Wedding Page 15

  Berend jumped at my words. “Lady Amalie,” he said, “it was my pleasure.” Like most of the men this morning, he had a dreamy, depleted appearance. Despite the custom, he couldn’t help thinking fondly of his partner of last night, memories I must try not to hear.

  I couldn’t resist probing just a little. “I also danced with Stefan Ormonde, later,” I said, trying to sound casual, fooling neither of us. “He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?”

  “My lady.” Berend felt obligated to check what he saw as a potentially fatal flaw. “My lady, a married woman never notices another man. Not in that way.” He cleared his throat. “Her husband is within his rights to– to—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it to me, that a husband could murder his wife merely for the appearance of infidelity, and not only would no one blame him or punish him, his action would be approved if it was believed there was any substance to his suspicions.

  Oh, gods. That was unimaginable between me and Dominic. And surely it didn’t apply to Dominic’s lover. I remembered Stefan’s words last night: Dance with me, meaning, while we have the chance. My sense of well-being from the night evaporated. “I’m not married yet,” I said.

  Berend took the statement as a simple fact. “No,” he said, relaxing so far as to let his thoughts return to their original theme. “And Stefan Ormonde is the most beautiful creature we’ve seen at Aranyi since—” Once again my young steward’s words had run away with him. “Since you arrived,” he finished gallantly.

  I thought of the young married man I had met in my first days here, the proud father, and worried that not everyone was entirely successful in relegating the events of festival night to their proper place. What if Berend became obsessed with Stefan, seeing him every day at meals, passing him in the corridors and on the stairs? Dominic would no more countenance Stefan’s infidelity than mine, I was pretty certain.

  “You know,” I said, hesitating, “Stefan takes his position very seriously.” Companion to Margrave Aranyi was an honor that a cadet of Stefan’s integrity would be unlikely to jeopardize in order to gratify the desires of a steward.

  Berend’s face tightened at my well-meaning words. “So do I,” he said. “I take Stefan’s position seriously. I have to.” He looked down at the open book in front of him. “Margrave Aranyi asked me to examine all the records of the land on the border between Aranyi and Ormonde, going back for years. He wants to see if Stefan might be entitled to a holding of his own.”

  “But—” I began a question, gave up. My mind was working slowly this morning. Stefan, a younger son of gentry, inherited neither land of his own nor his father’s title. He was as poor in reality, despite his family’s wealth, as a clerk like Berend—poorer, really. Berend and his family—his pretty wife, Laura, dark-haired and plump, with sparkling black eyes and dimpled cheeks, and their son who resembled her—had their own cottage, with a parcel of Aranyi land and the rights to its produce as payment for Berend’s work. If it was less convenient for them as a family than living in rooms in the castle, it was, in this land-conscious society, far more prestigious.

  Berend understood my confusion. “Lady Amalie,” he said, “Margrave Aranyi knows Stefan’s situation. But he’s asked me to see if there’s any border land in dispute that he could settle on his companion.” Berend looked into my face, worried in turn that he had told me too much. “I shouldn’t have said anything until I found the answer, one way or another.” He gave me a wan smile. “It’s this damned morning after, leaves one careless. Please, my lady, you won’t say anything to Stefan until I have an answer for Margrave Aranyi?”

  “No, of course I won’t.” I laughed at the mess I had walked into. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  Berend mistook my continued perplexity for unhappiness. “Lady Amalie, forgive me, but surely you knew Margrave Aranyi is vir? It’s no secret, here or in Eclipsia City. And for ’Graven, with your gifts,” he bowed his head in solemn respect at our powers, “it must be impossible to be dishonest with each other?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, before realizing how Berend would take it. “Honestly, I’m not upset about Stefan himself or Dominic’s wanting to give him land.” I thought about what it was that did bother me. Dominic had introduced Stefan as his companion. Used with the inflection Dominic gave it, the word means a formal relationship, like spouse or partner, solemnized by the exchange of oaths. With the twenty-five-year age difference between them, and with Dominic’s ’Graven status, Dominic would have been within his rights to call the boy something else, something that made Stefan merely the object of Dominic’s affections, not a sharer in them. Yet Dominic had chosen to call him companion. Now he wanted to raise Stefan’s standing, not simply by the choice of word, but by changing the young man’s circumstances.

  Dominic had joked last night about making me wear a burqa and keeping me guarded, about locking me away from the world. And while I suspected that a lot of that was just the heat of the moment, it had reawakened all my fears on the subject of marriage. In La Sapienza it had been made very clear to me that marriage was an unequal association. Even if both parties were ’Graven, only one thing was on the wife’s side of the balance: her dowry. If she came from a landed family, as she must to marry ’Graven, her dowry, while being absorbed into her husband’s property, was still hers in name. If her husband was a poor manager, if he lost his holdings or had to sell, her dowry could not be disposed of without her consent. It gave her leverage, even if it could never quite make her equal. If Stefan, who came from a wealthy, respectable gentry family, needed Dominic’s exceptional benevolence to make him an eligible partner, where did that leave me?

  Berend was waiting for me to tell him what was on my mind. “You see,” I said, “I’ve been nervous about marrying Margrave Aranyi, and I think he’s been worrying too, because of my– my unusual situation. And I never told him, never thought to tell him, that I do own some property.”

  “Really?” Berend sat up, all business now. “That does change things.” He smiled in anticipation of an easier task, stood up and retrieved the current accounts book from the shelf. “What is it?” he asked while he pulled a bottle of ink within dipping distance and found a fresh pen. “Freehold or inheritance? Buildings or just land? Is it on one of the ’Graven Realms or in the city?”

  “In the city,” I said, laughing at the one-sided view of wealth. “In a way. It’s credits—electronic credits. I can access the account anywhere there’s a holonet terminal. So I guess that’s only in the city.”

  Berend had put down his pen as I spoke and was looking at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. I was. I had lapsed into Terran for the terms that have no Eclipsian equivalent. He shook his head, suppressing a frown. “So you don’t have any land.”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “How could I?”

  “I’m sorry, my lady.” Berend’s voice sank with disappointment. “You said property.”

  “It’s quite a large account,” I said. “I’ve been saving ever since I started working, almost fifteen years.”

  “Please, Lady Amalie.” Berend held up his hand, uninterested in any more pointless details. “I’m glad you’re not destitute. But Margrave Aranyi has already addressed this problem.”

  “What?” I felt as if I did have a hangover after all. “When?”

  “Before he went away to fight the rebels,” Berend said. “He made arrangements, in case– in case things didn’t go so well. But now that he’s returned, there’s no reason for you to be troubled.”

  “But I help keep the records!” I said. “How come I didn’t notice it?”

  Berend shook his head. “Nothing in writing. Just a solemn promise, that if he were unable to marry you, you would be provided for as if you were his widow, with a tract of land set aside to be considered as your dowry.”

  I was speechless, my mind trying to take in all the implications of things I understood imperfectly, if at all.

  “You see, my lady,” Be
rend continued in the warm, soothing voice of a doctor with a wealthy hypochondriac, “Margrave Aranyi made it very clear that his intentions are marriage by the ’Graven Rule. So the facts that you have no dowry, no family and no connection to a Realm are to be disregarded. Margrave Aranyi instructed me that, whether or not he succeeds in winning ’Graven Assembly’s approval, I am to treat you as ’Gravina Aranyi in all respects.” He smiled. “Not that I needed him to tell me that. But I thought you should know where you stand, seeing as how you’re still concerned about it.”

  “So in order for me to marry Margrave Aranyi, I must be raised in status, artificially if necessary?” I asked.

  Berend wasn’t sure how to answer. “Margrave Aranyi is being most generous. Ordinarily the dowry can’t come from the husband’s own holdings.” He clucked his tongue at the irregularity of Dominic’s request.

  “And if– when– we marry,” I muttered the conclusion, knowing how idiotic it was, “Margrave Aranyi and I still won’t be equals.”

  “Lady Amalie!” Berend was momentarily diverted. “This is marriage, not a pledge between Terrans. Or between a man and his companion.” Having reminded himself of the reason he had come to work on what should be an idle afternoon, “Please,” he said, “let me get back to this border land problem. And you ought to be resting after dinner.”

  I took the hint, going upstairs to lie on my new bed, turning the pages of one of Dominic’s history books but unable to read. I could hear my mother’s voice in my mind, enjoying the chance to use a picturesque expression she had overheard or read. Well, Amelia, all I can say is, you’ve landed in a tub of butter.

  They don’t tell you what happened after Cinderella married Prince Charming. How long did it take until, in the middle of a quarrel, he said she ought to be grateful? How long before she accused him of acting as if he’d bought her?

  I studied the naked goddesses on the wall hangings. They stood with negligent pride, legs firmly planted, round bellies thrust forward, rosy nipples peeking through tendrils of wavy hair that flowed over breasts firm with milk. All wives are bought, they were saying. ’Gravina or Terran. He is your lord husband; you are his lady wife. Enjoy the things he gives you, the clothes and the jewels, the food and the luxury. Share his bed. Bear his children. Eat and grow fat. Once he’s bought you he’s stuck with you.

  CHAPTER 9

  Immediately after supper, Dominic went to his room for the final phase of his healing. “Give Naomi time to work,” he said to Stefan and me as he rose from the table, “then be ready to join us when we call for you.”

  I was cautious now after my lessons from Berend, so I neither invited Stefan to sit with me in my room nor did I go to his. We sat with Eleonora and Josh and our guests who would linger at Aranyi for another day after the festival. Talk worked its way around to the subject of the recent rebellion.

  “It’s a pity,” a man said, “that all that asinine posturing with the telepathic weapon obscured a serious message.”

  “And what is that?” Eleonora asked.

  “That all this,” the man waved his hand around in vague circles, “this ’Graven way of life, has to change. People want their freedom.”

  Josh looked over with a smile. “Freedom is a large concept,” he said. “It encompasses a great many things, some of them contradictory.”

  The man squinted at Josh. “Oh, yes,” he said, “the seer with the Terran name.” He seemed unaware of how offensive he sounded. “What do you call yourself? José? No, that’s Eclipsian.”

  “Josh,” Josh said.

  “Well, Joze,” the man said, “you spent time on Terra. Tell me, don’t you think they do things better there? None of this class system, every man equal, no masters, no servants, people free—”

  “No class system?” The outraged exclamation left my lips before I remembered that I didn’t want to be involved in this discussion. “What do you know about it?”

  The man turned his head at my question. He was short-sighted, I realized, and placed me by voice. “Mistress Amalie,” he said, as if indulging a forward child, “I have some experience, I assure you. I see Terrans every year at the market in Eclipsia City. And very instructive it is. Each and every one of them is free to pursue wealth in any legal way, not restricted to doing what his father did, or prevented from rising because of lack of land.”

  “So instead of inherited positions,” Josh said, “you think it’s better to have a ruling class made up of those who have acquired money?”

  “Now, look here,” the man said. “That’s not at all what I said.”

  Eleonora broke in with her clear, cold voice. “That’s exactly what you said, whether you care to admit it or not.”

  The man goggled at Eleonora’s blunt words but didn’t retreat. A sort of merchant, tenant in one of Aranyi’s villages, he made his living traveling to Eclipsia City and back for the trade fairs, a middleman for the farmers and artisans who didn’t want the trouble and expense of the arduous journey. He had become wealthy without owning land, an anomaly in this rural world, and his situation had made him bold to the point of belligerence.

  “As you wish, my lady,” he addressed Eleonora with feigned deference. “All I’m saying is, the Terran system has some real advantages that would benefit most of us on Eclipsis. Only the ’Graven stand to lose their privileged status. Of course you resist it. I’m a guest in this house, so that’s as much as I’ll say, but truth will out.”

  “And if your truth isn’t recognized as soon as you wish,” Josh said, still amiable, but with a hint of steel in his voice, “then you’ll use whatever weapons you can get your hands on, even something as deadly as Eris. War and devastation to make a better world, is that it?”

  “My lord,” the merchant responded with automatic respect to Josh’s commanding tone, “I already said that using the Eris weapon was a mistake. But these so-called rebels still had a valid point—reminding you ’Graven that the rest of us won’t be silent much longer.”

  Other people jumped in with arguments back and forth. The man was content, it seemed, to have loosed a firestorm, and saw no further need to defend his viewpoint. Only when Sir Nicholas bellowed that as far as he could see, the rebels simply wanted to use the weapon to displace the ’Graven and become the new rulers themselves, was the merchant moved to reenter the fray.

  “You don’t see it,” he said, “because you stay away from the city and you listen to what the ’Graven tell you. But the fact is the Terrans have a lot of things they could teach us, things most of us would be glad to learn. Instead of restricting them to their one little sector, we ought to be encouraging them. They’ve offered many times to help us with projects—roads and power plants, mining and manufacturing—and people like Margrave Aranyi always prevent it. And, forgive me,” he added, with a general nod in my direction, and Eleonora and Josh’s, “but while it’s in his interest to keep things as they are, he’s going to have to accept that other people have their own interests that will not be thwarted forever.”

  Once again I was moved by curiosity and indignation to jump in with both feet. “Is that really what you want? Power plants and factories and mines, roads choked with traffic? Even if you don’t own any land yourself, you still benefit from the condition of the land around you. What will you do when the air is so polluted it makes you sick, and the water isn’t safe to drink, and the forests have all been cut down to make toilet paper?”

  The merchant chuckled at my vehemence. “I see you’ve been taken in by all the ’Graven propaganda. But I’ve spoken to men in Eclipsia City, men who were born and raised on Terra, and they’ve told a very different story. There are laws to prevent all those things you’re so worried about. And look around.” He moved his arm in a stiff arc intended to signify the larger world outside the room. “It would be hundreds of years before we had to worry about that. All this unspoiled land. Men who live hand-to-mouth now could live like lords, just from selling land rights to Terrans. Their children a
nd grandchildren could be wealthy without having to work, and all we’d be giving up is a few hundred acres of useless mountain land here and there.”

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s how they did it on Terra, too. Everybody wants to live like lords, only they call it middle class. But it’s the same old story—a few rich people, who are the lords without titles, and everybody else. Except that the Terran lords don’t have any sense of responsibility. When people can’t earn enough money to buy what they need, and they have no way to grow or make their own things, the Terran businessman-lord won’t help.”

  My sad certitude made the man suspicious. “Mistress,” he said, “anyone would think you had lived on Terra, the way you talk. How do you expect me to believe all this nonsense?”

  Sir Karl Ormonde leaned in, smug and expectant, poised for the kill. I looked for help, remembering Clara Galloway’s kind words and Lucretia Ladakh’s sympathy of last night, and realized that Eleonora was the only other woman here. Like every activity on Eclipsis and in the world of ’Graven, even something as basic as after-supper chitchat was segregated by sex. Eleonora, accustomed to the freedom and status of a sibyl, had joined the men’s group rather than bore herself with the domestic trifles she knew would be the subjects among the women.

  Josh came to my rescue. “I told her,” he said. “What Amalie says is incorrect only in its understatement. Terra is a ruin of a world. Those laws you mentioned were put in place only after so much damage was done to the environment that it became unlivable.”

  The merchant looked doubtful. “If it’s unlivable,” he asked, “how come there are so many live Terrans?”

  “Unlivable to us,” I said. “Nobody took any of it seriously on Terra, either, until it was too late. They actually changed the climate of the whole world with their industry and pollution. The layer of air that protected people from the sun was burned off, the temperature went up, the polar ice melted and the glaciers, the sea level rose—”