Courage was one of those virtues that Valens had but set little store by. As far as he was concerned, he was brave in the same way he was right-handed. By the same token, he treated fear like indigestion or a headache, just another annoyance that had to be overcome. He slid his finger under the flap and pressed gently upwards, until the wax cracked, splitting off the stag's head and crumbling its neck into fine red powder, like blood. Veatriz Sirupati to Valens Valentinianus, greetings.
Only myself to blame, he thought. Getting engaged to be married to someone else could only be construed as a hostile thing, an act of war. Besides, it's not as though we were ever…
Just letters. Nothing more.
And here was a letter, its integrity guaranteed by the flawed stag he'd just snapped in half. He thought, unexpectedly, of Miel Ducas, the sulfur enthusiast, disgraced by another of these small packets of thought and feeling. Our fault; my fault. If Miel Ducas had commanded the defense of Civitas Eremiae… Wouldn't have made any difference, since the city fell by treachery, and I'd still have done that one bloody stupid thing, which in turn led inevitably to the war, my desperate need for allies and manpower, a political marriage, this letter.
Courage is a virtue best not taken to excessive extremes; someone brave enough to stick his hand in a fire is an idiot by any criteria. I could leave this letter unread. Wouldn't have to destroy it; just put it back in the ivory box and turn the little silver key.
(She's got no right, in any event. She was the one who got married in the first place, not me. I, on the other hand, am paying the price for saving her life.) Veatriz Sirupati to Valens Valentinianus, greetings.
I guess congratulations are in order.
It's none of my business, in any case. Orsea explained it all to me; apparently, it's mostly to do with light cavalry, and the Mezentines being scared stiff of the Cure Hardy, because there're so many of them. He feels guilty, by the way, because he says he told you they're all vegetarians, and they turned out not to be. It was, of course, exactly the sort of mistake he would make. The ones he met were, you see, so he was sure that what he told you was true. He was trying to be helpful. He told me once, there's nothing causes more harm in the world than men like him trying to do the right thing. He knows it's true, but he can't understand why. I think that's probably why I still love him.
Sorry; the L word. This is neither the time nor the place. Let's talk about something else. Read any good books?
I haven't. I do a lot of embroidery instead. I know you have a wonderful library full of books I'd give anything to read, but I can't, because they're yours. I used to be really jealous that you had so many books; I resented that, and you writing to me telling me things out of them. I also knew that reading the books for myself wouldn't be the same as having you quote from them in a letter. Maybe at some point I got you and your library mixed up in my mind; what's the word, I identified them with you. A bit like the way you identify a country with its ruler; you say, the Vadani did this and that when you mean the Duke did it, and the other way around. For instance, the Mezentines could say the Vadani declared war on them by attacking, when you came for me.
I have no idea what I'm saying, so excuse me. I think it's just that I'm out of practice. It seems ever such a long time since I wrote a letter.
As well as embroidery, I daydream; which is silly. I have this fantasy about a girl who writes a letter to a prince. It's pointless, because he's married; but it's all right really, they're just letters. She has an idea he doesn't really care much for his wife. The trouble is, she gets to depend on the letters; she sits waiting for them to come-and they do, but she can't help wondering what it'd be like if they stopped coming, and she was stuck out there in the middle of nowhere, stranded in a tower embroidering cushion covers for the rest of her life. Sometimes I try and talk to her; I shout, but she can't hear. I try and tell her it's a very bad idea, and if I were in her shoes I wouldn't do such a dangerously stupid thing.
The other day, I went for a walk. I don't think I'm supposed to, but there's only so much cross-stitch a woman can do before her brain boils out through her ears. I walked down some stairs and across a courtyard and up another flight of stairs and down a passage, and in through an open door. There was a maid in the room, cleaning something; as soon as she saw me, she ran away, which was a bit disconcerting. The point is, I remembered the room. It used to be my room when I first came here; you remember, when I was a hostage, during the peace talks. It was pretty much as I remembered it: same furniture, even the same mirror hanging over the fireplace. I looked in the mirror and you'll never guess who I saw there. At first I was a bit taken aback-I'd heard she was dead, or had gone away. But then it occurred to me that she must've been there all this time.
No offense, but I don't think the barbarian girl is quite right for you. She's got a nice figure if you like them springy, but you could cut yourself on that mouth. Not that I'm feeling catty or anything. Still, who needs love when you can have cavalry?
I'm sorry, that was deliberate, not just an unfortunate slip of the pen. Who needs that thing that starts with L? Not me. You see, I'm married to a dear, good man who used to love me very much, though it's rather slipped his mind lately, because of everything he's had to contend with. You don't; or maybe you do, but you can't have it if it interferes with work. You're identified with your country, remember, and countries can't go around falling in love. Imagine what'd happen if Lonazep suddenly fell madly in love with the Eivar peninsula, and Lower Madeia got jealous and died of a broken heart. There'd be chaos, they'd have to redraw all the maps.
So, there we are. Eremia sends her best wishes, what's left of her. He took a moment to fold the letter up neatly, like a man putting away a map in a high wind. He dropped it into the ivory box, turned the key and lolled back in his chair. For a little while, he stared at the tapestry on the opposite wall; the usual stag at bay, confronting the usual hounds. It was so familiar that he scarcely ever saw it these days; once it had hung in his father's bedchamber, and he'd come to know it well while he was waiting for his father to die. One of the first things he'd done when he became duke was have it brought up here.
Well, he thought, so there it is. Mind you, if this is being in love, I don't think much of it.
He glanced at the clock-beautiful, huge, Mezentine; the craftsmen of the Republic excelled at clockwork, not just timepieces but automata, gadgets, mechanical toys. In three-quarters of an hour he had to go and see his future wife. Someone had made an appointment for them to take a stroll in the herb garden. It would be at its best at this time of the evening, stinking of lavender, bay and night-scented stock. At their last encounter they'd talked quite civilly for some considerable time about sparrowhawks; a day's falconry was being arranged, or would be as soon as Jarnac Ducas came back from the wars (sulfur; why?), he being recognized as the finest falconer, apart from Valens himself, in the duchy. It was a treat he was looking forward to intensely; and once it was over, he planned on making a public announcement about leaving the city for the duration of the war.
The Mezentines would burn it to the ground, of course. Presumably they would loot it scrupulously clean first; in which case, his father's tapestry would be taken away and sold, which at least meant it would survive. He'd very nearly made up his mind to take it with him, but space on the carts was going to be very tight indeed and it'd set a bad example. He smiled; he'd seen it in passing for most of his life, but he'd never actually looked at it. That was as bad as continually dipping into a book but never actually sitting down and reading it from beginning to end; or like being in love with someone since he was seventeen but never admitting it, even to himself, until it was finally, definitively, too late to do anything about it.