The Summer Queen

KHAREMOUGH: Gundhalinu Estates

“Pandhara!” Gundhalinu called, striding into the front hall, hearing his voice echo through the house. He draped his uniform jacket over the servo that had come to meet him at the door, settled his helmet onto its faceless head, grinning as it informed him lugubriously that it was not a hatrack. “Well, find one!” he said, laughing. He went on into the room, shouting his wife’s name again.

“Gundhalinu-bhai is in the cutting garden, sir—” the servo droned behind him.

He turned right at the dining room, went down through the study and the sun room and out onto the south wall patio. Pandhara climbed the steps from the cutting garden with an armload of flowers and stopped, her face filling with astonished delight. “BZ! Are thou here already? I wasn’t expecting thee until tomorrow.”

He stopped too as he saw her expression, surprised and bemused by its bright eagerness. He was secretly relieved that the look on her face was not dismay; and that he had not interrupted her with a lover. “I wasn’t expecting to make the shuttle, but I did—by the skin of my teeth.” He started forward again, smiling. “The thought of two peaceful nights of uninterrupted sleep instead of one was enough to make me push it.”

She lifted a hand to meet his upraised one, dropping flowers as they touched. He leaned down, picking them up and piling them carefully back onto her armload.

“I picked them because thou were coming home,” she said, breathing in their fragrance. “I know how thou love them.”

His smile widened; he held the doors for her as she carried them inside. She handed them over to a servo, sent it away with a “You know what to do—” She stood before him in baggy coveralls, smoothing back the dark strands of hair that had escaped from under her scarf with color-stained hands. “Oh, damn it all, BZ, nothing is ready! I have it all planned; everything was to be the way thou like it when thou arrived… . But I’ve been setting biosculpture all day. I haven’t even cleaned myself up.”

He caught one of her gesturing hands, turned it over, studying the rough palms and the pattern of stains. “I like real hands…” he said, and looked up at her, to see if she still remembered their first meeting.

Her look of blank surprise blossomed into sudden comprehension, and she grinned back at him, tilting her head.

“It doesn’t matter. There’s always tomorrow. All I want tonight is normal conversation, and maybe a game of chama.” He let go of her hand, turned away to survey the room as he felt himself beginning to look at her for too long. “What’s new? Thou’ve done something to this room; it’s brighter.”

“The walls are yellow, instead of gray, over there, and there… I bought some new settees and restored that reclining couch. I hung some of my statics.…”

“I like it.”

She searched his face as he looked back at her. “Truly? I’ve been very careful: I haven’t touched the things that are timeless.” She gestured at the ornately carved mantel, which had been a part of the original house. He knew it was at least a millennium old. “I would never do that—”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve seen everything else thou’ve done here. I trust thy judgment implicitly.”

“But it is thy home—”

“It’s thy home.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Thou live in it; I’m only a visitor. The gods know, my father kept it like a museum; he never allowed a damn thing to change in this entire place, for as long as I could remember. And HK and SB ran it into the ground. …” His mouth twitched. “Make it thine, Dhara. It is thine.”

She shook her head, putting her hands on her hips; her smile struggled with something that looked like exasperation. “Gods! Must thou always be so insufferably good-natured and kind?”

He laughed. “Thou think so? Ask my programmers and crew chiefs, when they glitch on me or fall behind…. Ask Vhanu, when his staff double-schedules me with the High Command and half the Coordinating Committee—”

“Well, all I know is, thou make me want to—”

His remote began to beep. He looked down and swore, clapping his hand over the noise. He crossed the room in half a dozen strides, ordering the side-table terminal below his wife’s newly hung painting to take the call.

Vhanu’s face materialized, looking urgent. “Goddammit, Vhanu,” Gundhalinu snapped. “It can wait—I said I’m off-line. No exceptions!”

Vhanu’s imagine said evenly, “We’ve got the departure date, Commander. It’s been approved.”

“Tiamat—?” Gundhalinu breathed.

“Yes, Commander. I thought you’d want to hear that.” Vhanu hazarded a wary smile.

Gundhalinu nodded. “Yes … thanks, NR.”

“My regards to Gundhalinu-bhai. Have a good visit, BZ.” Vhanu cut contact, the table top went opaque. Gundhalinu stood a moment longer, gazing at the painting, at its cascading golds and shadow-greens, a distant haze of blue. He turned away at last, facing his wife.

“Thou’re leaving,” she said. “For Tiamat. Soon.”

“Yes,” he said.

She looked down, folding her arms, hugging her chest. “Ah, well.” She looked up again, smiling at him. “Congratulations, BZ … I know what this must mean to thee, after thou’ve waited so many years; after all that thou’ve done to cause it to happen—”

“I make thee want to—what?” he said.

“What?” she repeated.

“Thou started to say, that when I’m insufferably kind, I makes thee want to…?”

“ ‘Rip thy clothes off,’ ” she said, expressionless. “Thou make me want to rip thy clothes off and make love to thee right here on the floor.” She turned on her heel and went out of the room.

He stood motionless, staring after her, for a very long time.

Gundhalinu sat on the warm, solid wall of the western wing balcony, sipping a drink that seemed to be completely tasteless. He looked at it, looked at the pitcher on the low, random-edged table made from a slab of polished gnarlstone, and remembered that he had told the servo to bring him water. He sighed, and looked out across the dusk-blue valley again; feeling the wind ruffle his hair with a casual hand, listening to the screel of white-winged sikhas circling high in the air overhead. The western edge of the house sat closest to the rim of the pinnacle on which it had been built; from here his view was unobstructed, and he could actually see the ocean when the weather was clear. It was clear today, as it had been yesterday, so clear that he could count the offshore islands.

He had called KR Aspundh and asked him to come to dinner, after he received the message -from Vhanu. Aspundh would be arriving from somewhere across that sea very soon. It would be doubly good to see him now, considering the news. Because it would probably be the last time they would ever meet … and the last chance he would have to contact Moon, before he arrived on her doorstep with the sword of the Hegemony’s might hanging above him in Tiamat’s sky.

He heard someone come out of the house, and turned where he sat. His breath caught as he saw Pandhara crossing the balcony, formally dressed for dinner. Suddenly he could not take his eyes off her; he felt as if he had never really looked at her before. Her hair was elaborately styled with carven combs and glittering pins; a loose, fluid robe of red moved around her as she walked, covering her conservatively from neck to foot, and yet clinging to her body everywhere, changing what it revealed from moment to moment… . He looked away, finally, before she reached his side; struggling against frustration and sudden arousal, wondering if she had done this to him deliberately. But he remembered her on the night they had met; remembered that she was simply a beautiful woman, with the sensibilities of an artist.

It was only a joke, she had said to him, last night, when she had finally come back into the room, clean, neatly dressed in robe and slacks, and perfectly composed. She had only meant to make him laugh; it had happened at the wrong moment, she was dreadfully embarrassed….

He had assured her that he understood; but it had taken him nearly an hour to turn her back from an excruciatingly polite stranger into the quick-witted, laughing woman whose pungent humor and chameleon moods he had been looking forward to sharing for weeks. She had shown him her latest works-in-progress; they had played two games of chama instead of one.

And then, as they sat together drinking lith on the west wing balcony, watching the shifting colors of the night, he had told her about Tiamat. She had not asked him to, but he had seen in her eyes her need to understand, and knew that he could not leave her without any explanation at all.

And so he told her about the sheltered young Tech who had gone to Tiamat full of romance and arrogance, certain of his place in the universe, and its justification. He told her what Tiamat and its people had done to him, to teach him that pain and brutality and futility were his real fate. Death before dishonor. He had sworn the blood oath with his companions at school, never believing that he would ever come to such a place; that, held captive by nomad thieves, caged like an animal, he would take the sticky lid of a food can and slash his own wrists, praying to die….

But he had not died. And then his captors had given him Moon—another dazed hostage battered by fate, a hapless Summer girl caught up in the motion of a Game beyond her comprehension. … Or at least that was what he had believed, then. An illegal returnee who claimed the sibyl net itself had sent her back to Tiamat, on a kind of holy quest. He had thought she was slightly mad. Only afterward had he come to realize how much more she really was … after she had won their freedom, his grudging respect, his unwilling heart … after he had lied to and betrayed his own people to help her reach Carbuncle; after he had become her lover, and led her to the man she was desperate to save, the man she was actually married to … only after she had become the Summer Queen, and he had left Tiamat without her, without betraying her. Leaving forever, or so he had thought.

Only then, trying to rebuild his own life and career, had he realized fully what he had only sensed about her before: that she was right about everything she claimed. And he had believed then that he had been nothing but a meaningless pawn in the Great Game he had not even known the rules of himself.

“And that’s what drove me into World’s End.” He shook his head, gently touched the trefoil sign. “And suddenly I was no longer only a pawn. I was changing history.”

His wife sat silently for a long while after he stopped speaking, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring up into the sky. At last she looked down at him, and shook her head slowly. “Thou are worthy of thy ancestors,” she murmured, and took his hand, lifting it to her forehead in a gesture of admiration.

He pulled his hand from hers in sudden impatience, and said, “I haven’t told thee everything.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Do thou think thy ancestors told the world everything—every single, terrible part of the truth?”

He looked at her.

“‘History’ is merely what someone thinks happened, Gundhalinu-ken,” she said softly.

He stared at her, while behind his eyes he remembered being Ilmarinen, in the beginning: Ilmannen his ancestor, who had committed treason for the greater good, and set the Great Game in motion.… He sighed. “Why is it that the obvious things are always the most difficult to see?”

Pandhara touched him again, hesitantly; her hand slid down his arm and fell away. “Because if it weren’t so, life might actually begin to make sense.” She met his gaze, glanced away again as if it were painful. But her voice was cool and dry as she said, “And we couldn’t have that, could we?”

And somehow after that there had seemed to be nothing more to say; so he had bid her good night, and gone off to his room. Even though he had gotten to bed far later than he had intended, he slept as poorly as a man on the eve of execution.

This morning they had gone to Serakande Center, where the Art and Science Museum was featuring a show of her works. He had worn nondescript civilian clothes, and few people had looked at him twice. Pandhara had been the center of attention; he had enjoyed the luxury of standing unmolested in someone else’s shadow, watching the world interact with her, observing her grace and intelligence, the way her pleasure made her shine, the way it drew them to her.

Afterward he had taken her to his favorite restaurant; the owner had brought them a bottle of imported Lilander, from her private stock. Later they had discussed art and politics in the comfortable darkness of a back-street tea shop, sitting with a handful of Pandhara’s old friends. They were all creatives, Nontechs who sat smoking spicesticks and making no concession to her new highborn status, or even to his. They had called him “sibyl,” and he had known that, coming from them, it was honor enough.

And now the sun was going down on the last day he would ever spend on his homeworld; and as faint music drifted out through the open doors, he sat gazing up at the wife he would never see again, feeling as though he had never really seen her before. “Thou look beautiful tonight,” he said, with difficulty, as she lifted her hand to him in greeting. He touched it with his own, feeling the warmth as their palms met, his eyes never leaving her face as the words brought out her smile. “I am grateful to thee, for today.” He looked away at last, toward the sea. “I’ll cany it with me for a lifetime, after I’m gone.”

“As will I,” she said, turning her own gaze to the sea. “BZ … last night I thought a great deal about all the things thou told me. And about things thou said thou had not told me—”

He looked back at her.

“Some of the things,” she said carefully, “I think were there all along, between the words. But—”

“But thou need to know the rest.”

She nodded.

“I—” He pressed his mouth together. “Ask me. I’ll tell thee everything I can.” Realizing that what he did with the rest of his life could very well affect her, even half a galaxy away.

She rested her hands on the stone-capped top of the wall; he saw the fingers tighten. “When thou asked me to marry thee, thou said thou did not want a—a marriage in fact, but only in name. Was it because of this woman on Tiamat, the one who became Queen? … Are thou still so much in love with her, after so long? Is that why thou’re going back?”

“Yes,” he whispered, looking down.

She leaned against the wall, her eyes still on him, her face uncertain. “Thou said that she had a husband?”

“Yes.”

“That thou had only one night with her?”

“I only slept with her once. But it was more than that—”

“I know. I …” She glanced away, lifting her chin. “But thou haven’t seen her nee. It must have been—”

“Twelve years. More than eighteen, for her.” He looked up again. “How do I know she still wants me? I can’t know, for certain. But Fire Lake showed me glimpses of my future … it showed me her. And—” He took a deep breath. “I’ve spoken with her, since I left Tiamat.”

She stared at him, incredulous. “How? No one can even send a message—”

She’s a sibyl, and so am I. It’s possible … and that’s all I can tell you. I Shouldn’t even say that much.” He glanced down. “I’ve communicated with her several times since I left. She knows what’s about to happen. She’s afraid of it. And she has every right to be. The Hegemony wants only one thing from Tiamat—the water of life. The Summers consider it a sacrilege to kill the mers, and the mere have m hunted close to extinction as it is. There is even evidence in the sibyl net that mers may be sentient. …”

“What?” she said, in disbelief. “But that means—”

“Genocide.” He nodded. “If it is true, we’ve been committing genocide for centuries.”

“Have thou told anyone about this?”

He laughed bitterly. “I tried. No one on the Central Coordinating Committee wants to hear it. Pernatte made it very clear to me that further argument, or any public protest, could ruin my career….” He shook his head. “If the Queen resists new hunting, which she will, that will give the Hedge the excuse it needs to trample them into the mud, the way it’s done for a millennium. That’s why I had to become Chief Justice. I have half a chance now to keep control of the legal system, to draw the line between government and exploitation.”

“Are thou so sure that will happen, without thee?”

He nodded, tightlipped. “The signs are all there. Everything I hear. No one’s talking marriage upstairs, they’re all talking rape. The pols want easy profit, the Blues want an excuse to flex their new weapons technology, and everybody wants more power. The time lags were all that kept them from doing anything about building a new Empire, until now. Exploiting Tiamat is a perfect first step.”

“But with the stardrive, the Hegemony will become a meaningful political and economic unit anyway.” Pandhara gestured with her wine glass, glancing up at the sky. “Even a marginal world like Tiamat will become a valuable resource; there simply aren’t that many habitable planets. Without the Old Empire’s starmap data to show us other inhabited systems, it could take generations to find even one world we aren’t already in contact with.”

He nodded, pushing restlessly to his feet. “I know that. I make that point at every opportunity, upstairs. But it may take years before the Hegemony’s leaders see the big picture clearly. By then it will be too late for the mere, and maybe for the humans on Tiamat as well.”

“Does Moon know that thou’re returning?”

“Yes.”

“How does she feel about that?”

“I think… it makes her afraid, too.”

“And thou—?”

He looked back at her for a long moment without speaking; turned away, averting his eyes to the view of the land falling into shadow, the distant, gleaming sea. “I’m afraid,” he murmured at last, “that I don’t want to give this up, Dhara. I’m afraid that, after all I’ve gone through to reach this point, I don’t want to go back to Tiamat.”

He felt her come softly up behind him where he stood, felt her arms slip beneath his and circle his chest, holding him; felt her warmth against his back, her hair gently brushing his neck as she rested her head on his shoulder. She said nothing more, did nothing more, only held him.

Slowly, uncertainly, he lifted his own hands to cover hers. “I could stand here like this, looking out at this view, for the rest of my life,” he whispered, “and be perfectly happy.…” Thinking that he could run for the World Parliament, and be elected: work to redirect the fate of this world, his own world, instead of one whose people would probably only hate and resent him for it. “Right here, right now, I have everything that I ever dreamed of having—more. I feel respected, honored …” He moved inside the circle of her arms, turning until he faced her. “Even … loved?”

Her arms tightened around him, as his own arms closed her in.

“Sathra, bhan, your guest is coming in—”

Gundhalinu jerked guiltily as the estates manager stepped onto the balcony with a brief bow, found him embracing his wife, and hastily departed. Gundhalinu took a deep breath, realizing that he had every right to be found embracing her; realized that somehow he was no longer touching her at all.

The compassion in her eyes as she took his arm to go in and greet KR Aspundh was, for the moment until she looked away again, more painful than the sorrow that lay below it.

Aspundh looked at them both a little oddly, when they greeted him like a pair of mourners; but he made pleasant, innocuous conversation as they waited for dinner, and gradually Gundhalinu felt the tension leaving the air, letting go of his body. They all drank a great deal of lith, and somewhere in the middle of the main course Pandhara began to tell off-color jokes, which Aspundh unexpectedly found hilarious. Gundhalinu watched Aspundh laugh, in silent astonishment, too preoccupied to find anything amusing himself except the sight of the old man’s obvious pleasure.

“Delightful, PHN—” Aspundh gasped, still short of breath. “And my compliments to your chef, my dear.” He lifted his glass to her, and washed down the last of the spicy, unfamiliar stew with another swallow of lith. “Best meal I’ve had in years.”

“Thank you—” she said, and pressed her hand to her mouth, giggling as though it reminded her of another joke. “Did thou enjoy it, BZ—?”

He nodded, feeling mildly out-of-focus. He had hardly been aware of eating at all, but his bowl was almost empty. “Excellent,” he murmured. “What is it?” He ate another mouthful.

“Grisha,” she said, beaming. “My mother’s recipe.”

“Grisha—?” He swallowed convulsively, and began to cough. “You mean we’re eating rat meat?”

“BZ! How dare thou suggest it.” She looked at him in disbelief. “We are not eating rat meat. Don’t be such a bloody snob.” But she began to giggle again, helplessly. “Thou’ve never eaten grisha.…”

“My father used to make it all the time,” Aspundh said. “I loved it.”

Gundhalinu stared at him. “But grisha is … is—” Remembering a beat too late that KR Aspundh’s father had been a Nontechnician.

“So ‘common’…?” Pandhara reached across the wide table to pat his hand, reaching to his rescue. “Of course it is. ‘Common’ only means that everyone eats it.”

He looked back at his dish, shaking his head. “My nurse… told me when I was a boy that Unclassifieds ate grisha made out of rat meat and spoiled vegetables.”

“You make do with what you have,” she said gently

He glanced up, down again, remembering Tiamat, remembering World’s End, remembering the stranger things he had eaten, and would soon eat again. … He ate another mouthful, and another, under their watchful gazes, and smiled, slowly. “We grow or we die, don’t we? It really is very good, you know.”

After dinner they settled into the deep cushions of the sunken meditation room. A servo left them a drifting tray of sweets. Pandhara lit a spicestick, inhaled and exhaled; the incense-heavy smoke curled languorously into the air over her head. He had never seen her smoke one before today. So many things that he did not know about her; that he would never know, now….

“Those are very unhealthy, you know,” Aspundh chided her mildly.

She looked at BZ; he saw something that was more than a simple question and less than grief in her gaze. “Tonight I feel reckless, KR.”

Aspundh glanced from face to face, and said no more about it. Instead he turned to Gundhalinu. “So the time has finally come. The way is open to Tiamat once again. And you are going back, as Chief Justice. It has all worked out just as you said it would, years ago.”

Gundhalinu almost nodded; but his neck resisted the lying motion. “No,” he said softly. “Not exactly as I planned, KR.”

Aspundh said nothing, waited.

The tray of sweets drifted up to Gundhalinu’s side; he picked up a small, ornate cake. He held the cake in his open palm, studying it; put it back and pushed the tray away. “You’ll probably think I’m mad, but … I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.” He put his hand over his eyes, unable to go on looking at them for a moment. “Suddenly I’m full of doubts—about why I’m really going, what I can possibly achieve there … about whether there’s even any point to all of this. I’ve been living with this obsession for years; and now, suddenly, I find myself wondering why. Was it only because for so long I had nothing else to hold on to? Since I’ve come back to Kharemough….” He shook his head, looking up at them again. “Gods help me …” he whispered, “I don’t want to leave.”

Aspundh frowned; but there was sympathy, not censure in the older man’s eyes. He glanced at Pandhara. “How much of this have you discussed with PHN?”

“Enough,” he said, his own eyes meeting hers.

“And how do you feel about what he has told you, PHN?”

Pandhara moved restlessly among the cushions. “I want him to be happy. …” She jerked her head, almost angrily. “I want him to stay—” She looked at BZ again, and the look made him ache. “Thou have been such a solitary “Wn, BZ. … All these years, thou’ve worked on this dream, and not until now have I understood even the smallest part of why … only that thou were not at peace, and could not be, I thought, until thou saw it through.”

Gundhalinu shut his eyes, pressing his face with his hands again. “Damn it all! After I survived World’s End, I knew I could face anything that came between me and what I had to do—” His hands dropped away, lay motionless in his lap. “Anything but this.” Anything but happiness.

“Then we must let Moon know that the fleet will be arriving within months … but you will not be coming with it,” Aspundh said.

Gundhalinu’s head rose; he felt his face flush. “Moon told me,” he murmured, “after she came back to Tiamat … that even she could have been happy staying on Kharemough. But she felt something, that forced her to go back. The sibyl mind spoke to her somehow, made her know what she had to do. I’ve never felt anything like that. If I could just be half as certain as she was that I was doing the right thing—”

“Perhaps you haven’t heard ‘voices’ because you haven’t required them. Your own desire, your own belief in what was right, have carried you this far on youi own,” Aspundh said. “Perhaps she was never as certain as you were—or even as you believe she was. Have you seen or heard anything, in your dealings with the Police High Command or the Central Coordinating Committee, to make you believe your opinions of them are unjustified?”

Gundhalinu’s eyes darkened. “No.”

“And do you still feel at all responsible for what will happen to Tiamat … ?’

“Yes.” He looked down. “Yes, damn it! You know I do.”

“And what about Moon Dawntreader?”

BZ looked toward Pandhara, helplessly, knowing that she could read in his eyes what his own pain and confusion would not let him say.

“Have you considered,” Aspundh asked, almost reluctantly, “what may happen to the Summer Queen when the Hegemony returns to Tiamat?”

Gundhalinu felt a cold fist close around his heart. “Gods … No, they wouldn’t order her sacrificed! It isn’t the time… Summer has scarcely begun there. It would be a total violation of the Change rituals.”

“This return of the Hegemony is already a total violation of the pattern, on Tiamat. I’m not saying it would happen. I don’t know that. But what if it did—?”

Gundhalinu sagged back into the elusive support of the cool, satin-surfaced cushions. Moon Dawntreader was not the ruler that the Hegemony would be expecting to find when it got to Tiamat. If she defied them … most of the old Winter power structure was still alive, and would be more than willing to sacrifice Summer to the sea. He looked toward Pandhara again, his throat aching with the sight of her; realizing he had known all along that he could not stay, could never be free of his memories, or the truth.

“BZ,” she said, and her own voice was stronger now, more certain. “When thou told me all the things I did not know about thy past, all that thou had endured and overcome … and how because of Tiamat thou had become all the things thou are … I felt as though the spirit of this place, and thy ancestors, had touched my soul through thee. That whatever it was thou felt thou must do, it was right, and thou would achieve it. I saw it in thy eyes then, even when thou embraced me. I see it now … thou are only a ghost. Thou are not truly here, and will never be, while all the answers to what thou are still wait for thee on Tiamat. Go back to

Moon… and the gods go with thee.” She reached out, only to touch his fingers with her own.

He closed his hand over hers; her hand felt more substantial, more real, than his own flesh. He looked back at Aspundh almost reluctantly. Moon. He must do it now, one final Transfer, one final message, to let her know….

Aspundh nodded, understanding, and rose slowly, stiffly to his feet.

BZ rose with him. “I’ll show KR to his rooms, Dhara—”

She let go of him, remaining where she was; used to this arcane ritual of her husband and his guest, accepting his explanation that they had confidential policy matters to discuss. “Thank you for coming, KR.”

Aspundh nodded again. “I’m glad I could be here.” They both looked at Gundhalinu.

He hesitated. “Will thou wait here for me, Dhara? I … need to discuss something with thee.”

She nodded. Surprise drove the brooding sorrow out of her gaze for a moment as she watched them go out of the room.

“BZ…” Aspundh said, settling himself in a comfortable chair as Gundhalinu closed the door behind them.

Gundhalinu glanced back at him, unsure of what was in the older man’s voice, just as he was unsure of his own expression. He crossed the room, sat down in the chair’s mate. “Yes,” he said softly, “I’m ready.”

“To go into Transfer?” Aspundh asked. “Or to go back to Tiamat.”

“Both,” he said, looking down.

“Then let me tell you something that may help to ease the pain of this transition.”

Gundhalinu looked up again in silent curiosity.

“There is some evidence,” Aspundh murmured, holding his gaze, “that the situation you find yourself in now may have been set up intentionally, to fill you with exactly the kind of doubts you are feeling now.”

Gundhalinu stared at him. “What are you saying? Are you saying that Pandhara—”

“No… your wife is completely innocent in this matter. But it appears certain factions made sure that the two of you would meet in the first place, and that you would continue to encounter each other; that eventually you would find yourself in your present position—too comfortable, too happy … even falling in love,” Aspundh said gently. “Doubting yourself, doubting your choices. There are those people who would rather not see you return to Tiamat.”

“Do you mean the Brotherhood?” Gundhalinu asked, remembering his brothers’ death with sudden appalling vividness.

Aspundh nodded. “Yes. But not the Brotherhood alone… . You are at the center of too much power now for anything to be that simple. Your position may protect you from direct attack, but it also makes you a lodestone for subtler forms of betrayal.”

“ ‘Ask the right questions’…” Gundhalinu muttered, “ ‘and trust no one.’ ”

“Exactly.” Aspundh’s smile was full of sorrow. “Not even yourself.”

Pandhara was still sitting where he had left her when he returned to the meditation room… sitting perfectly still, with the lights dimmed and her eyes closed, meditating on an adhani, as he had shown her how to do. She had picked up the skill very quickly. He had been pleased when she had told him that it helped her focus while she worked.

She opened her eyes as she heard him come back into the room; looked up at him expectantly, folding her hands in her lap.

He dropped down to sit cross-legged facing her, exhausted by the unnatural stress of the Transfer. He looked away for a long moment, with no idea of how to begin. At last he made himself look at her again. “Dhara … you told me once that one of the reasons you wanted my family’s heritage was for your children. That you wanted to have children…?”

Her eyes widened slightly, and she bent her head. “Yes.”

“I … Gods—” he whispered, and his hands fisted. He looked up at the diamond-within-diamond pattern of the ceiling dome, an infinity of blue-on-blue. “I don’t know how to explain this so that it doesn’t … When I go, where I’m going, with what I’ll have to do when I get there … thou know I won’t be coming back. And … the gods know, if it goes far enough, there may be trouble … enough trouble, focused on me, that it might have repercussions even here, for thee and the estates. I don’t want what happened to thee ever to happen again.” She watched him, her eyes dark, saying nothing. “I’ve given it a lot of thought these past two days—” pushing on before he lost his nerve. “How to secure thy position, and protect the estates from any possible attempt at confiscation… . Dhara, would thou consider having a child by me?” The final words were barely audible.

“I—” Her hand rose to her breast.

He looked down, said hastily, “I would set up the necessary sperm account before I leave. I’ll see to everything. The procedure could be done at thy convenience, that way, quite easily… . With an heir, a child who belongs genetically to both of us, there can be no question to whom the Gundhalinu family holdings belong… . And I would know … would know that I have honored my ancestors in the only way that holds any real meaning in my heart, anymore.”

She was silent for a long moment. “Thou have thought this out very carefully, very considerately, as always, I see.” She waited for him to look up again, finally. “It would give me great joy to bear thy child, BZ … I could not imagine a more beautiful thing.”

He began to smile, with relief and release.

“On one condition. Will thou give me one thing, in return?”

Surprise stirred in him. “Whatever thou want, that I can give thee.”

She looked steadily, deeply, into his eyes. “Give me tonight, BZ. Give me a child with thy own body.”

He stared, feeling himself flush again, feeling his heartbeat quicken. “I … Are thou at the … I mean …”

“I will arrange it.” She whispered the same words he had spoken so many times to her. “I will not do it any other way. A child is a human being; to create one is not as simple as mixing sperm and egg in a bottle. Thou will give this child life—but thou may never see it again, for as long as either one of thee live. Thou can’t do that; it isn’t fair. Let our child’s life begin as an act of love … so that when I tell our son or daughter of it, I can tell the truth. Be a husband to me …” She leaned toward him, her taut body clearly outlined beneath the fluid cloth of her gown, and put her hand on him. He got an erection, so quickly that the pain was like a shock. “Just for tonight.”

He felt his sudden understanding of the truth she had spoken drown in a wave of need, as the rush of heat rose up through the aching emptiness inside him from his aching loins. “Yes—” he whispered. He found her waiting mouth, soft and wet and warm, drank her kisses like a man dying of thirst. His hands slid down her body, feeling her warmth, her womanliness, the pressure of her breasts against him as his arms circled her back and began to unseal her gown.

He slid her gown down her body, revealing her shoulders, the exquisite curve of her back, her breasts. Her deft fingers unfastened his jacket, opened his tunic, undid his pants—were down inside them, doing things to him that made novas of his nerve endings. He gasped in ecstasy and anguish as he felt himself slide over the edge of control. Unable to stop it, he pushed her back and down, found his way inside her, spent himself, in an act of desperation, hearing her feeble cry of protest drown inside his own cry of release.

He lay on top of her, his heart pounding, dazed and humiliated, until he could find the strength to push himself up off of her again, so that their bodies were no longer joined together, or even touching. “Gods …” he mumbled, “oh gods … I’m sorry. It’s been so long—”

She reached up, drawing him back down beside her. She stroked his hair, touched his lips like a kiss. “Hush, I know—I should have realized… .”

“Did I hurt thee?” he whispered, and remembered his brothers. He shut his eyes, sick. “Oh, Dhara, thou must think I—”

“It’s all right—It is…. Hush….” She drew him into her arms, rubbing his back, holding him close. “We have all night.”

He breathed in the scent of her, absorbed the sensation of her skin against his own. And then he raised his head, finding her lips, kissing her again, deeply, lingeringly, as if tonight meant forever. He used his mouth, his hands, the touch of his weary, contented body pressed close against hers, to give her all the pleasure he had meant to give her, to make love to her as he had wanted to make love to her, to give her the release he had taken from her so unexpectedly… . Until at last he knew from her sighs and her cries and the way she clung to him that she had found her own joy at last.

He held her for a while, until her breathing slowed, falling into the rhythm of his own. And then her knowing, skillful hands began to do their work again, caressing him, guiding him with a sensual skill that he had never known before, exploring him more eagerly as he began to respond…. But there was no urgency this time; the pleasure of their intimacies went on and on, rising to meet in a peak of dizzying sensation, falling away again into warm dreaming valleys, and finally into sleep.

The sun rose, the light of the new day shone in on two sleeping forms, husband and wife twined together into the illusion of one; and in their separate dreams, for a time, a separate peace.