by Jo Walton
“She is a young maiden, let her be as free of care as she might be for a little while more. Let her enjoy this visit to the capital. There’s little enough we can do for her now, let us give her that little time.”
“I have ruined everything,” Penn said. “I had my life all planned and rolling along like a train, and then suddenly this, derailing everything. Even if they don’t ask about it, which I can’t believe, maybe I should tell everything to the Holiness, make clean pickings of it.”
Felin applied her mind to this ridiculous idea. “Do you really believe you were sinning to hear your father’s confession?” she asked.
Penn hesitated. “I just wanted to give him comfort,” he said. “I thought it was against the present practice of the Church but I didn’t think it was against the will of the gods.”
“Then if the gods think it was wrong, it will come out in the trial, and if not, you should not invite penalty to yourself,” Felin said, as confidently as she dared.
“You are right,” Penn said, and embraced her tightly.
49. THE SOCIAL WORLD
Later that afternoon, Selendra and Felin flew down to the station to deliver to the mails the notes that confirmed that Penn and Selendra would attend the Court without fail.
Felin was glad to be out of the parsonage. Her head ached with worry, and with the effort of keeping Selendra and the servants from guessing how much might be wrong. The cold air under her wings did her good, as usual, but did not change the proportions of the problem.
“Have you asked about a hotel, yet?” Selendra asked shyly as they flew back.
“I thought you could ask that tomorrow,” Felin said. She had in fact forgotten entirely about the matter.
“It’ll be something easy to talk about at least,” Selendra said, sobered by the reminder. “Oh Felin. I do like Sher very much, but marrying him would be impossible.”
“If it’s not possible, it’s not,” Felin said, wondering if she should tell Selendra after all, so she could refuse or accept Sher knowing what the true choices were. No. Sher was more important to her than Selendra, he had been her brother almost all her life, and Selendra had been her sister only these last few months. Sher should have a wife who loved him, no matter what.
They were flying over the church. Felin looked down and saw that the snow was very thickly piled on the roof. “I should brush some of that off before it does any damage,” she said, swooping down.
“I’ll help,” Selendra said. They glided down, the passage of their wings caused some of the piled snow on the roof to slide gently to the ground below.
They landed neatly in the snow and began to clear the roof, taking one side each and applying themselves to their task in silence. Felin would have liked to have lightened Selendra’s mood, but was too deep in her own gloom to do it.
A shadow swept over them as they were finishing. Selendra looked up. “It’s the Exalt,” she said, surprised. “I’ve never seen her on the wing before, I’d almost thought she couldn’t fly.”
“Hush,” Felin said, reprovingly.
The Exalt glided down and landed heavily in front of the church. She was wearing a knotted hat in black-and-white fleece that was probably very expensive but which made her look old and slightly pathetic. “I saw you working so hard from up at the ledge,” she said, graciously. “I thought I’d come and lend a wing to the glory of the church, but I see that you have done it all.”
“The offer is deeply appreciated,” Felin said.
“I haven’t seen either of you for weeks,” the Exalt said. Felin bowed, and Selendra looked down. “How are you? Is there any news?”
Before Felin could stop her, Selendra had begun to explain the story of the lawsuit. Felin knew that the Exalt would have had to know, whatever happened, with Penn needing to be away over a Firstday and find a substitute parson. All the same, she would have preferred to have told her herself, in her own way.
“Most unseemly,” the Exalt sniffed. “I can’t understand why you and Penn are mixed up in it.”
“They didn’t want to have anything to do with it, they are summoned to Irieth by Order of the Court,” Felin explained, before Selendra could make things worse by saying how right Avan was.
“Not a good time of year for Irieth,” the Exalt pronounced, diverted at once, as Felin had known she would be. “And where will you stay in the capital?”
“In a respectable hotel,” Selendra answered at once.
“Not with your brother?” the Exalt asked.
“We thought it best not,” Felin said, gently.
“Yes, probably best not, in the light of this lawsuit,” the Exalt agreed. “There is a good reasonably priced hotel in the Migantine quarter called the Majestic’s Head. It is next to the church of Sainted Vouiver. It is not beyond your budget, I should judge, and has small rooms, suitable for a parson and his sister.”
Felin had not wanted to ask the Exalt about hotels because she knew Sher would consider comfort and cost and not primarily what was appropriate. However, now it had been suggested it could not be refused. “Oh, thank you, Exalt, how wonderful that you know somewhere,” she said, thinking that in some ways it would be a relief to be free of the patronage of the Exalt and live elsewhere, even if they would slip below respectable status in the process. “But it will need to be for three of us,” she added.
“You, Felin?” the Exalt asked. “Surely they do not need you?”
“No, but I shall go to keep Penn and Selendra in order,” Felin said.
“Oh that’s marvellous!” Selendra said, smiling. “Oh it’ll be so much more fun with you instead of only Penn.”
“I hadn’t thought you’d feel able to leave the dragonets, as you didn’t when Penn’s father was dying,” the Exalt said, a reproving frown wrinkling her snout.
“The dragonets are a little older now, and there’s Amer to take care of them as well as the nanny.” Felin was irritated to find herself sounding defensive. She was not, in fact, choosing to leave her dragonets for a pleasure trip to the capital after having used them as an excuse to avoid her father-in-law’s deathbed, but as she could hardly explain the details the appearance was unavoidable.
“Amer’s very good with them,” Selendra said. “And we’ll have such fun in Irieth. I’m sure Avan will take us to a theater even if Penn is too stuffy. I’ve always wanted to see a play.”
Felin frowned at Selendra. Fortunately the Exalt, like Selendra and unlike Felin, had not heard of the disrepute into which out-of-season theater had fallen in Irieth. “I hope you might see many. Penn will need to hurry back, of course, but perhaps the two of you might stay in Irieth for a little while after the case is settled and enjoy the delights of the capital. I am quite tired of them, myself, but I don’t believe you’ve ever been there, have you?”
“No,” Selendra said. “Never. I was too young, and then father was too old.”
Felin looked down at the snow to hide any trace of resentment that might be in her eyes. The Exalt had promised her a season in Irieth when she had been a maiden, partly to console her over Sher. The season had been postponed for one reason or another, and then Penn had come and she had married, without ever seeing the capital.
“I do think a time in the capital would be just the thing for you,” the Exalt said. “I have been meaning to speak to you for a little while, Selendra. I know you are a sensible maiden, because you declined a foolish offer from my son a little while ago. I’m glad you realized how impossible such a thing would be. In Irieth you might be able to meet someone more appropriate, someone of your own station in life. If you will promise me that you will continue in this sensible path, I will arrange for you and Felin to stay in the Benandi town house in Irieth for the case and for a month or two afterwards.”
Felin knew this plan was impossible and so dismissed it at once. “I couldn’t leave the dragonets for that long,” she said quickly.
She was looking at the Exalt, who was looking her usual confident
self, under the inappropriate hat. She watched her expression change, and only after the silence was already too long did she turn to her sister-in-law.
Selendra was almost incandescent with rage. Her violet eyes whirled as if they would come out of her head. “Are you saying,” she asked, “as you said that my father was not good enough to be mentioned in polite society, that I am not good enough for your son?”
Felin blinked. It was only a few wing-beats since Selendra had been reaffirming to her that marrying Sher would be impossible.
“I am saying that the world we live in is a social world as well as everything else, and that much as I like you, and your brother and sister-in-law, you must see that a maiden brought up as you have been wouldn’t be an appropriate wife for an Exalted lord like my son,” the Exalt said, very evenly. “Who are you, to be Exalt Benandi and manage a great estate?”
“You—” Selendra stopped. “I pity you,” she said, with dignity.
“You will not undertake to leave my son alone?” the Exalt asked.
“You have no right to ask that of me, or of him,” Selendra said, her teeth showing as she spoke.
“Selendra—” Felin began, conciliatingly, not sure how she was going to go on.
“I’m going home,” Selendra said, abruptly, and flew up toward the parsonage, a gold streak across the white snow, leaving the two older dragons standing still staring after her.
“I’m sorry,” Felin said, after a moment. “She’s very emotional at the moment, losing her father and then her sister so suddenly.”
“I’ll never have a better daughter-in-law than you would have made, Felin, and I was a fool not to settle for you while I could have had you,” the Exalt said, still staring after Selendra.
Felin could have cheerfully bitten the Exalt, but she managed to laugh. “There’s no unmelting last winter’s snow,” she said, taking refuge in the proverbial.
The Exalt just shook her head.
50. A FIFTH PROPOSAL
Selendra retired to her sleeping cave and refused herself to everyone. To Felin, when she came to her on her return, she said she wanted to be left alone for a little while. To Penn, who was not persistent, she said she had a slight female ailment and would be better if left to rest on her gold. To Amer, sent by a concerned Felin with tempting preserves and beer, she said she was not sick but angry, and demanded immediate and thorough burnishing.
In the morning she emerged for breakfast looking her best. Every scale was burnished to a clear and shining gold. Her new hat was settled most becomingly on her head, and the chain she had found in the cave was arranged inside it, the jewels glinting. Her eyes seemed darkened almost to amethyst under the brim of the hat. Penn, sunk in his own anguish, noticed nothing, and Felin, apprehensive, dared say nothing in his presence. She ate nothing but a few wrinkled pippins, not wishing to spot her scales with blood. After breakfast she sat down to wait for Sher to call for her.
In truth, she had never been so angry in her life. Long hours brooding in the dark had done little to calm her. She thought over everything the Exalt had ever said to her, from that first insult to her father onwards. No word of it, she thought, had been truly kind, nor other than selfish. She thought of the things she had heard said to Felin, unthinkingly and unnecessarily cruel. How had the Exalt come to have a son like Sher, kind and considerate and valuing dragons for their own worth? She was too inexperienced to realize, as Felin knew so well, that Sher had shaped himself in opposition to his mother, or that he had his own selfishness. Sher, she thought, was more than the Exalt deserved. She thought of what the Exalt had said. “Who are you to be Exalt Benandi?” It was that she cared about, Selendra knew, not the welfare of her son or her demesne, but her own name and status. Her son’s wife would supplant her, so although a wife was required, to continue the line of Benandi, she wanted someone she could control. It would serve the Exalt right if she did marry him and then had no children.
Selendra decided to teach the Exalt a lesson. She could not, however, bear to hurt Sher too much in the process. She spent much of the night thinking it out. However much she wished to punish his mother, she could not marry him if indeed, as seemed likely, the numbers of Amer’s potion had been against her. By dawn, she had a plan.
Sher duly arrived. He looked at her with such love and longing that her heart melted.
They flew out of the parsonage into a beautifully clear Deepwinter morning. The sky was a clear pale blue, and seemed a million miles above their heads. The snow reflected the golden sunlight and seemed to caress the curves of the trees with a drift of white. It was bitterly cold, so cold that they both felt sure with the wholehearted faith of a child that it was indeed the sun of ice that had risen that morning and not the sun of fire, and they were glad it was Deepwinter and that the sun’s fires would be rekindled that night.
Sher did not ask where she wanted to go. He barely spoke to her, beyond asking her to accompany him. She followed him up the wind and into the hills. The air was dry and bitterly cold, rasping in the back of her throat like ice needles. He descended at last into a high meadow where muttonwools were pastured in summer. She followed him down and landed carefully, anything could be hidden under the snow. It was deeper here than in the valley, coming almost to her belly.
Sher still showed no inclination to speak, merely looking at her until she could barely keep still. Selendra remembered Amer telling her that words spoken beneath the sun of ice would fall coldly on the ear.
“It’s a beautiful day,” she said at last.
“You are beautiful,” Sher said, his voice a little hoarse. “It is beautiful because it has you in it. O Selendra, everything has been so bleak without you. Felin, who has always been like a sister to me, told me to wait, and I have waited and I have not changed. I asked you to marry me once before, have you changed your answer?”
“There are two things before I can agree,” she said, as she had planned. “If you are absolutely sure this is what you want.”
“I am beyond doubt,” he said. The weeks of waiting had affected him. He seemed older, more sure of himself. He took a wallowing step through the snow towards Selendra, who held up a hand to stop him.
“The first is a vow I made.”
“A vow?” He looked at her blankly.
“When I left Agornin, my sister, Haner, my clutch-mate, and I vowed that we would not marry without the other approving the proposed husband.”
Sher looked relieved. “I thought you meant—that’s actually terribly sweet of both of you. She must stay with us often when we are married. I will happily meet your sister. How soon can she come here?”
“I don’t know. There is a court case between my brother Avan and the Illustrious Daverak, who is her guardian, and I need to go to Irieth for the twelfth of Deepwinter. She’ll be there as well. After that, possibly.”
“And will Penn go to Irieth with you?” Sher frowned.
“Penn and Felin are both going.”
“Then let us all go. I’ll have Benandi House opened and we can all stay there. I can meet your sister. I’m sure it won’t take long to have her approve me.”
Selendra sighed inwardly, because her plan called for Haner to refuse her approval once the Exalt had suffered enough. Sher took another step towards her. She retreated. “Not until my sister has approved you. And there is another condition.”
“Another? Selendra, you are beautiful gold but I long to see you pink.”
“Your mother.” Selendra’s voice was hard.
“I can deal with her,” Sher said.
“I will not marry you unless your mother approves. She must treat me as if I am your equal. She said some very hurtful things to me yesterday. I like you so much. I thought about it after we got out of the cave, how resourceful you were, how brave, and what lovely funny things you say.” She was entirely sincere saying this, she smiled, and Sher’s heart turned over. If he had been a maiden he would have glowed pink just from her words. “But we would
need to live in Benandi, at least part of the time, and I can’t live with your mother disapproving of me in her way and forever nagging me and acting as if I am half a dead venison you dragged in covered in flies. If we are to be happy together, she must welcome me into the family.”
Sher blinked. “Selendra—we needn’t live with my mother. We can visit her now and then for a day or two, but we can live anywhere. I have four estates in addition to this one. If you don’t like any of them we could buy another estate. I usually go to Irieth for the season, we could do that, or not just as you like. My mother needn’t figure in our lives.”
“She will, even if we avoid her. Our children, when we have them, will need to know Benandi. She will make my life a misery whenever she can, and theirs, telling our children that I am not good enough to be your wife and their mother. You remember what she said about my father. I can’t marry you if you have doubts about my family, or if she is going to act like that.”
“Then she will welcome you,” Sher said, his jaw set at an angle of determination that would have surprised his friends and his mother very much. “In Irieth. Where your sister will also approve me.”
“Oh Sher,” Selendra said, loving him, no artifice in her at all now. He stayed where he was, staring at her, smiling a little. For Selendra, although the day was as cold as ever, it felt as if the Deepwinter fire had been kindled already in her heart and the sun burned warm again. Sher did not take advantage to press her further at that time, although she would no longer have desired to be capable of stopping him.
“I must speak to your brother,” Sher said. “Come, dearest Selendra.” They rose up to fly home together.
51. A FIFTH CONFESSION
It has been baldly stated in this narrative that Penn and Sher were friends at school and later at the Circle, and being gentle readers and not cruel and hungry readers who would visit a publisher’s offices with the intention of rending and eating an author who had displeased them, you have taken this matter on trust. No examples of this friendship have been shown you, such as the two dragons exchanging confidences, or setting out together to enjoy themselves on a day out. The truth is that the very real friendship they had once shared as children had attenuated through time and the nature of their adult lives. Their lives and their enjoyments were now very different, so confidences and shared enjoyment had become matters of memory rather than commonplaces.
