Chapter Nine

Carann, Royal Palace

“Walk with me,” Duchess Laodamia said as she turned and headed down the corridor, her cane tapping loudly on the marble floor. Arta regarded her silently for a moment, nonplussed – from the way the old woman was talking, one would almost think she was the queen and Arta her vassal; but then, apparently age and seniority had their privileges – before quickly moving to keep pace with her. Her guards walked a respectful distance behind.

“What did you want to discuss, your grace?” Arta asked after a brief silence.

Laodamia smiled at her and then glanced back over her shoulder in the direction Latharna had gone. “Tell me, child,” she said, “are you planning on marrying that young woman?”

Whatever Arta had been expecting, this was certainly not it; she could feel her face reddening and struggled to keep her surprise from showing too strongly. “I admit I hadn’t really considered it, one way or another,” she said. “We’re still young, after all, and haven’t been seeing each other for that long. And at the moment I have other things on my mind.”

The old duchess regarded her shrewdly. “But you do love her, don’t you?”

Arta swallowed and nodded. “Yes,” she admitted quietly.

Laodamia sighed. “Then whether you marry her or not, that is something you will have to deal with in time,” she said. “You are a queen, Artakane. That means that you must make place the needs of the state above your personal desires, and the state, as a rule, expects its monarch to be wed.”

“Surely there are more important things to worry about right now than whether or not I’m married?” Arta asked incredulously. “Have you forgotten that we’re currently at war with the most powerful nation in this arm of the galaxy and potentially facing an invasion by alien marauders?”

Laodamia tapped her cane. “I did not say you need to wed immediately,” she said, “merely that it is something you need to be considering. I would have thought Mardoban might have talked to you about this, but then, he is a man, and when it comes to such matters, men tend to either be squeamish or think they know everything with little middle ground. I am not squeamish, and at my age I’ve learned to take a long view of events. And, in the long term, it is best for the Kingdom if you wed. Both for the purposes of creating firm alliances and, ultimately, for having heirs. Something I will note that you, for the moment, do not have, as your older sister has made it clear she does not want the throne and will not take it, and your closest cousin just got himself killed rather spectacularly not long ago.”

Arta was blushing furiously now – frankly, the prospect of being a mother was one she had never given much thought to and wasn’t something she was especially comfortable considering now – but with some effort she managed to master her reaction and regain some measure of royal decorum. “And so what would your advice be, your grace?”

Laodamia paused, considering. “The fact that you and Lady Dhenloc are both women raises some complications, but not insurmountably so,” she said. Marriages between couples of the same sex were not common among the Dozen Stars nobility, but they were hardly unheard of – Duchess Vashata had recently married her long-term mistress, and Duke Karous and his husband had been together for years. And while cloning was strictly forbidden by both the Canon and most secular laws, using genetic engineering to create an embryo combining both parents’ DNA was considered acceptable so long as such a child was not a direct copy of another person. And as women, Arta and Latharna would have a somewhat easier time than if they’d both been men, as they wouldn’t require a surrogate, whether a person or a machine, to carry a child of theirs to term. “Now, tell me,” the duchess continued, “my sources have been unable to find the pertinent information for me – what, exactly, is the status of Lady Dhenloc’s family?”

And here was the likely problem, and Arta’s heart sank and the thought. “She doesn’t know,” she said. “Latharna is an orphan. She was raised by a school headmistress who was her guardian but never officially adopted her. According to her, Latharna’s parents weren’t nobility, but that’s all we know.”

“Hmmm.” Laodamia pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That is a problem,” she said. “Royalty and nobility do not marry for love, child, at least not unless they are lucky. They marry for alliance. You would not be the first Dozen Stars monarch to marry a Realtran, and the people would accept that; they are, after all, our allies. But a Realtran commoner, who brings nothing to the marriage? That would be a problem. I fear many of the nobility would see it as a sign of weakness and sentimentality. And the common people might mistrust a monarch they saw as insufficiently one of their own.”

“So, are you suggesting I just cast Latharna aside?” Arta demanded. “I won’t do that. I love her!”

To her surprise, Laodamia smiled wistfully. “Ah, to be young again,” she said. “You don’t have to get rid of her – you wouldn’t be the first or last monarch to keep a mistress, and from what I hear the girl is a remarkable knight. But I am saying you should not marry her without seriously considering the consequences – and your other options. Tell me, are you only interested in women, or are you also attracted to men?”

“Both,” Arta said quietly, more embarrassed by this conversation than she’d ever been in her life, including the time as a small child when she’d worn her favorite dress to an event her foster-father had wanted her to attend without realizing Karani had spilled jelly on it.

“Well, that increases your options, anyway,” Laodamia said. “Lord knows you don’t need to be attracted to someone to marry them, but it helps. Now, the two most powerful duchies after Carann are Orlanes and Sakran, and both of their heirs are conveniently single. I hear you are already on friendly terms with young Pakorus; that’s good and might be useful. On the other hand, Darius ast Sakran is a highly accomplished warrior and a marriage with him might help seal the breach left by the rebellion. His siblings are available as well, of course. And, speaking of healing breaches, Tashir Duchy is also influential and young Ariana seems determined to grab your attention, if you really do find yourself more inclined that way.”

Arta managed to keep her composure, but it was difficult – especially where the Sakrans were concerned. Darius was attractive, she had to admit, but he always seemed more like a work of art than a person – she couldn’t imagine marrying him, or his sister Tariti. And Galen was out of the question entirely; Arta still remembered the sound of Karani’s leg breaking at the tournament, and she would never forgive Galen for that. “It’s all… rather overwhelming,” she finally said.

“I’m not saying you have to make a decision now,” Laodamia said. “But you should be considering it. If the war ends with the kingdom still here, our people will want stability and the promise of continuity.” Continuity, Arta understood, meant legitimate heirs. One could inherit of one was illegitimate – technically, Arta was a bastard herself, as Queen Aestera hadn’t been married to her father, though she’d left official documentation with Shiran that acknowledged and legitimized her. But legitimate heirs were usually seen as preferable. “You had to hear it from someone, child,” Laodamia continued, her eyes softening. “And if Mardoban wouldn’t do it, best it be from someone who is experienced in these matters. You don’t need to act or make a decision right now, but… remember what I’ve said. Your Majesty.” The old woman sketched a remarkably dexterous curtsey for someone her age and then turned and walked away, her cane tapping loudly on the floors once again.

She left a troubled and confused young queen in her wake.

///

Arta groaned and buried her heard in her hands as she sat back on her bed. “Tell me you didn’t,” she muttered to Latharna, who sat beside her. “First Karani, and now you too. Why is everyone around me suddenly going mad?”

“Yes, I agreed to a duel with Ark ast Pontus,” Latharna said, “because clearly the beating Karani gave him earlier wasn’t enough to knock sense into his thick head. And honestly, I agree with what Karani said the other day – if you’d been there and heard the things he was saying about you, you would have agreed with me.”

“That is not the point!” Arta hissed, turning to look at Latharna. “Why is it that everyone seems to think they have to leap to defend my honor? What kind of queen do I look like if I can’t take criticism? And right now, this is absolutely the last distraction I need.” Though, she supposed, the benefit of this latest misfortune was that it had – almost – completely driven her awkward conversation with Laodamia from her mind.

“Arta,” Latharna slowly, “I am your royal champion – defending your honor is literally my job. I’m here to fight the fights for you that are beneath a queen’s dignity. But if it does bother you so much, don’t think of me as defending only your honor, but my own as well. Ark insulted me too, after all. And frankly, I think this can potentially work out well for us – for you, I mean.”

Arta raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she asked. “Because at the moment I’m having a hard time seeing how I even get out of this without alienating one of the most powerful duchies in the Kingdom – a duchy whose support, as I have just been reminded, I desperately need in this war.”

“Actually, Darius seemed to approve, once he got over his initial shock,” Latharna said. “Ark all but said I only got my position by sleeping with you, which is an insult to my honor and my reputation. We don’t take such things so seriously in Realtran, but if I remember my etiquette lessons correctly, a knight of the Dozen Stars can’t let insults like that slide without shaming themselves. And the accepted response is an honor duel. Ark made the challenge; I just accepted. And since I’m your champion, if I’d backed down it would have looked bad for both of us.”

“And I can’t afford to look weak on the eve of a war with the Empire,” Arta said, nodding. “Though there were only, at my count, four other people in the room – not exactly a public shaming.”

“One of those four people was Galen,” Latharna reminded her. “I don’t exactly trust Darius and Tariti, but I respect them. Galen…”

“Hates me,” Arta finished, and sighed. “I know. And he’d probably make sure to spread word around.”

“But, if I duel Ark and win, then I avenge the insult, we show we’re strong, and if we’re lucky it will shut the people who think I don’t deserve to be a knight up,” Latharna said. “If anything, this may strengthen your position with people who are still uncertain. Your people are strange that way.”

“Yes, but you still have to beat Ark,” Arta pointed out. “Can you do it?”

Latharna regarded her flatly. “I hope that was a rhetorical question,” she said, and Arta smiled. There were areas where Latharna doubted herself and was insecure, but her confidence in her skill was the sword was sure and serene. “Now, what do I do next? I assume there is a procedure for this?”

“I’d have thought you would know,” Arta said. “You’re the one who had the fancy etiquette classes, after all.”

“Nobody has dueled for honor in Realtran for a hundred years,” Latharna pointed out. “It wasn’t something the curriculum emphasized.”

“Well, you need to agree to a time and a place,” Arta mused, “and weapons. I assume you’ll both want dueling swords, and the palace dueling hall should be an acceptable venue. And you’ll both need to pick seconds. I’d do it, but as queen I doubt I’m allowed. You can ask Karani.”

“I’m sure Ark will love that,” Latharna muttered under her breath as she remembered the broken nose he’d already sustained at Karani’s hands. She doubted he’d forgiven her for that, and honestly, even in these comparatively enlightened times, there were some men who simply couldn’t tolerate being defeated by a woman. She didn’t know if Ark was of that persuasion, but she thought it more likely than not.

Arta placed a hand on Latharna’s arm. “You can do this, my knight,” she said, staring directly into her champion’s red-tinted eyes.

A smile teased the edges of Latharna’s mouth. “I know,” she said. “I will make you proud, my queen.” Then she leaned in and kissed Arta squarely on the lips, and for that moment, nothing else mattered.

///

That evening, following another strategy meeting with the council, Arta sat cross-legged on her bed in a plain blue robe. The lights were dim and in the corner of the room Latharna harped gently, the effect lulling Arta into a state that wasn’t quite sleep or wakefulness. She rested her hands on her knees and breathed slowly, in and out, focusing carefully on each breath, excluding all else. It was a meditative technique Shiran had taught her to help calm and organize her mind, and to help her maintain the discipline she needed to use her Adept powers. For now, though, she mostly just needed calm. That was something in short supply these days.

The soothing music seemed to echo in the background of her mind as she focused on her breaths. In-out, in-out, in-out… slowly, she felt her eyelids drooping, the room dimming around her, her mind seeming to drift away. Her eyes closed…

And opened again to find that the room, the bed, Latharna and her harp – all were gone. Instead she found herself in a place where she had been once before, a place that was no place. She stood in the center of a forest, black tree trunks towering around her in a land filled with thick grey mist. This, Arta understood, was some manifestation of what Shiran and Midaia had called the psychic plane, the realm of pure thought and feeling that all people’s minds touched, but only Adepts could access deliberately. The last time she had come here, it had been in a dream. This time… this time, she wasn’t sure.

Last time Midaia had appeared here to guide and speak with her, but there was no sign of her sister now, or of Shiran or any other familiar figure. Only trees and fog. A part of Arta wanted to cry out for Latharna, to pinch herself to try and wake up, but another part – the part that was Adept – whispered that this was exactly where she needed to be. She had not found her way here by accident, she understood. She was called. There was something here that she needed to see… or to do.

There was no path marked through the trees, and every direction looked much the same as every other, but Arta set off determinedly between them, knowing only that instinct told her that this was the right way to go. She didn’t know how long she walked through the misty darkness, carefully avoiding obstacles in her way by instinct. Finally, she emerged from the trees and found herself in a place that she had never seen before. Here the forest ended in a sudden straight line and before her stretched endlessly a vast grey plain, seemingly formed of some stone that Arta had never seen before. The sky above was dark, with neither sun nor stars, but a silver light that had no source seemed to illuminate everything, and Arta had no difficulty seeing. Tentatively she stepped out onto it and, when nothing dangerous seemed to happen, she continued walking. What she sought was beyond this place, she knew.

At last she came to a place where the plain was cracked in perfect concentric circles, as if something had struck the ground here and left the stone broken in its wake. She made her way forward, slowly, carefully, and came at last to a small depression in the center of the rings. At the center of the depression, thrust point-first into the ground, was a sword.

And what a sword! It was beautifully crafted, every line and curve of the hilt and blade perfect in shape, and it seemed to be forged from pure sunlight, gleaming with a golden radiance that was the first splash of color she had seen since coming to this place. In fascination she reached out a trembling hand to seize the hilt, to wrench the sword free that she might admire it more closely, but at the last moment she pulled back. Something told her that this weapon did not wish to be disturbed; not now.

As her hand fell back to her side, Arta realized that she was not alone. Another figure stood on the sword’s far side, a shimmering, wraithlike figure that gleamed a slightly different shade of gold from that of the blade. She – for something inexplicable told Arta that the figure was female – was studying the sword carefully and seemed lost in thought. Arta raised a hand towards her, and saw, to her surprise, that it appeared just as insubstantial as the stranger’s, save that it was made from blue light instead of gold. “Hello?” she called. “Can you hear me?”

The golden figure started, then she fixed her gaze on Arta. “I can!” she said. “Who are you? I thought that I was alone here. Has the One brought us together, then?”

“I don’t know about the One,” Arta said, remembering that this was the name – or title – of the Alaelam deity. Was the stranger Alaelam, then? An Adept, surely, to have come to this place. “My name is Artak – just Arta.” For some reason it seemed that in this place, giving her full name might be dangerous.

And yet the golden figure’s eyes seemed to widen. “Arta – you are Artakane! The Adept Queen of the Dozen Stars!” She sketched a strange bow, one that seemed to Arta’s eyes less a gesture of deference and more one of respect exchanged between equals. “I am honored.”

“And who are you, then?” Arta asked.

“I am a dancer in sunlight and a disciple of the Way,” the stranger said. “I came here to think and meditate upon the strife that fast approaches; I did not expect to meet someone else here.”

“And where is here, exactly?” Arta asked. “What is this place – and this sword?”

“You have guessed that this is what is sometimes called the psychic plane,” the stranger said. “The realm of the One, where all things meet. It is the realm of thoughts, hopes and dreams of humankind – and of things older than humankind. It often shifts, but some things are constant. This sword is one of them. It has been here for centuries, and we do not know who placed it here. Perhaps it is a threat – or a promise.” She giggled then, and Arta thought she suddenly sounded very young, though she still couldn’t make out her features. “Some of the Disciples say it will only be drawn in the final days, but I think that sounds terribly dramatic, don’t you think? Sometimes a sword, as they say, is just a sword.”

Arta shook her head; she had barely understood half of that and opened her mouth to ask the stranger to explain what she meant, but the other woman suddenly froze and held a hand to her lips, or where her lips would be if they could be seen in this form. “Be still!” she said. “We are not alone. The Old Ones watch.” She gestured to her right, and Arta looked to see that a hill stood there where no hill had been before, and a figure stood atop it. For a moment she thought it was Midaia, for the black cloak was of the same style, but the figure’s face was completely obscured save for the pair of cold, gleaming white eyes that stared out from under the hood. For a long moment it stood there in silence, watching Arta and the stranger, and then it nodded to itself and turned and swept away, vanishing.

“What was that?” Arta asked.

“Something that was old when the first pyramids were raised in the deserts of Terra,” the stranger said. “They haunt the psychic plane sometimes; their business is their own. We stay clear of them when we can. They are not to be trusted. Listen to me now. I don’t think we met by chance. We fight the same enemy, you and I. I must leave you now, but I will seek you out in the waking world. Watch for me. You will know me when I see you. We have many things to discuss away from prying eyes.” She raised a hand in blessing. “I know your people do not follow the Way, but still – the One walk with you.”

Arta opened her mouth to ask the first of a hundred questions, to have some idea of what was going on here, but she suddenly felt hands shaking her shoulders. She shook her head, and when she opened her eyes again the plain and the sword were gone. She lay back in bed and Latharna was leaning over her, shaking her increasingly frantically and repeating her name over and over again.

“I’m awake,” Arta said, sitting up. “I’m all right. What happened.”

“I hoped you could tell me,” Latharna said. “You fell asleep and fell back on the bed, and then you started thrashing around and… and your eyes were glowing. I had no idea what to do, or who to ask. All I could try to do was wake you up. What happened, Arta? You saw something, didn’t you? Like mystics do, sometimes. I’ve read about this, but I’ve never seen it.”

“Yes,” Arta said quietly. “I saw something. Or someone. I just wish I knew what it meant.”