The Lady of Han-Gilen (3 page)

This stranger had clearer eyes than any outlander should
have, and he no mage nor seer, only a mortal man. They rested level upon her,
and they granted no quarter. “Ah,” he said, soft and deep. “You were in love
with him.”

She met stroke with stroke. “Of course I was. He was all
that was wonderful, and I was eight summers old.”

“Yet now you are a woman. I can make you an empress.”

Her throat had dried. She defied it with mockery. “What,
prince! A barbarian queen over the Golden Empire? Could your people endure the
enormity of it?”

“They will endure whatever I bid them endure.” He was all
iron, saying it. Then he was all gold as he smiled at her. “Your high heart
would not be content with the place of a lesser wife, however honored, however
exalted. Nor would I set you so low.”

“Nor would Mirain,” she said, reckless. “I knew him once.
You, I do not know at all.”

“That can be remedied,” he said.

She looked at him. She was shaking. She stiffened, angrily,
and made herself toss her head. “Ah! Now I see. You are jealous of him.”

He smiled with all the sweetness in the world. It was
deadly, because there was no malice in it. “Perhaps. He is a dream and a
memory. I am here and real and quite royal, though no god sired me. And I know
that I could love you.”

“I think,” she said slowly, “that I could . . .
very easily . . .”

He waited, not daring to move. But hope shone in his eyes.
Splendid eyes, all gold. He was beautiful; he was all that a woman could wish
for, even a princess.

Except.
Except.
She curtsied, hardly knowing what she did, and fled blindly.

oOo

The nightlamp was lit in her chamber. Her ladies flocked
about her; she tore herself free and bolted her door against them all.

She flung off her robes and her ornaments and scoured the
paint from her face. It stared from her mirror, all eyes, with the wildness of
a trapped beast.

A trap, yes. This one was most exquisitely baited. So fair a
young man; he spoke to her as an equal, and looked at her with those splendid
eyes, and promised her a throne.

And why not? asked a small demon-voice, deep in her mind. Only
a fool or a child would refuse it.

“Then I am both.” She met her mirrored glare. Either she
would accept this prince and ride off with him to Asanion, splendid in the
robes of an empress-to-be. Or—

Or.

Mirain.

Her throat ached with the effort of keeping back a cry. It
had all been so simple, all her life mapped and ordained. A childhood of
training and strengthening; and when she became a woman, she would ride to take
her place at Mirain’s right hand. Her suitors had been a nuisance, but easy enough
to dispose of: not one was her equal. Not one could make her forget her oath.

Until this one. It was not only a fair face and a sweet
voice. It was the whole of him. He was perfection. He was made to be her lover.

“No,” she gritted to the air. “No. I must not. I have
sworn.”

You have sworn. Do you intend ever to fulfill it? Behold,
here you stand, a legend in your own right, acknowledged a master of the arts
of princes: why have you never gone as you vowed to go?

“It was not time.”

It was no vow. You will never go. It would be folly, and
well you know it. Better far to take this man who offers himself so freely, and
to submit as every woman must submit to the bonds of her body.

“No,” she said. It was a whisper, lest she scream it. Not
that Ilarios would bind her. That he could, so easily; and that her word had
bound her long ago.

If she lingered, she was forsworn, surely and irrevocably.
If she left, she lost Ilarios. And for what? A child’s dream. A man who by now
had become a stranger.

Her eyes darted about. At her familiar chamber; at her gown
flung on the floor; at her mirror. At her reflection in its shift of fine
linen, boy-slim but for the high small breasts.

Her hair was a wild tangle, bright as fire. She gathered it
in her hands, pulling it back from her face. Her features were fine but strong,
like Halenan’s when he was a boy.

Prettiness, never. But beauty all too certainly. And wit.
And royal pride. She cursed them all.

Prince Ilarios would remain for all of Brightmoon’s cycle. A
scant hour with him had all but overcome her. A month . . .

Her dagger lay on the table, strange among the bottles of
scent and paint, the little coffers of jewels, the brushes and combs and
ointments. A man’s dagger, deadly sharp, Hal’s gift for her birth-feast.
Freeing one hand from her hair, she drew the blade.

For the honor of her oath.

The bright bronze flashed toward her throat, and veered. One
deft stroke, two, three. Her hair pooled like flame about her feet. A stranger
stood in it, a boy with a wild bright mane hacked off above his shoulders.

A boy with a definite curve of breast.

She bound it tight and flat and hid it beneath her leather
riding tunic. Breeched and booted, with sword and dagger at her belt and a
hunter’s cap over her hair, she was the image of her brother in his youth, even
to the fierce white grin and the hint of a swagger.

She swallowed sudden, wild laughter. If her mother knew what
she did now, woman grown or no, she would win a royal whipping.

oOo

Han-Gilen’s palace was large, ancient, and labyrinthine.
When she was very young, she had managed with her brothers to find passages no
one else knew of.

One such opened behind an arras in her own chamber. She had
used it once before, for it led almost directly to the postern gate, and near
it a long-forgotten bolthole: when Mirain eluded the prince’s guardianship to
vanish into the north.

Now she followed him, lightless as he had been then, cold
and shaking as she had been when she crept in his wake. In places the way was
narrow, so that she had to crawl sidewise; elsewhere the ceiling dipped low,
driving her to hands and knees.

Dust choked her; small live things fled her advance. More
than once she paused. She could not do this. It was too early. It was too late.

She must. She said it aloud, startling the echoes into
flight. “I
must.
”

Her shorn hair brushed her cheek. She tossed it back, set
her jaw, and went on.

oOo

With Asanion’s prince in the city, even the postern gate
was guarded. Elian crouched in shadow, watching the lone armed man. From where
he stood with a cresset over his head, he commanded the gate and a goodly
portion of the approach to it, and the hidden entrance to the bolthole.

Despite the obscurity of his post, he was zealous. He kept
himself alert, pacing up and down in the circle of light, rattling his sword in
its scabbard.

Elian caught her lower lip between her teeth. What she had
to do was forbidden. More than forbidden. Banned.

So was all she did on this mad night.

She drew a cautious breath. The man did not hear. Carefully
she cleared her mind of all but the need to pass the gate. More carefully
still, she lowered her inner shields one by one. Not so much as to lie open to
any power that passed; but not so little as to bind her strength within,
enclosed and useless.

Thoughts murmured on the edge of consciousness, a babel of
minds, indistinguishable. But one was close, brighter than the rest.

Little by little she enfolded it. Rest, she willed it. Rest
and see. No one will pass. All is quiet; all remains so. All danger sleeps.

The man paused in his pacing, hand on hilt, immobile beneath
the torch. His eyes scanned the circle of its light.

They saw nothing. Not even the figure that left the shadows
and passed him, walking softly but without stealth. Shadow took it; his mind,
freed, held no memory of captivity.

oOo

At the end of darkness lay starlight and free air. But a
shape barred the way.

So near to escape, and yet so far. Elian’s teeth bared; she
snatched her dagger.

Long strong fingers closed around her wrist, forcing the
weapon back to its sheath. “Sister,” said Halenan, “there’s no need to murder
me.”

Fight him though she would, he was stronger; and he had had
the same teachers as she. At length she was still.

He let her go. She made no attempt to bolt. Her eyes caught
his, held.

He would weaken. He would let her pass. He would—

She cried out in pain.

His voice was soft in the gloom. “You forget, Lia.
Mind-tricks succeed only with the mind-blind. Which I am not.”

“I won’t go back,” she said, low and harsh.

He drew her out of the tunnel into the starlight. Brightmoon
had risen; though waning, it was bright enough for such eyes as theirs. He ran
a hand over her cropped hair. “So. This time you mean it. Did the Asanian repel
you as strongly as that?”

“No. He drew me.” Her teeth rattled; she clenched her jaw.
“I won’t go back, Hal. I can’t.”

He lifted a brow. She pressed on before he could begin anew
the old battle. “Mirain is riding southward. I’ll catch him before he enters
the Hundred Realms. If he means us ill, I’ll stop him. I won’t let him bring
war on our people.”

“What makes you think you can sway him?”

“What makes you think I can’t?”

He paused, drew a sharp breath, let it go. “Mother will be
more than displeased with you. Father will grieve. Prince Ilarios—”

“Prince Ilarios will press for the alliance, because he
stands in dire need of it. Let me go, Hal.”

“I’m not holding you.”

He stepped aside. Beyond him a shadow stirred, moving into
the moonlight. Warm breath caressed Elian’s cheek; her own red mare whickered
in her ear.

She was bridled, saddled. On the saddle Elian found a
familiar shape: bow and laden quiver.

Tears pricked. Fiercely she blinked them away. Halenan stood
waiting; she thought of battering him down.

For knowing, damn him. For helping her. She flung her arms around
him.

“Give Mirain my greetings,” he said, not as lightly as he
would perhaps have liked. “And tell him—” His voice roughened. “Tell the damned
fool that if he sets foot in my lands, it had better be as a friend; or god’s
son though he be, I’ll have his head on my spear.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said.

“Do that.” He laced his fingers; she set her foot in them
and vaulted lightly into the saddle. Even as she gathered the reins, her
brother was gone, lost in the shadows of the tunnel.

Once Elian had begun, she did not look back. With
Brightmoon on her right hand, she turned her face toward the north.

She kept to the road, riding swiftly, trusting to the dark
and to her mare’s sure feet. Lone riders were common enough in peaceful Han-Gilen:
travelers, messengers, post-riders of the prince. Nor yet did she look for
pursuit. Halenan would see to that.

The first light of dawn found her in the wooded hills,
looking down from afar upon her father’s city. The night flame burned low on
the topmost tower of the temple of the Sun. She fancied that she could hear the
dawn bells, and the high pure voices of the priestesses calling to the god.

She swallowed hard. Suddenly the world was very wide and the
road was very narrow, and there was only captivity at either end of it. East,
west, south—any of them would take her, set her free.

The mare fretted against a sudden tightening of the reins.
Abruptly Elian wheeled her about, startling her into a canter.

Northward, away from the Asanian. Northward to her oath’s
fulfilment.

oOo

By sunrise the mare had slowed to a walk. Hill and wood
lay between Elian’s eyes and the city; she drowsed in the saddle.

The mare stumbled. Elian jolted into wakefulness. For an
instant, memory failed her; she looked about wildly. The senel had halted in a glade,
and finding no resistance, begun to graze.

Elian slid to the ground. A high rock reared above her, with
a stream leaping down the face of it and a pool at its foot.

The mare stepped delicately into the water, ruffled it with
her breath, and drank. After a moment Elian followed her. First she took off
the mare’s bit and bridle, then the saddle; then she lay on her face by the
pool, drinking deep.

The mare nibbled her hair. She batted the dripping muzzle
aside, and laughed as water ran down her neck.

With sudden recklessness she plunged her head into the pool,
rising in an icy spray. All thought of sleep had fled; hunger filled its place.

Her saddle pouches were full, every one. She found wine,
cheese, new bread and journey-bread, fruit and meat and a packet of honey
sweets.

At the last she laughed, but with a catch at the end of it.
Who but Hal would have remembered that gluttonous passion of hers?

“He knows me better than I know myself.”

The mare, rolling in the ferns, took no notice of her. She
ate sparingly and drank a little of the wine. The sun was warm on her damp
head. She lay back in the sweet-scented grass and closed her eyes.

The dream at first was sunlit, harmless. A woman walked in a
garden under the sun. She wore the plain white robe of a priestess in the
temple of Han-Gilen, her hair braided down her back, a torque gleaming golden
at her throat. There was a flower in her hair, white upon raven.

She turned, bending with rare grace to pluck a second
blossom, and Elian saw her face. It was a striking, foreign face, eagle-keen
and very dark, the face of a woman from the north. On her breast lay the golden
disk of the High Priestess of Avaryan.

A child ran down the path, a boy in shirt and breeches that
sorely needed a washing, his hair a riot of unshorn curls. “Mother, come and
see! Fleetfoot had her colt, and he’s all white, and his eyes are blue, and
Herdmaster says he’s demon-gotten but Foster-father says nonsense. I say
nonsense too. There’s no dark in him, only colt-thoughts. Herdmaster wants to
give him to the temple. Come and see him!”