The Lady of Han-Gilen (24 page)

His joy blazed forth; he laughed with it, yet he trembled.
“A throne is worth nothing unless you share it with me.”

“I love you,” she repeated doggedly. “But—I am not—I must
think!”

There was no quenching this new fire, although he tried. He
did quell his face and his voice; but his eyes flamed. “Yes,” he said in the
gentlest of tones, “it is hard. You were away so long, and your quarrels are
all so newly mended. But if you depart as my princess, will not your kin be
glad?”

“Mother would be rather more than glad.” She stiffened
slightly; he released her, watching her with those hurting-bright eyes. “I have
to think. Might you—could you—”

His smile was the one she remembered, child-sweet yet not a
child’s at all. “I shall leave you to your thoughts. You need not hasten them.
I have three days yet.”

“Not so long. I can think— Tonight. After the night bell.”

He gestured assent. “Here?”

Her eyes flicked about, flinched, closed. “No. Somewhere
else. Somewhere—” She paused. “Somewhere for solitude. The temple. No one will
come there so late.”

“The temple,” he said, “after the night bell.” He rose and
stooped, brushing her lips with his. “Until then, beloved. May your god guide
you.”

Elian laughed wildly into the empty space; and then she
wept; and then she laughed again. And squire service still to do. She
straightened her livery and smoothed her hair and went down to it.

oOo

There was little enough to do, and that little she did
ill. Mirain, intent on some business for which she cared nothing, dismissed her
early.

Not in disgrace, to be sure. He hardly knew she was there,
nor cared.

A bath calmed her a little. She performed her duties of the
bedchamber: turned down the bed, filled the nightlamp, readied Mirain’s bath.
He liked a very little scent, for the freshness: leaves of the
ailith
tree mingled with sweet herbs. As
she cast them into the steaming water, a darkness filled her mind; she began to
shake.

“Fool,” she cursed herself. “Idiot! A lovesick heifer has
more grace.”

Was it love, or was it fear? Of herself; of Ilarios;
of—whatever one chose to name. Of falling after all into the trap which she had
fled.

She had kept her oath. She had come to Mirain; she had
fought for him. The other, older vow . . . need she keep it? Did
she even wish to?

Voices sounded in the bedchamber. Mirain bidding goodnight
to a lord or two, dismissing his servants.

She willed herself to rise, but her knees would not
straighten. If she wedded Ilarios, she would not do this again.

Servant’s labor. Menial things: scenting Mirain’s bath,
braiding his hair, arranging his cloak. Cleaning his armor, grooming his senel,
riding at his right hand. With Hal on his left and Ilhari under her and the
wind in her face.

He stood in the doorway in his simple Ianyn kilt, with his
cloak flung over his shoulder. How dark he was, how deceptively slight; how
deadly bright his eyes.

They saw nothing. She stood. “Your bath is ready. Shall I
wait on you?”

Most often he refused. Tonight he said, “Yes. My hair needs
washing.”

He grimaced as he said it; in spite of herself she smiled.
“You could cut it,” she said.

He laughed a little. “That would be too easy. And,” he added
with a wicked glint, “I wouldn’t need you to tend it for me.”

Her throat closed. He never noticed; he was stripping off
his kilt, laying it with his cloak beside the great basin. With his back turned
to her, he took up a loinguard and began to put it on.

“Leave that,” she said harshly. And when he glanced over his
shoulder: “Am I any more delicate than your bath-maids in Ianon? I know what a
man looks like.”

He paused. After a moment he shrugged, dropped the
loinguard, turned.

The heat raced from her soles to her crown and back again,
stumbling between. But she made herself look at him. All of him.

With the suggestion of a smile he stepped into the bath. She
began to loose his braid. Her fingers fumbled; silently she cursed herself.

Mirain lay in the water, eyes shut, utterly at ease. He
looked like a great indolent cat. A panther, with a velvet hide and an air of
tight-leashed power.

Her eyes slitted. A wildness unfolded within her. Even her
shirt, soft and brief as it was, grated against her burning skin.

She shed it. Mirain waited with the perfect, oblivious calm
of royalty, for her to serve him.

She filled her hand with cleansing foam. Still Mirain had
not moved.

He was not asleep. His awareness hovered, flawless as a
globe of crystal. Great mage and great king, god’s son, child of the morning,
he was warm and drowsy, and he smiled, drifting in the scented water.

She bent. He tasted of wine, and of honeycakes, and of fire.

The crystal flamed. Strength like a storm of wind bore her
up, back. The world reeled.

Yet did not fall. Black eyes opened wide. She gasped,
drowning.

Elian
! It was
silent; it filled her brain and washed it clean.

She lay on a heap of damp softness. Clothing, she realized;
drying-cloths; a cloak lined with fur. And on her, all the length of her, a
body as bare as her own: little taller, little broader save in the shoulder,
and fully as male as she was female.

Mirain looked down at her. His eyes were veiled, and yet
they glittered

Say it, she willed him. Say that you want me.

He moved, half rising, to lie beside her. His face was calm.

He was not going to speak. He was going to let her go, or
stay, or do nothing at all.

Her demon sat up, prick-eared. No strength of hers could
quell it. It said, “It was never like this with Ilarios.”

He was still, like a stone king.

“He’s very sweet. He warms my body. But this—no wonder you
have so few women!”

“Am I so revolting?”

She had pierced a wall or two. His voice came deep and
almost harsh; his face was frightening.

She bit down hard on laughter. “Dear heaven, no! Never. But
if your kiss can drive your own sister mad, what if you give more? There must
be very few who can bear the full fire of you.”

“There is none,” he said, still in that half-growl.

“None at all?” The laughter escaped, though she caught it
swiftly and strangled it. “Not your lady regents? Not your nine beauties of the
bath? Not—”

His hand stopped her mouth. “None.” Her eyes danced
disbelief. He glared. “There have been women in my bed. How not? Priest’s vows
can’t hold a king. But the fire . . . is something else.” He
released her, pushing back his hair. Half wet, half dry, it covered his
shoulders like a tattered cloak. “Though I fancy, from milord’s dazed look of
late, that you are stronger than I. Or hotter.”

Her temper reared up and began to burn. “I’ve given him no
whit more than I’ve given you.”

“Ah,” he said, drawing it out until she could have struck
him. Then he laughed, painfully. “Poor prince! He has no power to shield him.
Take care, lady; mere mortals are no match for the likes of us.”

“I’m no god’s get!” She scrambled to her knees. “He wants me
to marry him. To go with him when he goes, and be his empress.”

“And will you?”

Iron. Iron and adamant, and royal refusal to say a word,
even one word of aught but what befit a brother.
“I don’t know!”
she shouted at him.

And sank down upon her heels. For that was not what she had
meant to say at all.

“I love him,” she said. The mask never stirred. The lids had
lowered over the black eyes. “I do love him,” she repeated. “It’s impossible
not to. He’s so splendid, strong and gentle, merry and wise, all royal and all
beautiful. There’s nothing in him that isn’t perfect of its kind. And he loves
me to distraction.”

She looked at herself and at Mirain, and laughed until a sob
broke it. “Here I sit like a whore with her client, telling over old lovers.
But I told him I’d choose tonight, and I don’t know. I can’t even think. But I
should!”

“Know? Or think?”

“Both!” Her fists clenched over her eyes. She saw a red
darkness shot with stars. “Every scrap of sense I have, and most of my body,
cries out to me to take him. But something stops me. It isn’t fear. I could
live as Empress of Asanion. I could make an empire in my image: even that one,
with its thousand years of queens.”

He said nothing. She let the light in.

It hurt. Blessed, cursed pain. “Damn it, Mirain,” she said.
“Why don’t you say it and get it over?”

“What am I to say?”

Cold, that. Kingly. She knew the pride of it. That same
pride had held her apart from her kin until death’s own shadow drove her back
to them.

“I heard you,” she said, not too unsteadily, “before Vadin
left for Ianon.”

Mirain’s jaw clenched, eased. She wished that he would rage,
or laugh, or turn away in shame. Anything but this damnable stillness. “What
made you believe that we spoke of you?”

“Vadin told me. And,” she said, “I knew.”

“And?”

“And.” She wanted to touch him. Her hand would not obey her.
“It wasn’t too late. Then. Maybe even now—” She could not look at him.

She fixed her eyes on her feet. “The vow I meant to keep was
to be your queen. If you would have me.”

“Duty.” His voice was soft. “Your given word. Your wildness
is all illusion. You live by your princely honor. Else,” he said, “else you
would long since have fled us all, and gone to a place where none could bind
you.”

“I’ve . . . thought of it.” She knotted her
hands together until they began to hurt. “I would love you if you asked.”

Her demon had said it. Mirain laughed with no mirth at all.
“And if I refuse?”

“Damn you, Mirain. Damn you!” And herself, for asking that
he ask. He was as calm as ever, and as maddening in his stubbornness. “You want
me to make your choice for you. I won’t, Elian. Your heart is your own. Only
you can follow it.”

“Do you even have one?” He would not deign to answer that.
“Yes, I went to you because I promised. And because I loved you. And because
Ilarios could all too easily have taken your place; and that would have been a
betrayal.”

“Of what? Your leaden duty?”

Her eyes narrowed. Her lips drew back from her teeth.
“They’re right, your enemies. You suffer slaves and vassals. But never an
equal.”

“My equal would never demand that I do her thinking for
her.”

Proud, proud, proud. They were too well matched, he and she;
too damnably alike.

Ilarios’ pride was subtler. Saner. More sweetly reasonable.
He would never cast back love because it was less perfect than his whim
demanded.

She rose. Mirain watched her, and there was no yielding in
him. “Your bath grows cold, my lord,” she said, meeting stone with stone. “And
I have a promise to keep.”

oOo

After all her tarrying, Elian was early. The night-bell
rang even as she passed the gate of the temple.

Within, all was quiet. It was a very old temple, and very
holy; shadows veiled the massive pillars and lost themselves in the lofty vault
of the dome. In its open center glittered a single, icy star.

Elian trod the worn stones, moving slowly. Patterns unfolded
beneath her feet, broken and blurred with time: leaves and flowers, men and
beasts, birds of the air and fishes of the sea. Some ran up the pillars,
twining round them, glinting here and there with gold or a precious stone.

From all this faded splendor the altar stood apart, raised
high upon a dais. It alone bore no ornament or jewel: a simple square of white
stone, unadorned. Behind it upon the wall shone and flamed the only likeness of
himself which the god would ever allow. Gold, pure and splendid, dazzling even
in the light of the vigil lamp: in all but size, the image of the Sun in
Mirain’s hand.

Elian bowed low before it. There was no prayer in her. After
a moment she turned from it.

Lesser altars stood in sheltered niches around the circle of
pillars. Some were tombs of old princes. One held the body of the god’s chosen,
his bride, the priestess Sanelin.

One, very small, very ancient, drew her to itself. No high
lord or lady rested there; no gold adorned it, no carving lightened it. Even
its stone had not the pure beauty of the high altar: plain grey granite,
rough-hewn and set into the floor.

Its top was smoothed somewhat—that much one could see, and
no more. For it was covered with darkness, cloth woven it seemed of the very shadows;
yet that was no altar cloth but a hooded mantle. Beneath it lay a hollow in the
stone, and water that never fouled or shrank away, but remained ever the same,
clear and pure as water fresh-drawn from a spring. The Water of Seeing, veiled
in the mantle of the Prophet of Han-Gilen.

It knew her. It called to her. Take my veil. Look at me.
Master me. Prophet. Prophet of Han-Gilen.

She had schooled herself to resist it. But power would never
be denied. Had it bent her mind even in her father’s palace, bidden her meet
Ilarios here, to bring her to itself?

Look at me. You know not what course to choose. Look at me
and see.

“I’ll choose him,” she whispered, “to escape from you.”

Look at me, it chanted. Master me.

“No!”

She spun on her heel. She had put on a gown, for reasons she
could not have explained even to herself; its heavy skirts swirled about her
ankles. In the same movement, her cropped hair brushed her cheeks.

Would she ever be aught but a contradiction?

A shadow stirred among the shadows. Lamplight glimmered on
gold. She leaped forward; stopped short; advanced more sedately, unsmiling.

Ilarios took her hands and kissed them. He wore his black
robe still, with a dark cloak flung over it. The hood lay on his shoulders, and
his hair was free.