The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

“Well, cousin, this is a fine party. You should give one more often.”

Danaquil Lu turned, still smiling even though it was Kirard Set who was speaking to him, and that was usually enough to ruin his mood. “I only have one child to celebrate a marriage for, unfortunately. But one is better than none.” His smile widened as he looked past Kirard Set and saw his daughter’s face across the room, radiant with happiness as she danced to the traditional wedding music. Merovy had told him that she and Tammis had pledged with each other last year. He had lived long enough in Summer to be at ease with its customs, and he had not minded when she had moved out of their townhouse and into Tammis’s rooms at the palace. He and Clavally still saw her almost every day.

But now she was seventeen, old enough for the more formal wedding oath the Winters made, following the offworlders’ customs. He had found himself feeling a sense of tradition that was as strong as it was unexpected, wanting to mark his daughter’s rite of passage in the way his family had done for generations. He sipped at the offworlder wine in his crystal cup, savoring it. Both the cups and the wine had been among the things the Queen had donated from the remaining Winter stores at the Palace, to make the wedding feast of her son and his daughter so memorable that it had impressed even Kirard Set. “Excuse me,” he said, spotting Clavally waving at him from across the room. “Enjoy the party.”

He moved away, grateful to be out of Kirard Set’s orbit; letting his shoulders slump as his cousin wandered on through the crowd. His back was beginning to trouble him again, as Ngenet had predicted it would. He pushed the thought out of his mind, focusing on the present, and said a silent prayer to the Lady—to whom he had always directed the few prayers he made, since his exile to Summer—that they might all be as happy in the future as they were today.

Clavally was standing with Moon and Sparks in front of the enormous box decorated like a boat, which was piled with householding presents for the newlyweds. She gestured again, impatiently, as he approached. “Come on, old heart, we’re posing for a picture!”

“What, in the middle of all this?” He looked around, surprised, not seeing anyone with paints or charcoal; only Tor Starhiker and Shotwyn Crestrider, consulting furiously over some sort of vaguely familiar mechanical device. “Mother of Us All, is that a camera?”

Moon nodded, her expression caught somewhere between amusement and impatience. She pressed something into his hands. “They’ve made it work somehow with a battery pack. Come on, Shotwyn!” she called. “I’m late. I have to go—”

“Go?” Sparks said. “Go where, in the middle of Tammis’s wedding?”

She looked at him, all the pleasure disappearing from her face. “I told you. I have a meeting with Capella Goodventure.”

“Lady’s Eyes!” he said, frowning. “Why can’t she come to the wedding; then at least you could pretend your mind was on this.”

“She won’t come to a Winter ceremony,” Moon said.

Danaquil Lu glanced at the Queen as he moved into line beside his wife; seeing an unhappiness in her eyes that her voice did not reveal. He looked away again, down at the thing she had pressed into his hand—a startlingly lifelike three-dimensional image of Merovy and Tammis kissing, caught in some enchantment that held them perpetually in that moment of joy. He touched the image hesitantly, finding that his finger passed through it as if it were a hallucination, touching only a flat surface he could not see.

“Smile!” Tor called, her voice slightly slurred.

He looked up at the camera, but he was already smiling.

Sparks looked away from the camera’s pitiless eye as Tor finished trapping their souls inside it. (Some part of him would always think of it that way, the seed of superstition from his childhood, transformed by time into an uncomfortable pearl of irony.) Moon touched his arm briefly, as if in apology; but when he turned to look at her she was already disappearing into the crowd, on her way out.

He frowned, looking back at Danaquil Lu and Clavally, who were head to head over the holo of their daughter and his son, as Tor passed them the one of themselves. Suddenly not wanting to see the picture, he moved away. The band on the other side of the room began to play another traditional song, and he reached into his belt pouch for his flute. He had taken it back from Ariele, because she seemed to have no real interest in it. Now, hearing the band play, he thought of joining them. It was one of the few privileges of his position that actually mattered to him—that when he asked to play, almost no one would refuse him. The awareness that he would not disgrace himself by his musicianship if he did was one of the few things in his life that he still felt justifiably proud of.

“Da—”

He turned, surprised by Ancle’s voice behind him. He looked at her, her slothing wrapping her like rainbows in bright arcs of fabric, her long hair bound up in an attempt to imitate an elaborate offworlder style. She had always reminded him of Moon when he looked at her, in a way that pinched his heart; but today she reminded him suddenly, strikingly, of someone else. Arienrhod. He blinked, forcing himself to see only his daughter, in love with the offworlders’ legacy, the way he had been once, in his youth. “What?” he asked.

“Where did Mother go?”

“To meet with Capella Goodventure.”

Ariele made a face, and sighed. “Where’s Gran? Tammis said she was coming to the party with Borah. She was bringing me some tiller shells to make into combs. Isn’t she here yet?”

He looked away, searching the crowd, surprised again as he realized that he had not seen either of them here, when he knew they had been expected. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, they should have left earlier, then,” she said, with an impatient shake of her head. “They’re missing everything.”

“A storm could have delayed them.” Elco Teel Graymount came up behind Ariele, putting his hands on her familiarly, smirking as he glanced at her father.

Sparks felt himself begin to frown; made no comment as Ariele only smiled and sidled closer to the boy. At least she showed no signs of taking a special interest in him, or anyone, yet; although Elco Teel was at her constantly, like an insect at a flower. Sparks had wondered more than once whether Elco Teel would have been half as interested in his daughter if she were not going to be the next Summer Queen. The prospect of having Kirard Set’s only son for a son-in-law did not appeal to him. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “The weather report said that the weather down the coast was fine.”

Elco Teel shrugged. “There could be a storm. Squalls come up suddenly all the time, and swamp small boats. Especially when the ones sailing it are getting old…”

Sparks glared at him, about to chastise him for speaking ill-luck about a journey. But he saw Merovy come up behind Ariele, her hair garlanded with flowers, her gray eyes glancing curiously from face to face. Sparks smiled instead, the way her father had smiled as he looked at her picture. Ariele and Elco Teel turned as they saw his smile, to stare at her with unreadable expressions. “Have you seen Tammis?” she asked.

Sparks began to shake his head. “Not in a—”

“I saw him,” Elco Teel said, and Sparks thought he heard a hint of malice in it “He went upstairs. Brein wanted to congratulate him on his marriage.” He glanced at Ariele, raising his eyebrows, smiling as Merovy’s face pinched with some emotion Sparks couldn’t name.

Ariele looked back at him, but she did not smile, this time. She pulled her arm free from his grasp. “I don’t care,” she said. “I want to dance.” She started away, leaving him behind. He scrambled after her through the crowd to the space where others were dancing already—old dances, offworlder dances, to music that had over time become a unique mixture of different heritages; like their world.

Sparks looked back at Merovy, seeing something secret and forlorn fill her face as she watched them go off without a word. Sensing that there was more to it than simply the casual rudeness of youth, he touched her arm gently. “I’ll find him, and send him to you.”

She nodded, smiling.

He made his way through the party toward the stairway at the back of the room. Kirard Set intersected his course, leaning against the banister at the foot of the stairs as he reached it. Kirard Set’s smile was annoyingly like his son’s. “The facilities are free down here at the moment—” He gestured at the bathroom.

Sparks felt his frown come back. “I’m looking for Tammis*. Is he up there?”

Kirard Set shrugged. “Yes.” He stepped aside, leaving the stairway clear, but his expression changed subtly. Sparks knew, with a sudden coldness in the pit of his stomach, that he should turn and walk away. But Kirard Set’s smile held him, gently mocking.

Instead he climbed the stairs to the second story of the townhouse, hearing the sound of voices speaking softly, growing more distinct, until he recognized one as Tammis’s. He reached the top of the stairs and saw two figures embracing in the dim light. They broke apart, startled by his sudden appearance, so that he saw them clearly—Tammis, with his bright wedding shirt hanging open, and Brein, a Winter boy from the crowd he was always with, stroking his bare chest.

He saw the sudden guilt, the sudden despair in Tammis’s eyes as son came face to face with father on his wedding day. Brein backed away, looking everywhere but at the two of them, and disappeared down the stairs.

“Tammis,” Sparks said, and Tammis flinched as if he had been struck. “What was that—?” He gestured at the empty spot where Brein had stood.

“Nothing. He was just … I …” Tammis flushed, pulling his shut together, and hung his head. His trefoil was lost in the tangle of his clothes.

“By the Lady and all the gods!” Sparks caught him by the shoulders, slamming him up against the wall. “You miserable— On your wedding day? When you have a beautiful wife who loves you searching for you downstairs? Why—?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Tammis murmured. The words were almost inaudible. He fumbled with the laces of his shirt, trying to fasten them.

“Damn it!” Sparks slapped his hands away. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

“Oh, don’t be so hard on the boy, Dawntreader,” Kirard Set’s voice said, behind him.

Sparks turned, his own face flushing with anger and humiliation as Wayaways joined them at the top of the stairs.

“You Summers are so narrow-minded about everything. You act as if there’s only one right answer to every question.” Kirard Set shook his head. “It’s only a little harmless flirtation. A boy’s got to be sure he’s not missing anything, you know.”

“Leave us alone, Wayaways.” Sparks turned his back on the other man, infuriatingly aware that Kirard Set made no move to depart, still hanging on every word and motion like a voyeur. Sparks caught Tammis by the jaw, forcing his son to look him in the eye, beyond caring what Kirard Set saw or heard or thought, now—sure that he had known it all along. “You are a Summer, a sibyl, by the Mother’s Will! Not some buggering Winter pervert, trying to make yourself smell like the offworlders by wallowing in shit!”

“Like you—?” Tammis said, suddenly and furiously, his dark eyes burning. “Like you did, at Arienrhod’s court, while you were supposed to be pledged to my mother—?”

Sparks froze, speechless, feeling the ice-taloned hand of the past reach into his chest and stop his heart. “Who…” he said at last, “who told you that about me?”

Tammis’s eyes flickered away from his face, briefly touching on Kirard Set still watching and listening behind them, and back again. “He told me you liked it both ways. He said you used to laugh at Summers for being narrow and stupid, that you did things for Arienrhod that—”

Sparks’s hand shot out, slapping his face, stopping the words. “Believe that if you want to,” he whispered, his mouth filled with bitterness. “But don’t ever use it as an excuse. Especially not with me.” He turned away, turning his back on his son’s anguish. Kirard Set shrugged as Sparks met his amused gaze. “Like father, like son… ?” he said softly, and pursed his lips. He shook his head. Sparks moved past him, pushing him aside with a heedless elbow.

Heading back down the steps, he barely registered the sight of Merovy, standing midway up the stairs, or the expression in her eyes as she watched him pass.