Winter of Ice and Iron

by Rachel Neumeier

  “I will escort you to your rooms, if you will permit me,” said the duke expressionlessly. Her rooms were on the second level of the sprawling house, above the bakery ovens, where it was warm and comfortable even in midwinter. She had not asked what rooms the Wolf Duke had been offered. Lord Toren’s own, probably. He did not touch her now; he did not so much as offer his arm.

  Kehera nodded and walked obediently at the duke’s side through the halls. They met no one. No doubt Lord Toren’s staff had made sure to clear the way, in case either she or the duke did not wish to be observed in this first interval of their married life. She appreciated their discretion.

  At the door to her outer room, they paused. For a moment the duke examined the wood in front of him. Then he turned his head to look at her. “I will come to you in half a glass,” he said, surprising her with the constraint in his tone. “I hope . . . That is, you do not need to be afraid. Whatever you may have heard of me, or guessed . . . or seen . . . you will have no cause to fear me.”

  She had already known that. Even without Caèr Reiöft’s reassurance—that seemed so long ago now!—she would have known that. But she still could not find her voice to answer. If he had stayed, perhaps she would have found some words, but he turned away toward his own rooms. She went into hers, to face her own private audience, with her head high and her expression carefully composed.

  Her women had arrived back in her suite before her. They had been able to hurry, of course, while she had been constrained by the duke’s slow, formal pace. Eöté jumped to her feet, gripping her hands together, but Morain Lochan, calm as ever, only heaved herself up and nodded placidly.

  Tageiny had been leaning against the opposite wall, fretting, no doubt, because she had not been able to permit her personal guardsmen to attend her during the ceremony. He pushed away from the wall and gave her first a straight look and then a little nod as though he were satisfied with what he saw. Luad, who had a clear sense of priorities, hastily stepped away from a platter of cakes he must have stolen from the kitchens while everyone else had been distracted. But he looked worried, despite the sticky fragment of cake he still had in his hand and now attempted belatedly to hide behind his back.

  “It was fine,” she promised them all. “The cords went fast and neither of us was burned.” And because they would be wondering, she added, “He’s coming here. In half an hour.” She moved across the room to reverse an hourglass, not wanting to lose track of the passing moments, then turned back toward the others.

  Eöté had gone noticeably pale. Luad flushed and looked anywhere but at her. Kehera concentrated on keeping her own expression serene. Tageiny, thankfully, seemed completely undisturbed.

  She said, “Eöté, please help me with this dress, and then you can go for the night. Be sure you take some of those cakes; not even Luad can eat that many by himself. Tag, I don’t expect bodyguards are quite necessary just at the moment. Why don’t you and Luad take the rest of the cakes and go . . . somewhere.”

  Eöté and Morain had been given a little room of their own adjoining Kehera’s, with a connecting door that could be left open or shut, as was suitable for her personal women. Kehera didn’t know what arrangements had been made for the men, but was sure Tageiny could cope with anything from a nearby chamber to a servant’s attic to a loft in the stables. Now Tageiny set aside half the cakes for the women, quashed the younger man’s protests with a glance, and waved him out the door. The look he gave her himself was unreadable. “You’ll be fine,” he told her. He tapped a hand to his heart in the gesture that wished her good fortune, and swung easily out the door and away.

  Kehera preceded Eöté into the bedchamber, standing patiently for the girl to undo the complicated stays of the blue wedding dress. She breathed a deep sigh of relief as the constriction was relaxed. The dress did not, thankfully, take as long to remove as it had to put on.

  “Shall I draw you a bath, my lady?” asked Eöté. She laid the dress aside and picked up a light robe.

  “Yes,” Kehera decided. “Yes, thank you. Then you should go. His Grace—” She stopped until she could finish steadily, “His Grace will be here soon.”

  “Yes,” Eöté whispered. But then she said. “My lady, you should know, I’ve never . . . He never . . .”

  Surprised, Kehera turned her head. “Really?”

  “Everyone was supposed to think so. Because Lord Laören wanted me, so His Grace . . . he made it seem . . . but he never. I’m not supposed to say. . . .”

  “Oh.”

  “Only with Verè,” Eöté blurted, barely audible, and fled to draw the bath, leaving Kehera with at least one unanswered question she was too embarrassed to ask.

  The duke came down the hall exactly on time. Kehera was surprised at how easy it was to recognize his step—the lightness and length of it, with just the faintest unevenness in the stride, the only reminder now of the leg injury that had so nearly killed him.

  He stopped, of course, just outside her door.

  Kehera opened it. The duke stood quite still in the hall. He, too, had bathed since the ceremony, and changed into lighter, less formal dress. His plain shirt was dark blue. It actually suited him just as well as the black and gray he ordinarily wore. His expression was unreadable, his dress and manner impeccable as always, but she could feel the Eänetén Power lying beneath his skin, like heat haze in the summer. She could not perceive any answering pressure from Raëhemaiëth. But she suspected she would, soon enough.

  “My wife. May I enter?”

  Kehera fought down a brief, cowardly impulse to refuse permission. “Yes,” she said through a tight throat. “Of course. My lord.”

  The duke stepped through the doorway. But then he stood still again, not moving closer. Kehera took a deep breath. “Well,” she said. “I suppose we should get this over with.”

  The duke made a small movement, instantly controlled. He said after a second, with unaccustomed tentativeness, “I beg your pardon, but . . . I think you have never been with a man?”

  “Of course not!” said Kehera, shocked. “What do you think I am?”

  “I beg your pardon,” the duke repeated. Kehera saw with amazement that he had flushed slightly. He said, still almost hesitantly, “It need not be a . . . terrible thing. If you do not find me actually revolting.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. It matters to me. I have no wish to hurt you, Kehera. Eänetaìsarè . . . you understand, Eänetaìsarè is not a gentle Power. But it does not want you to be afraid, or hurt. Nor do I.”

  “Well, good.” She knew very well now just how hard the Eänetén Power pressed the duke toward savagery. She had never been more glad of the nature of her own tie.

  And that marked perhaps the first time he had ever used her given name. Or . . . no. The first time except on the mountainside above Meilin Gap, when she had driven him to it. She found, somewhat to her surprise, that she did not mind the familiarity . . . which was just as well, since she no longer had the right to object.

  And it was surprisingly easy to believe him. Kehera found that she did not want to hurt him, either. She said after a moment, “I believe you. And no. I mean . . . you are not revolting to me.” She studied his spare face, his wolf-pale eyes, his narrow-lipped mouth that never smiled. There appeared to be nothing soft or gentle about him. But softness or gentleness would not have suited him. She did not quite know how to explain how far from revolting he had become to her.

  A flicker of expression crossed his face and was repressed. Even a few days ago, Kehera would probably have missed it, though it seemed clear enough to her now. Not that she could easily guess what emotion it had been, but at least she had known that in some way she had affected him.

  He said, “We need not use your bed. If you would prefer to maintain that privacy.”

  “What privacy?” Kehera asked, but his careful thoughtfulness did not surprise her. She said more gently, “No, it doesn’t matter. I don’t mind.” She backed
away, into her bedchamber.

  After a moment the duke stepped through the door after her.

  Standing by the bed, Kehera looked at the Wolf Duke—at her husband—and waited for him to tell her what to do.

  The duke removed his shirt, laid it neatly over the back of a chair. His face, as always, was unreadable. His skin was very pale, more even than one expected at midwinter, as though he had never in his life gone without a shirt in the summers. He turned away, still very slowly, to stand with his back to her.

  It took a moment for Kehera to realize what had caused the tracery of fine white lines across the skin of his back. She caught her breath.

  The duke turned back to face her. “I did not want to take you by surprise.”

  “Fortunate Gods—your father did that?” She knew it had been his father. She still could hardly believe it. “To his own son?”

  He said softly, “It was over a long time ago.”

  “I wonder,” Kehera said gently, “whether something like that can ever be truly over.” She was afraid, as soon as the words were out, that he would be offended or annoyed at her unasked sympathy; she didn’t have to think about it to know that he would answer any offer of pity with the most extreme distaste.

  But the duke said only, “It can. It is.” He spoke with perfect finality. When she didn’t answer, he went on, a little more slowly, as though he were choosing his words with care. “It has to be over, you see, Kehera. One has to choose in the end whether to let it be a thing of the past.” He paused, and then added, “Anyway, I won, in the end.”

  Because he had killed his father. Kehera did not know what to say. She thought she could quite easily hate the Eänetén Power. Except it was part of him. And at the moment, she did not want to hate any part of him.

  “Do I repulse you? I hope not; I cannot leave you now, you know.”

  Kehera looked at him with real astonishment. “You can’t mean because of the scars? What possible difference could that make?”

  The duke almost smiled. Then, as he looked at her, his expression closed again. Perhaps it was merely habit that made him close up like that. Perhaps he thought it made him less intimidating. She wished she knew how to tell him it didn’t work like that.

  He down on the edge of her bed. He reclined against a bedpost, hands laced easily around a drawn-up knee, a deliberately easy, unthreatening pose, for all she could still sense the heat in him, locked beneath that control like fire beneath stone. He touched the place next to him. “Come sit here,” he said. Not commandingly at all. As matter-of-factly as though nothing at all were out of the ordinary.

  Perhaps to him nothing was. Maybe he had had many lovers before her. Kehera still did not know. She only knew that Eöté had not been one of them. And that, however many there had been, Caèr Reiöft had somehow managed not to be jealous of them.

  She shouldn’t ask. She knew she shouldn’t ask.

  She couldn’t help it. She asked, “Have you—have there been many women for you? Or . . . men?” She knew she was blushing.

  The duke did not seem either embarrassed or offended. “No, in fact, not in the way you mean it. You have heard—what exactly is it that you have heard about me?”

  Well, she’d started it, hadn’t she? Kehera pulled her robe around herself and sat down, not on the bed next to him as he had indicated, but on a chair a little way removed. She said carefully, “One can’t help hearing things sometimes. But Eöté said . . . I think sometimes what people think isn’t necessarily so. But then, it’s clear to me that your, um, your relationship with Caèr Reiöft is not, um, not . . . quite . . .” She didn’t know any nice way to put it.

  “Not quite . . .” the duke agreed dispassionately. “That is perfectly true, Kehera. Eöté told you I did not touch her? That is true. She was not supposed to deny it, however.”

  “You won’t punish her.” Kehera had no doubt of this.

  “No. She is yours now, more than mine, so of course she told you. I would have given her permission to tell you the truth. I didn’t think of it, which is my fault. Did she tell you I also did not touch Verè Deconniy?”

  Kehera felt her blush deepen. “From what she said, I wasn’t quite certain,” she admitted.

  “I did not. That was a ruse as well, though one widely believed within my household, I imagine. They wed because Captain Deconniy wished it, and Eöté acceded to it.”

  “Yes, that . . . surprised me a little, actually.”

  The duke inclined his head. “He is enamored of her, I believe. I suspect more so than she of him. I suspect Eöté wished a protector, and found it more nearly possible to trust a man who had also . . . endured Laören’s attentions.”

  Kehera was not at all inclined to ask for any more detailed clarification about the implication of that observation.

  “The match offered her protection and standing in my household. And of course it is important for any woman of your household to be respectable.” The duke paused. “Of course, the ruse was only believable because there have been others. So you were right to be . . . not quite certain.” He paused, and then went on. “The Eänetén Power is very strong. I know you, of all women, understand what it is to hold a deep tie. But the Raëhema family is kind, and your Power is kind. The Eänetén Power is . . . not. It was tied to my father, and before him, to my grandfather and all those of my line, and few enough, I think, gave it anything that would gentle it. It is strong, but it is cruel; it delights in pain and fear, and so do we who hold the tie. For us, the urges of the body are bound up with that cruelty. Continence is not something we can easily practice, and fear or pain in those we take to our beds pleases us. This is how I am. I tell you so you will know.” He paused again, eyes on her face.

  Kehera nodded again. She felt faint with horror and pity, but she felt no surprise or disbelief. She could imagine exactly what he meant.

  The duke was continuing, in his quiet, most matter-of-fact voice. “Women are fragile. It is easy to harm a woman. Beyond that, I must not get an heir carelessly. So I have seldom taken a woman.”

  “I see,” Kehera said soberly, reflecting that she’d gotten rather more frankness than she might have wanted. “It must be a little hard on your men.”

  “I am careful of my people,” he said, perfectly calmly, just as though he allowed her a right to question his habits. He added reluctantly, as a man compelled by a sense of justice to a perhaps unwelcome precision, “. . . as careful as I am able to be, which is sufficient, most of the time. Caèr Reiöft is far from fragile.” A faint warning came into his tone. “You understand, I do not mean to put Caèr aside.”

  Kehera nodded. It had not occurred to her that he might.

  “With you . . . It is easier for me with you, because you are not afraid of me, and because your Raëhemaiëth quiets Eänetaìsarè. I do not wish you to fear me.”

  Kehera believed him. Although he was wrong about one thing, at least, if he thought she wasn’t afraid of him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, she robed and in the chair; he shirtless and resting in apparent comfort on the edge of her bed.

  “Is there anything else you would like to ask me?” he said at last.

  There was no trace of impatience in his voice or face. But she couldn’t think of a single thing, although she wondered whether later she would regret the lost chance. Mutely, she shook her head.

  The duke didn’t touch her. He held out his hand instead, palm-up, invitingly. “I swore a vow today,” he said soberly, “to cherish you, Kehera. I mean to hold to that vow. I hope you will trust me to be your own right decision. Will you take my hand?”

  Kehera, meeting his eyes, laid her hand in his.

  25

  On the morning of the twenty-eighth day of the Iron Hinge Month, two days before the beginning of the uncounted days of the Iron Hinge itself, three days before the actual midwinter dawn, Innisth terè Maèr Eänetaì lounged like a lazy wolf before the fire in his borrowed apartment in Viär. He found himself quite w
ell pleased with the solidity of his position in this province and this town and this house. In these new-claimed lands, which had recently been part of Harivir and now belonged to Eäneté. He was aware of the quiet murmur of Viärinéseir: a presence like the sound of the wind through the cedar branches, or through the feathers of great outspread wings. He felt this presence through and past his constant awareness of his own more savage and stronger Power . . . yet even Eänetaìsarè seemed more contented and less violent now. Since the wedding.

  Innisth felt his affairs could hardly have been better arranged had the year been approaching the Golden Hinge rather than the Iron. Yet he did not wish to offend his new people . . . his wife’s people . . . by open disregard of the ill luck of the month. Quiet and good order and attention to homely comforts, that was what he wished for his people . . . for his wife . . . during the approaching days of the Iron Hinge. And when the obsidian winds came down from the heights, let all men and beasts shelter within the strength of Eänetaìsarè. His Great Power would turn aside any winter dragon and any storm that tried to come down upon the lands that it encompassed. Thus all these new lands of his would understand that to belong to Eäneté was no ill thing.

  So let Meilin Gap be sealed by avalanche; let the high Takel Mountains shrug off their clinging burdens of snow and close the narrow pass, let Eänetaìsarè lay its strength all through these lands and see that no other Immanent Power, no obsidian-winged dragon, no bitter king who had failed his own people dared intrude into the lands it had made its own.

  Innisth could not, of course, guarantee that Methmeir Irekaì might not even yet confound his ambition and endanger the integrity of the new kingdom he was making. But now that he held Viär, now that he was in position to anchor it to the western slopes of these mountains where its awareness had never before reached . . . now he could offer Eänetaìsarè considerable support. He would support his Power. He was fixed on that purpose. He would hold the land on both sides of the mountains, they would hold all these lands, and they would never let them go.