Spear of Heaven (24 page)

“Fen-apple,” Vanyi answered. “It looks poisonous, doesn’t
it? It doesn’t taste bad. A bit tart, is all. They slice it and dip it in
honey.”

“They’re going to marry me to a man in this kingdom-in-miniature,”
Daruya said sharply, “and you waste your time making faces at fen-apples?”

“I don’t call it time wasted,” he said, “if it gives me time
to think. Who is this man, and why is he aspiring to your hand?”

“His name is Bundur,” said Daruya, still with a snap in her
voice, “and his mother is the king’s half-sister. He thinks that our souls are
mated, or some such nonsense, and he insists that he’ll have no wife but me. He
also thinks I’m ugly, but because I’m interesting, it doesn’t matter.”

“How unusual,” said Estarion. He might, for the matter of
that, be speaking of the fen-apple, which he was examining from all sides. He
had tried to pick it up, but his ghost-presence was not solid enough for that. “Is
he ugly by our reckoning?”

“He looks like a Gileni nobleman,” Daruya said. “In a word,
no.”

“Ah,” said Estarion. “You have too much nose, then. And are
too tall and narrow. And much too oddly colored.”

“And I have a demon’s eyes.” She shut them, drew a breath. “Grandfather,
if you forbid it, he’ll leave me alone.”

“I never noticed that that made any difference to a determined
lover,” he said. “Particularly if, as I’ve been told, nobody here has the least
regard for our lineage or our power.”

“They do have regard for age,” she said, “and for authority
in a family. Even if I pretend that I have to send to you for permission—that
would take years—”

“You should have thought of it before you summoned me,” he
said. “Now you’ll have to lie about it.”

She gaped at him.

“If Vanyi approves of this man,” he said, “and if he comes
of a decent family, and means you well, I can’t see that I have any objection
to his marrying you. It would give Kimeri a father, for one thing. For another,
it would be useful for the embassy to have one of its members married to the
king’s kinsman.”

“But you’ve never even seen him,” she said with growing desperation.

“Vanyi has,” he said. “I trust her judgment.” He slanted a
glance at Vanyi. “Do you like him?”

“He’ll do,” Vanyi answered. “He’s good-looking, he’s clever,
and he can play politics—but he’s honest about it. And he dotes on your
granddaughter. Can’t take his eyes off her.”

“He can’t believe any woman can be so hideous,” Daruya said.
She looked as if she would have liked to seize her grandfather and shake him. “Grandfather!
You can’t allow this.”

“Granddaughter,” he said, “you won’t take anyone in my
empire. If this man will do, then take him with my blessing. It will be a very
pretty scandal that you had to marry a barbarian from the other side of the
world, and wouldn’t take any man, lord or commoner, in your own realm.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I won’t let you sway me with that. I
don’t want to marry anybody.”

“You should,” said Estarion. He stretched, yawned. “Ah me. I’m
tired. They’re trying to start a rebellion in Markad again, would you believe
it? People are laughing in the rebels’ faces, and the rebels are getting
progressively more rebellious. All six of them. Maybe I should marry them off
to ladies in Ianon, who will keep them nicely occupied and beat them soundly
when they get out of hand.”

“I think you should, at that,” said Vanyi. “Unfortunately I
don’t think this man will beat our princess when she needs it. He’s too much in
love with her.”

“I’d kill him, of course, if he laid a hand on her,” said
Estarion, as amiable as ever. “I wish you joy of the wedding.”

He was gone before Daruya could say a word. Vanyi laughed at
her expression. “Well, child. I’d say you were fairly effectively outflanked.”

“You did this,” Daruya said with sudden venom. “You colluded
with him. You told him.”

“No, I didn’t,” Vanyi said. “By my honor as a mage. I never
said a word to him, or asked him to help. Though I admit I was less confident
than you that he’d see your side of it. He wants you well matched, and with a
man who will love you as well as keep you sensible.”

“He doesn’t know the first thing about Bundur.”

“But I do,” said Vanyi. “I like him. I think you do, too.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“When it comes to wedding and bedding,” Vanyi said, “rather
a great deal.” She levered herself to her feet. “I’ll leave you to think about
it. But do bear in mind that this is a prince, and a power in the kingdom—and
he favors our embassy. If you refuse him, you’ve insulted him terribly.”

Daruya thought best when she was in motion. Motion that,
this time, took her to House Janabundur and halted her in front of its gate.

She had not intended to come here, still less to let the
porter admit her, but once it was done, it was done. Lady Nandi was not at
home, the servant told her with careful courtesy, but the master of the house
could be summoned if she wished.

She did not wish. She heard herself say, “I’ll see him.”

“Lady,” the servant said, bowing her into a room she had not
seen before, and leaving her there.

It was a receiving-room. She knew the look. Cushions to sit
on, a low table, tea in a pot, the inevitable cakes that every house kept on
hand for welcoming guests. The walls were hung with figured rugs, some of which
looked very old, and all of which were as intricate as everything seemed to be
in this country.

Each told a story, sometimes simple, sometimes fantastic.
She liked the small purse-mouthed man with the long mustaches, engaging in
combat with an extravagantly streamered and barbeled dragon-creature. It was a
most peculiar combat: it ended with the man and the dragon in a cavern,
drinking tea and eating cakes in delightful amity.

She was smiling when Bundur made his entrance. It took him
aback, which made her laugh.

“Lady!” he cried. “You devastate me. No howl of rage at the
very least? No rampant display of temper?”

“I’m saving that for a larger audience,” she said.

“Intelligent.” He poured tea, handed her a cup. She sighed
and sipped from it. It was the flowery tea of ceremony, of course. He said,
watching her face, “You don’t like tea.”

“I’m getting used to it.” She tilted her head toward the
dragon tapestry. “What does this mean?”

“Why, whatever you want it to mean.” But before she could
frown: “It’s an allegory, or so I’m told, about the folly of war. Personally I
prefer the literal interpretation: that a warrior went to destroy a dragon of
the heights, and they fought a mighty battle, but in the end, when neither
could overcome the other, they declared a truce. Then after they had had a long
and satisfying conversation, they decided that enmity was foolish, and became
friends.”

“‘Know your enemy, find a friend.’” Daruya shrugged. “We
have that story, too, though we don’t put a dragon in it.”

“Wisdom is the same wherever you go.” He emptied his cup and
set it down. He looked well, she thought, considering the condition in which he
had been put to bed. “So, then. Are you going to say yes?”

“Aren’t you being a little bit precipitous?” she asked him. “You’re
supposed to circle all around it, yes? And wait for our elders to conclude the
agreement.”

“No,” he said. “Not once everyone’s been told.”

“I’m not going to say yes,” she said.

He betrayed no surprise, and no sign of hurt, either. “Of
course you are. You just don’t know it yet.”

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” said Bundur. “What concerns you? That I’m a prince in
this kingdom, and you’re a nobody? That you’re a queen in yours, and I’m a
nobody? That’s a perfect balance, I should think. Or is it that I’m older than
you? Eight years is nothing—or is it nine?”

“Eight,” she said. “Closer to seven. I’m not a child.”

“Of course not. If you were, I wouldn’t be asking for you.
So that’s not what troubles you. Your daughter? I balance her with my son. Each
has need of a sibling. Marry me and they can be brother and sister forever
after.”

“I don’t want to marry anybody,” said Daruya.

“Of course you don’t want to marry just anybody. You want to
marry me.”

“You,” she said in mounting incredulity, “are the most
arrogant, cocksure, headstrong, stubborn, obstinate—”

He was grinning, and wider, the longer the catalogue grew. “Surely,”
he said when she ran out of names to call him. “And you love me for it. I’m
exactly the man for you. Else why did you refuse all those men in your own
country, which you say is so vast and has so many people? You were waiting for
me.”

“
Oh
!” said Daruya
in frustrated rage, flinging the cup at him. He caught it deftly, avoided the
spray of tea that came with it, set it down with the care due its fragility.

“You see?” he said. “We match. You fling my mother’s best
cup, which is a hundred years old, last work of a master. I catch it. A perfect
pairing.”

“Why?” she shouted at him. “Why do you insist on this
travesty?”

“No travesty,” he said, as calm as ever. “Destiny. I argued
with it too, you know. I had a long discussion with several of the gods. They
all told me what I knew already, which was that you were meant for me. I saw
that the first time I looked on your face, there in the teahouse, and reflected
that ugliness can be its own kind of beauty.”

“I am not ugly,” she gritted.

“No,” he admitted freely. “You aren’t. It was only that
first time, before I learned to see you as you are, and not as something out of
nature. Now I think you quite beautiful. In your strange way.”

“I’m not flattered,” she said. “I’m not going to marry you.”

“Of course you are.”

He smiled. His eyes were limpid, amiable. He was no more
yielding than the mountain he was named for, Shakabundur that was rooted in the
deeps of the earth and clove the sky. He did not care what she said or how she
said it. He was going to have her.

Why then, she wondered with a shock, did she not feel more
truly trapped? She was angry, yes. Furious. She wanted to knock him down and
slap the smile from his face. But she felt as she had in the festival, without
even the excuse of wine and the dance. As if they were supposed to be here,
face to face, bound and in opposition. She had not even the luxury of
rebellion. As easily rebel against the color of her eyes, or the shape of her
hand.

Her hand. She raised it. There was pain in it, but not as it
had been before. The burning was muted, the throbbing dulled almost to
painlessness.

The brand was still there, the
Kasar
with its glitter of gold in the pale honey of her skin. Its
power was not gone; she felt it like the weight of the sun in her palm. But the
pain that had been with her since her earliest memory, that she had been taught
would never leave her, was sunk so low that it might not have been there at
all.

Bundur was staring at it. Had he seen it before? She could
not recall. She did not flaunt it. A man, seeing flashes of it, might think he
imagined them, or she was carrying a coin in her hand, or wearing an odd
fashion of ornament.

She answered him before he could ask. “Yes, you see what you
think you see. I was born with it. All of my line are. It’s the god’s brand.”

“It’s splendid,” he said.

“Do your kings carry such a thing?” she asked. She meant to
mock, but not entirely.

If he caught the mockery, he disregarded it. “No. Our kings
and queens are known for what they are, but the god doesn’t mark them, except
in the soul.”

“I carry two brands, for my two empires,” she said. “Sun in
the hand, for Keruvarion, and eyes of the Lion, for Asanion, which was the
Golden Empire. Our gods are given to displays, I suppose. It makes it easy to
tell who’s meant to rule and who is not.”

“But it makes it difficult to get away from it when you need
to.”

She stared at him, surprised. No one had ever understood
that before.

He smiled and laid his palm against hers, unafraid, unaware
that the brand could burn. His hand was broader, stronger, the color of bronze.
It was warm.

His fingers wound with hers. His face behind its smile was
austere, proud, with its sharp planes.

“Your people,” she said, “must be kin to our plainsmen. Did
they come across the sea long ago and settle here, or did they begin here? How
old is this world of yours?”

“Old,” he said. “Ancient beyond telling. And yours?”

“Maybe older than that. Maybe younger.” She clenched her
fist. It wound their fingers tighter. “I’ll bed you if you want it. Happily.”

“I don’t want that,” he said. “Not for a night or a season.
I want it with honor, in the marriage bed.”

“Why?”

“Because it should be so. Because you are worthy of it.”

“I the outlander. I the ugly one. I the mage.”

“All of that. And worthy. Do you not want me because I’m
ugly to you, too?”

“No. I don’t want to marry.”

“Why?”

Her own question, returned with that ceaseless smile. “I don’t.
That’s all. Someday I’ll have to, to get myself a consort—then it had better be
someone suitable, who can share the throne and the duties, and rule in my name
when I can’t be everywhere at once. How would you do that? You know nothing but
Shurakan.”

“I could learn,” he said.

“And leave Shurakan?”

“Even that,” he said steadily, “I could do if I must.”

She wrenched free in sudden disgust. “You don’t have the
faintest conception of what you mean when you say that. You’re not getting a
wife if you get me, you lovestruck fool. You’re getting the heir to an empire,
and the whole empire with her. If you were ambitious I’d understand it. But you
don’t even know what my empire is. Nor do you care.”

“I said,” he said, “I can learn. And if we’re talking of
politics, be politic now and think. I may not understand your empire, but I
understand Su-Shaklan—and Su-Shaklan is about to become rather more dangerous
for you and your embassy. Do you know that there are many who hate and fear
foreigners, and you above all? They’re growing in numbers, and they’re growing
powerful. The king has been resisting their persuasions, but he’s weakening
fast. The least he’ll do, once he gives in, is lock you in prison. His
counselors are begging him to kill you outright.”