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The first time Queen Noeren sees General Tan-ansogh, she is already technically not a queen any more. The general is standing over her as she kneels on the stone floor of the throne hall, held in place by two Dars Daltra warriors' swords at her neck.
Outside, the din of battle has given way to its aftermath as the Dars Daltra are taking control of the palace.
King Reilith of Vourn is dead, and Noeren is still queen in name only because his chosen successor is also dead, and another has not yet been chosen. Even as marrying into her clan made Reilith king in one of the Fourteen Kingdoms, being married to him made her queen, and now ...
Everything happened so fast. One minute, a messenger was bringing the news that the king had been slain, the shock sweeping through the palace; the next, the Dars Daltra were already inside the walls, and surrounding the Inner Palace.
There must have been treachery. How fitting, since the Dars Daltra general herself is a traitorous Vourn.
Queen Noeren looks up at Tan-ansogh - a Dars Daltra name, not the one she was born with - and thinks, So this is the face of the woman who will kill me.
The infamous general is tall and tanned, imposing in her armour. There is a slash on her side, the leather of her armoured coat split to show the metal plating beneath. Her sword is sheathed, and she is wearing no helmet. With her dark hair cut short in the Dars Daltra manner, the shape of her face looks not at all Vourn. High on her left cheek, just below the eye, sits a stain that might have been a purpling bruise but is by all reports a birthmark, the kind of ill omen people shun for fear it might attract violence. A harsh omen, and it's proven true - this Tan-ansogh has caused much violence indeed.
The general's eyes flicker to Noeren's chest, where her robe has been ripped to expose her clan tattoo, showing for all to see that she is queen - no, was queen here.
"You should have surrendered," the general says. She does not have the accent of the Dars Daltra, all shortened vowels and harsh consonants. Of course she doesn't.
Noeren says nothing.
They had called out to her, once they'd trapped her in the Inner Palace: Stand down, soldiers of Vourn! Noeren Athien, surrender yourself! Noeren had said nothing then, either. What could one say to a traitor?
This so-called Tan-ansogh was once a fighting-woman in King Reilith's army, until her regiment had been overwhelmed in the Dars Daltra mountains. Before, she'd been a nobody, a woman of no clan, born to no known mother, with no allegiance save the oath she'd taken to the king. After, she threw off her oath, took a Dars Daltra name, and became someone among them.
Who of Vourn, who of any of the Kingdoms, would deal with such a person?
"I am Tamarn Tan-ansogh," that woman now says, using her Dars Daltra title. "You see I have captured you. You might as well have surrendered, and spared yourself and us much death." Her speech, though fluent and unaccented, seems stilted, as if she hasn't spoken the language in some time.
"You might have spared us all much death," Noeren retorts coldly, despite the swords still held to her neck, "had you not come here."
"But I am here now." Tan-ansogh's lips curve, arrogant or satisfied or both. "I have taken this city, this palace, this kingdom."
Why is she speaking like this? She must want something, yet Noeren cannot think what.
Raids and counter-raids are the way of life in the borderlands. Often enough squabbles between the Kingdoms' soldiers and Dars Daltra warriors end in a draw, or a ransom, or a retreat, one side content enough with having weakened the other's forces. But not this time.
Noeren Athien, like any woman of the Royal Clan, grew up far from here in the Cloister at Teiray-on-the-Lake, under the rule and tutelage of the Royal Mother, matriarch of her clan. And like any Athien meant to become a queen, she studied the history of the Fourteen Kingdoms. Once it has come this far - a capital city sacked, a palace taken, a king slain - there is no mercy to be had. Why should Noeren have surrendered and made the general's work easier?
A Dars Daltra warrior approaches, speaks to the general in their tongue. She replies quickly, then turns back to Noeren. "We have taken many alive," she says. "Would you have us slay them?"
It's a strange thing to say. Noeren tries to gauge Tan-ansogh's expression, her meaning. There's no reason this traitor-general should stop short of slaughtering anyone of fighting age, or anyone at all of name and clan, to prevent their retaliation. No reason, and yet ...
The thought that she might not die after all comes over Noeren like an ocean wave, heavy with the water's force. Her legs threaten to buckle, and she struggles to hold still, to not fall against the blades still too close to her skin.
"I would have had you slay no one," she says, covering her confusion, trying to buy time.
The general's mouth twists unpleasantly. "That was never an option." Spoken as one with the mark of violence stark on her cheek.
What does this Tan-ansogh want?
Noeren feels helpless - almost more so than under siege, more than when all she'd expected was a swift death. She does not like it, this lack of understanding, the threat of some unknown goal. This, she is beginning to realise, was not an ordinary raid grown large. With effort, she manages to keep her voice even when she asks, "Why have you come here?"
A flicker of a vicious smile. "For two things. First, to slay your so-called king, as I swore I would. And I have - Reilith Nial is finally dead." Tan-ansogh spits on the floor.
"Reilith Athien," Noeren corrects, steadily, though her thoughts are racing. This woman betrayed her king, and dares speak of him like this? "He has not been Reilith Nial for many years." Not since he married into the Royal Clan and became a king.
"He was regent then," Tan-ansogh says, contemptuous, "when the Daltra Kals overwhelmed my regiment and captured us. He would not pay ransom, and abandoned us. Reilith the betrayer! I have longed for vengeance, and I have it now."
Noeren can only stare. This must have happened back when Regent Reilith was negotiating with the Royal Mother for a wife, but - that is not the man I knew. It must be a mistake; there must be more to it. Yet this woman seems to believe it utterly; her hatred is not feigned.
"I'm not a woman of the borderlands," Noeren says, trying to regain her footing. "My mother was queen at the northern coast, and I grew up in the Cloister." As all Royal women do, she doesn't add. This woman, Vourn-born as she is, must know as much. "I can't speak to what passed before I came here."
"Came to marry the regent, and make him king," Tan-ansogh says scornfully.
"Came here to do my duty," Noeren Athien says, refusing to be drawn. She won't believe this woman's slander, but arguing Reilith's character will serve no one now. "If it is the king you wished vengeance upon - as you say, he is dead. What will you do with those who yet live?"
Tan-ansogh's eyebrows draw down as she scowls. "I did tell you to surrender."
Noeren had not thought it to mean a chance at survival - not for her people, and even less so for herself. Now, she is no longer certain of anything. Perhaps if this general were truly Dars Daltra, she might believe in her honour - might offer herself as a hostage, bargain for her people's lives and her own. But this person has no clan and no loyalty, has slain the king she once swore herself to. What can she believe?
Still, Noeren has little to lose now. Whatever she can do for her people, for herself, she must do. She closes her eyes for a moment, takes a calming breath. Meets the general's eyes. "I surrender."
For what good or ill it may do.
Tan-ansogh's face breaks into a grin. "Very good," she says. "Since that is the other thing I came for."
Right - two things, she said. Noeren had almost forgotten in her confusion. "My surrender?"
Tan-ansogh snorts. "You still do not see? I came here for a woman of Athien. For a queen."
Noeren tilts her head. Adjusts her thinking. "For your prince? That's what he sent you here for?"
It almost makes sense: this Dars Daltra prince, reaching for a woman of the Royal Clan, so he can be a king in the Fourteen Kingdoms' eyes. Almost. But -
Tan-ansogh looks at her, her expression unreadable. "My lord the Taran did send me; how could I have come with all these warriors, only for my own vengeance?" Taran means a prince, or something like it, among the Dars Daltra.
It can't work, Noeren almost says, taking a woman is not the same thing as marrying into a clan, and then stops she herself. Shouldn't the general know this? But having no clan of her own, perhaps she doesn't understand. And if so, Noeren can buy time, if nothing else, by going along with it.
"All right," she says, a little shakily. "You're here to take me for your Taran. You have what you came here for, then."
And she will survive this somehow, perhaps find a chance to escape. It's a long way into the mountains. She can -
"You misunderstand," Tan-ansogh says, almost gently. "I came for a queen, yes. But the queen is not for him."
Noeren's thoughts stall, thrown off again.
"I took this place," the general says. "Why shouldn't I keep it? If slime like Reilith may be king, why not I?"
"You ..." It's outrageous. It's unheard of. It makes no sense, even less so than the thought of a Dars Daltra prince making such a reach. "What of your Taran, then?" For all the talk of Reilith betraying her, is this woman simply turning her back on her next master in turn?
Tan-ansogh shakes her head. "You think a Taran of any Dars Daltra tribe would listen to the Royal Mother's voice, submit himself to her authority?"
Well, no. But -
Careful of the swords, she shakes her head. "Then what do you mean?"
"You cannot see it," the general continues, "because for you, it is all Dars Daltra. But the Daltra Kals are not the Daltra Echlis, or the Daltra Prilt, or any of the other tribes. It is the Daltra Kals you see here. It is the Taran Bes-tansot of the Daltra Kals who sent me."
This must be the tribe the traitor took service with. "I don't understand," Noeren says, because it clarifies nothing at all.
Tan-ansogh shakes her head in irritation. She makes an impatient gesture, and the two warriors with the swords finally step away from Noeren. Noeren's confusion grows.
Without the blades forcing her to hold her position, she wants nothing more than to sit down, allow her straining muscles to relax. Instead, she rises, slowly, to her feet. The general allows it.
"I serve my Taran," Tan-ansogh says sharply, glaring at her. She is half a head taller than Noeren. "The Taran of the Daltra Kals, who live closest to this kingdom. He wishes for peace."
"What?" Sheer shock drives the word from Noeren's mouth, without her conscious will. "You made war on us."
"There is no peace to be had, with one such as Reilith," Tan-ansogh snarls. "The Taran wishes this kingdom to be in the hands of one he may trust."
And that is - this woman? Does this Dars Daltra prince truly value a once-traitor so much?
Her face must be giving away her thoughts, because Tan-ansogh continues, "You think, why me? Why not another, who was not born Vourn? Ask yourself - what man of the Dars Daltra would bend the knee to your Royal Mother?"
Noeren blinks. Blinks again. Rearranges her thoughts once more. "They would not," she murmurs, almost to herself, then meets the general's eyes. "Nor would the Cloister believe it, so they could never truly be king. This is clear to you. Then why do you imagine you can?" A nobody - pitiable for having no clan, but also disqualified from the alliances of clans that way. An outsider, who has not gained her power in respectable ways. A woman, whose marriage can't even give children to a Royal wife, cannot send daughters to the Cloister to continue the clan. A kingslayer. "Why would the Royal Mother accept you? The Cloister won't even negotiate with you."
"I know all this." A dark look. "I have no quarrel with the Royal Mother, or with the other kings. I am willing to rule accordingly. I say so, and I mean it. You say the Cloister will not negotiate with me, and this is true. But you are a Royal woman, Noeren Athien, and if you say it, they will listen to you."
What? This is not an answer. A woman of Athien doesn't choose her own spouse. "That is not how it works!"
"It can be," Tan-ansogh says, stubbornly. "I am not a learned person, but I know the stories as well as anyone. When the King of Tenien fell," she quotes, her voice taking on the cadence of the song, "the queen bethought herself ..."
Noeren sucks in a breath, remembering the song - the history. "That's where you got the idea."
Tenien was a small kingdom far from the Cloister. It had been wartime, and the king had fallen, devastating morale. The queen, on her own authority, had married the fallen king's heir and brother, making him king. The Royal Mother, in the aftermath, had approved of her decision. Of course that man was suitable in all the ways Tan-ansogh isn't ... but still, Tan-ansogh is right: it's possible.
Absurd, brazen, bizarre - but possible. And if Noeren agrees - or even only pretends to agree - it will give her power. She can negotiate for herself, for the palace, for all of Vourn.
Can she do it? Can she bind herself to such a person, even in pretence? A clanless person with the mark of a dark fate upon her, with no loyalty or honour - or, at best, none the Kingdoms will recognise? The one who killed Reilith? Noeren had liked Reilith, and that is not a given in such a union. Can Noeren stand before the Royal Mother and ask her to accept such a person into the Royal Clan in his stead?
Tan-ansogh smirks. "Make your choice, Noeren Athien. Be my queen."
Her queen. This woman's. She'd never imagined being any woman's - as a woman of Athien she'd always known what she was meant for, after all.
Noeren swallows. "No more killing, then," she demands. "No looting, either. Let the people be. You wish to rule here? Then prove it, or you will rule over the dead only."
"Yes," says Tan-ansogh. "I have no quarrel with those who will not fight me. It will be as it should. As you will be mine, so will this land."
"Yes," says Noeren Athien, her throat tight and her heart hammering. "I agree."
Noeren sits upon her throne. Not hers now, not truly - it was when Reilith was alive; it will be again when she has married Tan-ansogh, but now, it is not - yet the symbol is what matters here: she, in her feast-day robes, upon the throne with the symbol of Athien, and Tan-ansogh, still in her warrior's armour, standing before the king's at its side. Both with bright blue wedding sashes tied around their waists.
Noeren's is the one she wore when she married Reilith, brought out of storage. Tan-ansogh's is Reilith's own, embroidery fit for a king. Noeren wonders if Tan-ansogh cares.
Dars Daltra warriors escort men and women into the hall - those high-born Vourn and other court officials still alive. Noeren ignores their shocked faces at seeing them like this. She knows what it must look like. She cannot explain now; explanations must come after. For now, she must make this decision unassailable. Nothing else can be achieved without. Tan-ansogh must believe it, and so it must be real.
There is much tension in the room, not only from the Vourn. The Kingdoms' wedding protocols are foreign to the Dars Daltra, of course, and though they follow their general, they are ill at ease.
It is Vourn servants who sprinkle water on the bridal couple.
Noeren rises from her throne. She and Tan-ansogh turn to face each other, standing less than an arm's length apart.
"Tan-ansogh of the Daltra Kals," Noeren recites, "will you forsake your origins to join my clan, and give honour to its elders?"
It would have been forsake your mother's clan, in any other wedding. But Tan-ansogh has no mother and no clan, and the phrasing forsake your loyalties had been harshly rejected. Perhaps Tan-ansogh's loyalty to her Taran is true, after all. Noeren wonders, uneasily, what it will mean for one who means to rule in Vourn.
But those are worries for another day.
Tan-ansogh reaches for Noeren's hands, and gives the ritual reply. "I honour them through you." She lifts Noeren's hands, presses her chapped lips against them. "I will honour them for all my days."
They bow toward each other, until their foreheads touch; then Tan-ansogh continues with her part. "Noeren Athien, will you share your clan with me, and stand by my side in this life?"
"I will share clan and lineage, and stand by your side for all my life." Noeren suppresses a shiver; she has said those same words to Reilith, after all. Reilith, who is dead, and whom she is replacing with his killer.
Once again, they bow, the widow and the one who widowed her, foreheads meeting for an instant. Then they stand facing each other again.
"Noeren Athien, you are my wife," Tan-ansogh proclaims. There is a spark in her eyes that Noeren wishes she could read.
Noeren lifts Tan-ansogh's calloused hands to her lips. "I am your wife," she proclaims in return. "You are Tan-ansogh Athien."
A shiver goes through the watchers, Vourn and Dars Daltra alike, if not exactly for the same reason. But the bridal pair sit down together on their thrones, side by side, and it is done.
The bedroom, like the throne hall, is the one Noeren shared with Reilith. She remembers her first night here - the procession after the ceremony, leading them here; the two of them alone for the first time; Reilith's reverent look during the hesitant consummation of their vows. It's all much less elaborate today, and she is much less certain of herself. She knew what to expect, then - had prepared herself for it for months, as then-Regent Reilith negotiated with the Royal Mother. She's had no time to prepare herself for this at all.
This morning, she was Reilith's queen; this afternoon, she was his widow, besieged in her palace. The sun had not yet begun to touch the horizon when she found herself on her knees before his killer, expecting nothing but death. Now the stars are in the sky, and she is that kingslayer's wife, that kingslayer's queen, standing with her before their wedding bed.
Why is she doing this? - War and slaughter, and too much death, and the threat of more, against the hope of life, given by a killer who seems curiously, artlessly honest in her intent to stop fighting. That is why.
And so Noeren steps forward and reaches for Tan-ansogh's wedding sash, as she once reached for Reilith's, though her fingers tremble.
Tan-ansogh catches her hand. "Wait," she says. Her calloused thumb rubs briefly over Noeren's wrist, sending a shiver through her; then she lets go. "It matters what people see. This, they won't. I don't expect it. I won't demand it of you."
Noeren swallows. She could say all right,, and perhaps thank you, and step back, and they could spend the night merely sleeping, with no one the wiser.
She does not say all right. She stands frozen, too close to Tan-ansogh, as her thoughts race.
Without consummation, it will not be a true marriage. She need not stand before the Royal Mother and claim this marriage valid; she can say she was forced, and it will not stand. Tan-ansogh will not be able to hold Vourn, then - not for long. She will be driven out, or will leave on her own, destroying what she can as she goes.
Sleeping in the same bed, Noeren might even manage to kill Tan-ansogh. She won't escape then, and Tan-ansogh's Dars Daltra warriors will lay waste to the place, but neither will Reilith's slayer live. Neither will Tan-ansogh, who isn't meant to, keep hold of this kingdom. The Royal Mother will be proud of Noeren for that.
No. She would, but she will not, because Noeren will not. She isn't certain why - because she wants to live; because she wants people to live; because Tan-ansogh seems true in her intentions; because being queen, Noeren can make a difference - but she won't.
"Noeren?" It's the first time Tan-ansogh speaks her name without the clan-name attached to it.
"You called me your wife," Noeren says. It comes out hoarse. She must sound afraid, because Tan-ansogh takes a step away, keeping her hands at her side, not toughing Noeren.
"You are," Tan-ansogh says. "If you say you are my wife - if you claim it before the palace, before the kingdom, before the Cloister - then you are."
Noeren takes a step forward. "I will not claim it," she says, her entire body strung taut like a bowstring, "if it's not true. I will not lie to the Royal Mother for you."
Tan-ansogh's eyes widen; she snorts. "What strange lines you people draw. You'd rather force yourself instead?" Then her gaze turns sharp. "Unless you want this. Fear and want can go together, sometimes."
Noeren blinks. "Want to," she repeats, stupidly. She hasn't thought about wanting. Choosing, yes, and she has chosen - but wanting, that's a different thing. Does she want? "Do you?"
"Would I take you to bed, wife? If you wished it?" Tan-ansogh's eyes sweep over her body. "I would." With a last lingering, heated look, she turns away towards the sideboard, and begins to pour wine.
Noeren sinks down to sit at the end of the bed, tries to control the clenching in her stomach and the shivers on her skin. Why should she want this? How could she want this woman, given everything that she is?
Tan-ansogh turns, holds out a goblet of wine towards her. "Have you wanted a woman before?" she asks, just as Noeren reaches for the goblet. Noeren nearly lets it slip, and spills a little on her fingers.
"No." Noeren takes a swallow of wine to cover for her thoughts. Growing up among women - her own clan, of course, but also attendants and servants and high-born guests - she's never spent any time wanting anyone. She did want Reilith, once she knew him, and so she'd thought - "I've never known a woman like you," she blurts out.
Tan-ansogh lets out a surprised laugh. "Is that so?" She sits next to Noeren on the bed, takes the goblet from her and drinks, then sets it on the floor. Her hand is around Noeren's. She lifts it to her mouth, licks the wine-stained fingers.
Something spikes through Noeren, from the heat of Tan-ansogh's mouth to the sudden heat between her legs. She stares at Tan-ansogh's mouth. Tan-ansogh smirks around her finger.
Noeren reaches out, hand hovering just over Tan-ansogh's cheek, where her birthmark lies. It's frightening, and compelling. A true omen, for violence - but whatever bad luck it might have conferred, something else has clearly cancelled it out. Tan-ansogh, whatever else she is, is not an unlucky woman. She has overcome what she was meant to be.
"May I?" Noeren whispers.
Tan-ansogh's eyes have gone wide; her nod is hesitant as she lets Noeren's fingers slip from her mouth. Noeren runs her fingertips over the mark on her cheek. It feels like skin - a little raised and slightly puffy, but not strange.
She watches as Tan-ansogh swallows, her throat working, and feels very daring. This mark of misfortune - to make a caress of it, who would do such a thing?
She is doing it now.
Tan-ansogh groans and reaches out, and Noeren combs her fingers into Tan-ansogh's short-cut hair, and their mouths crash together in sudden urgency. This time, when Noeren blindly fumbles at Tan-ansogh's sash, she doesn't stop her. This time, she pulls at Noeren's sash in turn.
They part, breathing heavily, to rid themselves of the sashes, of Noeren's outer robes and Tan-ansogh's armour and the layers beneath. Tan-ansogh's eyes are bright with delight as she pulls pins from Noeren's hair. It's a shockingly intimate gesture from a woman who was her enemy mere hours ago, and yet entirely appropriate - expected - now. Noeren's head spins a little with the speed of it all, and she can't guess what her own expression is showing, but it must be good, from Tan-ansogh's reaction.
Tan-ansogh's bare arms look very strong, and so does her chest with its small, firm breasts over solid muscle. Noeren had liked Reilith's muscles, and she finds she likes Tan-ansogh's too, especially when she uses her strength to pull Noeren onto the bed, to lay her out there and brace herself above her, when she leans down to kiss her mouth again as their breasts touch. Noeren wraps her arms around Tan-ansogh's shoulders. "I do want," she whispers, as if it were still a secret, and Tan-ansogh laughs against her throat.
"Then," she says, her voice very low, a tone that seems to reach into Noeren's gut and shiver all the way down to her toes, "I shall satisfy my wife's desire."
Noeren gasps, just from the words, even before Tan-ansogh's fingers brush between her legs and into the wetness there, before her mouth closes over Noeren's breast.
Should I want this? she thinks, almost panicking for a moment from too much sensation, too much awareness, too much desire. How can I want her?
But all her life, she's only been taught what to do - how to choose, to decide, to act, not how to feel. And she has made the best choice she could, has acted as wisely as she was able. Though she may yet be proven wrong, she can find no fault with herself there. If she also wants - if she likes this, the thing she had already decided she must do - then what does it matter?
She can have this. Why shouldn't she?
Tan-ansogh's fingers are caressing her folds, rubbing against her clit, stroking down - "yes," Noeren gasps, "please, inside" - and her lower body surges up even as Tan-ansogh's fingers thrust, and oh - oh -
She cries out as her first orgasm washes over her, stronger than she's ever managed on fingers alone, and she thinks, dimly, that someone will definitely have heard this, that now, in truth, she really is Tan-ansogh's wife.
"Sorry," Noeren murmurs, blurrily, when she's clawed together enough focus to speak again. Her body is buzzing, but lazily - she could fall asleep like this, still aroused, or she could come again, if Tan-ansogh made her.
"Sorry?" Tan-ansogh asks.
"I haven't -" Noeren feels her face heating up. "You haven't - that is, I should reciprocate."
She tries to lift herself up, brace herself on an elbow, but Tan-ansogh pushes her shoulder down again. "Sleep," she says. "It was a long day."
"I can -"
"I fought all day," Tan-ansogh interrupts her, and Noeren draws in a sharp breath at the reminder just who she is in bed with, just who this woman has been fighting. Suddenly she feels wide awake "Sleep," Tan-ansogh murmurs, and lies down heavily half on top of her, head pillowed on Noeren's shoulder.
It feels good. Despite everything, it feels good, the weight of Tan-ansogh's body and her warmth, the huffs of her breath, the low burn inside Noeren that still hasn't subsided. She lies pinned beneath the Dars Daltra general who slew her husband, and she likes it, and yes, she thinks she chose the right path.
Did she? It will certainly be a very different marriage from the one she's had before.
Noeren lies awake for a long time, wondering. Only time will tell.