Ansella suffered in ways Temmin didn't understand. Yes, she had loved Ibbit, but Ibbit had proved false. Ibbit wanted Temmin dead. She wanted his father dead. Oughtn't Mama to be more angry than sad? She stayed in her rooms, avoiding both the morning room and the dinner table. Miss Hanston swore she ate, but "Her Majesty is in a kind of mourning, sir, and that's a fact."
Temmin supposed she might well be in the ordinary kind of mourning soon, depending on what the Sisterhood dug up in its investigations. Mama told him she'd been there when Anniki died, and how terrible it was. He hoped she would not be present if they executed Ibbit. He'd never disliked Ibbit enough to want her dead before, but for what she'd done to his mother he wanted to see her horse face looking down its nose from the hooks above Marketgate.
Or did he? He'd seen dead bodies. He remembered the first man he'd seen die a violent death, an assassin at Lord Litta's ball a year ago, and the first to have gotten close to him. Temmin still thought of the blood dribbling from the crossbow bolt in the man's forehead. There'd been several assassins since, but he'd seen only one other die—a pathetic little shopman who'd been forced to attack him. The rest never got near.
He'd seen a great many men killed in Teacher's magical book; the "Intimate History" made him relive the battle his ancestor Warin had fought to take his throne. Seeing the head of someone he knew as well as Ibbit, even if he hated her…he didn't know. Maybe it wouldn't come to that.
Ansella revived in the presence of her children. Without saying anything to one another, on Temmin's second night at home they tried to recreate their cozy childhood evenings at the Estate, sitting together before the Small Sitting Room fire. Even Ellika foreswore her nightly round of parties and brought out her little-seen workbasket. Mama's knitting lay in her lap, but the needles remained silent. She said little; she stroked Temmin's hair as he sat on her footstool, or bent quietly over Ellika's embroidery. Sedra sketched them, singly and together. One study arrested Temmin's eye: Mama staring away toward a dark corner, pressing the tip of a knitting needle into the top of her thigh.
What joy had she had the last few years? Ibbit had reined Mama in for so long, stopped her from doing so many things she'd loved—everything from dancing to reading novels to riding. Temmin's earliest memories of horses involved his mother. She was a true daughter of Whithorse, such a good judge of horseflesh that Jenks said her father the old Duke and her brother Patrin often deferred to her: "His Grace always swore she rode before she could walk, and your Uncle Patrin always regretted having to buy a horse without her advice when we were on campaign. Though he never bought a bad horse in his life." As patrician a lady as any, half the skirts in her wardrobe were riding skirts, divided down the middle.
Mama loved horses. How could she have denied herself one of the great pleasures of her life for so long? Perhaps, Temmin thought, a return to the saddle would help Mama see how wrong Ibbit was—not just in her heresy, but in all things. "Mama, come ride with me tomorrow in the King's Woods. I won't be home long and I'm sure Flor misses you." She demurred, but he detected interest in her voice. He coaxed, and coaxed some more; when she gave in, her smile almost reached her eyes.
The grooms and stable hands were thrilled to see the Queen; she had been a frequent visitor in the past, taking particular care of her little white mare Flor, but a few spokes of the wheel had turned since the stables had seen her shadow. Poor Flor's back more often than not carried a stable boy round the paddock.
Riding Master Cappel came hurrying up from the ring where he'd been working with a promising roan, snatched off his cap, and bowed so low he almost fell over. Ansella took his gnarled hands and helped him up; the old man blushed like a boy. "Yer Majesty! We've miss't you so!"
Ansella mounted Flor. Temmin's favorite, Jebby, had been sent back to the Estate for the duration of Temmin's Supplicancy, and while he missed the big chestnut gelding he enjoyed riding this black half-Inchari mare named LeiLei almost as much. They took off at a brisk walk out of the yards, breaking into a light canter when they reached the War Road leading into the King's Woods. His mother looked as if she'd never left the saddle, more herself than in the entire time they'd been in the City. She moved with Flor as one, giving the white mare little direction beyond the slight shift of her weight, and as they flew over the meadows dotted with blue and red wildflowers and through the dappled, ferny King's Woods her narrow shoulders seemed less bowed; her face relaxed.
They stopped in the Fairy Meadow, high in the foothills where the air was clearest. His mother's aspect altered; a life and vitality informed the way she leaned over and scratched Flor's neck in just the spot to make the little mare shake her head in bliss. "That's what I like to see," said Temmin. "Roses in my mama's cheeks."
"Am I so wan, then?" she said, breathing a little harder than she should.
"Mama, you've had me worried since before—" He stopped himself. No references to Ibbit. "Since before my birthday. Since I saw you at Amma's Day. You're winded. You were never winded after a little canter like this. You must keep riding after I've gone back to the Temple. Mama, you love riding. I don't understand why you stopped. You need the air and the exercise. Exercise will improve your appetite."
"I'm eating, sweetheart—"
"Not enough. Cousin Donnis likes to ride. Sedra will instruct her to drag you to the stables if she has to. Promise me you will both ride and eat more, Mama."
Ansella promised, meek as a remorseful child.
For the first time in almost a year, Temmin found himself at loose ends. His ride with his mother took up part of the morning, but they were back by breakfast. He was not allowed to leave the Keep or its grounds. He might go to the stables. At home, the Estate's stablehands welcomed and then ignored him, treating him as a sort of honored comrade. At the Keep he made the men uncomfortable and formal; it turned a pleasure into a pointless exercise. Given time, he could have won them over, but he didn't have time. He would be at the Keep just a week.
An empty day stretched before him, with the annoying, perfect Harbis hovering around for good measure. He could stand his father's Gram; the man had a talent for making himself invisible. But Harbis was always puttering about, making sure everything one needed was at hand from the right change of clothes to a bath at the perfect temperature to the providing of a snack exactly when one wanted it but before one asked for it. Infuriating.
Thus, Temmin greeted Teacher's arrival in his study—and Harbis's brisk, somewhat alarmed departure—with great pleasure. This time he spared the slight figure a crushing hug and instead shook hands. "Just the man I wanted to see! I was so bored I even thought of finding your library again, but it's been some time since I've been up there and I wasn't sure I could find my way."
Teacher smiled. "Your father thought perhaps we might return to our lessons while you are here."
Temmin glanced at the lectern and the old red book. "Lessons? What for? I'm going back to the Temple soon. What kind of lessons are we talking about? Lecturing sorts of lessons, or…?"
"The other sort, if you prefer. I have nothing particular in mind, really, but to begin a story to be finished later. I thought perhaps one of the more exciting ones—well, they are all exciting, your family has a turbulent history. But this story..." Teacher crossed to the lectern for the book and paused, one hand on its Tremontine red leather cover. "You have opened it."
"Oh, well, yes," he blushed. "I've had another birthday, you see, and I thought perhaps…I mean, there's the sigils, and I can see you very clearly in the mirror now. I checked and I still can't use the mirror as you do, so I thought perhaps I might have been given the ability to read the book this year."
Teacher's mouth quirked at its corner. "Of those ancestors who held magic, most saw their abilities begin in a small way at puberty and develop fully at age eighteen. You are the first in 358 years to have any ability at all, and I am not certain how. Though I have my theories."
Teacher picked up the book and brought it to the library table by the windows; Temmin sat down before it. "Which are?"
"I have not come to any definite conclusions, but it would appear the land recognizes you more completely than previous men of the blood. You are the closest in bloodline to the first King in some centuries—perhaps ever. You even look like him."
"You mean Temmin the Great? You knew him? I thought you first served us under Gethin the First."
"I have served from Gethin on, but I knew Temmin the First. Sometimes it is hard to look at you and not see him. You are very like, though I did not know him in his youth." Memory, wistfulness and revulsion played across Teacher's face in a rare unguarded moment.
"You didn't like him, did you?"
The expression vanished. "Some day I will tell you the story of the first Temmin and me. Not until you are King yourself may I even try to do so." Temmin nodded; he knew the pain it cost when Teacher got too close to magically forbidden subjects. Teacher perched on the edge of the table as in days gone by. "For now, I can tell you the story of another of your namesakes: the third Temmin, called Bastard, the only illegitimately born king to date."
Temmin thought of his father's older brothers born on the wrong side of the blanket though raised as potential heirs; Harsin had come late in his own father's life. Even now they plotted somewhere outside the boundaries of the Kingdom to kill both Harsin and Temmin, and thus place the eldest of them on the throne. "Hopefully the only one ever, at least well into my great-grandchildren's lifetimes. All right, let's hear it—or—or whatever you call it when you open this thing." It never seemed to matter which page he turned to, so he spread the book open at random.
Teacher's voice turned hypnotic. "This story is called 'The Bastard.' Once upon a time…"
Words bloomed on the pages, and Temmin's stomach tightened in anticipation. Pictures took the place of words. He looked down as if from a great height at a butte rising high between two rivers converging to its south. The western river sparkled green and light in the sun; the eastern one was wide, and dark as a shadow.
The southern side of the butte sheered off, steep and foreboding; to the north it sloped away into a boundless forest and up into the foothills of a great mountain with three peaks. His viewpoint descended to a stone fortress built into the butte's highest point. It overlooked a bustling settlement crowding the confluence of the two rivers; smoke from its many chimneys made a cloud. Seven tree-covered hills rose in the city, each topped with what looked like temples in various stages of construction; one had a flat white boulder atop it that Temmin recognized as the Father's Rock, an ancient shrine to Pagg. The eighth was the largest, a black rise hulking to the south and west, alone in a forest.
A familiar tower rose high above the butte, though shorter than Temmin knew it now; its base bored into the living rock and thick stone walls with their own towers surrounded it. A road so wide six men might ride abreast cut its way through the snow-covered forest away from the fortress—it was the War Road. This was Tremont Keep.
The sun slid behind the Altenne Mountains to the west, and suddenly Temmin was moving fast through the sky, swooping down and down towards the Keep; he flinched as he passed through its stone walls into the chamber still known as the Great Hall. Though Harsin used the Great Hall now for only the most solemn state ceremonies—there were larger rooms by far to be found in the Keep today—in the book the huge chamber brimmed over with music and dancers. Bright tapestries covered the cold gray walls, servants carried great trays of food to overflowing tables, and everywhere people laughed.
Bright pennants fluttered from the heavy rafters just as they did now—no, some were missing. The green and white of his own dear Whithorse, the russet and gold of Barle, and Tremont's own dark blood red and gold hung beside one another, but where was Corland's pennant? Litta, Belleth, Alzeh, Kellen? The conquered princes of Inchar? Not even the yellow and blue of Valmouth could be seen. Temmin realized this must be a long time ago, longer ago even than the last story he'd been shown—near the kingdom's founding. Teacher's voice began again.
Once upon a time, early in the Kingdom's history, there lived a lady named Lassanna of Whitehorse.
A willowy young woman appeared among the dancers. She wore a dress of Whithorse green trimmed in silver fur, a silver brocade belt slung low on her slender hips. She was slipping through the forms of a dance he didn't recognize, two long lines with the men on one side and the women on the other, bows and curtseys, turn and turn about; the dancers' fingers barely touched. The young woman's straight ash blond hair hung loose to her waist, and ribbons of the same brocade as her belt pulled it back from her face. Her eyes were gray and laughing, and she seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. She seemed to be no older than he was, perhaps younger. He liked her immediately.
The view turned toward an older man with the same gray eyes glowering from the sidelines at the young woman.
Lassanna was the daughter of the Third Duke of Whitehorse, a jealous parent who was not at all sure he'd done the right thing in bringing her to court…
The unhappy man seemed to pull at him, and Temmin's self dropped away.
The first day of Winter's Beginning, 40 KY
Tremont Keep
Gonnor Lord Whitehorse disapproved of modern life—women eating with the men, dancers touching hands!—and never more than right now. His youngest daughter Lassanna danced with Prince Andrin this Eddin's Day night, her collarbones showing above her fur-trimmed neckline, and her unveiled hair fanning to one side whenever she swung round too quickly—he could see her nape! Was honor such a forgotten thing at the court of Temmin the Second? Temmin the Great would never have stood for it. In his days, men knew how to marshal their wives and daughters. But those days were forty years gone, and Gonnor himself had been a child.
Gonnor blamed Sairland. King Temmin had spent his youth traveling in the Sairish territories during the peace, three years in Sairland itself at King Patrig's court. Then his older brother died without a son, and Temmin hurried home to become the Heir. Though skirmishes along the border between Tremont and Sairish-held Valleysmouth had increased lately, the King's love of Sairish customs remained. Now women wore long, dragging sleeves and flashed their napes and ate with the men. He snorted to himself in disgust.
Gonnor kept the old customs alive in Whitehorse. True, he'd been somewhat lenient with his Duchess. Sittenna hadn't been entirely willing to marry him; technically, he'd carried her off from Kellen. He'd kept her bound to the bedpost until she gave in, took up Tremontine ways and settled down to married life, but he had to give her some little things in return, some of the feminine freedoms of her homeland. Perhaps when it came to Lassanna's upbringing he'd given her too much leeway, though he'd spoiled their youngest himself. He should have married Lassa off at fourteen like her two sisters, but here she was, eighteen and unwed—not the most beautiful of his girls but the hardest to give away.
Lassa trotted past him, flashing her bright smile. He tried to frown, but she looked so happy; instead, he reserved his disapproval for the back of Prince Andrin's head. Gonnor would have been delighted at the Heir's interest in his daughter had Andrin not recently married a Leutish Princess in a political alliance. The Duke ground his teeth. Never had he spent such a dismal first day of the year.
Lassanna reveled in her first holiday at the Keep. Real silver stars glittered among the evergreens gracing every beam and arch; the branches' sharp green scent mingled with the hot spiced wine constantly flowing into her cup,
Eddin's Day, with its presents and pranks, was still Lassa's favorite holiday. Farr's Day with its loud, violent tourneys held little attraction; Father didn't think it suitable for women in any event. No one liked Pagg's Day. She always had a kitten or a songbird to be blessed on Amma's Day. She liked giving her brothers presents on Nerr's Day, she supposed. She took Venna's Day quite seriously, for her favorite brother had often been ill as a child. She still made offerings every year in hopes he might stay well; so far, Venna was pleased to keep him so. She dismissed dressing up in costume on Harla's Day as child's play, and as an unmarried woman, she could not attend the Neya's Day celebrations.
Lassa was in no hurry for marriage, for she was just as lively a girl as her father feared. Her mother had explained the barest of the ways of men and women; her lilting Kellish accent made it more of a conspiracy than a lecture. "Once I had your father in better order we enjoyed one another well enow. He thinks he has his way and in most things he does, but not in that way," she'd chuckled. The whole subject made Lassa intensely curious; for this reason alone she looked forward to her wedding night. For now, she would relish her thrilling flirtation with Prince Andrin.
The Heir could not be called handsome. He had inherited his mother's dark complexion rather than his father's fair one, and his nose was a little too hawklike for fashion. But he danced gracefully and spoke well; his eyes were dark and liquid, and he smiled at her as if she were the only woman in the room. His plodding Leutish wife never entered her mind; the woman danced like a cart horse and spoke Tremontine in a horrible, thick accent. No wonder he preferred to flirt with pretty Lassa.
At dawn this morning, Lassa and the other courtiers had climbed the hill to the Wise One's Temple to see Silver-Eyed Eddin descend into His Embodiment. She'd never seen Him before. The God had moved through the crowd offering blessings and whispering secrets in ears. The listeners sometimes clapped with joy, sometimes glared across the room at one another. Eddin always told the truth but delighted in causing mischief, and those singled out often misinterpreted what they heard. Eddin had so favored her, raising her up to whisper in her ear: "Yours will be an exciting life, and you shall be the mother of a king."
Now as she danced with the Heir, Eddin's prophecy fluttered through Lassa's mind like the bright silver ribbons in her hair. She returned Prince Andrin's intimate smile. Perhaps Princess Inglatine would die or be set aside, and Andrin would marry her!
At dance's end, her father pulled her aside, a little too roughly for company. "That was very badly done, Lassanna!"
She laughed. "It's 'Lassanna,' is it, Papa? You must be put out with me indeed."
"It's nothing to laugh about!"
Lassa pulled against his grip. "Papa, you're treading on my sleeve. Please let go, people are beginning to stare."
Her father released her arm and raised his offending foot. "Damn these trailing sleeves! We'll speak later, my girl, and you won't be laughing afterwards!"
Gonnor was waiting when she came into her mother's rooms the next afternoon. "I disapprove your sleeping so late, Lassanna."
"The dancing didn't end until dawn, and I was having such wonderful fun, Papa! I don't know how you could stand to go to bed. I suppose when one is old—"
"I'm not old, I'm forty-eight!" He turned to Lassa's mother. "Woman! You should have made her come upstairs much, much earlier. Can I trust you with nothing?"
"My lord husband, she's just a girl, she should be allowed her high spirits—"
"High spirits? Girl? She's eighteen!" thundered Gonnor. "What's more, I forbid you to wear these new-styled dresses! Your mother knows well how I feel on this matter—you will not bespeak such another, madam!"
"Oh, don't be angry at Mama! Prince Andrin gave it to me."
Gonnor turned the shade of last night's wine. "You accepted it—and wore it? At court? What will people think? Pagg's balls, I know what they think already! Sittenna," he said to his wife, "you are a foolish woman to risk our family's honor so!"
"It was an Eddin's Day present, lord husband. He gave gifts to many here at court."
"Are all the Kells stupid, or just the one I married?" roared Gonnor. "If this is how you both intend to behave I will send you home to Whitehorse—under guard if I have to!"
"It's winter, lord husband," said Sittenna. "There's snow between here and Whitehorse. The Sella Gap must be closed. We won't be able to cross the Altennes until Spring's Beginning at the earliest."
Gonnor closed his aching eyes; she was right. Where could he send them? Sittenna's people were in Kellen, to the far west on the other side of the River Cobb. They might go by ship to Brunsial, her clan's seat on Kellen's coast, but it was no easy journey. No—he would send them to his sister at Summerford, further north on the Feather River and easily reached even now. A fast messenger sent on ahead could make the 150 miles upriver to herald their arrival in four days if the weather held; another four and his daughter would be far from scandal and temptation.
Word spread that Lord Gonnor was sending his women away, and to his surprise he received a summons from King Temmin. The Heir stood next to his father on the dais as Gonnor entered the King's chambers; Temmin looked bored, but Andrin's gaze made Gonnor's scalp prickle. "My Lord Whitehorse," said the King in his drawling Sairish accent, "we hear your wife and daughter are to leave us."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Gonnor answered. "In two days' time, for Castle Summerford. My sister—"
"Yes, yes," drawled the King, "but no. Your daughter is needed here. Lady Lassanna is to serve Princess Inglatine as lady-in-waiting. Her Highness's Leutish women are being sent home, d'you see. It is time she took on our Tremontine ways."
Gonnor blanched. "Your Majesty, your consideration is flattering, but my sister and her husband are expecting my daughter and Lady Whitehorse. A messenger has already been sent."
"We have intercepted him," said the King.
If ever Gonnor had worried for his youngest daughter, nothing matched the fear overtaking him now. "I see. I…I will tell my daughter of her new duties, then. The House of Whitehorse is honored. Your Majesty, Your Highness." He bowed and turned to leave.
"One last thing, Lord Whitehorse," called the King. Gonnor paused. "We sent your messenger onward with new instructions. Baron and Lady Summerford are now expecting you and your wife. We are certain you will enjoy a long visit."
A slow smile spread across the Prince's face. Gonnor's repressed anger racked his limbs. "Yes, Your Majesty. I will inform Lady Whitehorse directly and begin preparations for our journey."
Gonnor stalked from the audience hall to his family's apartments. Ordered to Summerford like a lackey, though on reflection he supposed he was. His family owed its duchy to Temmin the Great, after all, awarded for his great-grandfather's valor some sixty years ago in the conquest of Whitehorse. Giving his Lassanna to the Heir out of wedlock went far beyond fealty. If she got with child, her shame would devolve upon her family as well. Who would take her then? Perhaps the Prince might keep her under his protection for the child's sake. Andrin's grandfather Hildin the First had kept several ill-gotten offspring in the Mother's House. A pious institution for foundlings and destitute women, the Mother's House, but no daughter of Gonnor's would ever end up there. He'd see her dead before that.
When first she heard, Lassanna danced a gleeful little jig until her sleeves knocked over a pitcher. She loved her father and would miss him, but not his old-fashioned notions. Her sisters never got to be young; Papa made them take up husbands not long after they'd put down their dolls. Harla take her if Lassa wasn't going to have all the fun they missed out on.
Now, as she she watched her parents' caravan leave for the War Road, she dreaded their absence. The sharp wind coming through the unglazed window reminded her she now had little protection at court and no real advisors.
"Lady Lassanna," a servant called, "come away to your fitting!"
New dresses! Lassa almost skipped away from the chilly window after the servant, gloomy thoughts banished. I will have the longest sleeves imaginable and pointed slippers too, see if I don't, Papa!
Temmin came to himself, still feeling Lassa's delight in fashionable clothes and freedom. "She reminds me of Elly," he said.
Teacher echoed his smile. "Lassanna of Whitehorse could be said to be a spiritual sister to the Princess, yes."
"But why is her story important? It's not real history, is it?"
"The History contains the forgotten stories, especially those of the Kingdom's women—your family's women in particular. Did you know anything about Emmae before you heard her story?"
All the kings of Tremont—Temmin had the entire line memorized all the way back to Temmin the Great. But the queens? No, unless they brought substantial holdings or benefit to the Kingdom. Ilhovin the Peacemaker married a princess of Sairland and cemented the final truce between the colonizer and the once-colonized at last, for instance, but he didn't know her name. In marrying Princess Emmae, Warin the Wise secured Litta for his son Gethin the Third, but Temmin hadn't known her name or her story until Teacher told him last year.
"All right," Temmin admitted, "if you say it's important, then we start with her, and I'll find out what her connection is with Temmin the Bastard at some point, I suppose." He closed the book and began to rise from his chair when a thought took him. "Teacher, is there any news about my sister Mattie?"
"None that I have heard," said Teacher, sliding off the table. "Why?"
Temmin shrugged as if shaking off an irritation. "I feel responsible for her. If you hear anything you will let me know, won't you?"
"Of course. Shall we resume after lunch?"
By now the early spring sun was high in the sky, and Temmin was hungry. Obtaining lunch meant dealing with Harbis, but the big pain was probably already waiting in the hallway with a chafing dish. "If that means getting to the exciting part, I'm all for it."
Teacher nodded and left through the study door, admitting Harbis and his luncheon cart; the valet started back at the sight of Teacher, but once the black-robed figure disappeared down the hallyway, Harbis rolled his cart into the room with nary a rattle. Atop it sat the anticipated chafing dish and inside it was exactly what Temmin wanted: ribbony egg noodles in a thick sour cream sauce, with mushrooms and little meatballs—his favorite dish from home. How did Harbis always know?
By the time Teacher returned, Temmin had had about enough and paced up and down his study until Teacher arrived and Harbis beat a somewhat terrified retreat. "Pagg's balls, save me from this valet!" he shouted once the man was gone. "Only one thing ruffles him, and that's you. Don't leave. Ever."
"What a kind invitation," said Teacher.
"Don't leave, or go fetch Jenks from the Estate. Otherwise I'm going to wring this suave bastard's neck with his perfectly tied cravat."
"What is so odious about Mr Harbis?"
"What on earth do you mean?" said Temmin, continuing his pacing.
"He has perfect attention to detail, anticipates your needs, keeps a serene countenance—"
"Not when you're around. You scare him."
"Sir, I scare everyone," said Teacher. "It comes of the terrible parenting habit of threatening children with the Black Man. Apparently I look like this—this bugaboo."
"Oh, don't give me that," Temmin laughed, shaking his head. "You love it. You cultivate it."
Teacher ignored him. "It seems to me that your great complaint against Mr Harbis is that he is not Standfast Jenks."
Temmin gaped, arrested mid-stride. "Well of course that's my great complaint! He's always underfoot, not like Jenks a-tall!"
"Mr Jenks is usually underfoot, sir, and much noisier about it than Mr Harbis has ever dreamed of being. While he is an excellent man on the whole, Mr Jenks is not a touch upon Mr Harbis's professionalism."
"When I'm at the Temple, I'm too busy to miss him, and besides, Jenks in the Lovers' Temple doesn't bear thinking on." Temmin slumped onto the sofa. "When I'm here, though, I miss him terribly." He glanced up at the mirror above his mantelpiece and sat up straighter. "Say, could you do me a favor? Please let me see him. I'd feel better if I could get a glimpse of home."
"Very well." Teacher faced the mirror. "If Standfast Jenks is anywhere in sight of a reflection, show him to me."
The mirror wavered and resolved into a dim, grayed vantage point that moved from side to side in a dizzying manner. A somewhat weathered man appeared, brown eyes intent; a short-cropped beard marched over a strong jaw, and a receding hairline heightened an already great expanse of forehead. The man peered down before a cloth descended and blocked him from sight. After a minute of rigorous scrubbing the man reappeared more clearly than before. He wore a shirt, open at the collar, its sleeves rolled up and a waistcoat over it. The vantage point dipped and swayed again as the man squinted with first one eye, then the other. A satisfied smile broke out on his face. As he stood up the view switched to trousers ending in a pair of carpet slippers; they walked away. The mirror went dark before resolving into Temmin's study.
"I do believe," said Teacher, "that the reflection was from a pair of boots."
"That's what I'm talking about!" exclaimed Temmin, leaping to his feet. "He can get a shine on boots—"
"—That I am sure Mr Harbis can match if not surpass." Teacher put a quelling hand on Temmin's shoulder. "Another year. It will pass quickly."
"What's a year to you?" grumbled Temmin. "You have all the years you want."
Teacher took a step back and snapped, "I have not wanted the years I have had."
Temmin started; Teacher rarely displayed such intense emotion. "I'm sorry." He ruffled his hair, dislodging his queue again. "I won't miss him as much once I'm at the Temple, and I'm going back as soon as Cousin Donnis arrives."
"You are going back when it is safe. Which," Teacher amended, "will likely coincide with the Marchioness's arrival. I am sorry too, Your Highness. My sensibilities are difficult for others to understand. A long life is not necessarily a happy one. Let us not dwell on it, for at present there is nothing to be done for it. If you would, please," Teacher finished with a gesture toward the book.
Temmin studied his father's chief counselor, who was under some unknown compulsion to serve the royal family. He knew Teacher hadn't enjoyed serving those like Hildin the Usurper—an evil, troubled man if ever there was one—but surely serving Hildin's brother Warin hadn't been so bad, or even serving Temmin's father. From what he'd heard in his time at the Temple and from Sedra, Harsin wasn't a bad king—merely ruthless in the ways in which a monarch must be from time to time.
Temmin nodded, opened the book, and let it take him away.
Inglatine was just as dull and plodding as expected. She groped for words in her horrendous Tremontine until she lapsed into either Leutish or Old Sairish. Lassanna knew Old Sairish alone of the ladies-in-waiting; her mother had insisted her girls be educated as she was, despite Tremontine custom. Knowing Old Sairish was fortunate, if translating for a lump like Inglatine could be considered so.
Lassa sorted fine wool threads for Inglatine's embroidery, and helped put her to bed at night; the Princess insisted Lassa was the only one who could properly comb out her stubborn, impossibly yellow hair. Lassa soon found herself in the unwelcome position of favorite, but even as tiresome as Inglatine was, Lassa had to acknowledge her kind, gentle manner.
Court life made it bearable: dancing, feasting, music, entertainments of all kinds, often in the Sairish way even with the two countries on the brink of war. Though the King had spent many years in Sairland and its territories, his chief counselor Teacher insisted the Sairish should not only be opposed but driven back. Land gained was magic gained.
"We'll make merry while we may, Lady Lassanna," smiled Andrin one night as they danced. "Soon enow we'll march to war."
"How sad I shall be, Your Highness, to be deprived of such company," said Lassa, demurely keeping her eyes to one side.
His grasp on her hand tightened. "Who do you watch, my lady?"
Lassa brought her startled gaze back to him. "No one, sir, no one at all."
"I am happiest when you look at no other."
"As you say, sir," she replied, keeping her troubled eyes on him from then on.
That night, the uneasy Lassanna tended to the Princess, unfastening her veil and shaking out the unruly yellow torrent beneath. "What ails you, dear Lassa?" said Inglatine in her heavy Tremontine.
"Nothing, ma'am, nothing at all." She began to comb.
"I wish you to call me Tina," the Princess continued in more comfortable if stilted Old Sairish. "No one knows or cares for me as do you. My husband loves me not, you know."
Lassa cringed but kept combing. "Oh, Your Highness, say not—"
Inglatine stopped her hand. "We are honest with one another, you and I. I am not stupid, though it is supposed that I am because I speak Tremontine little—and badly. Andrin does not often come to me, and when he does he cares not. But it matters not. I am with child." Inglatine removed her hand, and Lassa speechlessly began combing again. The Princess lapsed into silence, her head pulling back in gentle snaps against Lassa's combing. "He likes not women with child," she resumed. "He will leave my bed, perhaps forever if it is a son—I pray for a son so he will leave me alone. Yours I think will be his bed now," she added in Tremontine.
Lassa dropped the comb. "Oh, no, Your Highness! I am sure…that is, the Prince certainly…" Flattery evaded her honest tongue. "I wish it not. Were he to ask me—"
"You would say yes," said Inglatine in Old Sairish. "You will say yes. I bar not your way, no, I approve."
"But I want my own husband, not someone else's!"
Inglatine bent and picked up the comb. "That is not what Andrin thinks, nor is it what anyone else thinks." She gave Lassa the comb but held onto one end, squinting up at her lady-in-waiting. "Do you know not why you were kept from going to Summerford? I think perhaps you are the stupid one."
Lassa blushed. Any Eddin-inspired thoughts she'd had of the Prince were as a husband not a lover, after some vague unfortunate occurrence to Inglatine. She had no intention of letting any man into her bed unmarried. "My father does not approve."
"Oh, but I think it matters not," Inglatine smiled. She let go the comb with a careless gesture. "Either way, Andrin will not let you go. Finish my hair. I am tired and wish to sleep now."
Inglatine's bluntness kept Lassa wakeful that night; she sat brooding before her fire, watching the flames fall to embers. She decided Inglatine wouldn't know a flirtation from an argument and went to bed.
The court agreed with Inglatine, with reason. Andrin sat Lassa next to him at meals, Inglatine on his other side. He danced almost entirely with Lassa in the evenings. He insisted Lassa call him An, as he was called among family and friends. He came to the Princess's bower but spent his time there flirting with Lassa. Within the week the courtiers began flattering Lassa, the men keeping one eye always on the Heir and the women sneering behind their hands.
Almost a spoke after Lassa's awkward exchange with Inglatine, An appeared in the bower doorway; behind him came a page carrying a pretty lacquer box. "Gifts for my wife and her ladies to celebrate the blessed event to come." The boy opened the box to reveal several small cases. An opened one; it contained a mirror. The ladies-in-waiting each received one, silver chased with patterns in the Sairish style; the Princess's mirror was the same, though decorated with costly mother-of pearl and rich enamel.
Lassa's mirror outshone the Princess's. It had no case; its back formed a stand. Gems inlaid its gold rim. Inglatine didn't seem to care. She thanked her husband and placidly adjusted her veil. Lassa accepted her mirror, knowing she should not but afraid to refuse. An's attentions and gifts must soon be paid for, a thought both frightening and thrilling.
She stayed in her room that night, claiming the headache. The mirror stood on her dressing stand; she kept catching unsettling flashes in the corner of her eye—reflections of flickering candlelight or her own uneasy movement around the room—until she developed a real headache, called for her maid and undressed for bed. When the woman was gone, Lassa reached to snuff out her candle.
The mirror's surface began to ripple; she stared at it, one hand at her mouth, the other at her stomach as the gift's intent became clear. An swirled from the mirror and solidified. "Don't put out the candle just yet, Lassa," he smiled.
Lassa's own father held some small magic, and she'd seen King Temmin and Prince Andrin work magics at court, but never had she seen a royal pass through a reflection. She curtsied, shaking as she did so and holding her chemise against her throat with one hand. He raised her up by the other. "Don't be afraid. Does this displease you? I thought my attentions quite welcome."
She stepped away from him, still shaking. "I hadn't intended, Your Highness…that is, I am rather surprised…your consideration of my family has been most kind…"
"You sound like your father," An laughed. "Your family has nothing to do with this. If I want you, you're mine. You're eager for me, aren't you?"
Lassa flushed so hard she thought she must glow like the fire's coals. "I have not allowed myself to think of it, Your Highness."
"Then think of it," he said, brushing his fingers against her cheek. He stepped closer; his fingers trailed down her neck, tracing her collarbone to the ribbon of her chemise. "Think of it, Lassa." He undid the ribbon.
She grabbed at the cloth as it slipped from her shoulders. Think of it. No? Yes? Yes. She dropped her hand and her hesitation. I will be the mother of a king, he will marry me and I will be the mother of a king.
Lassanna continued to wait on Inglatine, whose self-confidence grew with her belly. "The Prince has left my bed entirely! Such a relief!" said the Princess in her much-improved Tremontine one night. "You are keeping him amused for me, Lassa dear."
"Your hair is truly beautiful now, Your Highness," murmured Lassa. "Pregnancy suits you."
"Pregnancy suits no woman. Though you are right, my hair grows quickly now. Such a long time it takes you to make the braids, and I must take care not to sit on them when you are through. You had better hurry, my girl. He waits for you and he is an impatient lover. He was with me, anyway. In, out, done." Inglatine stroked her rounding belly. "I wish Teacher might know if it is a son. But he only knows the King's sons, not the Heir's. Ah, you must be a boy, little one! Then it will be you and me, you and me and your father gone from my bed forever. No, I expect he will insist on a second boy. But then—then we will be free of one another, the Prince and I! Who will be the happier? I cannot say!"
This was a conversation Lassa did not wish to have ever again.
"You must stay in the Princess's service," said An as they lay in bed that night. "There must be some excuse for keeping you here. It's either service or marriage, and I cannot bear the thought of you married to some minor lordling."
"You're the Heir," pouted Lassa. "Can you not do as you please?"
"Proprieties, darling, proprieties!" He kissed her, and she forgot her frets.
The Princess gave birth to a girl. "Well, now I have some little soul to love me," said Inglatine. "The Prince will pester me again, but just when the Sisters deem me most likely to conceive. You will have to do without your lover for seven days a moon, my dear."
"Oh, ma'am, I wish you wouldn't talk to me like this!" said Lassa.
Inglatine patted her hand. "You do not love me. I know this. But you are the closest thing I have to a friend here—yes, I consider you my friend, for you have taken a burden from me and I will be grateful to you whether you would have it or not. You never lie to me, you are as kind as you can manage, and you are not jealous. When you need a friend, you may always turn to me."
How could Lassa be jealous of Inglatine? Here was a woman far from home, unloved, awkward and disregarded at court. An never told Lassa he loved her, but his actions proved he did. Her favorites became An's favorites, in music, in food, in dancing, in people. The ambitious curried her favor, and some even gave her messages to pass to him. Some she repeated. Many she did not, as she pleased. Politics were all one to her.
On Farr's Day Eve, the gardens of the Keep filled with merrymakers, though fall's first knife tip was in the air. Clowns play-acted the tourneys that would fill Farr's Ground the next day, tumbling and beating one another with beribboned sticks, and wherever one walked, music and beauty awaited. An and Lassa wore matching cloth of gold, their huge, scalloped sleeves so long they trailed far behind them. Inglatine was nowhere in sight. The couple walked away from the noise and the torchlight, Lassa pouting at some pretended slight. "No, you do not care for me," she said, suppressing laughter.
"How may I prove it, Lady? Name it, and you may have it. Say it, and I will do it."
She paused, putting a considering finger to one cheek. "Something magnificent. Something very vulgar and very public."
An smiled and faced the gathering behind them. He raised his hands. Balls of flame rose from every torch, shocking the crowd into silence. Bows stilled and pipes fell from lips as even the musicians stopped to stare. The flames climbed into the sky, tails streaming behind them like comets as they rose higher and higher until they all burst into tiny sparks that spelled out "Lassa the Beautiful" before floating back down to earth and rejoining the torches. The revelers burst into applause. Lassa caught a white face, ghostly in the shadows of the arches leading back into the Keep's courtyards; the King's advisor Teacher was frowning up at the sky. Lassa shivered and looked up herself. A few dwindling sparks still lit the night, and she forgot the figure in the shadows in her delight.
Lassa missed her moon. Twice.
She consulted a Sister in secret. "There must be something you can do, some way to stop the child?"
"We do not end pregnancies, especially royal ones," huffed the priestess.
Soon Lassa could no longer hide her blossoming belly from her lover. "You're with child? Lassa, you were not meant to be the mother of my children! You were to be everything but that! Did you not listen to the Sisters? Had you paid so little attention to their teachings?"
"You insisted even when I told you it was the wrong time of my moon!"
An turned purple. "You dare blame me for this! I have no use for you at present—I despise pregnant women. Go home to your father. When your confinement is over you may return."
"What about the child?"
"What do I care?" said An. "Send it to the Mother's House. With luck it will go to the Hill. I'm leaving for a tour of the Sairish reinforcements along the border at Valleysmouth. When I return, you will be gone."
Lassa sent word to her father, not knowing what to expect. Perhaps he would let her come home. But what if he didn't? Would her aunt take her in at Summerford? Not against her father's wishes. She might throw herself on the mercy of the Mothers, but to work like a slave in this new Mother's House—she trembled and waited for the messenger's return.
The messenger did not return; Gonnor of Whitehorse did.
He strode straight into the Princess's bower, scattering servants and ladies alike with the flat of his sword, bellowing, "Girl, did I not tell you I would kill you rather than see Whitehorse shamed?" The Duke deflated at the sight of his daughter cowering in a corner. "Lassanna, my darling, my baby girl, how could you do it? How could you let him do this to you?"
"You yourself know how little choice I had in the matter!" she cried.
"Do not blame me for this state of affairs! I love you, Lassa! Now, be a good girl," said her father, suddenly coaxing. "Come out into the courtyard and I will make your death as painless as possible. Don't make me stain the Princess's chambers with blood."
Inglatine placed herself between them, legs planted firmly on the floor. "This lady is under my protection."
"I am within my rights as her father, Your Highness," growled Gonnor.
"Oh, to be sure, but she is my lady and friend. To kill her you must come through me." Inglatine bounced the baby in her arms. "You would kill a Princess of Tremont—two princesses? To kill me would bring more than shame. The King would slaughter your House, to the last girl child."
Gonnor lowered the blade. "You cannot stand in my way forever. Sooner or later Lassanna will leave this room, and I will be waiting." He sheathed his sword and left.
Inglatine gave the baby to another lady. "We have little time." She grabbed the shaking Lassa's arm and dragged her into the Princess's bedchamber. She took a heavy cloak from its hook, threw it into Lassa's arms and ran to a chest; she fished out a purse and thrust it at Lassa as well. Inglatine ripped aside a tapestry on the wall to uncover an opening. "This passage leads to An's rooms. They say you Whitehorsers are born in the saddle, yes?"
Lassa followed her mistress through a narrow passageway to a tapestry-covered door into An's familiar bedchamber; she wondered if Inglatine had heard them making love. "Why are you doing this?"
Inglatine produced a key on what Lassa had assumed was a decorative chatelaine, pushed back another tapestry on the far wall and unlocked a hidden door. "I have told you, you are my friend. You do not love me, but you have never lied to me and have often been kind. An has shown me these stairs to the stables—they are a secret." Inglatine shooed her through the door and shut it behind them; they plunged together into the dark, feeling their way down the stairs as quickly as they could without tumbling headlong. Shame filled Lassa's heart. In many ways the Princess had been her sole friend since her parents' departure, the one person who didn't want something from her other than simple companionship.
A crack of light revealed a door; the faint smell of horses reached her nose. "Hush now," said Inglatine, "I am not sure what we will find. But our choices are limited, yes?" She fitted her key in the lock. The door swung open on silent hinges and they walked through it into the tack room. "Put on the cloak and stay there, Lassa."
Inglatine returned with a reedy young man barely out of boyhood with hair even more yellow than her own. "This is Hanni der Geelt—called Yellow Hanni here. He was once of my escort and has gone on many travels with the King. He will know the way. Where can you go? Summerford?"
"No, that's the first place Papa would look—yes! My mother's people in Kellen! My uncle, Williard ar Sial! I stayed in their holding at Brunsial on the Kellish coast for a whole year with my mother. Kellish ways are different. They will take me in, and it's not too snowy yet to cross the border."
Inglatine said something in Leutish to the reedy groom; he responded with a great gout of words and much gesticulating in Lassa's direction. "Hanni says he knows well the way to Kellen. He is yours now—a good horseman, good fighter, better bowman and so very loyal." The young man rushed off; Lassa took in his flailing arms and legs, and rather doubted his martial prowess. "I have told him to do as you say, that you are his mistress now," continued Inglatine, "but he does not speak much Tremontine yet outside stable talk. That, he knows. Poor Hanni der Geelt, now he will have to learn Kellish, too. I must return the way I came. Stay here until Hanni returns." Inglatine embraced her. "I will miss you, Lassa."
Lassa clung to the Princess. "Oh, how I've misjudged you, ma'am! How kind you are, and how sorry I am!"
"Now, now, yes. When I can set up my own household I will send word and you shall come to me. Perhaps my next two babies will be boys, eh? Then we will both be free." Inglatine hugged her one last time and slipped through the hidden door; the lock shot home.
When they were well away from the Keep, Lassa was stiff from riding and needed to piss. The wind cut through her cloak. They had no food, though Yellow Hanni pointed to his bow and insisted he was a fine hunter. Or at least that's what she thought he said. Hanni was murmuring incomprehensibly to his horse; how would she ever talk to the man? She looked down at her own mount. There was something familiar in the mare's lines, as if she recognized it. "Hanni, which horse is this?"
"To His Highness Lord of Whitehorse has given her," said the groom, "so I for you get. You like? Best mare in stable is!"
"My father's horse is carrying me away from him."
"No worries, Lady. I, Hanni der Geelt, take care of you will!"
Lassa raised her head to the cold sky and burst into tears.
No matter how vivid a dream might be, it could never match the book. It immersed Temmin so thoroughly he could not remember being anyone but a miserable pregnant girl running from her own father. The winter cold faded from Temmin's bones as he came back to himself. He shook out his arms to make his shivering stop. "If I were…being…a person in the book, and that person died, would I die too?"
"No, no," Teacher reassured him, "you would simply move to another vantage point in the story. Why, are you concerned for Lassanna?"
"No—well, yes, but it's more that I feel everything so very acutely—I forget I'm me. I'd forgotten how disconcerting it is." The shivering stopped to let a different cold creep in. "Could a father really kill his daughter for having a child out of wedlock?"
"Oh, fathers were within their rights to kill a daughter for burning the soup. Children were property. Children still are property, though killing them for one's family honor has generally fallen out of favor. Mother's Houses are somewhat to thank. If a girl in danger of an honor killing makes it to a Temple of Amma she is under its protection—no one can touch her. The Mothers then demand assistance for the girl's upkeep and that of her child in accordance with Pagg's Law, usually from the man who fathered the child. It became such a problem during the reign of Hildin the First that he helped found the first Mother's House here in the Capital. Within a hundred years every larger Temple of Amma had its Mother's House, and honor killings became rare."
Temmin realized he'd been leaning forward in his chair, wedging his hands between his torso and the table edge; he leaned back and flexed his cramped fingers. "I can't imagine it ever being legal for fathers to kill their children."
"It is quite legal now. Wives as well. Both under certain circumstances, of course, spelled out in Pagg's Law—I can find the correct citations for you, if you would care to read them." Teacher crossed the room to the bookshelves. "I believe your Presentation Day copy of the Law is somewhere in this room, though the writing is quite small and the jeweled covers have been removed for safekeeping. Those copies are made more for decoration than use—"
Temmin rose from the library chair. "No, no, unnecessary. What circumstances would make the murder of a wife or child legal?"
"Interpretation of the Law changes with the times, sir. Early in the Law's history a man might kill his wife, unmarried daughter or son not come of age for no reason whatsoever and face nothing more than a fine, the 'blood debt.' It was a fine large enough that a poor man might think twice and abandon a troublesome wife or cast out a pregnant daughter. Even so, I have known many cases over the centuries of men who were indentured for most of their lives to pay off a blood debt. The Fathers currently deem proven adultery as the only pardonable reason to kill one's wife. The blood debt must still be paid, but in all other cases, it is imprisonment or death. As for children, it is disobedience, though a great burden of proof falls on the father and the blood debt is high—higher than for the killing of a wife if the murdered child is a son."
"I suppose that's fair," mused Temmin, "a life still to be lived, worth more than a life that—no, there's nothing fair about it. Can a wife kill a husband or child?"
"Under no circumstances. It is death."
"No blood debt?"
"None. Death and denial of burial rites."
Temmin shook his head. "This is why I never studied the Law in depth. I don't like it." He gazed out the window; the struggling spring sun hovered low in the sky. "I want to go check on my mother—make sure she's eaten. Perhaps you can tell me what happened to this girl tomorrow."