to do with as I will. I can send you back to your father as one lord returns a strayed herdbeast to another. I can dismiss you to Ianon to await my return and my pleasure. I can keep you with me, take you and use you and discard you when I tire of you.”
“Not you,” she said without thinking. “Not that.”
The mask cracked a very little. He stood no longer quite so high. “No. I confess I have no taste for rape. What else can I do? I won’t inflict you on one of my captains.”
“Then,” she cried recklessly, “let me do something else. Let me be your guard, your servant, anything!”
/>
He looked at her, measuring her as if she were a stranger. She could not meet his stare. “It happens,” he said at last, “that I stand in need of a squire.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again.
His face had softened not at all. And yet he offered her this. Esquire. Armor-bearer. Guard and servant both, yet higher than either; to ride at his right hand, sleep at his bed’s foot, and serve him with life and loyalty until death or knighthood freed her.
And this lord of all lords—he had his legend. He had no squire of his body. Not since the one who had died for him, whom he had raised again, whom he had made a knight and a prince and a sworn brother. That he judged her worthy of that one’s place was a gift beyond price.
“Surely,” she said, “surely there are princes vying for the honor.”
“You are a princess.”
She could not speak.
His lips thinned. “Yes, you do well to hesitate. Any woman who speaks to me is soon called my lover. One sleeping in my very tent, close by me always, would lose all pretense to good name.”
Her voice flooded back, as strong as it had ever been. “What of a boy?”
“If that is your choice,” he said, “I’ll do nothing to betray you. But in the end the truth will out.”
“Let that be as it will be.” She knelt at his feet. “I will serve you, my lord, in all that you ask of me; even to death, if so the god wills it.”
He laid his hands on her head. “I accept your oath and your service, your heart and your hand, to hold and to guard while my life lasts. In Avaryan’s name, so let it be.”
She swallowed hard. She had said only what came to her; but this was ritual, the binding of the vassal to his lord, complete and irrevocable.
It was what she had come for. Perhaps. She sprang lightly up and found a grin for him. “Well, my lord? How shall I begin?”
“By walking back to my tent with me.”
But as she came to his side, he paused. His eyes were fixed on her.
She looked down. The bindings of her garments had weakened in the struggle; they parted even as she moved, baring her breast and the long deep weals there.
His hand went out, but did not touch her; his breath hissed between his teeth. “You didn’t tell me of that.”