A Fall of Princes (44 page)

He paced off the limits of the fortress. Much of it was
carved into living rock, the rest built on the summit of a mountain. Beyond it
was a wilderness of stone and cloud and sky.

Some of the thronging peaks were higher, clad in snow. Many
marched below in jagged ranks, black and red and grey and blinding white.

No green. No sign of human habitation.

Water rose bitter cold from a spring within the mountain.
Food came by the will of mages: solid enough, and plentiful if not rich. The
cooks knew no art but the art of spiceless stews and boiled grain. The wine was
little better.

There were compensations. The purity of the air. The
splendor of the heights, and at nightfall the stars, great flaming flowers in
the perfect blackness of the sky.

o0o

Mages found Hirel at a high window, set a robe on him, and
led him to the hall. After the vault of heaven, the chamber of stone was dim
and cramped. Hirel struggled to breathe its heavy air.

The conspirators had gathered. They had a haggard look; the
Red Prince was not among them, nor had they left a place for him. The Varyani
sat a little apart from the mages, and Aranos stood with his brace of
sorcerers. They were saying little.

The Sunchild stood alone by the fire. Her hair was loose
down her back; her robe was plain to starkness, white girdled with white.

She was not wearing Avaryan’s torque. The Sun-priests’
glances deplored it, but her shoulder was turned firmly away from them. She
played with the flames as if they had been water, letting them lick at her
fingers.

Hirel sprang toward her. Her glance halted him. It was a
stranger’s stare, cool and composed, with no spark of recognition. Hirel
stiffened against it.

The fire had done her no harm. Of course; she was born of
it. He had tasted the anguish of the birthing.

She did not even choose to know him.

Hirel stood beside her. He knew that the mages watched. He
was past caring.

He spoke quietly but not furtively, and reasonably enough
when all was considered. “Lady, whether we will or nill, we are bound together.
We can make of that bond a misery, or we can transform it into a triumph.”

“Such a triumph,” she said. The words were bitter; the tone
was remote and cold. “You with all your women. I in the harem’s chains.”

Aranos’ satisfaction was distinct, like a hand on Hirel’s
shoulder, a voice murmuring complacencies in his ear. He twitched them away.
“You would be a fool to choose that, lady.”

“I have already.”

He looked at her then. At the bowed bright head; at the
suggestion of her body within the robe. At the hand half hidden in her skirt,
knotted into a fist, trembling with repressed violence. “Yes,” Hirel said, “it
is a great pity that the spell’s weaving did not slay you as you wished it to.
And that, having condemned yourself to life in a woman’s body, you should have
waked to find yourself fair. And greatest of all, that I cannot find it in me
to shrink from you. That I find you beautiful; that I desire you.”

“Of course you desire me. I’m female. I’m dowered with an
empire.”

Hirel paused. “Perhaps,” he said, “I am at fault. To your
eyes I would be no great marvel of a man. I shall never be more than small as
your people reckon it; I am pallid away from the sun and sallow in his
presence; and I am years too young for you.”

“Now who’s talking like a fool?”

Hirel spread his hands. “Is it folly? You insist that you
repel me. Since you do not, then surely it is I who repel you. Did they fail,
your meddling mages? Did they make you a woman who can love none but women?”

Her head flew up. Her eyes were wild.

“Look at me,” he said. “Touch me. What does your body say of
me?”

She would look. For a long moment he feared that she would
not touch. Her hand trembled as she reached, as it traced his cheek. “It
sings,” she whispered. “It sings of you.”

“Of me? Not merely of men?”

She drew a breath fierce-edged with temper. “Of you, damn
you. It never—it didn’t—I still don’t want just any man. Or—or any woman. But
you, I want. I want you with all that is in me.”

“So always,” murmured Hirel, “have I wanted you.” His voice
rose a little, clear and calm. “It is not the shape of you from which I recoil.
It is that it was done to you. That, I can never forgive. Since it is done and
is not to be undone, I bide my time; I wait upon my vengeance. And while I wait
for it, I am minded to love you. I will share the world with you.”

“If I am minded to share it.”

“Half of it is mine, my lady.”

“But half of it is not.”

She smiled. Hirel was comforted, a little. He hoped that
Aranos was not. It was a white wild smile, with no softness in it. “You’ll free
your concubines, prince. You’ll swear solemnly to take no other woman as
bedmate or queen. Else you’ll not have me.”

“The concubines,” said Hirel, “I can agree to. But the
rest—”

“Swear.”

Hirel struggled to master his temper. “You must be
reasonable, my lady. There will be times when you do not want me. Would you
have me force you?”

“So then. We compromise. When you don’t want me, I’ll find
another bedmate.”

Hirel flung up his head. “You will not!”

“Why not?”

“It is unthinkable. It is forbidden. It is a breach of the
marriage contract.”

“Exactly.”

“I do not understand you,” Hirel said with heroic restraint.
“You suffered all of this for one sole end: to contract an alliance with me.
Now you demand of me a concession which you know I cannot grant.”

“Can’t you?”

“I have no need of you. You need me, or your sacrifice is
worthless.”

“Without me, you die and your empire falls, and I live to
rule.”

“Who will follow you?” demanded Hirel, the more cruel for
that his cruelty seemed to wound her not at all. “Who will accept the rule of a
woman?”

“Who will be left to claim the power? I have the
Kasar
still; Keruvarion’s law binds the
empire to the bearer of the brand. Asanion will be harder, I grant you. But I
can rule it, and I will. With you or without you.”

“You will have to slay me with your own hand.”

“Or marry you. On my terms. I’ll not be your veiled and
big-bellied slave, Hirel Uverias. Nor will I wait my turn with all your other
slaves, contending with them for a night of your favor. Unless you agree to do
the same for me.”

It was to be expected. She still thought like a man. She did
not know how to be a woman.

She would not lower those bold black eyes. The same eyes
that had transfixed Hirel on the first night of their meeting, refusing to
accede to the laws of nature: of race then and of caste, as now of gender.

She spoke almost gently. “It’s hard, I know. But it’s not
unheard of. My mother bound my father to the same.”

“Your father had been a priest; and he was never an Asanian
high prince.”

“So? Can you do any less than a bandit king?”

“I would not stoop to it.”

She laughed. It was cruel, because there was no malice in
it. It turned Hirel’s resistance into the petulance of a spoiled child.

She was glorious when she laughed. She had no shame of this
that she had chosen; she had nothing resembling a maiden’s modesty. In front of
all the staring mages, she took Hirel’s face in her hands and kissed him.

Hirel’s heart thudded; his head reeled. Sarevan, mage and
priest though he was, wild and half mad and as near a giant as made no matter,
had never frightened Hirel more than a little. A prince could match a prince,
though one be descended from a god.

This was still Sarevan, little changed once one grew
accustomed to the single great change. Yet her touch woke Hirel to something
very like panic. A prince could match a prince. But what of a Sunborn princess?

She drew back slightly, searching his face. It flamed under
her gaze. She smiled. “I think I love you, too, youngling. Don’t ask me why.”

“If there are gods,” Hirel muttered, “they laugh to hear
you.”

“They do.” She reclaimed her hands. Her smile took on an
edge of iron. “But I am not marrying a man who refuses to grant me the full
freedom which he grants himself.”

Hirel’s breath escaped him in a rush. “I never said that I
would bind you. You need not take the veil, nor shall I imprison you in the
harem. You may even,” he said, and that was far from easy, “you may even bear
arms, although for that we must change the law in Asanion.”

“And?” she asked, unmollified.

“Is that not enough?” He knew it was not. Her brows had
lowered. He glared back. “I cannot bind myself to you alone. My nature forbids
it. I am a man; I am made to beget many sons. My desires are strong and they
are urgent, and they are not to be denied. Whereas a woman is made to bear a
few strong children; her lusts are less potent, her needs gentler, her spirit
shaped for the loving of a single man.”

She laughed again, and now she mocked him. “Hear the wisdom
of a child! I almost hate to disillusion you. But alas, it is illusion, and I
will not be swayed by it. Bind yourself, Hirel, or set me free.”

“And raise another man’s son as my own?”

“Only if you demand the same of me.”

He tossed his aching head. “You will drive me mad.”

She would not even pretend to regret it. She only waited,
unshakable.

She was very beautiful. She was not the only beautiful woman
in the world. She was certainly the most obstinate, and the most unreasonable,
and the most maddening. And she brought with her the greatest of all dowries.

It was not worth the price she set on it.

What price had she paid to offer it?

“Be free, then,” he snapped at her. “But do not expect me to
acknowledge your get.”

“Even when it is yours?”

“How can I ever be sure of it?”

“You will,” she said, “I promise you.”

She held out her hand with its flame of gold.

He stared at it until it began to fall. Then he caught it.
Raised it. Kissed it. “Lady,” he said, “whatever comes of this venture,
certainly I shall not perish of boredom.”

Now she looked as a maiden ought, eyes downcast, demure and
shy. Struggling, no doubt, to keep at bay a grin of triumph.

Hirel could not even be indignant. Aranos’ expression was
too intriguing a study.

The mages had wrought well, Hirel granted them that. The
hall blazed with magelight: sparks of white and gold, blue and green, red and
yellow, set like jewels in the roof. Flowers bloomed on the grey stone and
wound up the pillars; hangings shimmered behind, light and shadow interwoven,
shaping images that shifted and changed whenever he glanced at them.

He stood by the undying fire in a circle of mages, clad as a
prince who went to his wedding, in an eightfold robe of gold and diamond. The
mages of the guild stood two and two, each servant of the light with his dark
companion.

Zha’dan loomed over them, painted and jeweled and braided,
outblazing the fire itself with his splendor. He flashed Hirel a white smile,
which Hirel returned with the faintest of flickers.

He glanced at his companion. Aranos held the place of the
honored kinsman, attended by his priests with the scroll of the contract.
Han-Gilen’s prince faced them with Orozia and the guildmaster.

They had words to say: ritual challenges, ritual
concessions. They called the lady Sarevadin. Odd to hear it as a woman’s name.
One might have thought that the empress had known, to choose a name that would
serve for a daughter as for a son.

He marshaled his wandering wits. It was a very long
contract, and very complex. But its heart was simple. The heir of Asanion took
to wife the heir of Keruvarion. He granted her full freedom, as in turn she
granted him. When he came into his inheritance, he must share his throne with
her; so too must she share the throne of Keruvarion. The first child of their
bodies would stand heir to both empires.

He set his name where he was bidden. When he straightened,
he went rigid.

An Asanian bride did not show herself at the exchange of
legalities that was the wedding proper. When her kinsmen had sold her with due
ceremony, slaves bore her in a closed litter to her husband’s house. There she
would feast among the women until he had done feasting with the men. Then, and
only then, would he see her: swathed and veiled and weighted with jewels,
enthroned amid the riches of her dowry.

She wore a veil, a shimmer of royal white over her bright
hair. Her gown was of a northern fashion, shocking to Asanian eyes: a skirt of
many tiers, white and gold, broad-belted with gold about her narrow waist, and
a vest of gold-embroidered white, and a kingdom’s worth of gold and emeralds
about her arms and her neck and her brows, suspended from her ears and woven
into her hair.

None of it sufficed to cover her breasts. Her nipples, like
her lips and her eyelids, bore a dusting of gilt.

She took the pen from Hirel’s stiff fingers and signed her
name next to his, in the characters of the Hundred Realms and again in those of
Asanion. Hirel bit his lip lest he disgrace himself with laughter.

Aranos was appalled. Even Prince Orsan seemed mildly
startled by her coming, if not by her presumption.

Having sealed the alliance under Asanian law, they faced the
prince and the priestess in the rites of Keruvarion. Orozia demanded Sarevadin’s
torque of priesthood, held it up in her hands, raised a long chant in a tongue
which Hirel did not know.

She ended on a high throbbing note. Her hands lowered. She
set the torque again about Sarevadin’s throat, with much solemnity and no
little resistance from the Sunchild.

The prince quelled her with a stern word. “You may not
repudiate your calling. You are High Princess of Keruvarion; you will continue
in Avaryan’s priesthood. As your father has done. As many another ruling queen
has done.” She bent her head then, submitting without humility.