by Judith Tarr
Pricked by some small slight—a sally from Halenan, or his tutor’s reprimand—he had risen and braced himself, and his power had come roaring and flaming. At the last instant he had mastered his rage; the power, thwarted, too potent to be contained, had left this mark of its passing.
With a swift movement Elian left chair and table. High narrow windows cleft the wall at intervals, letting in the cool sunlight.
She knelt beside the hooded hearth, where a fire was laid neatly, as if there were daily need of it. Though flint and steel rested in their niche, she gathered a spark of power, held it a moment until its fierce heat began to sear her hand, and cast it on the wood. Flames leaped up, red-gold like her hair, settling into their common red and yellow and burning blue.
Warmth laved her face. She had forgotten her book on the table; she let it be, resting her eyes on the dance of the fire. Shapes formed in it, images, past and present and to come.
A corner of her mind struggled, protesting. The rest watched calmly. Peace-visions, these, with no taint of fear. Anaki and her si-Elian, small bright-downy head and smooth deep-brown one. Anaki was smiling a deep, secret smile, and her plainness was beautiful. Prince Orsan and his princess, their royal dignity laid aside, laughing together, and after a time moving close, mirth forgotten, until body touched body. Ilhari with Hal’s grey stallion in a green meadow, silver on fire-gold.
Elian flushed with more than the heat of the fire. Seeing, this certainly was, but all her teaching had told her that the seer could shape what she saw. Even unwitting.
Sharply, almost angrily, she banished the senel-shapes. The flames were flames, no more. No visions. No longings.
And what do you long for? Her inner voice was mocking. The fire rose and shaped itself. Once, and once again. Dark, gold. Emperor and emperor to be.
True child of the Halenani, she. Beset with maiden moods, she settled only on the very highest. The one she could have if she but said the word. The other . . .
The other vanished. Ilarios knelt by the fire, still in his scribe’s gown. His face was as white as bleached bone; his eyes were the burning sulfur-yellow of a cat’s.
With tight-controlled savagery he ripped the bindings from his hair. It poured down his back, tumbled into his face.
Her teeth unclamped from her lip. She tasted blood. “My lord,” she said. “Has someone offended you?” And when he did not answer: “Your wager is well won. Too well, maybe. If anyone has spoken ill to you, you should forgive him. He cannot have known—”
He flung back his hair. For all his leashed fury, his voice was mild. Alarmingly so. “No one has slighted me. Though to be a scribe and not the high prince . . . it is interesting. One sees so much. And one is never noticed. Until—” His breath came ragged. “Until one is forced to reveal oneself.”
She waited.
He contemplated his fists clenched on his thighs. His breathing quieted, but the tension did not leave him. “We have had an embassy. So many, there have been, since the Sunborn came to Han-Gilen. This one was small, plain, and to the point. And from my father.” He looked up, a flash of burning gold. “With all due respect to his divine majesty, the Lord An-Sh’Endor has followers in plenty. He does not need the heir of Asanion.”
“When?” She could barely speak; even the single word took all her strength.
His smile was bitter. “Oh, I need not take flight at once. That would be unseemly. I am given three days to order my affairs.”
“And if you do not go?”
“I am to be reminded that, although I have no legitimate brothers, I have fifteen who are sons of concubines. All grown, ambitious, and eager to serve my royal father.”
She sat still. After a long moment she said, “You knew this would come.”
“I knew it.” He unclenched his fists, first the right, then the left. “There are my half-brothers. There are also my full sisters. Four of them. Two, yet unwed, are priestesses of various of the thousand rapacious gods. Two are wed to princes. Ambitious princes. One is rich, but not fabulously so; the other reckons himself poor. And Asanion’s throne is wrought of pure gold.”
Her hand went out. Living gold stirred under it; then warm flesh.
Panther-swift, panther-strong, he seized her. “Lady,” he said. “Elian. Come with me.”
Never in her life had she been so close to a man. Body to body. Heart to thudding heart.
Her hands were crushed between. She worked them free, linked them behind his neck.
“Come with me,” he said again.
He was fire-warm, trembling, but his anger had left him. She looked into his eyes, sun-gold now, both burning and tender.
“By all the gods, by your own bright Avaryan: Elian, Lady of Han-Gilen, I love you. I have always loved you. Come with me and be my bride.”
Her teeth set. Her body burned; there was an ache between her thighs. Every line of him was distinct against her.
“I will make you my empress,” he said. “Or if you will not have that, if a throne of gold seems too high and cold for you, then I will abandon it.” He laughed, brief and wild. “You yearn for freedom; so too do I. Let us disguise ourselves and flee, north or east or south, or even west where my face is a common thing; and we can make our way as we can, and live as we please, and love as the simple folk love, for no fate or pride or dynasty, but only for ourselves.” His arms tightened. “Oh, lady! Will you? Will you love me?”
His passion was like wind and fire; his beauty pierced her heart. And yet the cold comer of her mind observed, How young he looks!
He was nineteen. But the cool, controlled high prince had seemed a man grown. As old as Mirain, as Halenan, as—as her father.
He was no more than a boy.
A lovely, fiery, desperate boy. Her voice would not obey her and speak. Her body would not be silent.
This kiss was ages long and burning sweet.
At last they parted. Elian blinked, startled. Her eyes were brimming; her cheeks were wet. “I—” she began, and foundered, and began again. “I love you. But not—I am not worth a throne.”
His joy blazed forth; he laughed with it, yet he trembled. “A throne is worth nothing unless you share it with me.”
“I love you,” she repeated doggedly. “But—I am not—I must think!”
There was no quenching this new fire, although he tried. He did quell his face and his voice; but his eyes flamed. “Yes,” he said in the gentlest of tones, “it is hard. You were away so long, and your quarrels are all so newly mended. But if you depart as my princess, will not your kin be glad?”
“Mother would be rather more than glad.” She stiffened slightly; he released her, watching her with those hurting-bright eyes. “I have to think. Might you—could you—”
His smile was the one she remembered, child-sweet yet not a child’s at all. “I shall leave you to your thoughts. You need not hasten them. I have three days yet.”
“Not so long. I can think— Tonight. After the night bell.”
He gestured assent. “Here?”
Her eyes flicked about, flinched, closed. “No. Somewhere else. Somewhere—” She paused. “Somewhere for solitude. The temple. No one will come there so late.”
“The temple,” he said, “after the night bell.” He rose and stooped, brushing her lips with his. “Until then, beloved. May your god guide you.”
Elian laughed wildly into the empty space; and then she wept; and then she laughed again. And squire service still to do. She straightened her livery and smoothed her hair and went down to it.
oOo
There was little enough to do, and that little she did ill. Mirain, intent on some business for which she cared nothing, dismissed her early.
Not in disgrace, to be sure. He hardly knew she was there, nor cared.
A bath calmed her a little. She performed her duties of the bedchamber: turned down the bed, filled the nightlamp, readied Mirain’s bath. He liked a very little scent, for the freshness: leaves of the aili
th tree mingled with sweet herbs. As she cast them into the steaming water, a darkness filled her mind; she began to shake.
“Fool,” she cursed herself. “Idiot! A lovesick heifer has more grace.”
Was it love, or was it fear? Of herself; of Ilarios; of—whatever one chose to name. Of falling after all into the trap which she had fled.
She had kept her oath. She had come to Mirain; she had fought for him. The other, older vow . . . need she keep it? Did she even wish to?
Voices sounded in the bedchamber. Mirain bidding goodnight to a lord or two, dismissing his servants.
She willed herself to rise, but her knees would not straighten. If she wedded Ilarios, she would not do this again.
Servant’s labor. Menial things: scenting Mirain’s bath, braiding his hair, arranging his cloak. Cleaning his armor, grooming his senel, riding at his right hand. With Hal on his left and Ilhari under her and the wind in her face.
He stood in the doorway in his simple Ianyn kilt, with his cloak flung over his shoulder. How dark he was, how deceptively slight; how deadly bright his eyes.
They saw nothing. She stood. “Your bath is ready. Shall I wait on you?”
Most often he refused. Tonight he said, “Yes. My hair needs washing.”
He grimaced as he said it; in spite of herself she smiled. “You could cut it,” she said.
He laughed a little. “That would be too easy. And,” he added with a wicked glint, “I wouldn’t need you to tend it for me.”
Her throat closed. He never noticed; he was stripping off his kilt, laying it with his cloak beside the great basin. With his back turned to her, he took up a loinguard and began to put it on.
“Leave that,” she said harshly. And when he glanced over his shoulder: “Am I any more delicate than your bath-maids in Ianon? I know what a man looks like.”
He paused. After a moment he shrugged, dropped the loinguard, turned.
The heat raced from her soles to her crown and back again, stumbling between. But she made herself look at him. All of him.
With the suggestion of a smile he stepped into the bath. She began to loose his braid. Her fingers fumbled; silently she cursed herself.
Mirain lay in the water, eyes shut, utterly at ease. He looked like a great indolent cat. A panther, with a velvet hide and an air of tight-leashed power.
Her eyes slitted. A wildness unfolded within her. Even her shirt, soft and brief as it was, grated against her burning skin.
She shed it. Mirain waited with the perfect, oblivious calm of royalty, for her to serve him.
She filled her hand with cleansing foam. Still Mirain had not moved.
He was not asleep. His awareness hovered, flawless as a globe of crystal. Great mage and great king, god’s son, child of the morning, he was warm and drowsy, and he smiled, drifting in the scented water.
She bent. He tasted of wine, and of honeycakes, and of fire.
The crystal flamed. Strength like a storm of wind bore her up, back. The world reeled.
Yet did not fall. Black eyes opened wide. She gasped, drowning.
Elian! It was silent; it filled her brain and washed it clean.
She lay on a heap of damp softness. Clothing, she realized; drying-cloths; a cloak lined with fur. And on her, all the length of her, a body as bare as her own: little taller, little broader save in the shoulder, and fully as male as she was female.
Mirain looked down at her. His eyes were veiled, and yet they glittered
Say it, she willed him. Say that you want me.
He moved, half rising, to lie beside her. His face was calm.
He was not going to speak. He was going to let her go, or stay, or do nothing at all.
Her demon sat up, prick-eared. No strength of hers could quell it. It said, “It was never like this with Ilarios.”
He was still, like a stone king.
“He’s very sweet. He warms my body. But this—no wonder you have so few women!”
“Am I so revolting?”
She had pierced a wall or two. His voice came deep and almost harsh; his face was frightening.
She bit down hard on laughter. “Dear heaven, no! Never. But if your kiss can drive your own sister mad, what if you give more? There must be very few who can bear the full fire of you.”
“There is none,” he said, still in that half-growl.
“None at all?” The laughter escaped, though she caught it swiftly and strangled it. “Not your lady regents? Not your nine beauties of the bath? Not—”
His hand stopped her mouth. “None.” Her eyes danced disbelief. He glared. “There have been women in my bed. How not? Priest’s vows can’t hold a king. But the fire . . . is something else.” He released her, pushing back his hair. Half wet, half dry, it covered his shoulders like a tattered cloak. “Though I fancy, from milord’s dazed look of late, that you are stronger than I. Or hotter.”
Her temper reared up and began to burn. “I’ve given him no whit more than I’ve given you.”
“Ah,” he said, drawing it out until she could have struck him. Then he laughed, painfully. “Poor prince! He has no power to shield him. Take care, lady; mere mortals are no match for the likes of us.”
“I’m no god’s get!” She scrambled to her knees. “He wants me to marry him. To go with him when he goes, and be his empress.”
“And will you?”
Iron. Iron and adamant, and royal refusal to say a word, even one word of aught but what befit a brother. “I don’t know!” she shouted at him.
And sank down upon her heels. For that was not what she had meant to say at all.
“I love him,” she said. The mask never stirred. The lids had lowered over the black eyes. “I do love him,” she repeated. “It’s impossible not to. He’s so splendid, strong and gentle, merry and wise, all royal and all beautiful. There’s nothing in him that isn’t perfect of its kind. And he loves me to distraction.”
She looked at herself and at Mirain, and laughed until a sob broke it. “Here I sit like a whore with her client, telling over old lovers. But I told him I’d choose tonight, and I don’t know. I can’t even think. But I should!”
“Know? Or think?”
“Both!” Her fists clenched over her eyes. She saw a red darkness shot with stars. “Every scrap of sense I have, and most of my body, cries out to me to take him. But something stops me. It isn’t fear. I could live as Empress of Asanion. I could make an empire in my image: even that one, with its thousand years of queens.”
He said nothing. She let the light in.
It hurt. Blessed, cursed pain. “Damn it, Mirain,” she said. “Why don’t you say it and get it over?”
“What am I to say?”
Cold, that. Kingly. She knew the pride of it. That same pride had held her apart from her kin until death’s own shadow drove her back to them.
“I heard you,” she said, not too unsteadily, “before Vadin left for Ianon.”
Mirain’s jaw clenched, eased. She wished that he would rage, or laugh, or turn away in shame. Anything but this damnable stillness. “What made you believe that we spoke of you?”
“Vadin told me. And,” she said, “I knew.”
“And?”
“And.” She wanted to touch him. Her hand would not obey her. “It wasn’t too late. Then. Maybe even now—” She could not look at him.
She fixed her eyes on her feet. “The vow I meant to keep was to be your queen. If you would have me.”
“Duty.” His voice was soft. “Your given word. Your wildness is all illusion. You live by your princely honor. Else,” he said, “else you would long since have fled us all, and gone to a place where none could bind you.”
“I’ve . . . thought of it.” She knotted her hands together until they began to hurt. “I would love you if you asked.”
Her demon had said it. Mirain laughed with no mirth at all. “And if I refuse?”
“Damn you, Mirain. Damn you!” And herself, for asking that he ask. H
e was as calm as ever, and as maddening in his stubbornness. “You want me to make your choice for you. I won’t, Elian. Your heart is your own. Only you can follow it.”
“Do you even have one?” He would not deign to answer that. “Yes, I went to you because I promised. And because I loved you. And because Ilarios could all too easily have taken your place; and that would have been a betrayal.”
“Of what? Your leaden duty?”
Her eyes narrowed. Her lips drew back from her teeth. “They’re right, your enemies. You suffer slaves and vassals. But never an equal.”
“My equal would never demand that I do her thinking for her.”
Proud, proud, proud. They were too well matched, he and she; too damnably alike.
Ilarios’ pride was subtler. Saner. More sweetly reasonable. He would never cast back love because it was less perfect than his whim demanded.
She rose. Mirain watched her, and there was no yielding in him. “Your bath grows cold, my lord,” she said, meeting stone with stone. “And I have a promise to keep.”
oOo
After all her tarrying, Elian was early. The night-bell rang even as she passed the gate of the temple.
Within, all was quiet. It was a very old temple, and very holy; shadows veiled the massive pillars and lost themselves in the lofty vault of the dome. In its open center glittered a single, icy star.
Elian trod the worn stones, moving slowly. Patterns unfolded beneath her feet, broken and blurred with time: leaves and flowers, men and beasts, birds of the air and fishes of the sea. Some ran up the pillars, twining round them, glinting here and there with gold or a precious stone.
From all this faded splendor the altar stood apart, raised high upon a dais. It alone bore no ornament or jewel: a simple square of white stone, unadorned. Behind it upon the wall shone and flamed the only likeness of himself which the god would ever allow. Gold, pure and splendid, dazzling even in the light of the vigil lamp: in all but size, the image of the Sun in Mirain’s hand.