Bitter Moon Saga

by Amy Lane

  He had been awakened in the dark of the night by Lane and Bethen, giggling like children as they returned late to their own bed, and then a few hours later by a sudden worry for Aldam and Roes. Only the thought they had probably taken his room in Stanny’s flat allowed him to go back to his fitful sleep.

  When the sun poured through the kitchen window, lighting the dark and cool living room through the doorway, he could bear it no more and ventured into the kitchen to eat the thick bread and tart berries Bethen had set out when she’d returned the night before. He had thought he wouldn’t be able to eat, but he was young and put in a good day’s work at Lane’s warehouse, and he had to concede that since Roes made the bread, it was well worth eating. He was on his second piece, slathered in butter and jam, when Bethen plumped next to him with surprising grace for a large woman and reached over him for the bowl of blackberries. She grabbed a handful and began munching happily. She was wearing a cotton wrapper around what looked like one of her husband’s oldest shirts and cheerfully ignored the fact that he was sitting at her table barechested and in his lightly woven underwear. Her hair, a fuzzy mixture of red and gray, fell around her round, freckled face in soft waves, and he had a sudden thought that to Lane, she must look seven kinds of beautiful.

  “You slept like hell,” she murmured, eyeing him wisely, and he grimaced, but blunt was Bethen Moon’s style. “You should have followed Torrant downstairs, and then you both would have slept better.”

  Aylan made a protesting sound in his throat and shoved another bite of bread and butter in his mouth. Bethen had always treated him warmly, just as she’d treated Trieste, Torrant, and Aldam, and he’d tried to leave her with the impression that he was a good, respectful boy. These were decent people, he’d said that first year, and every year they had taken him into their home with their loved ones and their livelihood without reservations and without prejudices. He never wanted that first opinion of him to change.

  “Do you think I don’t see you lusting after him, dear boy? We don’t hold with the same twists to old-fashioned lust that they do in the Jeweled Lands. It’s fine to have a go at lust, if that’s what you want.”

  Aylan swallowed the big wad of bread in his mouth, and it landed in his stomach like a lead ball. “He’s the best friend I’ve got.” He thought dismally of the name he’d burnt into a bowl of ashes during his first year of school. “And he’s the closest thing to family I’ll ever have.”

  Bethen smacked him upside the head, hard enough to put stars in his eyes and make him glad he had already swallowed his bread. “Dueant’s crispy testicles, woman!” He rubbed his head gingerly and glared at the mild-looking woman in shock.

  Bethen’s unrepentant grin took him back a notch. “Do you know, Aylan Moon, that’s the first time in four years I’ve actually heard you swear? I’ve heard the new words you’ve taught Cwyn, but not once have you let me hear you.”

  “So?”

  She stood, tightening her worn, cotton wrapper around her, and moved his hand from the sore spot on his head, then bent down and very gently kissed his smarting scalp through his soft gold curls with all the mothering in her formidable soul. “So, Aylan Moon,” she murmured against his ear, holding his head as though she was hugging Starry and telling her the boogie man wasn’t coming, “you’re one of ours now—as long as you act out of love, there’s no way you can make a mistake so bad that we won’t forgive you for it. If you had followed Torrant downstairs and rid yourself of a little frustration—and taught that boy a thing or two about lust I think he still needs to learn—the world would not have flipped on its axis, and the moons would still rise in the sky. And you would still have a place here, Aylan, because this here is your home. And until you make your own home somewhere, and surround yourself with a family who loves you, we will always be your home. So don’t be too afraid to swear—although do try not to get Cwyn into more trouble than necessary, yes? And don’t be afraid to make mistakes here. Here is where you’re safe.” Bethen straightened and went to the cold box, where she pulled out a glass pitcher of milk that had been kept low and near the chunk of ice at the bottom, and then poured a mug for both of them.

  Aylan sat at the table, blinking and stunned. “I…. It was just a name,” he murmured, not trying to be insulting but trying to explain that she didn’t need to be like this, didn’t need to mother him. His own mother hadn’t said more than a handful of phrases to him since he’d left for school, when he was not much older than Cwyn.

  “Too damned bad,” Bethen replied mildly then took a deep draft of milk. She wiped away the milk mustache, but there was still some at the corners of her mouth, and Aylan tried not to grin when she turned to him. She saw it, though, and laughed a little. She wiped her mouth unrepentantly on her sleeve, then took the bread Aylan had laid on the table unheeded, bit daintily, and gave it back. She spoke again, staring contemplatively at her milk. “Torrant brought you home with him for a reason, you know. That boy hasn’t asked for a thing from us, not once in eight years of living here as family, but he asked for the two of you to find a place here. I’ll miss Trieste too—I’ll miss her a lot, boyo, don’t mistake me.” She drained the milk and looked at Aylan sideways as if to see if he had lost his stunned expression. He hadn’t, so she set her ceramic mug down on the scarred wooden table with a little thump and picked fitfully at the berries, munching on them as though to make him comfortable more than to fill her stomach. “But I’d miss you more, Aylan, because you need us more. There’s no promise of a kingdom and a rich old man out there to take care of you.”

  She looked at him full on, and he looked back nakedly, almost in tears. She reached out a motherly hand to his cheek and cupped it, then accepted the weight of his head as he leaned into her touch. “I read it in your eyes the moment you walked through my door and took charge of my youngest child, Aylan Moon—you would treat her as though she was made of glass, because you know what it feels like to shatter. Well, darling, I know you and Lane have been plotting and planning and talking politics and things that men assume women can’t manage, even the best men like my beloved. But you need to know that no matter where you fall, no matter what you do to get crushed, my boy, this family will be here to pick up the pieces. Do you hear me?”

  Aylan nodded against her hand and swallowed, hard, and then summoned up his most rakish grin from the bottom of his toes. “I hear you, Bethen my darling,” he said lightly through his tears, “but I wish you’d told me this last night. It’ll be another year before I can talk that boy into my bed again.”

  Bethen laughed sweetly and patted his cheek. “Well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be,” she murmured. “Now I’d best get back into bed myself. The children promised to let us sleep in this morning, and I’d hate for them to be deprived of their good deed.” She stood and kissed the top of his head again, then padded quietly back down the hall. It wasn’t until years later that Aylan realized she had stayed up all night just to talk to him.

  Trieste Lands on Her Feet

  TRIESTE PACED nervously in the King’s study, waiting for her husband to come down so they could meet the assemblage of nobles invited for their wedding feast as a couple.

  It was a nice room, she thought distractedly. The paneling was cherrywood and the furniture pale-colored leather. Tapestries hung on the wall, and although she was too distracted to study the scenes, she saw they had a lot of blue and green in them. Blue was her favorite color—it automatically put her at ease.

  The wedding had gone without a hitch, considering her parents got her to Otham precisely two hours before the ceremony, hurriedly dressed her in froth, and, with a harsh admonition not to make a fool of them (coincidentally one of maybe six or eight sentences they’d said to her from the moment they picked her up), shoved her down the aisle of the Twin’s Temple. She hadn’t seen the groom because of the amount of froth in her eyes until the priest had intoned, “If you vow honor and compassion to one another, you may kiss each other in joy,” and suddenly
the froth in front of her eyes was lifted by two fine-boned hands and she had seen….

  Well, it had been a surprise, that’s for certain.

  Alec of Otham was neither old nor ugly. In fact, he possessed perfectly ordinary brown eyes, with crinkles at the corners that, she had learned from watching Torrant and Lane and Bethen, indicated he liked to smile a lot. His face was clean featured, with a rather bold nose, but a nice square jaw to balance, and hair that had probably been blond in his youth but was brownish now, with little streaks of silver here and there. With a shock, she realized he was positively handsome, and the nearly fifteen-year age difference did nothing at all to make that go away. They hadn’t had a chance to say much to each other. They’d kissed, in a friendly, impersonal way; then they’d greeted the assembly, got showered in flower petals, and driven past cheering crowds in a carriage drawn by four horses obviously descended from Torrant’s monster back in the Eiran stables.

  When they arrived at the castle (which was made of peach-colored granite with lots of turrets in the air, marble on the floor, and brass fixtures that sparkled cheerily), they were ushered to their separate, if adjoined, rooms by a very nervous steward who kept insisting they only had a few moments to dress before he disappeared. (Trieste had needed help with that, but the girl they assigned to be her ladies’ maid had been sturdy, no-nonsense, and kind, and had reminded Trieste a lot of Roes, so she had done well with being waited on.) Alec had leaned in as the steward left, told her to meet him in his study with a voice that was surprisingly deep and decidedly pleasant, and, well, here she was.

  Why not his bedroom? she wondered nervously, trying not to bite at her thumbnail. He had every right—they both knew he was going to have to use that ominous door that evening…. The servants would gossip if he didn’t. Why not his bedroom?

  “I’m sorry,” said that same deep, pleasant voice, and she whirled, gasping, to find her groom entering diffidently into his own study. “I didn’t want to presume,” he said with a shy smile and a little duck to his head. He was tall, and she could tell he fought against sloping his shoulders.

  “Presume?” she asked, pleased that her voice was strong.

  “The bedroom thing.” He grimaced. “I know we’re expected and all, and I really hope, well, I hope we’ll enjoy that, but….” He met her eyes then, that charming grimace still in place. “I just thought I should have a conversation with a girl before insisting on my lordly rights in bed. Is that all right?”

  Trieste found she was smiling, and she inclined her head with sincere gratitude. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “It was a very thoughtful thing to do.”

  Suddenly the nervous ducking stopped, and the grimace turned into an honest smile. “Thank you. That was… graciously said.”

  Trieste found she had a laugh, not the nervous type, ready in her belly. “Just to warn you, I’m not always gracious. I can be all elbows and knees sometimes.”

  “Yes?” The smile turned into a grin, and her heart stuttered in her chest. “Me too. How are you on horseback?”

  She grinned back. “Horrible. Torrant used to say it was like watching a kitten ride a fish.”

  He laughed, then said, “Torrant?” with a gentle question, and Trieste felt a flush steal over her entire body.

  “My first…,” she stammered, flushed some more, remembered a vow on a Solstice morning to be brave, and tried again. “My first lover,” she said at last, and was more than surprised to see that Alec’s smile hadn’t dimmed.

  “You’ve had other—”

  “One.”

  “You’ve had another lover?” he asked, without sounding angry, jealous, affronted, or any of the things she had feared.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “At Triannon.”

  “I’m so glad!” Alec said, walking toward her and looking more relaxed than he had since entering the room.

  “I’m so surprised!” she replied frankly, and that grin really was starting to flutter her heart in the strongest way.

  Alec shook his head and tried to explain. “My first wife died, and suddenly all my advisors were saying ‘marry, marry’ and I just… chose the most advantageous match, that was all. And while I was waiting for you to come of age, I kept wondering about you—about how you felt about all this. You were, what, fourteen? Fifteen? When we were betrothed?”

  “Twelve,” she answered softly. Right when a young girl began to have romantic thoughts of the man she might marry.

  “Right—so you see, I began to worry. I had taken this poor child and sort of condemned her to this life with me, and I couldn’t back out of the contract. I mean, there was no reason on either side, and… it wasn’t like I had fallen in love with someone else… but—” He smiled in a self-deprecating way. “—but I began to hope, for your sake, that you got to have some things of your choosing in your life. And that included a lover, someone of your choice.”

  “Oh,” Trieste murmured, speechless. What was there to say to a complete stranger who had just accurately read the last four years of her life?

  “I hope,” said Alec, looking uncertain again, “that… that he was a good man?”

  Trieste smiled, her eyes warming. “The best,” she answered softly.

  “Did you… uhm… learn from him?” he asked, and now he was flushing, because there could be no doubt that “learn” had nothing to do with having met at the university.

  “I learned that kindness and laughter are comfortable bedmates,” she said with a soft smile and earned one from Alec in return.

  “The best lesson I could ask for,” he replied with a nod. Their eyes met then for a moment that stopped Trieste’s heart, and she had her first, sudden, skin-tingling realization that this man would be touching her skin and kissing (yes, he would kiss, there would be tenderness, she knew with this man) and consciously Trieste made herself take a breath. And another. Across from her (when did he get so close?) she heard Alec do the same, and they stood, breathing in syncopation for a weighted moment, until she took a step back with a self-conscious, half-breathed laugh.

  With no smile at all, Alec asked, “I hope you didn’t leave such an excellent young man brokenhearted?”

  Trieste gave a real laugh, wry and not bitter. “Not at all,” she responded. “We said our good-byes before I left—in fact, I think he was relieved. He has a moon-destined. He’s just waiting for her to grow up, that’s all.”

  “A moon-destined—I mean, those are real? How can you tell?” Alec asked, avidly curious, but also, in a flatteringly obvious way, fiercely relieved.

  Trieste smiled, and a picture clear as a spring day etched itself behind her eyes, of her first lover silhouetted against a dying sun, with his arm looped around a child’s shoulder as they spoke of nothings bigger than the sea.

  “You can tell,” she answered after a soft moment, her voice and eyes terribly sober. “Seeing them together.” She shook her head. “There is not a doubt in your mind that their hearts have beat in unison since before they both were born. It’s like they were stars in the same sky, pulsing with the same light. And not just them. The whole family is riddled with moon-destined lovers, and for all of them, it feels like the world is right, just to be in the same room.” She smiled dreamily. “You can’t even be jealous, not even a little, because every fiber in your being tells you the world will be perfect, if only they can be together.”

  Alec blinked, and Trieste felt all her earlier self-consciousness flooding back. “It sounds like a lovely family,” he said to cover the awkward moment.

  “The best,” she repeated firmly, realizing that not only was Alec of Otham not likely to have her publicly flogged for not being a virgin (a practice more and more common in the provinces), but that she could talk to this man. “Everything I’ve ever dreamed about being a sister and a daughter, I learned there.”

  “But you’re not still in love with the young man?” Alec asked insistently.

  “I’m not pining for him, if that’s what you mean,
Alec.” Again, she gave him that thoughtful smile. “I’ll always love him like family—I hope that’s not a problem.”

  “No.” Alec shook his head. “Not at all…. It’s just….” And now he was very uncomfortable, almost adolescent in the way he ducked the head.

  “Just what?” Trieste felt comfortable enough with this nice man to move up to him and smile quietly into his kind brown eyes. She got a faint scent from the skin of his neck as she looked up along his black-velvet covered chest (wider than she’d thought) and into a clean-lined, pleasing countenance. He smelled like chamomile and mint, which was surprising and welcome.

  Alec swallowed, his throat bobbing as he did so. Trieste could see because she was about eye-level. “It’s just that… you’re nice. You’re terribly nice… and you could be the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in my life, and I just want to know there’s a chance, a small chance, that maybe we could be something to each other.” He met her eyes, both of them riding the misty heat of a terrible blush. “That’s all.”

  Trieste was floored, touched, and bewildered all in one stammer. “Do you really think I’m beautiful?” she asked in shock.

  Alec smiled again, all his self-confidence seeming to flood him in a rush. “I think you’re positively dazzling,” he told her, his kind brown eyes sincere.

  Trieste’s breath caught in her throat, and she made a helpless sound, and her hand came up to her mouth as she looked at him.

  “What?” he asked, smiling and not panicked anymore, she could tell as she gazed at him with awe in her eyes.