The Summer Queen (85 page)

They reached the far side of the Pit at last, although it
felt as if they had been walking suspended above it forever. They went up the
broad stairway beyond, which he remembered with a peculiar fondness because it
always followed that excruciating passage. At the top of the steps had been
Arienrhod’s throne room, its carpet always as flawless as untrodden snow,
bejeweled with brightly colored courtiers. There the Snow Queen had waited for
her visitors—her victims, still sweating from their ordeal with the Pit—clothed
in white, sitting on her crystal throne; pretending to be immortal, an
elemental, Winter incarnate, as pitiless and cold as ice ....

But it was not Winter that waited for him now. The throne
room, which had once been as starkly white and silver as a crevasse, had melted
into a place of random earth tones, the fresh colors of spring, greens of all
shades, rust and clay, earth brown, a startling flash of blue.

The convoluted crystal throne still sat in the center of the
dais at the center of the vast, suddenly silent room. It was surrounded by a
small group of attentive, expectant faces, which had all turned in his
direction. And at their center on the throne sat a woman, her hair the color of
snow, her eyes like mist and moss-agate. But she was dressed like the room in
the colors of Summer, in silks and tapestries and homespun, the contrasts of
texture and cloth somehow not absurd but perfectly in harmony. She wore a
simple circlet of gold on her hair, set with a blood-red stone: a carbuncle.

This time the face written into his memory had aged like his
own ... still unmistakably her face, but undeniably mortal, changed by time.
And yet as he looked at her she struck his inner eye with such beauty that he
had to look away or be paralyzed. His heart constricted. Moon, his heart said,
his mind, his body ... every part of him but his throat, which he would not
allow to speak the word

He took a deep breath as he started on into the room. He
forced his eyes to glance over the small group of people gathered around her,
to do anything but touch her face again; suddenly afraid, after all these
years, all the rehearsals of this scene he had played out in his mind, that he
would lose control at this critical moment and destroy everything. Searching
the crowd around her he found Sparks Dawntreader—remembered him, struck by his
red hair, even though he had seen him only once, a mugging victim freshly
arrived in the city from Summer, dazed and defiant at Jerusha PalaThion’s
attempts to help him.

He had never laid eyes on Sparks Dawntreader again—although
Dawntreader was a figure more real in his mind than any number of people he had
seen constantly for years in the time since then: Moon’s consort, her lover;
the father of the girl who had already reached their side and turned back to
gaze at the approaching strangers. Sparks looked past her, meeting Gundhalinu’s
stare with eyes as green as envy, his gaze full of suspicion.

Gundhalinu glanced away again into the crowd—stopped suddenly
as he found the one face that stood out for its alienness the way his own would
have, within that gathering of pale, sky-eyed figures. Jerusha PalaThion. He
was stunned to see how her years of exile had aged her. He wondered with sudden
empathy how much she had regretted her choice—if she had truly regretted it as
much as her face said she had. But as she saw recognition in his eyes she
smiled at him, a fleeting smile full of satisfaction She nodded her head
slightly, in acknowledgment.

He let himself smile, barely, acknowledging her in turn
before he had to look away again. Carrying her smile with him, he felt the room
and everything in it suddenly stabilize.

“Who is that woman?” Vhanu whispered in Sandhi. “She’s not
Tiamatan.”

“My former commanding officer,” Gundhalinu said softly. “Your
predecessor, the former Commander of Police.”

“Why is she here?” Tilhonne said blankly; as if the idea
that she might have chosen to stay was incomprehensible to him.

“Because the idea of seeing a Police uniform or a Hegemonic
representative ever again for as long as she lived did not appeal to her,”
Gundhalinu murmured, remembering the day of their parting, and the Commander’s
badges Jerusha PalaThion had taken from her own collar and pressed into his
hands.

He reached the edge of the dais, below the foot of the
throne, and stopped, making a formal bow once more in acknowledgment of the
woman who sat there. He lifted his head, meeting her gaze at last. “Lady,” he
said softly, evenly.

“Your eyes ...” The words were barely audible; her eyes held
him riveted. “I had forgotten your eyes ... how they—” She broke off, but her
face, which until that moment had been as rigidly expressionless as his,
colored suddenly, betraying the strength of her hidden emotion. “Inspector
Gundhalinu,” she said at last, speaking clearly and calmly. “Welcome back to
Tiamat. I never expected that I would live to see ... to see you again.” She
smiled, a smile that touched him tenderly, without seeming to.

Gundhalinu felt the cloud of tension in the group of men at
his back dissolve; felt his face, which had seemed to him a moment ago to have
frozen to death, actually begin to smile. “It’s Chief Justice Gundhalinu now,
Lady. But I’m honored you still remember me, after so long.” He kept his eyes
on only her, afraid now to look away and encounter any of the others witnessing
what passed between them.

Moon rose, moving forward until she stood at the edge of the
raised dais, facing him directly. “It would be difficult to forget, even after
so long, the kindness you did me then.” She held her hand out to him, and to
his surprise met his own hand palm against palm, Kharemoughi-fashion, not
clasping wrists as he remembered the Tiamatans doing. “It is good to see you
again.”

He let his hand fall away, feeling as if her touch had
seared it, wondering if she felt the same thing. “I hope that ... our relationship,”
he stumbled imperceptibly on the word, “will be as mutually amicable in the
years to come.”

“So it has truly happened, that you’ve come back to Tiamat ...
that the Hegemony has. To stay.” Her glance flicked past him, touching the
faces of Vhanu and the others in brief acknowledgment, and assessment. He
looked past her at Sparks Dawntreader; looked away again. “The Millennium has
finally come, as youi people used to say.”

He smiled, and nodded in wry amusement. “Yes. We have the
stardrive again. It means a great change for both our peoples.”

“ For better or worse,” she murmured. Her eyes were dark, as
if she had not been reassured by what she found in the faces of the men behind
him. She turned away, moving back to her throne; but she did not sit down. She
stood, with her own people flanking her. “The stardrive means that the
relationship of the Hegemony and Tiamat will be permanent, from now on,” she
said. “I hope that means that you intend to deal with us as you deal with your
other member worlds. We deserve and desire equal citizenship with the rest of
the Hegemony—equal right to leave and return, equal access to technology, equal
treatment under your laws. We want a relationship based on autonomy and mutual
cooperation. I hope that is the sort of change you mean. We’ve waited a
millennium of our own for that to happen. I think we’ve waited long enough.”

He stared at her, pressing his lips together to keep his
smile from becoming a sudden grin of pleasure and admiration. “Your point is
well taken, Lady,” he said, and nodded. “I think you’ll find that our vision of
Tiamat’s future is more like your own, this time.” He hesitated, sensing the
restlessness at his back. “We have observed that you’ve brought considerable
change to Tiamat yourself, in the years since the Departure,” he went on,
carefully. “Some of my people were surprised to find that you had made so much
technological progress. That had not been our experience with previous Summer
Queens. I told them that perhaps the gods ... including your Sea Mother ...
have given both our people a gift.” He spoke the words reluctantly, knowing
that he could not afford to ignore the obvious.

Moon nodded serenely, although he was not really certain her
confidence ran any deeper than his own. “Yes,” she said. “You have been given
the stardrive, and we have been given the use of the sibyl network.”

Gundhalinu felt the words pass through the listeners behind
him like a sword. Mutterings of disbelief, questions in Sandhi, filled his
ears. He heard a low, querulous voice accuse “that renegade bitch”—Jerusha
PalaThion—of treason, of handing over the forbidden secret of enlightenment to
the miserable primitives of Tiamat.

He turned, taking a step up onto the dais so that he stood
looking down on his companions as he ordered them sharply into silence. “Listen
to me,” he said softly, in Sandhi. “How the people of this world learned the
truth about the sibyl network is unimportant—it’s meaningless, it’s in the
past. Do you understand me? Recriminations are pointless—the secret is out.
Nothing can change that.” He held them with his eyes. “And frankly, I believe
it no longer matters. As the Queen said, everything has changed about our
relationship with this world. We no longer need ignorance as a weapon to
control them during our absence—because there will be no Hegemonic absence,
ever again. To keep the truth about the sibyls secret would be immoral—and not
only that, it will be impossible, now.”

There were more muttered protests, dark looks, abrupt angry
motions; but the patch held. He stood his ground, staring them down until all
protest subsided. He turned back to face the waiting Tiamatans, wondering how
much, if anything, they had understood. He remembered that Moon knew some
Sandhi, and so did Jerusha PalaThion. From Moon’s expression, she had at least
guessed what the reaction to her words had been.

And he realized, and suddenly appreciated, the intent behind
her blunt revelation—the risk she had taken to deliver the message that she was
neither ignorant of the truth, nor of their part in suppressing it. That she
was in charge of her people’s future; that she was not afraid. And he
recognized the other message that lay hidden within the words: That she trusted
him ... that she was not afraid to test him, or to rely on him. He smiled
inwardly, and was suddenly aware that he was still standing on the dais—standing
on her ground now, and not with his own people. He stepped down, still keeping
her gaze. “Then both our peoples must learn to accept that the inevitable has
come to pass for us, Lady—and make the best of it.”

“Yes,” she said, and sat down, the motion full of control
and grace. “So it seems.” Her hands closed over the convolutions of the throne
arms.

“There will be far too many other questions about every
aspect of the reopening of Tiamat to begin addressing them here,” he said,
pressing on. “Perhaps we can set up a schedule of preliminary meetings, with
our advisors. But first I’d like to present my staff, with your permission.”

She nodded, leaning back as she did, as if some part of her
were instinctively shrinking away from contagion.

“NR Vhanu, Commander of Police for the Tiamat sector ...”He
went on through the introductions; listening, watching, trying to gauge the
responses of her people and his own as each of his administrators made a brief
bow, and spoke a few awkward words in Tiamatan.

Moon replied with guarded solicitude, her eyes frequently
glancing away from the face of yet another alien-looking stranger to his face.
When he had finished she rose from the throne again, and introduced the small
gathering of advisors who surrounded her on the dais. She named Jerusha
PalaThion as her Chief of Constables, and the blind woman, Fate Ravenglass, as the
head of something she called the Sibyl College. There were a handful of civic
leaders, both Winters and Summers—Tor Starhiker, the woman who had stared at
him as if she knew him, among them. There were other sibyls, including a man
with a Winter clan affiliation.

“... and my family—” she said at last. “You have met my
daughter already, I think.” She smiled briefly at Ariele, who shifted from foot
to foot beside the throne, looking restless and uncomfortable as she met
Gundhalinu’s eyes. “And my pledged—” he felt her almost self-consciously using
the Tiamatan word, and not the offworlder term “husband,”

“Sparks Dawntreader Summer.”

Gundhalinu met Dawntreader’s gaze, realizing as he did that
he had been avoiding it. Dawntreader’s expression was neutral now, under
control. There was no real recognition in his gaze to match the suspicion.

“I believe we’ve met,” Gundhalinu said, unable to stop the
words.

“Where?” Dawntreader asked, taken by surprise.

“In a dark alley.”

“I don’t remember you,” Dawntreader said flatly.

“Do you still play the flute?”

Dawntreader’s expression changed suddenly, as realization
filled his eyes. He glanced at Jerusha PalaThion, away again as she nodded. He
grimaced. “Yes,” he said finally.

“My son also plays the flute,” Moon said, gesturing someone
else forward from behind the crystal throne.

A boy stepped up beside her almost reluctantly; it was
difficult to tell, looking at him, whether he was younger or older than the
girl. Gundhalinu struggled to control his response, seeing a second nearly
grown child of the lover he had left behind so long ago; yet another reminder
that she had been someone else’s wife through all these years, and not his own.

But as the dark-haired boy stopped at his mother’s side and
raised his head, Gundhalinu felt astonishment pass through him like light
through a prism.

“This is my son ....” Moon said. “Tammis.” And all at once
her voice seemed oddly changed, distorted by the same emotion, and he knew that
she saw what he saw, as he met the boy’s stare—met eyes too much like his own
looking back at him from a face where they did not belong, the face of another
man’s son.