He shifted his legs, slowly so as not to startle her, straightened his right one and, grimacing, massaged the flesh and muscles under a jagged-edged, deeply indented scar running from midthigh to knee.
“No, little Giliahna, I first became interested in you when I saw the sketch of you made by Duke Rahn of Hwahlburk during the months he was guesting with his cousin, your half brother, the Archduke Bili of Morguhn. My dear Karohlyn was deathly ill even then and all knew it, including her.”
He gritted his teeth, spoke through them. “I’ve had bad hick with wives. Had to bury seven, but I’m hoping you’ll be the wife who outlives me. Anyhow,” he smiled once again, “Karohlyn and I both studied the duke’s sketch and had him to her chamber, where we both questioned him.
“His answers fleshed out that sketch. He told us of your faultless courtesy, of your grace, your vigor, of your soul-deep beauty. Your mother was a Zunburker, daughter of the hereditary duke of that house, so both Karohlyn and I knew that your maternal stock was good, and discreet inquiries established the facts that your father, though a duke for only a score or so of years, was a chief and the son and grandson of chiefs.
“Karohlyn and I then decided that, after a suitable period of mourning, I should wed you. Almost a year passed after that mutual decision, Giliahna, then her pain became too much for flesh to bear, so that not even huge doses of the physician’s—Master Ahkbahr’s—drugs could long ease her.
“One night she sent for me, told me that she loved me with all her heart, but that she no longer could abide a life of increasing torment. She asked for my dagger and I gave it to her. In return, she gave me one last kiss and a letter for you. Here.”
He slid his fingers along one of the woodcarvings decorating the bedhead and a small drawer slid silently open. From it he withdrew a slender roll of vellum sheets, tied with a faded bit of ribbon. He extended his hand, proffering to her the dead woman’s last message.
“I know you can read, Giliahna, and the contents are for you, not for me. Besides, your young eyes should be better than my aging ones. Here. Draw some pillows behind your shoulders and sit you up whilst I get you more light.”
Her fears lulled to some degree by the prince’s lack of lust and obviously sincere solicitude for her, and her curiosity piqued, Giliahna did as she was bade, propping herself and spreading the letter on her lap. The writing was thin, spidery and filled with blotches from an ill-controlled quill so that she found it at first all but indecipherable. But with the lighting of additional candles, she could painfully make out the words—Mehrikan, of course, as Ehleeneekos was little spoken, this far north.
My dear Giliahna,
Although we never will meet, I feel a warm friendship—nay, a real kinship—to you and there is so very much I would like to tell you, but my agony is great, unbearable, and I am anxious to end it. Therefore, I will be brief, speaking only of the most important thing: my—our—husband.
When first I came to wed Djylz, I was but a few months older than are you and I was terribly frightened. But I soon knew him to be the dearest, gentlest and most kind of men. I am much grieved to leave him, but for near three years now I have been unable to be the lover and companion and helpmate to him that I should and that he so deserves. I beg you to take my place fully, be all the things to him that I can never again be.
Djylz needs love, Giliahna, much love, but if he receives it, he will return it tenfold. You will have heard much ill of him, of course, for, to his enemies, he is stark ferocity personified. But to those who love him—as do I, as do his children, as do his people, as you will and must—he is only warm generosity. And last, but very important, please find a little spare love to lavish on my little son, Gy. You will not be sorry, for there is much of his dear father in him.
Oh, my dear sister, how I envy you that happiness which has been mine and now is yours.
Your true and everloving friend, Karohlyn
Chapter VII
“And,” Giliahna reflected, burrowed under the coverlets embroidered with the White Hawk of Vawn by the skillful hands of her long-dead mother, “every word that that poor, suffering woman wrote was nothing less than pure, simple truth.”
The prince’s wish had been fulfilled—his eighth wife had outlived him. And her love for him had early become complete and soul-deep, nor could young Gy’s natural mother have shown him any more affection during the two years before he left for his war training at the court of King Sehbastyuhn of Pitzburk.
His first letters to her had expressed bitter homesickness, and Giliahna had wept for a little boy far from his home and lonely amongst strangers. But time had worked its curative powers, and soon the letters were abrim with exciting events of this richest court in all the Middle Kingdoms, as well as with pride of new skills mastered.
As boy grew into young man, the letters told of forays and of raids, of single combats and of great, crashing battles, and Sacred Sun never rose or set but that Giliahna importuned that Gy’s life be spared—for all three of Djylz’s sons by earlier marriages had been slain during their own war years, and she knew in her heart that she would not produce a son to replace Gy, for she could not seem to conceive of the prince.
But, as if possessed of arcane foreknowledge of what was to be, Prince Djylz never worried, seeming sublimely confident that this last son would live to succeed to the Principate of Kuhmbuhluhn.
Come of Horseclans stock, of ancestors who had thought nothing of arming and mounting and riding off to hunt or battle when they had seen more than fourscore summers, Giliahna never fretted that her husband, at a little less than seventy years, regularly took to horse with spear and bow and boarsword to hunt the nearby forest preserves with his foresters and his gentlemen. Sometimes she chose to ride with him, for, adhering to ancient Horseclans Law, Hwahltuh Sanderz had seen to his daughter’s war training from her twelfth year, and she early proved more proficient with the horseman’s hornbow than her husband or his gentlemen.
But though Prince Djylz’s gentlemen were as proud and prickly and pugnacious as any similar aggregation of Middle Kingdoms nobles, no one ever begrudged the young princess her skill at archery. Any other woman might have found herself the butt of rough humor if not biting jibes, but not Giliahna; for the gentlemen truly loved their grizzled liege lord and so—young and old, one and all—they worshiped the merry, smiling new wife who was obviously making the prince so happy.
One brilliant morning, three days after the ninth anniversary of their wedding, the royal pair rode forth, trailed by a score of noble retainers. They rode west at a slow trot, with none of the usual racings from bend to bend, for this hunt was serious business and the horses wore pounds of quilted padding, while the riders were partially armored and bore more than the ordinary quantity and variety of weapons.
Djylz had done his damnedest to dissuade Giliahna, but she was as stubborn as her husband and he had at last relented—as always he did with her. But in the manner of personal protection, he had proved adamant, and so Giliahna rode sweltering in three-quarter armor, extra-heavy tournament plate borrowed for the occasion from one of the smaller noble fosterings of the court.
Giliahna edged her big hunter closer to the duke’s side and hissed, “Damn it all, husband, you’d best halt the column, for I swear I’ll not ride another ten yards in this infernal steel torture chamber! I can’t remember when I’ve sweated so much. My smallclothes are sodden and they’re chafing me raw in… in some very personal places. Besides, this damned cuirass doesn’t fit properly and it’s pinching me. Why couldn’t I have just worn a scale jazeran, like you and the others?”
Prince Djylz chuckled, then grinned sympathetically. “Now, wife, you know why warriors call their suits of plate ‘Pitzburk steamers,’ and you can now truly appreciate why I’m in no condition for a love bout the first few days after a tourney.”
Giliahna had leaned her spear against her shoulder and commenced to fumble at the cuirass buckles under her arm with the freed hand, but the prince leaned sidewise in his saddle and laid a hand on hers, his smile erased and his demeanor as serious as his tone.