Cards of Grief (17 page)

She looked at me and said, “Was it not prophesied that I will forgive all betrayals?” Then she bowed her head and was gone.

Then how did you explain the child to her?

Explain what child, A’ron?

Oh, come now, the child that was born. Golden-haired and golden-eyed.

But I just explained, A’ron. There could have been no child between the two of you because there was no touching. There was no touching because of her vows. How, therefore, could there be a child? It was all a Lumin dream.

There was no Lumin in her cup. I saw it. It was empty. B’oremos lied to you.

Man Without Tears,
you
lie.

It is true I am capable of lying. But now I tell you the truth.

Ah, but then you must see that if she knew, she chose not to know because her Queen told her so.

She was brought to childbed in the cave but never made a sound. B’oremos attended her. He said she made not even the smallest mewling.

Perhaps he fed her the last Lumin nut.

If that last one is not a lie.

If it is, it is not
my
lie.

B’oremos took the child away. Only he and I know of it. It was a strange child. I held it and touched its yellow hair. Then I gave it to him to bring to the tower. Hop’nor thought it was our child, yours and mine. I almost kept her. If her hair had been dark, I would have. But then Gray would have known.

She is a beautiful child. And she never cries.

Still alive, then? I am glad.

But you sent her away.

The Gray Wanderer was untouched. That is the truth, for the Queen has spoken it.

Then the Queen lies. My daughter
—
and Linni’s
—
lives. She is a bright, golden-haired girl of five. She already reads and writes and has a great gift—of laughter.

I do not lie, A’ron; I choose well. For it is clear to me now that
this
is the child of whom the prophesy speaks. Fifty years ago our world was not ready for the way in which she would lead. I only hope it is, now.

May I see Linni?

Do you think she would want to have you see her as an old woman? She may have too much pride for that.

Do you worry about her pride, my lady, or do you worry more that she will hate you for what you have done?

One cannot hate a Queen. And the Gray Wanderer will mourn for me whether she wishes to or not. She is, after all, the Queen’s Own Griever and she will bring many mourners to my lines. For I am the last of the Queens and when she grieves for me, she grieves for an entire civilization. B’oremos will be a strong King, but whether he will be a wise one I do not know.

Were you strong? Were you wise?

I was the last. That is enough. Come, hand me that Cup. I would drink of it.

First tell me of the cave.

You do not trust me yet, A’ron.

Trust you? I have learned too much about you in the intervening years. I know also that, having confessed to me, you would involve me in your death by having me hand you the Cup of Sleep.

And you are unwilling?

Oh, I am willing enough. Not because I wish you dead, but because I wish your culture alive and that means following your rituals out to the end. But first speak to me of the cave.

It is north of here, but still within sight of the city. There is a pathway of sorts. B’oremos will take you. He has been listening to our conversation. That drapery hides not a wall but a niche. He knows what to do. He is my own true son in this, though often I had wished him a girl.

Then here is the Cup of Sleep.

You will make them remember me?

My lady, you will be remembered on two worlds.

May your lines of mourning be long.

May your time of dying be
…
My God.

She did not lie to you. About the ashes. It is not a pretty sight.

Then you are now King, B’oremos.

I will have the servants put that
thing
out on the pylons. The people will have days of good viewing.

But she was your Queen.

She is now no more than a Thing. And besides, she made me lie three times to Gray. Now I am King and what
I
say is true. I will bring Gray back from the hills.

Thank you, B’oremos.

I bring her back for me
—not for you. Still you do not understand, A’ron. She is the best griever after all. The King’s Own Griever. There is need of her now.

God, you’re a cold bastard.

No, I am not cold. That was a mistake
she
made. I burn. Burn. And I have a longer memory than the Queen could ever know. Time does not blunt anger, A’ron. It takes the sharp edge and hones it to a killing point. Now I am King and I may strike as I will.

Will you strike me?

No, but I will tell you what really happened, that you may better know what it is you do and have done here. If that is a blow, then you
—not I—have struck it.

And Linni?

She will do what she has always done best. Grieve.

Place
: Palace of the King, Apartment of the King

Time
: King’s Time 1, First Patriarchy; labtime 2137.5+
A.D.

Speaker
: The King, called B’oremos, also called the Singer of Dirges, to Aaron Spenser

Permission
: King’s own

S
HE WAS MAD, OF
course. All Queens are mad. Mad with grief; mad with the touching; mad with power. It is the one final prerogative of Royalty. I, too, perhaps am mad. But my madness is tempered by the long patience of princes. After the five years of sowing seed, we no longer serve but we wait.

I
loved
you, you know. Perhaps I am the only one of this planet of grievers who truly understands that word. It does not mean desire. The Queen’s summons brings desire. A Lands girl’s payment is desire. Even the touch of prince to prince is desire. But I
loved
you. I saw in you my other self, my golden half. And Gray was the shadow between us.

So when the Queen bade me come to her, fresh from your side, I gave her all my desire and my seed, but I thought of you maddened by the Lumin, waiting for me. I never expected Gray, to whom I had given no such wine, to stay.

But I returned at dawn and the two of you lay, tangled together amongst my cushions. You were in the deep, full sleep of Lumin. But she was restless, and under her eyelids the amber eyes were roaming as if seeking a place of peace. Even in her sleep she remembered the violation of her vows. I hated her then even as I had desired her. I wanted to hurt her in such a way that you would be hurt, too. My prince’s mind plotted well.

I returned to the Queen and lied.

It is not an easy thing to lie to a Queen. But having met you, A’ron, I was not the silly young boy I had been. Your arrival made me a man. I saw what men
could
do. And so I lied.

“I am not the only one who has joyed tonight,” I said to her.

She preened herself, thinking I had returned for her. “I, too, B’oremos. It was a night of wild sowing. There will be many children born.”

“There may be many children, O Queen, but they will not spring from between your legs. Nor will they come from mine.”

She looked puzzled. “Do you prophesy, princeling? But then you must shave your head.”

“Even a prince can read this orb,” I said. “In my room lie two who drank of the Lumin and, forgetting vows, made a child.”

She stood in a fury. I had never seen her so. Her hair crackled with little fires. Her eyes turned nearly black. “Gray?” she croaked. “You dared feed Lumin to her?”

I smiled.

She reached up and smoothed down her hair and calmed the rage somewhat. “But a vow broken by Lumin is not a vow broken.”

“Gray is not what she was.”

“Gray is still Gray. She is my Master Griever. Nothing happened. The Queen speaks true.”

She was magnificent, A’ron. She was the Queen. She sat back down amidst her cushions, running a finger across her upper lip, a sure sign that she was thinking. Then she smiled up at me and patted a place by her side. I sat.

“You have no shame,” she murmured, her hands loosening my bindings, her voice stirring the Lumin-heightened senses again, “I like that in a prince.” And she fell upon me and in that position I once again sowed my Queen.

When she raised herself from me, she said, “But your night’s work is not yet over.”

I could barely move. I told her so.

She touched me fiercely with her nails and I cried out. “This,” she said, “this is nothing. And soon you shall be nothing, while I live on to be plowed and plowed again. Still I have a task for you, my princeling.”

“And that is…”

“Go to the silver tower on the plain. Find the tall one. The old one with the beard. I suspect he still stores his seed, unlike you, my little prince, who will soon be able to sow only plots and intrigues. Tell him…tell him his A’ron has abused my friendship and violated my person. This way!” She ripped her nails across her breast, leaving red lines. “And this!” She clawed at her thighs until they bled. “Tell them that he dared sow a Queen against her will.”

“Who will believe that?” I asked.

“They will believe. A Queen does not lie.”

I nodded.

“Tell them to take him away or I will have him killed.”

So I went at once to the ship, first ordering Mar-keshan to wake the two of you and get the Gray Wanderer home. Hop’nor believed what he was told because the Queen said it. And when he saw her wounds, he knelt down and kissed her hand and spoke softly to her, which she enjoyed. Then he and his companions took you into the ship and we did not see you again until this day.

But it was all lies. So many lies.

And yet it was all true.

Because the Queen made it so?

Because it
was
so. What happens is only a shadow of what is, A’ron.

What did you say to Linni?

I told her that the lords of the air and sky are full of deceits. I told her that you were a betrayer. But she stopped me with her hand upon my mouth, a kind of pitying touch she should not have given.

She said, “The Queen has told me all, but I forgive all,
all
betrayers, B’oremos, my only friend.”

Then she went out to lead the grieving for your dead Queen.

I suppose you wonder as well about the birth of the child, the child of earth and sky.

I wonder.

It was—and was not—like any birth. It began with joy and ended with tears. There were many years of grieving.

That is not enough.

And if I tell you all, golden A’ron, will you, like Gray, forgive the betrayals?

I have the child, B’oremos. I can forgive.

Then listen well, for there are things here that no one else but you and I will know.

When Gray was but three months gone with child, three people knew of it.

You, the Queen
—
and Gray.

How little you understand the heart, A’ron, for all that you study us. The three you named were the three who would not let themselves know, who denied what was true.

The three who knew the shadows behind the Queen’s truth were these: T’arremos, my map-scarred enemy; D’oremos, my mentor; and the man of Waters I held closest to me, Mar-keshan.

They guessed what they did not know and named me sower, violator. T’arremos told D’oremos in order to curry favor. Mar-keshan told D’oremos in order to save me. But D’oremos went to the Queen because it needed to be said.

The Queen swore it was untrue and D’oremos had to believe her. D’oremos swore it was untrue, and T’arremos chose not to believe him. Mar-keshan knew what was,
was
; he came to me.

Bowing low, he spoke in that soft burring voice that reminded me of the sea itself. “I have something to tell you, lord, as a friend. Will you walk into the courtyard with me?”

And he added with his fingers rapidly, “It is the Gray.”

I went.

And there, away from prying ears to hear us and prying eyes to read our hands, he told me what he suspected and I, trusting him, told him what was true.

He went at once to Gray’s rooms because a servant can come and go quietly and no one remarks him. And late that night two servants—an old man from Waters and a stooped-over old woman from Lands (grief paints can make many changes in a face) left for a cave high up in the hills.

The Queen said her Own Griever was ill and had gone home to her people. And because the Queen so said it, it was true. And she said that T’arremos was in great pain and had taken the Cup, which was surprising for one so young, but not out of the question since the mark on his face had been a sign of inner sickness.

That was true—and it was not true.

What about it was true?

That he died.

And what was not true?

I killed him. With my hands. For he came into my apartment after Gray had left, and he spit at me and smirked with that twisted mouth of his and called me a betrayer. I had been thinking about betrayals before he had arrived, and it was as if a great red fog came over me. When it lifted, T’arremos was beneath me. I was astraddle him and his neck was in my hands. But there was no breath left in his body and his face was a grayish-blue, the map on it near purple. I let him drop and ran to D’oremos, who took me in without a word and listened and sighed. He bade me wait while he spoke with the Queen. And without a summons, which was daring on his part, he went to her.

When he returned, he had the Queen’s Own Cup in his hands.

“Put this by his body on your cushions. Then return here. Spend the night with me and I will teach you of other pleasures the Queen does not know. We will let someone else find T’arremos. It will be said that he took the Cup, because you would not touch him, but that what was twisted in him allowed him no quick or easy death. Then we will grieve him briefly as befits a prince, but without great ceremony as is due an unbeliever. For he did not believe the Queen’s truth and so he deserved to die.”