Wedding

by Ann Herendeen

  Dominic and I watched each other through the red haze, the lightning from Eris’s hair and fingers merging with the flickering fire in the hut’s hearth. If we had touched then we would have behaved as on that first night, even in front of Dominic’s men, not caring, on the bed or on the floor. We sat as far apart as we could to prevent the forming of communion, and did not succumb.

  On the seventh day Dominic and his men came in at noon, in good spirits, calling out a military chant, their work finished. There had been only light spring rain over the past days and the trail was passable. We could be on our way after the midday meal, reaching Aranyi late that afternoon.

  By now the memory of that first night was fading from my mind, like the marks from my skin. The thought of riding a horse no longer made me flinch. I resolved that, as my body was renewed, so Dominic and I would start fresh. We must think of this whole thing as an accident, I decided, like a plane crash on Terra—unfortunate, but usually the fault of weather or equipment, not a single individual.

  Yet Dominic could not see things in this way. He was still punishing himself for what had happened, making no allowance for the effects of the weapon. For all his fear of Eris, he knew his weaknesses, his proclivities, and could not absolve himself of blame. We finished our journey riding side by side, but divided by the need to avoid communion, and by our opposing views of the problem we faced.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dominic’s sister was waiting for us as we rode through the entrance gate to Aranyi Fortress. If I had not picked up Dominic’s thoughts at that moment, I would not have identified her as a relative. Eleonora was Dominic’s half-sister, a powerful sibyl a few years older than her brother and still a beauty, with translucent skin and gold-red hair that caught the last rays of the setting sun to put a halo of fire around her elegant head. She was not as tall for a woman as Dominic was for a man; where he gave an impression of strength, even ferocity, she looked delicate, almost fragile—deceptively so. “Welcome to Aranyi, Ms. Herzog,” she said, emphasizing the Terran title. “I hope Dominic took good care of you on the journey. It’s always tiring for lowland guests.” Her voice was higher and softer than Dominic’s, but with the same attractive musical quality.

  I thanked her, using a traditional phrase of etiquette I had learned at La Sapienza. I could sense her appraising me closely while concealing any open interest. She embraced Dominic and whispered something to him that made him laugh. She had not taken the chance of thinking it to him, in case I listened. Here was another person close to Dominic who didn’t trust me from the start.

  Eleonora led us into the great hall, and introduced me to her husband, known as Josh Kaminsky. Dominic had told me some of his story, just enough to make me nervous about meeting him. He was ’Graven, of noble lineage on both sides; his real name was Georgi Sakhalin-Chang, and he was entitled to the honorific Sir. But he had been conceived in a seminary, born to unmarried lovers from feuding families. All might have ended happily except that, as occasionally happens, his third eyelids had not been developed at birth. The families had rejected what they saw as an ungifted, illegitimate child, and abandoned him to the Terran social services rather than waste limited resources on an embarrassment.

  Josh’s life had been the reverse of mine; he was the genuine displaced natural-born child that I was not. Once Josh had returned to his own world, his ’Graven heritage had emerged easily and instinctually. He had adjusted quickly to the demands of seminary life and work in the crypta cells, and was now a respected and accomplished seer. But with the aristocrat’s sense of irreverence he clung to his outcast Terran background, preferring the name he had known as a child.

  Josh and Eleonora had married and continued to work together, reestablishing the traditional system of education and reviving the network of seminaries throughout the ’Graven Realms. They were here at Aranyi now only because of the Eris rebellion, Josh to help Dominic with mustering the troops, Eleonora to accompany the expedition as sibyl and nucleus of the telepathic cell that would counteract the Eris weapon.

  Knowing Josh’s past, I expected to find a difficult personality, a contrarian who might sneer at my pitiful attempt to pass for an Eclipsian. He greeted me neutrally, however, with no hidden judgments or censure that I could detect. Perhaps to offset the dislocations of his early life, he had adopted a conventional and amiable public manner, and I felt more comfortable with him than with Dominic’s sister.

  That first night was mostly a blur for me. Besides the usual hardship of traveling by horseback, there was the problem of altitude to contend with. Eleonora herself showed me to my room, guiding me through the maze of corridors and steps and making light conversation. I was too weary to respond, and when we reached the door Eleonora, recognizing my state, suggested that I have supper brought in on a tray instead of coming back downstairs, an offer I accepted with thanks. The food was already waiting for me when I had finished in the bathroom.

  After the family meal, Eleonora returned to my room, standing silently in the doorway for a minute. She appeared to reach a decision, coming forward and shutting the door. “I gather your training at La Sapienza did not go as well as you had hoped,” she began, “and that you have no desire to return. So long as Dominic wants you to stay at Aranyi you will be welcome. But I need to know one thing.” She studied me, much as Edwige used to, although without her warmth. I felt that she saw my bruises, despite the fact that they were almost completely healed and covered by my clothing, and that she was boring into my mind in a way that even Dominic did not dare. “Do you really think you have changed him?”

  I stared at her, my mind a blank, afraid of trying to match her in furtive communion, outclassed by her telepathic ability and years as a sibyl. If she guessed what had happened in the shelter then she probably knew what the explanation was, and that I believed it was not Dominic’s fault. Otherwise I had no idea what she was talking about. After the journey and supper, and with the warmth of the fire in my room, I was so groggy I couldn’t stand up, and sank down on the edge of the large bed. There was no way I was going to discuss any of this now. Eleonora was waiting for an answer, and all I could manage was, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  Eleonora sat beside me on the bed. I think she had wanted to haul me to my feet again but had restrained herself. “I’ll spell it out, then,” she said, an icy edge to her voice. “Dominic has fathered a child before, to fulfill his obligations to Aranyi and to ’Graven. If he wishes to do his duty again, I applaud him. But if you think that means he is no longer vir, you will be disappointed. Worse, as a Terran, you could cause Dominic a great deal of unpleasantness if he should decide to have the child legitimized. No half-Terran brat is worth all that trouble. And Dominic has provided an heir for Aranyi.”

  Well, now I understood her. She was waiting for me to be conciliating, to tell her whether Dominic had made any kind of commitment to me, and to promise I wouldn’t create difficulties if I became pregnant. It would have been easy on one level to say what she wanted to hear. Dominic had never spoken directly of marriage or betrothal, and I had only a vague idea of what I could claim from him if I had his child. There was little danger of that. The birth control I used, that had so mystified ’Graven Assembly, was fail-safe, a subcutaneous hormone implant, tailored to my body’s chemistry.

  Simple as it might have been to comply, I resisted Eleonora’s unspoken demand. I resented both her assumption that I hadn’t thought about any of these things myself, and her implication that I had latched onto a vir, and unmarried, ’Graven lord for my own advantage. “Dominic mentioned his natural-born son, and that he has adopted Tariq Sureddin as his heir,” I said. “He does talk to me sometimes. If there’s anything else I ought to know, I’m sure he’ll tell me.” I yawned, not bothering to cover with my hand. “Thank you for all your hospitality. May we continue this conversation in the morning? I’m afraid my Terran body isn’t used to the rigors of travel in the mountains.”

  Only Eleonora’s
bright blue eyes, unshielded in the dim light of the fire and wide with affront, betrayed her feelings as she stood up abruptly and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

  As I lay waiting for sleep, I mulled over what Dominic had told me and what I had already learned from my coworkers at La Sapienza. Eleonora’s gift had been powerful at an early age, and she had become a sibyl while still in her teens. She had met Josh and married him soon after, and they had stayed on at the seminary, working together while they waited for her to conceive, much like Tomasz Liang and Alicia Molyneux.

  It had been an act of great courage for Eleonora, I imagined, remembering the women I had known at La Sapienza and their conflicted thoughts, weighing the uncertain pleasures of marriage against the prestige and autonomy of seminary work. Thirty years ago it had been almost unheard of for a young married woman to work as a sibyl.

  Eleonora had thought of Josh as Terran when she met him, although she had learned his real, ’Graven, identity shortly afterwards. She must have had some of Dominic’s own reservations, drawn to an alien, a Terran, the strong communion overriding the doubts. I supposed that Eleonora was the same as most of us. It was one thing for her to have married a Terran husband thirty years ago, with thirty years of proof behind her that he was as Eclipsian, and as nobly born, as she was. Her beloved brother was another story. For him she wanted the best. A Terran, and a woman, was not what she would have chosen for him if she could.

  Her words made me uneasy, no matter how I tried to ignore them. Coming from a world of casual relationships, I was not used to the forethought required to function in Eclipsis’s structured society, especially here, at the top of the hierarchy. To travel with Dominic, accompanied only by a few Aranyi guards, and to stay at Aranyi Fortress with the at least outward approval of his sister, was probably the equivalent of a formal announcement of engagement. In my desperation to leave La Sapienza, and in my newfound sexual awakening, I had not considered the significance of my actions. Eleonora’s concerns were real, and if she been tactless, she had years of anxiety for a troublesome younger sibling as an excuse.

  I passed a restless night in the unfamiliar surroundings and woke early, tired and edgy, and with a sense of being spied on. Apparently I had surprised some pranksters; a crowd of young people, mostly girls, fled in both directions along the corridor, squealing in terror, as soon as I opened the door and headed for the bathroom. They dashed around corners and ducked into empty rooms, peeping out again with lowered eyes to see if I was in pursuit.

  At least there was a lock on the bathroom door. Inside, it was like a Terran luxury hotel, with soap and shampoo, lotion and toothpaste all laid out in little jars and pots. After a week in that wretched shelter, I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in the enormous bathtub. It was disgraceful, I thought as I lathered my filthy hair, how dependent I had become on the help of my aide at La Sapienza. I had not had to wash my own hair for six months.

  When I emerged, clean and damp, wearing my nightgown in place of a robe, only one of the loiterers remained in the corridor. She curtsied deeply, straightening up with difficulty, keeping her head bowed. “Can I help you, ’Gravina? Someone should have been in to wait on you before, but we were caught by surprise, not knowing Margrave Aranyi was bringing a lady.” The voice was a girl’s, soft and tentative, the thoughts diffident but also aggrieved. ’Gravina, the real thing, she was thinking. Lady Eleonora said Terran, I swear she did.

  I began to get an inkling of what was going on. “Is that why they ran? Because I’m Terran?” If the girl thought of me as ’Graven she shouldn’t object to my addressing her unspoken questions.

  “No, my lady,” she said, confusion and fear in her mind. “Of course not. It’s when they saw you were ’Gravina—a lady—that they ran, afraid of giving offense.” She lifted her head to meet my eyes. She wasn’t a girl at all, but a short, heavyset woman about my age, with dark brown hair and eyes, and a smile that had something sensual about it, despite her lingering nervousness. “They meant no harm. It’s just that they’ve never seen a Terran. None of us have. And when you came out, and they saw a proper lady instead—”

  After six months of living among my own kind, I had stopped hiding my third eyelids and always kept them lowered first thing in the morning. “Lady Eleonora wasn’t wrong,” I said, hedging. This was going to be difficult. At least at La Sapienza people had seen Terrans, knew they looked human. I offered an explanation that might be acceptable. “I worked in the Terran Sector, in Eclipsia City. Before I got the chance to go to La Sapienza.”

  That was a real conversation stopper. “Oh,” the woman said. “I’m sorry.” Poor little lady, she thought. Had it worse than any of old Lord Zoltan’s natural children. Wonder who her father was, that he could leave her like that?

  “And I’m not ’Gravina,” I said. “You don’t have to call me that, or curtsy. My name’s Amalie. Amalie Her—”

  The woman laughed loudly and uninhibitedly, as if I had told a suggestive story, opening her mouth wide to show small white teeth, a pointed pink tongue and one blackened molar. Won over by what she took to be a lack of pretention, she rewarded me by behaving naturally. The transformation was complete, and startling. “Lady Amalie, then,” she said, catching her breath. “That’ll do fine.” Her voice was deeper and more confident now that she had lost her initial fear, a woman’s voice to match her body. “Nobody at Aranyi can afford to look down on someone just because her mother didn’t wear her father’s brand,” she assured me with a wink.

  “Thank you,” I said, not knowing how else to answer what had obviously been meant as kindness. “Thank you—Marg—” I tried to be clever, to show off my gift that inspired such awe, only to come up against a difficult Eclipsian name. “Maggie?”

  “Ah,” she said with pleasure at being able to place my origin. “You’re from the south. Magali. It’s a northern name. Just ask for the housekeeper until your tongue gets the feel of it.” The tip of her own tongue flicked the corner of her mouth in her sensuous way. “Would you like me to help you settle in?”

  I was embarrassed to admit that I did. “It’s not really necessary. But could you point me in the direction of the great hall?”

  Magali had no patience with such coyness. “No, Lady Amalie. You needn’t do without maid service just because of other people’s mistakes.” She shooed me ahead of her into my room, shook out my one clean change of clothes, helped me into it, found my comb and, shaking her head over the shaggy hair, combed it briskly into as much shape as anyone could give it.

  “There,” she said when I was presentable. “Please to come with me, Lady Amalie.” She curtsied again, not so deeply this time. “And it’s not the hall you want, but the breakfast room.”

  As we walked along the corridor, some of the people who had fled from my door waited in the corners and doorways. They bowed or curtsied as I passed, their thoughts guilty. Forgive me, my lady, every one of them was thinking, certain I heard their apologies as clearly as if they spoke. I meant no offense.

  I might as well be gracious. “None taken,” I said over and over, watching them stand up, grinning and relieved as if pardoned from execution, as soon as Magali and I had passed.

  We descended an expansive stone staircase, made a sharp turn at the fortress’s entrance and came to a nook of a room behind the stairs. “There you are, Lady Amalie,” Magali said. “Still plenty of food left, and the kitchen isn’t far if you need something.” She curtsied again, deeply, for the benefit of anyone who might be watching, and hurried off to the kitchen, hips swaying as she walked, her footsteps light and graceful.

  I must get her to stop that ridiculous curtsying, I thought as I entered the breakfast room, to hear discussion of something I had almost forgotten in my preoccupation with my own problems. Dominic was arguing with Josh. “It’s not as if one woman more or less will make any difference,” he said. “I refuse to allow it, and I won’t hear any more on the subject.”

  Eleonora broke
in, speaking in that soothing way peculiar to the sibyl, confident of her authority. “Ordinarily I would agree with my husband.” She smiled at Josh before turning to her brother. “But in Amalie’s condition, I must side with you, Dominic. The risk is too great for any help she might give.”

  I walked in at that moment, and the three of them fell silent, not quite looking at me, the way people do when they’ve been talking about you. Dominic rose and bowed, behaving as he had at La Sapienza, as if we were strangers thrown together in an arranged marriage. He was careful not to touch me as he pointed to a chair beside him.

  “I must leave you here for a while, Amalie,” he said. “My brother-in-law wants you to enlist in the Aranyi militia, but I’ve been trying to convince him, with my sister’s help, that you aren’t cut out for the infantry, and there isn’t time to train you as a cavalry trooper.” He was cheerful, almost manic, so unlike himself that I wondered if he was still under the influence of the telepathic weapon. It was my first experience of the animation that comes over Dominic when preparing for battle.

  Josh jumped up at Dominic’s facetious remarks. “You know very well that’s not what I meant,” he said, a slight Terran accent detectable when he spoke emotionally. He used his training as a seer to compose himself, aware and resentful of Dominic’s attempts to provoke him. “With the Eris weapon activated again, we will need every available telepath to fight it.” He turned an anxious, polite face to me. “Ms. Herzog, have you had experience as a full member of a crypta cell?”

  Dominic, a grim expression on his face, confronted Josh before I had a suitable answer. “I said I wouldn’t hear any more about involving Amalie in this business.” He spoke flatly, as if to a servant. “If you weren’t Eleonora’s husband I would challenge you for this.”