Not Entirely Meaningless
"Just tell them you and I are to be married."
Artila flinched in surprise.
"But then... wouldn't that only make them more curious?"
"Say it was arranged. They'll scatter at once. There is nothing in the world they loathe more than a matchmade marriage."
"Then..."
Artila rested her chin on her hand and sank into thought.
"Artila?"
"If we want them to believe we're to be married, won't we have to act as though we're close?"
"How close?"
Artila caught the front of Ilesin's coat and gave it a small tug. When he bent his head, she rose quickly and pressed her lips to his cheek.
"This close."
She met his startled eyes. Had he looked displeased, or merely taken aback, she would have been sorry — but his gaze had kindled. It was Artila who lost her footing. She had not expected a reaction so fierce.
"Is this a joke?"
To call it a joke would only make him angry. Something that had stood between them seemed to have given way, though Artila had never known anything was there.
"It isn't a joke. It isn't without meaning."
"What meaning?"
"The meaning that I want us to look as if we mean something to each other."
Ilesin studied her, then took her hand.
"What are you doing?"
"If you're the only one who does it, will anyone believe we mean anything?"
He set his lips to the back of her hand.
The moment his mouth touched her skin, Artila could not move. It was like a door flung suddenly open on a courtyard seething with wild beasts — a chill that crawled straight through her. The moment did not last. Ilesin became Ilesin again, as if some burning spirit had entered that body and then gone out of it.
"I'll be going."
Color flooded Artila's cheeks.
"All right. Go on."
Ilesin turned and went to the Lord of Findrak. Artila saw the girls he had warned her about, their eyes bright and fervent. They whispered, stifled their laughter, glanced at her again, and laughed once more. She looked toward the thick of the crowd and made ready to flee.
When Ilesin approached, the Lord of Findrak raised his cup.
"Come, Ilesin. I am glad to see you."
"I greet you, Lord Findrak."
He nearly caught his foot on the altar and went down. Had Turvena not seized him by the belt, he would have fallen.
"What's the matter with you? Where has your mind gone?"
"I've been drinking."
"But you hate dri— ah. Forgive me."
Turvena let go of his belt and thumped him on the back.
"Bear it, if you can."
"I will."
Ilesin bowed to the Lord of Findrak. The lord opened both arms. Ilesin took the right hand and kissed the ring, and with his left the lord patted Ilesin's shoulder.
"I am glad you came. I should like you to come often, though I know that cannot be."
"Forgive me for coming before you on a matter such as this."
"Nonsense. Are you not of our clan? Pobern, too, ought to be counted as our clan's land."
Words that would have sent the Emperor into a fury — some northern rustic without a shred of legitimacy, trying to swallow imperial territory for nothing. The Emperor scorned every elected leader of the Galt as unqualified rabble. It was true enough that the Lords of Findrak, chosen election after election, had taken the seat by shabby politicking and fraud. But the accident of being someone's child was no magnificent qualification either. The Emperor himself, and his grandsons, were proof enough of that.
"I hear there is much to discuss before the gathering. I have spoken with Turvena as well. She says men's minds must be changed regarding the demon of Moravik."
"I am of the same mind."
"You know demons have appeared in these parts?"
"I heard it from my father yesterday."
"And to your eye — do they seem like demons?"
"I cannot say. I have not seen them."
Still, that someone enthralled had appeared at all was no good sign. Monsters did not think as human beings thought, and so they could not work mind-magic. Only a demon could compel a mind.
"What I can say is this. Pobern can hold the land, but not the sea. We have a harbor, and no navy. The fleet that kept the pirates off and guarded the northern waters was Arandia's, and all that while we lived in Grand Duchess Nivella's debt. Now that she has fallen, the sea has passed into the hands of monsters and pirates. The pirates may well join with the monsters — or the demons — and come out in force. Then the whole of the western coast is in danger."
The Lord of Findrak looked bored. He was no different from the Emperor. Neither of them knew what a real war was. They thought it ended the way myths and tales did, once the heroes blazed through and swept all before them. But real war was not an idea made by a hero in shining mail, swinging a treasured sword. It was the fact of dozens dead, or hundreds of thousands, and a world of equal measure destroyed with them.
"Why not come here instead? Command Findrak's knights yourself. You hardly seem to lack for someone to leave the castle with."
"I left it only for a time."
He could not go on leaving it to Hisnil. Bomar was no different, nor Nazares. Every one of them had taken the charge believing Ilesin would return.
Just then Bram came into the banquet hall. Turvena crooked a finger and summoned her husband. Bram trotted over at once, like a dog that has seen its master.
"I will guarantee your station."
"Pobern is my house and my land. Guarding it comes before all else."
"But this is your home, is it not?"
To Ilesin — half an outsider from the day he was born, with half his life already spent beyond these walls — the claim was absurd.
Fortunately, the music shifted into a dance. Unmarried men and women began to trade glances. Ilesin looked for Artila. She was in the middle of fleeing the girls closing in on her.
"Have you a partner for the dance?" the Lord of Findrak asked.
"I have."
"Then go. I shall wait."
"Thank you. Excuse me."
Ilesin stepped out onto the floor at once. Artila, still dodging the girls, caught sight of him. He parted the crowd and came toward her.
A year ago, Ilesin had stood in the Emperor's banquet hall, an impossible distance from Findrak Castle.
A great many ceremonies had been set for that day, but the moment the swordsmanship tournament produced a champion, the crowd erupted as if history had never crowned a winner before, and nothing else could proceed. People began to eat and drink as they pleased before the banquet had properly begun, and within a few hours they were blind drunk and collapsing where they stood.
Amid the madmen sprawled in their wine, Ilesin found Fillion — a man himself a breath from madness.
The runner-up sat rigid through the whole of the feast, glaring at the floor. Those who had first tried to coax him into the revels soon gave up and left him alone. Even second place, in a tournament of this scale, was a formidable thing. Through third the prize money was generous, and a man might walk straight into the Emperor's knights and a life at court. So once the results were settled, it was tradition for the contestants to begin the evening awkward, spend the night eating and drinking and swearing themselves brothers, and rise the next morning with regret and a hangover. Glen of Arandia, who had taken third, was in high spirits. Only Fillion was busy draining the life out of everyone around him.
"Hey, Fillion! Enjoy yourself a little! Your face is worse than a rotten apple!"
Someone shouted it. Fillion turned a cold glare on the man, then shoved back from the table and stood. The others stole glances at one another. The moment he was gone, their back teeth would itch with the curses they meant to spit — conduct that would be chewed over until the tournament after next. Talent was not fair, and opportunity was less fair still. To refuse the result, and to wear one's feelings in the open, was a waste.
Wine poured back into the hall that had gone flat, and the noise rose with it. The talk was of Fillion now. Ilesin tried every way he knew to escape that roaring furnace, but each time he made for the door some fellow who had just recovered his senses lunged out and caught him, and he was forced to sit down again. They had nothing worth saying. They only repeated what they had already said, and wearied him to death.
Then a woman in ash-gray came into the banquet hall.
Everyone was too drunk to know whether she was a person or a ghost. Only Ilesin, still in his right mind, could recognize her.
Fillion's betrothed. Elsgite of Arandia.
He rose to go to her. Some stray drunk lunged at him; Ilesin flung the man aside. The stray collapsed into the arms of someone drunker still and offered his congratulations there.
"You have a remarkable talent for refusing people, Lord Ilesin."
She said it smiling. Seeing her, Ilesin was glad — glad enough to smile before he knew he was doing it, and puzzled even as he smiled. What bond was there between them, that he should be like this?
"Congratulations on your victory."
"Thank you. You've come late, though."
"I meant to appear at this hour. My liege was certain to be thoroughly drunk, and if I was to collect her, then I at least had to keep my wits."
"A wise decision. Your liege is asleep just over there."
Lady Elin, drunk since early in the evening, lay sprawled on a long settle. Elsgite pressed a hand to her brow.
"Heavens. I knew it would come to this."
"I would not have said she was weak to wine."
"Not weak. Not invincible, either. Ede, Madil — see Lady Elin out."
Two sturdy, broad-shouldered maids appeared behind Elsgite, lifted the lady, and carried her away. The woman raised her eyes and looked about the hall. Ilesin spoke with a twist of displeasure.
"Your betrothed left only a moment ago."
"Did he."
Her gaze heated with anger. She was irritated. Not understanding why he was doing it, Ilesin spoke anyway.
"I know where he is."
She gave a small start and turned. He held out his hand.
"I can take you to him. Shall I?"
"Yes. I would be grateful."
Elsgite hesitated, then took his hand. It was hot. Thoroughly angry, then, he thought, and led her toward the place where Fillion had gone.
Fillion was sitting on the stone rail of the banquet terrace. When they came out, he climbed down.
"Fillion."
Elsgite let go of Ilesin's hand and went toward him. But Fillion walked straight past her and stopped before Ilesin. She did not turn. Only the high rise and fall of her shoulders told them she had sighed.
"I never managed a proper congratulation, Lord Ilesin. My very warmest congratulations."
There had been opportunity enough, and time enough — even a moment when congratulations had been required of him — and not once had he offered them. Instead he had chosen, and chosen again, the hour most unpleasant for the other man and for himself, and was congratulating Ilesin in the most unpleasant way he could.