All politics, of course. They'd dressed her in the hawk, just as they'd dressed her in the red outfit, and the polite conversation and the musical appreciation and the civil and mercantile law, until she was practically an artifact rather than a human being; a mechanical toy, like the clockwork dolls the Mezentines make, but instead of a spring to make her go, deep inside there was a little sharp-clawed predator who tore at her food…
She was standing up. Veatriz couldn't see, because of Orsea's stupid chin, but she and the other savages were on their feet; now Valens and his fat chancellor were standing too (rules of precedence to be observed in everything); they were leaving. She lost sight of them behind a thicket of heads, and then there was a tantalizing glimpse of them in the gap between the end of the table and the door; the pack had fallen behind, and she was walking next to Valens as the door opened and they escaped.
Well. It was high time the young couple spent some time together, to get to know each other. They'd probably go for a walk round the knot garden, while the diplomats and the representatives and the whole Vadani government lurked discreetly in the covered cloister, penned in like sheep waiting to be dipped. They would walk round the knot garden, and she would go through her paces like a well-trained four-year-old jennet at a horse fair, and the fate of nations would be decided by how well she made small talk. Meanwhile (everybody else was getting up now) the Duchess Veatriz Sirupati would go back to her room and embroider something.
"Can someone explain to me," Orsea was saying-to her, presumably-"what all that was in aid of?"
He could be so infuriating; but she kept her temper. "Oh come on," she said. "Don't you know who those people are?"
Orsea shrugged. "Someone told me they're ambassadors from the Cure Hardy, but that's got to be wrong. The Cure Hardy are-"
"Savages." She nodded. "That's them," she said. "And the female is going to marry Valens."
It was a moment before Orsea spoke. "Nobody tells me anything," he said.
"Yes they do, but you don't listen." She sighed, as though the whole thing was quite tedious. "It's all to do with trade agreements and cavalry," she said. "And it's high time he got married and churned out an heir. Presumably they haven't got around to telling the savages that they're marrying into a war; that'll be a nice surprise on their wedding night. Probably they'll be delighted, I gather the Cure Hardy enjoy a nice war."
"It'd be a stroke of luck for us," Orsea said seriously. "Have you any idea how many of those people there are? Millions of them. We found that out when-"
"Orsea, what are you talking about?"
"Manpower," Orsea replied, frowning slightly, his mind elsewhere. "What we call the Cure Hardy is actually loads of different tribes; nomads, always on the move. And there's a lot of them; hundreds of thousands. If Valens is going to stand a chance against the Republic, what he needs most is a very large army, because as far as I can tell, where the Mezentines hire their mercenaries from, the supply is practically unlimited. If he can tap into the Cure Hardy for reinforcements, he may actually have a chance of making a game of it."
A game of it. There had been a time when she'd loved him for a reason, rather than merely from force of habit, merely because they'd grown into each other, like briars growing into a tangle. She could still remember it, though: the belief that he was a good man, determined to do the best he could in the impossible situation he'd been thrust into. The trouble was, he'd always done his best and every time he'd failed, his failures leading to disaster and misery on a scale that mere malice could never have achieved. Deep inside somewhere, overgrown by tangled briars, he was still there; but recently she'd begun to feel that reaching him was more effort than it was worth. All sorts of other things had grown up through her love, especially since Eremia fell and they'd come here; there was pity, guilt, a sense of duty; there was Valens…
"And how would that help us exactly?" she said, eager to find something to disagree with him about. "It'd just mean the war going on forever and ever, wouldn't it?"
Orsea frowned. "On the contrary," he said. "If the Mezentines see that Valens has got powerful allies-"
"You're blocking the way," she pointed out. "People are trying to get past."
"What? Oh." He hesitated, trying to decide whether to shrink back and let them pass or to head for the exit. She decided for him by walking away. He followed her; she could hear his voice close behind her saying, "If Valens makes an alliance with these people-"
"You really think the Mezentines see things that way?" she said without looking round. "Don't you realize, if they gave up because Valens made friends with the Cure Hardy, that'd be admitting they were afraid, they'd never ever do that. Really, after all you've been through with them, I'd have thought you'd understand them a little better than that."
He'd caught up with her, bobbing along beside her like a friendly dog, or a small boy in the market trying to sell her baskets. He could be so irritating sometimes, she wanted to shoo him away with a whisk of her mane. "I don't think it's like that anymore," he was bleating, "I really do believe things have changed, with the balance of power in the Guilds shifting toward the Foundrymen again and-"
"Orsea." She stopped, making him stop too. "Don't talk rubbish. You don't know anything about Guild politics, so please don't pretend you're the world's greatest authority-" She broke off, wondering why on earth she was talking to him like this. "Let's drop it, all right?" she said. "It's not a subject I like thinking about, the war and what's going to happen to us."
"All right." At least he hadn't apologized, this time. He seemed to have the idea that an apology fixed everything, as though she wanted a husband who was always in the wrong. He'd apologize for sunset if he thought darkness offended her. "So," he was saying, "what do you think? About them, I mean, the Cure Hardy? They aren't anything like the ones who came to see us."
"Aren't they? I didn't meet them."
"Not a bit like," he said. "For a start, they eat proper food. When they came to Eremia, they were all vegetarians, and they didn't drink booze, either."
"Different tribe, presumably," she said.
"Obviously. But I wouldn't have thought one lot would be so different from the others. Still, Valens seems to be handling them pretty well. There's a man who always does his homework."
"He reads a lot," Veatriz said.
"Really? Well, that'd account for it. Anyhow, I'm assuming it's pretty well done and dusted. It's about time he got married, after all."
When she'd stopped she hadn't really been aware of where she was. Now she looked round; they were in the top lobby of the Great Hall, directly under a huge, slightly faded tapestry (hunting scene, needless to say). "Never met the right girl, presumably," she said.
He laughed. "I don't suppose that's got anything to do with it. I've always assumed it was a case of keeping his options open, politically."
"Fine. I'm going back to our room now, if that's all right with you."
(She called it their room, as if it was just a bed and a chair and a small mirror on the wall; in fact it was a whole floor of the North Tower, not much smaller than their apartments back in the palace at Civitas Eremiae. Too much space, not too little.)
"Oh." He stood there, directly under the flat, snarling dogs and the bustling huntsmen; cluelessness personified. "Right. I'll see you later, then."