by Tarr, Judith
“It is not pity. It is compassion. To bear such a burden: so much fate, so much divinity. And for what? Why must it be you? Let your father fight his own battles.”
She uttered heresy and certain blasphemy; and he was a priest. But the shadow of his head bent; his response was softer even than his words before. “I have asked him. Often. Too often. If he ever answers, it is in truth no answer at all: that it is his will, and that this is my world. And that even gods must obey the laws which they have made.”
“As must kings,” said Ymin. It was not quite a question.
“As must kings.” A sound escaped him. It might have been laughter; it might have been a sob. “And the first law of all is: Let nothing come easily. Let every man strive for what is his. Without transgressing any other of the laws.”
“Which of course,” she said, “by making the striving more difficult, strengthens the first law.”
“The universe is perfect even in its imperfections.” Mirain wrapped himself more tightly in his cloak. “It’s cold on the heights.”
“Even for you?” asked Alidan.
“Especially for me.” He turned away from the battlements. “Shall we go down?”
oOo
Ten of the king’s squires would ride to war with him, and Adjan at their head to see that they did not disgrace their training. The chosen few, still reeling with the honor and the terror of it, had won a night’s escape.
“Get out,” Adjan had snarled at the pack of them, “and leave the others in peace. But mind you well, we ride at the stroke of sunup. Any man who comes late gets left behind.”
They saw Vadin as he came to the alehouse in search of Ledi, and they were far enough gone in ale to forget that they were in awe of him. “Share a cup,” begged Olvan, thrusting his own into Vadin’s hand without heed for the great gout that leaped onto the table. “Just one. It’s good for you. Warms up your blood.” He winked broadly.
Vadin started to demur, but Ayan had his other hand and they were all crying for him to stay; and he could not see Ledi anywhere in the thronged and boisterous room. Someone pulled him down; he yielded to the inevitable and drained what little remained in the cup.
They cheered. He found that he was grinning. He had Ledi back again, and in a little while he would go to her, and now his friends had remembered their friendship.
And yet it was not the same. With Ledi, it was better. Deeper, sweeter. Sometimes at the peak of loving he thought he could see her soul, and it was like a glass filled with light, inexpressibly beautiful. But crushed in with all these raucous young men, reeling in the fumes of wine and ale and dreamsmoke, he could think only of escape.
Not that he disliked any of his companions. Some maybe he came close to loving. It was only . . . they seemed so foolish, like children playing at being men. Did it never occur to them that they would be utterly wretched when morning came?
He smiled and nursed a cup and waited for Ledi to find him. The others were growing uproarious. Nuran had begun a wardance on the table to a drumming of hilts and fists.
Suddenly Olvan loosed a shout. Nuran lost the rhythm and toppled laughing into half a dozen laps. Olvan sprang into his place. “Men!” he proclaimed. He had a strong voice and a gift for speechmaking; he won silence not only among the squires but for a fair distance round about. “Are we the king’s men?”
“Yes!” they shouted back.
“Are we going to fight for him? Are we going to kill the traitor for him? Are we going to set him firm upon his throne?”
“Yes!”
“So then.” He dropped to one knee and lowered his voice. “Listen to me. I say we should show him how loyal we are. Let’s do something that brands us his in front of all Ianon.”
Fists rocked the heavy table on its legs. “All Ianon!” the squires chorused joyfully.
But Ayan drew his brows together. “What should we do? We wear his colors. He’s given us his new blazon, the Sun-badge that we all wear on our cloaks. We’ll ride with him and wait on him and take care of his weapons. What else is there to do?”
“What else?” cried Olvan. “Why, my love, a thousand things. But one will do. Let’s show him how we love him. Let’s sacrifice our beards for him.”
Jaws dropped. “Sacrifice our—” Ayan stopped. He caressed the wisps of down that he had struggled so long and so hard to grow. “Olvan, you’re mad.”
“I’m my king’s man. Who’s got courage? Who’s with me?”
“All the girls will laugh at us,” said Suvin.
“They don’t laugh at the king.” Nuran struck his hands together. “I’m with you! Here, whose knife is sharpest?”
Once one had fallen, the rest tumbled after, Ayan last and dubious and yielding only for love of Olvan. Vadin said nothing, and no one asked him to; when they poured into the courtyard to draw water, yelling for lamps and towels and cleansing foam, he followed in silence, surrounded by clamorous onlookers.
Olvan went first, Ayan next with the air of a prisoner approaching the block. Kav whose hands were steadiest wielded the knife, transforming the lovers into strangers. Ayan was as pretty as a girl. Olvan, square and solid and bearded to the eyes, had a strong fine face beneath. Ayan looked at him and saw no one he knew, and fell promptly and utterly in love.
The rest crowded past them to the sacrifice. Kav yielded the blade to Nuran and gave himself up to water and foam. His beard was a man’s already, full and thick and braided with copper; they roared as it fell away. He roared back. Nuran had nicked him. “Blood for the gods!” someone shrilled.
Vadin shuddered. They were turning toward him. “Ho, king’s man! Come and join our brotherhood.”
Others were doing it now, turning it into a high sacrifice, a hundred victims laid upon an altar none could see. Drunk as they were, it would be a miracle if the morning found no man dead with his throat slit.
Vadin stiffened against the hands that closed upon his arms. “No,” he said. “Enough is enough. He knows my mind. I don’t need to—”
They laughed, but their eyes glittered. They were many and they were strong; the ale was working in them, making them cruel. “Down with you, my lad. You’ll be our captain. Aren’t you the one he wept for? Aren’t you the one he loves?”
He fought. They laughed. He cursed them. They pulled him down and sat on him. Kav had the knife again, newly honed, gleaming.
Vadin lay still. “Kav,” he said. “Don’t.”
His old friend looked at him out of an alien face. Kav had not profited from his sacrifice; without the beautiful beard he was even less lovely than before, a great brute of a man with a jaw like an outcropping of granite.
He bent. He laid his blade against Vadin’s cheek, and it was so cold that it burned. Vadin set his jaw against it.
With a bark of laughter Kav thrust the knife into his belt. “Let him go,” he said. And kept saying it until they growled and obeyed.
Vadin got up stiffly, favoring a bruised knee. The squires had drawn back. Now they knew what he had known since he sat down with them.
He was no longer one of them. They had chosen to be the king’s men; he was Mirain’s utterly, against his will and to his very soul.
He dipped his head to Kav, even smiled a little, and walked away. They did not try to hold him back.
oOo
The old woman at the curtain took Vadin’s coin, but she did not move to let him pass. She peered at him as if he had been a stranger. “Who’ll it be?”
He scowled. Of all nights for Kondyi to turn senile, of course it had to be this one. “Who do you think? Ledi, of course.”
“Can’t have her.”
“What do you mean, I can’t have her? She promised me. Tonight she’d save for me.”
“Can’t have her,” Kondyi repeated. “She went. Man came and bought her. Paid a gold sun for her.”
Vadin could have howled aloud. He dragged the hag up by the neck, shaking her till she squealed in fear. “Who? Who? By the gods, I’ll
kill him!”
She would not tell him. Or could not. If she had been feigning witlessness before, his rage drove her within a whisper of the truth; she could only crouch and whimper and beg him to go away.
At last the tavernkeeper came, and he had his man with him, and Vadin still had a few wits left. He spun away with a bitter curse and flung himself into the night.
oOo
Mirain’s outer door was shut, his inner door barred. Happy man. He had his woman; she loved him and she belonged to him, and no one could buy her away from him.
Vadin stalked from the mute mocking barrier into the dark of his own chamber, stripping off his finery as he went. He had put it on so joyfully only a little while ago, thinking of Ledi, of how she would look long at him and smile and declare him the handsomest of her lovers; and then they would make a game of taking it all off.
He stumbled. A sharp word escaped him. He had forgotten the baggage heaped by the door, awaiting the morning. He kicked it, and cursed again as his knee cried protest. He was perilously close to tears.
Something rustled in the dark. He froze, hand dropping to hilt, mind and body suddenly still. His sword hissed from its sheath.
A spark grew to a flame, settled into the lamp by his bed. Ledi blinked at the spectacle of him in a glittering trail of ornaments, sword in hand. She was as bare as she was born, except for a string of beads as blue as heaven-flowers.
She rose and came to him and embraced him, sword and all. “Poor love, were you looking for me? I tried to send you a message, but first there wasn’t time, and then you were gone and they wouldn’t let me go after you.”
He buried his face in the sweetness of her hair. “Kondyi, damn her—Kondyi said you were sold.”
“I was.” He thrust free; she smiled, luminous with joy. “Yes, Vadin. A man came, and he had gold; Kondyi and Hodan dickered but they took it, though I fought and I damned them and I even cried. What say did I have in it, after all? I was only a slave. Then,” she said, “then the man took me away, and he was very kind, and he didn’t go far. Only to the castle. I was beginning to be afraid. The man handed me over to a roomful of very disdainful women; they all carried themselves like queens, though they said they were servants. They made me wash all over, and they searched me for vermin and for worse things, and I began to be angry.”
Vadin let his sword slip into its scabbard, dropped blade and belt atop his baggage, let Ledi draw him to the bed and settle herself in his lap. She kissed his breast over his heart and sighed. “Of course I knew what they took me for. A common whore.” Her hand on his lips silenced the protest. “So I was, love, though I tried to be a clean one and I wouldn’t take every man who asked for me. Now, the women said, I was to learn new ways. I’d not been bought to ply my trade in the castle.”
She was silent for a while. At last Vadin could not bear it. “What were you bought for?”
“They wouldn’t tell me,” she said. “Not for a long time. They showed me things. How to dress; and they gave me fine clothes to learn in. How to do my hair. How to use scents and paints. As if I didn’t know all of that; but this was different. They were showing me how to be a lady. Or how to serve one. A very high one, Vadin. Do you know the Princess Shirani?”
“Of course,” he said. “She’s one of the king’s maidens.”
“I know that. She loves him to distraction. Poor lady, her father the Prince Kirlian is one of the rebels, and she lives for a glance from the king, and she’s sure she’ll die for being a traitor’s daughter. I told her not to be afraid. The king knows who’s true and who’s false.”
“But how did Shirani happen to buy you? A man I could understand; you’re famous. But a maiden princess—”
Ledi laughed. “Of course she didn’t buy me. I’m a gift. That’s what happened afterward, you see. A woman came and asked the princess if I’d do, and she, sweet child, said I was perfect. The woman wasn’t amused. She told me I was wanted elsewhere, and mind my manners. I wanted sorely to act the way she was sure I would, perfectly vulgar, but I wouldn’t do that in front of my lady. I put on my best new face and let the woman lead me out.”
She laughed again. “Oh, it was wonderful, and I was terrified. She took me to a man, and the man took me to a boy, and the boy took me to the king. And he stood up in front of a dozen lords, and he hugged me as if I’d been his kin, and asked me if I was pleased with my new place. Then he told me—Vadin, he told me I was free. I could serve the princess if I liked, but if I’d rather go elsewhere I could, and he would give me whatever I needed. ‘I mean that,’ he said. ‘Whatever you need.’ So I said . . . I said I was happy, if only he would let me see you. He said I could see you whenever I wanted. Then he kissed me and sent me away.”
Vadin could not breathe. Mirain had bought her. She was free. King’s freedom, that could raise a woman from slave to queen.
Not that Mirain had raised Ledi so high, but she could not have borne it; and Vadin was no prince. Only a king’s servant, as she was servant to a princess.
His silence troubled her. She raised her head from his breast, and her face was still, braced for the worst. “You aren’t glad. You have your women here. I was for your nights in the town, when you wanted a fresh face and a paid love: someone you could leave when you liked and forget when it suited you. I’ll go away if you ask, my lord. I won’t haunt you.”
He tightened his grip on her and glared down into her eyes. They were wide, steady, steeled against tears. “Is that what you want? To go away?”
“I won’t stay where I’m not wanted.”
“He bought you for me, you know,” Vadin said. “He knew I’d never take a gift from him. So he set you free and put you in Shirani’s service and left it to you to decide if you wanted me. Sly little bastard.”
“He is the king.”
A queen could have said it with no more coolness and no more certainty. “He is that,” Vadin agreed. “He’s also a born conniver. And he thinks the world of you.”
That cast her into confusion; Vadin kissed her. “Ledi love, we’d best be careful, or he won’t just see us bedded; he’ll make sure we’re wedded.”
“Oh, no. We can’t do that. You’re a lord and a champion and a king’s friend. While I—”
“While you are a lady and a wisewoman and a king’s friend. Don’t you see how he thinks? If I’d finally got together enough silver to buy your liberty, you’d only be a freedwoman. Since he bought you, you’re of whatever rank the king decrees. And of free women, only the highest born may wait on a princess.”
“Why,” she said in wonder, “he is downright wicked.” Her own smile was not a jot less. “Tell me, my lord. May a noblewoman disport herself with a man not her husband?”
“It’s not widely approved, but it’s done.”
“I’m not widely approved, either. And I don’t intend to be. That’s fair warning, Vadin.”
“Very fair.” His eye was on her body, and half his mind with it. She pushed him down. He smiled; she played with the beard he had so nearly lost. “I suppose,” he said, “I’ll have to beggar myself to keep your favor.”
“Maybe,” she said, fitting her body to his. “Maybe not. I was not a good whore. I picked more favorites for love than for money, and many nights I wouldn’t work at all.”
“But when you did,” he said, “ah!” His gasp drew itself out, catching as she did something exquisitely wanton. “Witch.”
“Lovely boy,” said she who was all of a season older than he. He bared his teeth; she laughed and wove another spell to tangle him in.
oOo
“Mirain!”
It kept them all warm in the chill of the dawn: the army drawing up on the Vale in an endless tangle of men and beasts and wagons and chariots; the people come to watch them go, women and children and old men, servants and caretakers and the elders who would ward the kingdom at Mirain’s back. “Mirain!” they cried, now in snatches, now all together. And as chaos became an army, a new shout wen
t up, rolling like a drumbeat. “An-Sh’Endor! An-Sh’Endor!”
From within the walls it was like the roaring of the sea. Vadin, dragged cold and surly from his warm bed, took a last unwarranted tug at Rami’s girth.
Her look of reproach made him feel like a monster. He mounted as gently as he could and looked about.
Foolish; Ledi had not come to see him off. She had a princess to wait on, and she hated farewells. She would not even admit that he might not come back. But she had dressed him and armed him and braided his hair for war, and she had given him something to remember her by: a kiss ages long and far too short. His lips were still burning with it.
Grimly he turned his mind from her before he bolted back into her arms. The Mad One was being a fine hellion, taunting Adjan’s sternly bitted charger with his own bridleless freedom. He had already kicked a groom for presuming to come after him with a halter.
At long last Mirain appeared, coming bright and exalted from solitary prayer in the temple. He was all scarlet and gold, aflame in the rising dawn; at the sight of him a shout went up among his escort and among the few townsfolk who had lingered inside the walls, dim echo of the crowds and clamor without.
He flashed them a grin, striding swiftly to his waiting senel, catching himself in front of his squires. A poor hangdog few they looked, much the worse for their night’s debauch, with every face scraped naked for the world to see. Vadin had heard the end of Adjan’s peroration on their folly, and it had been scathing.
But under Mirain’s eye they straightened. Their chins came up. Their eyes lifted and firmed and began to shine. When he saluted them, with a touch of irony it was true, but with more than a touch of respect, they looked as if they would burst with love and pride.
Mirain moved again in a flare of scarlet, springing into the Mad One’s saddle. The gate rolled open; the morning wind cried through it, made potent with the roaring of the crowd.
He rode down into it, and Vadin raised his new banner, Sun of gold on a blood-red field. The shouting rose to a fever pitch.
Where the ground leveled from the steep slope of the castle’s rock, Mirain wheeled the Mad One on his haunches and swept out his sword, whirling it about his head. Along the column sparks leaped: swords and spears flung up in answer. A horn rang. With a clatter of hooves and a rumbling of wagons and chariots, the army began to move.
