“Kindra, my dear, do come and see what one of the trappers brought me today,” Elsire gushed heedlessly over Swire’s intemperate reply. “It’s so soft, white as miniver, but the pelts are far bigger, you’ll simply love it. You’ll have to tell me what you think, whether it’s fine enough to use to trim a gown or whether we should keep it for hoods and muffs and the like, not that we’re likely to need them here, not unless the winter turns very harsh, but think about the winters in Toremal and up near Orelwood. Do you know that area at all?”
Temar saw people all around smiling at Elsire as she tucked Kindra’s arm under her own and escorted her away in a manner more suited to a herd-dog cutting out a calf than a supposedly polite festival party. Now that her interruption had effectively driven Master Swire’s complaints on to the shoals, everyone turned back to their own discussions and laughter began to lift the murmur of conversation again.
“I’m going to see how Kindra is.” Vahil shot a hasty glance in his father’s direction. “Stall the old man for me, can you?”
“What’s going on there?” Temar raised inquiring eyebrows at Guinalle as Vahil headed for the shadows of the fences and a circuitous route toward Elsire, who was showing something to a clutch of exclaiming girls.
“Vahil has managed to fall desperately in love with the one girl whose father has been an unmitigated pest to both Messires since before we made landfall.” Guinalle’s reply was dry but not unsympathetic.
“She’s not to his taste, far too mousy. He must just be garter-chasing.” Temar spoke without thinking, his mind full of the flamboyant doxies Vahil had been wont to squire around Toremal.
“That’s a sport you excel in, isn’t it?”
Temar could have kicked himself but was immeasurably relieved to see Guinalle smiling at him. He felt heat in his face as it was his turn to try and stifle a blush.
“Not anymore, not since I met you.” His heart was racing again. “Not since we found each other this summer—”
“Temar, about that—” Guinalle raised a hand and Temar wondered at the sudden shadow in her eyes.
“Guinalle!” Before she could continue, Maitresse Den Rannion came in through the open doorway. “Have you seen Vahil?”
“I think he was thirsty.” Guinalle looked toward the wine table, a slight frown wrinkling her brow.
“Oh dear,” Maitresse Den Rannion sighed as she looked over at Elsire and her companions, Kindra’s fair head no longer visible. “I’m sure she’s a sweet girl and I know it’s silly of me to worry about rank and such like, now we’re all setting a hand to the same wheel, but I do think he could do better for himself, quite apart from the trouble it’s making for him with his father.”
“I’ll see if I can find him for you,” offered Guinalle.
“Thank you, my dear, it’s just that now that horrid man has spoiled Ancel’s evening, he’ll be absolutely furious if he finds Vahil’s been disobeying him and speaking to her.”
Maitresse Den Rannion suddenly noticed some new arrivals and hurried to usher them in the direction of food and wine. Guinalle turned to go but Temar caught her hand. “I just want a moment, can we find somewhere a little more private?”
Guinalle nodded. “Just for a moment, we do need to talk.”
She led him around the outside of the hall and into a shadowy corner in the angle of two walls. Temar reached for her, desperate to kiss her, but Guinalle held him away, a hand on his chest, looking around in case they had been observed.
“This isn’t the back end of some wildwood, Temar, with Avila turning a blind eye,” she chided him. “People will talk and gossip spreads faster than fire in a thatch around here.”
Temar pressed her fingers to his lips, his own hand trembling with passion. “Let them talk. Anyway, what’s to gossip about when we’re betrothed.” He reached into his shirt and pressed the precious parcel of linen into Guinalle’s hands, closing her fingers around the silken ribbons.
He heard her catch her breath as she untied the gift and held the gemstone up, the moonlight sparking blue fire from its facets.
“I know the chain’s not much, there wasn’t a lot of loose gold in the streams, but that diamond should have every girl this side of the ocean chewing their hair until they get one.” Temar could not restrain his glee, stumbling over his words in his eagerness. “I asked one of the miners to make it for me; there were only a handful of us on the trip into the hills and I’m to get them a charter from Council to make sure our rights are protected. You’ll be marrying a man wealthy enough to satisfy your family, no question. We announce our betrothal tonight, and then we can be married at Solstice. We’ll travel back to Tormalin next spring, if you like, to visit your family. As long as you’re not pregnant by then, of course.”
“Oh, Temar.”
Temar wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear in Guinalle’s voice—excitement, delight, devotion?—but he certainly hadn’t anticipated a mixture of regret and rebuke. “What?”
“I wish you’d spoken to me before making all these plans.” There was a definite edge of annoyance in her tone. “You haven’t thought this through.”
Temar was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, my love. I suppose I should have made more of a ceremony of it, but after the summer I didn’t think you’d need me to send a designate to ask for your hand. I thought we’d left all that kind of thing behind us.”
“Temar, listen to me, I beg of you. I’m not about to marry you or anyone else!”
Temar blinked and shook his head to clear his confusion. “What are you saying?”
“I have no intention of getting married for quite some years, if at all.” Guinalle tried to give Temar back the necklace, but he refused to take it.
“Halcarion save us, why not?” Temar felt a hollow spreading in his gut.
“I have too much to do here, too many responsibilities, too many people depending on me. I can’t just drop everything to keep your hearth warm for you. My uncle needs me—”
“He can’t stop you marrying me, I won’t have it.” This made no sense to Temar. “You can still practice your Artifice, if that’s what’s worrying you. Haven’t I been studying what you taught me on the voyage, getting the tricks of it?”
“Artifice is much more complicated than you imagine,” said Guinalle tartly. She took a deep breath and spoke more calmly again. “That’s beside the point. Please try to understand. You say you want to marry me? You want me to bear your children?”
“I love you,” Temar protested. “I want to make a family with you. What’s wrong with that?”
“Are you planning to stay by the fireside and rock the cradle when my duties call me away? What if I die in child-bed?” Guinalle folded her arms, her face unreadable in the shadows as she pulled away from him. “This isn’t Toremal, with maidservants and wet-nurses for hire at every festival fair. Have you had much to do with babies and little children? Do you know the amount of work they are? Three of my sisters have families—I tell you, it’s not something I’m going to take on before I’m good and ready, not while every spare hand this side of the ocean has three tasks to do and four on market day!”
“I’ll help.” Temar was starting to get irritated now. “Anyway, you said in the summer that you could use Artifice to keep you from conceiving. We can still be married; I’ll wait for children, if you insist.”
“And have everyone counting the seasons and waiting for my waist to thicken? Whispering in corners when it doesn’t? No, thank you! For your information, I have better uses for my skills. Oh, Temar, please try and see it from my side of the river. I take it you’re planning to continue to lead the explorations for my uncle and Messire Den Rannion?”
“Of course, that’s my duty.”
“And what am I supposed to do if you get yourself killed on one of these expeditions? I was there when my uncle got news of that rock fall, when Frinn and Eusel were killed, Temar; I know the sort of risks you’ve been running. Saedrin save me, this is a dangerous enough place for the people staying by the shore.” Guinalle’s breath was coming quicker now though her tone stayed mostly level. “This colony can’t support anymore widows and orphans and I’ll be cursed before I’ll be packed off back to a proxy marriage with your grandfather as your only male relative. I can’t waste a year sitting around in mourning to make sure I’m not carrying your child before I’m free again.”
“No one would make you do that.” Temar’s voice rose and he quelled it with an effort. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I don’t think so. You’re the last of your line. In any case, my family do insist on the traditional observances, whatever you might choose to do.”
“Is this about family? Is that it?” Temar could not hide his outrage. “My Name isn’t good enough for you? You know very well D’Alsennin is an ancient house and—”
“If I wanted to marry some well-groomed stud from an impressive bloodline, I’d have my choice ten times over in Toremal.” Guinalle interrupted Temar acidly. “I’ve had fortune hunters after my father’s coin and rank since Drianon blooded me. Why do you think I study Artifice? Why do you think I asked to join my uncle here?”
A nasty suspicion reared its head at the back of Temar’s mind and grabbed his tongue before he could stamp it down. “You keep bringing your uncle into this? You’re not related by blood, are you, only marriage. He’s not planning to salvage the Den Fellaemion bloodline with a judicious marriage, is he? That would be very traditional.”
Guinalle gave Temar’s face a stinging slap. “Don’t be disgusting. You just can’t accept it, can you? You’re so full of yourself that you cannot imagine a girl not falling over herself to marry you!”
“You were quick enough to lie down with me this summer!” Temar scowled as he heard the pain in his own words, suddenly glad of the darkness hiding his face.
“That was different, that was fun, it was delightful,” Guinalle’s anger softened with contrition, “but I would never have done it if I had thought you would make so much of it. I’m sorry.”
Astonishment drove all other feelings out of Temar’s head. “Are you telling me it wasn’t your first time?”
“Oh Temar, I’m the youngest daughter of a long family. My older sisters were the ones who had to make sure they could stain their wedding sheets convincingly.” A faint giggle escaped Guinalle and a glimpse of moonlight betrayed a smile on her face. “You’ve obviously had little experience of virgins.”
“I wouldn’t have thought it of you,” spat Temar angrily. “How could you?”
“Oh really?” Guinalle took a pace toward him. “Tell me, what right have you to judge me? Temar D’Alsennin, the Esquire every chaperone warns their girls not to let him get them behind a curtain? You accused Vahil of garter hunting, didn’t you? What was your score last winter solstice? That was what you would get the girls to wager, wasn’t it? Against your hitting a rune bone with a throwing dagger at twenty paces? According to my brothers, you had the best collection in the cohorts and a fair few girls let you pluck their petals when you claimed your prize didn’t they? Your reputation precedes you, Temar, didn’t you know that? At least I’m discreet!”
Temar stood amid the wreckage of his hopes, furious with Guinalle, with himself, with everything. He opened his mouth but, before he could speak, Maitresse Den Rannion rounded the corner and halted abruptly at the sight of them.
“Maitresse, I’m sorry, I was just about to—” Guinalle lifted a hand toward her mouth before realizing she still had the necklace twined around her fingers.
“My dear, whatever is that?” The Maitresse reached for Guinalle’s hand and lifted it toward a lantern.
“Why Temar, how splendid!” Her eyes were alight with curiosity. “Are you celebrating Drianon’s festival with something important?”
“Temar was telling me of the discoveries his expedition made.” Guinalle tried to pass the necklace back to Temar but he stuck his hands stubbornly through his belt.
“It’s a birth festival gift for Guinalle.” He forced a semblance of a smile. “You were an Aft-Summer baby, weren’t you, demoiselle?”
Maitresse Den Rannion turned to him, open-mouthed. “Now isn’t that just typical! I was asking Messire Den Fellaemion if any of his household would be celebrating their year at the festival and he told me Guinalle was born in For-Winter! Here, my dear, let me take your lace, you must show off a jewel like that!” She unpinned Guinalle’s tippet before the girl could find a plausible objection and clasped the necklace around her throat. The gem shone rich and brilliant on the soft hollow of her throat. “What a handsome present to make, Temar.”
“I think the Messire is looking for you, Maitresse.” Temar pointed through the arch of an empty window to where Messire Den Rannion was waiting by the hearth, head turning this way and that.
“Oh, yes, I think you’re right.” The Maitresse tucked Guinalle’s lace briskly around her own neckline. “I’d better see what he wants.”
“I’ll go and find Vahil.” Guinalle began hastily to walk away from him but Temar followed. “You do that, my lady. I’ll get Elsire away from those silly girls, shall I? The music’s started so if I dance with her all evening that should give the gossips plenty to go on, shouldn’t it? That should protect your reputation, Guinalle. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone how hollow it really is!”
Temar strode past, outpacing her with his long legs, catching Elsire around the waist and making her an extravagant bow, keeping his back firmly turned on Guinalle as he swept Elsire into a closer embrace than was quite appropriate for that particular dance.
The Palace of Shek Kul,
the Aldabreshin Archipelago,
6th of For-Summer
I woke with an image vivid in my mind, a dream so clear I could recall every detail. A young man, black hair drawn back in a silver clasp of wrought leaves and dressed in the style of Messire’s ancestral portraits: So this was Temar D’Alsennin, last scion of a lost line and the man whose sword I now possessed. But this was more than an image, more than a dream. I shook my head at the thought of his conflicting hopes and apprehension for the future, reason yielding to an overwhelming need to make a family to replace the one he had lost in his childhood. I felt his pain at Guinalle’s intransigence, his confusion, sympathized with his blatant flirtation with Elsire, just to let Guinalle know she wasn’t the only squab in the dovecote. In many ways he reminded me of myself twelve years gone. I recognized that impulsiveness, the confidence that had led me into the toils of chewing thassin, above all the intensity of youthful emotion unblunted by more mature experience.