The Lady of Han-Gilen Read online

  “Well, so are we,” said Vadin, speaking for the first time. “The empire of the north. And hasn’t your father given you the world to rule?”

  Mirain’s smile was wry. “Given is hardly the word, brother, and well you know it. Offered for my winning, rather.” His eyes flashed around them. “What next, then? South or west? Who will choose?”

  “You, of course,” said Vadin. “Who has a better right?”

  “Someone may. Galan!”

  She started. Mirain faced her, suddenly a stranger, fierce and fey. “Galan, where would you have me go?”

  She spoke her thought, unsoftened and unadorned. “When you’re done with your jesting, you will do exactly as you always meant to do: pass the border your scouts have already pierced, and march upon the south. Halenan knew. He gave me a message for you. He called you a damned fool; he said, ‘If he sets foot in my lands, it had better be as a friend, or god’s son or no, I’ll have his head on my spear.’”

  Anger flared within the circle. But Mirain laughed, light and wild. “Did he say that? He can say it again when we meet. For southward indeed I will go, with the god before me. What of you, Red Prince’s kin? Will you ride at my right hand?”

  He wanted a bold brave answer. Elian gave him one; though not perhaps the one he had expected. “I will ride at your right hand,” she said. “And see to it that it is indeed friendship in which you come. Or—”

  “Or?” He was bright, laughing, dangerous.

  She grinned back. “Or you will answer not simply to me or to Halenan. You will answer to the Red Prince himself.”

  “I think I need not fear that.”

  “You should,” she said, surprising herself: because she believed it. “But as for me, I have given you my oath. While I live I will keep it. I will ride south with you, Mirain An-Sh’Endor.”

  EIGHT

  The son of the Sun took Ashan without a blow struck. As his army passed the forest that was the northern march of the princedom and entered its maze of stony valleys, riders came to him under the yellow banner of the prince.

  They laid themselves at Mirain’s feet, sued for peace, and called him king, beseeching him to receive their lord’s homage in his own walled city. Themselves they offered as hostages, and with them an open-faced young fellow who, but for the distinct red-brown cast of his skin, might have been Ianyn; he was, he said, close kin to the prince.

  Not the heir, Elian took note, but close enough. Old Luian, who might have waged a long and deadly war among his crags, had cast in his lot with the conqueror.

  And, having made his choice, he stinted nothing. His castles lay open to the army; his people hailed them as victors; his vassals came forth with gifts and homage. It was no invasion but a royal progress that brought Mirain to Han-Ashan where waited the prince.

  oOo

  He was old. Too old, his messengers said, to venture his bones on the mountain tracks. He received Mirain at the gate of his own hall, leaning on the arms of two stalwart young men, the most favored of his twoscore sons; yet he left his living props to perform the full obeisance of a vassal before his king.

  Mirain received it as he had received all else in Ashan, with gracious words, royal mien, and the expressionless face of a god carved in stone.

  His king-face, Elian called it. His mind yielded nothing at all to her, blank and impenetrable as the walls of Luian’s castle.

  She served him at the feast in Prince Luian’s hall, squire service much eased by the courtesy of the host; there was in fact little for her to do but stand behind Mirain’s seat and see that the servants kept both his cup and his plate filled. He ate little, she noticed, and only pretended to drink.

  She thought she knew why. Ashani women lived like women of the west, veiled and set apart from men, but the highborn dined in hall at festivals. Luian’s chief wife shared his throne, a woman of great bulk and yet also great and imposing beauty; many of his lords and commons kept company with wives or mistresses. Of unwedded women there were few, and those only the highest: a tall lithe woman with a priestess’ torque who was the prince’s daughter, and the daughters of one or two of his sons.

  One of whom, child of the heir himself, had been set between Mirain and her father. This, Elian well knew, was somewhat out of the proper order.

  Most of the royal ladies tended to favor their grandsire: Ianyn-tall, nearly Ianyn-dark, and strikingly handsome. This one was smaller, slight and shapely, her delicate hands and smooth brow unmarred by any taint of southern bronze, her eyes huge, round, and darkly liquid as the eyes of a doe.

  The rest of her face was clear enough to see beneath the veil, a delicate oval, a suggestion of perfect teeth. If she had a flaw, it was her voice: high and, though she took pains to soften it, rather sharp.

  Mirain seemed captivated, leaning close to hear her murmured speech, smiling at a jest. He was splendid to see, clad in the full finery of a Ianyn king, all white and gold; his skin gleamed against it like ebony.

  Elian herself had braided the ropes of gold into his hair. He had turned as she struggled to tame the unruly mass of it, and ruffled her own newly subdued mane, and laughed at her flash of temper.

  Her lips twisted wryly. Well; was that not what she had wanted? She walked abroad as a man, and he regarded her as one; although she shared his tent, he had never once touched her save as a brother or a friend, nor looked at her as a man might look at a woman. Even when he had seen her naked breast, he had seen only wounds that cried for healing.

  The lady held his hands in hers, giggling on a high and piercing note. The god’s mark fascinated her: the Sun of gold set in the flesh, fused with it, part of it.

  “You can touch it,” he said, warm and indulgent. “It won’t hurt you.”

  She giggled. “No. Oh, no! I couldn’t. That would be sacrilege!” But she did not let go his hand.

  Elian’s glance crossed Vadin’s. The Ianyn lord had evaded the bonds of princely protocol by the simple expedient of commanding his brother to take his name and his place, and putting on the garb and the bearing of a guard, and setting himself to watch over Mirain.

  Elian had learned, not easily, that it did no good to resent him. He went where he would, did as he pleased, and answered only to his king. Elian he treated with unfailing courtesy, which some might even have taken for friendliness: the friendliness of a man toward his brother’s favorite hound.

  He leaned against the wall, cool and easy, smiling a little. “My lord is well entertained tonight,” he observed. “They make a handsome pair, don’t you think?”

  Elian kept her face quiet, but her eyes glittered. “How can he endure her?”

  “How does any man endure a beautiful woman?”

  “She has a voice like a tortured cat.”

  “She has a rich dowry.”

  Elian drew a sharp breath.

  “After all,” said Vadin, “he’s been king these seven years. It’s time he got himself an heir.”

  “Strong throne, strong succession.” Elian bit off the words. “I know that. Who doesn’t? But this—”

  “Can you offer a better candidate?”

  Elian would not answer. Dared not.

  Vadin did not press her. He was, inexplicably and maddeningly, amused.

  Yet he did not know. He could not.

  Elian put on her best, boyish scowl. Vadin only grinned and wandered off on some whim of his own.

  oOo

  Mirain came up very late from the feasting. Later than Elian, who had left as soon as was proper, after the second passing of the wine; but the women had retired before the first.

  He greeted her with his quick smile. He had been drinking deep: his eyes were bright and his breath wine-scented. Yet he was steady on his feet.

  As she rose from her pallet, he motioned her down again. “No, be at ease; I can undress myself.”

  She came nonetheless to catch his cloak and jewels as they fell. He always turned his back on her to doff his kilt, more for her modesty’
s sake than for his own; in Ianon, Cuthan had told her, all the servants of his bath were women, maiden daughters of noble houses.

  She smiled in spite of herself as she unbound the intricate plaits of his hair, remembering the tale, a young priest from Han-Gilen forced for the first time to strip naked before a roomful of fine ladies. And knowing full well the root of the custom: the strengthening of noble lines with the blood royal, perhaps even the choosing of one favored lady to share the throne.

  Mirain yawned and stretched, supple as a cat. “Hold still,” Elian bade him, half annoyed, half preoccupied.

  He obeyed docilely enough. She continued her patient unraveling, letting each freed strand fall to his shoulders. He had battle scars in plenty, but all were on his front; his back was smooth, unmarred.

  Once, as by accident, she let her fingertips brush his skin. It was soft like a child’s, but the muscles were steel-hard beneath.

  He yawned again. “These Ashani,” he said. “They seem to practice half their statecraft in a haze of wine.”

  “They have a maxim: Wine to begin a thought, sleep and morning light to end it. And another: Soften your opponent with wine, and mold him when he wakes from it.”

  “They do the same in Ianon. But not so blatantly. Once he had the company down to the serious drinkers, Prince Luian launched his attack. He would become my true and loyal liege man, faithful servant of the god’s son, if only I would grant a small favor in return.”

  “Of course. How small?”

  “Minuscule. The merest trifle. It seems that he can’t agree with the Prince of Ebros as to the lordship of a certain valley. The Prince of Ebros has garrisoned it very recently with his own troops. Will I lend my army to restore the vale to its rightful master?”

  “Will you?”

  “I’ve been considering it. There’s been a great deal of tumult over this bit of green with a river running through it: embassies and counterembassies, threats and counterthreats. I’ve a mind to see if I can uncover the rights of the matter.”

  His hair was free. She coiled its golden bindings in their box; when she turned back, Mirain was upright in the bed, the coverlet drawn up, wielding a comb with no patience at all.

  Deftly she won the comb and began to repair the damage. “Ebros and Ashan have never been fond of one another. If you march on this valley, even if you only intend to determine its possession, Ebros’ prince will say you’ve come to start a war.”

  “In that event, I’ll make sure I come out the victor.”

  “You want Ebros, don’t you? However you get it.”

  He looked up. He was still, quiet. But the mask had gone up between his heart and the world. “Will you stop me?”

  She considered it with no little care. He watched her. She scowled at him. “You’re playing with me again. Pretending that what I say can matter.”

  “But,” he said, “it can.”

  Her scowl blackened. “Because I’m myself, or because I have a father who can raise the south against you?”

  “Or,” he continued for her, “because the High Prince of Asanion wants you for his harem?”

  Her heart stilled. Her throat locked, all but strangling her voice. “I— I never—how did you—”

  “Spies,” he answered. He was not laughing. She could not read him at all. “They have an ill name, these royal Asanians. They are trained from the cradle in the arts of the bedchamber; they keep women like cattle; they worship all gods and none. They have three great arts: love and sophistry and treachery. And their greatest pride lies in the weaving of all three.”

  “Ilarios is not like that at all.” The silence was abrupt, and somehow frightening. Elian filled it with a rush of words. “He asked for me in all honor. He promised to make me his empress.”

  “And you came to me.”

  “I came because I promised.”

  Mirain said nothing for a long count of breaths. When he spoke, he spoke softly, as if Ilarios had never been. “I will have Ebros. If I must take it by force, so be it. But I will rule it in peace.” He shifted, body and mind; he lightened, turned wry. “A subtle man, my host. He sweetens his conditions with purest honey: the offer of his granddaughter’s hand.”

  Elian’s hand stopped. “Did you accept it?”

  He laughed. “I have a policy,” he said. “When a man offers to make a marriage for me, I thank him kindly. I promise to consider the matter. And I make no further mention of it.”

  “And if he insists?”

  “I speak of something else.”

  She was silent, combing the wild mane into smoothness. Many a woman might have envied it, waist-long, thick and curling as it was. At length she said, “A king should marry for the sake of his dynasty.”

  Her lip curled a little as she said it. Wise words. Her mother had said very nearly the same thing, in very nearly the same tone.

  Mirain could not see her face; he said calmly, “So a king should. So shall I.”

  “When you’ve found a woman fit to be your queen?”

  “I have found her.”

  Elian’s eyes dimmed as if she had been struck a blow. But she was royal; she had learned discipline, seldom though she chose to exercise it. “How wise of you,” she said lightly, “to let your allies believe that they are free to bind you with their kinswomen. What is she like, this lady of yours?”

  “Very beautiful. Very witty. Rather wild, if the truth be told; but I have a weakness for wild things.”

  “Well dowered, I suppose.”

  “Very. She is a princess.”

  “Of course.” Elian was done, but she toyed with his hair, lingering, like a woman who frets with an aching tooth, testing again and again the intensity of the pain. “Her kinsmen must be very pleased.”

  “Her kin know nothing of it. I’ve not yet offered for her. She’s shy, you see, and elusive, and wary as a young lynx. She is no man’s to give, nor ever mine to compel. She must come to me of her own will, however slowly, however long the coming.”

  “That’s not wise. What if someone takes her while you are away on your wars?”

  “I think I need have no fear of that.”

  Slowly, carefully, Elian set the comb aside. “You are fortunate.”

  He lay back. His smile was a cat’s, drowsy, sated, with the merest hint of irony. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

  She turned her back on him and sought her pallet.

  “Good night,” he called softly.

  “Good night, my lord,” she said.

  NINE

  Elian flexed her shoulders. Her new panoply fit like a skin of bronze and gold, but its weight was strange, both lighter and stronger than the Gileni armor she was used to.

  Under her, Ilhari shifted. Strangeness? Maybe. Or maybe it was simple fear. She for one would be greatly pleased when her first battle lay behind her.

  Ilhari’s logic was as usual impeccable. Elian smoothed the battle-streamers woven into the mare’s mane, green on red-gold.

  Mirain, she noticed, was just completing the same gesture. The Mad One’s streamers were scarlet, the color of blood.

  He seemed unconcerned, even lighthearted, sitting at ease in the saddle, gazing down a long gentle slope at the enemy. His army massed behind him, swelled now with Ashani troops. The field beneath it had been golden with grain, but the grain was trampled, its gold dimmed. The earth had sprouted another crop altogether, a harvest of flesh and steel.

  Elian watched him consider it calmly, without haste. His forces were disposed on the ground he had chosen, a shoulder of Ashan’s mountains that dwindled here to a low rolling hill, with wide lands behind and his camp settled in them.

  More than a garrison faced him. The whole army of Ebros had mustered to drive back the northerners; had refused all his embassies and his offers of just and bloodless judgment; had forsaken the high-walled town whose folk tilled these fields and come forth to open combat.

  They had the town and its steep hill at their backs, but their own em
placements lay perforce below Mirain’s; if they charged, it must be uphill against a rain of arrows. Yet they were strong, and they had a wing of that most terrible of weapons, the scythed battle-car. Even their own men kept well away from those deadly whirling wheels.

  Their commander rode up and down before them in a lesser chariot, yet splendid, flashing gold and crimson. Matched mares drew it, their coats bright gold, their manes flowing like white water. He himself shone in golden armor, with a coronet on his high helmet.

  “Indrion of Ebros,” said Prince Luian’s heir from his chariot beside Mirain, with a century of bitter feuding in his voice and in the glitter of his eyes. “Now we shall settle with that cattle thief.”

  It was an ill word, Elian thought, for that splendid royal vision. Mirain paid its speaker no heed. The enemy had begun to fret before the massed stillness of his army. Yet that stillness was his own, the immobility of the lion before it springs.

  The Ebran line could bear it no longer. With a roar it surged forward.

  Still Mirain did not move.

  Elian’s heart thudded. The Ebrans were close, perilously close. She could pick out single men from among the mass: a mounted knight, a light-armed charioteer, a footsoldier in worn leather with a patch in his breeks.

  She saw the patch clearly. It was ill-sewn, as if he had done it himself, and of a lighter leather than the rest, incongruously new and clean.

  A hand touched her. She started and stiffened. Mirain’s hand left her, but his eyes held. No man’s eyes, those, but the eyes of a god: bright, cold, alien. “Remember,” he said, soft but very clear. “No heroics. You cling to me like a burr; you look after my weapons; you leave the rest to my army.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to protest. But he had turned from her, and his household was watching.

  Some smiled. The younger ones in particular; they thought they understood. “Cheer up, lad,” said the one closest. “You’ll get your chance.”

  “Aye and aye!” agreed another. “Here’s luck, and glory enough for everybody.” He grinned and clapped her on the shoulder, rocking her in the saddle. She grinned back through clenched teeth.