"May the serpents of the earth raise us upâ"
Selida was avoiding him. Kahldar stood just inside the chapel. He watched her face as she led knights, scullery maids, and fishermen through the songs and dances of Aluna's mass.
"âas the snakes of the sky carry our hopesâ"
It was not his imagination. She kept her eyes fixed on the front half of the room. In the first row, Lady Magnus and Lydris clasped hands with the two little farmer girls from the road. Their mother beamed at them from behind.
"âwhen the Great Wyrm floats our souls homeâ"
Two days had passed since Lydris's rescue. On the first, Kahldar had offered to return Selida to her chapel and guard her door against Ser Aegison's suspicions. To his surprise, she averted her eyes and insisted she stay close to Lydris's sickbed.
The next afternoon, when Lydris's usual enthusiasm returned and Lady Magnus could keep him confined no longer, Selida accompanied them to breakfast but rejected his invitation to view swordplay practice. She trailed Emmeline back into the castle like a living extension of the lady's long black veil.
In the meantime, the Fox sent no more sorties. Instead, the campfires along the peninsula proliferated. So did the dots on the ocean's horizon. Ser Aegison ran the defenders through twice-daily drills, but Kahldar knew he dared not push them too far. Nobody knew when the Fox would finally make his move. The air grew heavy as both the castle and the skies waited for a coming storm.
Kahldar knew such moods inevitably led some men to carelessness and others to zeal. After he and Ser Aegison reported two disciplinary incidents to Lady Magnus at dinner, she announced an impromptu prayer service. "Tis exactly what we need to ease our spirits. Selida?"
Selida did not look up. "Of course, milady."
Kahldar had not expected to see the squire with the broken nose among the crowd in the chapel, nor the fellow who had been so impressed by the breakfast scones. Even more people stood in the hallway outside. Those who knew the responses chanted them, and those who did not looked regretful.
He touched the W embossed on a disk of his armor. Aluna, like many minor pagan goddesses, was a mere facet of Era, his church taught. It was a matter of time before all sermons became the masses of the Church of the Heavens.
But Era did not count in her portfolio either snakes or scones.
Selida ended the mass and invited any who wished for confession to remain. Her serene expression offered him no answers. Still, he weighed his words, and waited.
***
Kahldar was still standing by the little blue doorway when the last petitioner departed. He saw Selida's shoulders tense in silent dismissal. He ignored it. She kept her back to him as she straightened chairs and neatened the simple altarpiece.
Honesty is worth the order it brings. His heart accelerated. He cleared his throat.
"The people of the keep are grateful for your miracles," he offered.
She slowed her neatening, but did not respond.
"As am I. For the water. For the healing."
She walked to the altar, and knelt.
He took a deep breath. "Young Lydris would have died in the caves without your miracles. Thank you for accompanying me."
This earned him a sliver of her cheek.
When she said nothing he pressed on: "I was incorrect in assuming I could have found him, or saved him, on my own."
"Is that an apology?" Her voice was unreadable, but he felt it like a fresh breeze on his skin.
"It is."
She rose, and lit a censer of incense on the altar. "It is the dark of the moon tonight. I have one more ritual to complete before I retire to Emmeline's room for the evening. You will not want to see it."
"Why is that?"
"It is a ritual of purification. A bathing ritual."
"Ah."
"It's supposed to be done in the ocean, but that seems unwise in this weather."
"Indeed." He studied the painted walls for a moment. "I would stay, if you will have me."
Seconds passed. "You could ask Emmeline to come, if you prefer."
"I will face the wall, so that both of our modesties are preserved."
"Why?"
He went to close the door, and then placed a chair in front of it, facing away from the room. "Because I suspect I have offended you in some way." He took a breath. "If that is so, I would like to understand why, so that I may make amends."
Her voice sounded strained. "You have not offended me."
"Then why have you been avoiding me?"
He heard her moving chairs around. "Have I been?"
"Yes."
Her next answer was too rushed to be, he thought, perfectly truthful. "I thought you might enjoy a respite from my company."
"Quite the contrary. I have missed it."
"Truly."
"Truly. Before this siege, I do not think I understood the role you play in the fabric of your people's lives. Now that I do, I admire it."
"Would that all Dawnlanders be so quick to open-mindedness."
"It has been years, I know. I regret my long reluctance to see your people as they are. I suspect clearsightedness complicates our determination to convert you to our ways." When she was silent again, he added, "Pray do not stab me in the back in a fit of annoyance."
"Do... you think I would?"
"No."
Her voice was dry. "You say that with the utmost faith. I am amazed."
"I do not think you would betray us. You may be angry with Ser Aegison, but you continue to refill the cisterns. You feed the hungry." He contemplated the W on his gauntlet. "You understand duty, and uphold yours most faithfully."
He heard metal chime on stone, as if she placed a large bowl in the center of the room. Then followed the sound of water, perhaps from an ewer. Kahldar fixed his eyes even more firmly on the wall beside the door.
"Perhaps," she conceded. "But my duties are to Aluna, not some worldly authority."
"A worldly authority simplifies many things. Who to honor. When to kill, and what distinguishes warfare from murder." He looked down at his hands. "Why one should not raise a blade against one's own family, even to reclaim one's own birthright."
The sound of water stopped for a moment. "I knew that you belong to an old Dawnlander family," she said. "But I had assumed you were a second or third son."
"I was my father's heir, but my parents died in a northern raid when I was twelve."
"I am sorry."
He did not bother to shrug. She had lost her mother even younger, he knew. "King Harald awarded my father's lands to my uncle, so they will now pass instead to his eldest."
"Is there anything you could have done about it?"
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"Just as the sea and its plenty shape the Tidelands, mountain winters and the trolls they drive against our borders shape the Dawnlands. I could not have held those lands when I was a boy."
"But now?"
"My uncle is an honorable man, in his way. The people trust him, and he holds the creatures at bay. Merchants cross our lands and furnish the people with all they need. When I reached my majority, King Harald called me to his court, and honored me with this perspective. So instead of contesting the appointment, I came to the coast instead."
"And in so doing," she finished thoughtfully, "became a man who follows."
"You say that so scornfully. Must all souls yearn to lead? There are songs which can only be sung by a choir in harmony. Unwavering loyalty is much easier on the spirit than the restless gnawing of ambition."
"Does the lack of freedom not grate on you? Ser Aegison is a narrow man."
"He is dedicated to Lady Magnus and to the young Lord," Kahldar said. "He makes mistakes, but his intent is pure. There is no dishonor in following one such as himself."
She was silent for a moment. "Does young Lydris know that you fight for him to retain a birthright that you yourself could not?"
"That is not why I do it." He exhaled. "Though I suppose the thought may occur to him, someday."
"And what if Ser Aegison had asked you to torture his prisoners? Could you have done it?"
"I would have. But a Dawnland commander ought not order a sworn knight to dirty his hands on his superior's behalf unless he has no other option. Ser Aegison knows my opinion on torture. It would have been dishonorable of him to ask it of me."
"He knows your opinion on torture?"
"As he knows my thoughts on parlay." Kahldar opened his hand. "It is my duty to speak my mind when I believe him to be in the wrong. Just... not before the eyes and ears of the Tide and Her people."
"Ah. I had wondered." After a long moment, the pouring sound resumed. When she continued, he could hear the smile that crept into her voice. It gave him hope. "You have a poetic turn of phrase, when nobody else is listening."
"An indulgence."
"You enjoy the troubadours?"
"And Welded poetry. What about you?"
"I resent the Welded teaching that only married individuals have the wisdom to practice divine counsel."
He let this pass. "And troubadours?"
He heard the clatter of rocks on the wooden floor, as if she arranged a spiral of smooth stones around the basin. Around them, the keep had quieted, and he could hear the sigh of fabric on skin. Kahldar closed his eyes. He would not imagine her robed only in the warmth of the candles. He would not imagine her breasts, creamy and soft, nor their rosy tips hardening in the cool air, as they did under her stole when she danced in the surf. He heard her garments slither to the floor.
"I suppose it is because I find their tales of courtly love... aggravating."
Kahldar took a deep breath. Here it was. "I am... sorry to hear that. I would very much like to admire you from afar. Since you did say that you would abhor a more permanent, traditional connection."
He waited for three whole breaths.
"Kahldar," she said, "are you trying to vex me?"
He caught the snowflake sliver of disappointment before it could enter his heart, and break it open. Gamely, he forged on: "I notice you often do your best to vex me. I've been curious as to why you seem to derive such pleasure from it."
"And is your curiosity satisfied?"
"I've discovered I would rather you speak to me in exasperation than not at all. But I would prefer your esteem, even if my vows prevent me from accepting your body."
"Does it so upset your Welded order when a man and a woman join in honest appreciation of each other? Do your clerics not have the prayers that delay childbirth to its appropriate season?"
He chose his words with care. "Prayers do not heal the heartache that temporary joinings inspire."
"Many of your Dawnlander squires seem quite unconcerned."
"Not all Welded youths keep their vows as I do. Perhaps they saw less inspirational examples, in their childhood. Orâ" he smiled to himself, "they are insufficiently fond of romantic liturgy. Exoeras teaches that combining the flesh merges the soul."
"Are you worried I've left a string of sundered souls all up and down the coast?"
"I've long assumed that half the bardsongs in the region were composed about you."
This time she laughed. "I am not fond of minstrels, and I try not to trifle with any heart that is not at least as guarded as my own." Her voice softened. "I am sorry that I... misjudged yours."
He did not want to respond to that. He took a deep breath. "Why do you not enjoy tales of courtly love? Many women seem to find worship from afar, romantic."
The basin rocked against the stone, and he imagined her stepping into it. Little splashes, then, as if the water lapped at her skin. "Many women are lonely in their marriages or long widowhood. Some troubadours take advantage of that. They make courtly professions and ingratiate themselves in her household. Not all are like this; some have true bardic talent, but I have learned to be suspicious."
"Lady Magnus invites a few minstrels to the castle every winter year. Are your experiences so different?"
Again the sound of water, cascading over limbs and back into the bath. "Yes and no. She was born a handful of years before myself. Two years after she wed, King Harald's messengers approached my father with a similar suitor for me."
"Was your father amenable to such a match?"
"No. But we were in grave debt on account of the King's new laws. Through the Dawnlander's bride gift, my father might have preserved our lands for my brother."
"What did you think of him? Your Dawnlander suitor?"
"He was thirty years my senior, and had no sense of humor. I could not imagine moving to the mountains, and reshaping myself to fit his expectations."
"Lady Magnus made it work, somehow."
"I do not have her long patience for politics. I was my father's oldest child. I could not imagine giving up swordplay and split skirts to pretend at peace."
"Would you not have had to give them up anyway, were you to marry a Tidelander noble? Or did you expect to spark a rebellion?"
"Nothing so grand." A long pause. "At the time, I'm afraid I fancied myself in love with a minstrel."
He inhaled. "Ah."
"I thought we might run away and travel the coast together, as he alluded nightly in his verse. However, he was dependent on my father's household, and at the critical moment, declined. 'I had misunderstood him,' he said. It turned out that for a man in his position, courtly love was much more practical than the alternative."
Kahldar flinched. "I... see." He held his breath for a five count. When he was sure his voice was even again, he said, "Could you not then have accepted the marriage your father proffered?"
"I had arranged for us to be discovered together, which irrevocably solved the offer from the suitor. My father turned me out for disobedience, but I think it was my lack of foresight that he really could not abide. Luckily, my aunt had a place in the church. She introduced me to the then-Grand Abbess, who was able to weave a different tale around my actions."
"I... always thought your devotion to Aluna came from great piety."
"Oh yes. I am deeply grateful to the Goddess for saving me from a short life of disinheritance, banditry, disfigurement, and lurid public execution. It turns out that nestled in such gratitude, a desperate sort of devotion can indeed take root."
"Only one of her chosen could have removed Lydris from the caves." Kahldar focused on the memory because it was easier than examining his heart. "When the snakes flooded the chamber, it was because you rang through with sincerity."
"Of course I do. If I did not, the miracles would not come." She splashed. "But of course you are right. I follow Aluna because She encourages me to make my own way." Her voice dropped. "Perhaps excessively so."
He was silent for a moment. "Andâhow did you recover from having chosen and loved the wrong man?"
He heard the water pouring again. He imagined her tipping the ewer over her crown, turning her hair into dark coils on her skin.
"If the Welded teach that such a thing would blight your soul permanently, then let me assure you that it is not actually so."
"Heresy." But he was smiling, a little.
"I promise you, a catastrophic error of judgment is not so bad, if you've survived the making of it."
"If."
"If," she acknowledged. "There's certainly a period at the beginning when everything tastes like self-recrimination and the future looks as impossible as a becalmed sea. But if you survive all that, you wake up one morning, a year or more later, somehow desirous of a good buttered scone."
"That sounds agonizing. Scone or no."
"It can be." He heard another splashing sound, and then her skin on the stone as she stepped out of the basin. "The good news is that every mistake that you outlive makes you much more likely to choose better, the next time."
"And what could you possibly have learned that would make it worthwhile?"
"I suppose... to find integrity attractive." She made a self-deprecating sound. "It seems that has its own pitfalls."
He heard the sound of her feet on the stone behind him, and saw a faint radiance, beyond that of the candlelight, reflected off the wall before him.
His pulse jumped. "Selidaâ"
"The ritual restored some measure of Aluna's blessing," she said. "Rest easy. All I will touch is your shoulder."
"Selida, Iâ"
"Don't." She laid soft fingers on his pauldrons. Her voice sounded like broken glass. "You cannot give me what I ask without unravelling what I most admire about you, andâ" she swallowed. "And I cannot accept either of the loves you offer without unmaking what I most admire in myself." She stopped. Started again. "But if I can see you safe and whole into some better future, with some better companion, then these blessings I offer with all my heart."
Words poured up into his mouth. He could not remember the last time it hurt to breathe; when Exoeras's platitudes fell away and revealed a wound that went on forever like a tunnel to the center of the earth. The day he had left his capitol for the Tidelands, perhaps, excruciatingly aware that would never again see his childhood home, or return to clear his parents' graves.
But obedient to her preferences, he held all of himself behind his teeth as she began to whisper a prayer. Where she touched, a sharp, cold seawater washed through him. Before he could grow numb, he heard the hiss of foam over sand, and the lines of the room lept out in sharp relief. Weariness he did not even realize he wore lifted from him. His heart beat on.
"There," she said, breath rasping in her throat. "That should last through your rotation on the parapet. Now I will dress so you can return me to Emmeline's rooms. I do not want you to suffer the indignity of sleeping across my doorway, and it soothes her to know I am there should Lydris have some unlikely relapse."
Finding words felt like forcing himself to stare into the sun. Without turning he said, "Thank you. For all our differences, it is good to know how much we are alike. Your words are an intimacy I will cherish always."
Her voice was quiet, like she was already moored on a distant shore. "For what it is worth, I will treasure yours every day I yet live."