The wizard thanked them gently, and Hal noticed his Aremore was perfect.
They’d brushed his hair and even maybe trimmed it, for instead of the brambly, tangled mass it had been when he appeared, it was woven in three thick braids against his crown and temples, then bound back simply in a tail past his shoulders. Hal supposed he was handsome, in the way of men.
“Do you ride?” she asked, and he nodded.
Together they ate in the family hall, surrounded by dogs and the steward who had a dozen questions for Hal to haphazardly answer—though she cared, truly, about Tenne-Tiras, she didn’t know why it mattered if they bought mackerel or salmon, when there would be no guests to speak of. Hal did say that yes, she thought she might come here for the winter, thinking to herself it was very likely she’d want to escape the palace if Echarmet of Kurake Queen haunted her footsteps in Lionis. Or if her mother tried to send her to the March.
The amount of food the wizard ate both comforted and unsettled Hal; spirits did not eat, after all, and he enjoyed the dark wine and the lentil mash particularly, but it seemed, indeed, as if he’d not eaten in years. He thanked the servants and the steward, and when he was cutting into the heavy barley bread with the table knife Hal realized his hands were scarred at the knuckles and his wrists corded, and in fact the way he held himself put her more in mind of a soldier than a wizard.
Not that she knew how wizards would hold themselves; she only imagined they should be more elegant or willowy than this small, coiled man. She did know soldiers, though, and that was what he seemed to her, now that he was clean and clothed.
The day was beautiful and the road clear, and as Hal and her new wizard headed west to the Whiteglass and then joined the northern road into Lionis, Hal felt an unusual lightness surrounding her. To her left the river gleamed blue and gold, spooling slow and deep between gilded banks; to her right fields spread just as bright, filled with workers taking the first harvest of barley and wheat. Hal waved and stood in her stirrups to call out greetings to the ones who paused, though they knew her not—why should they when she rode with no retinue, with only a red jacket and her mother’s black hair and no crown? Her sword was a fine one, but no more so than any rich traveler’s. She sang at them when she knew their harvest songs.
She and the wizard were delayed for nearly an hour when they came upon a wagon being drawn by a raggedy mule who’d twisted its leg in a furrow in the road and brayed, pulled, and cried, desperate to free itself of the harness. Hal immediately drew up and leapt to the ground to help the driver unleash the creature. But it was the wizard who went unhesitatingly to the mule and whispered at it like the wind through rushes, palm out, until the mule relaxed and lowered its head, sides heaving. The wizard unyoked it and bent to the mule’s injured rear leg. He kept up his low whispering, pinching along the beast’s long muscles, then said to the driver, “It will heal if you keep it cold and wrapped and don’t allow her to strain herself.”
The driver thanked them awkwardly, staring at the wizard with an open mouth, and Hal gave him a coin and promised to send back a few men from the town ahead to clear the road.
Hal grinned at the wizard as they rode on, and he glanced at her but made no expression. The wind blew and he tilted his head to listen; Hal laughed in sheer delight.
More and more they were not alone, as traffic joined them on this main road into the capital. Most were on foot, though there were wagons full of nobility arriving for Halfsies Day, the equinox festival, but more wagons carried goods and trade, and a once small force of the Queen’s Army rode up from a smaller path, sounding like thunder. Everyone, including Hal, made room for them to push faster toward Lionis. None of them knew her—she did tuck her face away from them—and the wizard eyed her curiously. But if he planned to tell her nothing at all, she could do the same.
Hal did not last very long in that game, and soon asked the wizard what the wind of Aremoria said. The wizard replied, “Not very much, but I’ve asked nothing of it, either.”
“If you asked, would it answer? Is it the same language the wind speaks on Innis Lear? Is that where you were last?”
“The wind has long liked me,” he said, as if it were all the answer Hal required.
She groaned but was pleased; wizards were supposed to be mystifying. “I’ll have to call you something, when we arrive at the palace—you are going to the palace with me, aren’t you? The gate guards will want a name.”
He shrugged that same shoulder. “It will work itself out.”
“Will you fly in like a bird? A broad-winged crow?”
“I do not shift my shape, Prince Hal.”
“Oh well.”
At the city gates they entered easily, and left both horses with a royal ostler in the wall barracks, so they could move faster through the narrower side streets that would bring them to Lionis Palace less obviously. As the white walls of the palace loomed ahead, rising over the slate roofs and row houses, peeking between gardens and blocking out the sky, Hal’s steps slowed. The castle wall on this east side had a very small entrance, guarded by regular palace soldiers, and it was used only for personnel. A soldier in orange recognized Hal coming, and wasn’t even surprised. He banged his gloved fist on the door and inside another soldier would be unlatching the heavy bar. Then the outer soldier grasped the handle and pushed it slowly open.
Hal turned to prepare the wizard again to offer some kind of name at least, but he was gone.
The prince hesitated for a moment, glancing around, and then laughed in delight, thinking the wizard would fly in after all. She did not doubt she’d see him again.
So keeping that spring in her step, Hal saluted the soldier and dashed through the tunnel that led directly into the outer bailey of Lionis Palace.
Because she was clean (relatively) and smelled of nothing worse than horses, Hal chose to slip into the residential wing of the palace, which was not, interestingly, where the queen and her children lived, but where anyone else lucky (or wretched) enough to be invited to stay within the thick white walls was put. Hal knew her betrothed would be in one of the largest suites and she made her way up the spiral stairs two at a time to stretch her legs and strengthen her knees; her weight and armor training was not nearly so regular as it ought to be anymore, and so she found ways to compromise. At the top, she ducked into a conveniently empty guard cut-out to catch her breath. She unwound her hair and ran her fingers through it: the thickest parts at the base of her skull remained damp from her bath at Tenne-Tiras, having been wound tight for the ride. For convenience she left it loose, knowing the waves would catch the light nicely.
She strode down the center of the corridor, past whitewashed walls and long floral tapestries, and put on a smile. She set her left fist against the pommel of her sword to hold it firmly at her hip.
Prince Hal was feeling rather full of herself and almost eager to meet a far-traveling fellow prince when she arrived at the arched door behind which Echarmet of Kurake Queen and his retinue were housed.
She glanced a question at the palace guard stationed at the curve of the corridor, and he said, “The prince is inside, Prince.”
Hal thumped her fist against the wooden door three times.
It was answered startlingly fast, with a little jerk, then swung inward to reveal a woman who was most certainly not a serving maid. She was as tall as Hal, with cool brown skin only a few shades darker than Tigir’s, and a narrow face entirely filled by round gray eyes.
“Oh,” Hal said.
The woman was beautiful and understated, wearing only a long robe that turned her body into a simple shaft of gray and pink stripes, with the palest lines of orange embroidered at thick cuffs, collar, and ankle-brushing hem. The slippers on her feet bared her toes, and rings circled near half of them. Dark brown braids wound around her head, twisted with a thin orange scarf, the silky ends of which fell behind her left ear. The woman wore silver paint in a style Hal had never seen on any of the ambassador’s household, no
r the Third Kingdom traders who frequented the Quick Sunrise: a single line began beneath her bottom lip and drew itself down over her chin and along her throat, vanishing into her robe. Too bad Hal wasn’t expected to marry this woman.
“I’m Prince Hal,” Hal said belatedly, though the woman had done nothing but stare gently and block the way in. “Greetings,” Hal added in the language of the Third Kingdom.
“Prince Hal,” the woman said soothingly in Aremore. “Hello.”
Then the man who could only be Echarmet appeared, chin up arrogantly, eyebrows raised. This one held all the drama Hal couldn’t find in the woman’s demeanor: he was vivid dark brown, with wide shining cheeks and bright brown eyes. Hal’s age or just older, and his hair grew in a solid black pouf around his skull. His vest was red as blood, draped off muscled shoulders and open down his chest to button at his navel. Tight little swirls of black hair dotted his pectorals and stomach. His arms … worms and stars, but Hal was absolutely sure he could lift her fully armored over his back.
Her fingers tightened on the pommel of her sword.
“I am unadorned for company,” Echarmet said in flatly accented Aremore.
It was true: he had on no paint, nor the rings or plated collars or arm-bands Hal had expected, his legs were wrapped but loosely, and his bare toes sank into the rug.
“As am I, Prince Echarmet,” Hal said after a swallow of nerves. She smiled. “I hoped to greet you informally, without the expectations of onlookers. For your ease.”
“Perhaps I prefer the ease of ritual formality,” Echarmet said.
“Do you?”
Silence reigned a moment, and the two princes stared.
The beautiful Third Kingdom woman smiled and put her hand upon Echarmet’s shoulder, but only long enough to touch her other to Hal’s tense fist, resting against the pommel of her sword. Then the woman folded her hands before her belly.
Echarmet relaxed very slightly, and Hal glanced at the woman, sensing a priestliness about her. A glow of unaffected mystery rather like that Learish star reader, Era, whom Hal had never tracked down.
“This is Luminous Phetira,” Echarmet said. “A Godsman.”
“Charm and I requested an afternoon refreshment,” the Godsman said by way of farewell, slipping past Hal to walk down the corridor. Hal turned nearly in a circle to watch, surprised and charmed.
She spun back to Echarmet. “I’m thirsty,” she said, entering. Hal heard the gentle thump of wood as the door shut.
The suite opened into an airy sitting room with tall balcony doors open wide so the early autumn breeze fluttered in, drawing with it the garden scents of juniper and the roses climbing the wall below. Hal breathed deeply, glancing up at the stone molding and painted ceiling. Stars at the peak, clouds drifting away toward the edges, a sunset in the true west and sunrise in the true east.
A broad hearth, unlit, took up the south wall, surrounded by small couches and two high-backed chairs. The low table was set with coffee and a plate of crackers, cold meats, dried fruit. Wine had been decanted as well, though it was coffee in both delicate clay cups.
Rooms branched to either side of the hearth, closed off by curtains woven in dark ivy colors.
Hal unbuckled her sheath from the belt and set her sword up on the mantel, just beneath an old icon of the star saint Asmore, who visited the moon in his dreams and claimed it was a lost heart of the earth itself, thrown to the sky to save it once when the entire world was aflame. He was often depicted with dark skin, and Aremore philosophers debated whether he’d been born in the First Kingdom or merely turned black by all the wisdom he held. Hal honestly couldn’t decide if whoever had assigned Echarmet this room was a genius or held questionable opinions about his people.
“Meant to comfort us, I assume,” Echarmet said, stepping beside her as she studied the cracking old art.
“Does it?” She slid him a crooked smile.
“The knowledge that someone looked to my comfort is comforting.”
Pleased by the riddling response, Hal lifted one of the coffee cups and tossed the liquid into the ashes of the hearth. She smiled as she poured wine in its place, then plopped down onto the pink half sofa, propping her elbow on the higher arm.
Echarmet sat, perched rather like a huge bird in a tiny cage upon the edge of a tall-backed chair. He seemed at ease when he picked up his coffee, knees spread, shoulders relaxed. He eyed her as if he had all the time in the world.
Hal drank wine and affected her best lazy-cat demeanor. She wasn’t sure whether to engage in light flirtation and conversation, or to dive directly into politics. If only he would begin.
But she supposed he was a guest, and so it was more princely of her to choose. Everything would go smoother if they were allies, or at least not grating against each other like badly shaped gears. “You said Godsman, but was Luminous Phetira not a woman?”
“Your language is insufficient to properly translate.”
Hal grinned. “To properly translate her rank, or her sex?”
“Both.”
“Would you explain? I studied avust I-xih for many years, and remember there are more designations for men and women, girls, mothers, fathers in the regular language, even outside formal prefixes.”
Echarmet grimaced, showing a slice of white teeth. For a split second Hal worried she’d offended him or miscalculated, but the irritable pull of his mouth turned into an irritable smile, and that smile lingered in his voice as he said, “It is nearly impossible to have such a discussion in Aremore, because we best translate our gender designations as infant, young man, girl, man, Mother, father, and Father. To begin.”
“You said father twice, but mother once. I guessed you would have more sorts of motherhood in a place like … the Queen … dom … of God’s Third Daughters? Is that the true translation of Es I-Eles-Xih A Es? I know it has nothing to do with our words Third Kingdom.”
Echarmet said, “The three references the word Xih, which you translated as queendom, but that is not accurate, for it is not a word associated with Mothers.”
“Dynasty perhaps? A bloodline?”
His eyes brightened again, and Hal felt connected to him, both of them fully engaged. He said, “The change between the First, the Second, and the Third Kingdoms was not to do with new ruling Mother-lines, but new philosophies. And so perhaps Es I-Eles-Xih A Es is … the Third Philosophy Since the Revelation of God.”
Hal blew out a heavy breath, impressed, and glad there was more wine. “There’s nothing in the name of your land, your philosophy, to indicate you are matriarchal?”
“Just as there is no word for why our feet remain upon the ground instead of floating into the air.”
“Huh.” Hal lifted the decanter and swung it in Echarmet’s direction. The prince of Kurake Queen considered, then nodded once, firmly. She poured, then tapped the rim of her cup to his. “To articulating ourselves.”
Echarmet drained his cup.
Hal poured more and said, “So Luminous Phetira is a Godsman, even though she is a woman.”
“Only in Aremoria is she a woman. We have none in Es I-Eles-Xih A Es. Only girls and Mothers.”
“And Godsmen who were born girls?”
He inclined his head slowly. “Some. Infants become girls or young men, and girls in turn become Mothers, or remain girls, though they both may Father someone.”
“Might I call Luminous Phetira a girl?”
“If you intend to disrespect her relationship with God.”
Hal brushed her hands at him in denial. “So girls remain girls unless they become Mothers.”
“That is oversimplified, as are most such things in Aremore, but yes. Though a girl might also become a Father.”
“And why do you have fathers and … Fathers?”
“Any man may make a child with a Mother, and so be a father, but a Father … a Father-with-emphasis … acts. Your mother is very much a Father to me. She taught me of who I am, of war and thinking. I think of her, in
the Mother-tongue, as such, though she did not father me.”
“But she is my mother, Echarmet, and she neither mothered me.”
“She is a Mother, for Mothers are created by Motherhood, a thing that wakes in them with the getting of a child. Here you say a child quickens, but in my home we know it is a Mother who changes, who becomes life.”
Hal lifted an eyebrow. She was growing uncomfortable with this continued discussion of motherhood—and Motherhood. It seemed rather unequivocal, and Hal preferred avenues beyond the strictly anatomical to determine her fate. “I’m not sure my mother ever did, based on how I turned out.”
The Kurake prince actually laughed. “It is true, you do not … ah …”
“I don’t reflect well on Celedrix’s mothering instincts,” Hal said sardonically, eyes wide, hardly believing he’d stumbled into such an insult.
“Hal,” he said with utmost seriousness.
“It’s all right. You’ve heard stories of me, Prince Echarmet, rumors of my lack of contentment, and here I skipped your welcome feast and showed up unannounced, to your discomfort and displeasure. I know I am no good heir.”
He said nothing but pressed his lips together. Hal did not speak on, allowing him the space to decide how to proceed as she poured more wine.
“Tigir likes you very much,” Echarmet finally said. “And she is a sister to me. I would have you and I be kin, as well, and request that you call me Charm.”
Hal smiled crookedly. “Charm. My newest sister likes all manner of terrible things. But she likes me because I’m a soldier—a knight. I drink, I laugh, I fuck, and I can beat her face into the ground with sword or fist, or even on the tournament field.”
“I have heard, too, of your prowess as a warrior.”
“If only I were meant to be a soldier, not a queen.”
“Perhaps.” He picked up his cup, seeming to study the maroon ripples. “Perhaps you can be a soldier, and then a commander, and then once you are comfortable with as such, then look to the crown. It may be a more successful leap from soldier to commander to queen than from soldier to queen.”
Lady Hotspur Page 33
