Lovers and Beloveds

by MeiLin Miranda

  Temmin sat up. "Can you advise me on politics?"

  Teacher's smile widened. "Certainly, sir."

  "All right, then. How might I counter the Duke of Litta?"

  "You do not need to, Your Highness. Others will take care of His Grace."

  "Others? Who?" he asked, puzzled.

  "Alas, I cannot advise you on that," answered Teacher, with a smile both pensive and mischievous.

  "The Temple? But what can they do?"

  "Alas, I cannot advise you on that," repeated Teacher, "though I may advise you on anything else."

  Temmin frowned in thought for a moment, then said, "Let me try it this way: were someone wishing to counter Litta, what could one do?"

  "Be more specific in your questioning, sir. What is Litta doing that one would wish to counter?"

  "He's blackmailing me! He's a blackmailer!" shouted Temmin, waving his arms.

  A triumphant smile, and Teacher said, "Few of us have clean hands. That is why the wise man, especially a man whose public credit is important, never resorts to blackmail. To counter a highly placed blackmailer, one goes digging."

  "But how can I?"

  "I am telling you, sir," said Teacher intently, "you do not have to. Others have it in hand. Trust that anyone attempting to blackmail an Embodiment of the Lovers would find himself in deep water before long, and in this life as well as the next."

  Temmin's heart lightened. "You're taking care of it for me!"

  "Not at all, sir," said Teacher through thinned lips. "Others have it in hand. More than that I cannot say."

  Temmin sighed. He knew full well Teacher's meaning; the Temple would take care of Litta. "I just don't see what those others can do."

  "Have patience, sir. In the meantime, I suggest perhaps studies might take your mind off His Grace."

  "Oh, Gods," he groaned. "I'm still upset from the last part of the story." Even so, he fetched the old blank book from its shelf, and settled back onto the sofa. In truth, he was glad to leave his own problems behind; at least, he thought before the book swallowed him up, he didn't face a murderous, insane brother.

  * * * * *

  Warin and the Travelers reached the City the night of the wedding, making camp well outside its walls. Travel by mirror had been considered and discarded; the chances of Hildin finding them were too high. The Traveler Queen had insisted on riding with them, and to Warin's surprise, she kept up with the men, never tiring.

  They sat before the camp fire, Warin thoughtlessly poking at it with a stick and watching the sparks rise. A sudden vitality burst inside him, a brilliant light overwhelming unknown inner barriers, a million doors to a million rooms filled with the light of the sun, the moon, every star, opening in his soul all at once.

  "Are you all right?" said Connin.

  "I don't know--yes, I think so. Something's changed inside me..." Warin trailed off, gasping. A dark foreboding fought with the great sun bursting inside him. The exhilarating incandescense felt so very wrong and so very right, all at the same time. What was its source, what did it mean?

  Suddenly, deep bells, mourning bells, sounded over the dark walls of the City.

  The Traveler Queen groaned and clutched herself in pain as the bells reverberated; her son rushed to her side, and Warin jumped up, but she waved them away. "No, Connin, take Warin into the woods--you know where, and why. I must move--I'm too close..." Two Travelers helped her away from the fire, solicitous and soothing.

  "Is she all right?" asked Warin. "What's wrong?"

  "Come," said Connin, walking into the woods. The moon struggled to shine through clouds. Even in the dark Connin knew the way, as if it were an old, familiar trail. They entered a small clearing, and Connin called, "We're here."

  "Is Warin with you?" said a cool voice. A black figure moved from the shadows into the clearing.

  "Teacher? Gods, it's you!" cried Warin, running forward. "Oh, my old friend, how I've missed you!" He kissed the offered cheek and hugged Teacher close.

  "You need not have, Your Majesty. You should have stayed."

  "I know that now." Warin paused. "You say, 'Your Majesty.'"

  "Gethin is dead," said Teacher. "The bells are for him." Warin dropped his hands from Teacher's shoulders and allowed himself to acknowledge what he already knew: the source of this over-bright new light bathing his spirit meant his father was dead. "Your power has come to you, and so have I. There is a mirror hidden in these woods, and one hidden in my library. Hildin's power over me as Regent broke the minute the King died, and I escaped. You have Tremont's magic now."

  The glorious, consuming light inside Warin turned harsh, and he blinked back tears.

  "Do not grieve, Warin, your father has been dead a long time," said Teacher. "His body merely lingered. You are here now, and you are needed. We must try to reach the Father's Temple before Hildin's coronation tomorrow. If we do not, the Guard will have no choice but to follow him."

  "Why not use a reflection?" said Warin. "True, I've had little luck finding one into the Keep, but at the Temple there must be something."

  “No,” replied Teacher. “If we find one, it is sure to be a trap.”

  “The one in your library?”

  “I must be there for it to exist. It is a one-way journey, even for me. We must go by foot.”

  "There are always the Brothers," said Warin. "They will follow only the rightful king, no matter who's wearing the crown, and between the two of us, we can make it plain I am king."

  "More importantly, we must hope that the people believe you. Otherwise, we might face a long and painful war." Teacher took Warin's hands. "One last piece of unwelcome news. Hildin has married the Princess."

  Warin dropped his head; bitterness joined grief. "She's made her choice, then. I'm too late."

  "Choice?" said Teacher. "How could you consider this a choice? Consider what she faced, with such an enchantment upon her and the disgrace of nearly three spokes with her 'captor.' Fredrik has no illusions--he knows Tremont wants Leute and will take it one way or another. Uniting through marriage is always better than uniting through conquest, and her honor is damaged at best. She had no choice." Teacher considered what to say next. "Your Majesty, I strongly believe he intends to kill King Fredrik as soon as he himself is crowned. He may kill the Princess as well."

  "Take me to her now, then! Let me go to her!" cried Warin, crushing Teacher's hands. "Merciful Amma, take me to her!"

  "Calm yourself, sir! Hildin has ensured a certain death were you to enter the Keep through any reflection we might find, and as for entering the city, the gates are locked, and the moon is too new for a reliable reflection. My mirror in these woods is kept magically lit-- Oh!" Teacher leaned on Warin's arms, staggering. "Lead me further away from the camp! Please, now!"

  Connin took one arm, Warin the other, and they guided Teacher away from the clearing. "Mother must have gone back to the fire," said Connin.

  Teacher straightened, waving away Warin's arm. "We cannot be near one another, not even in earshot. I am all right--this is far enough. When you see her, tell her I would not wish pain on her for the world, Connin, but I had to come."

  "She knows," he answered.

  "Go back to the camp, then, both of you," said Teacher. "Rest now. You will need all your strength tomorrow."

  Warin hugged Teacher one last time. He said nothing to Connin on their way back, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

  At the camp, bedrolls circled the banked fire. Once inside his own, Warin seethed with rage. His prophecy had been wrong. His father died alone, in bed, and not at Warin's hand. For that, he rejoiced, but as for the rest...

  All his anger at the Gods came roaring back. For years, he'd wondered what he'd done to deserve his prophecy. Now the punishment was compounded; he'd given up his throne and his beloved father for nothing. In his grief and anger, he yearned for Emmae, and feared for her more. He stared up into the dark sky, thinking of his brother in the marriage bed that belonged to him, and wil
led Emmae to be safe.

  "King Warin," murmured Connin from a few feet away, "master yourself. You've relit the fire."

  Warin glanced to his left; flames licked up from the coals, burning angry and bright. "Bank," he sighed; the fire subsided. "Apologies. I have yet to reconcile myself to my father's power." He pulled his magic inward and focused on his breath, forcing himself to sleep.

  The next day dawned clear and fresh. The air in the field where the company camped smelled of trampled grass, wood smoke, and horses. In soft half-sleep, Warin dreamed he was a child again, waking up in his father's pavilion during maneuvers. He waited, dreaming and dozing in the dawn light, for his father's booming voice to call him to breakfast with the Cavalry.

  He woke fully. The dolorous toll of the bells had ended. His father was dead. Today he would kill his brother, and take his father's place.

  He pulled on his clothes and sword, found the little mirror box at the bottom of his pouch, and flicked it open. "If she still lives, show me Emmae," he said. The reflection flickered, and Emmae appeared. She wore an overdress of stiff brocade, its deep Tremontine red contrasting sharply with her pale skin. Her hair hung loose and limp to her waist; she smoothed a strand through her fingers over and over, a gesture he knew well. He jumped to his feet to throw himself into the mirror, but the reflection resolved again to his own pinched, hollow face; she must have moved away.

  At the Keep, Emmae glanced back at the cheval glass in the corner, willing Warin not to look for her. "Cover the mirror," she said to a serving woman; confused and dutiful, the woman threw a sheet over the glass.

  A flood of flowers, food, gifts from dignitaries, silk dresses embroidered in gold thread, furs, satin slippers flowed into Emmae's apartments, borne in by countless maidservants; a dozen more had dressed her and now hovered about, twitching the folds of her ermine-lined mantle into place, offering perfumes, and otherwise annoying her.

  To her surprise, Old Meg was not among them. Of all the servants, she expected Meg to be the one to ready her for the coronation; Hildin relied on her as spy and watchdog. Even so, Meg was familiar, the closest thing she had to a friend. She would never cross her Hildin, but she had been kind in her way, and gentle. Emmae asked several of the women, but none of them knew her whereabouts.

  Against the tide of riches and women came Gian. He wore the yellow and blue of Valleysmouth, the yellow giving his skin an unnatural pallor, and he carried a jewel casket in his hands. "Leave us," he said to the servants. One last reluctant twitch to the mantle, and the primary dresser left, shooing the rest of the maids before her.

  Gian pulled strand after strand of pearls from the casket, so many that Emmae wondered if there were oysters inside the box. "These belonged to the King's mother. He wished to see them on you," he murmured tonelessly.

  "You don't seem to take much joy in your master's coronation," she said.

  Gian looked up from the casket, a pair of long pearl earrings in one hand. "We have waited for this day since we were children." He fastened the pearls in her ears and stepped back. "You make a magnificent Queen, Emmae. Your dressers did well."

  "The dressers--Gian, where is Old Meg? Is she unwell?"

  The young man went paler still. "She is dead."

  "Dead? What happened? Was she ill?"

  "I killed her."

  "Why would you do that?" she said after a long, astonished pause. "Stupid boy, why would you do such a thing?"

  "He required it of me. I've never killed for him before. I am sick at heart." Gian took her face in his hands. "Emmae, listen. I care what happens to you, more than you will ever believe. Tread carefully. Do as you're told. Tell no one about Warin, nor that you were brought here long before you were officially found--your confidante would be dead in a day. Give my lord no excuse to do you harm. Do you understand me?" Gian choked, then continued, "She was as his mother, and yet he had me kill her for fear she'd give us away. He'd waste no tears on you." He dropped his hands and took up the casket again. "I won't see you again until the ceremony at Pagg's Temple," he said.

  Emmae's breath returned, uncontrollable. "Why are you warning me?"

  Gian stopped halfway out of the room, his face twisting with emotion and his green eyes bright and full, but he said only, "I will see you at your crowning." He let the door stand open, leaving the Guards outside watching for Warin.

  Emmae mastered her breathing and focused her mind. She pulled the cover off the cheval glass in hopes Warin would see her, but she saw nothing, no indication he was watching. She sighed, and took the habitual lock of hair between her fingers.

  Hildin meant to kill her; if he'd kill Meg, her own life meant nothing. As soon as he possessed Leute, she was expendable. She might tell her father, but what good would that do? He didn't listen, even when he was sober, and he was unlikely to believe her--if he did, he'd probably kill her himself. Then again, if Hildin wanted Leute badly enough, why let Fredrik live? She had no love for him; they said he was her father, but she didn't remember him at all, and she could only think that a real father wouldn't throw her away on such as Hildin. As an unmarried woman, she lived under her father's thumb, now as a married woman, under her husband's. But what if she were neither a daughter nor a wife?

  As a widow, she might live on her own terms. Perhaps she might then set a search for Warin, if only to discover why he hadn't come to her. She could separate herself from men, attended only by women--safe from the spell. Though occasionally she'd caught eddies of interest from certain women, it would be easy enough to weed them out.

  Though she had thought often of suicide in her captivity, now the will to live filled her, fierce and eager. She searched her room, rifling through the gifts of jewels in hopes of a ceremonial dagger, but not even a stickpin came to hand.

  She refused to sink back into despair. Whether today or a spoke from now, she would find a way to kill Hildin before he killed her, and live.

  Warin and his men entered the city at Marketgate without remark, the Guards assuming they were Travelers come to entertain the crowds for coppers, or perhaps to sneak into one of the public feasts setting up in the city squares. Times were pinched, but there would be at least a little for everyone, if not a feast for all. Turning away the poor and unwashed from such a banquet would earn Amma's wrath, though the harvests had been small enough in the last few years that some thought She was angry already.

  The Market was empty of sellers, all business suspended for the coronation celebrations, but even taking that into consideration, the City seemed threadbare and patched, its people moving slowly, and far too many beggars in the streets. Its shabbiness appalled the returning Prince. Had times been so very hard?

  The band paused at a fountain among a small knot of men refreshing themselves in the midst of assembling long boards into feasting tables. "I tell you what, old son," Warin heard one huge, scarred man say to his neighbor, "I can't help but think what that Prince Warin wouldn't have let things come to such a pass. He was always good to his men, never put himself above us. Ate same as we, slept same as we. Never his like, even braver than his father, Harla carry him home."

  The Prince cast an eye over the man, and then out onto the milling crowds. He hadn't commanded in ten years; time to see if he'd forgotten how. "Did you serve with Warin?" he said.

  "Where d'ye think I got this?" said the scarface, tapping the mark on his cheek, an ugly thing that ran from his left ear to his chin. "That I did, against the Northern Tribes up at Montesurbis--in Leute, too, at Dordemon, when we was nigh-on boys. Pagg-forsaken heathens, we drove 'em back into the Wastes, didn't we! Prince Warin, rest his bones, was a great man, and would have been a great king. Not like the Regent, who already taxes us past the fat into the lean. Takes the milk and the cow, he does."

  "And the farm, and the farmer's wife," added another man.

  "What is your name?" Warin asked the scarred man.

  "What's yours, there, Jemmy Rustic?" snorted the man.

  "My name i
s Warin."

  "Ha! And I'm Prince Hildin!" he said to the chortles of the other townsmen.

  "You served with Warin, you say, and you do not know him when he stands before you?" said Connin.

  "Clear off, Traveler!" said a ruddy man. "Ain't you got a bear to lead, or your mama to whore out or sumfing?" The townsmen drew together, anticipating a fight. Connin held his men back with a sharp word; they formed a sullen wall, with Warin before them.

  Word spread; the Travelers were putting on a play, something about the dead Prince Warin: cheek enough on the coronation day of the Regent to draw attention. The curious and the bored gathered around the fountain, and Warin leaped up onto its lip. "Men of Tremont!" he cried. "I am Warin, son of Gethin, come back to take his throne!"

  A squadron of Guards pushed their way through the growing crowd, led by a ferocious-looking Brother. "Clear off!" he roared. "You up there! Get down!"

  "It's Prince Warin, come back to us! Don't you reckonize your King, Brother?" jeered the ruddy man.

  "The King's in his Keep and all's right with the world," said the Brother, but he peered up at Warin anyway. Trouble creased his brow, just visible under his helm. "I knew the Prince in his youth. You are very like, I admit it, and your speech is fine, for a Traveler. But it's been ten years since he disappeared, and His Highness says the Good Prince is dead."

  Warin jumped down from the fountain's lip. "Even if you don't know me, I know you, Brother Cor." The Brother started at his name. Warin glanced over to the feast preparations; a cooking fire burned beneath a spitted lamb. He snatched a flame from it and formed it into a wand of light.

  The crowd murmured uneasily. "I seen nobles do that," said the scarred man, shifting from foot to foot.

  Warin spread his hands; the wand lengthened and thickened into a staff. He spun it, and struck the ground with one end. A wall of flames sprung up around the panicked townsmen, flames licking at their feet and rising high into the sky, filling the air with the scent of fire and smoke.