by Jean Johnson
“You would have met them already, but my mother fell and injured her hip last week, and the palace healers have decreed bed rest for her, otherwise she would have been in the Vaulted Chapel. My father chose to keep her company, for they came to love each other very strongly over the years—as was prophesied—or he would have been here himself. Are your parents still alive?”
“My mother is. She works for the Hydraulics Guild, the same as I myself did for many years.” She thought about mentioning her father, but refrained. Doing so would bring up her objections to being so close to a God, and he apparently didn’t want to discuss such things just yet.
Instead, she spooned some of the screw-shaped dish onto her plate and tasted a few bits. The spirals were indeed some sort of wheat-based pastry, lightly coated in a spiced mixture of oil and vinegar. The vegetables had been blanched and chilled along with the pastry screws, so while they were cooked, they were still crisp and tasty. The combination pleased her.
Devin smiled wryly. “Forgive me. I’m so eager to get to know you, I keep forgetting to finish the explanation ... As I was saying, for three days, we will spend all our time together, conversing, sharing our backgrounds and our interests, and spending time finding the points of similarities in our educations and interests. We will even sleep in the same bed, but without any intimate congress between us. Once the three days are up, we will have another three, the Days of Intimacy, wherein we explore each other’s preferences in pleasure, even as we continue to explore each other’s pasts and pastimes.
“On the seventh day, you will begin your instructions in Aurulan protocols, courtesies, rituals, and the like, while I will return to my duties as Seer King and high priest of our people. These are the only days, at least ever since the Eyes of Ruul were laid upon me, wherein I am free from all duties and obligations as the Seer King. I intend to enjoy them for as long as they last,” he added dryly. “In fact, one week after we finish our post-wedding days of peace and idleness, the whole court will have to pack up and go on tour to the eastern lands, making our way to the summer palace up in the mountains north of here by a bit of a circuitous route.
“I must make my way to the winter palace via the seven major cities to the east,” he explained. “The journey takes a full month, and it allows the people of the land to see, and be seen by, the Eyes of Ruul. Naturally you will travel with me, though there won’t be much opportunity for privacy, save late at night. Either we’ll be traveling all day long to get to each city on time, or I’ll be spending all my time in prayers and prophecies in the various cathedrals.”
Hearing his apologetic tone, Gabria felt a soft rush of sympathy for him. “Are you always the Seer King, then? With no time for yourself?”
“A few hours every day in the morning and evening, but many of the rest are spent listening to petitions and leading prayers, and laying hands upon those who come before me in the hopes that I may foresee something of their futures—it is a job much like any other,” Devin added wryly. “Save that I carry a heavier burden than most, for all I carry it upon my heart and in my eyes, and not on my shoulders or in my hands. The heaviest obligations come when we make the half loop to the east in the spring—which was delayed slightly this year so that you and I could adjust to being wed—and the half loop to the west in the autumn.
“But eventually we will be settled into the winter palace. And eventually your lessons will end. You will have some light duties of your own to attend to, some rituals to preside over in addition to your role as future vessel and mother of the next Seer King. You will also be allotted time for your own pursuits and interests ... though I’m afraid we don’t have one of these Hydraulics Guilds you mention.” Devin shook his head slightly. “Frankly, if it weren’t for Ruul’s clearly stated wishes, the thought of a Mekhanan being the bride of the Seer King would upset my people. We’ve never had reason to look kindly upon your former kingdom. You will be scrutinized on our trip, and I know that Souder plans to squeeze as many rules of proper behavior and etiquette into you that he can before we head east.”
“Blame the ambitions of the False God’s priests for all of that,” Gabria retorted. “Not the majority of my people. We wanted free of the madness of their lust for conquest ... and we are free. You may inform your people that I am a Guildaran, not a Mekhanan.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment of her point. “Captain Ellett explained the battle he and his men joined, and how your people handled its aftermath. My people would say, it only takes a few bugs in a basket of fruit to spoil the sale. But we also admit that most of the fruit is usually still good if salvaged in time. And it is quite clear that some of your people are very worthy of our friendship, with yourself as the foremost example.”
“Well, I suppose my future duties will include ensuring your people enact treaties and enjoy peaceful trade with mine,” she allowed, “though I’m really not trained to be a diplomat. Not like Envoy Pells.”
He coughed into his hand. “Well, as for that ... you technically cannot be an envoy, since your other duties will be far more important ... though naturally you will have some definite influence of our opinions regarding your home nation. And I’m sure you could become a good envoy given time and training. My brother, the Prime Minister, would never accept you as an envoy, however. Your position is the vessel of motherhood. It is a holy calling higher than any other, and deeply enmeshed within Aurulan customs and concerns. Since you are not Aurulan by birth, you will have to undergo a lengthy period of training in Aurulan ways, so that you may be an appropriate influence upon our children.
“A kind one, either way,” he allowed quickly, “and undoubtedly a good mother without training—Ruul would not choose otherwise—but there are certain expectations of the royal siblings, ensuring that at least one of them is raised to be a worthy enough vessel for the Eyes of Ruul, and another is worthy of being the Prime Minister, that you will need training in the ways of proper parenting. We’ve had five hundred thirty-six years to perfect the system, after all. Hence all these rituals.”
His words dredged up her objections once again. Gabria thought about it for a long moment, then sighed. “... Can we please be alone, now?”
She didn’t have to glance at the two servants kneeling in the pavilion with them. Letting out a sigh of his own, Devin flicked his fingers. “Leave us, and permit no other disturbances until we summon you.”
Rising, the two men bowed to each of them in turn and left the pavilion. Gabria waited for a long, slow count to twenty, to make sure they were gone, then spent a few moments more, ordering her thoughts. She was stuck in this situation. Her willingness to be this “vessel of motherhood” would have repercussions for her people, ones which corresponded to whether she reacted in a positive or a negative way. But she didn’t have to like it, and she didn’t have to keep silent about it.
“You have to understand one very important thing, Devin,” Gabria told him, looking him in the eyes. “Your God—the very thought of your God—terrifies me. The thought of being noticed by your deity makes me want to panic and ... and run as far and as fast as I can possibly flee. The only thing that kept me from running away when I met Him—you—in that chapel was the fact that my fear paralyzed me. And the thought of having His attention focused on me for the rest of my life, constantly looking at me ... !”
“Technically, only for as long as I am the Seer King,” Devin corrected her. “Once one of our sons is selected and gifted with the Eyes of Ruul, I will become a mere Seer priest, as my father did before me, and his father. At that point, you and I will retire to a quieter life at one of the temple complexes scattered through the land. He would no longer look upon you directly through my eyes, and only occasionally look at you through the eyes of our child.
“I do understand that your people had reason to fear your last deity. The rumors of what Mekha did to the mages in your land were horrible. But even we knew He was generous to His engineers. All of His ambitions centered around
your creations. As you yourself said you were one—”
“—I’m a mage, not just an engineer,” Gabria interrupted bluntly, her voice as tight as the fists her fingers had curled into, resting on the edge of the table between them. The word mage wasn’t easy to say, but she knew she had to explain. He stared at her. “My father died in one of Mekha’s hellholes, the living magic sucked out of his body all because a God looked at him. You’ll excuse me if I have reason to fear a similar fate.”
“... I’m sorry.” The sober look in his eyes told her he meant it. “I’m sorry for your pain and for your loss. Your Patron Deity should have been destroyed long ago.”
Gabria relented a little, softening her tone to one of quiet resignation. These pains were embedded in the immutable past, after all. “Mekha was no Patron. A plague, but no Patron ... but we were so tightly ruled by fear and by habit, we were paralyzed. Generation after generation. As much by our own fault as by His greed, in a way. But up until the last two and a half years ...
“When I was seven, my father was taken from us, and my mother had to smuggle my sisters and me out of our hometown and run away, hiding by day and traveling by night, then sneak us into a far-away town where we could take on new identities and evade the priests who would want to study my sisters and me for any signs of mage-taint in our lives. Between the age of eleven and twenty-three, I lived in fear of my own developing abilities being discovered. Luckily, my mother already knew the Hydraulics Guild was one of the guilds which had ways to hide, disguise, and somewhat train the abilities of those mages born to its members. And other mages did their best to help her disguise the trail of our escape.
“The only thing we couldn’t do was flee across the border. Mekha’s priests watched the borderlands so closely, only a highly trained mage could pass through them undetected. None of us were that well trained. Not without entering the priesthood ... and I would rather have slit my wrists,” she muttered grimly. Lifting her water glass, she sipped from it, then set it down. “So I have a very deep-rooted set of reasons to fear the attention of a God. Even a foreign one. I thought I was asked to come here to be an envoy, an ambassador. Had I known the real reason ... I wouldn’t have come—not to slight you, since you do seem nice, but ...”
“But I do come with a God attached,” he finished for her, sipping at his own cup. He lingered over his wine for a moment, then set it back down. “I cannot change who and what I am, just as you cannot change yourself or your own past. All either of us can do is go forward. And while I can reassure you that Ruul would never abuse you in such a manner ... I am not foolish enough to believe you will accept either of our word on the matter. All I can ask is that you give us time to prove we are worth your trust and can earn your trust. And I pledge to you, Gabria, if Ruul ever demanded something of you which made you wish to leave, I would fight Him on it.
“I am not a puppet of my deity,” he told her, his gaze somber, earnest. “For the most part, yes, I am His vessel. But I am still a man, and I still have free will ... and I have been known to exercise it. The proof of it lies in these next six days. Now that you have been Accepted, Ruul will not lay His Eyes upon me again until the seventh day, when I resume my duties as His Seer and high priest. Until then, it will be just you and me. And I’m afraid I’m not very frightening, when I’m just being myself,” he added wryly. “I don’t even know how to be, and I’m not all that inclined to try.”
As far as jests went, it wasn’t much. But it did provoke a small smile from her. He smiled back and reached for one of the odd meat-curls. Hesitating, he gestured at them.
“Aren’t you going to have a crayfish?”
“A what?” Gabria asked.
“Crayfish,” he repeated, picking up one of the peach white curls. “This is the tail meat of the crayfish. I’m told it’s like a miniature lobster, but those are found in the ocean, and these live in freshwater, in lakes and streams.”
“I have no idea what either of those things are like,” Gabria confessed. She hesitated, then reached for one. It was cold, slightly spongy, but otherwise tender feeling. The smell was fishlike and the taste mild when she bit cautiously into it. It was also both chewy and tender. Nodding slowly, she finished chewing and swallowed. “Not bad ...”
“Try some of the aliolaise, the garlic-spiced cream sauce, for dipping,” Devin instructed her, licking the sauce from his own fingers. “It’s also good on the pasta,” he added, gesturing at the spiral-pastry dish. “They’re a type of food that comes all the way from Natallia, which is a land that lies far to the south. One of the advantages of royalty is that I get to sample all manner of exotic foods—I even have some of the new holy-food, chocolate, imported all the way from the Isle of Nightfall. That’s the land that reconvened the Convocation of the Gods.”
“Trust me, Devin, there’s not a single person in all of what used to be Mekhana who doesn’t know about that Convocation,” Gabria retorted wryly, dipping the last bit of tail meat into the sauce bowl. “It’s what set us free. That, and the work of Sir Orana. I never met her personally, but I pricked my thumb and signed my guild’s petition book as soon as I was old enough to be trusted with the secret of its existence. I haven’t had any of this chocolate food, though. Not even Marta has had any yet—she’s our equivalent of a queen.”
“Yes, your Consul-in-Chief, whom I am told was chosen for her position by your Goddess. Somewhat like I was ... save that I have fewer administrative duties, and a lot more of the religious ones,” he amended.
“I wasn’t there. A lot of us from the guild ... the Mage’s Guild,” she made herself explain, “didn’t attend the assembly to petition for the selection of our leader. A lot of us still have trouble saying ‘mage’ since it often led to discovery and a slow death sentence, before. At the very least, calling someone that threatened them with a lot of very uncomfortable scrutiny by the priesthood.”
“On the bright side, you’re in Aurul, now,” Devin reminded her. “We have a long history of a gentle, kind, and watchful Patron Deity, one who clearly cares about His people. I have confidence you will learn to accept and trust Him as much as the rest of us do, given enough time.”
“Six days isn’t ‘enough time’ by my reckoning,” Gabria stated dryly. She smiled wryly when he gave her a chiding look. “... I’ll try. If nothing else, for the sake of Guildara, and how your people will perceive mine whenever they interact with me. So ... what shall we talk about next?”
“I don’t know ... what does a Hydraulics Guild do?” he asked, shrugging as he offered it for a topic. “The guilds we have are for ordinary things, metalworking, cloth making, that sort of thing.”
“Hydraulics deals with the regulation and flow of liquids. Originally it referred to water, but it has come to mean oils and other fluids as well,” she explained, warming to the topic. “Water pressure can do amazing things. The most common use, even outside of former Mekhana, is the use of streams to turn mill wheels, which grind grain into flour. We also use them for powering many other things, such as the bellows for our forges, and pumps which increase the pressure of the water. Forced through a nozzle, it can be used to erode dirt and soft stones, and clean difficult substances from surfaces without badly scratching anything, unlike chisels or sanding stones ...”
They talked and nibbled and drank until the sun set, and then talked and nibbled some more as the evening sky darkened and the stars came out. Spells scribed on the various dishes kept the iced ones cold and the heated ones hot, and when she needed to use the refreshing room, he escorted her to the nearest one, set in a corner of the garden, then guided her back through the garden paths to the pavilion where they resumed their wide-ranging conversation.
Gabria stuck to water, since even her poorly trained people knew it was bad for a mage to get drunk and potentially lose control of their powers. Devin summoned the servants back with the jingling of a delicate porcelain bell, and they cleared away emptied dishes and served her fruit juice at her req
uest, wanting something unfermented. They also lit lanterns in clever paper-sided shelters, most of them glowing a translucent white but some of them dyed in pastel shades. Similar lights sprung up all over the gardens, making it seem like a scene out of some fantastical bard’s tale to her.
Tired despite the remarkably good discussion they were having about possible trade products between their lands—she wasn’t officially an envoy, but she could discuss trade goods with a reasonable amount of authority—Gabria couldn’t quite suppress her yawns. It wasn’t that late an hour, but her day had been exhausting. The sheer wealth of this land, the care and artistry implicit in this palace and all of its decorations, the bright clothes and willing, deferential service of its denizens, all of it added their own extra layers to an already complex, overwhelming day.
As she yawned for a fourth time, Devin lifted one brow. “Tired already? I know, I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve had a number of upheavals. Come,” he murmured, uncurling his tall body from the cushions strewn over the floor. “We will retire for the night. My own day has been relatively light, but I could use the rest.”
Crossing to her side of the low table, he offered her his hand. Accepting it, Gabria let him draw her to her feet, only to find her hand saluted with another kiss.
“Thank you for not running away from me,” he murmured, his eyes gleaming with humor in the pastel glow of the lanterns lighting the pavilion. “Though at least now I understand why you’d run away from my God.”
“I’m still holding that as an option,” she muttered back, feeling comfortable enough—daring enough—to tease him back. Somewhat tease. Part of her words were the truth.
Another yawn threatened to crack her jaw in half. Smothering it behind her free hand, she let him tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow and lead her through the garden to the palace. Inside, the candle lanterns extended all the way to the royal wing. The few people they passed turned and bowed politely, but though their eyes held many questions, their lips remained sealed. As they passed the third such set of courtiers, Gabria heard Devin sigh happily, and looked up at him, giving him a questioning look.
