Page 1 of The Second Marriage

PARTI

CHAPTER1

Sejun’s hands were clenched around the reins again; he forced them to loosen. The road took a sharp curve around the hillside and there was the town of Tadasho, clinging to the steep, foresting slopes of the ravine. Through the center ran a swift mountain creek. The procession crossed a bridge and continued along the main road through the town. The townspeople watched them pass without interest aside from a few children who ran alongside the horses, waving and shouting. When Sejun waved back, they shrieked and ran off.

“Endearing yourself to the populace, I see,” Batsal said.

Sejun shot a dark look at his brother. “I’m being friendly. What’s wrong with that?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.” Batsal grinned at him. “You’re so touchy.”

Sejun didn’t deign to respond. Anyone in his position would be on edge.

Batsal’s expression softened in response to Sejun’s silence. “It will be strange at first because you don’t know him. But you’ll grow to know each other before long. A marriage has to be a friendship first.”

“What do you know about this,” Sejun said, and pulled his horse ahead before Batsal could respond.

Batsal’s marriage hadn’t been arranged for him; he had wed a woman from the next farmstead downriver, whom he had loved since adolescence. Whatever he knew of marriage would be of no help to Sejun, and Sejun doubted he knew much of anything in the first place. He wished that any of his three sisters were here instead, but they were all at home running the steading and couldn’t be spared for a matter so minor as a second son’s marriage.

On the far side of the ravine, the road turned again and sloped downward. A wooden gate straddled the road, painted red and blue with holy symbols. Above, perched on a high ridge overlooking the valley, the white walls of the fortress of Tadasho rose from the slope.

The road ended there, at the base of the fortress. Sejun dismounted to lead his horse up the narrow path cut into the hillside. The rest of his party followed behind him: his parents, Batsal, his aunt who had brokered the marriage, and a handful of retainers.

The summer day was mild and pleasant, and the sun warmed Sejun’s face as he climbed. He tried to take joy in it, although his stomach was queasy with anticipation. Whatever awaited him at the top of the hill would be his future.

The path brought him past a number of outbuildings to a second gate, this one made of stone and whitewashed. Sejun pressed his fingers to his lips and then to the gatepost as he passed through, offering a prayer to the One God. He hoped very much that his future would hold great happiness.

On the other side of the gate, an expansive stone courtyard stretched before the fortress. The walls of the fortress were dingy and stained, the whitewash flaking away in places. An awning above one high window listed to the side, and some bricks of the foundation were crumbling. Weeds grew between the courtyard’s flagstones. He had visited the fortress once before, many years ago in childhood, but he didn’t remember this degree of decay and ruin. It didn’t seem fitting for the royal family to live in such conditions.

A man emerged from the fortress’s single entrance and walked down the steps. He wore the simple brown striped robe of a retainer. “Be welcome,” he said, bowing. “You may leave your horses here to be tended to. If you please, I’ll escort you to the queen.”

Sejun’s mother stepped forward with her hands clasped before her. “We await your guidance.”

Sejun held back now and followed behind his family as they passed through the fortress’s deep gate. The murals in the long corridor they entered were faded past recognition. At the other end of the passageway lay the fortress’s central courtyard, open to the sky and shaded by a fig tree growing from a brick planter. The retainer led them toward the inner citadel at the far side of the courtyard, a tall, square building that had, in Tadasho’s more warlike past, served as a defensive fallback if the outer walls were breached. Now it served as the throne room.

The interior was dim and smoky. As Sejun’s eyes adjusted, the dais came into focus, and the painted bench where the queen sat with her consort beside her. She was younger than Sejun had expected, and more beautiful. But his attention was immediately diverted by the man standing at her side, wearing a gold robe embroidered with roses. Small silver hoops adorned his ears, the mark of an omega. He stood with his hands behind his back and his chin raised. His eyes lighted on every member of the party and then landed, finally, on Sejun, where they rested for a moment before darting away.

Sejun’s own eyes could look nowhere else. Surely this was Prince Taral.

He bowed to the queen when everyone else did and stood listening with one ear as his aunt launched into the requisite formal greetings. The man in the gold robe didn’t look in Sejun’s direction again, which gave him free rein to study the man. His broad, angular face and defined cheekbones were emphasized by the short bristle of his black hair, cropped close to his skull. His skin was darker than the queen’s, a pleasing warm brown. Sejun found him acceptably although not remarkably handsome.

He wished he could catch a hint of the man’s scent. His nose was filled only with smoke.

“Sejun,” his aunt said, with a sharp note to her voice that suggested she had already spoken to him at least once and he had failed to respond. “Present yourself, please.”

Sejun took a single step forward and bowed to the queen. The words Aunt Hasri had practiced with him fell awkwardly from his mouth. “My queen, I give my loyalty to you and the kingdom. The One God honors me by bringing me to your notice. I offer myself to you as a spouse for your brother the prince, and pray I will prove worthy.”

The queen’s dark eyes revealed nothing of what she thought of him. The gold discs hanging from her ears bobbed as she said, “I welcome you, Sejun of Merek.”

That was the end of the audience. The same brown-robed retainer led Sejun’s party from the throne room, saying various things about their belongings and where they would sleep. Sejun closed his eyes briefly as he passed over the threshold into the sunlight. He had met his husband.

* * *

“Tellme again what he’s like,” Sejun begged.

Hasri took another robe from her traveling trunk and shook it out. “I’ve told you so many times, Sejun. You’ll be married to him soon enough and then you’ll get to learn for yourself.”

Sejun leaned against the doorframe. “I’ve forgotten everything. Please, Hasri, you know my head’s empty as a bucket with a hole in it.”