Page 34 of The Second Marriage
He winced at his own thoughts. Iniya had made a fool of him mere hours ago, and here he was rehashing his same familiar patterns of criticism. Iniya was a spendthrift but wasn’t otherwise incompetent or stupid, and the kingdom would hardly fall into ruin if he left for a month or two.
Presumably.
They didn’t talk about Chedi any further. Sejun did a fingerplay with the baby, who laughed and drooled. The sky darkened as evening fell. Food was served in the receiving hall, and merchants drifted in and out as they chose. A few servants came around to light the lanterns, and the drinking transitioned from casual to committed. Taral limited himself to rice wine, and he saw that Sejun watched him and did the same. They were being cautious with each other, trying to please each other, although Taral hated that Sejun thought he needed to bemorepleasing when he had done nothing but please Taral since the day they met.
“Will you dance with me?” Taral asked him when the music started, and Sejun’s smile warmed him more than the wine.
They went upstairs before the dancing ended. The sounds of drunken laughter floated through the window until Sejun slid the shutters closed. The room was warm, and Taral undressed and lay on top of the blankets, watching Sejun wash his face and clean his ears. Sejun cast an appreciative eye over the length of Taral’s body as he untied his robe at last, and Taral stretched beneath Sejun’s gaze, inviting him to look.
“I’ll have a lot to do with you in just a few minutes,” Sejun said, smirking at him. He slid his outer robe from his shoulders and folded it in his careless way, paying no attention to the seams or creases but only bundling the fabric loosely together before he stuffed it in a chest. “And all the way to Chedi, and in the palace of the Chedai king once we’re in Banuri.”
Taral snorted. “You’re still thinking about this? Everyone seems to have decided without me. You and Abiral go, then, and leave me here to fret about the crops in peace.”
“I’ve read many books from Chedi,” Sejun said, blithely ignoring Taral’s grumbling. “It would be nice to see it for myself. I think I need to become a more adventurous person and go out into the world instead of only reading about it.”
“I don’t see that there’s any need to change yourself.” Taral watched with slow, swelling interest as Sejun removed his inner robe to reveal his soft belly and his cushioned hips. He was tired of talking about Chedi and wished Sejun would hurry up and come to bed.
“It would be exciting to go, don’t you think?” Sejun said, either oblivious or indifferent to Taral’s disinterest in the subject. “To see the great city of Banuri. There are no cities like that in the mountains.”
“Sejun! All right, I’ll think about it,” Taral said, mainly to get Sejun to stop harassing him about it, and Sejun laughed at him and finally joined him in bed.
CHAPTER15
Taral had to think quickly; there was no time to linger in Tadasho if he hoped to be in Banuri before his next heat. He had often been annoyed by the demands of his body, but never more so than now, when he had to make a somewhat major decision on a short timeline and prod everyone else into action, too.
A messenger arrived from Ripuk while he dithered, the same day the Sarnai departed. The man brought a letter addressed to Iniya, which she read and then handed to Taral. The language was less formal than in the note Gerel had brought. This was a personal plea from one ruler to another, Queen Feba urging Iniya to send a delegation and emphasizing the need to position the mountain people as a political entity worthy of notice and consideration.
Taral sat gazing out the window of Iniya’s solar after he read the letter, as Iniya told the girls the fable of the mountain cat and the parakeet. He didn’t know that Feba was wrong. The Mountain Kingdoms didn’t traditionally pay much attention to the goings-on in the coastal nations along the southern shore of the Middle Sea; they were instead aligned with the Sarnai, dependent as children clinging to a parent’s robes. But a vast world lay beyond the mountains, and it wasn’t wise to turn one’s back to the door and pretend not to hear anyone knocking.
“You’re going, I take it,” Abiral said, coming to sit with a cup of tea.
Taral turned to look at him. “What makes you say that?”
“You wouldn’t be thinking about it this hard otherwise. You’re not an indecisive man.” Abiral smiled at him. “And Feba is persuasive.”
“She lays out a compelling narrative,” Taral agreed. He folded the letter and tucked it inside his robe. “We’ll see.”
But in truth he had, as Abiral had discerned, already made his decision. He couldn’t deny that he was curious about Chedi, although he wasn’t willing to be so openly enthused as Sejun was. It was a political decision; he was working to secure Tadasho’s future. His curiosity played no meaningful role, and neither did his desire to meet his friend Simra, who collected and sold fossils in Banuri and with whom he had corresponded for years. That was scientific interest only.
He went to his office to write a reply to Feba, committing Tadasho to the venture and giving an estimate of the date of their arrival in Ripuk. The messenger would leave the next day after resting himself and his horse, and with luck and Ujesh’s capable organizing, the delegation from Tadasho would depart the day after. Then two weeks to Chedi or more, depending on how quickly they could travel. Well, if he went into heat on the road, Sejun could fuck him in a caravanserie just as well as in a bed.
Sejun found him there as he finished the final words of the letter. With no hesitation, Sejun sailed through the door and settled himself on the rug at Taral’s side. “Abiral said we’re going to Chedi.”
“Did he,” Taral said, still writing. He glanced over at Sejun and was both amused and annoyed by Sejun’s expression of self-satisfaction. “You think you swayed me, I see.”
“Oh, I’m certain I did.” Sejun leaned back on his hands and grinned. “It’s good that you’re doing your duty to keep your husband happy. When do we leave?”
Taral began drawing the elaborate knotwork sigil that served as Iniya’s mark as authority. She should really do it herself, but no one would notice the forgery. “Tomorrow, ideally. Go pack your things.”
“I love when you boss me around,” Sejun said in such a low tone that Taral glanced at him again in startlement. Sejun’s gaze was dark and focused, and dropped from Taral’s eyes to his mouth as if they hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed each other the night before and again this morning, too.
“You’re insatiable,” Taral said, and Sejun only laughed.
Preparing for such a long journey should, by all rights, have taken several days at least. With Ujesh’s masterful help, Taral managed most of it in one afternoon. As Tadasho was a small household, their party was limited to Taral, Sejun, a few monks, a merchant from the town and her family, and a handful of guards to attend to them. Taral sent letters off to the wealthy farmsteads of the valley and expected another ten or twelve parties would join them as they traveled east and north on the road to Barun. Not a poor showing, but not anything impressive, either; but if all the kingdoms sent a delegation of a similar size, the mountain people would make an imposing group indeed.
A barrage of messages passed back and forth between Tadasho and the farmsteads to the east. By the following evening, Taral had commitments from enough steaders to please even Queen Feba, he thought. In the morning, Taral dressed and ate a quick breakfast in the gray light before dawn, with Sejun yawning across the table from him, and they went out of the fortress together, to the outer courtyard where Ujesh had assembled the horses and all the baggage.
Iniya and Abiral had come out with the children to see them off. “Be safe,” Iniya said to Taral, her hands gripping his tight. “I know you’re far more responsible than I am, but I do still worry about you. Bring yourself safely home to me again before the harvest.”