Heart of Steel

by Samantha M. Derr

  Peaseblossom made a soft chuffing sound in the darkness, and then Isi realized that he was being ridiculous, acting out of all proportion, and that Princess Marian was crying.

  He pretended not to notice, thinking she would prefer it that way. He pretended not to notice, because he was a coward.

  "It might help if you did not refer to the Empire as a cesspool," he ventured at last. "But I'm sure there are many Mheztil who would indulge you in your… request, if they could."

  "But not you."

  "I have a sacred duty to your family. Such a thing would not be appropriate, even if I were different."

  "Horse shit you have a sacred duty. My husband has a 'sacred duty,' and what has he done to fulfill it? What is it about me that you all refuse to touch? I am not made of glass. I will not shatter."

  "I cannot speak for anyone but myself."

  "So speak, Sir Cur. Am I truly so hideous that no Mheztil can bear the sight of me?"

  "Fishing for compliments?" He meant it to sound like a tease, trying to dismiss the rawness he heard behind her question. Trying to ignore the way it kicked him off his balance. She claimed to fear that something was wrong with her because he was not interested in her beauty. But didn't it just mean, yet again, that there was something wrong with him?

  She met his gaze, steady and unrelenting.

  "Fishing for truth. I am tired of lies."

  He looked away. "You are too beautiful. It is terrifying."

  "And yet, you will not touch me."

  "I will not touch anyone. I am heartless."

  "That's not what the Heartless King means," she spat, throwing something at him. A handful of twigs and torn grass, which landed on his chest in a dull thump and burst apart in all directions. "That's not what he's called heartless for."

  "I'm not here to debate theology with you."

  "Then don't use it as an excuse."

  He felt his jaw set. "Of course. Listen, I suggest we both try to get some more sleep. Things will be… calmer, in the morning."

  She laughed again. "That's Princess Marian all over, isn't it? Hysterical. I hear them say it. Do you know, Sir Cur, that I have been a married woman for eight months now, and I am still a virgin? My husband, he visits every bed in the city but mine."

  "The Mheztil have… different customs than Skellans. I'm sure when you go to the Empire with him, things will change."

  "But I'm not."

  "What?"

  "I'm not going to the Empire. Ever."

  "Your highness—"

  "I lost my youth waiting for the marriage my father wanted out of me. Do you know how old I am, Sir Cur? Twenty-eight. Twenty-eight, and well past my prime. No Skellan would take me, even if they could. I could have children by now. Instead, all my life it's been, Wait, Marian. Patience, Marian. Your time will come, Marian. Well, I'm tired of patience, and I will not risk my life on the great ocean to be that man's second wife."

  Isi made a sound. He wasn't sure what it was besides pure distress, but he couldn't help making it.

  "What? Speak, Sir."

  "You… I am not sure who told you that you would be his second wife. You are his fourth."

  Now it was her turn for an inarticulate sound of distress. But she mastered herself well, turning away from him and curling up on her side as if to sleep once more.

  "Well. I will certainly not be giving up my life here to be his fourth wife, either. Go back to sleep, Sir Cur. I will endeavor not to startle you again."

  *~*~*

  Isi could not force himself to sleep again. He stared up at the stars and waited for morning.

  That had been the first Skellan word he ever learned. Star.

  After the Mheztil captured him in a war raid, he had always been a dutiful servant. He did not question orders, he did not fight or try to flee. But when Master Chimalli had told Isi that they would be making the long crossing over the great ocean, he had almost run. For Mheztil, the long crossing offered two paths: glory or death. But what did it hold for a little Maupe slave but terror and uncertainty?

  The only thing that had convinced him to get in that boat, in the end, was a translator who had heard of Isi's gift for grasping languages. He'd been a hero of the first few crossings: the man who cracked the secrets of Skellan speech. An intimidating figure, even taller than Master Chimalli, with a brilliant emerald for his ear bauble, though it was said that he had been born only a laborer. But this great man had found Isi hiding behind a stack of water casks, had knelt right down in the dirt and looked him straight in the eye, in a way most men of his rank would never condescend to.

  "I can teach you words," the man had promised, bribing Isi the way other children might be bribed with chocolate. "I can help you unlock their language, and then, you will always have a use."

  All along that horrific journey, when the waves swamped the boat and the sun and salt cracked his skin, the only thing that kept Isi's mind off of seasickness and doom were Skellan words.

  The first had been star.

  Boy. Corn. Salt. Fish. Gull.

  Grammar took him much longer; Skellan sentences fit together differently than any other language he'd known at that point. Still, words—the shape and feel and sound of them—always helped him get a handle on people. They were safer, easier to understand than actions.

  He tried to go back over every single word Princess Marian had thus spoken to him.

  She was hiding something, that was certain. Hiding many things, that was probable. The problem was, was it worth it to try and find out what? Or should he play the compliant, quiet slave and go along, as he had always done?

  She held a secret letter in her pocket. Were he the kind of man to do such things, he could simply reach out while she slept and take it from her. He need hardly touch her at all, if he was deft and quick enough.

  But he was not that kind of man.

  She slept on her secrets, and Isi wondered what he should do.

  Get her safely to Tempare. Then get her back safely to her father and husband. Those were the two most important objectives. That was where he stood on solid ground. Everything else felt confusing and uncertain.

  He didn't gain any clarity, staring up at the stars through the long, quiet night.

  *~*~*

  Berries and groundnuts for breakfast. Hardly satisfying, but Isi had survived on less, and there were only two more days of scarcity ahead. The Princess Marian bore it without complaint.

  If anything awkward remained after their conversation in the night—and Isi, for one, felt very awkward—Princess Marian ignored it. She chatted blithely, as if they were on a pleasure jaunt and not on the run.

  "You ride remarkably well," she said as the sun broke in her eyes.

  "I have to do things well."

  "I've heard there are no horses in the Empire. How did you learn?"

  Isi bit back his frustration at the question. If she was talking, perhaps at least he could steer the conversation around to her father again, on going back to camp, or to the letter.

  "The usual way boys learn such things. I found a teacher, and he taught me."

  "You speak Skellan remarkably well, too. Remind me, how long have you been here, Sir Cur?"

  He'd finally had enough of that. "You will please call me Sir Isi, your highness."

  "You will please not avoid my question."

  He bit his tongue, tasted salt. "I came with the Khez expedition. Ten years."

  Unexpectedly, her expression softened. "You are young, aren't you, Sir C—good Sir Knight? Even younger than Tom, I'd guess."

  Isi drew himself up to his full height. "I have seen nineteen winter solstices, your majesty."

  "Nineteen." The way she said it, it sounded tragic. "The Khez expedition has been gone… is it three years, now? I'd have thought you would have returned with them."

  "I didn't." Do you want to go? Tom had asked when Master Chimalli had announced the plans for their return voyage to Mheztil. Do you want to live at their whims
forever? Because I don't know if I can stand to see you do it.

  "Don't you miss your home?"

  "Skel is my home."

  "Do you truly believe that? Or is it only what you tell yourself, to feel like you belong somewhere?"

  He did not have an answer to that. His hand drifted towards his pocket, to the gift Tom had given him when they'd made their choices. You are free, now, he'd said. A free man, forever.

  But he was not at all sure this was true.

  He would never cross the great ocean again, not of his own will. For good or ill, Skel was the place where he would live and one day die. But he did not know if it could truly be said to be his home, no matter how much he might want it to be.

  *~*~*

  They stopped to water the horses near noon, and Isi slipped off to a discreet distance to relieve himself. When he returned, Princess Marian was staring at him with a befuddled look on her face.

  "What is it?"

  "I was just thinking of something. Do you have all your parts?"

  He sputtered. "Of course I have all my parts. The Mheztil do not mutilate their captives."

  "Well, then, what's wrong with you?"

  What was wrong with him was impossibly rude royals dragging him around the country on deranged—possibly even treasonous—errands.

  But she was talking about last night. She was talking about touch, and how he hated it. She thought he had to be broken in some physical way to explain it, when in reality there was no explanation that would satisfy her.

  He scratched Peaseblossom's ear and did not look at her. They were some way down the road before he answered.

  "If anything is wrong with me, it's that I am heartless."

  "You still have your theology backwards."

  "Oh? How so?"

  "When the Four Kings brought the first man out of animal consciousness, they each sacrificed something to get it done. One gave his voice, one his eyes, one his sanity, and one his heart."

  "And?"

  "And, he didn't start out heartless, you witless boy. He gave it away in a moment of great love."

  "Well, I cannot love."

  She sat very straight in her saddle but pivoted to glare at him in reproach. "Of course you can love. Whoever heard of such nonsense? You are a human being—you have wants and needs. You can love the same as anyone."

  "I don't think that's true. It's never felt true."

  And it wasn't. He'd spent most of his life on the outside of things, feeling separate from everyone he'd ever met. As if there were an invisible wall built around the perimeter of his skin.

  Princess Marian resumed her haughty, aristocratic eye roll at his petulant tone. "Sir Isi. Take your mind from sex, or romance, or whatever it is that you think you lack the capacity for. Tell me what you want, and I will tell you how you love."

  Snow, falling on the great grasslands, stretching out as far as the eye could see. His mother's voice, a tone that had been distorted over the passage of so many years. His chubby fingers curled by larger hands around a set of reed pipes, his eager breath blowing an unskilled tune. Spinning and tumbling and whooping with—who were they? Brothers, cousins, friends? Their faces were all voids.

  "A family. I want a family." All he'd ever wanted was someone to love him, to know that he was enough as he was.

  "You have Tom, don't you? You have your merry band of four. You have the Derry bastard. These people are your family, and you do love them, or you would not be here with me now." She sounded so sure, as if this was a fact as inevitable as the sunset. How could she be so sure?

  Isi studied his hands, the path of veins branching beneath his skin. "But if they knew. The way I am. How strange I am. They would be disgusted by me."

  Princess Marian chuckled. "I guarantee you that Tom knows your proclivities, or lack thereof. He's much more observant than he presents himself to be. And if Tom does not care, why should anyone else?"

  "What do you mean, Tom knows?" He couldn't. He couldn't know.

  "Please. Which of us has known him since he was suckling Mistress Derry's milk? I know that you are as close to him as the brother he never got, but I am the sister he displaced. I have watched him for twenty-one years, and I tell you, he knows everything that you are. I do not know why you persist in thinking that love is only expressed through passion or touch. Believe me, I've been deprived of it from enough quarters to know it when I see it. And I see how Tom loves you, and how you love him back."

  It was difficult to reconcile this speech with everything Isi had feared. He was not in the habit of dwelling on those fears, but there was always the undercurrent there. He had never felt truly at home anywhere, or at least, he could not remember ever feeling that way, and if anyone ever saw his secrets laid bare, he did not think he would ever get the chance. Home would be ripped out of his grasp. No one would want him as he was.

  Isi rode out ahead of her, just a few steps. For a second, he pretended that he was the only person in the whole, wide world.

  "Tell me, Princess. Do you know how much your brother paid for me?"

  If she was troubled by the question, she brushed it off. Her reply was light. "Of course I do. It was in all the scandal sheets."

  "Princesses are allowed to read scandal sheets?"

  "I've already told you, I have my little tricks." She counted off on her fingers. "One hundred ells of moth's-wing silk, one hundred portions of wheat, one hundred jars of Merenik wine, one hundred sheep, and one hundred sapphires from the Star Hollow mines. Mother was furious."

  One hundred and one sapphires. The hundred all identical in cut and weight. The one, hidden in a kerchief in Isi's pocket, three times the size of all the others.

  You are free, now. A free man, forever. And this will prove it to them.

  "If I had never left Mheztil, my price would be a few silver reals, perhaps a chicken or two. That was my worth. But my masters did not want to let me go, here, because I was the best translator they had ever had. They wanted me to go back with the expedition, to teach more people in your language. When the deal was made, they said to me, Naquel, count yourself lucky to fetch such a price. Lucky. To be bought and sold."

  "But you are free now."

  "Only because Tom paid for me. He bought me. And yes, I am grateful, and yes, I owe him my life until the end of it. But what kind of love is that?"

  "The best love he could show you, in the circumstances. If you only serve my brother out of some imagined debt, then yes, Sir Isi, you are as heartless as you claim. But I don't believe that. I have watched my brother for all his life, but you forget, I have watched you, too."

  She didn't understand. "He could have ordered my old master to free me. He could have done it some other way. Instead he bought me. And he says that I am free. But what if he changes his mind?"

  "Because you think that you aren't the person he expects you to be?"

  "Yes. It's… it's always there, now. The idea that I am nothing more to him than a transaction, and what if, in the end, he got the worse part of the deal?"

  She laughed, a harsh, sputtering noise, and only laughed harder when she noted his dour expression. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you are so young. Wine and wheat and silk: they mean nothing to my brother. There is nothing you could do, no one you could be, that would make him regret your freedom, or try to take it back."

  "Still, he could have done it another way."

  "He could have," she acknowledged. "Have you ever thought to ask him why he did not?"

  They lapsed into silence for a time. Never had he opened these wounds to another person, not even Anne. Not even Tom. Especially not Tom.

  He might not even have known that they still bled. But this woman pushed him. She pushed and pushed until he thought that he must hit a wall, or push her back.

  "What is it that you want?" he asked, finally, to push back. Maybe the question would finally make her crack, explain to him what she was doing on this road with a letter of unknown contents, conspiring wit
h people she could not or would not name.

  She chewed absently at her lower lip. "For a long time, I wanted children. I doubt that I shall have them now."

  "You're not as old as all that."

  "Perhaps not, but no man will have me. So I have moved on. I once wanted the King's respect. I doubt I shall ever have that, either. So. I want my sisters to be safe. I want my country to stand strong in the face of its enemies. And I want power, Sir Isi."

  "That seems…"

  "Selfish?" she shrugged. "You can say it. I happen to think I deserve a little selfishness. I have so long put up with wait, patience, wait."

  He was going to say dangerous. But he did not correct her. Whatever might come of her desire for power, she seemed quite strong enough to face it.

  *~*~*

  They both woke before dawn, ready to get the journey done with. The winding crush of Tempare curled out around the abrupt curve of Tempare Bay, and already they could smell the tang of the sea. It would not be long.

  Isi had spent another night pondering the contents of the letter that had them madly fleeing across the land, running from conspiracies. Finally, as the gates of the town became visible on the horizon, he simply decided to ask her.

  "What is it, this precious message that only your hands can carry to Tempare? What are you planning on doing with it?"

  Marian's hand went to her left side, and Isi knew the letter was there. "If I tell you that it's going to Neydel, would that satisfy you?"

  "What?" Isi asked, his brain taking a sinfully long time to catch up.

  Neydel. What was in Neydel?

  Well, her mother's kin, for starters. Queen Elodie had supposedly made a clean break from her natal family when she sailed across the Strait thirty years ago to marry King Andrew, but who could speak to the truth of that? Perhaps she had raised her daughter to Neydelese values, or perhaps Marian had picked up on the idea as some sort of rebellion.