Finding Destiny

by Jean Johnson

  She stumbled to a halt, giving him a surprised look—then threw her head back, laughing long and heartily.

  The world dropped away from him. Zeilas blinked at her, equally surprised. She was gorgeous when she laughed, beaming with mirth, eyes crinkling at the corners, teeth gleaming in the midafternoon light. There was a sense of rightness about her when she laughed, as if this was what she was meant to do. He knew even as he thought it that it was just a flight of fancy, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

  It drew the attention of his Steed, Fireleaf. Smart as a child, though not quite that articulate, the blessed horse nosed his way into Zeilas’ thoughts. Something good?

  Steeds were immortal avatars of Arbora. To have one read his Knight’s thoughts was no more disturbing than to have the Goddess read those thoughts. Less invasive, really, if more inquisitive. Zeilas thought back, Something good, yes. Something ... right.

  The last time he had felt anything this right simply from looking at it was when he had successfully summoned his Steed, and had seen Fireleaf trotting out of the royal woods beyond the fields ringing the Squire’s Academy. Then, the dappled sorrel-and-cream stallion had been a gift from Arbora. Now ... it was simply a chance meeting. Perhaps deliberately arranged by Fate, the Threefold God, or perhaps just pure luck. Or perhaps as a potential repayment for all the kindnesses he had done to others in his life.

  Fireleaf nosed at his mental impression of the Consul-in-Chief, then snorted. Lead mare. Good female. Strong, will bear fine foals.

  His mouth twitched with mirth. Trust it to you to put it that way.

  Mare in season?

  Not yet ... but hopefully soon. He wouldn’t have put it that way himself, but Zeilas did know he needed to capitalize on his luck, predestined or otherwise. As her mirth died down, she leveled her head and eyed him, grinning. That grin faltered as he just stared at her, until it wound up higher on one side of her mouth than on the other, dissolving into her usual wry smile.

  “... What?”

  “You’re exceptionally beautiful when you laugh,” Zeilas told her. She blinked at the compliment, but he didn’t retract it. Honesty prompted him to add a little bit more. “I shall endeavor to make you laugh more often.”

  “Well ... I suppose as a diplomat you’d want me to be in a good mood whenever I—” she started to say.

  Zeilas cut her off by lifting his finger to her lips. He shook his head, speaking softly. “What we do as the representatives of our governments is separate. This is personal, just between you and me. And, just between you and me, I think you are magnificent when you laugh.” Removing his finger from her soft lips, he gave her a lopsided smile of his own. “Unfortunately, we both know that you and I must attend more to our duties than to our personal needs each day ... though those needs do still exist ... and they do deserve to be recognized. From time to time.”

  She stared at him, blinked, and blushed. Looking away for a moment, she shrugged slightly. “I’m not used to ... being treated as a woman.” She looked directly at him again, adding, “And not being threatened by it. Many of us women, who had the brains the Gods gave us and the wit to recognize it ... we turned ourselves into sexless workers, to avoid the attentions of the False priesthood. Not all of them, but some, yes. Some preyed on women as well as on ...”

  “... Marriage?” Zeilas offered when she hesitated over the M word. Marta burst out laughing again. As she wound down into chuckles, rubbing at the corner of her eyes with a finger, he grinned. “I’m glad to see our cultural differences are so amusing. I’ll have to find other ways to make you laugh, too.”

  “You do that,” she murmured, giving him a smile somewhere between half and whole. Glancing around at the half-grassy, half-paved courtyard, she shrugged and gestured at the palace in the distance. “We should head to your quarters, and maybe take a brief tour of the palace on the way.

  “Tomorrow will be the grand reception,” she reminded him. Then shrugged. “Not that we have any other ambassadors; we’re still waiting to receive one from the Aurulan government, since they’ve claimed it isn’t ‘the right moment’ to send one. Frankly, they make me nervous with how devoted to their Patron God they are ... but they’re not warlike, at least. The Sundarans can be warlike, but they refuse to send anyone to us until spring, citing that the cold, harsh winters found in our hills and mountains would be less distressing if their envoy crossed them instead in warmer months. So your Arbran promptness is appreciated by my people.”

  “Your Guildaran peacefulness is appreciated by mine,” Zeilas reminded her, following her as she started for the palace gate.

  THREE

  “... So when he mounted onto the saddle, for one split second he was on my Steed’s back, and then Fireleaf sidestepped right out of the saddle, bit, and bridle,” Zeilas told her, gesturing with his hands. “For one more brief moment, Captain Geldas just hung there in midair, clinging to the reins and the empty saddle—and then whump! The expression on his face was priceless as he fell, and I’ll tell you, he made a very satisfying thump when he hit the ground!”

  Marta laughed. She covered her mouth, since she had been caught chewing some of the food he had cooked, Arbran style, and brought to this “indoor picnic” idea of his, since the weather was too stormy and sleeting outside the palace to go anywhere. But she chuckled, swallowed, and cleared her throat. “I’m amazed your Steed didn’t trample him.”

  “I asked him not to. We were visiting that town, looking for trade materials, and it wouldn’t do to injure anything more than his dignity, and a bit of his backside ... and he bruised his ankle, too. But I did warn him my Steed wouldn’t tolerate anyone but me riding him,” Zeilas added. “He just insisted he was a born horseman and could ride anything.”

  “And your Steed just ... sidestepped the saddle and the bridle, girth strap, bit, and all?” she asked.

  “He’s an avatar of Arbora, and thus not entirely a creature of flesh and blood, though he can fake it well enough to fool most people. Or more like Her servant, rather. I’d be nervous, riding around on an actual piece of my Goddess,” he admitted, sipping some of the wine she had brought to this odd, fireside midday meal. “Not that I’m afraid of Her, so much as I’m afraid I’d do something stupid in Her presence and offend Her. The rules governing a Knight’s behavior are pretty strict as it is.”

  “A good distinction to make.” His words did make her wonder. “About those rules ... what do they say about you insisting on a private picnic with a head of state?”

  “Neither of us are married, neither of us are being forced to attend this picnic, and everything we do here is entirely consensual,” Zeilas stated, pouring more wine into both of their glasses. Not that they’d had much. He emptied the last drops of the bottle into his goblet, then set it back in the basket in which he’d brought the roasted duck, cheese-stuffed pastries, and vegetables. “My honor and my duty demand that I treat you, the Consul-in-Chief, with respect. My honor demands that I treat you, the woman, with respect as well. My duty says I must take no action that would jeopardize peaceful relations between Arbra and Guildara.

  “Since my intentions are respectful toward Marta the woman as well as Marta the Consul-in-Chief, there is no conflict of interest. Provided you know that I court your attention for your sake, and not for sweetening your opinion of Arbrans in general.” Lifting his glass, he saluted her with it.

  “You don’t want me to think sweetly of all Arbrans based on my interactions with you?” Marta dared to tease dryly, lifting her own blown-glass goblet.

  “You’ve already met and conquered Sir Catrine’s reluctance to deal with former Mekhanans. You know how the average Arbran will react, and what it will take on both sides to overcome those old fears,” Zeilas pointed out. “Anything I do on a personal level can’t change that, and won’t change that, other than what I can do to encourage Arbrans like her to get past their old fears. All I can hope for is that you’ll think sweetly of me, the man, in personal, priva
te meetings like this.”

  “I do,” she acknowledged. He smiled. Then he shifted, but not toward her. Not toward anything like a kiss, which given their conversation, she half expected.

  Instead, she watched him select another log from the bin beside the hearth and tuck it into the flames providing a toasty level of heat. The parlor, one of several designed into the main wing, was meant for receiving visitors, with its inlaid wooden walls and floors, its fine-carved furniture. Not for impromptu picnics on quilts spread in front of the main fireplace. But the setting wasn’t absurd. Somehow, he made it ... romantic. Particularly when he had complimented the woodwork with high praise, comparing it to the wood-anointed chapels and cathedrals dedicated to his people’s Goddess of Forests, and then looked at her with a gleam in his brown eyes that said he thought she was just as beautiful.

  Yet, when he settled back onto the quilt next to her, he didn’t kiss her. Marta had courted a time or two before, though she hadn’t cared to give up her independence, since under the False God’s rule that had meant giving up her work in favor of raising good little children like a good little wife should. Now that they had a freed kingdom with good attitudes about all their citizens, she was ready to court anyone she pleased, in any manner she pleased. Except a foreign ambassador wasn’t necessarily the smartest choice.

  But he’s right. So long as we do know our duty is separate from our desire ... “You’re quite right. About my own intentions,” she said as the new log snapped and hissed, catching fire. “My duty and my honor say I shouldn’t do anything to cause misunderstandings or troubles between our nations. My duty would have me separate what I do as the Consul-in-Chief from what I want to do as a woman. And my intent is to be respectful of you and toward you. Both toward you as Envoy Zeilas, Knight of Arbra ... and you as Zeilas, the man. Which leaves us with a single question.”

  “And that question is ... ?” he prompted, his warm brown eyes studying her, clad in her usual black knit tunic and leather trews. Sexless worker clothes, suitable for commanding respect from her fellow citizens ... but the gleam in his eyes told her he saw her feminine side all the same.

  Lit more by the fire than by the gray gloom of the storm beyond the windows to either side of the hearth, she thought he was quite possibly one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Not for the shape of his face, or the muscles under his velvet and linen garments, but simply because he was him. Zeilas. Charming, funny, honorable, and neither intimidated by her status as Consul-in-Chief nor as inclined to treat her as sexlessly as a fellow Guildaran because of it.

  Gathering her courage, since it required a different sort of bravery than the kind required to rule a nation, Marta looked him in the eye and asked, “Would it be disrespectful to share a kiss?”

  Zeilas smiled. “Oh, I think I could still respect you afterward.”

  Pleased, Marta leaned onto her left hand, swaying closer to him. To her relief and delight, he leaned closer on his right palm. Their heads tipped, their lips met, and it was warm, soft, and sweet. Respectful. He brushed her mouth with his once, twice ... on the third time, the tip of his tongue flicked against her lips unexpectedly, tickling her. She pulled back, stifling her giggle into a snicker.

  He still smiled, not in the least offended by her brief, startled retreat. Pleased, Marta leaned in a second time, this time for a lick of her own. Once, twice ... their mouths parted and met in open tasting, and there was no point in counting past the third time. He pulled back after a moment, just long enough to move the goblet and crumb-dusted plate between them out of the way, then shifted closer for more. More kissing, more touching as his hand lifted to cup her jaw, more tasting of her lips, more of everything.

  Somehow, she ended up on her back, her coronet of braids adding their cushioning effects to the quilt protecting them from the polished wooden floor. His elbows braced some of his weight off of her, but the warmth of his body cradling hers felt even better than the fire in the hearth. Arms wrapped around his shoulders, Marta tangled her fingers in his shoulder-length brown hair. It was longer than a typical Guildaran male’s and felt clean and soft. The velvet of his doublet disconcerted her fingertips, half expecting the knitted wool of a Guildaran man, but she liked the feel of it. The priests of the False God had flaunted their wealth by wearing velvets and silks in face of the average citizen’s relative poverty, making it hard even now for any of her people to care openly for such things, but she could admire it secretly.

  She wasn’t going to reject him, though. Not when he tasted of apple-stuffed pastry and wine, when he smelled of musk and wood smoke, not when he felt warm and wonderful. Unfortunately, a knock at the parlor door startled both of them. Breaking off their kiss, he gave her a rueful look as he sat up. Hastily levering herself upright as well, Marta found her voice.

  “Come in!”

  Gabria entered, a familiar man at her side. It was Stevan, one of the palace talker box operators. “I apologize for the intrusion, Milady Chief,” Gabria stated, “but we’ve received a rather ... odd ... talker relay from the eastern border.”

  “From Aurul?” Marta asked, her disappointment at having their kisses interrupted vanishing under the interest sparked by those words. Or rather, not vanishing so much as subsiding, since she was still keenly aware of the Knight seated beside her on the quilt. “Are they finally talking to us, then?”

  “Aye, milady,” Stevan confirmed. He lifted the paper tablet in his hands and read the message he had brought. “To the Consul-in-Chief. ‘Finally granted audience with Seer King Devin. He said, quote, Tell your queen what she does is right and just. Seek it further from the west if you wish peace for longer than a day. If you wish the same from the east, send your friend, the girl in gray. From the south, the solution is a solution, otherwise you waste your breath. From the north, the only solution is the resolution brought by a firmly faced death. End quote, and no I do not know what he means, milady.’ Signed by Envoy Pells Chartman, sent from the Guildaran border post nearest the City of Searching, Aurul, and relayed fifteen times from the border, checked and double-checked each step of the way.”

  The talker boxes, she knew, didn’t project their sendings more than the distance a person could comfortably ride in half a day. They could also be interrupted by bad weather or heavy spellcasting. As a result, their operators tended to send back any and all messages for confirmation. The process was a little cumbersome, but much, much faster than even a scout on a motorhorse could ride. That redundancy meant the message was as accurate as its sender could make it, and she knew Pells Chartman to be quite levelheaded and reliable.

  “That’s a very odd message,” she murmured, pushing to her feet. Dusting off her tunic, she eyed Stevan again. “Recite for me King Devin’s words again, please?”

  “‘Tell your queen that what she does is right and just,’” Stevan repeated, checking his notes. “‘Seek it further from the west if you wish peace for longer than a day. If you wish the same from the east, send your friend, the girl in gray. From the south, the solution is a solution, otherwise you waste your breath. From the north, the solution is the resolution brought by a firmly faced death.’”

  Marta looked at Gabria. As usual, the other woman was clad in silvery gray wool, spun by her western-dwelling, sheep-raising kin. “Well, one part is easy to decipher, even if I dislike the thought of doing without your company. That is, assuming you’re willing to head to Aurul, Gabria, and be our next envoy there?”

  “I’m not trained for it. I’m not even trained fully as a ... mage ... but if it’ll secure peace on the eastern border, I’ll go,” Gabria said, lifting her chin a little. She lowered it after a moment, an uncertain look in her green eyes. “Except, I don’t speak Aurulan, and the message doesn’t say how much of a delay we can risk before I have to go.”

  “You have a point. We’ll find someone to give you some rudimentary lessons at the very least. Stevan, send back this message to Envoy Pells Chartman,” Marta instructed the ta
lker box engineer.

  Tearing off the top page, he handed it to her. Stevan then fished a charcoal pencil from the pouch at his waist and poised it over the tablet.

  She nodded and began, speaking slowly enough that he could scribe each word. “To Envoy Pells. Please inform His Majesty with due courtesy that we shall send the ‘girl in gray’ as soon as the spring thaws have made it safe enough for her to cross the eastern mountains. We wish her to arrive alive and unharmed in the Seer King’s court so that she may enact a peaceful treaty between our lands. In the meantime, and as ever, we wish His Majesty good health and a long reign. Send a reply if any, and continue to act as our envoy until instructed otherwise. Marta Grenspun, Consul-in-Chief.”

  When he finished, Stevan read back her words to her to confirm them, then nodded crisply. “Right. I’ll get this sent out immediately. Milady Chief, sub-Consul ... Sir Knight.”

  His tone wasn’t rude, so much as speculative, Marta judged. Particularly since he eyed the way Zeilas was still seated on the quilt spread over the floor, and the remains of their makeshift picnic. With a brief, wordless lift of his brows, the talker box operator spun on his heel and strode out of the room.

  He wasn’t the only one to eye Sir Zeilas with bemusement. Gabria studied him and his position, too, before shaking her head slightly, visibly dismissing her curiosity. “Right. We still have three more Seer King verses to make sense of. I’d leave the two of you to do whatever you were doing, but ...”

  “But this is important. Not that what we were doing wasn’t important in its own way, either,” Marta added quickly, glancing down at her picnic partner.

  The Knight pushed to his feet, dusting off his blue velvet clothes. “Nothing wrong in what we were doing. It’s just that the needs of your kingdom come first. I understand completely.”

  The words nothing wrong and just stuck in her brain. Marta wanted to chase them down, but Gabria had moved closer, attempting to peer at the tablet page in her hand. Tilting it, she displayed it toward her friend. “What I do is right and just, apparently, which is all to the good. I’m trying to do what is right and just. That’s what being Consul-in-Chief is all about. But this second sentence puzzles me—the start of it, I mean. ‘Seek it further from the west,’ that part. What is ‘it’ and how does it relate to what I’m doing, versus what I seek from our allies?