Finding Destiny (15 page)

The last time he had felt anything this right simply from looking at it was when he had successfully summoned his Steed, and had seen Fireleaf trotting out of the royal woods beyond the fields ringing the Squire’s Academy. Then, the dappled sorrel-and-cream stallion had been a gift from Arbora. Now ... it was simply a chance meeting. Perhaps deliberately arranged by Fate, the Threefold God, or perhaps just pure luck. Or perhaps as a potential repayment for all the kindnesses he had done to others in his life.

Fireleaf nosed at his mental impression of the Consul-in-Chief, then snorted.
Lead mare. Good female. Strong, will bear fine foals.

His mouth twitched with mirth.
Trust it to you to put it
that
way.

Not yet ... but hopefully soon.
He wouldn’t have put it that way himself, but Zeilas did know he needed to capitalize on his luck, predestined or otherwise. As her mirth died down, she leveled her head and eyed him, grinning. That grin faltered as he just stared at her, until it wound up higher on one side of her mouth than on the other, dissolving into her usual wry smile.

“... What?”

“You’re exceptionally beautiful when you laugh,” Zeilas told her. She blinked at the compliment, but he didn’t retract it. Honesty prompted him to add a little bit more. “I shall endeavor to make you laugh more often.”

“Well ... I suppose as a diplomat you’d want me to be in a good mood whenever I—” she started to say.

Zeilas cut her off by lifting his finger to her lips. He shook his head, speaking softly. “What we do as the representatives of our governments is separate.
This
is personal, just between you and me. And, just between you and me, I think you are magnificent when you laugh.” Removing his finger from her soft lips, he gave her a lopsided smile of his own. “Unfortunately, we both know that you and I must attend more to our duties than to our personal needs each day ... though those needs do still exist ... and they
do
deserve to be recognized. From time to time.”

She stared at him, blinked, and blushed. Looking away for a moment, she shrugged slightly. “I’m not used to ... being treated as a woman.” She looked directly at him again, adding, “And not being threatened by it. Many of us women, who had the brains the Gods gave us and the wit to recognize it ... we turned ourselves into sexless workers, to avoid the attentions of the False priesthood. Not all of them, but some, yes. Some preyed on women as well as on ...”

“... Marriage?” Zeilas offered when she hesitated over the
M
word. Marta burst out laughing again. As she wound down into chuckles, rubbing at the corner of her eyes with a finger, he grinned. “I’m glad to see our cultural differences are so amusing. I’ll have to find other ways to make you laugh, too.”

“You do that,” she murmured, giving him a smile somewhere between half and whole. Glancing around at the half-grassy, half-paved courtyard, she shrugged and gestured at the palace in the distance. “We should head to your quarters, and maybe take a brief tour of the palace on the way.

“Tomorrow will be the grand reception,” she reminded him. Then shrugged. “Not that we have any other ambassadors; we’re still waiting to receive one from the Aurulan government, since they’ve claimed it isn’t ‘the right moment’ to send one. Frankly, they make me nervous with how devoted to their Patron God they are ... but they’re not warlike, at least. The Sundarans can be warlike, but they refuse to send anyone to us until spring, citing that the cold, harsh winters found in our hills and mountains would be less distressing if their envoy crossed them instead in warmer months. So your Arbran promptness is appreciated by my people.”

“Your Guildaran peacefulness is appreciated by mine,” Zeilas reminded her, following her as she started for the palace gate.

THREE

“... So when he mounted onto the saddle, for one split second he was on my Steed’s back, and then Fireleaf sidestepped right out of the saddle, bit, and bridle,” Zeilas told her, gesturing with his hands. “For one more brief moment, Captain Geldas just
hung
there in midair, clinging to the reins and the empty saddle—and then whump! The expression on his face was priceless as he fell, and I’ll tell you, he made a very satisfying thump when he hit the ground!”

Marta laughed. She covered her mouth, since she had been caught chewing some of the food he had cooked, Arbran style, and brought to this “indoor picnic” idea of his, since the weather was too stormy and sleeting outside the palace to go anywhere. But she chuckled, swallowed, and cleared her throat. “I’m amazed your Steed didn’t trample him.”

“I asked him not to. We were visiting that town, looking for trade materials, and it wouldn’t do to injure anything more than his dignity, and a bit of his backside ... and he bruised his ankle, too. But I
did
warn him my Steed wouldn’t tolerate anyone but me riding him,” Zeilas added. “He just insisted he was a born horseman and could ride anything.”

“And your Steed just ... sidestepped the saddle and the bridle, girth strap, bit, and all?” she asked.

“He’s an avatar of Arbora, and thus not entirely a creature of flesh and blood, though he can fake it well enough to fool most people. Or more like Her servant, rather. I’d be nervous, riding around on an actual piece of my Goddess,” he admitted, sipping some of the wine she had brought to this odd, fireside midday meal. “Not that I’m afraid of Her, so much as I’m afraid I’d do something stupid in Her presence and offend Her. The rules governing a Knight’s behavior are pretty strict as it is.”

“A good distinction to make.” His words did make her wonder. “About those rules ... what do they say about you insisting on a private picnic with a head of state?”

“Neither of us are married, neither of us are being forced to attend this picnic, and everything we do here is entirely consensual,” Zeilas stated, pouring more wine into both of their glasses. Not that they’d had much. He emptied the last drops of the bottle into his goblet, then set it back in the basket in which he’d brought the roasted duck, cheese-stuffed pastries, and vegetables. “My honor and my duty demand that I treat you, the Consul-in-Chief, with respect. My honor demands that I treat you, the woman, with respect as well. My duty says I must take no action that would jeopardize peaceful relations between Arbra and Guildara.

“Since my intentions are respectful toward Marta the woman as well as Marta the Consul-in-Chief, there is no conflict of interest. Provided you know that I court your attention for
your
sake, and not for sweetening your opinion of Arbrans in general.” Lifting his glass, he saluted her with it.

“You don’t want me to think sweetly of all Arbrans based on my interactions with you?” Marta dared to tease dryly, lifting her own blown-glass goblet.

“You’ve already met and conquered Sir Catrine’s reluctance to deal with former Mekhanans. You know how the average Arbran will react, and what it will take on both sides to overcome those old fears,” Zeilas pointed out. “Anything I do on a personal level can’t change that, and won’t change that, other than what I can do to encourage Arbrans like her to get past their old fears. All I can hope for is that you’ll think sweetly of me, the man, in personal, private meetings like this.”

“I do,” she acknowledged. He smiled. Then he shifted, but not toward her. Not toward anything like a kiss, which given their conversation, she half expected.

Instead, she watched him select another log from the bin beside the hearth and tuck it into the flames providing a toasty level of heat. The parlor, one of several designed into the main wing, was meant for receiving visitors, with its inlaid wooden walls and floors, its fine-carved furniture. Not for impromptu picnics on quilts spread in front of the main fireplace. But the setting wasn’t absurd. Somehow, he made it ... romantic. Particularly when he had complimented the woodwork with high praise, comparing it to the wood-anointed chapels and cathedrals dedicated to his people’s Goddess of Forests, and then looked at her with a gleam in his brown eyes that said he thought
she
was just as beautiful.

Yet, when he settled back onto the quilt next to her, he didn’t kiss her. Marta had courted a time or two before, though she hadn’t cared to give up her independence, since under the False God’s rule that had meant giving up her work in favor of raising good little children like a good little wife should. Now that they had a freed kingdom with good attitudes about all their citizens, she was ready to court anyone she pleased, in any manner she pleased. Except a foreign ambassador wasn’t necessarily the smartest choice.

But he’s right. So long as we do know our duty is separate from our desire ...
“You’re quite right. About my own intentions,” she said as the new log snapped and hissed, catching fire. “My duty and my honor say I shouldn’t do anything to cause misunderstandings or troubles between our nations. My duty would have me separate what I do as the Consul-in-Chief from what I want to do as a woman. And my intent is to be respectful of you and toward you. Both toward you as Envoy Zeilas, Knight of Arbra ... and you as Zeilas, the man. Which leaves us with a single question.”

“And that question is ... ?” he prompted, his warm brown eyes studying her, clad in her usual black knit tunic and leather trews. Sexless worker clothes, suitable for commanding respect from her fellow citizens ... but the gleam in his eyes told her he saw her feminine side all the same.

Lit more by the fire than by the gray gloom of the storm beyond the windows to either side of the hearth, she thought he was quite possibly one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Not for the shape of his face, or the muscles under his velvet and linen garments, but simply because he was him. Zeilas. Charming, funny, honorable, and neither intimidated by her status as Consul-in-Chief nor as inclined to treat her as sexlessly as a fellow Guildaran because of it.

Gathering her courage, since it required a different sort of bravery than the kind required to rule a nation, Marta looked him in the eye and asked, “Would it be disrespectful to share a kiss?”

Zeilas smiled. “Oh, I think I could still respect you afterward.”

Pleased, Marta leaned onto her left hand, swaying closer to him. To her relief and delight, he leaned closer on his right palm. Their heads tipped, their lips met, and it was warm, soft, and sweet. Respectful. He brushed her mouth with his once, twice ... on the third time, the tip of his tongue flicked against her lips unexpectedly, tickling her. She pulled back, stifling her giggle into a snicker.

He still smiled, not in the least offended by her brief, startled retreat. Pleased, Marta leaned in a second time, this time for a lick of her own. Once, twice ... their mouths parted and met in open tasting, and there was no point in counting past the third time. He pulled back after a moment, just long enough to move the goblet and crumb-dusted plate between them out of the way, then shifted closer for more. More kissing, more touching as his hand lifted to cup her jaw, more tasting of her lips, more of everything.

Somehow, she ended up on her back, her coronet of braids adding their cushioning effects to the quilt protecting them from the polished wooden floor. His elbows braced some of his weight off of her, but the warmth of his body cradling hers felt even better than the fire in the hearth. Arms wrapped around his shoulders, Marta tangled her fingers in his shoulder-length brown hair. It was longer than a typical Guildaran male’s and felt clean and soft. The velvet of his doublet disconcerted her fingertips, half expecting the knitted wool of a Guildaran man, but she liked the feel of it. The priests of the False God had flaunted their wealth by wearing velvets and silks in face of the average citizen’s relative poverty, making it hard even now for any of her people to care openly for such things, but she could admire it secretly.

She wasn’t going to reject
him
, though. Not when he tasted of apple-stuffed pastry and wine, when he smelled of musk and wood smoke, not when he felt warm and wonderful. Unfortunately, a knock at the parlor door startled both of them. Breaking off their kiss, he gave her a rueful look as he sat up. Hastily levering herself upright as well, Marta found her voice.

“Come in!”

Gabria entered, a familiar man at her side. It was Stevan, one of the palace talker box operators. “I apologize for the intrusion, Milady Chief,” Gabria stated, “but we’ve received a rather ... odd ... talker relay from the eastern border.”

“From Aurul?” Marta asked, her disappointment at having their kisses interrupted vanishing under the interest sparked by those words. Or rather, not vanishing so much as subsiding, since she was still keenly aware of the Knight seated beside her on the quilt. “Are they finally talking to us, then?”

“Aye, milady,” Stevan confirmed. He lifted the paper tablet in his hands and read the message he had brought. “To the Consul-in-Chief. ‘Finally granted audience with Seer King Devin. He said, quote, Tell your queen what she does is right and just. Seek it further from the west if you wish peace for longer than a day. If you wish the same from the east, send your friend, the girl in gray. From the south, the solution is a solution, otherwise you waste your breath. From the north, the only solution is the resolution brought by a firmly faced death. End quote, and no I do not know what he means, milady.’ Signed by Envoy Pells Chartman, sent from the Guildaran border post nearest the City of Searching, Aurul, and relayed fifteen times from the border, checked and double-checked each step of the way.”