The Lady of Han-Gilen

by Judith Tarr

  oOo

  When autumn was well advanced but the trees wore still their scarlet and gold, Mirain paused near the border of Iban in the forests of Kurion. Having seen the army settled in a wide field, almost a plain, within the wood, and his own household established in a forest manor of Kurion’s prince, he rode out hunting.

  The air was like wine, the quarry both swift and crafty, the golden deer of the south. Elian, daring a long shot from Ilhari’s saddle, brought down a splendid hart; its flesh made their supper, its hide she gave to Ilarios, who had lent her his bow for the shot. Its crown of ivory antlers she kept as a trophy.

  The hunt had been good, but hers was the best kill; for that, as champion of the hunt, she had the place of honor at table. Mirain made her put aside his livery—“My scarlet does your hair no justice,” he said—and gave her a gift, a coat the color of an emerald, edged and embroidered and belted with gold. It was a man’s coat, but when she put it on over long fine tunic and silken trousers, there could be no doubt at all that she was a woman.

  Her first instinct was to strip it off and snatch for her livery. But he was watching, his eyes for a moment unguarded, and he said, “Sister, if I had only you to think of, I’d change my livery to green, and keep it so.”

  She waited. Her heart hammered. Now—now he would speak. But he only set a casket in her hands and went to his own dressing.

  She opened the casket. It was a royal gift, but not of necessity a lover’s. A thin circlet of gold to bind her brows, and emeralds set in gold for her ears, and a collar of gold set with emeralds. She put them on with hands that wanted desperately to shake.

  Mirain was gone already. She made herself follow him.

  Strange as her mood was, her entrance into the hall won all the stares she could have wished for. It was almost like old times: the hungry eyes, the smitten faces, leavened now with a large portion of startlement. Few might have guessed that livery could hide so much.

  Mirain’s face betrayed nothing. He smiled as she sat by him, no more or less warmly than he ever did, and greeted her with empty words. His nearness was like a fire on her skin.

  It must be that, for the first time since she came to him, she both looked and felt a woman. And he was close, and he was a man; she had never thought before how very much a man he was. It made him a stranger. It made him almost frightening.

  He brushed against her in reaching for his wine-cup. She shivered. He wore scarlet tonight, but its fashion was the fashion of the south, very close to her own, ruby to her emerald. His northerners were learning, slowly, not to be appalled when he put on trousers.

  She tried to distract herself. He was not going to speak, now or ever. And she could not. She could not say, Be my lover. No more could she say, You will never be more to me than a brother.

  His profile fascinated her. The purity of it; the fierce foreignness that yet was utterly familiar. The ruby in his ear glowed against his darkness, begging her to touch it.

  She tore her eyes from him. She was beginning to comprehend the common lot of males: the prick of passion, sudden, urgent, bitter to refuse. There was no logic in it, and very little sanity; it knew nothing of times and seasons. Save that this was her time and this her season, springtide of her womanhood, when blood sang to blood, and fire to banked and shielded fire.

  She took refuge in Halenan’s face. He was splendid to see, but his beauty only warmed her; it did not burn. He sat oblivious, deep in speech with the Kurionin prince, smiling suddenly at a turn of wit.

  Beyond them at the table’s end sat Ilarios. It might have been chance that set him so far from her. It might have been calculation.

  His eyes lifted, warming as they caught hers. She could not hold them. Her glance slid aside, restless, uneasy, alighting on comfort. Of a sort.

  Cuthan had been her friend, or so she had thought, before the truth of her womanhood built its wall between them. Sensing her gaze, he looked up.

  Without its white grin his face was as haughty as any in Ianon. His eyes were black, like his brother’s, like Mirain’s, and steady, taking her in as if she were a stranger. She could not tell what he thought of her.

  Suddenly both eyes and face were transformed. He grinned and saluted her as he had in the battle, offering for this little while all that she had lost.

  Her throat was tight. But she did as she had done then: she returned his grin.

  Cobbled courage, but it bore her up. And it distracted her most admirably.

  oOo

  This dream she would remember—must remember. Darkness and whirling, and a face, the face of the woman called Kiyali. Close, coming closer, drawn by her own desperate denial.

  The Exile’s eyes in the dreamworld were not blind at all but terribly, bitterly keen, piercing Elian to the heart. Perceiving all her hidden places, her flaws and her secrets, her lies and her cruelties and her follies.

  And understanding, and forgiving. Kinswoman, the low voice said. Blood of my blood. Why do you fear me? Why do you flee?

  “No kin,” Elian willed herself to say. It was a gasp. “Never. Enemy—”

  I am not your enemy.

  “You are Mirain’s.” Elian’s voice was stronger, her resistance firmer. Because she must resist. Blood knew blood. Kin called to kin, however bitterly sundered.

  I must oppose him. The law binds me, though its upholders sought to cast me out.

  “What law? Temple law? It was never broken. The priestess never knew man. She bore a son to the god, as all the prophecies had foretold.”

  She lied. She was mageborn, and strong; and her lover was stronger yet.

  “And the Sun in Mirain’s hand? How do you deny that?”

  Magery, the Exile said. Elian heard desperation in her simplicity. She shifted, coming closer yet. The furred collar about her shoulders opened eyes full of malice and grinned a fanged grin. Elian’s scars throbbed into pain.

  It is the truth, said the Exile, here where no lie could be. The Ianyn king is a monster of mages’ making, a weapon of the light against the chains that bind the worlds. He will break them, and call it victory, and never know the true terror of what he has done. For the sun is splendid and much beloved, but its full force can blind and destroy. And your young king would loose it upon us all.

  “He will put down the dark.”

  Has it ever risen? It is necessary, kinswoman. It is the proper counter to the force of the light. Night after burning day; winter that bears the seeds of summer, as the summer begets the winter.

  “No,” said Elian.

  The Exile stood silent. Her familiar had begun to purr.

  “No,” Elian said again. “Mirain is the god’s son. I know it. My bones know it. Even—even if his body may not be—” Her tongue tangled in confusion. That was not what she had meant to say. “The god does as he wills. He is Mirain’s father.”

  The Exile raised her chin. Age had gentled her manner, but never her pride. You deny what you cannot accept. You toy with the thought of loving him. You cannot endure that he may be your father’s son.

  The familiar hissed. It was laughing. It knew more than its mistress would tell. Brother and sister mated: what terror in that? Asanians were much given to it. In no way else could they have bred their emperors. Ziad-Ilarios himself . . .

  Elian clapped her hands over her ears, little good as it did, crying out against it all. The lies which the outcast called truth, and the truth that was woven inextricably with lies.

  Come, said the Exile. Come to me. I can give you truth unalloyed. I can set you free of all your bonds. You need never marry, nor bow to kings, nor submit to the caprices of your father.

  Elian tossed, battling.

  Free. Be free. Come with me to the world’s aid. It must not fall to the sword of the light. Stand with me as your power bids you do. It is greater than you know, and wiser. Listen to it.

  She could not hear it. The voice drowned it.

  Come with me. Come.

  Her hand stretched.
Wanting—willing—

  “No!”

  She sprang awake, crying aloud. There were hands on her, arms about her, a voice in her ear. Not that voice. Not, by the god, that deadly voice. “Elian. Elian, wake; it was only a dream.”

  With agonizing slowness the dream retreated. She crouched trembling, gasping as if she had run long and far from a terror too great to bear, clutching at the warm strength that held her, only dimly aware that it was Mirain.

  The awareness grew, calming her. He was the Sunborn. He would not let the darkness take her.

  Her breathing quieted. Her head drooped on his breast over the slow strong beating of his heart. He held her there without speaking, letting the silence heal her.

  After a long while she said, “It was more than a dream. It was power.”

  He stroked her hair gently, saying nothing.

  “Power,” she repeated. “Prophecy. It has been haunting me; I have been fighting it. But power will not be denied. The enemy is arming against us. She is very, very strong. As she should be; for she is my kin, and trained in all the arts of power, both light and dark.” She stiffened, straightening in his grasp. “We’ve been foolish, riding in the sunlight as if no cloud would ever come. She will make us pay.”

  “No,” he said. “She will not. I have been on guard. She cannot enter my kingdom.”

  Elian looked long into his face. “She cannot, but she need not. She is in it already.”

  He did not deny it; and that frightened her as nothing else had. But he said, “She shall not touch you. By my father’s hand I swear it.”

  It would be easy, so easy, to rest in the circle of his protection. Her body clung to him still, and found him strong. But her mind locked in resistance. “I’ll fight my own battles, my lord.”

  “Is this your battle?”

  She pulled away from him. “You can’t protect me from prophecy. Only I can do that.”

  “By accepting it?”

  “No!” she said quickly. But after a moment, very slowly, as if each word were dragged from her: “Yes. By—by letting it come. When we come to Han-Gilen . . . there are ways and rituals . . . O ’Varyan! Why did I have to be the one?”

  He sat on his heels beside her pallet and reached again for her, this time to take her hands and hold them. “Elian, little sister, the god gives gifts where he chooses. You are rich in them, because in his reckoning you are strong enough to bear them. I’d bear them for you if I could, if either he or you would let me.”

  “We won’t. I can’t. Any more than I can be what you are.”

  He smiled faintly, painfully. “You wouldn’t want that.”

  “Don’t try to be me, then. And don’t be so sure of yourself. Your enemy is mortal, but she is powerful, and she serves the dark. Are you strong enough to face her?”

  His hands tightened upon hers. He could sense as strongly as she the current of seeing that ran through her, speaking in her voice. “Who knows?” he said. “Who can know, unless I try?”

  “You can’t. Not now. Not tonight.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Not tonight.” He raised her hands and kissed the palm of each. “Rest now. The vision is gone; it will let you have peace.”

  Whether he spoke the truth, or whether it was his own power that worked on her, she slept almost at once, deeply, without dreams.

  FIFTEEN

  Mirain’s vanguard looked down from the hills of Han-Gilen. Below them spread the plain and the river and the white city. The sun, riding low, cast long shadows behind it of wall and turret and thin wind-whipped banner. On the tower of the temple the Sun-crystal flamed, brighter in the evening than the sun itself.

  The king gazed at it for a long, still while. He had been born there in that temple in the chanting and the incense. He had grown to young manhood under the care of its prince. This, more than Ianon, more than any other province of his empire, was the place his heart longed for.

  Elian beside him, raw with homecoming, could not tell which pangs were his and which were her own. His were sharp with years of absence, but hers were still new, edged with fear of what she would find. He could expect a royal welcome. She . . .

  Ilarios leaned from his saddle to touch the hand that clenched on her thigh. “It will be well,” he said.

  She tossed her hair out of her face, fiercely. Mirain was already moving. He would be inside the walls by night, with great ceremony, and up until dawn settling his people. She sent Ilhari after him.

  oOo

  The road to the city was rimmed with people, the gates beyond them ablaze with light. Halenan and Mirain rode side by side, the prince in a splendor of green and gold, the king all in white that glowed in the dusk, with a great mantle of white fur pouring over the Mad One’s flanks. Its scarlet lining shone in the flicker of torchlight, now blood-bright, now blood-black.

  Elian would have ridden as she had ridden to the meeting at the ford, well back among the army. But Ilhari knew her proper place: beside her sire. With no bit or bridle to compel her, and neither the will nor the willingness to overbear her with power, Elian had perforce to go where she was taken.

  The livery of the king was no shield here, where every man and woman and child knew her face. They cheered for Mirain, they cheered for Halenan, but they cried out also for her, their lady, their bright-maned princess.

  She greeted them with lifted hand and a fixed, brilliant smile. But her eyes saw none of them.

  Under the arch of the White Gate a mounted man waited alone. His stallion was as white as milk, his coat resplendent with gold; gold crowned his fiery hair.

  Dark as his face was, black in the dusk, Elian could not discern his expression, only the gleam of his eyes. They were fixed on the boy he had fostered, who had escaped his care one deep night to gain a northern kingdom, whom he had made an emperor. As the riders drew near, he dismounted and waited, tall beside his tall senel.

  Elian saw the glint of Mirain’s eyes, the swirl of his cloak as he left the saddle with the Mad One still advancing. He half strode, half ran up the last of the road; caught Prince Orsan in the act of bowing to the ground; drew him into a swift, jubilant embrace.

  “Foster-father,” he said, clear in the sudden silence, “never bow to me, you or your princess or your children. You are my heart’s kin; I owe you all that I have.”

  The prince’s voice came deep and quiet, but touched with great joy. “Not all of it, my lord An-Sh’Endor.”

  “Enough.” Mirain returned to the Mad One’s back. When the prince also had mounted, the king held out his golden hand. “I shall never forget it; I, or all the sons of my sons.”

  oOo

  Ceremony was a mighty protector of sinners. Caught up in the welcoming of the emperor to the heart of his empire, neither prince nor princess could so far trespass upon dignity as to take official notice of the face above the squire’s surcoat.

  But they were aware of her. Painfully. Excruciatingly, as the grand entry gave way to the presentation in the temple, the rite and the praises of the god, and at last to the feast of welcome.

  Elian stood close enough to her father to touch; her mother’s perfume was sweet and subtle in her nostrils, the princess clear to see on Mirain’s left side, a flawless profile, a serene dark eye. Elian could have escaped with utmost ease, with but a word, a plea to be excused.

  There was enough and more than enough to do outside in the growing camp. Hal, having had an hour alone with Anaki, was there now, seeing that everything was ordered as Mirain wished it. Cuthan had gone with him. Even Ilarios had chosen to escape this lordly duty. She had no allies here.

  She had known that before she committed herself to it. As she had known what a squire’s place was: here, standing behind her lord’s chair for every Gileni noble and servant to stare at. Wild though she had always been, none of them had ever thought to see her there.

  oOo

  The end was merciful: wine and graceful words, the departure of hosts and guests to their beds or to their d
uties. Prince Orsan had repaired and refurbished a whole wing of the palace for Mirain, at what expense she could hardly guess. He had stinted nothing.

  Mirain stood in the center of the Asanian carpet as she labored patiently to undo the fastenings of his coat. He was silent: absorbed, she thought, in contemplation of the long night’s work before him.

  She herself had little to say. She slipped the coat from his shoulders and laid it in the clothing chest, careful of its jeweled splendor. When she turned back, he was still in his trousers and his fine linen shirt, watching her.

  She took up his working garb, a kilt as plain as any trooper’s. “You should take a cloak,” she said. “The nights are cold this close to solstice.”

  He accepted the kilt, but made no move to don it. “Elian,” he said. “Why have you said no word to either your father or your mother?”

  She stood still. His gaze was steady. She knew that if she reached, his mind would be open to her touch.

  Her shields closed and firmed. “There has been no occasion,” she said, speaking High Gileni, distant and formal, with no warmth in it.

  He met her coldness with a flare of heat and the patois of the city. “You spent a whole turn of the watch within their arms’ reach.”

  “They made no effort to speak to me.”

  “They waited for you.”

  “Did they?” She began to unbind his hair.

  He pulled free. How strange, she thought within her barriers. He was aflare with temper, and she was utterly cool, utterly in control.

  “You are not!” he snapped. “Your obstinacy lies within you like an egg, hard and round and heavy, shelled in ice. Come away from it and look at yourself.”

  There was a mirror near the bed, polished silver. Because he held her in front of it, she regarded the stranger there.

  Whoever it was, it was not the child who had fled Han-Gilen in the night, this bright-haired person of ambiguous gender, lean and hard with long riding, with four thin parallel scars seaming one cheek. Its eyes had seen much and grown dark with it; its mouth tightened on—what? Grief? Pain? Anger? Crippling shyness?