Page 41 of The Second Marriage

Taral’s skin was still wet from the bath when Sejun lay him back on the sheets. They rutted together gracelessly, their mouths hungry as they kissed, and when Taral brought one knee toward his chest, asking without words, Sejun pressed inside him with such a heartfelt groan that Taral had to laugh.

“If you’re amused, I’m not doing my duty,” Sejun said into Taral’s ear, and he set about testing different angles until he found one so good that Taral could do nothing but moan.

Sejun fell asleep in his arms afterward, without ever managing to take his bath. Taral lay awake for a while, rubbing Sejun’s back in broad circles and listening to a low bell toll somewhere in the city. His dim sense of their bond was slack with sleep, as if Sejun had transformed into a white cloud.

Taral turned his head to kiss Sejun’s temple. Oh, he did care for Sejun, more than he had thought he would; but less than he hoped he might. Give it time, Gurratan had told him, and Taral was trying, but it was hard to be patient with himself. He didn’t see why he couldn’t reshape his feelings through sheer force of will, as if by structuring the argument correctly he could persuade himself to fall in love.

His feelings had developed so easily and naturally with Jaysha. Water always followed an existing course, and he thought it should be the same with love. The channel had been cut already, and so couldn’t Sejun fill it? But he wouldn’t quite fit; Jaysha was a deep river, and Sejun was a swift mountain stream. Taral would never feel about him the way he had about Jaysha, but that wasn’t some failing on Sejun’s part, or on Taral’s, either. Jaysha and Sejun were different people. Taral would simply have to be patient and wait for himself to be reshaped by the cheerful flow of Sejun’s spirit.

* * *

The palace was builtaround a bare spur of rock projecting from a hillside, so that it was constructed somewhat like terraced fields on a steep mountain slope, each level stepped downward from the one before. The welcoming feast was held somewhere near the middle, in a large room open on one side to a courtyard. Taral followed Feba inside and tried not to look too provincial as he took in the sheer number of people within, all of them dressed in the bright and elaborately embroidered clothing the Chedai favored. The vaulted ceiling, painted the same yellow as the walls, echoed the sounds of conversation and turned the talk into a great clamor.

The noise died down as the mountain people entered and the Chedai courtiers turned to watch. As foreign as the Chedai seemed to him, Taral had to think that his own people seemed equally foreign to the Chedai. He held his head high and met the gazes of everyone who looked in his direction, and saw mainly curiosity looking back at him, mixed with some suspicion. There was no outright hostility, which boded well for the treaty negotiations.

In a niche at the rear of the room, raised half a foot above the floor, sat the Chedai king and his queen in stately carved chairs. Beside them were a younger Chedai man and woman, presumably the king’s heir and his wife. And beside the dais stood a group of people unlike any Taral had ever seen, with tightly coiled black hair and eyelids that looked folded under. Their robes were of bright printed cotton and silk, and they were all short and brown and smiling.

“Are those the Setsennai?” Sejun whispered at his side, and Taral shot him a quelling look but tried to project his fondness through the bond, and from the way Sejun’s eyes widened, he succeeded. This wasn’t the time to gossip, but Taral was amused by Sejun’s awe even as he shared in it. Who from the Mountain Kingdoms had ever seen a Setsennai in the flesh, much less half a dozen? Taral would tell this story for the rest of his life.

He and Sejun waited in line until it was their turn to be presented to the king. A Chedai functionary said something that included Taral’s name and beckoned him forward. He had one moment to take in the king’s lined face and unsmiling mouth before he bowed and was ushered out of the way by a servant. Taral didn’t envy the man; ruling a kingdom in wartime would exhaust anyone, and King Aditya wasn’t young.

“That was brief,” Sejun whispered to him as they were led away.

“We aren’t important,” Taral whispered back, and Sejun laughed, then clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle himself. He would get them both into trouble, but Taral couldn’t deny he found Sejun amusing. And he was glad to see Sejun in high spirits when he hadn’t quite seemed himself lately.

Midday was an odd time for a feast. Mountain celebrations usually involved a good deal of alcohol, and the custom was to retire early and sleep off one’s inebriation. Taral wondered if the Chedai abstained, but no, there was dark wine being poured by servants into silver cups, and the courtiers raised the cups to their mouths and drank. Very well. Taral accepted a cup when one was given to him and drank the tart Chedai wine. With Sejun at his side, he made a slow circuit of the room and drifted out into the courtyard, where a manicured hedgerow garden was shaded by the palace tier above.

“What are we supposed to be doing?” Sejun whispered, and Taral shrugged. Feba was talking with a group of Chedai nobles, and maybe that was all the diplomacy that would happen here. He had no sense of how many Chedai spoke Dirang or any of the other mountain languages, and as he himself spoke only a few words of Chedai, he would have no success if he decided to approach someone at random.

Best to simply observe, then. Among his concerns was that the mountain people knew nothing of the dynamics of the Chedai court, and Taral knew even less than most. Tadasho had no intrigues; it had no court and no attendant nobles to gossip and scheme, although such things did happen in some of the larger kingdoms. Taral had no direct experience, though, with any form of political subterfuge, and he feared his ignorance would serve him ill.

“Who here do you suppose looks the most friendly?” Sejun asked.

Taral looked at him with eyebrows raised. “I couldn’t say. What are your intentions?”

“I mean to find out where the Chedai do their dancing.” He pointed to a group of young courtiers standing near the central fountain. “They seem like the type, don’t you think? Maybe I can learn something from them if I manage to befriend one or two.”

“You intend to communicate this to them with pantomime?” Taral asked, amused. “I suppose you could start dancing and see how they respond.”

Sejun frowned at him. “Well—I thought I would ask them.” His expression shifted slightly. “My Chedai is only passable, but a simple conversation won’t be beyond me.”

Of course. Taral should have assumed. “I can read Chedai but not speak it,” he admitted. “Only a few basic phrases. It wasn’t a priority in my education.”

There had been no money for a tutor who spoke Chedai, in other words. He had taught himself to read the language because so few scholarly treatises were translated into Dirang, but most of what he read he couldn’t even pronounce. He hoped Sejun would understand what he didn’t say so that he wouldn’t be forced to spell it out.

“Oh, well,” Sejun said, a little uncertainly. Then he brightened and said, “Then I’ll do all of your reconnaissance work for you. Just tell me who you find most suspicious and I’ll tail them around the palace without mercy.”

Taral laughed. “I have no suspicions at this time, but thank you. I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

With a quick flash of a grin, Sejun went off. Taral watched the courtiers bow to him and make room for him in their circle. Well, there it was: Sejun would befriend half the nobility in Banuri and manage some unanticipated feat of diplomacy. By the time they departed, he would have arranged some new trade agreement that would make Tadasho the wealthiest kingdom in all the mountains.

Taral strolled around the garden, cup in hand. He did not, he decided, like the wine; the flavor was much too strong. He drank in tiny sips so as not to appear rude. He turned a corner, and ahead of him he saw that Jaysha had joined Feba; he turned and went back the other way. Sejun was laughing with his courtiers.

The courtyard was filled with the sounds of laughter and conversation, most of which Taral couldn’t understand. He felt very alone and somewhat foolish. What was his purpose here in Chedi? He was no more than a warm body to add numbers to Feba’s entourage. His interest in politics now seemed childish in light of the complexity of the situation in Chedi. He could offer no particular insight or aid—less, even, than Sejun, who at least spoke the language. Soon he would go into heat, and if all went well with the negotiations, the whole matter would be settled by the time he came out of confinement again.

He watched Sejun’s smiling face. There was more to life than being useful at every moment. One didn’t always need some driving purpose. He could enjoy being here, in this strange and marvelous place, and seeing things that would become tales to fascinate Iniya’s children. He could enjoy this time with Sejun away from the everyday distractions of life in Tadasho. If he was of no use to Feba, so be it.

CHAPTER19