The Lady of Han-Gilen (16 page)

Slowly he swung his leg over the pommel and slid to the
ground. “Brother,” he said. “Halenan. Do you know what you have done?”

“The god’s will,” Halenan answered promptly. “And my
father’s, if it comes to that. It was easier than we thought it might be. The
Realms were ready for you.”

Mirain tried to speak, but no words came. He drew Halenan up
and embraced him long and hard, putting into it all his love and his wonder and
his joy, and even his awe of these princes who, in the purity of their pride,
would choose the king whom they wished to rule over them.

Halenan’s awe was deeper, but tempered with mirth. “Just for
once,” he said laughing, “I’ve rendered you speechless. Who’ll ever believe I
did it?”

Mirain smiled, grinned, laughed aloud. “Who will believe you
did any of this? Hal—Hal, you madman, without a blow struck or a drop of blood
shed, you’ve changed the shape of the world.”

oOo

Elian had seen Mirain exalted in battle, or before his
men, or in the face of victory; but now, as he rode through this army that had
come to follow him, he was more than exalted. He was touched with the high and
shining splendor of a god.

Elian could be glad of his gladness, but she could not share
in it. Anonymous in surcoat and helmet, well hidden between Cuthan and his
silent and unreadable brother, she veiled herself from the mind as well as from
the eye. But she felt Halenan’s searching, passing and passing again.

His tent stood in an open circle kept clear by his guards.
There were seats under a canopy, and servants with wine and ices, and grooms to
tend the escort’s seneldi. Halenan welcomed Mirain to it with a flourish; but
still he hunted with eyes and power.

It was Vadin who betrayed her. As the two companies mingled
in the tumult of dismounting, Ilhari jostled his mare. The tall grey laid back
her ears. Ilhari skittered, bucked, threatened with heels and teeth.

Vadin laughed, sharp in a sudden pause. “What, little
firemane! Menace your own mother, would you?”

Ilhari thought better of it. On her back, Elian sat stiff
and still.

Halenan had heard. He turned. His eyes met hers.

She left the saddle. All at once, her brother was there.
“Elian,” he said.

People were staring. Whispering. Someone laughed.
Damn them!
she thought.

And then:
Damn all of
it!
Halenan was holding her, shaking her, shouting at her; and she knew how
deeply, terribly, endlessly he had feared for her. Damning himself more
fiercely than she ever could, not only for letting her go, but for helping her
to do it.

There were tears on her cheeks. She dashed them away. He
held her, taking her in, helmet and livery and all.

“Sister,” he said roughly. “Little sister. I’ve had hell to
pay in Han-Gilen.”

“Were they fearfully angry?” She sounded plaintive; she
scowled to make up for it.

“Not angry,” he said. “Not after a while. You left Father to
make some very difficult explanations.”

She swallowed. “I—I thought—”

“You didn’t think at all, infant. But you seem to be
thriving.”

That was a refuge. She snatched at it. “I am. I’m Mirain’s
squire. I have a new sword; it’s steel. It’s a marvel. You see my mare—Ilhari.
Her sire is the Mad One. We’ve fought our first battle together. The household
gave me a trophy. You’ll see it—when—”

She broke off. He was no longer looking at her but beyond
her, with an expression that she labored to decipher. Greeting; respect; apprehension.
And a touch—the merest inexplicable touch—of compassion.

She turned in his hands. A man stood there. A man no taller
than she, clad in golden silk, regarding her with a steady golden stare.

If Halenan had not held her, she would have staggered. Of
all the people she had ever thought to see, this was the last. “But,” she said
stupidly, “you were supposed to go back to Asanion.”

“But,” he answered her, “I chose to come here.”

“For me?” She flushed, twisting out of her brother’s grip.
“No. Of course not. You wanted to see the Sunborn. To know what, in the end,
cost you the alliance with my father. You were not very wise, my lord. The High
Prince of Asanion is a hostage of very great value indeed.”

“Should you be the only one to gamble fate and fame and
fortune on the wind from the north?”

He was more handsome even than she remembered, more witty
and more gentle. She pulled off her helmet, shaking out the shorn bright hair,
turning her torn cheek to the sun.

He winced at the marred loveliness, yet he smiled, finding
in her a greater beauty still: that not of the hound chained in hall but of the
she-wolf running wild in the wood.

“My lord,” she said to him, “your father can be no more
pleased with your choice than is mine.”

He shrugged. “So, lady, we pay. But the game is well worth
the price.”

Her eyes found Mirain. He stood near the tent in a circle of
taller men, yet he stood taller than any of them. One of them was Halenan; and
she had not even seen him go.

“There,” said Ziad-Ilarios, “is an emperor. I was bred to
rule and not to serve, but with that one . . . oh, indeed, I
could be tempted.”

“You mock him, surely.”

“No. Not now. Not in his living presence.”

“He is not a god,” she said sharply.

“Only the son of one.”

She turned to him. “You know what must be. The world will
not suffer two emperors. And Mirain will not yield what he has gained to any
mortal man.”

“Then the gods be thanked that I am not my father.”

Some demon made her catch at his hand. It was warm and
strong, and yet it trembled. Her own was little more steady, her voice
breathless, pitched a shade too high. “Come. Come and speak to him.”

oOo

They were much alike, the dark man and the golden. High
lords both, emperors born, each measuring the other with a long level stare.
Here could be great love, or a great and lasting hate.

For a long moment the balance hung suspended. The silence
spread.

Even the seneldi stilled. Ilhari was watching. Thinking of
stallions: horns lowered, poised, choosing whether to suffer one another or to
kill.

They moved in the same instant, to a handclasp that was like
a battle. Mirain was taller, but Ilarios was broader; they were well matched.

As they had begun, they ended, within a single moment.
Ilarios’ smile showed his clenched teeth. Mirain’s was freer, if no warmer.
“Well met, my lord high prince. My esquire has told me of you.”

“Of you, lord king,” said Ilarios, “my lady of Han-Gilen has
had much to say. It was she who first whetted my appetite for a sight of you,
if only to see at first hand what sort of creature you were.”

“And what am I?” asked Mirain with a glint in his eye.

“A barbarian,” Ilarios answered, “and a king. But not now,
and not ever, emperor in Asanion.”

Elian sucked her breath in sharply. Some even of Halenan’s
men had reached for their swordhilts; Mirain’s escort drew together,
narroweyed.

Mirain laughed and pulled Ilarios into a swift half-embrace,
as if he were delighted with the jest.

That, by every law and custom of the Golden Empire, was
lèse-majesté. An upstart foreigner had dared to lay hands on the sacred person
of the high prince.

Ilarios stood rigid, outraged. Mirain grinned at him, white,
fierce, and splendidly unrepentant.
Ah
,
his eyes said,
you are high prince, but I
am Sunborn. Hate me if you please, but never dare to despise me.

Asanion’s heir flashed back with all the pride of a thousand
years of emperors. And laughed. Unwillingly, unable to help himself, caught up
in the sheer absurdity of their rivalry. Laughing, he reached, completing the
half-embrace, meeting the bright dark eyes.

“And yet, Sunborn,” he said, granting that much to Mirain’s
pride, “whatever comes hereafter, we are well met.”

Before Mirain turned southward, he rested his troops where
they had won this last victory: where Ashan and Ebros and Poros met, an hour’s
ride from the ford. It was a great and splendid festival, and a wonder to all
the lands about. People came three days’ journey merely to look at the city of
tents around Isebros’ walled town, and at the high king over them all.

Both were well worth looking at. The mingled armies of north
and south had put on their finery to enter into the revelry. Mirain had a love
of splendor and the flair to carry it off, whether it might be the kilt and the
clashing ornaments of the north or the boots and trousers and richly
embroidered coat of the south; or even and often the stark simplicity of his
priesthood, the golden torque and the long white robe girdled with gold.

But then, thought Elian, he could put on his worn riding
kilt and stroll through the camp and still draw every eye to himself. It was
the light of him; the splendor of his eyes and his face, and the royalty of his
bearing.

The army knew now who and what she was. An easy camaraderie
had begun between the king’s squire and his men, in particular the knights of
his household. This was gone. No one denounced her; no one avoided her openly;
but the ease had turned to a guarded courtesy. Even Mirain—even he was turned
to a stranger.

No, she told herself when she was calmest. It was only that,
all at once, he had become lord of an empire. Kingship was not all silk and
jewels and state processions; there was a great deal of drudgery in it, long
hours buried in councils or in clerkery, and innumerable and interminable
audiences.

He seemed to thrive on it, but he had little leisure, and
none it seemed for his squire. There were servants now in plenty to bathe him
and dress him and tend to his needs. She slept at his bed’s foot as before, and
served him at table, but more of him she did not have.

Halenan could not help. From their first meeting at the
ford, king and prince had settled together as if they had never been parted.
Odd brothers they made, Halenan tall and graceful and dark golden, with his
fiery hair, and Mirain Ianyn-dark, Asanian-small.

And there was always a third. Halenan had faced Vadin much
as Ilarios had faced Mirain, but the sparks had flown less fiercely and settled
more swiftly. Vadin sneered at Halenan’s trousers but applauded his beard;
Halenan raised his brows at the barbarian’s kilt and braids and superfluity of
ornaments, and admired his long-legged grey mare.

Out of scorn they had forged respect, and out of respect a
strong bond of amity. Now they were inseparable, the right and left hands of
the king, and where Vadin saw to the ordering of the army and its festival,
Halenan scaled the mountain of scribework. He kept the king’s seal, and wore it
on a chain of gold about his neck. That was burden enough; Elian would not add
her own to it.

There was one who had time for her. Ziad-Ilarios was known
as the king’s friend, but he held himself somewhat aloof. He was a guest, and
royal; there was little that he could do and less that he must.

When Elian rode Ilhari as long and as far as they both could
go, his golden stallion valiantly kept pace; when she hung about the castle or
the camp, he found occasion to hang about with her, coaxing her into smiles and
even into laughter. Even when she was as close to tears as she would ever let
herself come, he knew precisely how to make her forget her troubles.

Somehow, somewhere between Han-Gilen and the marches of
Ashan, she had lost all her fear of him. Yet she had more reason than ever to
be afraid. It was clear in his eyes, indeed in everything he did and said: he
had not come so far against his father’s will and command, endangering himself
and his empire, only to look on the Sunborn. He had come because he loved her.

She knew it. She did not try to stop it. Perhaps she had
begun to love him, a little. She found herself looking for him when he was not
immediately in evidence. Sometimes she even sought him out, for the pure
pleasure of seeing his face, or hearing his beautiful voice that could make a
song of plain Gileni words.

“Why are you always guarded?” she asked him once as they
rode in the sun. She glanced over her shoulder at the men who followed at a
careful distance, unobtrusive as shadows, clad in shadow-black, who never spoke
even when she spoke to them. She had never seen their faces: they went veiled,
only their eyes visible, cold yellow falcon-eyes that saw everything and judged
nothing. “Do they follow you even into the harem?”

For some little time she thought he would not answer. He did
not glance at his twin shadows; he busied himself with a tangle in his
stallion’s mane.

At last he said, “My guards are part of me. It is
necessary.”

“Who would dare to threaten you?”

He looked up, startled, almost laughing with it. “Why, lady,
who would not? I am the heir of the Golden Throne.”

She frowned. “No one would try to kill Mirain outside of
battle. Or Hal; or Father.”

“Some at least have ventured against the Sunborn.”

“Years ago. People learn. The king is the king.”

“The king is a mage. That matters, my lady. In Asanion we
are confined to our own poor wits, and to our guards’ loyalty.”

“Your court is very decadent, Father says. Death is a game.
The subtler the poison, the greater the prize. Lives are taken as easily as we
would pluck a blossom, and one’s own life is a counter like any other, to be
cast away when the game commands.”

“It is not as simple as that,” said Ilarios. “I for one must
live, or all my game will come to nothing.”

“Are you a pawn, then?”

His eyes sparked, but he smiled. “I like to think
        
that
I have a little power in the play. I will, after all, be emperor.”

“How grim,” she said, musing, “to live so. And the poor
women. Penned like cattle where no man can see them; veiled and bound and
forbidden to walk under the sky. They must go mad with boredom.”