Bitter Moon Saga

by Amy Lane

  The furniture in the Moon home was an eclectic mix of battered, reupholstered couches and divans, heavy-duty wooden chairs, and Bethen’s embroidered tapestries had covered nearly every wall, until they were replaced by Roes’s, Yarri’s, or Starry’s as the young women grew. The only breakable in the house was the carved cuckoo clock that Bethen and Lane had received when they married. It was anchored securely above the fireplace and was, as Bethen was fond of saying, the nicest, most out-of-place object in the entire house.

  The Moons of Clough had lived in a stately mansion, with stained and varnished wood. The kitchen table had been a little battered and usually covered with placemats because the entire household ate there, and the boys of the house were growing fast and spilled soup as a rule rather than an exception. The floors had been oiled and sanded once a year, and allowed to weather for the rest of the time, and the décor had been heavy on books, tapestries, and light on small, breakable things, unless they had been on top of the solid oak bookcase, and far from Yarri’s clever hands.

  The living quarters of the palace in Dueance, the capitol of Clough, were decorated in white. The floor was tiled in white, the table was glass-topped, white-painted wrought iron, and white rugs topped the tile floors in all of the rooms except the sitting room. The sitting room featured a full-bodied snowcat skin.

  Torrant found the snowcat skin the least repulsive feature of the entire quarters. At least, he thought sadly, looking at the brother of his hidden life, Rath’s true, predatory ruthlessness was on display for all to see, and not relentlessly coated in layer upon layer of ceramics, oil, and lies.

  Torrant sat with the other young regents on one side of the great banquet table in Rath’s dining room and smiled stiffly at the humorless older man sitting across from him.

  “So,” Torrant said gamely, with a sideways shake of his head to Eljean to warn him from the wine, “is it always so hot in Dueance this time of year?”

  “You should know, Ellyot,” Minero of Trexel answered sourly. “You claim to have lived here during your youth.”

  Torrant dredged up a game smile and even some twinkling eyes. “Well, yes, sir, but I was a youth. We ran outside, rode horses, felt wind on our face, bathed in the swimming hole come evening. We didn’t stand about in three layers of linens and a fashionable cloak with a velveteen hat and pretend we were so powerful that even the heat didn’t bother us. I was just wondering how many weeks I had left of washing out my small clothes during the break between sessions. That’s all.”

  Minero of Trexel paled. “That’s unfit for dinner conversation, young man, and you know it.” The man’s dyed dark hair was suddenly in full view as he pointedly turned to the man next to him to speak.

  “Not really,” Torrant muttered to Eljean on his left. Eljean tried to mask a snort of more-than-nervous laughter with a swallow of wine, and when he saw the expression on Torrant’s face he gaped with almost comic realization of the fact that they didn’t know if the wine was poisoned or not.

  Torrant grimaced and shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he whispered to Eljean in an undertone. “He has to pour the wine from a carafe. Unless it was in the glass, it’s probably damned hard to dose just us and not all his staunch supporters on the other side of the table.”

  Eljean blew out his breath in relief and met Torrant’s wry gaze with miserable green eyes. “If I was any more poof about this, I’d be on the front gates,” he muttered, and Torrant looked at him, hard. Not even Eljean was that indiscreet. Before he could lean over and ask a question, or check his wine goblet to see how much Eljean had drunk, Rath entered the room to sit at the table, and they all rose to greet him.

  He looked as he always looked—tall, aesthetic, with perfectly iron-gray hair and matching mustache. His clothes were as black as the room was white, as though he enjoyed the perfect contrast, and although he affected a smile for his guests, the lines in the corner of his eyes and around the bottom of his mouth made it clear that the expression was unfamiliar. He surveyed his banquet guests with an obvious satisfaction: perhaps the symmetry of the evil on one side of the banquet table and the good on the other pleased him. After that long, obvious survey of the world as he saw it, the guests settled themselves, the first course was served, and Rath bowed his head in prayer.

  Torrant was suddenly aware that Aylan had been right. He was unsuited for this line of work, because even if it cost him his head, he couldn’t pray with the man who had killed his family, not even a prayer to the one god of Rath’s that he believed in.

  He kept his head upright and his eyes on the head of the table during prayer. Rath raised his head after a moment of what appeared to be earnest contemplation of the virtues of Pride in one’s country and was surprised enough at Ellyot Moon’s steady gaze to flinch. He tried to cover his surprise with an overly genial invitation to eat.

  “Why thank you, Consort,” Torrant said with a small smile. Underneath the table he felt Eljean’s knee on the one side of him and Aerk’s ankle against his own. Down the table, everyone—both his regents and Rath’s across from him—had their forks on their plates, ready to dig in. “I truly hope everything is as good as it looks.”

  Torrant’s smile didn’t even break as his and Eljean’s food began to writhe on their plates like dying worms on the fisherman’s hook. Aerk, however, darted his gaze from Torrant’s plate to his own, untainted food, and Eljean looked in disbelief at Marv’s perfectly normal plate of greens next to his own fouling, composting plate of poison.

  The silence at the table was weighted with the gravity of a dark star. Rath’s face paled, then flushed, then paled again, as his gaze locked with Torrant’s, and the consort realized that whatever pretenses he had attempted to keep in front of Owen Moon’s son had just died a wriggling, brown death.

  It was Aerk who broke the silence, apologetically but with his usual forthrightness. “I’m sorry, Consort—apparently your chef didn’t inspect what he sent out of his kitchen. It appears that Ellyot and Eljean have some sort of….” He floundered then, knowing exactly what it was that had been in their food, but not wanting to say it.

  “Contamination,” Torrant supplied smoothly. He smiled winningly, although his eyes stayed a cold hazel. “It seems that something was on our plates that wasn’t supposed to be. Is it possible to take it back?”

  Rath swallowed. “Of course,” he acceded. “My apologies to you both. I have no idea what came over my chef. He’s usually so conscientious.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he was this time as well,” Eljean burbled, and then closed his eyes, hard, as Torrant glared at him. With a deep breath he opened his eyes and shook his head, as though trying to clear it, and Torrant widened his own eyes. Of course. The wine. Eljean was susceptible as it was, but there was probably something in their glasses to make talk come just a little more freely.

  “Well,” said the consort, visibly pulling his composure back on—and looking decidedly predatory toward Eljean and his goblet of wine, “feel free to drink with us as the chef re-prepares your food.”

  “In truth, Consort,” Torrant said, alerting his regents even though he couldn’t actually send his gift out to seal a spell, “wine on an empty stomach is always a bad idea.”

  Marv was so startled by the warning that he actually dropped his wine goblet into his salad, spilling it over his doublet and hose, swearing without thinking as he jumped out of his chair and danced backward, trying to keep the red from staining anymore of his best outfit.

  “Dueant have mercy.” Torrant burst out in an honest laugh. “Djali, could you show him a place to clean up?”

  “Sorry, Ellyot,” Marv muttered as Djali rolled his eyes and escorted him out, and Torrant didn’t care who heard his affectionate, “Clumsy wanker!” as he left. Enough was enough. They were the ones who had almost been poisoned, and his friends had nothing to be sorry for.

  He turned toward the table a great deal less nervous than he had been, only to find that the opposing side of the table as
well as Consort Rath were glaring at him as though he’d actually dropped his trousers and waggled his skinny white arse in their direction. He heard his friends’ captured breaths, as well as Eljean’s suppressed squeak as the full force of that frosty regard hit them, but he was beyond being hurt by anything these men could do.

  “What have I done now?” he inquired pleasantly. “Did I wear the wrong color? Comb my hair the wrong way? Is the word ‘wank’ worth a death sentence now?” The servant who had been by to clean up Marv’s mess tried to give him a plate of greens, but he waved the man off. He was damned if he’d have so much as a sip of water from these people, but he was also damned if he’d leave early, either.

  “Dueant is the god of Pride,” Rath said, sounding extremely put out. “I know you grew up in a backwater, but really, haven’t you been here long enough to learn our ways?”

  And the debate was on.

  “Why would I want to learn that one?” Torrant asked, wishing for a glass of water to swig, because it would make a nice counterpoint. “Pride is nothing to worship, and you can’t make me.”

  “Why would you want to worship compassion?” asked Minero across from him, not trying to be condescending or even to sneer. The man was honestly surprised. “Compassion is a woman’s virtue. Pride is what men have in their right to provide.”

  “Honor is what makes a man provide for his family and keep them safe,” Torrant corrected. “Pride is what makes him think he has the right to more land than his neighbor, or to beat his woman when she didn’t serve him quick enough. Pride is nothing to worship.”

  “But why worship a weak virtue?” Rath asked, realizing that one of his most trusted advisors was quickly getting talked down.

  “Compassion is weak?” Torrant asked, letting all of his incredulity show. “You think that compassion is weak? Let me tell you something.” He relaxed into the debate now, conscious that Marv and Djali had returned with their own composure renewed and that the rest of Rath’s regents had felt easy enough to begin eating. His own people, Djali included, were refusing to touch their own food, and he silently thanked them for that show of solidarity. “When my cousin was four or five, a group of ten-year-olds tried to drown the family’s kitten. Now I healed a lot of injuries that day—bite marks, black eyes, lumps on skulls, terrible bruises. But the only injury my cousin suffered was a strained wrist and bloody knuckles, and that kitten lives today to be the terror of the mice in Eiran. That, gentlemen, is the strength that compassion gives you.”

  There was a reluctant chuckle from the table, and Rath had to concede the point. “Well, apparently your cousin is a fearsome warrior. He must be the apple of the family’s eye,” he said condescendingly.

  “She is indeed,” Torrant replied with a terrible grin. “Just put her loved ones in danger and watch her go to battle.”

  “But that is an individual case!” Rath protested when the chuckles had died down. “You cannot train soldiers in the worship of compassion—it weakens the group!”

  “Well, how do you train them to heal their comrades?” Jino asked unexpectedly. “It doesn’t make sense not to train a soldier to heal with compassion….”

  “Too much coddling makes them weak!” growled the secretary general from Rath’s right hand.

  “And too much pride, when a body is brought low, breeds despair,” Torrant pointed out. He had spent enough years watching farmers, angry that an injury or illness wouldn’t let them provide for their family, take out their frustrations on their wives and children, not to know that. “And despair weakens honor. A desperate man will take his own life, desert, or threaten a friend, whereas a beloved friend will throw himself on a sword to save his whole, healthy companion and spare him from harm.”

  “In some men,” Rath insisted, “but most men are animals. They need to know pride or they won’t bother with honor.”

  “You say that because it’s easier to teach pride than honor,” Torrant argued. “I’ve seen your library, Consort. Lots of books showing men how to get the same score on a series of questions as the man next to him in rank and file. When they all get that perfect score and they all think the same way, then what?”

  “You have the perfect soldier!” The secretary general seemed to think this was obvious.

  “You have the perfect cheater!” Djali interjected, laughing, and Torrant looked at him, interested.

  “Djali, don’t be stupid,” Rath dismissed, but Djali, looking at the respect in his hero’s eyes, was undeterred.

  “Consort, you haven’t seen them. They buy and sell the answers to those tests like Keon here buys and sells books!”

  “It’s actually worse!” Keon seconded. “Because they’ll throw their brother to the dogs before they get caught. Is that what you want to breed in a soldier, Secretary General?”

  “The tests are a sound method of assessment,” he replied with dignity. “There is no system that guarantees cheating won’t occur.”

  “How about a system that rewards them for their behavior and effort rather than their perfect answers?” Aerk prodded.

  “That’s time consuming—”

  “What you mean is that it’s too individual!” Aerk responded passionately, and Torrant wanted to applaud. These were the discussions they’d had over coffee, during lunches, and as they walked to the convocations. These were not his opinions, being echoed blindly by zealots; they were the opinions of his friends, whom he respected, and his friends were arguing well.

  “There is no room for individuality when you’re building a nation!” Rath scorned. “That is why Dueant must be the god of pride! Pride doesn’t know individuals; it thinks of the greater good.”

  “Which is exactly the sort of reasoning that allowed your soldiers to try to barricade children in a school as it burned down!” Eljean blurted, and Torrant looked at him, pained. The background noises of forks hitting plates and people murmuring comments on the side abruptly ceased. All that Aylan had warned about came to pass. People used to dressing the truth in their favorite clothes were offended when it was spoken so nakedly in their presence. Eljean looked at all of the impending silence and the icy faces opposing them, and Torrant honestly thought his poor friend was going to throw up.

  “That was a simple misunderstanding of orders,” Rath said, and Torrant snapped his eyes around to his enemy. That was a blatant lie—and everyone at the table was a witness to it.

  “That’s not what you said,” Torrant surprised himself by saying numbly.

  “I’m sorry?” Rath looked equally shocked.

  “My first day here. What you said was that the children in the school were a threat. You told the soldier who escaped that the children were tricky, that they would grow up to be dangerous….” Torrant’s voice trailed away as he realized that the regents opposite him and his friends were staring at him as though he had turned into the snowcat, and then lectured them on politics wearing fur and fangs. “You all must remember….”

  But it was clear that they didn’t, and in a moment the crushing weight of what he was fighting descended on his chest, and he found himself floundering for speech.

  “I have remarked,” said Rath smugly, digging into his main course, which Torrant and his friends had refused, “that the worshippers of the Goddess tend to be disorganized, like women at a sewing basket. In fact, those who favored Dueant as the god of Compassion have the same qualities—distracted, absentminded, they rarely document anything. Just like gossiping women, they frequently witness falsely against each other simply because they are so busy discussing the truth, then never actually record it.” Rath paused and took a healthy swallow of wine. It was all Torrant could do to breathe, in and out, and to convince himself that the reality he knew to be true was the same truth that Rath was erasing, only with words.

  “In fact, I think it’s very clear that if the Goddess and her children had anything to do with the rule of the country, the ideal ruler would be as soft and as womanish as my son here!”


  While Torrant was reeling in shock and pain for Djali, Eljean’s strange talking affliction kicked in. “Your ‘womanish’ son here landed a prettier girl than would look at any of you trolls!” he burst out, and Torrant whirled to him in sheer frustration.

  “Eljean, my brother,” he said with an exasperated smile and a hand on the shoulder, “I think it’s best if from here on out, the only truths you utter are the truths you want the world to hear.” Eljean startled, and Torrant felt the distinct tingle of sorcery being counteracted. That was enough.

  “Eljean, Djali,” he said calmly, standing, “I think we need to excuse ourselves to gain some composure.” Eljean and Djali fled behind him, and he closed his eyes briefly against the damage he would have to repair between the two of them. “And everybody else: You all speak of ‘womanish’ qualities as though they are synonymous with weakness and ignorance. My Aunt Bethen wrote the foreign policy of Eiran when she was in labor with her fourth child. My… best friend’s mother helped to save my life with an illusion when she was facing certain death. There is nothing ‘weak’ about being ‘womanish,’ and pride is far more vain and corrupt than compassion could ever be. Your son, my lord, is a fine, capable, noble man, and I would be proud to work by his side or fight at his back. If his qualities are ‘womanish’ then that’s the biggest compliment that’s been paid to nobility and strength in this house, probably since the day he was born. Excuse me, please.”

  He found Djali and Eljean in the hallway behind the dining room, holding each other’s hands as they shook in reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” Eljean was whispering, trying hard not to choke on his own panicked breath. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, my friend…. I didn’t mean….”

  “What came over you? She hasn’t done anything….”