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“Which one’s the girl?” said Maru.
Vizhenka had been chosen as the Hezhethoreise Captain in part because he did not ask inane questions like what girl, and was capable of making the relatively short mental leaps required to anticipate what the Great Avar meant. He craned his neck for a moment, then said, “There she is, in the grey-green. Near the eastern entrance.”
She was really too far away for Maru to pick out with his dubious eyesight, but he could see one insipid elven girl in grey amongst insipid elven girls in other shades. “Bring her over, we want to talk to her.”
Vizhenka obviously questioned the wisdom of the request, but was himself wise enough not to challenge it. Maru cast an eye around his immediate surroundings while he waited, where Nadeian and Nadaro Gormened were gossiping in the corner and Edrehasivar was, as appeared to be typical, remote and uncomfortable on the dais. Either too scared to dance, or didn’t know how. Maru suspected the second. Had they taught him anything in that western backwater?
As he watched, a page came trembling up to the Ethuverazhid Zhas; he smiled and listened to what the boy had to say carefully, nodded, told him something. Maru turned away. He had almost been relieved to first look upon Edrehasivar and find that despite the grey face and the black hair, he was elven in his cheeks and his chin and his brow and his eyes; presumably resembling his damned father. It had been a slight relief to not find Chenelo's face pinned under the Ethuverazheise crown jewels. But now he was beginning to think it mattered little. Edrehasivar’s smile and his posture and his walk and his hands in his lap— Chenelo, all told.
Unbidden, Maru remembered phrases of her hopeless letters; . . . but ‘tis all one, for soon I will have Maia to talk with, he has two words already — his first was ‘Mama’ and his second ‘stars’ . . . Maia is trying to walk, he takes very conscientiously to’t and I try to show him . . . I am thinking to teach Maia his letters, so I have written out the elven alphabet for him to copy . . . Maia's table manners are marked good for one so small and I hope someday he will comport himself well at one court or the other . . .
Chenelo had shown, and Maia had copied; how to hold a knife, how to hold a pen, how to sit, how to walk, even how to talk, if the Barizheise consonants that surfaced at odd moments were any suggestion. Csaivo be thanked that Thever had not come. She would have gone utterly down the drain upon seeing this boy.
One of the pompous little attendants which the Untheileneise Court seemed to generate independent of good sense or usual biology had come wavering up to him yesterday, blabbering the impertinence, did the Great Avar wish to visit his daughter’s grave; Maru had stared at him for so long that he had gone pink and fled with murmured apologies. Nadeian had gone, though, gone with Nadaro Pel-Tetramel— Nadaro Gormened, he reminded himself— and had returned in bewildered disappointment at the generic relief on the marble slab. Maru owned himself a little relieved he had not gone with them. Chenelo should have been burned and returned to her patroness Ashevezhkho, not imprisoned in a marble casket in line with the other dead elf-empresses, but he had been in no position to demand that. He imagined going, too; he imagined it inevitably getting back to Edrehasivar, and found the idea bleakly amusing. It would go down like a brick in a stocking, most probably. Everybody who seemed to think of the Zhas as mild as a midsummer afternoon had obviously never been on the other end of that look of frigid, flat disdain that had manifested when Maru had said, she was not ours... The moniker The Winter Emperor was fitting for more than the timing of his ascension and his birth.
It was then that Vizhenka returned with the girl they’d picked to be Edrehasivar’s empress, who came clipping briskly at his heels, and waited at a respectful distance away to be summoned closer. Vizhenka muttered to him as he passed his chair, “Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin, Maru’var. Daughter of the Marquess Ceredel and great-niece of Arbelan Drazharan.”
“We know that,” said Maru, even though he damn well had not. Arbelan Zhasan’s great-niece? Political marriage if ever he saw one. This Ceredel must have been very rich or very martial indeed, if the Alcethmeret were so desperate for he and his kin to be on-side once more. He raised his voice; “Come here, girl, we want to talk to you.”
She came and made a crisp, sharp curtsey. “Maru’var.” The elf-lords had tried a myriad of courtesy titles on him, none of which were appropriate, but apparently one of their sharp-eared daughters had overheard how his countrymen actually addressed him. At least she wasn’t an idiot.
Disappointingly though, Csethiro Ceredin was not beautiful. Maru tried to decide if they had been deliberately disrespecting the boy by offering him up a homely girl to take to wife, then decided it was unlikely. Lots of rich elven women looked as she did; for all of Varenechibel’s squawking about inbreeding amongst the goblins, he should have looked a little closer at his own courtiers. Well, no matter. She was fashionable and dignified, which went far enough in Barizhan and probably further here, and if her father was a Marquess, only Dukes and Princes ranked above that, so she was rich and presumably landed. An acceptable political bride by all accounts.
She was not going to say anything first, he realised; she just waited to be addressed, watching him impassively. All the elven women did this, Maru had come to realise, the women and the servants; they stood and stared and waited to be told. It was entirely unnerving, and especially in the case of Csethiro Ceredin, who had terribly disconcerting eyes, the sort of aggressive blue one never saw in the south. They had a sharpness to them, a sort of drilling quality. Maru did not think it was just the colour.
“So,” he said, “You are to be our grandson’s wife.”
“An it pleases His Serenity and our father,” said Csethiro Ceredin. Her voice was deeper than he had expected, and she seemed to have to work to keep it from carrying.
“And how does it please Csethiro Ceredin, pray?” said Maru.
“As well as it pleases any lady chosen to be Zhasan, we have no doubt,” said Csethiro coolly.
Saying that to Chenelo Sevraseched’s father was either stupid or deliberately brassy, and Maru had already ruled out the likelihood of her being stupid. He eyed her; she curtsied again, dispassionately, and said, “Maru’var. We esteem His Serenity your grandson well, and can assure you of our loyalty to his person. We consider it no dishonour to be taken to wife by him.”
Odd phrasing, that; sort of archaic. Maru peered at her for a moment longer, then gave up for the time being. “We hear you sent him a letter after the coup attempt.”
“Many courtiers did so,” she agreed neutrally. “Ourself included.”
“Now, we are not familiar with Untheileneise Court customs, so you will have to enlighten us— did many people also suggest the Princess Sheveän should be killed?”
“Duelled.”
“What?”
“We suggested it would have been suitable for Princess Sheveän to have fought a duel on the matter,” Csethiro Ceredin said. “Not merely to have been killed. Although we imagine the outcome would have been the same regardless.”
Maru said, aware the corners of his mouth were curling; “...duel, we beg your pardon. And did the rest of the letters suggest such a thing? Was this a common sentiment to send to the emperor?”
Csethiro said flatly, “We could not say, for we were not party to the other correspondence. An they did not, it certainly belies a lack of enthusiasm which we mislike.”
Maru could not decide whether or laugh or not, so forebore, albeit with some effort. This girl would have done very well in the Corat’theziar, amongst the jostling avarsin. “Hm! Quite right. Well— tell us about yourself, Dach’osmin Ceredin, we would know. Why did your father thrust you into the fray for Zhasan?”
“Any father with eligible daughters would have been a fool not to do so." Maru raised his eyebrows slightly. “...and our father the Marquess has a great many daughters.”
“Lots of sons, too?” said Maru, knowing the answer.
“Our father has no sons.”
Maru grunted. “Surfeit of daughters, no heirs… it’s been known to happen.”
Csethiro, wisely, did not acknowledge that comment. “So it is needful he makes advantageous marriages for us while he waits for our stepmother to be brought to bed. There are hopes she will bear a son in the spring.”
“We see.” Much good those hopes tended to be. Maru could only assume that things were rather tense within House Cered at the moment. He mused for a moment on how likely it was the Marchioness actually would have a boy. He supposed eventually one had to, but certainly he had never been able to rely upon those odds.
Maru thought on it, for a moment. “Your mother’s dead, eh?”
Csethiro gave him a brief, hard look. “We have four sisters. She died in the childbed.”
“Pity.” Maru wondered if the elves were just more neglectful of their wives. It was far less common for women to die in childbirth in Barizhan, but here it seemed to kill them like a bronchine. Kalmiro had only been brought to bed twice with Thever and Chenelo, but she had never been badly ill either during or after, only during the sessiva which had killed her. “Five daughters for your father, then, eh?”
Csethiro either ignored the parallel he was trying to make, or was ignorant of his bastard daughters altogether, which seemed unlikely considering the most garrulous of them all was standing about five feet away. “The others are too young to be out, but our sister Emiro is being courted by Dach’osmer Doreshar—”
“Oh, you’re one of the older ones,” said Maru, amused. “We should’ve known. Older sisters have a manner." Or certainly Shaleän and Thever did, and Ursu’s eldest seemed to be copying them.
He made her point out her kinsmen to him. The Marquess Ceredel was a typical elf-lord, unimpressive and cringing— Maru mentally changed his presumption to just rich, not martial. But his aunt, Arbelan Drazharan, perhaps fifteen years Maru’s junior and comporting herself with immense style, was far less disappointing. He had seen portraits of her when she had been Zhasan, and she had aged passing well. If Varenechibel hadn’t been a craven, Maru thought, he’d have stuck by her and legitimised a bastard. Csethiro’s sister, who was unfortunately prettier than her, although not as tall, was in the midst of an argument with lots of other young courtlings, rapping some lad on the knuckles with her fan. Maru amused himself watching the fight until Csethiro said, a touch grimly, "And our stepmother, the Marchioness..."
Csethiro gestured in the direction of her stepmother, but Maru wasn't truly paying attention; he had caught sight of the inside of her palm and the pads of her fingers, and was too busy congratulating himself on his good instincts. He had not ruled on the Pelanra for fifty years from an inability to recognise a swordsman when he saw one. Famously he had once pulled a hired bravo from the dancefloor and cracked his head open on a pillar simply because he'd recognised his resting stance as a result of being trained by the mutinous northern swordsmasters. “Who’s your fencing-master, Dach’osmin Ceredin?”
He succeeded in startling her out of her apathetic court face; her ears almost completely flattened before she regained them, and she snatched her hand back immediately, fingers curling. “We beg your pardon?”
“Well, we think you misquoted yourself earlier. You didn’t say Sheveän should have fought a duel, did you? You offered to duel her, yourself, we'd wager. Do you duel, eh?”
She hesitated a long moment before she answered, then set her jaw and said, “Somewhat.”
“Somewhat, is it? Does somewhat fencing give a woman hand calluses visible to an old man from several paces?” Her right hand vanished hastily under her left, which only succeeded in making her iron oath-ring stand out obviously on her pallid thumb. Maru stared it for a moment, disapproving of the elvish custom that put such a gap between the legal and ceremonial proceedings. Any number of things could scupper a marriage in that time. “Osrei’s’lud, don’t hide it from us, woman. What of’t? Most noblewomen in Barizhan learn to hunt and shoot and swing a sword.”
“And their lord fathers and husbands offer them lots of opportunities to use those skills, we suppose?” said Csethiro Ceredin tartly, clearly thrown. “Are your daughters—” Ah, so she did know— “Added to the lists at Summernight tourneys?”
“Tis true that our daughters and wives and sisters do not have cause to use them often, but at least they could, in a pinch. Whereas we highly doubt any elven general would compromise his imagined superiority so badly as to put a sword in his soft-handed daughter’s grip, even if their enemies were pounding at the door to the keep. Are we correct?”
Csethiro’s jaw clenched slightly. “You are. It is not thought... fitting. And it is—” she paused slightly. “Named barbaric by many gentlemen.”
Maru grinned at her. “A sport only fit for the goblins, you mean? Well then, you cannot expect the lord of the barbarians in question to reprimand you, eh? But enlighten us; how is it that you have gotten your noble elf-maid hands on a fencing foil regardless?”
Csethiro muttered, slightly petulantly, “It is an epée, not a foil.”
Maru raised an eyebrow. “They are not light.”
“They do not need to be light,” Csethiro said scornfully. Maru made a conscious effort not to smile, which he knew made him look very dour, but she did not seem to care. She added, presently; “...our father’s captain of the guard caved eventually to our requests. It was either that or put up with us watching the drills forever.”
“And he is a good swordsman?”
“He was a student of Ceretarezh, one of the last great Ethuverazhin duellists, before it was banned under Varenechibel the Second. He has tutored us since we were— oh, seven or so? Eight?”
“Not a bad age to begin,” Maru mused. “And your father, of course, has given his happy assent…?”
Csethiro blinked once, slowly, like a cat. “Our father is very busy, and is not overburdened with the matter of our education.”
Finally, Maru put his head back and laughed at some length. “You would get on with our daughter Shaleän. She’s old enough to be your mother, to be sure, but your head is just as hard and your enthusiasm for the martial just as strong.”
“The pirate,” said Csethiro, and there was something a little eager in her stare. It was not a question, either.
“In good company, you will find, she’s a privateer,” Maru said. “...but, ay, the pirate.”
Anyone would have thought he had just given her a mighty compliment; it was certainly the closest she had come to smiling so far, and her ears were high and eager. Then again, he wasn’t quite sure he hadn’t.
Then the expression stuttered and died, slightly. She said, “Which is all very well, but we may of course be obliged to surrender the practice when we are Zhasan.”
Maru snorted. “By whom? The boy? Be serious, woman. He was down our throat about his Mama within half an hour of our arrival—” She did not entirely conceal the withering look he earned for that comment— “You’ll never get a tyrant husband out of him.”
Csethiro Ceredin made no reply to that, although she looked keenly at him for a moment, and then very briefly at the dais. Maru did not know if it was because she agreed with him, or because she didn’t dare argue. She'd dared plenty else, mind.
He hauled himself to his feet. “Csethiro Ceredin, fetch us your kinswoman Arbelan Drazharan, we want to make her acquaintance— we saw that look, woman, and refute it. We were political contemporaries before your parents were even engaged. We will have much to discuss.”
She only just stopped herself from rolling her eyes, but she said, “Maru’var,” and curtsied again, albeit with less frigidity than she had when she arrived.
“Twill be grandfather, soon, and then you shall really be in for it, shan’t you?”
He very nearly got a smile out of her with that one, he thought. He had not become Great Avar by being unable to see a victory, even a scant one, when it was achieved.
Once she was out of earshot, he said, “Selthevis.”
His secretary was there in a second. “Maru’var?”
“When we get home, we want you to find that Dakh'avazar blade in the vaults, the antique. The one old Pel-Trezamed killed all those cavaliers with. We know somebody who may like it as a wedding present.”