by Judith Tarr
oOo
When Ilhari brought Elian back to the hilltop, the escort was gathered in a hollow out of the wind, clearing away the last of the daymeal. Adjan, whose skill in such things came close to wizardry, had lit a fire; the wine which Mirain passed to Elian in his own silver traveling cup was steaming hot and pungent with spices.
As she sipped it, Ilarios set beside her a napkinful of bread and meat. This was an ill day for her mind-shields. She caught a guardsman’s vision of her fortune: to be waited on by emperors, when by right, for abandoning her post, she should have had nothing but a reprimand.
She smiled a little wryly, a little wickedly. Ziad-Ilarios smiled back. Mirain did not see; he had turned to speak to Cuthan.
Elian’s fingers tightened around the figured surface of the cup. Her mood was as treacherous as a wind in spring. Perhaps her courses—
She drank deep of the cooling wine. No, she could not lay the blame on her body. She had been so since the army turned toward Han-Gilen, and worse since she came there.
“Yes,” Mirain was saying to Cuthan, “it has begun. He knew it would be today.”
The young lord laughed. “One would think he was the one who was birthing the child.”
“I think he would if he could. But Anaki knows her business. She bears well and easily, and as serenely as she does all else.”
“A very great lady, that one.”
“Greater than most people know. She could be a queen if she chose.”
“An empress?”
Mirain tossed back his heavy braid and laughed. “Her lord might allow it, under duress. But she never would.”
Carefully Elian set down the empty cup. She could sense what Mirain spoke of, that the birthing had begun.
It would not go on long, as such things went. With Anaki it never did. By the time the riders reached the city, the banners would be flying, green for a royal daughter.
The wine’s warmth had faded. Elian was suddenly, freezingly cold.
oOo
As the last light of Avaryan touched the turrets of the city, no banners flew there, either princess green or princely gold. Ah well, thought Elian, it was early yet. And she was a fool for thinking so much of it.
What did it matter to her how long Anaki lay in childbed? She was no part of it. She had sundered herself from her kin.
Neither prince nor princess took the nightmeal in hall. Mirain, alight still with the dream of his city, was inclined to tarry, spreading thick rolls of parchment on a cleared table, bending over them with brush and stylus. When Elian withdrew, he was deep in colloquy with a small man in blue, her father’s master builder.
“When he dreams,” said Ilarios beside her, “he dreams to the purpose.”
She walked with him down the lamplit corridor. “Mirain has no dreams. Only true visions. Even when he was a child, he never said if. He always said when. ”
“Superb in his confidence, that one.” The high prince clasped his hands behind him, studying her. “Lady, are you troubled?”
Her brows knit. “Why should I be?”
He shrugged slightly.
She turned with the sharpness of temper, striding down a side passage. After a moment’s hesitation he followed her. She did not look at him, but she saw him too clearly, a golden presence on the edge of vision. “Why do you always wear gold? Is it a law?”
“I thought it suited me.”
“It does,” she said.
“Should I try another color, for variety? Green, maybe? Scarlet?”
“Black. That would be striking.”
He bowed, amused. “Black it shall be, then. An incognito. Have you ever marked this? If a man wears always one color or fashion, he has but to change it and no one will know him.”
“Everyone knows you.”
“Yes? I venture a wager, lady. Any stakes you name.”
She stopped. He was laughing, delighted with himself. “What would you venture, my lord?”
“I, my lady—I would wager the topaz in my coronet, against . . .” He paused, eyes dancing. “Against a kiss.”
Her lip curled. “Then you are a fool. If I win, I gain a jewel worth half a princedom; if I lose, I lose nothing by it.”
“Well, two kisses, and a lock of your hair.”
“And this knife to cut it with.”
“Done, my lady.” He bowed over her hand, half courtly, half mocking. “Shall I escort you to your chamber?”
“My thanks,” she said, “but no.”
He knew her well, now. He did not try to press her.
oOo
She watched him go, turning then, letting her feet lead her as they pleased. Where she wished to go, she did not know. Some of the palace ways teemed with people; she sought those less frequented, winding through the labyrinth, yet with no fear of losing herself. No child of the Halenani could do that, not in this place that the Red Princes had built.
At last she paused. The door before her was different from the others, richly carved with beasts and birds. It opened easily to the touch of her hand.
Within, all was dark, with the hollowness of disuse. She made a witchlight in the palm of her hand and advanced slowly.
Nothing had changed. There was the bed with its green hangings; the carpet like a flowery meadow; the table and the tall silver mirror; and her armor on its frame like a guardsman in the gloom. Over it lay a silken veil, flung there she could not remember when, and left so because it suited her whimsy.
Setting the light to hover above her head, she took up the veil. Its fineness caught and rasped on her callused fingers. She draped it, drawing it across her cheek.
The mirror reflected a paradox: a royal squire with the head of a maiden. She laughed, an abrupt, harsh sound.
Her gowns lay in their presses, scented with sweet herbs. Green, gold, blue, white. No scarlet. Red gowns and red hair made an ill match.
She drew out a glow of deep green, splendid yet simple, velvet of Asanion sewn with a shimmer of tiny firestones. Prince Orsan had had it made for her, the princess and her ladies stitched the myriad jewels, a gift for Elian’s birth-feast.
It fit still. She had grown no taller and certainly no broader, though the bodice was somewhat more snug than she remembered.
Now the strangeness was reversed: boy’s shorn mane, maiden’s ripening body. Her face hung between, more maid indeed than boy, with a drawn and discontented look.
“Life,” she said to it, “seems not to agree with you.”
She sank down. The full skirt pooled about her. Unconsciously she smoothed it, as a bird will preen even in a cage, gazing beyond it at the heap of scarlet that was her livery.
Here, exactly here, she had begun it all. And here in the end she had returned. To sneer at what she had been; to exult over her victory; to huddle on the floor, too bleak to weep, too empty to rage.
This then was her oath’s fulfillment. A closed door and a dark room, and no one to care where she went. No one to ask, no one to tell—
She flung herself to her feet. “Gods damn them all!”
oOo
The prince was not in his chamber nor the princess in her bower; the bed they shared was empty, their servants meeting Elian’s fire with carefully bland faces. Having humbled herself so far, she could not bear to be so thwarted. “Where are they, then?” she snapped.
It was her father’s body-servant who answered, perfect in his dignity; but when she was very small he had played at hunt-and-hide with her. His eyes upon her were warm and brimming, radiating welcome. “Surely my lady knows: they are with my lord Halenan.”
Who was with his lady in his own house, in a shell of silence. No royal child of Han-Gilen could be laid open at birth to the sorceries of an enemy; so was each born within the shield of its kinsfolk’s power. In her preoccupation with her own troubles, she had forgotten.
She paused. Surely her errand could wait. Shame was creeping in, and shyness, and some of her old obstinacy. The morning would be a good time, a
glad time, better and gladder than this. No one needed her now. She would only be in the way.
Somehow she had a mantle about her and a page before her with a lamp, and the gate-guards were letting her pass, bowing before her.
Halenan’s house under the sun was high and fair, set in the lee of the temple, with gardens running down to the river. In this black night it loomed like the crag of Endros, its gate shut and barred, all within as silent to the mind as to the ear.
The guard was long in coming to her call, longer still in opening the gate. He did not forbid her the entry, although he eyed her in what might have been suspicion.
There were shields within shields. This that caught her on the threshold had a dark gleam, a hint of her father.
She flared her own red-gold against it. Slowly it yielded. A moment only; firming behind her, on guard against any threat.
Even in her cloak of fur, she was cold. But was it not always so? She had never been outside it before, but in its heart, lending her own power to the rest. She gathered her skirts and pressed forward.
Twice more she was halted, twice more she proclaimed her right to pass. Then a door was open before her with a woman on guard, and within, the birthing.
Her father sat on the ledge of a shuttered window, eyes closed yet seeing all about him with the keenness of power. Her mother, lovely as always, elegant as always, rested beside him with a lamp above her and a bit of needlework in her hands. On the bed lay Anaki, Hal’s bright head bent over her and the birthing-woman intent upon her. It was like a vision in water, silent but for the rasp of Anaki’s breath; and in the mind, nothing.
The prince’s eyes opened. The princess turned her head. Halenan looked up.
Elian stepped through the door and staggered. Pain—there was always that. But this was worse—worse—
She never remembered crossing the room, but she was there, beside the bed. Anaki’s sweet plain face was streaming wet, distorted with pain, but she managed a smile, a word. “Sister. So glad—”
Halenan silenced her with a caress. His smile was less successful than hers, but his voice was stronger. “Yes, little sister, we are glad.”
“What,” Elian said. “What is—”
“Our daughter,” he answered almost lightly, “takes after you. All contrary, and fighting us into the bargain.”
Contrary indeed. Elian, unfolding a tendril of power, found the child head upward, feet braced. And being what she was, magebred, she fought not only with her body but with her infant power, struggling against this force that would compel her into the cruel light, striking at her mother in her blind and blinded terror. Anaki had power of her own, both strong and quiet, but this battle had sapped it; she could not both bear her body’s pain and soothe her child.
“She needs greater healing than I can give,” the Red Prince said. He had come to Elian’s side and taken her hand, calmly, as if nothing had ever happened between them.
She let her cold fingers rest in his warm strong ones. She felt dull, numbed, as if she had endured a long siege of weeping. Of course it would happen so. It must.
Unless—
“Mirain,” she said. “He has the power. He can—”
Her brother looked at her. Simply looked, without either pleading or condemnation.
Her eyes slid away. Anaki strained under the midwife’s hands, twisting, crying out with effort and with agony. The lash of power from within, untrained, uncontrolled, turned the cry to a shriek.
Elian’s own power reached without her willing it, in pure instinct, clasping, bending, thus.
There were words in it. Ah no, child. Would you kill your mother? Come with me. Come, so . . .
“Elian.” She stared at what Hal set in her hands. Dark red, writhing feebly, and howling with all its strength.
Above it hovered its father’s broad white grin. “And Elian,” he said in high glee. “What better name for your very image?”
“My very—” She drew her namesake close, and returned her brother’s grin with one that wobbled before it steadied. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Breathtakingly.” Halenan reclaimed his offspring, to lay her in her mother’s arms. Anaki was grey-pale and weary, but she smiled.
Elian’s knees buckled. Hands caught her. Many. Her father’s; her mother’s.
Mirain’s.
She blinked. “Where—how—”
“Rest first.”
She fought free, glaring at Mirain. “You knew! You plotted this. You made me—”
“We did,” Mirain agreed. “Later, if you like, you may continue in your cowardice. Today you will be civil. And that, madam, is a command.”
His eyes flickered upon her. Half of it was laughter; half of it was not.
She looked past him. She came of a proud family. They would never plead, would never even hint at it. Yet the eyes upon her were warm, offering, if only she would take. Only if she would take.
Her throat closed. She held out her hands. “Since,” she choked out, “since my king commands . . . and since . . .”
They were there, all of them who could be, and Anaki in spirit, enfolding her. In that circle where she most longed to be strong, she broke and cried like a child.
SEVENTEEN
From the screened gallery, one could look down into the hall and not be seen oneself. Which was why that narrow balcony was called the ladies’ bower, and the sentry post.
Elian supposed that she was a little of both. Although she had returned to Mirain’s livery, a gown or two had found its way among the coats and trousers in her clothing chest.
Her mother had not even looked askance at her. The joy of reunion was still too fresh, and with it the fear of a new flight.
Not so long ago, she would have been glad to see her mother taking pains to voice no censure, to accept her as she was. But now that she had the upper hand, it did not matter.
Victories were always so. Savorless, even a little shameful.
She shook herself hard. That victory deserved no sweetness. The best of it was the joy: that she had her family again; that her battle with them had been no battle at all, only her own craven stubbornness.
Even now her father’s mind brushed hers; she felt the warmth of his smile, although he seemed to be intent on the petitioner before his throne. Her brother stood behind him. Mirain, though king and emperor, did not interfere in this business of the ruling prince, but effaced himself among the higher nobles.
Or tried. Not a man there but knew where he was, he who without height or beauty or splendor of dress remained the Sunborn.
Elian peered down at the gathering. Today Ilarios meant to win his wager; restraining power, she left the search to her eyes. Who would have believed that there were so many fair-haired people in Han-Gilen? Or that so many of them would choose to wear dark colors on this day of all days?
Some of them were women. Some were too tall, some too broad or too narrow, most too dark of face: Gileni brown or bronze. One with a mane of the true bright gold—but no, it was a woman, and she wore deep blue.
There, at last. Near the somber-clad scribes, almost among them. That angle of the head was unmistakable.
Somehow he had disposed of his shadows, or they had concealed themselves too perfectly even for her eyes’ finding. He wore a scribe’s fusty gown, and he carried a writing case; his hair was pulled back and knotted at the nape of his neck.
Without that golden frame, his face seemed rounder, younger. Yet he still looked royal; imperial.
No one took the slightest notice of him.
A man approached him, a lord of the court. Knowing surely who he was, speaking to him.
Ilarios bent his head in what he must have deemed to be humility. The lord gestured, lordly-wise, and Asanion’s high prince sat cross-legged at the end of the fine of scribes and began to write to the nobleman’s dictation.
Was that a smile in the corner of his mouth?
oOo
When Ilarios left the
hall, Elian was waiting for him. He clutched his writing case to his breast and bowed, all servile; but when he straightened he was laughing for sheer delight.
She laughed with him, and kissed him. There was no thought in it. It was very sweet, and he was startled, which made it sweeter still.
He took her hand. “Lady,” he said breathlessly. “Oh, lady.” But though he looked and sounded even younger than she, he remained Ilarios. “There are better places than this to collect the rest of my wager.”
A lady passed with all her retinue. Seeing the scribe and the squire together in the passage, she beckoned imperiously. “Here, penman! I have need of you.”
Elian stiffened. Ilarios’ eyes danced. Oh, people were blinder even than she had thought, if they reckoned him a meek commoner.
“Yes, madam,” he said. “At once, madam.”
Elian caught his sleeve, slowing his retreat. “When you finish. The south tower.”
His smile was his only response.
oOo
He was slow in coming to the tower. But it was a pleasant place, high up over the city, with her father’s library at the bottom of it. Choosing a book at random, Elian mounted the long twisting stair.
The chamber at the top had been a schoolroom not so long ago, and would be again when Halenan’s children were old enough to leave their nurse for a tutor. The furnishings were ancient and battered and exceedingly comfortable, laden with memories. The tallest chair had been hers, because she was the smallest, and because it had the only cushioned seat, though the cushion was stone-hard and full of lumps. Her behind, settling into it, remembered each hill and valley.
She leaned on the heavy age-darkened table. Its top was much hacked and hewn, inscribed with the names of bored pupils. Royal names, most of them. Halenan was very common, carved in numerous hands. Nine, Hal had always insisted, although their firstfather could not possibly have learned his letters here, wild wanderer that he was, with nothing to his name when he came to Han-Gilen but a sword and a gift of wizardry. Hal had carved the ancient name again, making it ten, and ruined his second-best dagger in doing it.
Her finger traced the letters, gliding from them across the ridged wood to the bright gleam of a wonder. It looked like a sunburst marvelously wrought of inlaid gold. But no goldsmith had set it there to gleam incongruously amid the childish scrawls. Mirain had done it by no will of his own, not long after his mother died, when power and temper roiled in him and made his grief a deadly thing.
