The Lady of Han-Gilen (18 page)

She had won. But the victory held no sweetness. Almost she
could wish that she had not won at all.

The day before Mirain began his progress into the south, a
strong force departed under Vadin’s command, turning back toward Ianon and the
north. They would secure the tribes upon the borders of Asanion, and ascertain
that all was well in Ianon.

“And I,” said Vadin, “have a lady who objects to a cold
bed.”

Elian had gone to brood in solitude. The cavalry lines were
quiet under the setting sun, the seneldi drowsing or grazing quietly, the
grooms and the guards drawn off to a comfortable distance. She lay on her belly
in the long grass, chewing a stem and watching Ilhari.

Voices startled her. Before she thought, she had flattened
herself to invisibility.

They nearly walked over her, too intent on one another to
see her, striding together with a single woven shadow stretching long behind
them. They stopped almost within her reach and stood side by side, not
touching, not needing to touch.

Vadin swept his hand over the high plumes of grass, beheaded
one, stripped it of its grains and offered it to the wind. Mirain turned his
face to the setting sun.

He frowned at it, but it was to Vadin that he spoke. His
voice was sharp with impatience. “I have no skill in the wooing of women.”

Vadin snorted. “You have more than anyone. You’ve seduced whole
kingdoms.”

“Ah,” said Mirain with a flick of his hand. “Kingdoms. Women
are infinitely more complex. And that one . . . whatever I do,
she makes it clear that I should have done the opposite.”

“Gods know what you see in her,” Vadin said. Mirain glared;
he grinned. “And I can guess. You like them difficult. Do you remember the little
wildcat in Kurrikaz?”

Mirain grimaced. “My scars remember.” He began to pace, a
brief circuit. “She was dalliance. They all were.”

“All three of them,” Vadin muttered.

“Four.” Mirain spun to face him. “This is truth, Vadin. This
is the one who must be my queen: who always has been. And I know nothing of
pursuit. All the rest have flung themselves at me, or been flung by fathers or
brothers or procurers.”

“Not that you’ve condescended to take any you didn’t fancy.”

“It’s the curse of the mageborn. The body is never enough.
Souls must meet; and so few even wish to. I tried once,” said Mirain, “to take
pleasure as a simple man would. It was like bathing in mire. She never saw me at
all. Only my wealth and my title, and the use she could make of them.”

“They’re not all like that,” said Vadin.

“I know it!” Mirain cried. “And the one I long for, the one
I must have—she hardly knows I’m a man.”

“Do you treat her like a woman?”

Mirain stopped short.

Vadin laid an arm around his shoulders, shaking him lightly.
“I’ve seen how you are with her. Stiff and distant, and prim as a priestess.
How is she to know you want her, if you persist in acting as if she were your
youngest sister?”

“But she
is
—”

“She is royal and a beauty, and you want her so desperately
you can hardly think. Let alone tell her the truth. She won’t wait for you,
Mirain; not unless she knows there’s something to wait for.”

“How can I tell her? She’s as shy as a mountain lynx. She
ran away from the last man who even began to court her.”

“And he went after her, and now he’s deathly close to
winning her.”

Mirain pulled free. His shoulders were knotted with tension.

Suddenly he laughed, sharp and mirthless. “Here am I, new
lord of the eastern world, fretting over a chit of a girl. An infant. A child
who knows nothing of her own heart.”

“Isn’t it time you set about telling her?”

“I can’t,” Mirain said. “Call it pride. Call it stupidity.”

“Cowardice,” said Vadin.

Mirain bared his teeth. “That, too. I can’t conquer a woman
as I would a city.”

“Why not? Think of it as a siege. So you don’t walk up to
her and demand her hand in marriage. You can start hinting. Set up your siege
engines: put on your best smile, give her a little of yourself, let her know
she’s beautiful.” Mirain opened his mouth; Vadin overran him. “That’s no more
than the other man does. When she’s warmed a little, then you can start beating
down the gates. As,” said Vadin, relentless, “he already has.”

“Damn you, Vadin,” growled Mirain. “I don’t recall that you
were so wise when you were the sufferer. Wasn’t it I who made you start
courting her? And didn’t I have to give you a royal command before you’d marry
her?”

“So,” said Vadin, “I’ve learned how it’s done. From you, O
my brother.”

“Did you, O my brother? Finish it, then. Win her for me.”

“I can’t,” Vadin said. “I have to hold the north for you.”

“Liar. It’s your wife you have to hold.”

“They’re all one, aren’t they? Beautiful, willful, and
determined not to come second in their lords’ eyes. Go on, brother. Win your
lady. It ought to be easier without me to get in the way.”

“She’s fonder of you than she knows.”

“Hah,” said Vadin. “Here now, stop glaring. Start your
wooing, before she runs off with his royal Asanian highness.”

Mirain paused, but suddenly he grinned. He aimed a blow at
Vadin, which caught only air; he laughed, and went almost lightly, like the boy
he still was. Vadin lingered, pondering the grass about his feet.

oOo

Elian’s fingers clawed in it. She did not want to
understand. She did not dare. That Mirain—might—want—

It was someone else. He had said it.

Had he?

It was a child’s folly, to dream that every colloquy
concerned oneself. And he had never—

He had said—

She scrambled to her feet. She never saw Vadin move. One
instant he was frozen, startled. The next, his dagger pricked her throat.

She met his hot glare, her own heat gone cold. “You were
talking about me.” she said.

The blade dropped away. The sting of it lingered. Vadin
eased, muscle by muscle, and began to laugh.

She waited. At long last he stopped. His brows went up. “You
heard us?”

“Every word.”

“Gods.” He was almost appalled. Almost. A grin broke free.
“So I won. You’ve found out. What will you do about it? Run away?”

“Where would I run to?”

“Asanion.”

She closed her eyes. She was feeling nothing yet. Or too
much. “I came for this,” she said. “Because I promised. That I would—”

“Did you come for the promise, or for him?”

Her eyes snapped open. “I promised! I—” She bit her tongue.
“If Mirain had not been Mirain, I would never have sworn my oath.”

“Prettily said,” drawled Vadin. He flung his long body to
the ground at her feet.

He was not wearing breeches under the kilt. She tore her
eyes away.

He propped himself on his elbow and regarded her from under
level brows. “Sit,” he said.

She did, with little grace. His amusement stung like the
edge of his dagger.

“You’re not a fool,” he said, “well though you pretend to
be. You know what you can do to a man simply by being yourself. It’s diverting,
isn’t it? It’s a splendid game. Setting Han-Gilen on its ear, hoodwinking the
army of the Sunborn, playing two imperial lovers against one another. Whet the
Asanian’s appetite with a long and perilous chase into the Sunborn’s arms;
prick the Sunborn to madness by falling into the Asanian’s embrace. If you play
your game cleverly enough, you can balance the two until the stars fall. Or,”
said Vadin, “until one loses patience and demands an accounting. What then,
princess? Which heart will you break? One or both?”

“I think,” she said, measuring each word in ice, “that I
hate you.”

“You hate the truth.”

“It is
not
the
truth!” She was on her feet, shaking, choking on murder. “I never meant this to
be. From the very first that I can remember, I knew what I wanted. Mirain. He
belonged to me. No one else could ever have him. Then—then he went away. Father
tried to hold him back until he was grown and could muster an army for the
claiming of Ianon. He obeyed as long as he could, but he fretted; his father
was in him, burning, and time was running ever faster.

“In the night, in the spring, when he had won his torque but
not yet had his fifteenth birth-feast, he covered himself in magery and slipped
away.

“But I knew. He could never hide anything from me. I
followed. I caught him; he almost killed me before he knew me, and came close
enough after. I begged to go with him, though I knew I couldn’t. He had to go
alone; his father wanted it, and he needed it. He thought it was his persuasion
that won me over. It was my power, and a glimmering of prophecy. ‘Go,’ I said.
‘Be king. And when you are king, I will come to you.’

“He kissed me and set his face toward the northward road.
And I stayed. I had to grow; I had to learn all I could, that would help me
when I fulfilled my promise. It was never a grim duty, but the pleasure grew
with me.

“Then I was a woman, and it was time, and it was never quite
time. There was always some new art to learn, some new suitor to dispose of,
some new hawk or hound or senel to tame. And I had kin who, though they could
madden me, loved me deeply, and I them.
Tomorrow
,
I kept saying.
Tomorrow I’ll go.

“I never stopped wanting Mirain. None of the men who came
panting after me was ever his equal. Few of them came close to being mine.

“Until,” she said, “I saw Ziad-Ilarios.”

She stopped, staring a little wildly at the man who lay in
the grass. The sun had lost itself somewhere. Vadin was a long shadow, kilted
in scarlet, hung with copper and gold.

She did not know him at all. Outlander, barbarian, soul-bound
with Mirain whom she knew too deeply to know what she knew.

“Ziad-Ilarios,” she said, like an incantation or a curse. “I
suppose to you he looks soft and small and daintily effeminate. To me he is all
gold.

“Mirain is the other half of me,” she said. “Ilarios is the
man to my woman.”

Vadin did not rise up to throttle her. Nor did he wither her
with contempt. “I see,” he said. “Mirain is too familiar to be interesting. The
Asanian sets your body throbbing.”

“The Asanian admits that he wants me.”

Vadin sighed. “And you want both. A pity you’re not a man,
to keep two mates. Or a whore, to have as many as you please.”

“That,” she said levelly, “I have been called before.”

His grin was white in the shadow of his face. “I married
one, you know.” Her silence troubled him not at all. He settled more
comfortably and drew an easy breath, like a talespinner with his audience firm
in his hand. “She was born to free farmfolk. One year when the crops failed,
her father sold her to a procurer. She was good at her trade; she could have
risen to a courtesan and bought her freedom, and no doubt set herself up in her
own business. But I came along, and somehow I ended up being her favorite
lover, which is no credit to my prowess: at that age I had none to speak of. I
think she looked on me as a challenge; and Ledi loves challenges. Then Mirain
set her free and gave her rank to match mine. Before I knew it we’d been
maneuvered into the marriage bed.”

Elian would not be shocked. He in his turn would not be
disappointed. “So you see, I have to go and leave Mirain to his fate: or should
I say, to you. Ledi has issued her ultimatum. I come home and inspect the tribe
I’ve fathered, or they come after me. There are two I’ve hardly seen, the
twins, they were beautiful when they were born but Mirain called me off to help
him put down a nest of mages; and then, what with one thing and another, I
never got back after. They’re nigh a year old now.”

“A tribe?” Elian asked, interested in spite of herself. “How
many of them are there?”

“Two maids—that’s the twins. And five lads. Seven in all.”
Only
seven, his tone said; and there was
no irony in it. “But then I’ve only the one lady, and somehow I’ve never had
much of an eye for anyone else. She does her valiant best. She wants twins
again this time, she says, and that will make nine, which is a good round
number. She has a strong will, does my Ledi-love.”

“So,” gritted Elian, “do I.”

“Don’t you? A pity it doesn’t know what it wants.”

She set her teeth until they ached, and was silent.

His head tilted. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“Am I supposed to answer that?”

He shrugged. It was fascinating to watch, for what it did to
all his rings and necklaces and earrings. Three in one ear, copper and gold and
one great carbuncle like a coal in the dusk. “Let me guess. You had Mirain
first. Then he abandoned you. He attached himself to me, who didn’t even have
the good grace to appreciate the honor, and made me so much a part of him that
now there’s no dividing us. And you came and found us as we are, and Mirain
persists in acting as if nothing has changed between you. Not only does that
madden you; I don’t even have the kindness to be jealous.”

“That’s not true.”

“Give me credit for some intelligence.” He sounded sharp but
not angry. “I give you more than your fair share for not despising a gaudy
barbarian. But you want me to hate you and to fight with Mirain over a love
that’s big enough for us all. Alas, I can’t. I lost that degree of humanity
when I took the lance in my vitals. It went both ways, that miracle. Mirain
called me back, and I saw the full extent of what he was and is and will be.
He’s mine, always, irrevocably. He’s also Ianon’s and the north’s and the
south’s; he belongs to your father, he belongs to Hal, he belongs to you. It’s
no good to want to have all of him. Even Avaryan can’t have that.”

“What
are
you?”
she cried through the tangle that was her mind.

“A prodigy,” he answered, and his voice was bitter. “A
monster. A dead man walking.”