As the two couples stood conversing on the sand, the boat returned to the Prayer to transport Odi Jeseratabhar and Lanstatet ashore. When the oarsmen had dragged the boat safely above the high-tide mark, the whole party made its way up the beach to the palace, following the queen and TolramKetinet. In some of the windows of the palace, lights had been lit.
SartoriIrvrash introduced Odi Jeseratabhar to CaraBansity in glowing terms. CaraBansity became noticeably cool; he made it clear that a Sibornalese admiral was not welcome on Borlienese soil.
‘I understand your feelings,’ Odi said faintly to CaraBansity. She was pale and drawn, her lips white and her hair straggling.
A meal was prepared for the unexpected guests, during which time the general was reunited with his sister Mai and embraced her. Mai wept.
‘Oh, Hanra, what’s to happen to us all?’ she asked. ‘Take me back to Matrassyl.’
‘Everything will be fine now,’ her brother said with assurance.
Mai merely looked her disbelief. She wished to be free of the queen — not to have her as sister-in-law.
They ate fish, followed by venison served with gwing-gwing sauces. They drank such wine as the king’s invading force had left, chilled with the best Lordryardry ice. As the meal progressed, TolramKetinet told the company something of the suffering of the Second Army in the jungle; he turned occasionally to Lanstatet, who sat next to his sister, for confirmation of one point or another. The queen appeared scarcely to be listening, though the account was addressed to her. She ate little and her gaze, shielded under long lashes, was rarely lifted from the table.
After the meal, she seized up a candle in its pewter holder and said to her guests, ‘The night grows short. I will show you to your quarters. You are more welcome than my previous visitors.’
The military force with Lanstatet were shown to rear accommodation. SartoriIrvrash and Odi Jeseratabhar were given a chamber near the queen’s, and a slave woman to attend them and dress Odi’s wounds.
When these dispositions were completed, MyrdemInggala and TolramKetinet stood alone in the echoing hall.
‘I fear you are tired,’ he said in a low voice as they mounted the stairs. She made no answer. Her figure, ascending the steps before him, suggested not fatigue but suppressed energy.
In the corridor upstairs, slatted blinds rattled against the open windows with the stirrings of false dawn. An early bird called from a tower. Looking obliquely back at him, she said, ‘I have no husband, as you have no wife. Nor am I queen, though by that name I am still addressed. Nor have I been scarcely a woman since I arrived at this place. What I am, you shall see before this night is over.’
She flung open the doors of her own bedchamber and gestured to him to enter.
He paused, questioning. ‘By the beholder—’
‘The beholder shall behold what she will behold. My faith has fallen from me as shall this gown.’
As he entered, she clasped the neck of her dress and pulled it open, so that her neat breasts, their nipples surrounded by large dark aureoles, sprang before his gaze. He shut the door behind him, calling her name.
She gave herself to him with an effort of will.
During what was left of the night, they did not sleep. The arms of TolramKetinet were round her body, and his flesh inside hers.
Thus was her letter, despatched by the Ice Captain, answered at last.
The next morning brought challenges forgotten in the reunions of the previous night. The Union and the Good Hope were closing in on the undefended harbour. Pasharatid was drawing near.
Despite the crisis, Mai insisted on getting her brother to herself for half an hour; while she lectured him on the miseries of life in Gravabagalinien, TolramKetinet fell asleep. She threw a glass of water over him to wake him. Staggering angrily out of the palace, he went to join the queen down by the shore. She stood with CaraBansity and one of her old women, looking out to sea.
Both suns were in different sectors of the sky, both shining the more brightly because they were about to be eclipsed by black rain clouds drawing up the slopes of the sky. Two sails glittered in the actinic light.
The Union was close, the Good Hope no more than an hour’s sailing behind; the hierograms on its spread canvas were clear to behold. The Union had lowered its artemon, in order to allow its companion to catch up.
Lanstatet was already working with his force, unloading equipment from the Prayer.
‘They’re coming in, Akhanaba help us!’ he shouted to TolramKetinet.
‘What’s that woman doing?’ TolramKetinet asked.
An old woman, a servitor of the queen’s, a long-term housekeeper of the wooden palace, was helping Lanstatet’s men unload the Prayer. It was her way of showing her dedication to the queen. A man above her was rolling kegs of gunpowder from the deck onto a gangplank. The old woman was directing the kegs down the slope, releasing a soldier for other duties.
‘I’m helping you — what do you think?’ she screamed back at the general.
Her attention was distracted. The next keg rolled off the gangplank and struck her shoulder, bowling the old woman over, pitching her face down on the shingle.
She was dragged up, faint but protesting, to lie against a chest on the beach. Blood streamed down her face. MyrdemInggala hurried down from the headland to comfort her.
As the queen knelt by her old servant, TolramKetinet stood over her and laid a hand on the queen’s shoulder.
‘My arrival has brought trouble on you, lady. That was not my intention. I am trying to regret I did not sail straight on to Ottassol.’
The queen made no answer, but took the old woman’s head on her lap. The latter’s eyes had closed, but her breathing was regular.
‘I said, lady, that I hope you don’t regret that I did not sail on to Ottassol.’
Distress showed in her face as she turned to him. ‘Hanra, I have no regrets about last night when we were together. It was my wish. I thought to be free of Jan. But it did not achieve what I hoped. For that, I am to blame, not you.’
‘You are free of him. He divorced you, did he not? What are you talking about?’ He looked angry. ‘I know I’m not a very good general, but—’
‘Oh, stop that!’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you. What do I care if you lost your scerming army? I’m talking about a bond, a solemn state that existed between two people for a long time… Some things don’t end when we hope they will. Jan and I — it’s like being unable to waken — oh, I’m unable to express—’
With some annoyance, TolramKetinet said, ‘You’re tired. I know how women get upset. Let’s talk about such things later. Let’s deal with the emergency first.’ He pointed out to sea, and adopted a no-nonsense voice. ‘Judging by the nonappearance of the Golden Friendship, it was too badly damaged to sail. The Admiral Jeseratabhar says that Dienu Pasharatid was on it. Perhaps she has been killed, in which case Io Pasharatid on the Union will be full of vengeance.’
‘I fear that man,’ said MyrdemInggala. ‘And with excellent reason.’ She bent her head over the old woman.
Her general gave her a side glance. ‘I’m here to protect you from him, aren’t I?’
‘I suppose you are,’ she said spiritlessly. ‘At least your lieutenant is doing something about the matter.’