“We are twining-partners now,” he said.
“How do you know that term?”
“I learned it from you. Just now, while we lay twined together. I was in your soul while you were in mine.” He smiled. “Twining-partners. Twining-partners. You and I.”
“Yes.” She looked at him tenderly. “Yes, we are.”
“It is like coupling, but much deeper. Much closer.”
Nialli Apuilana nodded. “Anyone can couple. But it’s possible to achieve real twining only with a few. We’re very lucky people.”
“When we are in the Nest together, there will be much twining for us?”
“Yes. Oh, yes!”
“I will be ready to return to the Nest very soon now,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you’ll go with me when I leave here? We’ll go together, you and I?”
She nodded eagerly. “Yes. I promise you that.”
She looked toward the window. Out there all the city went about its varied occupations, her mother, her father, fat Boldirinthe, sly slippery Husathirn Mueri, filthy Curabayn Bangkea and his filthy brother, thousands of citizens moving along the hectic circles of their individual paths. And they were all blind to the truth. If they only knew, she thought. All of them, out there! But they had no idea what had happened in here. What sort of partnership had been forged in here, this day. What promises we have made. And will keep.
The first days of Thu-Kimnibol’s visit had been the time for the entertainments, the dancers and the feastings and the lovemaking and the displays of kick-wrestling and fire-catching, and then the final exchange of gifts. Now it was time for business. Whatever thing it was that had brought him back to Yissou.
Salaman took his place on his great throne in the Hall of State. It was carved from a single immense teardrop-shaped block of glossy black obsidian streaked with flame-colored swirls, which he had unearthed long ago while digging in the heart of the original city. The Throne of Harruel, everyone called it: one of the few tributes the city paid to its first king. Salaman didn’t mind that. A sop to the beloved founder’s memory: why not? But Harruel had never so much as seen his supposed throne, let alone sat upon it.
People nowadays thought of Harruel, when they thought of him at all, as a great warrior, a wise far-seeing leader. A great warrior, certainly. But a leader? Wise? Salaman had his doubts about that. By now, though, scarcely anyone was still alive who remembered the true Harruel, that brooding drunkard, that beater and forcer of women, forever consumed by his own racking anguish of the spirit.
And here now was Harruel’s son, come to Harruel’s city to stand before the Throne of Harruel as Dawinno’s ambassador to Harruel’s successor. The great wheel turned, and in its turnings brought everything to everything. Why was he here? So far he had given no inkling. It had all gone smoothly up till now, at least. In the beginning Salaman had found Thu-Kimnibol’s unexpected arrival ominous and oppressive: a mystery, a threat. But also it was an interesting challenge: can you still handle him, Salaman? Can you hold him in check?
The king said, gesturing amiably, “Will you be seated, Thu-Kimnibol?”
“If it pleases your majesty, I’m comfortable as I am.”
“Whatever you prefer. Will you have wine?”
“After we speak, maybe. It’s early in the day for me to be drinking.”
Salaman wondered, not for the first time, whether Thu-Kimnibol was being shrewd or merely simple. The man was impossible to read. By choosing to remain standing, Thu-Kimnibol had, so it seemed, opted to dominate the room by sheer size and force; but had that been a deliberate choice, or, as he claimed, a matter of preference in comfort? And by refusing wine he had imposed a tension and a stiffness on the meeting that might work to his favor in any hard bargaining. Or was it just that drinking wasn’t to his taste? The sons of drunkards often want to follow a different path.
The king felt the need of regaining the advantage that Thu-Kimnibol, by inadvertence or design, had taken from him so swiftly and easily. It was bad enough that he was so big. Salaman always felt uneasy in the presence of big men, not because he had any great regret at being short-legged himself, but because great slow lumbering fellows like Thu-Kimnibol made him feel overhasty and fevered in his motions, like some small scurrying animal. But aside from all that he could not allow Thu-Kimnibol the additional superiority of controlling the field of discussion.
“You know my sons?” Salaman asked, as the princes began to enter the hall and take their seats.
“I know Chham and Athimin, certainly. And Ganthiav I met when I arrived.”
“This is Poukor. This is Biterulve. And these are Bruikkos and Char Mateh. My son Praheurt is too young to attend this meeting.” The king spread his arms in a great curve, embracing them all. Let them surround Thu-Kimnibol. Let them engulf him. He may be big, but together we can outnumber him.
They lined the room, the seven princes, each of them a close copy of his father down to the cold gray eyes, the stockiness of frame — all but the one called Biterulve, rather less sturdy than the others, and pale of aspect, though he at least had the royal eyes. Salaman was pleased to see some shadow of dismay cross Thu-Kimnibol’s face as these replicas of him assembled. An impressive phalanx, they were. They testified to the force of his spirit: when he coupled with a woman it was his seed that made the mark, his features and form that were born again. Anyone could see that in these sons of his. He was fiercely proud of it.
“A commendable legion you have here,” Thu-Kimnibol said.
“Indeed. They are my great pride. Do you have sons, Thu-Kimnibol?”
“I was never blessed that way by Mueri. And am not likely to be, now. The lady Naarinta—” His voice trailed off. His face turned bleak.
Salaman felt a stab of shock. “Dead? No, cousin! Tell me it’s not so!”
“You knew she was ill?”
“I heard something about it when the merchant caravan was last here. But they said there was some hope of her recovery.”
Thu-Kimnibol shook his head. “She lingered all winter, and weakened in the spring. Not long before I set out for Yissou she died.”
The somber words fell like stones into the room. Salaman was caught unprepared by them. They had managed so far this evening to be purely formal with each other, rigidly playing their official roles, king and ambassador, ambassador and king, like figures on a frieze, for the sake of keeping the troublesome past that lay between them from breaking through and disturbing the niceties of their diplomatic calculations. But now an unexpected moment of mortal reality had interposed itself. “A pity. A very great pity,” Salaman said, after a moment, and sighed. “I prayed for her recovery, you know, when the merchants told me. And I grieve for you, cousin.” He offered Thu-Kimnibol a look of genuine regret. Suddenly the tone of the meeting was altered. This man here, this looming giant, this ancient rival of his, this dangerous son of the dangerous Harrueclass="underline" he was vulnerable, he had suffered. It became possible to see him as something other than a puzzling and annoying intruder, suddenly. He imagined Thu-Kimnibol at his lady’s deathbed, imagined him clenching his fists and weeping, imagined him howling in rage as he himself had howled when his own first mate Weiawala had died. It made Thu-Kimnibol more real for him. And he remembered, then, how they had stood together, he and Thu-Kimnibol, at the battle against the hjjks, how Thu-Kimnibol, just a child then, still carrying his child-name, even, had fought like a hero that day. A great surge of liking and even love for this man, this man whom he had hated and had driven from his kingdom, flooded his soul. He leaned forward and said in a low hoarse tone, “No prince of your bearing should be without sons. You ought to choose another mate as soon as your mourning’s over, cousin.” Then, with a wink: “Or take two or three. That’s how I’ve done it here.”