by Jean Johnson
“We’re still her husbands,” Dar-shem reminded him. “If these delegates came with an entourage to impress people with their importance, then we’ll need to provide her with one, too . . . or rather, you will. I’ll have to head to work in half a glow.”
Nevada glanced at the clock out of habit. Like the clocks in the other rooms of their tenement, it was crafted from nodes of suncrystal similar to the ones embedded in the ceiling. Unlike the overhead crystals, the clocks weren’t turned off by a switch; instead, spells caused them to light up and dim twice a day on a twelve-hour, twelve-spoked cycle, shining brightest and fullest at noon and midnight. Measuring time was important when one couldn’t always see the actual sun and moons sliding across the rippling waters of the Menomonite sky.
It was her guild, the Mage’s Guild, that enchanted and maintained such things. Her guild that grew the suncrystal towers which brought blessed, necessary sunlight from the wave-tossed surface all the way down to the plants and animals growing in the harvesting caverns at the base of the reef-ringed city. Her guild that had graciously done its best to maintain contact, however sporadic, with Althinac . . . and her guild that hadn’t warned her that a delegation from that distant city was on its way.
Why didn’t we know? Why didn’t Althinac warn us they were coming? Picking at her food, Nevada worried over that point. Even if I don’t have the seniority of some of the others, I’m the one our “informant” has been talking with these last few years. Nor would the others go behind my back; I’m among the top ten highest ranked mages in the guild. I would have known about it even if the message had come during my off hours!
So why didn’t they say they were coming?
THE moment she entered the Aviary, one of the best meeting rooms in the council Congregation Halls, Nevada knew why nothing had been said. Mouth gaping, she stared at the most important man in the room. Only peripherally did she notice the quartet of men and the one woman who accompanied him, distinct in their fabric clothes from the Menomonites in their sea leathers. Mastering her shock, Nevada struggled to adopt a pleasant expression instead of a stunned one as she approached, flanked by her husbands and her honorary co-father.
That approach was masked by the chirps and twitters of the songbirds flitting from tree to tree. Breathable space for animals and plants as well as humans was at a premium, but the Aviary was one of the oldest and fanciest public venues in Menomon. Normally it was only available during daylight hours; with the sun having set during supper, only the residual light lurking in the crystals of the sun towers and the occasional passing of a luminous fish could illuminate the pitch-black depths of the city. Agitated by the extended span of crystal-wrought light, the birds flitted from bush to tree, almost as colorful as the fish residing in the city’s many reefs, and certainly noisier.
Althinac was a city partly on the surface and partly beneath the sea, built as it was around a pearl necklace of coral atolls much older and taller than the reefs sheltering Menomon. They were undoubtedly used to seeing non-edible birds flying about freely, but Nevada could tell the visitors were still impressed. Particularly that one central figure, who was craning his neck so he could peer at the bright yellow and green budgerigar that had boldly landed on his shoulder. The bird finished cleaning its beak with a talon and fluttered off, allowing its human perch to finally notice Nevada’s approach.
The smile he gave her was big, friendly, and unabashed. It made his teeth look very white in his suntanned face. He emphasized his pleasure by breaking away from the others, hand outstretched in greeting as he crossed the brick-tiled courtyard being used as their meeting space. “Nevada! I’m very glad to finally meet you in person.”
“Migel,” Nevada returned, smiling back as she clasped hands with him.
She couldn’t help smiling; for a man raised on the rebel side of the civil war, he had always been very nice toward both her and Sierran. Of course, Migel’s insistence on staying neutral all these years and focusing on expanding his knowledge of training through his contacts in various cities hadn’t hurt. It had given them a non-hostile contact to talk with back home. Now, in person, that warmth in his personality transmitted itself in the warmth of his hand. Part of her just wanted to wrap herself up in his hand. Part of her wanted to wrap herself up in the rest of his embrace.
With the remainder, she managed a coherent question. “It is indeed a great pleasure to meet you in person, instead of via the mirrors . . . but why are you here? They made you the Guardian of Althinac last year, at the start of the truce. Why would they let the Guardian of the City go anywhere?”
“They ‘let’ me because they don’t know I’ve left. They think I’m undertaking a purification ritual in strict isolation; otherwise I would have told you I was coming. Unfortunately, there are still a few radicals on both sides who would not only violently protest my leaving the city, but also the reason why I came here at all.” His eyes, the same cerulean shade of blue as hers, flicked to the faces of the men spreading out to flank her. “Are these your fellow guild members?”
“Only Cotter is part of the Mage Guild. Migel, this is my first husband Cotter, a generalist mage of the fourth rank; Cotter, this is Migel, Guardian of Althinac.” Nevada turned slightly to her other side, ready to introduce the next man in her entourage, but the stunned, crumbling look on the Guardian of Althinac’s suntanned face stopped her. “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head, but not in reply. “This isn’t going to work . . . I came all the way here with what I thought was a brilliant idea, and it’s not going to work.”
Getting the feeling she was missing out on something, Nevada tilted her head. “Mind telling me what’s wrong? And what your idea was?”
“It’s the Convocation of the Gods,” Migel explained. “The priestess picked to represent Althinac during the Summoning of Althea presented both sides of our civil war to Her and asked if there was a simple, workable solution to our ongoing civil war. The Goddess of Waves answered with the statement ‘When the two houses are rendered one, the war will end.’ Or words to that effect.
“Most of the radicals on both sides took that to mean a resumption of hostilities and tried to break the truce. I stopped it . . . barely . . . and said I would meditate on its meaning. But I thought at the time the meaning was very clear. To render doesn’t mean to destroy—that’s to rend—but rather, to render means things like to conform, submit, and represent. So I thought it meant we should make the two ruling houses of the loyalists and the rebels join as one,” he explained. “The loyalists won’t accept anyone but a Naccaran leading the city.
“You’re the last one, unless you count a few embittered, distant cousins among the extremists who have been keeping the loyalist faction firmly alive. The majority of loyalists don’t want an extremist on the city seat, though. They’d rather take their chances on an exiled princess. On the other side of the matter, the rebels won’t accept anyone but an Althec paving the way to a new and better future, because of the excesses of your father and next-mother.
“I’m a first cousin to the idiots who started this mess. Plus I’m the guardian of the city, the only one both sides felt was calm enough to take up the position and enforce the truce. That gives me a certain level of authority to . . . well, to have imposed my will, making everyone accept a marriage of alliance between us.” He paused and shook his head, the ends of his dark brown hair flicking over his shoulders with the quick, negative movement. “But if you’re already married, it wouldn’t work.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?” Cotter asked, giving the Althinac male a puzzled look.
Migel glanced at him. “Because she’s already married?”
“What has that to do with anything?” Rogen asked, folding his arms across his chest. “She’s already got six husbands. One more at this point won’t matter that much.”
Nevada took in Migel’s shocked look and blushed, remembering why he was so upset. It’s just proof of how well I’ve adapted to the Me
nomonite way of looking at things that I totally forgot about this. “Migel, I’m only married because, under Menomonite law, I had no legal reason not to be married. The law in this city is that unless a woman is willing to pay a very stiff fine, or has a medical or magical reason to sidestep the law, all women have to have at least three husbands by the time they turn twenty-five.
“Given how I’m twenty-four, I’ve never had a great deal of wealth, and I had no clue whatsoever that this solution for ending the war was going to be presented to you before my time limit was up, I went ahead and married my best friend, Cotter, five years ago and then picked out a few more. This is Rogen, who is my second and lead husband,” she added, introducing the two of them. She gestured at the others as well. “I’m also wed to Kristh, Baubin, and Talladen here, as well as to Dar-shem, though he’s not here.”
“Dar-shem had to go off to work the night shift instead of accompanying us to meet your delegation; he’s helping to construct our own desalinator, based on the blueprints of the one on Nightfall Isle, the place which hosted the Convocation of the Gods,” Cotter explained for her.
Nevada gestured at the last of the men in her entourage. “And of course you know Sierran, who is my honorary co-father, since he helped raise me once we settled here. And he did have the wit and the compassion to spare my life as an innocent child.”
Migel nodded politely to each man, but there was still a lurking level of dismay in his deep, Althinac blue gaze. At least it wasn’t quite as strong as the expressions of distaste in the four men behind him listening to their conversation, though the one woman in his entourage was still smiling politely enough at Nevada. The Guardian of Althinac gestured with his hand. “The laws in Althinac are very different from Menomon. We have a one woman, one man policy. Plus there’s the whole question of . . . of paternity, since in order to make the merger successful, we’d have to . . .”
He trailed off when Nevada gaped at him. She laughed as soon as she could catch her breath; a glance to either side showed her husbands sharing her sense of humor. “You think I’m sleeping with them? I’ll admit I’m the envy of any number of Menomonite women for the sheer number of men I’ve managed to fit into my life, but trust me, it’s not at all what you’d think. Ours,” she said, gesturing to include her five present husbands along with herself, “is a true marriage of convenience. I needed to obey the laws and rules of Menomon, and they were willing to oblige that need in return for all the legal advantages of being married. Which they could not obtain any other way . . . because each and every one of my husbands is paired off with one of the others.”
“Paired off?” Migel repeated, flicking his gaze to the faces of the men flanking her.
“Yes. They’re frothy,” she explained. At his blank look, she realized she had used another Menomonite term. “It means they’re only interested in other men, sexually?”
Migel’s lips parted, but for a moment no sound came out. He finally settled on a simple “Ah.”
“Her marriages have simply been a political move,” Sierran offered, speaking up from his position behind the others, drawing the full attention of his fellow Althinacs. “I reasoned that an offer like this might happen someday, among many other possibilities . . . but I also knew we had to be model Menomonite citizens in return for being given asylum here for so many years. I counseled Nevada to take on husbands who were only interested in sexual relations with other men, which would protect her from any questions of paternity in an alliance match with someone from Althinac.”
Cotter wrapped his right arm around Nevada’s shoulders, giving her a little squeeze. “Trust us, she’s more like a sister than a wife, in that regard. Not that she doesn’t know what to do; she got high marks in her sexual education courses, plus I’ve filled her in on a few more things about men since then.”
From the rolling eyes and hastily averted gazes of the men behind Migel, Nevada guessed these Althinacs still didn’t grasp Menomonite culture. And still the one woman in their group continued to smile benignly at her. Migel caught the line of her gaze and introduced them.
“These are Fedor and Ismail of the loyalist faction—I should say rather, two of the levelest-headed members of the loyalist faction I could find to bring as witnesses to my plan. These are Carmen and Lajos of the rebel faction, also the calmest and most trustworthy witnesses I could find. And this,” he added, gesturing for the woman in their group to come forward, “is my cousin Socorro, who is the witness for the Althec family. I, ah, would have sought someone of the Naccaran family to be your witness . . . but you’re the only one left of sufficiently strong enough blood ties. The remaining three cousins . . . they might accept you as a co-leader, but they’d protest the ‘co-’ part, particularly when instigated by the rebel side.”
Nevada lifted her hand, dismissing his subtle apologies for the things his kin had done to hers. The two of them had long since covered such things via their occasional mirror-scried conversations. “That’s all right. My husbands can stand witness.”
Migel blinked. “They can stand witness? Not could ? Have you made up your mind that quickly?”
“Not entirely,” Nevada told him, smiling. “But since I already know you—as much as we could know each other through a pair of mirrors—you’re not the part of this marriage alliance idea I’d object to. What I need to know now is how this marriage of our two houses will be translated into the governance of Althinac.”
“Why don’t we all sit down while we hash out such details?” Talladen offered, playing the diplomat. He gestured at the expensive, wrought-iron chairs clustered to one side of the cobblestone-paved courtyard.
Nevada knew the chairs wouldn’t be comfortable for any real length of time, but she figured that might help speed up the preliminaries. Letting Talladen hold her chair for her, she sat down at one of the smaller grate-topped tables. It was a power move, for it allowed only enough room for Migel to sit across from her and forced both sides to spread out, finding seats a short distance away.
If she had been dealing with Menomonites, she would have picked the largest of the three different sizes of tables offered by the Aviary furniture, but she wasn’t dealing with a committee-minded people. Althinacs were used to being led by a single leader who was supported by a selection of advisors. That meant these negotiations were between herself and Migel.
The table was small enough that when Migel adjusted his position in his chair, their feet bumped together briefly. Migel dropped his gaze to her sandal-clad feet, visible below the soft, sueded, black rayskin of her pants, then pulled his focus back up to her face. “As you may recall, Althinac is ruled in a pyramid fashion; the higher up you go in the ranks of authority, the fewer people you’ll find. At the top are two positions: the guardian and the prince or princess.
“Right now, the city is technically ruled by Prince Alvan, a mutual uncle of Socorro’s and mine. But it’s a precarious perch, because while he’s popular among the rebel faction, he’s a bit too staunchly an Althec for the loyalists to fully accept him. I have more of the effective power, if not the rank, because I have been careful not to offend the loyalist side. Nor have I offended my kin overly much.
“Unfortunately, the Althecs would not accept me as the next prince because I’m the strongest mage in the city. They want me to be the guardian,” Migel explained. “They want both positions to stay as they are, filled by members of the rebel faction, but the loyalists disagree. Because of this, the truce is an uneasy one, held in place more by my agreeability and the threat of my power against both sides than by Uncle Alvan’s leadership abilities.”
Nevada shifted in her seat. That caused their feet to bump together again. It distracted her briefly from the hard, unyielding metal supporting her backside. Migel cleared his throat.
“On the other hand, if you were to take over as princess while I remained guardian, the rebel side would object to having a Naccaran in power over them once again.”
That made her tilt her
head. “So . . . are you suggesting that you step up as the prince, and that, what . . . I take over your position as guardian of Althinac? I’m a strong mage, but I’m not that strong. I’m not even strong enough to have been considered a suitable replacement for Guardian Sheren here in Menomon.”
“Not exactly—actually, it’s your own city guardian’s situation that made me think of this solution,” Migel confessed, nodding at the pair of redheads who had taken seats at the edge of the group, watching the proceedings quietly but intently. The man was somewhat tall and slightly exotic, being a foreigner, while the woman was rather short and quite familiar to Nevada. “Her apprentices are weaker individually than they are when they pool their powers together. Together, they will rule Menomon as its joint guardian whenever Guardian Sheren steps down.
“You and I couldn’t pool our magics on nearly the same scale that they apparently can, but we could pool our authority,” Migel explained. “Instead of having a prince or princess at the top, followed by the guardian of the city as their champion and protector, we combine the two offices. We can’t make ourselves a ruling king and queen, since that’s not in our covenant with Althea, but we can make ourselves a ruling prince and princess. Equals, with equal share of the power and equal share of the responsibility. And to make it unshakable, we should probably marry before we return to Althinac. I know it’s rushed, but this way we’d have several days of travel to get used to working together. Except . . . you’re already married.”
His own foot shifted against hers. It shifted and lingered, in fact. Nevada didn’t realize for a few moments what he was up to, until she shifted her foot aside a little and his followed hers. His boot was leather, waxed somewhat stiff, but he still managed to caress her ankle gently with the edge of its toe. A blatant caress. Quirking the corner of her mouth, Nevada lifted her toes a little, returning the foot play.
“That . . . sounds like it’d take a lot of work to implement. Though I suppose I do have more of an advantage than you in that I’ve grown up used to the Menomonite mind-set of committees for this and councils for that.” Bracing one elbow on the table, she rested her chin on her hand, toes rubbing gently against the lower part of his calf. Touching him just felt too good to pass up the opportunity. “But it will still take work on both our parts. Not only will it take work for the people on both sides to accept our joint authority, it will probably take some time for both of us to learn how to trust each other’s judgment enough to honestly share all the powers, privileges, duties, and responsibilities.