Spear of Heaven (29 page)

She stood up in it while a servant clasped the amber
necklace about her neck, and met Vanyi’s calm ironic stare. “I had it made
today,” the Guildmaster said. “It’s the same pattern as your riding clothes,
more or less. Easy enough for a handful of good needlewomen to manage.”

“It’s very handsome,” Daruya said.

“It suits you,” said Vanyi. From her, that was high praise.

oOo

It was deep night by the time they all gathered again in
the hall with its ancient hangings, in front of the dragon tapestry. There were
a great number of them to Daruya’s eyes, what with all the embassy that had
survived the Gate, and the servants and the women of House Janabundur, but
not—to Daruya’s faint shock—Bundur.

She knew a moment’s wild hope that he had turned coward and
fled. But he would hardly do that now, after all he had done to win her.

As she took the place she was pushed and prodded to, in
front of the rest, Bundur appeared at the inner door. He was wearing the
black-and- bronze splendor of the festival. The cut on his cheek had been stitched
up neatly and washed clean. His chin was shaven, his mustaches brought to
order, oiled and persuaded to hang politely on either side of his mouth.

He had not, she noticed, succumbed to any urge to make his
hair fashionable. It was sleeked smooth and clubbed at his nape as always,
bound with cords of green and glimmering bronze.

He was really quite beautiful in his way, like a big sleek
cat. He was not prostrate with nerves that she could see, though he was
trembling around the edges of her magery—a trembling to match her own. He
smiled as he came toward her and held out his hand. Her own hand had reached to
clasp his before her mind came into it at all.

Lady Nandi stood in front of them with an air of solemn
ceremony. She spoke words that Daruya did not afterward remember. Nor, she
thought, did Bundur. Something about the gods; something about souls and bonds
and women and men. Nothing about love, Daruya did notice that. Was it nothing
they thought of here? Or did they so take it for granted that they saw no need
to name it?

He had both her hands now, or she had his.
Damn
, she thought.
Damn, damn, damn
. But beneath that:
Yes, yes, yes
.

Bundur repeated the words his mother spoke. His mind was not
thinking of them. Only of her face, of the golden shining thing that she was,
for all her tempers and crotchets and follies.

But you don’t know me
,
she tried to say.
You don’t know me at
all
.

I know what matters
,
he said deep inside of her.
I know what
you fear
.

Her heart clenched. “What? What—”

“Say after me,” Lady Nandi said with considerable patience: “‘Thy
soul mine, my soul thine, from life unto life, to the worlds’ ending.’”

Life unto life? But—

Bundur’s eyes were dark, resting on her, driving sense,
logic, even rebellion straight out of her head. She heard her voice speaking,
faint and breathless but clear. “‘Thy soul mine, my soul thine, from life unto
life, to the worlds’ ending.’”

Nothing happened. It was not a spell, not a magery. It
described, that was all; told the others what was true, or what they believed
to be true. What Daruya believed . . .

No one cared. She had said all that she needed to say. The
lady said the rest. Then not the lady. Someone else, a woman whose face Daruya
had seen somewhere before, but she did not know where.

A narrow face, stern, with eyes that cherished some deep
anger and some deeper grief. But the voice was clear, level, deep for a woman’s
and firm. “I bless you both in the name of all the gods; I grant you the grace
of heaven, and such protection as heaven may give. May you prosper and live
long, and be reborn as children of the gods.”

Daruya came out of her fog abruptly—as abruptly as Bundur
had. No one was staring at them any longer, but at the woman in the dark plain
cloak with its hood on her shoulders, and garments under it that might have
been a servant’s.

She returned their stares with massive calm. Her hands
rose—narrow hands, beautiful as her face was not, with slender elegant
fingers—and came to rest on Daruya’s head and on Bundur’s. She was tall; she
did not have to reach far, nor did she struggle to follow as he knelt, drawing
Daruya with him whether she would or no. “May the gods protect you,” she said, “and
honor your marriage.”

Bundur’s head bowed under her hand, then came up. “I should
think they would, now,” he said. “Borti. Lady. How in the world—”

“She helped me wake the Gate,” Kimeri said from beside the
stranger. “
She
listened to me.”

“Imp,” said Vanyi, with mirth in it. “Oh, imp! Have you been
hiding her all this time?”

“Yes,” Kimeri said, keeping her chin up and her eyes level,
not on Vanyi but on her mother. “She insisted she had to say the blessing. To
make it stick.”

“It will now,” Bundur said. Laughter burst out of him, rich
and infectious. “Borti! Thank all the gods. We were sure you were dead.”

“I might have been,” the woman said.

The queen. Daruya read that in the minds around her, the
queen’s strongest of all. How like Kimeri, she thought, to find and befriend
the person in Shurakan whom they needed most, and to produce her in the very
nick of time, too, and never a word before then.

The queen said, “I fled, I thought, to distract myself from
fear of what would happen—what did happen while I was gone. The gods were
guiding me. Or this child of theirs was.”

“Does that mean we’re kin?” Kimeri asked. “I like that.
Mother, can we be Borti’s cousins? Avaryan must be her goddess’ brother at
least. Or maybe he is her goddess.”

“In the end all gods are one,” Daruya said. She rose from
her knees, where she should not have been; no queen was equal to the princess-heir
of the Sunborn’s line. Borti was not indeed much shorter than she.

“Lady,” said Daruya, inclining her head. “I thank you for
your blessing. It was generously given.”

“It was my thank-offering for my escape,” Borti said. “As
little thankful as I feel now—I live, and that, I’m sure, no one expected.
Nephew, half-sister, you have full freedom to cast me out. The king they’ve
raised in the palace will be bringing in his sister to claim my place and my
office; she’ll want my life if she can get it, and the life of anyone who
shelters me.”

“I don’t think so,” Bundur said. “They were going to crown
Shagyan, which would have brought in Mandi, but he developed a backbone when
they murdered the king. They hacked it, and him, in two. Paltai took the crown
from the king’s hand and set it on his head before anyone else could move.”

“And Paltai,” said Borti, “has no sister.” Her eyes closed;
she drew a breath. “Goddess! And we thought his family cursed by heaven,
because it begot only sons.”

“Heaven curses the king who rules alone,” said the Lady
Nandi. “That was ill done, to let him take the crown and keep it.”

“Not for us,” said Bundur. “Not for many who may accept a
deed done before they could prevent it, but who may be inclined to support us
if we challenge it.”

“Dare we challenge?” Lady Nandi demanded.

“Dare we not?” he shot back.

“I think,” said Vanyi, “that this needs a council of war,
and sustenance to help it along. Here’s the wedding feast spread, and it looks
splendid considering how hastily it was cobbled together. Shall we eat it while
we talk?”

Everyone looked startled, but no one quarreled with her
eminent good sense—Daruya least of all. The queen’s presence here changed
everything. It was no longer only a wedding in haste, an expedient adopted to
save the lives of a mere foreign embassy. Now they were honestly at war with
the faction in the palace.

And in war, even weddings could lose themselves to
necessity.

oOo

They sat to a feast that, with Brightmoon setting and
Greatmoon hanging low and dawn paling the eastern sky, could well do duty for
an early breakfast. Hasty it might have been, but there was plenty of it, too
much for most until they discovered a quite unexpected hunger. Even the Olenyai
partook of it, as awkward as that could be for people whose honor forbade them
to unveil before strangers.

For a while no one spoke except to call for another basket
of bread, or to ask a neighbor to pass the wine. Borti ate, too, as they all
did, reluctantly at first and then as if she were starving.

No one stared, or waited on her with slavish adoration, or
treated her otherwise than as a kinswoman of rank. Daruya might have expected
more servility, as rigorously as these people had kept their rulers from the
taint of foreign eyes, but the ruler in her own person stood no more on
ceremony than Daruya herself did.

It was well, Daruya thought, filling a fold of bread with
spiced meats and cheese and handing it to Borti while she prepared another for
herself. She could almost ignore the man on her other side in considering this
stranger who was a queen.

A ruler who kept to the strictures of old Asanian royalty,
or who believed too much in her own divinity, might be difficult to deal with.
This plain sensible woman with her solid appetite and clear affection for
Kimeri was much to Daruya’s liking—and would be to Estarion’s, too, Daruya
suspected.

Gods. She was thinking of what Estarion would like, and not
sulking over it. Had she grown up so much? Or had she merely replaced
Estarion-as-adversary with Bundur?

Her husband, they were all thinking when their eyes fell on
the two of them. Her protector from the king’s murderers.

It made her ill to read such thoughts. She flung up her
shields and rested in the quiet behind them, listening to voices that were only
voices, watching faces that showed little of the minds behind.

“So then,” said Vanyi, taking the lead as she always seemed
to do, “we’re best advised to wait, you think.”

“Yes,” said Lady Nandi. “Now that you have the protection of
our name and kinship, no one from the palace will move directly against you,
since that is also against us.”

“In any case,” Bundur said, “the fighting isn’t likely to
get this far. Palace coups here always restrict themselves politely to the
palace.”

“Then I didn’t need to marry you at all,” Daruya burst out. “We
could simply have come here and been safe.”

“No,” he said. “You would have been pursued—maybe not at
once, but soon enough. Now that you are part of House Janabundur, that changes
things. That gives you power in the kingdom; it equips you with allies and
defenses, to all of which you’re entitled, since as my wife you rule this house
and everyone in it.”

“I do not,” Daruya said. “Nor would I displace the lady
whose house it is.”

“That is the way of the world,” Lady Nandi said. “If you wish
me to continue, but in your name, then that’s well, and sensible of you, too.
But you rule. You are House Janabundur, as is your husband.”

“You do see,” Bundur said. “Don’t you? Before, you were an
outlander, nothing and no one, no matter what power you might hold in your own
country. Now you hold the power of the second house in Su-Shaklan.”

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t let it go to my head,” Daruya
said.

“I’d never forgive you if you did,” he said. He was grinning
at her again. His white teeth and his bright dark eyes could make her knees
buckle. Damn them. Damn him.

“I see,” said Borti beside her, “that these two are indeed
soulbound. It’s an old binding, and strong. I’ve never seen a stronger.”

“Nor I,” said Lady Nandi with the same air of resignation
with which she had confirmed Daruya’s sudden new rank. “And she fights it,
which only adds to its strength.”

“No.” It escaped before Daruya could stop it. She bit her
tongue before it betrayed her further.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Vanyi said. “As far as I can tell, and
mind you I’ve never thought of matings in quite this way, your kind of
resistance simply encourages it.”

“Then if I give in, it will go away?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Vanyi said.

Daruya had thought not. She finished rolling meat and cheese
in bread and bit into it. Her hunger did not care if she was angry or happy or
a mad mingling of both.

“So we wait,” said Vanyi, taking up where they had left off.
“And see what the palace does.”

“And watch, and keep Borti hidden,” Bundur said. “That, we
have to do, I think. They’ll be hunting her for a goodly while, and wanting her
dead.”

“Luckily,” said Borti, “very few people have any idea what I
really look like. They only ever see me in court, when I’m robed to immobility
and weighted with wig and crown, and painted to look like a mask of the
goddess. Who would know a tall plain woman in a servant’s coat, doing servant’s
duties in Janabundur?”

“You can’t do that,” Bundur said, shocked.

She laughed at him. For a moment they looked very much
alike. “Of course I can! I do it more often than anyone would want to know. It’s
a convenient way to learn what people are saying, and it gives me something to
do. It’s massively dull on the throne and behind the screens that are supposed
to protect me from common eyes, with ministers speaking for me, and making all
my decisions, too.”

“Not all of them,” Vanyi said, “I don’t think. If you speak,
you’re listened to. When it suits you to speak.”

“When I’m given knowledge enough to speak.” Borti sighed. “When
I stop to think—now I have leisure for it—I realize that we used to see much
more of our common subjects. We’ve been closed in, walled about, cut off.
Cleverly, too, and imperceptibly, till it was too late for my brother and
almost for me.”

“It was a common expedient once in our Golden Empire,”
Daruya said, “when a man wished to be emperor, to do just as your traitors did,
and cut off the emperor who was, and destroy him.”