Duty (Book 2) (6 page)

Deep inside, the Chalaine felt happy that Fenna had finally won Gen’s attentions, but the feeling was deep enough to be considered buried. The dissatisfaction and sense of loneliness took their toll on her mood, and the Chalaine wondered if Fenna divined her bitterness despite her best attempts to act as if all was the same between them.

Tonight after Eldwena retired, the Chalaine did the worst possible thing for her attitude that she could imagine: she used the Walls
to spy on Chertanne. Watching him engage in yet another night full of drunkenness and debauchery sent her spirits spiraling even lower, and she wondered how it was that her own childhood had been one where her duty—and the rigid morality that was to enable it—were taught unceasingly, while Chertanne, it seemed, had grown up without a worry or care of any sort for duty, morality, or even a modicum of decency. The vessel Eldaloth would use to return to Ki’Hal was to come from him as well, so how did her strictness profit anything when his carefree indulgence more than destroyed any hope for a holy union?

As the memories of Chertanne’s night about town resurfaced in her mind, she threw aside the curtains of her bed and stood, determined to find a way to distract herself. She knew it had to be a couple of hours past midnight, but Gen was awake, and her mother had wished that she would talk to him. Because of her despair, she knew the conversation would do no service to Gen, but any conversation at all, even if a fight, would be better than lying around contemplating marital doom.

As silently as she could, the Chalaine retrieved a veil from a drawer and pulled it over her head. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. While Fenna succeeded in coaxing emotion out of Gen’s face, the Chalaine wasn’t surprised when Gen didn’t even lift an eyebrow at her unexpected appearance in the middle of the night. Of course, he could sense her coming.

“Are you well, Holiness?” he asked. The Chalaine went to the wall opposite from where he stood and sat slumped against it, hugging her legs and putting her chin on her knees.

“Would you quit using the ‘Holiness’ honorific? It makes me feel like we never met.”

“Of course, Chalaine. I apologize.”

“And quit being sorry, too. People are always telling me how sorry they are for the stupidest things.”

“Yes, Chalaine.”

“And don’t answer me like I’m Captain Tolbrook barking orders to a bunch of idiot apprentices.”

“I see. I will limit my responses to hand gestures and grunts from this point forward.”

The Chalaine tried to decipher his face. Irritatingly as ever, she couldn’t make sense of it. She sat silently as Gen resumed his statuesque vigil without further comment. The Chalaine stared at him to annoy him and wondered if he could tell that she was doing it in the dim light of the hallway.

“So,” she said suddenly and sharply, seeing if she could get him to blink. It failed. “Fenna tells me you are teaching her to play the lute.” Gen raised his fist before him, moving it up and down at the wrist in a semblance of a head nodding ‘yes.’ As out of sorts as she was, the Chalaine couldn’t help but smile.

“Stop it and talk to me,” she said.

“I can’t even say a simple ‘Holiness’ without causing offense.”

“I bet you don’t go around saying, ‘your ladyship’ to Fenna all the time except when you are having a little fun at her expense. You’ve known me almost as long as you’ve known her.”

“True,” he said, “but Fenna isn’t the Holy Chalaine, either. In fact, ‘Holiness’ almost seems less formal than ‘Chalaine.’ That is a weighty title as much as it is your name.”

“Then I shall need a new name for you to call me, one that won’t weigh your tongue down so much. You know the ancient speech of the Gods. Give me a new name from God’s language.”

Gen thought for a moment. “Very well. How about ‘Alumira’rei Se Ellenwei’?”

“It sounds beautiful and it rhymes. What does it mean?”

“It means, ‘One who picks fights when she should be sleeping.’”

“Alumira’rei knows she should be sleeping but has found that she can’t. She has decided that she wants to go on a walk.”

The Chalaine stood and started toward the entrance to the maze. Gen intercepted her in a heartbeat, blocking the way.

“No, Chalaine!” he stated firmly. “Night is the friend of evil. It is too dangerous to have you outside the tower wards, especially so soon after the demon attack. Those responsible are still uncaught.”

“I am Alumira’rei, remember? Demons and scoundrels have no interest in her. And I am going. I will not stay cooped up in here a moment longer. You don’t have to come, I suppose.”

“Be reasonable, Alumira. I am charged with keeping you safe. I must suggest a course of action that will most likely keep you out of harm’s way. I couldn’t bear it if something were to happen to you on my watch.”

“But it would be all right if it happened under Jaron’s watch, I suppose? Then it wouldn’t be
your
fault, right? In that case, your reputation and honor would be intact.”

“That’s not what I meant, Cha . . . Alumira, and you know it.”

“Look, Gen, I am going out there. You can do one of two things. You can come with me, or. . .”

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll have to lay hands on me and hold me here. Imagine the scandal!” With that she skirted around her Protector and resumed her course toward the entryway to the maze.

“Wait!” Gen said, hurrying forward. “You’ll be the one starting a scandal walking around the Hall in your bedclothes. You need to change.”

“Well, that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night,” the Chalaine returned tartly. “Do you have a cloak?”

“In my quarters.”

“Well, let’s fetch it and be on our way.”

The Chalaine followed Gen to his room and he opened the door after taking a lamp from the wall to light his way. The Chalaine peeked in out of curiosity, finding the room as ascetic as his facial expressions. A mattress without a frame lay on the floor opposite an ancient armoire that had occupied the room since the first Protectors. Besides the lute that leaned against the wall and a couple of books by the bed, no other decoration graced the walls. Dason had spruced the quarters up nicely during his tenure, going as far as to hang a painting and a tapestry. Of course, he came from a wealthy family. Gen had nothing.

“Did they not issue you a bed frame?”

“No,” Gen said. “Apparently the one that was here was Dason’s that he had brought from home. It had some sentimental value. The mattress suits me fine.”

“A bed frame with sentimental value?” the Chalaine commented, perplexed. “What could Dason possibly find sentimental about a bed frame? Who told you it had sentimental value?”

Gen shrugged. “The servants carrying it out. Why don’t we stay here and summon some servants to give you an explanation.”

“Nice try, Gen. Give me the cloak.”

The Chalaine let Gen help her into the cloak he retrieved from the armoire. It was voluminous on her, but since they were of a similar height, it didn’t drag on the ground. As they wound around the maze and out into the Antechamber of the Chalaines, the other Dark Guard snapped to attention, amazement and concern plain on their faces. The Chalaine ignored them. Knocking Gen off balance, for some reason, improved her mood and she wasn’t about to stop. She led him over the bridge and through the long hallway filled with guards into the manor proper, entering the Great Hall through a side door near the kitchens.

Moonlight strong enough to cast clear shadows poured in through the high windows and into the hall. The large fires that normally warmed the room had long since faded to embers, and the Chalaine crossed her arms for warmth as she walked the length of the hall to her mother’s throne and sat down heavily in it.  Gen stood behind her where Cadaen stood when guarding the First Mother. The Chalaine sat restlessly, shifting positions every few minutes and exhaling roughly from time to time.

“Have a seat on Aldradan Mikmir’s throne, Gen,” the Chalaine said, signaling to the ornately carved marble throne behind her.

“I most certainly will not! That would be a great offense to your entire nation!”

“Have it your way. I think a great number of people have sat in it on the sly since his disappearance. What would you think of being a King, Gen?”

“Really, Chalaine. . .”

“Alumira!”

“Milady, we can have this conversation someplace safer. . .”

“Answer the question and don’t nag me about safety anymore,” the Chalaine commanded, trying to put enough weight into it to shut him up.

“I think I would find it bothersome.”

“And why is that?”

“I would scarce have a moment to myself, if the First Mother is any indication.”

“You value being alone, then?” the Chalaine remarked. “Strange.”

“Not so much being alone,” Gen returned, “as being able to have some say about when I am. Kings are always at the beck and call of others.”

“But kings have all the say they want. You could command everyone away whenever you wanted and sit in your room all the day long and talk to your bed post—well, your mattress—if you liked.”

“Good ones wouldn’t do such a thing,” Gen stated.

“Why not?”

“Because they never feel comfortable leaving anything undone, and there are no end of things to be done. That was my point in the first place.”

“I see.” The Chalaine stood, turning to face him. “Did you know that I am the second highest ranking aristocrat in Rhugoth?”

“Of course.”

“Well, it doesn’t quite seem like it, now does it?” She turned and started down the dais stairs, arms raised. “Behold! The High and Holy Chalaine, the Mother of God. She has no say in anything and has absolutely nothing to do but sit around and wait to marry a dog!” She got louder as she continued, heedless of the guards outside the doors that might hear her.

Gen followed her. “Please, Chalaine. . .”

“Here I am, the paragon of virtue and healing, beloved of all, but when my Aughmerian fiancé—no, he wasn’t even my fiancé then—when some Aughmerian Warlord tries to drag me off to his bed a full year before our marriage in front of a room full of aristocrats and nobles who are sworn to protect my honor, who actually does something? A complete stranger! Some nobody serf from some nowhere lumbering town, from Tolnor! From Tolnor! My mother looks at the floor! Dason looks away! Jaron scowls but follows along!

“But is that the worst? Oh, certainly not!” Her voice was cracking now, and Gen stood silently as she yelled at him from several feet away, a shaft of moonlight dividing her into light and shadow. “Now everyone knows what Chertanne is! Some piggish, whoring drunk who wouldn’t know decency, honor, or love if he tripped over them in harsh daylight! But not one person thinks I shouldn’t have him, however wretchedly different we are. Will everyone just turn away on my wedding day, too? There’s the prophecy, Chalaine! The child must be born, Chalaine. Chertanne must be the father, you the cow, Chalaine!

“So what is a fine, upstanding Protector like Gen to do? He saves my honor and my dignity so that I can have it for one more year and anticipate hour by hour the day Chertanne will strip me of it when he welcomes me into his wonderful family of filthy concubines.

“What does Gen do next? He throws himself in front of a demon to miraculously save me from a horrible death so a few weeks later I can stand hand in hand with Chertanne before the Pontiff and obediently promise my life to him! Eldaloth help me, Gen, are you protecting me or killing me?”

Rage dissolved into sadness and she stood sobbing in the middle of the floor, head down and hands over her face.

“Come on,” Gen said, gently taking her arm and coaxing her toward the steps. “A little air will do you well.”

She let herself be guided up the curved stairways to the balcony, where Gen opened the door to the outside. The midwinter night was chill, a biting breeze slicing through the protection of the cloak. The long balcony on the eastern side of the Great Hall looked out over Mikmir at the base of the hill below and was bathed in the light of the moons Myn and Duam.

Being late at night and late in the year, the weak light colored everything a soothing deep blue and gray. During the spring and summer, the balcony had many plant beds brimming with bright and fragrant flowers. All these were dead, wasted stalks twisted in a frozen tangle over each other. The smallish trees and shrubs were scraggly and bare, save one evergreen, the sole survivor of the season.

The Chalaine walked to the arched stone balustrade and stood rigidly in front of it, and Gen joined her there. She took several minutes to calm herself, reaching up under her veil to wipe her eyes. Gen observed her carefully, and under his compassionate gaze she felt tension slowly leave her muscles. At last she put her forearms on the balustrade and leaned forward, breathing deeply. 

“I suppose you want your cloak back,” the Chalaine commented, voice worn.

“I have no need for it.”

“You don’t feel the cold?”

“It’s not that I don’t feel it. It just doesn’t mean anything to me, if you can understand that.”

“I am sorry, Gen. I shouldn’t have put you of all people through this. I should have stayed in my room and kept this—whatever this is—to myself. I am supposed to be the healer, and here I am yelling and whining at you like some three-year-old brat who can’t get her way. I am not quite what you thought you had sworn your life to, am I?”