Ascendant

by Craig Alanson

  “People tell me that all the time.”

  “So.”

  “So. Uh,” Ariana didn’t know what to say. A moment before, she had been about to kiss Koren. “How was your, uh, where did you go?”

  Koren scuffed his boots on cobblestones. Talking to Ariana was suddenly awkward, and he didn’t know why. “Oh, nowhere special, digging roots for potions, and Paedris was healing people along the way. It was fun, to be out of the castle for a while.”

  “Good. That’s good. Really, uh, really good.”

  “Your Highness?” A guard asked, coming around the wagon. “You should change out of those wet clothes before you catch a sickness.”

  “Yes, I suppose. Koren, will I see you sometime?”

  Koren made an exaggerated bow. “Most certainly, Your Highness.”

  “I agree, this is not good.” Paedris muttered. He took a sip of wine, taking time to gather his thoughts. “Still, I am not surprised. He is a young boy, and, princess or not, she is a young girl. And you told me she has admired Koren as a hero since the day he saved her.” And their fates are tied, although he said nothing of that to the Regent.

  “Has Koren said anything to you?” Carlana asked. She had not mentioned to her daughter that she saw her almost kissing Koren, but she would have to talk to Ariana about it someday.

  “No, nothing special. Of course, he does talk about Ariana often, but I expected that was because he was excited to be invited to the palace. Not many servant boys get invited to lunch with the crown princess.” Paedris swirled the wine in his glass, then gulped it and set the glass down. The discussion had him too upset to enjoy a fine wine. “We shall have to keep them apart, I suppose.”

  “I do think that is best.”

  “In the summer, I would likely be out with the army anyway,” Paedris glanced at the Regent to see her reaction to the idea of the army fighting again. Carlana’s frown deepened, so he dropped the subject. “Until then, I can take Koren with me to visit Rellanon." As he said it, the idea sounded better and better to Paedris. Rellanon province lay to the southeast of Linden, where springtime came sooner. Duke Magnico, a steady friend of the Trehaymes, had a cozy guest house where Paedris could stay, away in the hills, surrounded, as Paedris remembered, by well-tended gardens, and a lake stocked with fat trout. Yes, that sounded like a very good idea. And not just because it would keep Koren and Ariana apart, for young passions to cool. "Such a journey would keep me away for several weeks, probably until the Cornerstone festival.”

  “You could leave soon, then?”

  “Ariana, we need to talk.” Carlana said, as she waved her maids away for privacy. Mother and daughter, Regent and crown princess, had been discussing plans for the Cornerstone festival, and while Carlana had been concerned about seating arrangements for the guests, Ariana had been talking Koren this, and Koren that, half her words were Koren, Koren, Koren.

  After the maids had closed the door behind them, Carlana took her daughter’s hand gently in her own. “Ariana, I understand that Koren has done wonderful things, amazing things. I understand why you admire him, but, you do know there can never be anything between you two?”

  “What?” Ariana protested, a bit too forcefully. “I don’t,” tears in her eyes told that she had been about to lie. “It’s not fair! Koren should be a knight already, for saving me. Now he finds the Cornerstone, and he gets nothing for it?”

  “You know why we can’t-“

  “I know why, and I hate it. It’s not fair to Koren. It’s not fair to anyone!” She angrily wiped away her tears with a napkin. “Sometimes I hate being princess. Everyone thinks it’s so great to be a princess, and it’s not. I can’t even be friends with a boy, because all the Dukes and Duchesses want me to marry one of their horrible sons!”

  “We can’t all marry for love, Ariana. Not many women do, I’m afraid.”

  “Did you?” Ariana asked through a sniffle. “Did you love Daddy?”

  Carlana pursed her lips, paused for a moment, then shook her head. “Not when I married him, I didn’t love him. I was afraid of him. But later, yes, when I saw how kind he was, how much he cared for me, and his people, and then how much he loved you. Yes, I did grow to love him, very dearly.”

  “You were afraid of Daddy?” Ariana asked, surprised. Afraid of the man who crawled around the palace on his knees, pretending to be a horse, with his little daughter on his back? Afraid of the man who tucked her into bed at night, with a kiss, and a bedtime story, not leaving that task to maids?

  “You have to understand, I was merely the daughter of a minor baron, and my parents weren’t especially rich or powerful. My parents’ greatest dream was that I would marry the younger son of a duke someday, or perhaps a wealthy merchant. Their true hope was my sister, and she was supposed to go attend the duchess when your father visited. But my sister fell ill, and I went in her stead, and my mother told to stay out of the way and not call attention to myself.” Carlana said the last with a touch of still-fresh bitterness, a wound that had not fully healed. “Your father noticed me when I was practicing archery, which ladies were allowed to do, and later he noticed me again when I was singing in the choir during dinner one evening. I was in the back row of the choir, mind you, and I don’t know how he heard my voice among all the others. He called me forth to sing for him, and I was so nervous I almost fainted, and then I forgot the words to the song. He knew the words, and he sang along with me-“

  Ariana laughed. “Daddy couldn’t sing!”

  “Oh, his voice was atrocious.” Carlana laughed also. “But he sang anyway, in front of all the guests, until I remembered the words. That was, the first kind thing he ever did for me.” Carlana remembered with a wistful smile.

  “Then why were you afraid of him?”

  “Why? Because he was the king, silly girl! He had the power of life and death over us all. He was young, and strong, and so handsome, and all the girls fawned over him. I feared he only wanted to toy with me, like some men do to poor servant girls. And when his emissary came to my parents, to ask for my hand in marriage, I didn’t know what to think. I’d never lived in a palace! Many of the noble ladies here were terribly jealous of me, and they were mean to me.”

  “Mean to you? But you were marrying the king!”

  “Much of the court thought your father made a terrible mistake choosing me, for I brought nothing to the match; no money, no influence, no political advantage. I arrived at the palace a month before the wedding, and stayed in the royal apartments. The ladies were sure a dumb country girl like me would soon make a fool of myself in the royal court, and your father would change his mind. I think that just made him more determined to marry me.”

  Ariana had never before heard the story of how her parents had met. “Do you think I’ll marry a man who loves me?”

  Carlana pulled her daughter close and hugged her. “Oh, honey, I think you’ll be a good queen someday, and all your people will love you.”

  Seeing Ariana almost kiss Koren, and talking with her daughter about silly dreams of marriage, made up Carlana's mind about something she had been considering for almost two years. Considering for years, and secretly negotiating for years, and never reaching the point when she felt comfortable committing herself. It was time to put comfort aside, she decided, and take the type of action her critics said she was not capable of.

  She sent for the ambassador from the Indus Empire, to meet in her private chambers. The Bey of Begal arrived with an aide and a pair of guards, and was mildly surprised to see that the Regent of Tarador was alone in her ornate sitting room, except for an elderly woman he did not recognize. "Ambassador Ulligrapat, please have your guards wait outside the door. I wish to discuss something with you, in private." The Regent said.

  Usay Ulligrapat bowed, and gestured for his guards to leave. "May my aide remain, Your Highness?" He was hopeful about the absence of the royal chancellor, who almost always accompanied Carlana when discussing matters of state. Hopeful, for the
re were certain matters of state he had been discussing with the Regent, that her chancellor was not aware of.

  "Yes, please, I wish your aide to join us, as we require witnesses. For this purpose, I have invited the royal scribe, she is the official keeper of records for the realm. Including records which need to remain secret for a time."

  The Ambassador's heart leapt in his chest, soaring with hope that he would soon achieve the result for which the Emperor had sent him so far from Indus. He bowed to the woman he now knew as the royal scribe, for her odd robes now made sense. Her sleeves were short, the bottoms of the sleeves were rolled up and pinned near her elbows, Usay supposed that was to keep her sleeves away from fresh ink on documents.

  "Please, Ambassador, sit." Carlana said, gesturing to the chair across the low table from where she was seated. It was a rather intimate setting, a setting Carlana had chosen to emphasize the intimate, and sensitive, nature of their discussions. "Would you like tea? We recently acquired a supply of Masala Sahm tea leaves."

  The royal scribe had heard gossip around the castle of how shockingly expensive a single bag of this special tea had been, a bag no larger than a loaf of bread. The Regent must have been very eager to court favor with the ambassador, to pay so much for a bag of dried leaves. While the Regent and the Ambassador exchanged endless and meaningless pleasantries, the scribe considered how much the price of the ordinary tea she drank at breakfast had soared in price over the past few years. The steep increase in price was a sign, she had been told by the people who dealt with the realm's finances, of how foreigners feared that Tarador was slowly losing the war, for foreigners no longer gave credit to Taradoran merchants, and those merchants were forced to pay in silver or gold. The scribe kept a neutral expression on her face, and glanced out the window, bored of the Regent's verbal sparring with the foreigner. She was thinking of her son, who had recently become apprenticed to a merchant, and would be leaving home in the springtime to travel far and wide, perhaps even across the sea. Would her son ever travel as far as Indus? The scribe shuddered at the thought of such a long and dangerous journey to a strange foreign land, where people-

  "I have decided to sign the treaty." Carlana interrupted her scribe's thoughts.

  The Ambassador's perpetual expression of a pleasant half smile broke into a genuine smile. The scribe thought the man was pleased that his mission to Tarador had been successful, and he could now look forward to returning home, leaving behind the cold winter rains of Linden. The Ambassador's reserve broke so much that he clapped his hands in delight. "Thank you, Your Highness, we are most grateful. The prince will be so pleased, I know that he is eager to finally meet you, having heard so much about you."

  "And I look forward to meeting him."

  "The prince is very handsome, Your Highness, he is considered-"

  "Yes, I have seen the portrait. Ambassador, I will sign the treaty, with conditions, there are several issues we have not addressed."

  The Ambassador's broad smile did not waiver. Conditions were to be expected, and would not stand in the way of Usay Ulligrapat returning to Indus in triumph, to be rewarded by the Raj himself, a grateful Raj. The Bey of Begal was a king in his own right, king of a land almost half the size of all Tarador, which is why the Emperor of Indus had sent the Bey to Tarador as his personal representative, to complete negotiation of the treaty.

  "The treaty specifies loan guarantees to Tarador of eight hundred thousand rajtees, which is acceptable," Carlana said while trying to keep all expression from her face, "however, the treaty does not specify the exchange rate between Indus rajtees and Taradoran florins. We require the treaty to be enforced at the rate of exchange that is in effect at the time, for both initiation of the loan guarantees, and for repayment."

  The Bey's smile slipped ever so slightly, then returned. With the value of Tarador's currency slipping, such a floating exchange rate would make the treaty more expensive for Indus, which would not please the Raj. The Raj would be pleased, however, that the loan price the Bey had negotiated was less than half of what the Raj had allowed. "Of course, Your Highness. We did not specify an exchange rate, for we expected the rate to vary over the years," he lied smoothly.

  The scribe glanced out the window again, as the two leaders discussed the dull minutiae of finance. She had been interested to hear that a prince of Indus would be apparently arriving in Linden, to meet Carlana. Why had the Ambassador said 'finally'? Had the Regent been corresponding with a prince, and why? And why would it matter whether the prince was handsome or not?

  "Agreed." Carlana said with a nod. "The same conditions will apply, at the time, to the dowry."

  Dowry! The scribe almost gasped aloud in surprise. A dowry was an exchange of gifts or money in consideration of marriage. Marriage! The Regent was negotiating to marry a foreign prince! Oh, what a clever woman the Regent is, to make such a bold move in Tarador's time of need!

  "Of course, Your Highness," the Bey said with his smile not wavering, "it is entirely reasonable for such conditions to apply to the dowry. Of course. We are in agreement."

  "With the financial details settled, then, we can discuss the wedding ceremony." Carlana was not smiling, her lips drawn tightly. "The marriage will be here, in Linden, in the royal chapel, and will be officiated by a Taradoran priest." Hopefully, thought Carlana, Mother Furliss would perform the marriage ceremony.

  "Of course, Your Highness, we would be honored for the ceremony uniting our two peoples to be held here, in Linden."

  The scribe fairly quivered with excitement at the prospect of a royal wedding in the palace. Even if the people of Indus were foreigners, those of Indus she had seen in Linden were elegant and exotic. The wedding would be a spectacle, an event to lift the spirits of the people of Tarador.

  "Our traditions require-" The Bey began to say.

  "Yes, I understand the imperial priests must perform their own ceremony, at the heart of the empire in Indus." Carlana said. "So be it, we have no objection."

  The scribe wondered at the strange customs of foreigners. The Regent was wise to let them perform their pagan ceremonies far from the borders of Tarador. What manner of dress would the Regent wear for the wedding, the scribe wondered? In addition to her authority as Regent, the Lady Carlana was a former queen of the realm, and mother of the crown princess. Would Carlana be getting married to this foreign prince as the Regent, or as the crown mother, or both? The scribe could not recall an instance in the long history of Tarador when a Regent had married while in office. An office Carlana Trehayme would hold only until Ariana came of age on her sixteenth birthday. The powerful empire of Indus would not marry a prince of the empire to a mere Regent, no, the empire sought marriage because Carlana was the crown mother, and through her, Indus could cement ties to her daughter, the future queen.

  The scribe thought fondly, and a bit sadly, of the crown princess. The princess had been only two years old when the woman who was now the royal scribe came to the palace to serve in the royal library, and became the official head scribe six years later. The princess had grown into a young woman in that time, and had seen much tragedy and sadness. The invasion of Tarador's western border by Acedor's army, the untimely death of her father in battle, and the long, grinding, wearying war that had been raging hot and cold as long as the princess could remember. The prospect of becoming queen, something most girls could only dream of excitedly, only meant crushing responsibility falling onto Ariana's shoulders. And she, too, would someday have to seek a husband who could bring an advantage to her realm. Marrying for love was not something a crown princess or a queen could even dream about. It was so sad that such a kind and lovely girl-

  "However," Carlana continued, "my daughter will not be traveling to Indus. You will perform your ceremony without Ariana."

  The scribe gasped out loud, shocked. The Regent was not marrying a foreign prince, she was marrying off her own daughter!

  Carlana and the Ambassador turned sharply to look at the scribe,
whose face was red. The Ambassador asked "Will this be a problem, Your Highness?"

  "No," Carlana answered with a withering stare at her royal scribe.

  The scribe looked at the floor and curtsied. "No, Your Highness, Your Grace Ambassador Ulligrapat. I was startled is all. The office of the royal scribe has ever been discrete concerning official documents."

  Carlana turned back to the Ambassador. "This agreement will remain secret until the day before my daughter comes of age."

  The smile was gone from Usay's face, replaced by a neutral expression. "His Majesty the Emperor is, as I have stated, uncomfortable with this treaty remaining secret for so long."

  "And we have explained that such secrecy protects the crown princess." Carlana's smile was also gone. "As long as the dukes and duchesses believe there is a possibility that Ariana will marry one of their sons, they will remain content with supporting the Regency. If they learned she has been promised to a foreign prince, even a favored prince of powerful empire, some of the provinces could be tempted into, shall we say, adventures or intrigue."

  Usay openly frowned, then regained his neutral expression. The Emperor was not concerned about the secrecy of the treaty document, for many agreements between nations were secret, he was concerned for the Regent of Tarador's reason for insisting on secrecy. Carlana needed secrecy simply because her hold on power was weak. A weak Regent was not able to provide a strong guarantee that the Empire would receive in the future, the agreed benefit from the loan guarantees that took effect immediately.

  Ultimately, it did not matter, Usay knew. The negotiations for the secret betrothal of Carlana's daughter to the Emperor's second son had started with the Emperor offering loans, loan guarantees and even part of his army and navy to Tarador, for the Emperor feared that Tarador would be conquered by the Enemy. Against the common demon Enemy, Tarador's fight was the fight of all peoples, and if Tarador were to fall, Indus would not last long. Usay nodded. "Tarador's internal political matters are your concern, Your Highness. We are agreed, then? The terms we discussed here can be added to the treaty document now, and my aide and your scribe can act as witnesses?"