Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods (24 page)

She was three days old.

‘Third time is the charm,’ said
Marianne
.

‘The wedding was very, very beautiful,’ said Cloud-haired mama. ‘I was so afraid we’d miss it. When we got held up in Paris that way, I thought for sure you’d have to get married without us!’

‘Even I thought it was lovely,’ Marianne laughed, ‘once you and Papa got here. Though I was afraid you’d think it was terribly sudden.’

‘No more sudden than the way Haurvatat married me. He met me on the third of June and by the tenth we were married. They have this way with them, the men of Alphenlicht. And he’s as happy for you as I am, Mist Princess. Though how you got here and married when the last thing we knew you were in Denver, working for the feds – that’s what Papa says – “the feds”…’

‘Well, as you said, the men of Alphenlicht have a way with them. Makr Avehl just wouldn’t rest until I came here, and I’d no sooner arrived than he announced the wedding.’

‘I do hope he proposed properly in between.’

‘You know, I really can’t remember. He must have, don’t you think? Surely I wouldn’t have consented to a wedding if he hadn’t proposed?’

‘Of course not, darling. Look, there’s Papa beckoning to me. He has someone he wants me to meet.’ And Cloud-haired mama drifted away across the room looking almost as young and lovely as Marianne herself.

‘Happy?’ asked Makr Avehl from behind her. ‘Would you like more champagne?’

She turned and kissed him, feeling her whole body come alive as she pressed against him, catching her breath in a shaky laugh as she said, ‘Very happy. But I haven’t had any champagne at all, yet. You’ve been hogging it all for yourself.’

‘Lovely wedding,’ murmured Ellat, offering her a glass and a curious look, both at once. ‘I was thinking during the ceremony how little you’ve changed, Marianne. When you first arrived here in Alphenlicht, you were a bit of a stranger, but now you’re so much the girl I knew—before.’

‘Oh, I finally got myself together,’ laughed Marianne, looking up at Makr Avehl with a twinkle. ‘Or we did. I think personalities tend to integrate as we get a little older, don’t you, Ellat? Most of us are rather schizy when we’re young.’

‘There’s certainly nothing the matter with your integration,’ Ellat admitted with a continuing searching look into Marianne’s face. There was a lot of courage there, and determination. A lot of intelligence, too, as well as an almost violent alacrity, given to sudden decisions. Ellat was looking for a kind of untried girlishness that she thought she remembered seeing recently, but it wasn’t there. She tipped her glass in salute and smiled again as she moved away. It had been a beautiful wedding.

‘Isn’t it time we were running off somewhere?’ Marianne whispered to Makr Avehl. ‘Isn’t it time you were taking me to bed, love?’

‘Forward wench.’ He grinned at her, eating her with his eyes. ‘Just a few more minutes and we’ll escape. I hadn’t told you, but we’re going up to the hunting lodge for a proper honeymoon. We can leave in just a bit, but I think there are just one or two guests who may put in an appearance…’

There was a momentary hush from across the room as one of the belated guests arrived – a very old woman, leaning on the arms of two attendants. Her hair was white and her expression was mildly vacant.

‘Oh, look,’ said Marianne in a voice that anyone who did not know her very well would have thought to be sympathetic. ’Isn’t that Tabiti Delubovoska? One of Papa’s relatives by his first marriage. I met her once when I was only a child. She’s aged terribly. Heavens, she must be ninety-five if she’s a day.’ She smiled up at Makr Avehl again, seeing his eyes riveted on the old woman.

‘Over a hundred,’ he offered. ‘So I’ve been told. Though she looked remarkably young for her age until just—well, recently.’

‘Pity,’ said Marianne, drinking her champagne. ‘I don’t think she’ll last much longer. Well, we women can only hold time at bay for so long. It gets all of us in the end.’

‘Does it indeed?’ asked Makr Avehl. ‘Does it, Marianne?’

They stood looking at one another for a long moment, each still holding a celebratory glass in hand. Makr Avehl’s expression was loving, watchful, a little wary, as though something had happened of which he was only partially aware. ’Does time get all of us in the end?’

‘Of course,’ said Marianne, touching her breast where something hung on a chain beneath her high-necked dress. Across the room, a black dog with Gojam on its back poked its head through a door and winked at her.

Marianne looked up at her lover and smiled.

‘Of course it does, darling,’ she said.

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Land of The True Game

1.
King’s Blood Four
(1983)

2.
Necromancer Nine
(1983)

3.
Wizard’s Eleven
(1984)

Marianne

1.
Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore
(1985)

2.
Marianne, the Madame and the Momentary Gods
(1988)

3.
Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse
(1989)

Mavin Manyshaped

1.
The Song of Mavin Manyshaped
(1985)

2.
The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped
(1985)

3.
The Search of Mavin Manyshaped
(1985)

Jinian

1.
Jinian Footseer
(1985)

2.
Dervish Daughter
(1986)

3.
Jinian Star-Eye
(1986)

Ettison

1.
Blood Heritage
(1986)

2.
The Bones
(1987)

Awakeners

1.
Northshore
(1987)

2.
Southshore
(1987)

Other Novels

The Revenants
(1984)

After Long Silence
(1987)

The Gate to Women’s Country
(1988)

The Enigma Score
(1989)

Grass
(1989)

Beauty
(1991)

Sideshow
(1992)

A Plague of Angels
(1993)

Shadow’s End
(1994)

Gibbon’s Decline and Fall
(1996)

The Family Tree
(1997)

Six Moon Dance
(1998)

Singer from the Sea
(1999)

Raising the Stones
(1990)

The Fresco
(2000)

The Visitor
(2002)

The Companions
(2003)

The Margarets
(2007)

Sheri S. Tepper (1929 -)

Sheri Stewart Tepper was born in Colorado in 1929 and is the author of a larger number of novels in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery, and is particularly respected for her works of feminist science fiction. Her many acclaimed novels include
The Margarets
and
Gibbon’s Decline And Fall
, both shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award,
A Plague Of Angels
,
Sideshow
and
Beauty
, which was voted Best Fantasy Novel Of The Year by readers of
Locus
magazine. Her versatility is illustrated by the fact that she is one of very few writers to have titles in both the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks lists. Sheri S. Tepper lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

A Gollancz eBook

Copyright © Sheri S Tepper 1988

All rights reserved.

The right of Sheri S Tepper to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by

Gollancz

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Orion House

5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

London, WC2H 9EA

An Hachette UK Company

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 575 11606 1

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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