Chapter Six
String or Nothing
I love an Asturian boy; oh, he's my best friend.
I love his seditious smile that hides the pain within.
~Dead Can Dance*


Allen dropped his sword on the bench next to me and I handed him his bottle of water. "You looked good out there today," I said.

He wiped salt water off his face and poured fresh water down his throat. "Nah. I'm a fake," he said.

"What do you mean?" I said, surprised.

"It's odd. I was a... better? ...more vicious? fighter under Balgus."

I'd been watching Allen's practice and I couldn't believe what he was saying. I mean, he was good! "You're kidding! Are you saying you've become slower, weaker and less skilled?"

"No, no. It's just..." He looked out at the sparring knights. "That's a formal duel. That's not what it's like in a real battle."

Usually if I asked Allen anything about his family or about his past he'd change the subject. This was the first time he'd ever brought it up himself. I looked out at the field and said, "So...what's it like?"

"It's like being surrounded by people who want to assassinate you. There is no practicing like this, just killing. I didn't stand there crossing my blade honorably with opponents. If someone was stronger than me or more skilled, then I'd run. Most of the time I teamed with Balgus and we'd overwhelm people with numbers. It wasn't fair or pretty and all we wanted to do was win. My speciality was climbing over piles of corpses quickly to stab people in the back. I'm good at keeping my footing over uncertain ground. We waded in blood."

I took a deep breath and said calmly, "Oh."

And, miraculously, Allen kept talking. "I won the Caeli tournament by disarming people. Balgus had to teach me how to do that, how to fight the traditional genteel Asturian way. On the other hand, he did not have to teach me how to stab people in the back, chop their arms off or slit their throats. That came quite naturally for me. I'm a very good killer; I've had to work quite hard to be a knight." Allen nodded his head at the knights out on the field. "They think my instincts are crude. Sometimes I feel like an atheist in church here."

"Can't you be both?" I asked.

Allen looked down at me, surprised. "What?" he said.

"Well, be a Caeli when it's appropriate and do whatever you have to to survive when that's appropriate. Learning one skill doesn't mean you have to lose another. ...You like being a Caeli, these formal practices and duels, right?"

Allen smiled. "Yes. This is much more fun than lopping off heads."

"Well, there you go."

There was a comfortable silence and then Allen spoke again. "You know Marlene's coming back," he said.

"Is she?" I said, but of course I knew; the whole city had been preparing for weeks. Having had one ceremony in Fried, now she was to have another in Asturia.

"Yes," said Allen, "And the Caeli's have to take part in it. Honour guard or some such."

"I'll bet the food will be great," I said.

"True. ...You gonna be there?"

"Oh, yeah. Me and my whole family."

"Good."




Poor Allen. He survived the wedding just fine, but the ladies would not leave him alone at the reception. Everyone wanted a turn dancing with the new Caeli. Eries and I stood on the edge of the floor and watched Allen try to disentangle himself from the painted grasp of the ladies yet again. "Look, they're flanking him," I said. "Best bet on how he'll retreat?"

Eries laughed. "He'll claim he's going to visit the restroom. Look, there he goes!"

We watched him, but he didn't make it. Marlene grabbed him next and, as she was the bride, her wish was his command. Next to me, Eries made a strangled noise.

"What?"

"Nothing. Excuse me. I have to... go polish my nose." And with that utterly pathetic excuse, she left.

I watched Eries sidestep twirling couples in her dash for the far exit. I watched Allen free himself from Marlene and run after her. He caught her inches from the door and dragged her back into the room.




I did not succeed at avoiding Marlene on her wedding day. There was a very uncomfortable scene between us in the garden early that morning. Ugh. She caught me again at the reception on the dance floor and she grabbed my hands. "I'm sorry! I'm so very sorry!" she gasped.

"It's okay," I said. I attempted to extricate my fingers from hers, but she wouldn't let go. "Hey, it looks like your husband wants a dance," I said. She dropped my hands and whirled around.

I left Marlene to Mahad and ran after Eries, who was going for the door. But not fast enough to evade me. I grabbed her. She snarled at me, but I wouldn't let her go. We circled each other as if on the brink of violence and I danced at her until she danced back at me, glaring at me intensely. I don't imagine she knows her hot, dangerous gaze is beautiful.

It took a while for Eries to relax into my arms. Eventually she stared at up me calmly. "What did Marlene say to you?" she asked.

"Nothing of consequence. Why?"

"I think she might have had a crush on you. She always used to have these mad crushes on the palace prettyboys. She was always sneaking off with someone."

"She chases boys??" I'm not the only one Marlene went after!

Eries nodded her head. "Oh, yeah. Incorrigible. Though I'll bet Mahad will put a stop to that now that she's married."

"Hey, did you just call me pretty?" I said.

Eries blushed. I laughed and dipped her and kissed her lightly as she came up.




I missed my chance to ask Eries to dance. I was going to ask her. I wanted to. I've practiced enough that I hardly ever step on girls' feet. ...Well, I step on them a lot less anyway.

Damn. Clearly giving my dancecard to Allen was a tactical error. ...Not that I ever could have looked like that with Eries, no matter how much I practiced.

I watched Allen and Eries move together, a physical language that I was incapable of speaking fluently. I had dreaded my lessons with Eries and been grateful to Allen for lifting the burden from me. Even my Dad knew I'd wriggled out of his unsubtle plan to procure a princess for me and, since it was obvious how Eries and I both felt about it, he'd not given me too much grief over it.

Eries, my classmate, my liege princess, and only recently my friend, has steadfastly disliked me for as long as she has been forced to endure my presence. I haven't much liked her either, although truly, I did not step on her feet on purpose.

I'm no dummy. Though I like to tweak Allen's tail by flirting with her, I know I will never ever have her, which in some ways is a pity since she is smart and unpretentious and, if you catch her in the right mood, even funny, but in some ways it's just as well, since she is the Crown Princess, and who in their right mind would ever want to be King.

Yes, it's really just as well.

But of course, it's only now that I have stepped back some distance that I can see that she is beautiful. Stunning, in fact. Damn.


*


When my parents suggested the little Princess Millerna as a possible alternative spouse I thought they were both nuts, but their demands are so infrequent that when they ask for something I do try to accommodate them, or at the very least humor them. I obediently found the little Princess in the garden and kissed her hand as if she was a young lady of age. It seemed Millerna had been wanting a playmate that day. She dragged me around the garden. She fed me pretend tea. She drafted me into her games. She ...was a surprisingly fun little girl.

She had a doll in one pocket and a pocketknife and a ball of string in the other. String, in case you didn't know, can be used to simulate spaghetti, ship rigging, intestines, lava, roads, and lightning. Which is just what Millerna needed so that her doll, Miss Kitty, could have a spagetti dinner following her operation and convalescence, after which she could continue her ocean expedition across Darkest Puddle to see the Exploding Islands. Gosh!

"I have never known what a great toy string is, " I told her.

Millerna sniffed and looked down her nose at me. "Oh, yeah. All the cool girls are carrying string this year." And then, just to overdo it a bit more, she sniffed again and smirked and looked sideways at me to see if I was getting the joke, at which point I fell completely and totally in love with her.

She didn't seem to notice though, and continued playing for another hour until she was called in to dinner. "Bye," she said then. "Come play with me again some time." She bent in a familiar princely gesture and she kissed my hand.

"I....I will," I managed to get out.

"You promise?"

"I do. ...I mean, yes." I mean, I'm yours.

I left with a spring in my step and a short length of Miss Kitty's lower intestine in my pocket.




"Wow, look at you. Is your shirt actually tucked in all the way around? Whoa, buttons in the right button-holes. Is that waistcoat ironed? Holy moly. I don't think I've ever seen you so dressed up. What's the occasion?"

Dryden just smiled at my teasing. "I just met my future wife," he said.

"Oh, yeah? How could you tell?"

"I just know."

"Magic, huh?"

"Yeah." He sighed idiotically and then shook himself and said, "Uh, no, I mean it was my Dad's idea. He's arranging it."

"Oh. One of those marriages. Well, obviously she must be amazingly beautiful."

He tilted his head. "Er... Well, she probably will be."

"Will be?"

"She's a bit young yet for beautiful, but she's cute."

"Oh. So, who is it? Anyone I know?" I asked.

"Princess Millerna," he said with relish.

"That weird little kid? You are gonna marry the little princess? And become a prince? You?" ...Oh, dear. That was rude.

"Eh? ...Oh, yeah. I suppose so. Heh! Me, a prince! Won't that be funny." Dryden grinned and his gaze drifted up and away from me. "She giggled when I kissed her hand. She gave me a cup of cold water, told me it was hot tea. She told me to blow on it."

"And I suppose you did," I said.

"Well, of course I did. She is going to be beautiful. One day. Soon."

"I hear she's quite bossy and obnoxious and very badly behaved."

"Don't you talk about my fiancee that way! She's wonderful!"

"Oh, for God's sakes! Are you drunk?"

"On pretend tea? Not hardly," he said.

"You're a fruitcake then. She's a little kid."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't tell anyone, Allen. My Dad's still selling the idea to Aston."

"That's King Aston to you, ya minor flunky."

"My father-in-law to be. How utterly bizarre." Dryden looked at me hopefully. "Hey, if you marry Eries, we'll be brothers!"

"Oh, don't be stupid," I said.

"Do I look stupid?"

"At the moment, yeah, you do. I kissed her once. That's it. That's all."

"Oh," he said and looked away again. He wasn't listening. Oi.

"Let's eat, shall we. I'm sure we'll find something that'll go well with fruitcake," I said.

"Mmm," he said and smiled into the distance. He was definitely not listening.




Mahad will sleep by my side and he'll kiss me, but that's all. And I, who wished my secrets reamed away upon the bridebed, have not been touched. He's waiting for this special holiday. It's supposed to make for a lucky birthday for our potential child, he says. He says the custom of his country and the wisdom of his fore-mothers insist upon it. "Oh, please, now, now!" I say, feeling like a complete harlot and he laughs and says, "Just a bit longer."

Just a bit longer. Oh, god. Both my Asturian and my Fried weddings are long past. It's too late already. I'm doomed.

I've been looking through my diary, at the utter tripe I wrote in it when I first got here. I'm a fool and a coward, but that doesn't mean I don't know my duty. Pregnant by some other man. Waiting longer to tell Mahad would just get me in deeper trouble. Pregnant by some other man. It's a very short sentence. I pulled Mahad into the privacy of our bedroom and spilled my guts. I ended with, "I'm so, so sorry."

Mahad is every inch a statesman. None of the hurt in his eyes made its way into his voice. "Do you love him?"

"Who? Oh, him. No," I said.

"Then why did you-"

"-I don't know. Maybe at the time, I thought... I don't know. He was pretty. He was there. I was really nervous about getting married and I ...well." ...I really don't want to think about it.

"Uh-huh," he said flatly.

I looked at my feet. "Are you going to send me back?"

"Well, I can't. Freid needs that trade agreement with Asturia. Sending you back would piss off your dad."

"...Oh." Well, I didn't expect him to say that. "I'm sorry."

"...Do you want to go back?" he asked. "I mean, if you'd rather-"

"No!" I said, imagining being sent back in disgrace.

Something about the vehemence of my answer cheered him a bit. He said, "Oh. All right. ...Well, I wish you'd told me sooner. Everyone is assuming that I'm keeping custom; now I'll have to convince them that we weren't."

"I'm sorry."

"Mamma told me political marriages could be rough, but she really didn't elaborate exactly how. ...eeeeeeg."

"I'm sorry."

Mahad looked at me with black, unreadable eyes. "I know. You keep saying that."

I was quiet then and he sighed and went away.




I didn't see him again all evening and finally I just got into our bed by myself and doused the light. I didn't sleep though and I was still awake when Mahad came in. I listened to him get ready for bed in the dark and I didn't say anything. He got into bed next to me and we lay there, awake, listening to each other, not sleeping and not saying anything. For a long time.

I should say something. But what? I have no idea.

Several minutes later Mahad pushed the covers away and got out.. He's leaving, I thought and choked on a sob, but he just kindled the light beside the bed. Then he went to a nearby cabinet and returned with a distillation of gold in a round bottle and an empty glass.

"I'm not sleeping; you're not sleeping," he said, "Let's have a midnight booze picnic." He filled the glass, emptied it in one shot, filled it again and passed it to me.

I looked at the shot glass he had pressed into my hand. "I'm pregnant. You shouldn't be giving this to me."

"Ah, just one will be okay. You can't have any more than that. Howzat?" He smiled at me and took a drink straight from the bottle.

"All right," I said and sipped. I watched him take another long pull from the bottle. "You going to drink that whole thing?" I asked.

"No, I think I'm drunk enough on half. Whoooa! Good stuff. Hey, quit crying, will ya. We'll figure something out."

I brushed the ever-present tears off my cheeks. "We will? Like what?"

"I dunno. After we get over the hangover tomorrow, we'll think of something then. Some variation of 'She was so pretty that I couldn't resist and said to hell with the customs.'"

"You think people will believe that?"

He waggled his eyebrows at me. "Sure. If I tell them in a really loud voice..."

Was he trying to make a joke? "Well, perhaps," I said uncertainly.

"So, we'll just go on as normal."

"Normal for royalty anyway," I said grimly.

"Right. Here's to normal for royalty," he said and he clinked his half-full bottle against my almost empty glass.

I looked up at him. I can't believe it. I think this is going to work out okay.

My glass fell from my fingers and tears streamed down my face for the twentieth time that day. There is no way in hell that I deserve a man like Mahad. But I'm going to keep him anyway.





Next: Chapter Seven