The Summer Queen (77 page)

“Very well, then,” Danaquil Lu said quietly, as Moon nodded.
Merovy clung to 1 him more tightly as he offered his wrist again.

Danaquil Lu reached into his belt pouch and took out one of
the crescent-shaped ritual knives that had only one purpose, on Tiamat. Having
grown up among sibyls, Tammis knew enough about them to know what their use
was. Danaquil Lu began to sing a prayer-song; one of the few Summer songs
Tammis had never heard all the way through. There were no Winter rituals for
entering sibylhood, and no one here knew how the offworlders did it.

Moon joined in the singing midway through. In the years
since his childhood, he had rarely heard his mother sing. He had forgotten how
beautifully she sang. Her voice was high and clear; her eyes were suddenly full
of tears again.

When they had finished the song, Danaquil Lu made a swift,
deft pass with the blade over Moon’s wrist. Tammis saw his mother’s mouth press
together, saw the bright blood well out of her arm. Danaquil Lu took Tammis’s
wrist then, and before he had time to think, the blood he saw was his own.
Danaquil Lu took his hand, and his mother’s, pressing the wounds together,
reciting another prayer.

Tammis waited for what seemed like an eternity, feeling nothing
except the dull, stunned pain in his arm. And then, suddenly, a chill ran up
his spine; burning heat poured into the channels of his nerves. There was a
rushing in his head, the voice of the Sea ....

Darkness closed over his head like the waters of the sea,
and he remembered nothing more—

Until now, as he woke again out of vague, terrifying dreams,
to find himself in his own room. He stared at his wrist, wrapped in bandage
like his mother’s. Danaquil Lu was there with them, and Clavally as well, this
time And Merovy, her hands knotted tightly in her lap, the concern on her face
turning to relief as she saw recognition come into his eyes.

Where’s Da? He almost asked it; didn’t, afraid of the uncontrollable
response it might trigger in his altered brain ... afraid of the answer he
might hear, remembering the look he had seen in his father’s eyes. His mother
offered him a cup of sweet tea; he drank it gratefully, felt the warmth and
stimulating herbs start his sluggish body tingling. “You’ll be fine now ...”
Moon whispered, stroking his hair with an almost-forgotten gesture that earned
him back to his childhood.

But then she rose to her feet, glancing toward the doorway,
before she looked at him. “I have to go.”

He sat up clumsily, reaching out to her. She touched his
hand, but shook her head. “I have to, Tammis ... Clavally and Danaquil Lu will
teach you how to control the Transfer, all that you need to know as a sibyl—beginning
now, if you feel strong enough.” She let go of his hand again, with a forced
smile. “I’ll come back to see you as soon as I can.” She turned away from the
question in his eyes, and went out of the room.

“Well, cousin, this is a fine party. You should give one
more often.”

Danaquil Lu turned, still smiling even though it was Kirard
Set who was speaking to him, and that was usually enough to ruin his mood. “I
only have one child to celebrate a marriage for, unfortunately. But one is
better than none.” His smile widened as he looked past Kirard Set and saw his
daughter’s face across the room, radiant with happiness as she danced to the
traditional wedding music. Merovy had told him that she and Tammis had pledged
with each other last year. He had lived long enough in Summer to be at ease
with its customs, and he had not minded when she had moved out of their townhouse
and into Tammis’s rooms at the palace. He and Clavally still saw her almost
every day.

But now she was seventeen, old enough for the more formal
wedding oath the Winters made, following the offworlders’ customs. He had found
himself feeling a sense of tradition that was as strong as it was unexpected,
wanting to mark his daughter’s rite of passage in the way his family had done
for generations. He sipped at the offworlder wine in his crystal cup, savoring
it. Both the cups and the wine had been among the things the Queen had donated
from the remaining Winter stores at the Palace, to make the wedding feast of
her son and his daughter so memorable that it had impressed even Kirard Set. “Excuse
me,” he said, spotting Clavally waving at him from across the room. “Enjoy the
party.”

He moved away, grateful to be out of Kirard Set’s orbit;
letting his shoulders slump as his cousin wandered on through the crowd. His
back was beginning to trouble him again, as Ngenet had predicted it would. He
pushed the thought out of his mind, focusing on the present, and said a silent
prayer to the Lady—to whom he had always directed the few prayers he made,
since his exile to Summer—that they might all be as happy in the future as they
were today.

Clavally was standing with Moon and Sparks in front of the
enormous box decorated like a boat, which was piled with householding presents
for the newlyweds. She gestured again, impatiently, as he approached. “Come on,
old heart, we’re posing for a picture!”

“What, in the middle of all this?” He looked around,
surprised, not seeing anyone with paints or charcoal; only Tor Starhiker and
Shotwyn Crestrider, consulting furiously over some sort of vaguely familiar
mechanical device. “Mother of Us All, is that a camera?”

Moon nodded, her expression caught somewhere between
amusement and impatience. She pressed something into his hands. “They’ve made
it work somehow with a battery pack. Come on, Shotwyn!” she called. “I’m late.
I have to go—”

“Go?” Sparks said. “Go where, in the middle of Tammis’s
wedding?”

She looked at him, all the pleasure disappearing from her
face. “I told you. I have a meeting with Capella Goodventure.”

“Lady’s Eyes!” he said, frowning. “Why can’t she come to the
wedding; then at least you could pretend your mind was on this.”

“She won’t come to a Winter ceremony,” Moon said.

Danaquil Lu glanced at the Queen as he moved into line
beside his wife; seeing an unhappiness in her eyes that her voice did not
reveal. He looked away again, down at the thing she had pressed into his hand—a
startlingly lifelike three-dimensional image of Merovy and Tammis kissing,
caught in some enchantment that held them perpetually in that moment of joy. He
touched the image hesitantly, finding that his finger passed through it as if
it were a hallucination, touching only a flat surface he could not see.

“Smile!” Tor called, her voice slightly slurred.

He looked up at the camera, but he was already smiling.

Sparks looked away from the camera’s pitiless eye as Tor finished
trapping their souls inside it. (Some part of him would always think of it that
way, the seed of superstition from his childhood, transformed by time into an uncomfortable
pearl of irony.) Moon touched his arm briefly, as if in apology; but when he
turned to look at her she was already disappearing into the crowd, on her way
out.

He frowned, looking back at Danaquil Lu and Clavally, who
were head to head over the holo of their daughter and his son, as Tor passed
them the one of themselves. Suddenly not wanting to see the picture, he moved
away. The band on the other side of the room began to play another traditional
song, and he reached into his belt pouch for his flute. He had taken it back
from Ariele, because she seemed to have no real interest in it. Now, hearing
the band play, he thought of joining them. It was one of the few privileges of ‘>332’
his position that actually mattered to him—that when he asked to play, almost
no one would refuse him. The awareness that he would not disgrace himself by
his musicianship if he did was one of the few things in his life that he still felt
justifiably proud of.

“Da—”

He turned, surprised by Ancle’s voice behind him. He looked
at her, her slothing wrapping her like rainbows in bright arcs of fabric, her
long hair bound up in an attempt to imitate an elaborate offworlder style. She
had always reminded him of Moon when he looked at her, in a way that pinched
his heart; but today she reminded him suddenly, strikingly, of someone else.
Arienrhod. He blinked, forcing himself to see only his daughter, in love with
the offworlders’ legacy, the way he had been once, in his youth. “What?” he
asked.

“Where did Mother go?”

“To meet with Capella Goodventure.”

Ariele made a face, and sighed. “Where’s Gran? Tammis said
she was coming to the party with Borah. She was bringing me some tiller shells
to make into combs. Isn’t she here yet?”

He looked away, searching the crowd, surprised again as he realized
that he had not seen either of them here, when he knew they had been expected. “I
don’t know,” he said.

“Well, they should have left earlier, then,” she said, with
an impatient shake of her head. “They’re missing everything.”

“A storm could have delayed them.” Elco Teel Graymount came
up behind Ariele, putting his hands on her familiarly, smirking as he glanced
at her father.

Sparks felt himself begin to frown; made no comment as
Ariele only smiled and sidled closer to the boy. At least she showed no signs
of taking a special interest in him, or anyone, yet; although Elco Teel was at
her constantly, like an insect at a flower. Sparks had wondered more than once
whether Elco Teel would have been half as interested in his daughter if she
were not going to be the next Summer Queen. The prospect of having Kirard Set’s
only son for a son-in-law did not appeal to him. “What are you talking about?”
he asked. “The weather report said that the weather down the coast was fine.”

Elco Teel shrugged. “There could be a storm. Squalls come up
suddenly all the time, and swamp small boats. Especially when the ones sailing
it are getting old ...”

Sparks glared at him, about to chastise him for speaking
ill-luck about a journey. But he saw Merovy come up behind Ariele, her hair
garlanded with flowers, her gray eyes glancing curiously from face to face.
Sparks smiled instead, the way her father had smiled as he looked at her
picture. Ariele and Elco Teel turned as they saw his smile, to stare at her
with unreadable expressions. “Have you seen Tammis?” she asked.

Sparks began to shake his head. “Not in a—”

“I saw him,” Elco Teel said, and Sparks thought he heard a
hint of malice in it “He went upstairs. Brein wanted to congratulate him on his
marriage.” He glanced at Ariele, raising his eyebrows, smiling as Merovy’s face
pinched with some emotion Sparks couldn’t name.

Ariele looked back at him, but she did not smile, this time.
She pulled her arm free from his grasp. “I don’t care,” she said. “I want to
dance.” She started away, leaving him behind. He scrambled after her through
the crowd to the space where others were dancing already—old dances, offworlder
dances, to music that had over time become a unique mixture of different
heritages; like their world.

Sparks looked back at Merovy, seeing something secret and
forlorn fill her face as she watched them go off without a word. Sensing that
there was more to it than simply the casual rudeness of youth, he touched her
arm gently. “I’ll find him, and send him to you.”

She nodded, smiling.

He made his way through the party toward the stairway at the
back of the room. Kirard Set intersected his course, leaning against the
banister at the foot of the stairs as he reached it. Kirard Set’s smile was
annoyingly like his son’s. “The facilities are free down here at the moment—”
He gestured at the bathroom.

Sparks felt his frown come back. “I’m looking for Tammis*.
Is he up there?”

Kirard Set shrugged. “Yes.” He stepped aside, leaving the
stairway clear, but his expression changed subtly. Sparks knew, with a sudden
coldness in the pit of his stomach, that he should turn and walk away. But
Kirard Set’s smile held him, gently mocking.

Instead he climbed the stairs to the second story of the townhouse,
hearing the sound of voices speaking softly, growing more distinct, until he
recognized one as Tammis’s. He reached the top of the stairs and saw two figures
embracing in the dim light. They broke apart, startled by his sudden
appearance, so that he saw them clearly—Tammis, with his bright wedding shirt
hanging open, and Brein, a Winter boy from the crowd he was always with,
stroking his bare chest.

He saw the sudden guilt, the sudden despair in Tammis’s eyes
as son came face to face with father on his wedding day. Brein backed away,
looking everywhere but at the two of them, and disappeared down the stairs.

“Tammis,” Sparks said, and Tammis flinched as if he had been
struck. “What was that—?” He gestured at the empty spot where Brein had stood.

“Nothing. He was just ... I ...” Tammis flushed, pulling his
shut together, and hung his head. His trefoil was lost in the tangle of his
clothes.

“By the Lady and all the gods!” Sparks caught him by the
shoulders, slamming him up against the wall. “You miserable—On your wedding
day? When you have a beautiful wife who loves you searching for you downstairs?
Why—?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Tammis murmured. The words were almost
inaudible. He fumbled with the laces of his shirt, trying to fasten them.

“Damn it!” Sparks slapped his hands away. “Look at me when I’m
talking to you!”

“Oh, don’t be so hard on the boy, Dawntreader,” Kirard Set’s
voice said, behind him.

Sparks turned, his own face flushing with anger and humiliation
as Wayaways joined them at the top of the stairs.

“You Summers are so narrow-minded about everything. You act
as if there’s only one right answer to every question.” Kirard Set shook his
head. “It’s only a little harmless flirtation. A boy’s got to be sure he’s not
missing anything, you know.”

“Leave us alone, Wayaways.” Sparks turned his back on the
other man, infuriatingly aware that Kirard Set made no move to depart, still
hanging on every word and motion like a voyeur. Sparks caught Tammis by the
jaw, forcing his son to look him in the eye, beyond caring what Kirard Set saw
or heard or thought, now—sure that he had known it all along. “You are a
Summer, a sibyl, by the Mother’s Will! Not some buggering Winter pervert,
trying to make yourself smell like the offworlders by wallowing in shit!”