by Jean Johnson
Urged upright, she was given a cup of clear, sweet-tasting water to drink, then urged facedown on the padded table, where she was drizzled with more oil and the two ladies once again massaged their way from soles to scalp and back. Their touch was near-perfect, somewhere between soft and firm, finding knots and gently but determinedly soothing each muscle until it relaxed. Aches which she hadn’t really noticed now twinged, twitched, and vanished, until it was all she could do to keep from moaning out loud.
They finally left her alone for several minutes, until she heard her name being called by the lady in pink. Groaning under her breath, Gabria rolled over, eased up, and wondered briefly why her oily-sticky body should ache in new ways, now that it was thoroughly relaxed. Thankfully, her Aurulan bath companions waited patiently until she felt like she could stand. Crossing to the larger pool, Gabria let herself be directed to stand on the topmost of the inner side steps, where she was sluiced with water dipped from the pool, then lathered and scrubbed thoroughly with coarse sponges until her skin felt like it glowed. Another round of rinsing and she was allowed to sink fully into the pool, where she was handed a goblet of fruit juice and urged wordlessly to drink it all down.
Between the heat of the water and the vigorous scrubbing, her body tingled all over, reviving her from the lethargy induced by her very first massage. The water and the juice had an inevitable effect, though. Dredging up what little Aurulan she had managed to learn and retain in between her many duties as a sub-Consul and advisor, Gabria carefully asked where the refreshing room was. After a long moment of blank looks, one of the servants just as carefully repeated the words with a slightly different inflection and a questioning tone. Nodding fervently, Gabria was gestured out of the water and led to a small chamber to one side.
Even the refresher, she noted with bemused humor, was carved from the finest white marble, and ornamented—at least, on the outside—with bas-relief images of flowers and vines.
Led back to the pool, she was scrubbed one more time, some sort of crème applied to her hair, and led back to the heated water. The woman who had bathed her in the milk directed her back into the pool, though not for quite as long as she had been expected to soak in the milk. The crème was rinsed from her hair and her long locks carefully and gently combed from the tips on up. Urged back out after that, she was led to a fresh padded table—the other one having been cleaned and left to dry in the meantime—and gestured back onto it. The same two servants lightly anointed her with oil and massaged her from head to toe, though they didn’t take quite as long about it this time.
Directed back onto her feet, Gabria found herself patted dry and wrapped in a square-sleeved silk robe. She was then led into one of the other chambers branching off of the hallway, first through a sort of private parlor, then into a bedchamber, and lastly into what had to be a formal dressing room. Here, new servants in their cream-and-purple robes quickly pulled open drawers and cabinet doors on the left side of the chamber, displaying the bright hues of local fabrics—clothing, apparently—and some of her personal effects.
Her own clothes, she discovered, had been stuffed into Aurulan-style trunks at the back of the large room, their sides and lids inlaid with yet more polished stones and bits of pearly shell. Gadgets from her personal effects had been placed with greater care on the shelves with no rhyme or reason, but she blushed to see her crankman, a very intimate and personal tool, sitting out in the open next to her equally hand-cranked calculation box. The crankman had been a gift from Marta from their days of collaborating between the Clockworks and Hydraulics Guilds, back when the two young women had first met as apprentices. It did not belong out in the open next to her calculation box, nor her cases of calibrators, wrenches, and pliers.
It almost was enough to distract her from the right side of the room, where yet more clothing and personal belongings—someone else’s personal belongings—occupied the cupboards, trunks, and shelves. Indeed, she had a hard time craning her neck to look over her shoulder, for one of the servants quickly produced a brush and busied herself smoothing and drying Gabria’s hair from the ends up. Another woman brought in a basket of fresh, fragrant flowers, most of them tiny roses no bigger than Gabria’s thumbnail, and some of them exotic orchids formerly only seen in books describing and illustrating foreign lands.
The flowers, she discovered, were for plaiting into her hair. Deft hands separated and wove together the strands, while more hands added stems and blooms at just the right moment. The whole process lasted long enough that the heat of her bath had completely cooled and her hair had thoroughly dried before it ended. She was also thirsty once again.
Just as she was going to dredge up the words to ask for another glass of water, the lady in green entered the dressing room. Lady Lianna carried a gilded, chased goblet carefully in her hands. She stopped in front of Gabria and spoke in Guildaran.
“You are lucky His Majesty agrees with Captain Ellett, and that I was given leave to bottle and sell the other half. This brew costs well over five thousand gold to craft. Do not waste a drop.” She held out the cup, which Gabria eyed warily, then sighed impatiently. “It is Ultra Tongue, woman. If you have any wits in your head, you’ll drink it so that you can understand and be understood. Drink up. All of it.”
TWO
Accepting the cup, Gabria eyed the milky white contents filling half of the heavy vessel. It smelled like bitter garden weeds and looked like thick, syrupy milk. The taste, when she took an experimental sip, was even worse. Bitter, sour, spicy, and ever so slightly soapy. Grimacing, she knocked it back quickly, then returned the metal cup. One of the servants handed her a crystal goblet filled with more of the sweet-tasting local water, which she used to swish around her mouth until the horrid, nasty, bitter residue was gone.
Lady Lianna, her task finished, took herself and her goblet back out without another word.
“Can you understand me now?” the lady in pink asked, her words lilting with the Aurulan accent, but seemingly spoken in Guildaran.
“Yes, I can,” Gabria confirmed. She rubbed at her ears; the other woman’s voice had made them twitch rather oddly.
“Good. I am Milady Geno, Mistress of the Bath. We are preparing you to be brought before His Majesty in the Vaulted Chapel for the Acceptance Ceremony,” she stated, as if her words would explain all of these elaborate preparations. Which they didn’t.
“Acceptance Ceremony?” Gabria asked. She knew a milady was one step lower on the social ladder than a lady, sort of a demi-noble to a full noble, but she didn’t know what this ceremony thing was about, nor why she had to be cleaned and dressed so specifically for it.
“Yes, the ceremony where Ruul, praise His Eyes, will accept you. We haven’t a lot of time left,” the Mistress of the Bath continued briskly. “His Majesty wishes the ceremony completed as swiftly as possible, yet Master Souder decreed you had to be made ... more presentable, at least to Aurulan preferences,” she stated tactfully. “Your hair has been properly dressed, which, aside from the bathing, is one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks. Now we will layer you in the garments of an Aurulan courtier as befits your impending station. As soon as you are dressed and shod, we will journey to the Vaulted Chapel. Please stand so that the maids may assist you into your clothes.”
Lost, but mindful of the need to comply and be a good and friendly representative of her people, Gabria stood and allowed them to clothe her in fine, white silk underdrawers, a pale pink chemise fitted well enough to support her breasts once it was laced, pale pink gathered trousers embroidered with white orchids, and not one, but two layers of jacket-like robes. The inner one was the same blush pink as the trousers, while the outer one was a shimmering white scattered with embroidered miniature roses of nearly the same hue as the ones woven into her hair.
The sleeves on the outer robe were extra-long rectangles which dangled almost to her knees; the sleeves on the inner robe were more squarish, suitable for use as pockets. So suitable, one of the
maidservants tucked a white linen kerchief into one, and a clever folding fan made from thin sticks of delicately carved wood into the other. Her waist was wrapped with a gauzy white sash, crossed over her breast, and knotted just under her ribs. The layers of silk, while lightweight enough to flutter with every little move, were still tightly woven and thus retained heat. Though she wasn’t quite as warm as she had been in her woolens, Gabria fished out the fan and fluttered it in front of her face, wanting to cool herself back down.
Mistress Geno frowned, lips compressing in a thin line. Catching Gabria’s wrist, she shook her head. “A lady of the court does not whap a fan about her face like a flyswatter in a barn. You hold it like this, and waft it gently, like so—keep your movements small and slow, as graceful and smooth as possible. We will have time for lessons in deportment, manner, and movement later on. When His Majesty returns to his duties, you’ll have time for such things. Until then ... slow, graceful, smooth. You need to present yourself as well as you possibly can, Your Highness. Everyone that is anyone will be in the chapel, wanting to witness this momentous and long overdue occasion.”
Being addressed like that, and finally being free to glance at the belongings on the other shelves, Gabria felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. “Um ... Milady Geno ... is this ‘Acceptance Ceremony’ ... a marriage ceremony?”
“Of course. Don’t forget her slippers,” Mistress Geno instructed the maids.
Gabria eyed the white sueded shoes being brought over to her, soft and supple, lined with silk and padded, almost quilted, on their soles, but didn’t really see them. “Uh ... I’m, um ... expected to ... ?”
“As it was said, so it was written; thus it is proved, and so shall it be,” the woman in pink stated with a matter-of-fact air.
Gabria stared at her, balancing awkwardly first on one foot, then the other as the maids silently slipped the suede shoes onto her bare feet. “That ... that can’t be right. I’m the Guildaran envoy, and envoys don’t ... marry ...”
Her own protest tripped her up. Not even twenty-four hours ago, she had stood witness to her best friend, Goddess-elected ruler of Guildara, marrying the Arbran Knight who had been sent to Guildara as the chief envoy representing his people. More than that, the message which had brought her here came back to her. Or more precisely, the opening lines of the Seer King’s prophetically phrased response to Guildaran overtures of peace.
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. Those words had been delivered to Marta and Sir Zeilas while they had been enjoying one of their private, indoor picnics over the winter. Gabria remembered quite well how their cheeks had been flushed and how their lips had looked a little puffy, as if they had been kissing mere moments before the message had interrupted their picnic tryst.
The Mistress of the Bath gestured for Gabria to follow her out of the dressing chamber. Part of her wanted to protest, but the rest of her was too busy thinking about the ramifications of her situation, and there were several to consider.
If by “what she does” His Majesty meant courting with Zeilas, and “seek it further” meant pursuing further Arbran ties literally through the bonds of marriage ... then “if you wish the same from the east” ... then he really does expect me to marry him, as Marta expected Zeilas to marry her. Well, more hoped than expected on her part, Gabria added silently, honestly. But these people are outright expecting me to ... to marry their king!
Why me, and why marriage? And why didn’t they tell me this back when I was in Guildara, where I could have more easily protested the idea?
That, she suspected, was probably the point. She was now deep in the heart of Aurul, so far away that it had taken four mirror-Gate trips to reach this place, a fabled means of instantaneous travel which Sir Catrine said could span in mere moments the sort of distances it often took weeks to traverse by more normal means, depending on how settled or unsettled the intervening aether might be.
They didn’t tell me because they didn’t want me backing out of it. Worse, they expect me to go through with it as a means of securing strong ties between Aurul and Guildara. Which they told me about, more or less, when they presented the demand that I come here with them or see Guildara’s wishes for peaceful coexistence and trade be tossed aside. If I don’t go through with it ... they could use it as an excuse to ignore Guildara, or even peck at our borders. From their impressive display of battle magics against the forces of Warlord Durn . . . my people wouldn’t stand a chance in a fair fight. Not without enough time to learn our own countermagics, which would take years.
She could say no ... but she had already damned herself by promising Marta she’d do whatever it took to secure good relations with these Aurulans. I just had no idea how intimate those relations would end up being!
All the way to the Vaulted Chapel, she worried over what sort of a man the Seer King was, what sort of marriage they would have, and why her, of all people. She barely noticed the paintings and the artworks, the tapestries and the curtains, the windows and the columns they passed. Descending a broad set of marble steps, they walked through a set of latticework doors into a chamber so huge and marvelous, it wiped away her worries with the sheer wonder of the place.
Like so many other rooms in the palace complex, the roof was supported by ornately carved pillars and fluted, arched crossbeams. Unlike those other halls and chambers, the walls and roof of this place were forged from glass. Surrounded on three sides by gardens bearing sculpted bushes and rippling, fountain-fed pools filled with hundreds of elegantly, brightly robed courtiers, the chapel seem to float in the sunlight like a crystal bowl filled with flowers.
Gabria was now very glad the Master of the Royal Retreat had insisted she be bathed and dressed “appropriately” for this moment. Her woolens and leathers would have looked utterly out of place otherwise. She also noticed she no longer felt overly warm and in need of the fan still clenched in her hand, and awkwardly tucked it into one of her inner pocket sleeves, unfamiliar with the movements necessary. Shaded only by the marble arches crisscrossing the ceiling like an overgrown stone arbor, it wasn’t hot, but instead remarkably cool in this remarkable hall.
The sight of long, banner-like scrolls hanging from those rafters, painted with carefully crafted runes, gave her a clue. In fact, Sir Catrine had showed her and her fellow guildmembers how to modify their crude by comparison cooling spells with runes similar to these. Their presence kept the place from overheating like the glorified, overgrown greenhouse it resembled.
Musicians began playing something soft and melodic as Mistress Geno turned, bowed to her, and stepped aside, leaving Gabria at the start of the long, white velvet runner carpet bisecting the patiently waiting crowd. It took her the discreet, swift flutter of the other woman’s hand to realize she was supposed to walk up that carpet and ... and marry a foreign leader without any fuss, hesitation, or offense.
If I don’t . . . Guildara may suffer, Gabria reminded herself, moving one foot slowly in front of the other. If I do . . . peace for my people, and trade relations with this clearly prosperous kingdom. And . . . and as Zeilas himself joked, the spouse of a ruler has a great deal of influence over that ruler’s opinions and judgments, if he’s sweet enough to her. Or her to him, in my case. Swallowing, mouth dry despite the water she had so recently consumed, she steadied her stride into something more graceful than faltering. All I have to do is be sweet enough to this ... king ... and he’ll think sweetly of my homeland. Whoever he is.
He wasn’t going to be found among the courtiers standing patiently, silently in front of the rows and rows of padded, marble-carved benches lining the chapel. Barely a single cough interrupted their quiet, watchful vigil, despite the fact that there had to be nearly a thousand people gathered in this remarkable place. Her stomach quaked with what her people called “clattering gears” and what she’d heard other
lands refer to as “fluttering butterflies,” the unsettling side effect of sheer nervousness brought on by the weight of all those eyes.
Turning her gaze to the far end of the aisle, she realized there was one person who remained seated as he waited for her to approach, while all the rest stood, including the minstrels playing their bowed strings and soft flutes. He sat on a throne of crystal-faceted glass, clad in white robes similar to her own, though where hers were pink, his were gold, and where her sleeves reached her knees, his looked long enough to brush the floor when standing. His skin was shaded toward the darker end of the spectrum for these Aurulans, some being nearly as fair-skinned as herself, others not quite as dark as Sundarans were reputed to be.
His hair, plaited much like hers in a braid down to his waist, albeit without the flowers, was either black or dark brown; in the sunlight gleaming down through the tiled panes of the roof, it seemed to hold reddish highlights, though she couldn’t be sure. A thin mustache and goatee had been neatly shaped and trimmed, encircling his mouth in a thin, dark line. It surrounded a generous mouth that looked like it was used to smiling a lot, though only the hint of one could be seen now. As she approached the short flight of steps leading up to the dais, she could also see his eyes. His eyes ...
His eyes were gold. Owl gold, as bright and sharp as a pair of highly valuable coins.
Gabria stopped, unable to move a single step more. Her legs wouldn’t carry her any closer. Almost all her life, she had feared and hated the False God, loathed Him, dreaded Him, and done everything she could to avoid His unwanted gaze falling upon her. Mekha had been an abomination, an unloved God who refused to fade away, and outright refused to die, though He had technically been slain over two centuries before. A Netherhell demon in disguise, sucking out and stealing away the life force which powered the spells of His mages. A False God, who cared only for His own selfish needs, and nothing for His supposed people.
