The Verse:
The curious mirror
reflecting blood on the wedding-sheets.
The Vision:
I am fighting with Tenzain Merkht.
Only now, after all these years, I know for certain that Ta’al Erich was watching.
Commentary by Archbishop Co’oal Venesti:
As the incident does not concern his holiness, I do not believe it is within my purview.
Commentary by Elma, High Prophetess of Skarsia:
I really tried to talk the 5th Matriarch out of agreeing to Tara’s betrothal. I knew it was going to cause all kinds of problems. It couldn’t stop the changing of Archons, but in many ways, things would’ve gone so much easier if Tara had never left Dolparessa. There was a point where I could see that path. Tara still would’ve been Matriarch, but we’d still be under the Great Silence. CenGov wouldn’t have found out the truth about the Rip for another three centuries. Tara and Daniel would have been loyal servants of the Cantor – which means that basically, I would’ve run everything.
Oh well, down the ra’aabit hole. Maybe I like this better. It has surprises – and for someone like me, that’s precious.
Commentary by Sloane Lord Redmond of Skalisia:
“She won’t talk about it,” I said to him. “So I have to ask you.”
Ta’al Erich met my eyes, appraising me. We’d met only briefly before, when he thought I was a servant. My position had changed.
He beckoned me to enter. The room was dark and filled with woodwork – a luxury for a man from a frozen planet with few trees, an abomination for a man from a forest-world of sentient ones. There was a sweet, smoky scent – pipe tobacco. I’m certain Valentin could identify the kind.
“I assume the ‘she’ is the Matriarch, the only ‘she’ in your rather limited universe,” he said. “As to the ‘it,’ you refer to, I am rather less capable of forming a hypothesis.”
“The mirror,” I said. “You were watching her.”
A moment’s concern crossed the man’s face; then he laughed, smiling dismissively. “Ah, yes, the mirrors. I can monitor every room in my brother’s castle from my projection closet – I still do. It’s amazing what I hear. But Tara caught onto it quite fast. She rarely stood before the mirrors save to check her appearance. I even suspect she discovered the closet, and occasionally used it for her own devices.”
“But you did watch – once. Her wedding night.”
He stared at me unblinkingly. “You must be singularly masochistic to want to know about that.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“That much is obvious.”
“I can’t…I can’t keep running from the past. I have to move forward. In order to do that, I have to know. And she won’t talk about it.”
“Sit,” he said. “Do you want a drink?”
I settled uncomfortably onto varnished wood. “No.”
“No? Are you certain that you’re an emanation of Ashtara?”
“It doesn’t really blunt the pain. And my tears don’t need an excuse. I don’t understand why Ailann still hasn’t figured that out.”
Ta’al Erich regarded me curiously. “His personality is very different. I doubt that he would trust me to tell the truth.”
“What profit would there be in lying?”
“Indeed. There was a time when I was courting the lady, but that has long past. The failure of my suit was for the best. I’m not cut out to be Tenzain, and I don’t believe my brother would have ever forgiven me for marrying his former wife. And I do know,” he smiled again, “that her temperament is…difficult.”
“Difficult,” I repeated, trying to understand. “Icarus found the sun to be difficult.”
“An appropriate analogy for a mothman.” He leaned back in his chair. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “As you might imagine, the wedding ceremony was unpleasant. Both partners operated from a sense of duty. Besides the cultural conflict, which would have been trying under any circumstances, they were temperamentally unsuited for each other. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that in intellect, taste and opinion, they were opposite, but in temperament the same – moody, headstrong, proud, quick to anger, physical.”
“I…I wanted to see if my brother consummated his marriage,” Erich continued. “If he failed to do so within a reasonable period, he would be considered…inadequate. At the time, I still nursed ambitions to become Tenzain. That was my only motivation.”
I didn’t believe him.
“She insulted him horribly.”
That I believed.
“We all suspected…after all, we knew that Dolparessan women were wild…that she was not virgo intacta. Well, technically, she’d probably had her hymen surgically removed on Skarsia when she reached adolescence.”
Again probably true. A Skarsian aristo would be humiliated to let a man take her first blood. Daniel didn’t, and I had no reason to believe that she’d had a lover before him.
“But she pulled out a locket. When she opened it, it projected a hologram of herself and a young man. She said ‘My uncle murdered this man because he was my lover. I’ve known my duty since I was a girl. You’ll take nothing from me. I’ll open my legs to you, but never my heart.”
A shiver ran through me. I could hear her saying that. I could hear her defiant loyalty.
“My brother reacted appropriately for a Hero of Volparnu. He hit her.”
My fingers gripped the arms of the chair, nails digging into dead wood to prevent myself from rising in outrage.
“She stared at him with her huge brown eyes. The outline of his palm was red against her ivory cheek. She looked shocked and wounded. I almost felt sorry for her.”
“Then she punched him. Hard enough that blood poured from his nose. He bellowed like a frostbeast and lunged at her. He toppled her onto the bed, but her knee was up and in his stomach. Doubled over, he twisted her arm, applying his superior weight. She scratched like a tigron, then elbowed him in the neck. Her moves were efficient – professional. It occurred to me that she might kill him.”
“They fought for a few minutes, both taking damage, but my brother coming out the worse despite his size and gender. Then she got away from him, smashed a wine bottle and brandished the broken edge. She was crouched like some cornered beast, her wedding negligee torn and stained with wine and blood, and she waved the bottle in his face. ‘I said I know my duty,’ she hissed. ‘I will submit myself to your pathetic rutting, but I am the daughter of the Battlequeen of Kyrae, and I will slay you if you raise your hand against me. And if your family would have me tried and executed for your murder, so be it. I’ll be with my Daniel that much the sooner.’”
“Suffice it to say that my brother did not consummate his wedding that night. The two of them arrived, much bruised, at breakfast, to the jocularity of the servants. They assumed that the bride had enjoyed the firmness of her husband; the couple did not disabuse them. As far as I know, he never hit her again.”
“And you have never told the story before?”
“No,” he said as he stood. I sensed that I was being dismissed.
“Then why tell me?”
“Do you believe it?”
“Yes.”
“There’s not a single man of Volparnu who wouldn’t think I was making up a lie about how my brother was beaten by his wife in order to shame him. But you’re not a man of Volparnu, and you think my brother shamed himself by beating his wife.”
“That’s true. Should I keep the tale a secret then?”
Ta’al Erich shrugged as he opened the door. “Why should I care if anyone believes you?” He smiled. “Why should I care if my wife should happen to hear the tale third-hand?”