Wedding Page 19

  Beloved, his thought came to me. I would not cause you such pain. Dominic had entered communion so smoothly I had been unaware until he let the words blossom inside my head. You are not Terran to me. That’s what I am trying to tell you. His mental caress soothed my jangling nerves until I could listen to spoken words again.

  “Look at me, please,” Dominic said. It was an order, as if to his troops and, like any of them, I obeyed instantly, watching the silver eyes that glinted in the dim afternoon light. “When I look at you,” he said, “I don’t see a Terran. When I touch you,” demonstrating as he spoke, “when I am in communion with you, when I make love to you, it is not a Terran I am touching or loving or kissing. I would be incapable of that.” He used the same fingertip that had earlier silenced my lips to wipe away the one little tear that had escaped from the corner of my eye.

  My face, drained of all color, reflected white in Dominic’s eyes. “What happened in the shelter,” I asked, “was that because of my being Terran?”

  Dominic had a hunted look on his face. “No, Amalie. If I had thought of you then as Terran—” He shuddered, but was compelled now to tell me the entire truth. “I would have killed you, as I feared.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said. “You could have, but you didn’t.” For what it’s worth, I thought.

  “No,” Dominic said. “And do you know why?” Dominic didn’t wait for me to guess at all the rotten possibilities. “Because I cannot see you as Terran. You can remind me of it every day for the rest of our life together, can shout it into my face for the next fifty years, and I will not accept it. My mind, my body, simply cannot put the two things together.” He stared into my eyes again, his own eyes totally opaque, blocking my attempts to see into his mind.

  “But what do you see?” I asked. I remembered so many fond, kind looks I had had from him, even at our first meeting, when my hair was so short and I had been wearing Terran clothes. What could he have seen then that was not Terran?

  Dominic smiled and opened his mind. “It’s like this,” he said, forgetting the painful nature of the conversation, happy to elucidate his strange mental process. “There are Terrans,” he indicated his right hand with the inevitable sneer of contempt, “over there. And there is you, Amalie, my beloved, over here.” He used the favored left hand for me, his face becoming benign, softened with love. He was not acting; it was an involuntary reaction. “And the two things are opposites. They cannot overlap, cannot so much as exist together in the same part of my mind.”

  “Because they would nullify each other, cancel each other out, like matter and anti-matter,” I finished for him, reading his thought. “Yet here I am, alive, existing, both Amalie and Terran,” I said, deciding I must be brave and articulate the paradox in order to resolve it. “So what’s the answer?”

  Dominic took his two hands, the left and the right, the beloved and the Terran, and smashed them together, fist into palm, with a loud thwack. I shrank back at the noise. “I am proposing marriage to Amalie, my beloved. I promise to be as good a husband as I know how, faithful and loving. You will always be my wife, whether we can marry in the ’Graven Rule or simply share first hearth and first meal like the poorest of commoners. I will never take another woman in your place. Our children will be Aranyi. If you bear me a son, he will be Margrave Aranyi after me, and I will fight as hard as I can in ’Graven Assembly to make it so.”

  “What about the Terran woman?” I asked.

  Dominic separated his hands, glaring at his right palm where the squashed remnants of any Terrans would have been. “To me, there is no Terran,” he said. “There is only Amalie.” He shook out his left fist, grinding his teeth. “When I think of you, a beautiful, gifted woman, alone among ungifted Terrans—it is like one of the ballads we sing when we wish to be sentimental and weep after supper.” His voice was deep and musical now, as if he would sing it himself. As I had ached over his past, so now he was sorrowing for mine.

  “And will marriage to you transform me into a Eclipsian—’Gravina, or at least natural-born?”

  “There is nothing to transform,” Dominic said. “Because someone is born in a stable, that does not make her a horse. Your substance needs no changing, only your name. Once you marry me, you will be ’Gravina Aranyi. What you chose to call yourself before will not matter.”

  “But some people know,” I said, as if that was the only thing I cared about.

  Dominic’s face became warlike again. His hand went to the hilt of his sword and his eyes widened in a predatory stare. “They will forget,” he said, very softly. “In my presence, they will know nothing about it.”

  It took me a while to sort out my reactions. They were not exactly what I expected. When I had one clear thought I blurted it out. “And in order to be your wife, I must not be Terran, must forget my origins, or deny them. I must make the past thirty-six years disappear, or distort them somehow into a big, fat, fucking lie.”

  Dominic returned from his imaginary wars. “Yes,” he said, his eyes narrowing in a smile as he put his arms around me. “And I think your choice of words is delightful.” He tried to kiss me again.

  I turned my head away. “What if I can’t?” I asked. Only later did I wonder why I didn’t ask: What if I don’t want to?

  “But you already have,” Dominic said, puzzled. “Nobody here thinks you’re Terran. You admitted as much, that you never corrected people’s assumptions.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you? Did you ever say, ‘I’m not Lady Amalie, I’m a Terran’?”

  “I considered it.”

  “But you couldn’t do it, could you? For my sake, you said nothing.” He nodded his approval.

  “Yes,” I said, uncertain of my memories and my motives. I thought back over the last two months, on my own in this rambling town of a castle. For all my doubts and fears, wondering what I would do when Dominic returned, nevertheless, I had been happier here than I had ever been. I had basked in the acceptance that came with being the sham Lady Amalie, had grown accustomed to the comfort, not just of good food and servants and interesting work, but of belonging somewhere. And I had always hated being Terran, even when I had not known that was the cause of my misery. Dominic was asking me to turn my back on something that had been a source of pain to me all my life, to deny it, to destroy it by no longer allowing it to exist.

  He was asking me to do something I had wanted to do for a long time, something I wanted more even than marrying him, although that was a close second. “I think I did it as much for myself,” I said, raising my eyes to meet his.

  Dominic saw the strange look on my face as the epiphany came to me. “What is your answer, beloved?” he asked.

  I smiled into his face. “Yes,” I said, “to everything. Yes, yes, yes.” I kissed Dominic as he had kissed me earlier, forcefully, and was glad I did not have to work as hard as he had to get a response. Afterwards I leaned my cheek against his chest, feeling the softness of his well-worn linen shirt. “I think I will marry you,” I said, “if you promise not to announce it all over again.”

  True communion came over us then, the resolution of all our conflict freeing our minds. Beloved, we thought simultaneously. Dearest love. Not human or alien, not ’Graven or Terran. Only lover and beloved, each of us equally one and the other. My love, we thought, and kissed again.

  Dominic stood up, lifting me easily in his arms. “I will leave for Eclipsia City tomorrow,” he said. “I would take you with me, but I know how hard it is for you to travel, and I should not be gone long.”

  The door opened as he reached for it. Stefan stumbled in, curious about the shouting he had heard, saw me in Dominic’s arms, reddened in the inevitable blush, and tried to withdraw. Dominic put me down quickly and caught his lover with one long arm. “Don’t run away, cheri,” he said. “I have some good news.”

  Stefan waited politely while Dominic thought to me, Only to my companion will I make the announcement.

  “Lady Amalie has agreed to marry me,” Domini
c said.

  Stefan stared like the victim of a practical joke waiting for the second bucket of water to fall. “Congratulations, my lord,” he said, speaking formally. Then his boyish side came through. “Is this a different betrothal from Midsummer night? Will you be marrying each other twice?”

  Dominic laughed. “Yes,” he said, giving me a conspiratorial smile. “As many times as it takes. And you will be my second at all the weddings.” He gave Stefan a quick hug to show he didn’t mind the teasing.

  Stefan bowed to me. “Best wishes, Mistress.” He gulped, and his eyes moved like a cornered animal’s to Dominic’s face. “Forgive me—my lady,” he amended, as Dominic thought the correction to him.

  Don’t do that, I thought to Dominic. Don’t blame Stefan for calling me ‘mistress.’ To Stefan I said, “To you I will always be Amalie.”

  Dominic looked down his nose at me. Don’t tell me how to deal with my own companion. I could swear I saw his hair bristling like a cat’s.

  Why not? Stefan meant no harm, doesn’t know we’ve all decided I’m ‘Lady Amalie’ now. And here at Aranyi he’s your companion and should be treated as such, no matter if he’s just another cadet under your command in Eclipsia City.

  Stefan was staring at us open-mouthed. He had picked up my thoughts that, in the grip of high emotion, I had sent out without shielding them. He started to back out the door, wishing he had not entered.

  Dominic was caught between us. He turned on me first in fury, not bothering to shield. How dare you! he shouted into my brain. How dare you speak to me like that, in front of him– He jerked his head in the direction where Stefan had been. Stefan was gone, had made good his escape while Dominic went for me.

  I looked Dominic up and down—the splendid height of him, the injured pride, the outraged officer—tried to reconcile him with the frightened, abject man who would not make love to me two months ago, and the wounded warrior who had returned home, covering his pain with a deadening layer of crypta, and laughed out loud at the contrast. “I dare because I will be ’Gravina Aranyi,” I said. “Or have you had second thoughts?”

  Dominic’s face turned purple when I laughed. He was speechless.

  I didn’t wait for him to find words. “And Stefan will be part of our family. I don’t want any bullshit in my household.”

  Dominic was still silent, but trembling a little, with laughter.

  “My husband will have his companion, as he should,” I said, taking the chance to reach for Dominic’s hand. “But you must promise me he will be a companion—a lover, a partner, the third spouse in our marriage. Not a subordinate or a servant.”

  Dominic’s face was growing paler, almost back to normal. When I touched his hand he picked me up, as before Stefan’s intrusion, and kissed me on my throat, the tip of his tongue flicking my skin. I promise, he answered. I am marrying the woman with the worst temper in the world.

  Yes, I said. Almost as bad as her husband’s.

  Dominic kissed my throat again, sucking at the hollow at the base. As Magali could have told me, he was a man and he could not wait. Our honeymoon had been delayed long enough and there was no point in holding off any longer, with pregnancy swelling my body every day. He carried me upstairs, forestalling any objections I might make by covering my mouth with deep kisses. We must do things properly for once, he thought to me as he crossed the threshold of the Margrave’s bedroom and lowered me onto the conjugal bed.

  But even Dominic tired eventually. We were up and dressed in time for supper, and I slept alone that night. In the morning Dominic left for Eclipsia City and ’Graven Assembly, taking Stefan with him on the journey.

  CHAPTER 11

  Dominic’s absence seemed endless. I continued my exploration of the castle and the grounds, chatted and laughed with Magali on the pretense of running the house, and worked with Berend at the books. None of this activity, enjoyable as it was, prevented my doubts from returning. So long as Dominic was here to shout at me, to argue me out of despair, I could believe in the possibility of our marriage; without his forceful presence, I was left to think for myself, and my thoughts rarely took an optimistic turn.

  Josh and Eleonora grumbled together in communion, chafing at the delay, debating whether to leave to resume their seminary work or await Dominic’s return. Dominic had persuaded Eleonora to act as my attendant at the wedding, so there was no point in her going, only to have to travel back again in a week or two. “Please,” I said, “stay a while longer.” I would be more comfortable with both of them here than alone with Eleonora, doubly unhappy at my marriage and at being separated from her husband.

  Josh, intrigued by my transformation into “Lady Amalie” and aware of my underlying uneasiness, sounded me out on my feelings about becoming ’Gravina Aranyi. “Amalie,” he asked one day, in a serious tone of voice for a change, “do you know why I continue to use my Terran name?” As I shook my head he answered, “To remind myself and everybody else that I’ve been changed by living as a Terran.”

  I saw what he was trying to tell me. “Dominic wants me to pretend I’m not,” I said. “And you’re saying that it’s impossible, that I’ll always be Terran, is that it?”

  “No,” he said, “just the opposite.” He thought how to explain. “You see, I’m not really Terran, but I’m a different person now than I would be if I had grown up as the Sir Georgi I was born. I lived as a Terran, thought I was one for a while, when I was a boy. Those years set some parts of our personalities irrevocably. Calling myself Sir Georgi Sakhalin-Chang now would be a lie. I’m not that person. I’m not exactly Josh Kaminsky either, but using the name is a way of being true to myself, and being honest with other people. Just as ‘Lady Amalie’ is a closer approximation to who you are than Amelia Herzog was.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I really am a Terran. I was born there, lived thirty-five years there. My parents were Terrans—”

  Josh stopped me with a frown. “No, Amalie. You’re not really a Terran. Dominic sees the person you are, regardless of where you were born and how you were reared. All you have to do now is accept that person as your true self.”

  “But you just said those things determine who we are. Our childhood, where we grew up.”

  “I said those years do it. How we react to our situation. For me they gave me a broader outlook, made me less provincial than if I had had a typical ’Graven education and thought Eclipsis was the whole universe. For you, they pushed you in the direction of being Lady Amalie, even without knowing anything of Eclipsis or ’Graven. You never accepted your situation as I, in some ways, accepted mine. You were unhappy being different, devastated when your gift developed.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “Of course,” Josh said, impatience bursting at the front of his thoughts. “Maybe because I’m a man, the emotional isolation wasn’t as crippling. I figured I’d find a place for myself somewhere. You just felt trapped.” He raised a hand as if giving me a blessing. “Now that you’re free, don’t feel guilty.”

  “Is that what you think this is—guilt?” He was a seer; if he made it his business to analyze me, he would find every little niggling thought that was bothering me, winkle it out and pull it to shreds.

  “When you fell into all this—becoming Amalie, then Lady Amalie, soon to be ’Gravina Aranyi,” Josh said, “it felt right to you, didn’t it?” He looked at me in his friendly, knowing way, speaking tactfully, trying not to offend. “I know you’re worried about marrying Dominic. Becoming ’Gravina Aranyi without being born to ’Graven bothers you. You’d feel better about becoming a sibyl because you could earn that.”

  I felt somehow that I could say anything to this man, that he would understand and not judge. “I think exactly what you’re saying, but I don’t feel it. When I was at La Sapienza, I knew I should try to become, if not a sibyl, at least a part of the seminary staff, an academician, but all I really wanted was to be with Dominic. And I don’t know if you remember from your time in Ter
ran society, or if you paid attention, but women aren’t supposed to want that—marriage without having a career. It’s considered irresponsible, almost suicidal.”

  “Actually, I felt the same thing when I met Eleonora, only worse.” Josh opened himself to me in turn. “It’s not just a women’s issue. A man should make his own way, not coast on his wife’s position.”

  “Okay,” I said, willing to grant that much. “But you two solved that very neatly—marrying, but both of you working in a seminary. And you haven’t exactly ‘coasted.’ ”

  “Remember that ‘discussion’ with the merchant, the day after festival night?” Josh apparently decided to counter my argument with a non sequitur. “Well, I came down pretty hard on him, defending you.”

  “I should have kept my mouth shut.” Another thing to feel guilty about.

  “Don’t, Amalie,” Josh said. “That’s not why I mentioned it. Like you, I know that man was not completely wrong. We simply disagree on how to go about changing things—and what should be changed. And the gifted people in the seminaries are doing all that work, trying to find ways of bringing better standards of living, more amenities, to the rest of Eclipsis, without destroying this world the way Terra was destroyed. And without losing the good things the ’Graven do for society.”

  “Thanks for helping,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Josh said. “I wasn’t finished. Marrying Dominic, bearing him a gifted child, that’s as useful as anything Eleonora and I are doing. So long as we reject Terran technology, including fertility procedures, we need—desperately—every gifted child we can beget. Eleonora regrets every day of her life that we couldn’t have a child.” He frowned, acknowledging his wife’s sadness, before looking up with renewed purpose.

  “We’ve chosen the only honorable course, seminary work,” Josh said. “And it’s been wonderful, a chance to live and work in communion with the person who is everything to me. I’ve thought sometimes that it might be nature’s way. We work in the seminary because we can’t be parents. For you, it’s the reverse. Because you can bear a gifted, ’Graven child, you conveniently ‘failed’ at seminary work, so you won’t be torn between two incompatible alternatives.”