Son of Avonar

CHAPTER 7

Day 1, Year 1 in the reign of King Evard

By the time Martin had finished his tale, the sky was rosy and the birds twittering in the garden. Tomas would arrive by mid-morning, and the events of the night would make my departure no easier.

Despite his best efforts, Tanager fell asleep on the floor, while Julia and Martin went to the kitchen to hunt up something for us to eat. Martin had told his stewards to continue the servants’ holiday through the coming day. Tennice paced the library, grumbling under his breath and casting such mournful glances over his spectacles at Karon and me that we decided to escape to the garden. We walked for a while, but there was nothing to say and everything to say, and we could not even begin. Eventually we gave up trying and joined Martin and Julia in the kitchen.

Just as Martin pushed a knife into my hand and told me to slice the oranges piled in a copper bowl, Tennice burst through the door. “Martin, do you have a copy of the Westover Codex? Surely you do. Don’t tell me you don’t.”

The Earl of Gault was up to his elbows in buttered toast. “You’re going strange on us, Tennice. The Westover Codex at six in the morning? Here we’ve had a night such as friends seldom experience, and you’re ready to get back to your books.”

“No jest, Martin.”

Martin shrugged. “In the vault, then. Black leather case.”

Before too long a time had passed, Tennice’s head reappeared in the kitchen doorway. “Seri, would you come, please? I need to speak with you.”

Wiping my hands on a towel and yielding my sticky knife to Karon, I joined Tennice in the library. He was poring over a fragile parchment spread out on the library table, and when I came in, he whirled about, snapping a pen in his thin hands. I had never seen him so agitated.

“Do you love him, Seri?”

I was taken aback.

“Tell me honestly. Karon—do you love him?”

He was not asking lightly. “Yes. Yes, I do, but—”

“You’re not afraid?”

“Of Karon? No more than I’m afraid of you or Martin or the others.”

He nodded as if he had expected nothing else. “If, by taking a great risk, you could avoid what is to come with Evard, would you be willing?”

“I’d do almost anything.”

“I’ve found you a way.” He beckoned me to the table to look at his parchment. “Evard will likely be crowned this afternoon, no later than tomorrow. It’s already been two months since Gevron’s death. A thousand noble guests are getting restless at twiddling their thumbs here in Montevial, waiting for us to make up our mind who we’re going to crown, while their tenants are harvesting crops and their less honored neighbors are lusting over their unguarded fields and horses. And, most importantly, the fall campaign against Kerotea can’t begin until there’s a king. So I started thinking about how there’s no time for an extended celebration, only the necessary rituals—coronation rituals. And that reminded me of something I’d read.” Tennice never forgot anything he read, not even if it made no sense or had no relevance at the time. No one in all Martin’s circle had ever been able to catch him up. “You’d risk Evard’s wrath. He’s not a forgiving man, as you well know.”

The three from the kitchen appeared, carrying trays loaded with toast, jam, oranges, and tea. “What’s this about Evard’s wrath?” asked Martin.

“I’ve found a way Seri can refuse him and choose”—he glanced up at me—“a life she might prefer.”

“Tell me, Tennice,” I said.

“There’s a codicil buried in the Westover Codex about petitions put before the new king on Coronation Day—the Favored Ten. To violate the Westover Codex is to violate the very basis of his own power. Evard won’t do it. Can’t do it. The Council wouldn’t stand for it, and he needs them to support his war. And if he accepts the Westover Codex, then he must grant the first ten petitions on the day of his coronation. If you’re willing, Seri, you can petition him to marry whomever you will.”

When Tomas escorted me from Windham that morning, I told him that I wished to be presented to Evard as soon as he was crowned.

“He’ll send for both of us soon enough,” said my brother.

“But I should be the first to acknowledge his authority, should I not?” Now I knew of the Codex codicil, there was no stopping. I would not let myself consider what the future might bring; all would depend on Evard’s reaction. But, whatever the consequences, I could live with them. Evard, I could not.

Evard, Duke of Doncastre, was crowned King of Leire and Protector of Valleor that afternoon in the presence of the Leiran Council of Lords, every Leiran noble of importance, the high priests of Annadis and Jerrat, and every resident of Montevial who could bribe, wheedle, or sneak his way into the palace precincts. One sullen group of guests dressed in sober finery were noble hostages from Valleor and Kerotea, kept under house arrest in Leire and now forced to witness the succession of their conquerors.

Sharp angles of purple and green light from the stained-glass windows streaked the gray stone floor of the Great Hall of Leire. The carved capitals of the soaring columns were lost in the dim and smoky heights, as were the frescoed ceilings. I stood among the most favored guests to the right of the throne, trying to avoid having my eye put out by the women’s stiff headdresses, my skirts snagged by the men’s jeweled sword hilts, or my breath choked off by the cloying perfumes. But I squeezed and smiled and elbowed my way to the front where I could see.

The ceremony began with a priest’s long-winded recounting of the War of the Beginnings, and most especially of the part where Arot had retired to his mythic palace of Cadore with his wife Mana. While his twin sons guarded the world against the fiends of air and sea, those of us on earth were commanded to defend our own lands and welfare by serving strong, faithful warrior kings. By the time the chancellor was halfway through a recounting of our new king’s life, Martin had dozed off. Evard was only twenty-five. This part shouldn’t take so long.

For my part, I was neither sleepy nor anxious. In truth I was more concerned with Tomas than Evard, for what I was about to do would be a grievous offense to my brother. We had been our parents’ only children, close in age and interests, and forced into constant companionship by the remote situation of Comigor, our father’s keep. I loved Tomas dearly, honored him as a warrior and a swordsman, and respected his authority as the head of our family. But he had never once asked me of my wishes, hearing my objections no more than he would hear a complaint from his horse that the flies were becoming a nuisance. To do so had never occurred to him, though I had been frank about my declining opinions of his friend. But Martin had taught me that my opinions were worthy of consideration.

When the chancellor’s droning ended, the Council of Lords came forward one by one to swear fealty to Evard. Martin winked at me as he took his place in the queue. I nodded, unable, even in my own anxiety, to forget the pain which had led to his moment of desperation the previous night. If Annadis and Jerrat truly favored Leire as our priests assured us, then somehow Martin would have a say in our kingdom’s future.

After the twelve nobles had kissed the new king’s hand and sworn their oaths, Evard named Tomas Champion of Leire, the most coveted honor in the realm. The Champion answered any personal challenge made to the king. It was perhaps the only royal office awarded on merit alone. My heart swelled with pride. How I wished my father had lived to see him so honored.

Tomas, dressed in white and gold, quite looked the part. He was as tall and commanding a presence as our father had been, who had been considered the epitome of the gallant soldier. My brother’s hair was the same deep red-brown color as my own, shining and thick as it framed his handsome features: straight nose, dark brown eyes, and a battle scar on his jaw just large enough to make court ladies sigh at his bravery. Maybe there was a little too much of the indulged boy-child in his curling lip, but he was intelligent. He would grow into his power and see Evard’s flaws. Perhaps his influence with the new king would help moderate those flaws.

When Tomas took his place beside Evard, he leaned over and whispered in his friend and liege’s ear. Evard smiled indulgently. He sprawled on the gilded throne as if it had been his from the moment of his birth instead of for a mere quarter of an hour. He waved his hand to get the attention of the assembly, then nodded in my direction. “This fair young lady has asked for public audience upon this occasion, and it is our delight to hear her.”

Now to me. There would be no turning back. I could be queen if I wanted. I could submit to the authority of my brother and the desires of his friend, and no one would ever take me to task for it. It was the singular expectation of a woman of privilege—to marry according to her family’s wishes rather than her own. I would not be held responsible for Evard’s character except in my own mind. After a few years I could most likely take a lover. Evard wasn’t single-minded in that regard even now, and I knew how things worked in royal circles. But that was not the life I wanted. Martin had opened up the world to me, and I was not willing to abandon his gift.

So I stepped forward and curtsied, pulled a manuscript from my sleeve, and proclaimed to the assembly that I was making petition of His Most Gracious Majesty King Evard upon his Coronation Day, according to the provision of the Westover Codex known as the Grant of the Favored Ten. Because my parents who would guard the welfare of their only daughter were dead, and because my brother, whom I honored, was almost of an age with me, I petitioned that I be freed from the traditional duties of a subordinate female and be allowed to choose my life’s partner for myself.

Evard had to grant my petition. No one at court could fail to know that I had been intended for him and that my petition was a product of my disdain. But for that very reason, he had to be magnanimous. Better to be thought spurned by a proud and willful female than to let anyone know he cared. Many a man in the same position would bully the woman he desired into marriage, but I knew how Evard’s mind worked. He would get his revenge some subtler way.

With strained good humor, the king proclaimed, “It is difficult for us to imagine a determined young lady such as yourself ever entering into an arrangement counter to your desires. The unlucky gentleman would rue the day, we have no doubt.” The assembly laughed uneasily. “As an impartial observer and your longtime friend and well-wisher,” he continued, “we would caution you to heed the advice of your brother, who is perhaps wiser in the ways of the world than a sheltered young lady such as yourself. Whims such as this one can have consequences beyond a moment’s gratification. But we can see no reason to deny your petition. Let it be so written.”

With a flick of his hand I was dismissed. It was a good thing I had no designs on any courtier. Evard had surely dampened my prospects with his remarks. I had a gracious response prepared, but someone else was already making his obeisance, speaking of dispatching messengers to the Leiran troops to pass on the joyous news of King Evard’s ascension to the throne. The line of petitioners, grovelers, and well-wishers stretched all the way through the hall and into the outer ward.

My eyes cast down, I curtsied deeply and backed away into the murmuring crowd. I felt like flying to the ceiling with the pigeons, like leaping atop the long, curved Council tables and crowing like the gold and russet hawks who soared above the roofs at Comigor. I dared not look at Martin or Tennice, lest I burst out laughing or fling myself into their arms and bless them for their gifts. After a suitable time of humble attention to the proceedings—of which I heard not a single word—I worked my way to the back of the crowd and slipped out one of the many side doors to the hall. People were jammed up to every door, willing to suffer crushed toes and bruised elbows to provide themselves with a glimpse of history to carry though their lives— or at least through the next dinner party. I had scarcely made my way through the door when I felt a firm hand on my elbow. “Darzid!”

“Your brother requires your presence, my lady.” To my surprise, the dark, deep-set eyes of Tomas’s aide glittered with amusement. Did Tomas know his aide took so light a view of my rebellion?

“I’d have thought Tomas would be too busy with his new duties to have time for family visits.”

“Oh, no. He’s asked me especially to bring you to him. Need I say that he has a most ah… pressing… desire to have a word with you? Would this be a good time for us to run away together, do you think? You will reap his wrath for an hour, but I have to fight beside the man!”

Despite his smiles and mischievous humor, Darzid’s gentlemanly touch brought me back to earth. My visions fled. My wings felt ripped away, my hawk’s feathers plucked. I jerked loose from him and smoothed my gown, disheveled by the press of the crowd. “If Tomas thinks to change my mind, he’s mistaken.”

“I make no estimates of his expectations, my lady. I’ll confess that after this day’s events, I would not set myself up to predict any action of yours. You’re even more interesting than the young woman I’ve come to admire so deeply over the past years.” He swept his hand indicating a path down a broad corridor to the left, and then offered me his arm.

Somehow, I could not bear the thought of touching him again, and so I shoved past him. “Remember your place, Captain.”

Darzid bowed and led me to a small, luxuriously furnished sitting room. “I’d recommend you remain here until the duke is able to attend to you.” His expression did not register my rudeness. His smile did not change, nor the amused glint in his eyes. He bowed again and closed the door behind him.

I was left to occupy myself with an ivory and jade chessboard. Fingering the exquisite pieces, lost in thoughts of Windham and those who played there, I wondered what I might have to do to keep my friends out of harm’s way. If naught else, Darzid had wakened caution. No attention must be directed anywhere near Karon.

An hour later, Tomas burst through the gilded door. “There you are.” His face convulsed with fury. “What damnable perversity has made you do this to me?”

I was prepared to hold my tongue, to do whatever I could to mend the rift I’d caused or at least do nothing to make it unmendable. Tomas and I had no family but each other, no aunts or uncles, no one any closer than distant cousins like Martin. But my brother was not to be placated.

“Have I not let you have your way all these years? Have I been extraordinarily cruel or brutal, that you should humiliate me so despicably? Our father must be crying out from the grave at the disgrace you’ve brought on our house this day.” He strode to the center of the room, spun on his heel, and glared at me. “It’s Martin, isn’t it? He’s put you up to it. The Westover Codex… faugh! The self-righteous prig, thinking he’s got the only mote of intelligence in the universe. This is how he takes his pitiful revenge, befouling all of us because the better man won. He’s not strong enough or brave enough to face Evard on his own, so he manipulates a fool of a girl to do his dirty work for him.”

I thought he would never leave off.

“You meant to do it this way. The culminating day of my life—everything I’ve worked for, fought for, bled for— and what have you done? Turned it into a hill of dung!”

“Tomas! Listen to yourself,” I broke in at last. “All I hear is how you are humiliated, how you will have to wallow in dishonor, how your triumph has been turned to dung. Did you ever consider me for even a moment? Did you ever think what it is to be deemed of no more value than a plot of land or a chest of gold to be paid out because your brother is loyal? You would pledge your sister to a man she despises. For what?”

“For everything. I would have made you queen, you little fool! We would have been the most powerful family in the Four Realms.”

Blast all stupidity, I thought, as Tomas trembled with rage. It was not just for loyalty and friendship. I’d not given Tomas enough credit. It had never crossed my mind that his ambitions stretched beyond Evard.

I tried to soothe him. “You’ll have all the power you wish, Tomas. You’ve been Evard’s most devoted friend; you’ve fought beside him since you were boys. You are the Champion of Leire, and not just because you’re his friend. You’re the finest swordsman in the Four Realms and none in any realm will dispute it. But I don’t want to be queen, Tomas, not if it means being Evard’s chattel or even yours.”

Tomas threw up his hands. “You prefer Martin’s endless Long Night follies and juggling shows. Are you his whore, too?”

So much for unmendable rifts. I slapped him, leaving a darker red mark on his red face. “Your tongue is as foul as your choice of friends, Tomas, and just as unimaginative. The only foolish thing I’ve done this day is think that somehow, given time, you might understand.”

My brother answered with cold hatred that was far more terrible than his anger. “I will never understand, Sen.” He opened the door and flung his last words over his shoulder. “Don’t bother returning to Comigor. I’ll have your things sent to the townhouse and set up a means to keep you respectably. I trust you’ll return to some semblance of decorum after this despicable performance.” He slammed the door, leaving me alone in the gilded room.

The anger I had expected. Tomas had been indulged from his first breath, deprived of nothing save the remotest inkling that there were others in the universe besides himself. But the unyielding hatred—that I had not expected. I would have to tread carefully. In one day I had made enemies of the two most powerful men in the land.

Well, I had made my choice and I had no intention of regretting it, though I could see now the painful consequences that must follow. An ornate little desk in the corner of the anteroom housed paper, pens, and ink, so the first thing I did was to write a message to the housekeeper at our townhouse, saying the house must be opened that night, rather than later in the fall as had been the family custom. And then I wrote a letter to Martin.

My dear cousin,

As you have seen, it is done. My fate, at least in the realm of marriage, is in my own hands, and I do not regret my choice. But as with all choices of any significance, especially those which tread on the pride of kings and brothers, certain consequences must temper any celebration of success in my endeavor.

I cannot express too deeply my gratitude for the education and friendship you have given me in the past four years. My view of the world has been irrevocably changed by the enlightened company at Windham, but for now my participation in those pleasant activities must end. Though not my desire, this too, is my own choice.

My brother and I have agreed that I will take up residence here in the city. I am well provided for.

You must tell my friends that they will ever be in my thoughts, and for any who go traveling, may the road be filled with nothing but beauty.

Highest regards,

Your cousin,

Seri

It was not enough, but what could possibly be enough to tell them what I wished? They would read between the lines.

Year 1 in the reign of King Evard

I plunged immediately into the social life of the court, renewing girlhood friendships I had abandoned when I had begun attending Martin’s salons. I found it ironic that I was supposed to find the “decorum” Tomas so prized in the drunken revelry of idle nobles who could converse on no topic more serious than who was whose mistress, and what were the prospects for the fall campaign, and weren’t last year’s vintages the most bloody awful in history.

But between afternoon feasts, hunting parties, and evening entertainments, I read and studied furiously. Until the years at Windham I had never been studious, preferring a ride across the downs to reading a book or a game of draughts to composing an essay. Even at Windham, my scholarship had been mostly confined to avid listening, unschooled argument, and persistent questioning. Only Tennice’s challenge had sent me to reading. But now that I was deprived of that company, I discovered a hunger for knowledge that I could ease nowhere but in books. In the back of my mind I held fast to something Tennice had mentioned in passing, that one or two women had been allowed to study at the Royal University in Valleor. To make something different of my life… I liked that idea. Things more unlikely had come about.

I also hired an elderly gentleman to teach me to play the flute. He was a drunkard, but in the rare times he came without spirits on his breath, he could sear the soul with the beauty of his music. He said he drank because no one would listen. I listened, and I learned.

One morning, as I sat in my library studying a history of the Four Realms, Darzid came to visit. “Just to discover how this new life suits you,” he said. “No need to stop what you’re doing.”

He settled in a chair by the window and seemed to mean what he said. He browsed through the stack of books I had left beside the chair: one on law, one on philosophy, one on the history of Valleor that I was devouring with new eyes, hunting any mention of Avonar. The task of opening a conversation was left to me. The trouble was, I was far more interested in what I was reading. The tattered book in my hand purported to recount the history of “the reign of horror and the noble restoration” some four and a half centuries in the past. I purposely did not offer Darzid any refreshment and did not move from my library table to a chair that might facilitate our conversation.

“You must report to Tomas that I appear comfortable and well fed, and I do not seem to be moping for the loss of his companionship or Evard’s.”

“Mmm.” He thumbed idly through one of the books, but I didn’t think he was reading it.

It was tedious to make conversation when you had no heart for it. “So, Captain, are you finding sufficient fodder for your character sketches, since Tomas has dragged you so high? Have you decided to write them down as you threatened? I think the kingdom could do with a good laugh now the war has taken up again.”

“The world is absurd. I—” He broke off, threw the book on the table, and sat back, tapping his long finger rapidly on the arm of the chair. Though his dress was as sleek as ever, Darzid didn’t look well. The sunny window at his back left his haggard face in shadow. The mischievous glint was gone.

I waited for him to resume his thought. He was not one to dance about a topic or adhere to polite protocols. But the silence stretched so long and so heavily, I felt compelled to say something. “Captain, why are you here?”

A hint of his sardonic smile flashed across his face. “I’ve missed our dinner conversations. Every fishwife in this city knows of your estrangement from your brother, thus they refuse to seat me next you. You’ve always brought out my best humor.”

“So, is it court life or soldiering that’s quenched it?”

“Truth to tell, I’ve not been sleeping well.” He drew up to the edge of his chair and leaned forward. “Tell me, lady, do you ever have the sense that you belong somewhere else? That your life has taken a course you cannot explain?”

“On occasion,” I said. Certainly on the night I had learned that the society I believed built on honor had perpetuated a horrific lie—that sorcerers were universally evil and deserved to die in torment. “Usually when I am at some baroness’s masque—”

“No, no. This is something else.” A gold chain hung about his neck, its links gleaming in the sunbeams. “I visited a village in the far north of Valleor last month, a place where I’ve never been. The people of the village claimed to know me. To detest me. Old people swore they’d met me in their youth. I thought it an oddity, but at three other villages in the district, it was the same. My lady, they told me of a duel fought there thirty years ago. I killed a local man, they said, a man well regarded in their district. They described the combat in detail. I scoffed at the tale, but they swore to it, mentioning a star-shaped scar left on my shoulder from the incident. I told them it was nonsense, of course. Tomas got a great laugh.”

“But you’re not laughing.” Indeed he was as serious as I’d ever seen him.

“I have such a scar on my shoulder, exactly as they described it.” Absentmindedly, Darzid rubbed his left shoulder, as if some ghost pain bothered him.

“Coincidence. You’re a Leiran soldier. You have a number of scars, I’m sure. And every Vallorean hates every Leiran ever born.”

“But, strangely enough, I can’t tell you where I got this particular scar. The whole matter got me thinking. There are a number of things I can’t remember: stories of my family, my career, that I’ve told so often they seem true, and yet when I turn my mind to them, they vanish like movements you see only out of the corner of your eye.” He stared at his hands and the ugly burn scars that crossed his palms. “And there are images floating in my head that have no place there, images that have the truth of memory, and yet are so fantastical…” He shook his head as if to rid himself of those very thoughts. “Foolishness. You must think me drunk.”

“Why are you telling me these things?”

He forced a laugh. “I’ve no one else to tell of my fancies. Tomas and Evard are quite single-minded, and everyone else in this kingdom gets the megrims from such talk. But you sit here wide-eyed and act as if you hear such mysteries every day. I knew you’d not laugh at me. You are exceptional…”

I’d never seen such a look on Darzid’s face—unmasked admiration… a request for intimacy…

I stood up abruptly. This conversation was going somewhere I didn’t want to go. “I’m sorry I can’t hear the whole story, Captain. But for now, I’m in the middle of some work…” I waved at my book and a stack of papers on my desk.

Face scarlet, he leaped to his feet and called my butler for his cloak. “My apologies, my lady. I had no wish to make you uncomfortable.”

“This thing with Tomas will pass.” I said. “We’ll sit at many a tedious dinner where you can tell me more.” His story was indeed curious, but I had no need and no desire for intimacy with an ambitious courtier. Those entrusted with mortal secrets had to be careful about intimate relationships.

In a flurry of farewells and deprecating humor, he took his leave. “If Tomas fails to come to his senses and you find this studious life as boring as a dinner party, perhaps you will invite me back sometime and restore my wit.”

“Anything is possible, Captain.”

But in truth, I never invited him back. I cared nothing for Darzid and his humors and his mysteries. Rather, my thoughts remained at Windham, and I would smile to myself and wonder what dusty tomes Tennice had discovered lately, and who would ally with Julia to argue with Martin that women should own property, and was Karon even there or was he traveling again, searching for knowledge and beauty to feed his strange power. Someday I would know more of sorcery. I’d had too small a taste of that exotic fruit.

When I was a child of five, King Gevron had decided that subjugation of the other three of the Four Realms was the only answer to the centuries of bloody disputes with our neighbors, Valleor, Kerotea, and Iskeran. He began with Valleor, the fertile kingdom to the northwest, also the weakest of the three and the one with the longest shared border. Eleven years passed until the day the last Vallorean fortress fell; only the kingdom’s vast size—and frequent interruptions from the more warlike Keroteans and Isker— had made the conquest take so long. Gevron spent three years ravaging conquered Valleor, and thus had turned his full attention to Kerotea only in the last years of his reign. That war had gone nowhere.

Evard marched out of Montevial one week after his coronation, bragging that he would finish off the Keroteans in far less time than Gevron had taken to crush Valleor. By midwinter of the first year of his reign, he claimed decisive victories on the Kerotean frontier. But dismal weather cut the campaign short, and gossip was that everything gained would be lost again by spring.

On the eve of Long Night, I decided to stay home. There had been an unending siege of entertainments celebrating Seille—the midwinter season that culminated in Long Night and the ten days until year’s end—and I had refused no invitation lest any slight be noted. I flirted with any man who would look at me and made sure there was enough gossip at court that Tomas and Evard would hear of it. The king would be able to blame no man for standing higher than himself in my favor. Eventually, perhaps, he would lose interest and stop listening. But enough was enough. I pleaded the grippe and spent the evening with a wool comforter and a book of Vallorean folk tales, the winter shadows held back only by the flicker of my library fire.

The front bell rang. I assumed it was one of my latest suitors, most likely Viscount Mantegna, pleading with the butler that he would be eternally devastated if he could not drive me out in his new sleigh. Mantegna was a slobbering pup, but amusing enough. Luckily I had Joubert, the butler, well trained. “No” meant no.

There came a tap on the library door, and Joubert entered with a long, thin parcel in his hand. “Your pardon, my lady. A gift has arrived.”

The arm-length bundle of green silk was tied with a gold ribbon and had no card. Unrolling the layers of silk revealed a rose… in the middle of winter, a single, perfect red rose. The tips of the scarlet petals curled out, on the very instant of bursting open. Poised on one of them was a single dewdrop, no stray snowflake or ice pellet melted in the warmth of the room, for as I gazed upon the flower, wreathed in its sweetness, I smelled the dew-laden gardens of Windham. Enchantment…

I ran to the foyer to see if he was there, but the front of the house was dark and deserted. I was overwhelmed with disappointment, but only until I touched the rose again. Then I smiled, put it in a crystal vase, and set it on a low table where I could see it from every angle. The rose was message enough.

Spring brought the Month of Winds, when we celebrated Arot’s wedding to Mana, the wind maiden who had given birth to the Twins. On each day of the Month of Winds, parents gave children presents and sweets in remembrance of the gifts Mana had given to the creatures of forest and sky at her wedding, hiding them around the house and gardens as Mana had hidden nuts for the squirrels. Midway through the month came the Feast of Vines, supposedly the most propitious day of the year for engagements and betrothals. Certainly it was a propitious day for wine-merchants.

On a rainy afternoon five days after the feast day, I attended the funeral rites for the Duke of Gamercy, a jolly, hard-drinking, foulmouthed old man who had been one of my father’s closest friends. Gossip said the old man had enjoyed the Feast of Vines a bit too much for one in his sixty-seventh year. Tomas did not attend the funeral, being at Evard’s side on the new campaign in Kerotea. Martin was present, though, sitting across the cold stone expanse of Annadis’s temple with Tennice at his side. It was the first time I’d seen them in the seven months since Evard’s coronation. Neither of them looked my way.

After the incense-filled hours of songs and stories commending the old warrior’s name to the Twins as worthy to be entered on their lists of earthly heroes, the guests retired to the duke’s townhouse for refreshment and reminiscence. Though I wanted nothing more than to fling myself into Martin’s arms and beg for news, I followed his lead. My cousin engaged himself with a serious group of men I didn’t know, making no move to approach me. Tennice left early after speaking with the widow and no one else.

As I took my own leave of the duchess, a footman presented me with the customary engraved commemorative card, folded so that the duke’s arms and martial history were scribed on the outside, and the tale of his lineage on the inside. It wasn’t until I got home, lonely and disappointed, that I discovered that my card had a scrap of paper inserted. The note was not signed, but two years of handwritten tutorials on the law enabled me to recognize Tennice’s hand quite easily. The text read like someone’s random, philosophical musings, but to me the choice of words was not at all random.

The wisdom of the fair sex is proved.

Safety for the traveler lies in prolonged absence.

Four is not enough for true diversity of opinion.

The first line confirmed my belief that Martin’s failure to discourage my withdrawal from Windham was a recognition of its necessity. I wondered if he had more concrete evidence of my wisdom than did I myself. I had only instinct. The second told me that Karon was gone. I couldn’t decide whether it was more difficult to think of him traveling in some distant, unknown land than it had been to think of him at Windham, so close, yet a place I could not be. I could not consider the prospect that he might never come back. Not after the rose.

The third told me that I was missed, and that made it all very hard.

Summer brought the fascinating news that Evard was betrothed to the daughter of Dagobert, the last Vallorean king. It was a brilliant move on Evard’s part—the legitimization of Leiran dominance over Valleor. Princess Mariel was sixteen and had been “sheltered” in a remote temple school since the day her entire family had been beheaded in front of her.

Though Leirans did not usually execute women, out of respect for Arot’s holy wife Mana, spared by the monsters of earth and sky in Arot’s battles in the Beginnings, they had made an exception for the Queen of Valleor. As her husband’s and sons’ severed heads yet stared up at their executioners, Queen Margereth vowed to lie with the first healthy Vallorean man she could find, whether noble or peasant, and thus produce an heir to Valleor more legitimate than any Leiran king. She was beheaded straightaway. But King Gevron had allowed the girl child to live, as long as she was locked up tight in a temple school and never allowed to look at a man. Perhaps even marriage to Evard would be better than that sterile prison and never tasting life at all.

The wedding was in late summer. The pale-haired girl was lost in the opulent finery Evard had selected as suitable for his bride. She was short and thin, with a long, angular face and large eyes that blinked constantly. No one was impressed by her. I wished her a tolerant heart and a self-sufficient nature; she was like to need both.

Tomas attended the wedding, of course, handsome as always and appearing to have lost no standing with Evard because of my folly. He had stood as Evard’s champion three times already, and word had it that he was undefeatable. When we crossed paths near the refreshment tables, his face hardened bitterly. He spun on his heel and walked away. No healing there. Darzid, at his side as always, bowed, but did not follow my brother. He made as if to speak with me, but I excused myself politely before he could say anything. Martin was in attendance also. He greeted me with a formal bow, then turned back to another conversation. So it was not time yet.

Year 2 in the reign of King Evard

In the second autumn of my “exile,” I turned twenty-three. I returned home early on my birthday evening, no more lonely being by myself than in a crowd of people with whom I shared no sympathetic interests. I found increasing pleasure in practicing my music and thought it would be a satisfactory celebration of the day. When Joubert opened the front door for me, he pointed to the library. “A parcel has arrived for you, my lady. I’ve put it in the library. I’ll return to light the lamps as soon as I’ve hung your cloak.”

“No need for the lamps. I’m just going to play for a while.”

I entered the shadowy library, wondering who among my acquaintance had recalled it was my birthday. On the polished table was a long, thin bundle of green silk, tied with a gold ribbon. My pulse quickened. The rose was white this time, with a blush of pink at its edges, the crystalline dew-drop like a tear of joy at its perfection. I stood in the firelight, inhaling its sweet fragrance and reveling in its beauty—and even more in its meaning.

“I didn’t know whether red or white was more to your liking,” came a voice from a chair in the corner, “and having been tempered in the fires of the Windham debating society, I would be the last to risk your displeasure by making unsupported assumptions. So I thought I’d best come gather evidence for myself.”

I whirled about, ignoring the thorn pricks in my fingers, and out of the shadows stepped a sorcerer, come to conjure the desire of my heart on my birthday.