The Marann (25 page)

“What is this about?” Marianne
asked.

“May I speak frankly?”

“Of course,” she answered, a nervous
smile coming to her lips.

“The Sural declared his heir. Do you
know us well enough yet to realize what that means for
him—personally?”

“Forgive me, but I don’t. Will you
explain?”

“Before Kyza passed the great trial,
he lived for the good of Suralia and of the entire planet. Once he
declared Kyza his heir, our law permitted him to live for other
things.”

Marianne stared at her slippers,
already regretting that she had allowed the guards to
remain.

“One of the things he chose to live
for—is you.”

Did everyone know how he felt
except
me?
she thought. “But I—” She stopped
herself.

“I am his head apothecary, high one.
It is necessary for me to know everything about him, including his
emotional state. He tells me everything.”

The blood ran from Marianne’s face.
This woman must know… She quelled an urge to flee.

“He knows that Suralia will go on and
be led by his daughter should he fall,” the apothecary continued.
“He needs something more than his duty to Suralia now. You can give
him that.”

She’s almost as bad as those
scheming politicians up on the ship
, she thought.
Everyone
is conspiring to throw me at him
. She checked herself,
remembering the moment in the hall when he opened his heart to her.
But—

“High one,” the healer said, “I
implore you. If you want him to live—give him your heart. It is
obvious his heart is already yours.”

Before Marianne could protest, a
commotion arose in the next room. Alarm spread in ripples. The
apothecary ran out, Marianne close on her heels. The Sural had
stopped breathing. One apothecary placed a mask over his face to
breathe for him. Another positioned a device on his chest to
stimulate his heart.

This is it,
Marianne thought,
making her way to his side, trying to stay out of the way of the
busy apothecaries.
I’m losing him, before I ever even had
him.
She blinked away tears, trying to imagine what life in the
stronghold would be like without his presence. A sense of loss
pierced her. She didn’t want to lose him. Not now, not knowing how
he felt about her. Impossible, she thought, almost by reflex. The
sovereign ruler of a planet... and an Iowa farm girl. It was
impossible. Wasn’t it?

Whatever it takes.
She reached
out to take the Sural’s right hand in both of hers. The head
apothecary noticed and gave her a grateful nod.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered to him
in English. “I need you.” In Tolari, she added,
“
Beloved
.”

A long, frightening minute passed as
the apothecaries continued to work on him.

She felt the atmosphere in the room
change.

“He breathes,” said an apothecary
across the bed, near his head.

“He is stabilizing,” said a voice
behind her, pregnant with relief.

She slumped, letting out a breath she
didn’t know she’d held. A chair touched the backs of her calves,
and she dropped into it, grateful for the kindness. She brought the
Sural’s hand to her face and pressed a cheek against it, shaking. A
single day before, she’d believed he could never be more than a
friend. It turned her world upside down to find him in love with
her. Now, to save his life, she had made a commitment to what
amounted to marriage, and she didn’t know if she could follow
through with what
that
entailed. She buried her face in the
blankets and wept.

“Bring the high one some tea,” the
head apothecary ordered. “She will be here for some
time.”

<<>>

Dark quiet filled the room when
Marianne woke. A gentle finger traced the line of her jaw, and
warmth and love wrapped her senses. Sighing, she opened her eyes to
meet the Sural’s gaze in the gray light of evening.

“Beloved.” His whisper was
hoarse.

Tears filled her eyes, and she buried
her face in the blankets again, crying in relief. He rested a hand
on her hair.

“You heard me,” she whispered. She
felt rather than saw him give an almost imperceptible nod. “You
came back from the dark for me.”

“Yes.” His voice was almost
inaudible.

“It’s all my fault!”

A weak smile touched his lips as he
shook his head. “When my strength returns, I shall show you how
mistaken you are.”

She almost laughed. Men, she thought,
were all the same no matter where you went.

“Marianne,” he whispered again. The
use of her name caught her attention. “Tell me what happened to
you. Tell me why you fear your own—” She placed a finger on his
lips to stop him, glancing at the aide who monitored him from the
other side of the room. Alarm pulsed through her, but the aide
hadn’t seemed to have heard.

“Shh,” she shushed him.

He breathed a ragged sigh. “I should
have told you sooner. It has stopped your panic to know of my
feelings.”

She shook her head and took one hand
in both of hers. “No, it wasn’t that,” she said. “You were dying.
Your apothecary—she told me the only way to save you was—to give
you my heart. Did everyone in the stronghold know?”

His face softened. “It was not
difficult for them to see,” he rasped. “I could not maintain a
proper distance from you.”

“I must have been the one person in
Suralia who didn’t figure it out,” she said, almost whispering. “I
thought you couldn’t—it was unprofessional to let myself think—So
I’d think about you, and then I’d have to think about what would
happen if I ever let my feelings show. I thought you would pity or
scorn me, and it scared me out of my mind.” Her voice hollowed as
she continued, “And now I still don’t know if I can be more than
just a friend to you, not even after—making such a huge
commitment.”

“Beloved, it is enough to touch your
hand.”

She pressed his hand to her cheek.
“It’s so strange to take your hand and know how you feel. You knew
how I felt all along, didn’t you?”

“It would have frightened you to know
this.”

She nodded. “Probably.” She sighed and
took a small cup from a nearby table. “Your apothecary told me to
give you this when you woke.”

The Sural made a face. “Another of her
vile potions,” he croaked, taking it from her.

“Drink up!” Marianne told
him.

The Sural drank it and handed the cup
back to her. “Not as bad as some of her mixtures,” he said, his
voice a little clearer. His eyes glazed. “But very... strong...” He
sighed into sleep.

<<>>

“They moved me to the
family wing,” Marianne said. “There are even more guards
here.”

Adeline laughed. “What did
you expect?”

Marianne
shrugged.

Adeline laughed again. “So
tell me about that petty little religious leader, the
Jorann.”

“They don’t have a
religion,” Marianne replied.

“Then what was all that
ritual about?”

“It was about
family.”

“Family?”

“You can’t have status on
Tolar unless you belong to a family—and I couldn’t continue
teaching Kyza without status. It was more like a legal adoption. I
had to be a member of the Sural’s family. So—the Jorann had to do
it, the one person on the planet whose rank and status are higher
than his.”

“You said she’s like a
legend on Tolar. The First Tolari. The Highest One. The one they
would never think to disobey, much less harm—while the rest of them
plot and scheme against each other like medieval
barons.”

Marianne’s head on the
monitor tilted sideways. “There has to be someone at the very
top.”

“And we all thought that
was the Sural, but he’s not sacrosanct. Why did she like you so
much? Why is she protecting you?”

Marianne shrugged. “I
really don’t know.”

Adeline paused the recording and
looked over at the Admiral. He nodded. “She’s hiding something,” he
said.

Adeline sat on the edge of the desk.
“I agree. There’s been a sea change in her communications with us.
She’s less open, more calculating.”

“Maybe it wasn’t such a grand idea to
let her do this,” Smithton said. “Looks like she’s taking her new
loyalty to the Sural too seriously, if you ask me.”

“He didn’t ask you,” Adeline replied
in an officious voice, then grinned. “But you’re right. She
is.”

“The question is, does her loyalty to
Earth still mean more to her,” the Admiral said. “You know how the
Chairman reacts to divided loyalties. Do we pull her
out?”

“The Sural would never forgive us for
it if we did,” Adeline replied.

The Admiral shrugged. “It’s easy
enough to invent a family emergency. Surely even the Sural would
understand that.”

“And surely the Sural would never
allow her to set foot on Tolar again, family emergency or no family
emergency.”

“Damn,” said Smithton. “She’s right,
John—it was one of that damned Sural’s damned conditions for
letting us send a teacher down there in the first place. After
gaining their trust, she couldn’t leave, because outside of their
protection she could be tampered with by enemies.”

The Admiral went to the viewport and
looked out at Tolar. “So—we can’t trust her, and we can’t pull her
out to debrief her.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Adeline
replied.

“Play it out, John,” Smithton said,
“see where it goes.”

The Admiral growled. “Looks like I
don’t have any real choice.”

Chapter
Fourteen

The Sural sat under a cora tree in the gardens.
Three days had passed since the Detral’s attack, and though the
poison had slowed his recovery, he wanted out of his quarters. His
apothecaries had given their consent to a walk in the garden, as
long as he rested more than he walked. Now he basked in the
afternoon sun, his heir laughing and playing in the brook nearby,
the woman who had captured his heart sitting at his side. He was
content.

He reached for her hand. She gave him
an almost shy smile and blushed, a hint of fear and apprehension
coloring her presence.

“I will never hurt you,” he
whispered.

She dipped her head, and her eyes fell
on his wounded side. “I’m so sorry that happened. If I’d
only—”

“No. I was able to survive. You would
not have.”

“Why did the Detral do it?”

He shook his head. “He is unbalanced
and intolerant. He deduced my feelings for you.”

“Apparently, I was the only one who
didn’t,” she said, her voice dry.

He grinned, then grew serious. “He is
sensitive enough to have heard the truth in my voice when I
declared you. Yet he believed I attempted to deceive
him.”

“Enough to try to assassinate me? I
didn’t know Tolari used bow and arrow.”

“It is a game of skill, nothing more.
We do not use them to kill each other. For the Detral to attempt it
is unthinkable. My guards thought nothing of it when he arrived
with a bow, supposing him intent on testing his skill against mine,
as he has done many times. He concealed his intentions
well.”

“It would be easy to assassinate a
ruler with a distance weapon,” Marianne murmured.

“It would be—unspeakable.
Dishonorable. What he did—” He shuddered. “It is not unprecedented,
but a provincial ruler has never attempted it.”

“I thought he was your friend.” Her
forehead wrinkled, and she leaked confusion.

“He was a good friend and a strong
ally for many years.”

Marianne shook her head. How the
Detral committed an atrocity, against a friend, seemed to defy her
understanding. “The Admiral doesn’t understand why more Tolari
rulers don’t use archery to gain an advantage over each
other.”

He shuddered again. “To kill an
unsuspecting individual from a distance is forbidden. Combat is
only honorable if the intended target has an opportunity to defend
himself.”

“This
target is glad you
defended her, but I wish it hadn’t almost cost you your
life.”

He smiled and squeezed her hand. “What
do your friends on the ship think now?”

“They’re relieved you’re alive,”
Marianne replied. “But they seem to know I’m hiding something,
especially Adeline, the Ambassador’s wife. She’s a sharp
one.”

The Sural let his smile tilt. “Perhaps
she would have been a better choice to be here,” he
teased.

Marianne cocked her head. “She’s loyal
to Earth to her very core,” she replied, as if she thought it had
been a serious statement. “And I think she used to be an
intelligence operative. Who knows, it might be Central Command’s
way to keep an eye on the Ambassador. Maybe she never stopped being
a spook.” Her eyes widened as she said it.