Russav and the Ring

"You're smitten."

"Russav--"

"Smitten! Stars! When I remember all that advice you gave me years ago about not getting involved, flirtation with a smile and a light word and both part amicably, ho ho, I could fall down dead with laughter. That girl walks by with her nose in the air like you stepped in a midden pile, and you almost walk into a door. Ha ha ha!"

"Russav--"

"Vidanric--" Savona mocked Vidanric's exasperated tone. "Or ought I to withdraw behind my light cool mask and with a light word, bow, hold my fan at Parting with Parity, and address you as My Lord Marquis of Shevraeth--"

"Russav. Shut up."

"Or what, smitten-boy? Oh I can't stand it, I want to dance on tables and howl at the moon. You're not only smitten, you're smitten with a scrap of a girl who has the fashion sense of a tree, the social graces of a yearling, and a temper that makes Tamara seem dull and listless by comparison!" He stopped to get in a good long gloat, and gloated even more loudly when he saw the telltale red along Danric's aristocratic cheekbones. "Smit-ten! And the best of the jest is, she acts like she can't stand you! Oh, ha ha ha ha!"

Vidanric looked out the window, his face closed behind what Russav thought of as his anti-Merindar Shield as he ran the feathered edges of his quill through his fingers, over and over.

Rain drummed suddenly on the roof above the library alcove that Vidanric had chosen as his private study; a gust of wind flung tiny grits of hail to plinkle unmusically against the windows. Vidanric wanted him gone--the subject closed--but Russav did not relent, just chuckled under his breath as he counted to himself.

He'd reached forty when Vidanric's head turned sharply. "Acts like?"

"That." Russav snickered like he was twelve again. "Is what makes it so funny--that girl is just as smitten with you, but she doesn't even know it."

Vidanric dropped his pen onto the table with an exasperated sigh. "I was beginning to wonder, but now I see it: you are drunk, and gripped by delirium visions."

"Smitten."

"No, she is not."

"Yes she is."

"No she isn't."

"Is. Is, is, is! Oh, ha ha, this is the funniest thing to happen to this sorry, sodden court for years, and it's even funnier that you can't see it!"

"Russav. Go get some coffee. She hates me, she hates what I say, what I think--what she believes I think--what I do, what I wear, she hates the ground where my shadow touches."

"No she doesn't," Russav retorted, shaking his head. "You're talking to the expert now, warrior boy. You've got the edge on horses and swords, I have the edge on the female mind. That girl is smitten. She's so smitten she doesn't even see the rest of the boys, much less your obedient servant--" An exaggerated bow. "When it comes to the delicate art of courtship she's afraid of her own class=SpellE>i> shadow."

"No, I regret--"

"She just doesn't know it," Russav interrupted, picking up Vidanric's fan from his desk and flicking it across one eye in Willfully Blind mode. "She probably thinks what she feels is a stomach ailment, or a cold coming on--"

"A stomach ailment? All right, the jest is over."

"--though I could understand your giving someone a stomach ailment with that cold manner of yours. . ." Russav glanced up--straight into the Renselaeus dead fish eye. He relented. After all, it wasn't Danric's fault he'd had to take on the crown--along with Tamara's ambitions. And he'd kept the promise he'd made long ago about Tamara, whatever he privately thought of her truly inspired attempts to glamour him. "See here, Danric. You were right about her--there is no hint of guile in Meliara, but she has no shield against guile, either. I don't mind a whit making her popular. I enjoyed my ball last night. I enjoyed dancing with her. Even when she didn't hear any of my famous suave remarks because she was too busy sneaking peeks past my elbow in order to see where you were. And who with."

Vidanric shook his head. He let out a slow breath, and suddenly looked tired. "You did not hear the brangle we had right here this morning." He pointed just beyond where Russav lounged so comfortably just below the windows, now running with rain.

Russav said wryly, "If it was half as fiery as the brangle Tamara forced on me, it must have been memorable."

"Not memorable--we've had too many of those. Just about every time we speak, in truth. Disagreeable, yes. I'm sorry about Tamara."

"Don't be. I can't tell if she despises your little countess because of her haplessness or because I gave her some attention, but after the way she's been chasing after you, a little of the same sauce will do her good. I plan to keep right on flirting with your Meliara--"

"She isn't my Meliara."

"Well, she isn't mine, either. I can see her struggling to make what she considers courtly banter, but if she's ever been kissed before, I'll eat my hat. I'll eat your hat, which has more lace on it. I’ll flirt with her until the stars drop down, but I'll not be her first kiss. She has no interest in me whatsoever, and isn't even pretending to. Gratitude! I've experienced everything else, from wiles to wailing, but a friendly girl who is grateful for my attention is a new one. I'm going to keep that flirtation as decorous as if she were my grandmother. Your grandmother. No." He grimaced, standing up as a shaft of sunlight bisected the room. "No matter whose grandmother, that sounds wrong. Even I don't flirt with people's grandmothers. Anyway, her first kiss will have to be delivered by someone else. Derec, say. Geral would give anything if she’d think of him as something other than an extra brother."

Vidanric looked inscrutable—which, Russav knew, meant he hated the conversation.

Russav thought of the tensions facing Danric from the border, the Merindars, the empty treasury, and said, "Come. The rain's lifted. Let's go for a walk. Everyone will be out--it'll do you good. Hey, didn't you say you were going to give her something a day or so ago?"

*

Half a candle later Russav had to turn his face away to hide his laughter when Meliara stuck out her hand and proclaimed, “Look at my ring!”

But the urge to laugh left him when Meliara turned an apprehensive glance at Tamara.

There was the poisonous smile he detested, and had ever since they were squabbling children. He knew she’d learned that poison from her horrible mother (the single murder Galdran had committed that no one had really regretted, including her own family); he had tried for years to sting, tease, and kiss it out of her, with no success. He feared, sometimes, that she hadn’t just learned it, but had inherited it.

Meanwhile, everyone else was laughing at the countess’s social blunder, some cruelly, others with enjoyment. Trishe, as always the peacemaker, made admiring noises as if such proclamations were everyday, and said, “Where? Who?”

“Yesterday,” Meliara replied, her brow faintly puckered as she sent one of her apprehensive glances Russav’s way.

He smiled at her, trying to reassure her, and Tamara, her blue eyes glaring his way, asked in a goading voice, “Which finger?”

But as a social arrow Tamara’s shaft flew right past its intended victim. There was no mistaking the innocent bewilderment in Meliara’s face. Not even Tamara could think that the Tlanth countess was being crude enough to parade a new lover by exhibiting his gift, and sure enough, Meliara wiggled her fingers and said, “The one it fits best.” Then her mouth rounded as she clearly, but too late, thought about possible arcane meanings.

Trishe, meanwhile, gave a puzzled frown, and bent over Meliara’s hand. “I’ve seen it before,” she said. “I know I have . . .” She went on about the ring, and Russav, knowing very well whom it had come from—and annoyed with himself for having forgotten that Trishe had studied old gem styles when she was younger—decided to shift attention from the ring to himself.

“Who is it from?” he asked, trying to sound heartbroken.

Tamara’s mouth thinned. “Of course she cannot tell,” she stated, outrageously trying to dredge up the mystery lover implication again. “But . . . perhaps a hint, Countess?”

Trishe and Nee both looked sick, fans slanting at Present only In Person, and Savona, quite annoyed with Tamara—why duel with a beginner, who never dueled back?—tried to find something to say that would shift attention again, but Meliara beat him to it.

“I can’t, because it’s a secret to me, too,” she said, adding, “The best kind, because I get the ring and I don’t have to do anything about it!”

That raised a laugh from everyone except Tamara. Savona glanced just once at that hateful expression narrowing her eyes and thought: reap what you sow, my darling (for it didn’t escape him that she was exactly as beautiful as ever even when she was being hateful) as he offered Meliara his arm, and began to pour out a lot of nonsense about flirts and lovers until he felt Meliara’s tension ease. His reward came when she laughed, that free and real laugh that had nothing of the well-modulated court titter in it. Like her brother's. It was that sudden laugh, and the way her expressive face seemed to glow, that probably had first enchanted his sober cousin. Poor Danric, probably thinking about where he was going to find the funds to shift more troops north along the border, from which increasingly disturbing reports had begun to appear . . .

Later that evening, he found Danric busy at work in the archive alcove.

“Come on, you’ve missed another meal,” Savona said. “If you don’t drop that pen and come right now, I’ll report you to your mother.”

Danric’s smile was absent. “Tell me,” he said, tossing over a sheet of paper. “What do you make of that?”

Savona looked down. In carefully inscribed letters he saw the words: “The gifts are beautiful, and I thank you, but what do they mean?”

And below that, plain as day: “Meliara Astiar of Tlanth.”

“Tell her,” Savona said, laying the letter back onto the table.

“I can’t,” Danric replied, sitting back. “It seemed so good an idea at the time to give her that ring."

"Why?"

Vidanric lifted his hands, fingers up as if a fan was held between them in the mode of the neutral observer. "If I'd ordered one, there would have been talk."

Russav said, "Danric. I could have gone to my people and ordered one for you. You know how many gems I give out in a year? Geral would have gone for you--Trishe. All keeping lip-laced if you asked them. You wanted her to have something of yours, right?"

"Probably. Why do you need to know?"

Russav snickered. "Because this gesture wasn't a mere kindness, despite what you told me the other day. I want to hear you--no, I want you to hear yourself being romantic. Meliara is going to be good for you, however it ends. Go on."

"Just that I’d forgotten that there were those in court who might recognize that ring from my great-grandmother’s royal portrait.”

Russav said, “And if they do?”

Tamara’s name breathed through the room like a distance scent.

Danric shook his head. “I’m not thinking about any of us.” The slight emphasis on ‘us’ included their old friends--including Tamara--all of them grown up under Galdran’s beribboned stranglehold. “I’m thinking of the Merindars. If they perceive any possible interest from me in her, they’ll gnaw her bones.”

“Yes, I’d forgotten them.” Russav whistled the trumpet-notes for a military charge, then said, “Food's getting cold, and your mother will be on the prowl if you don't eat. I suggest you send Meliara a white rose—for your intentions are entirely honorable—and leave it at that.”

*

Vidanric looked down again at the letter, though by now he'd read it through so many times he not only knew it by heart, he could describe the swoop and swirl of the letters, where the ink was strongest, where Meliara had paused to dip her nib.

. . . I'd rather have plain discourse than gifts.

She had to have written that last bit, put down her pen, and raced straight to the Merindars. To Flauvic Merindar. She’d probably been having her hand kissed before the ink was quite dry on the letter.

He picked up his pen, then threw it down. There was no use trying to scry some sort of meaning behind those words--

"There you are." Russav batted aside the tapestry. He was freshly dressed, his hair still damp from his bath after the sword-practice and ride. Vidanric always hurried through a bath, the press of work never permitting him to linger, but Russav never hurried unless someone like Olervec was around. "Ordered us a meal, since I figured you forgot." It wasn’t even a question. He laughed as he cast himself down onto the cushion. "Was that not the funniest sight to happen upon? Meliara--and Flauvic Merindar! D'you think he's really become a scholar?"

"If your context is our sword practice, no. You've only to look at him to see that someone's trained him. He might not want us to know. He seems determined to present himself as a recluse busy with his books--he has twice deflected me when I asked what he is studying--but he definitely doesn't want close contact with any of us."

"Except the women," Russav chortled. "Have you heard the latest?"

Vidanric made a grimace of distaste, bent and a flicked a much-folded note with his fingertips. This note rested on a small pile farthest from his neatly aligned stacks of reports and orders. "I wish, I do wish people did not deem it necessary to report to me the details of others' private lives."

Russav lifted his shoulders. "You saw what we found in Galdran's papers after his death." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where Galdran's rooms once were--now turned into formal sitting rooms for visiting ambassadors who had to be housed in the best, and who wouldn't experience the aura of anger and destruction that loured in the air for those who'd known Galdran. "I can't believe he was paying people to spy on others."

"How else could Grumareth pay his debts?" Vidanric retorted. "But these are not from him. I really don't care whom Flauvic is dallying with, as long as it's--" He stopped.

Russav looked amused. "Go on. Not with Meliara, right? You wouldn't be jealous, would you, at the prospect?"

Vidanric looked within himself. He knew what jealousy was--he'd fought spurts of it when young. Caused by Russav, actually, who was always bigger, stronger, faster. Felt just how sharp and deadly it could be, just once, far away--it sometimes seemed another lifetime--when a tall young man looked down from a horse at a young woman who stood before him, arms crossed. Neither aware of anyone else--though usually they were quite observant, but at that moment all the world was comprised of each another. He'd fought that battle, and won.

"No," he said finally. "It's not that. It's just--Flauvic is a throw-back to the golden-haired Deis, can you see it? I never realized it. Or if the adults said something, before he left, I was too young to catch the meaning. It’s been generations since the Merindars matched with the Deis, and yet there he is."

"It used to be said there was one of those golden Deis a century," Russav said appreciatively. "But the entire world has seen Sartora, so that can't be true."

"They are certainly rare enough. And it's not the looks that make them so dangerous--if they are a danger--it's that their wit usually matches their spectacular looks. What does Flauvic, trained at a court almost as subtle as Colend’s and at least as deadly, want with Meliara? It cannot be mere idle curiosity. They might be about the same age, but he’s a predator, a raptor perhaps, riding the currents above a fledgling sparrow."

Russav flourished his fingers in Art Appreciated; his manner, the extra flourish, implied Artful.

"Too much, eh?" Vidanric said, smiling faintly. "Never mind the metaphors. I was wondering if his pose as recluse is to divorce himself from his mother's plots. Or is that a pose as well, and he's as deeply involved as the other two?" He flung his hands wide. "I almost hope he is, because it means I can out-think him Anyway I confess I'd rather not see Meliara tangled with him. It seems to amuse him to toy with his old playmates one by one, and then drop them."

Russav had been considering how to shift the subject to what he had come in here to discuss, which was Tamara's sudden, friendly-seeming invitation. But he knew his Tamara: that friendliness toward Meliara, after despising her quite thoroughly, had been a pose. But here was Danric despising gossip, and there was the trying matter of Tamara's courtship of Danric's future crown, so he decided to keep it to himself. Danric had plenty to worry about. Time for some reassurance, and then onward. "Flauvic's an icicle. As sharp as he is cold. But this is Meliara we're talking about."

"Who could be as attracted as any of our far more sophisticated ladies to Flauvic's considerable charms. Formidable charms," Vidanric amended wryly.

"Listen to uncle. I'm the expert on women and the delicate art of dalliance, remember. Say he does whisper seductive words into her ears. If she even notices she'll probably think he's talking about the selling-points of someone's horse."

Vidanric laughed a little as he folded Meliara's letter. "To return to the question, how much of this missive has Arthal's ghostly hand behind it?"

Russav rose, straightening his tunic and then admiring the straight line of the embroidered herons down one sleeve. "You know you're going to write back and find out."

"Yes," Vidanric said. "I will."

*

And he did, though as soon as he sent it he began to regret the stiff, distant tone he'd taken. What a pompous fool he must seem! Yet Meliara’s answer was waiting on the pile the next evening, when he returned from the protracted meetings after court. The hand was not as careful as the earlier letters, but written at dashing speed, with occasional curlicues, all expressed in that blithe tone he'd sometimes overheard Meliara using to others, the words tumbling over one another, the logic circular in a way that he found inexplicably charming.

He sat back, glad that he'd been able to use the excuse of his mother--arranged between them months ago--to avoid Tamara's party. He was also glad that Tamara had accepted his excuse so easily, almost indifferently: maybe that meant her intermittent courtship was ended at last. Now he might have time to give Meliara a far better answer—after, of course, he finished the pile of work that had accrued during the long court session.

So it was quite late—he didn’t want to look at the white candles to see how little sleep he had left—when Russav showed up again, smelling of citrus punch. He was dressed magnificently, his dark eyes wide with fury, lips white.

Vidanric’s blood turned to snow.

"Tamara," Russav said, "got Meliara drunk. And did her best to ruin her." He swung around and struck the wall, making the tapestry tremble.

"What?" Vidanric got to his feet, then forced himself to sit down again. This was no crown matter; he could do nothing. "Where is she?"

"It's all right," Russav said, weary now. He grimaced with faint humor as he wrung his hand. "That was painful. Pain hurts! How did you manage during all those days of fighting practice years ago? Meliara is probably asleep, put to bed by her maid. Game to the last, telling us about Galdran whacking her out of the saddle, though Tamara did her worst trying to get her to brag. 'Duel to the dust,' she said, and it would have been the perfect exit line. But no, because she didn't even know she was drunk, she sicked up the worst of Tamara's lethal potion right there on the five-hundred year old Colendi carpet of a thousand rosebuds. In front of court's worst gossips."

"Oh." Vidanric winced. "That's . . . unfortunate."

"I picked her up, limp as an old stocking, and walked out. I don't know what others will say--none of Meliara's particular friends were there. No Nee, no Branaric."

"If you walked out like that, then it sounds like Tamara's party was left in a ruin. That doesn't sound like a social triumph," Vidanric said slowly.

"I hope she ruined herself." Russav's anger was all the more intense for the regret he felt in saying it. "I hope," he said again, trying to convince himself.

Vidanric heard the change in tone; Russav left a little after, just as notes began to arrive, carried by the night runners, who were far more discreet than the day staff. Vidanric read the various missives, every one of which expressed undying partisanship of the wronged countess, and anathema against Tamara Chamadis. He sat in thought, and then, just before dawn, wrote one last letter to Meliara. Then went to bed.

When he woke, he sorted his mail before doing anything else. There was another Meliara letter midway down the pile of accumulated reports. He opened it first. Once again he experienced, while reading her words, that headlong rush of thoughts, the laughing tone, characteristically wry. So true to the heart.

<iPeople are not diamonds.

He only understood the real worth of that when he had read the private missives scattered through the political reports and letters. Meliara's solution to the problem of Tamara was as perfect as it was unexpected. 'Diamonds.' And as generous, though it was clear from her letter that she did not see herself as the dispenser of generosity. He rubbed his fingers over the letters she had penned, imagining her small fingers brushing over the paper in the same place. Perhaps here she'd grinned, and there she'd jabbed impatiently at her inkwell: there was a tiny spray of blue ink above the initial letter, like the reverse of the night sky--blue stars against white.

You will have to find a way for the two of you to get to know one another as individuals, his father had said the year before. Here, it seemed, there was a way. It was not ideal--it would demand so much time away from already impossible tasks, and depend on the written word rather than the signal of eye, and hand, and timbre of voice. But he would find the time, and the words. Meliara did not look at his letters and see the shadow of defeat, or the weight of kingship. She saw only the words of an anonymous friend, to whom she readily extended her friendship.

He shoved aside his papers, dipped the pen into the ink, and pulled a fresh sheet toward him. A new beginning, an unexpected gift: let the courtship begin.