The Summer Queen (72 page)

He shook his head, as other memories filled his mind. “She
got back again because the sibyl network wanted it to happen, as near as I can
tell, but the Hegemony nearly had the last laugh on us after all. Only the mers
saved her. But she couldn’t save them from Arienrhod ... that’s partly why what
she does is so important to her now. She wants to make sure that when the
Hegemony comes back, they won’t be able to slaughter the mers again.”

“You mean like Arienrhod did?” Ariele said, her voice both
sullen and grudgingly fascinated.

“Arienrhod wasn’t that simple,” Jerusha murmured.

“Anenrhod is dead!” Ariele said, pulling herself to her feet
in sudden anger. “Years and years ago, before I was born! Why does everyone
have to keep talking about her—?” She looked out across the water.

“Because she’s still alive, for us, in us ... even in you,”
Miroe said flatly. “You have to understand that. She made us what we are. She
did everything she could to break us, to destroy us—Jerusha and me, because we
were responsible for your mother being taken away from her ... your mother and
your father because they both defied her. She nearly destroyed Jerusha’s
career, and she killed the mers who lived on this plantation, to get at me ....
She ordered the Winters to throw your mother into the Pit, she tried to take
your father with her when she drowned—”

“Da?” Ariele looked back at him suddenly. “But I thought it
was Starbuck they drowned with her, the offworlder who killed the mere.”

“It was,” Jerusha said abruptly, putting a hand on Miroe’s
arm. “He did.”

Ariele looked at her, and at Miroe’s tense, closed face,
half frowning. “Da said he used to play his flute at the Snow Queen’s court.” Yes,”
Jerusha said, “that’s right.”

“And he used to sleep with her, too.”

Jerusha looked down. “I don’t know.”

“He says so,” she whispered. “Is that why Mama hates Arienrhod?”

“No. Not entirely.” Jerusha rubbed her arms. “They both
loved your father They couldn’t help it.”

“Because they’re the same person,” Ariele said, her voice
turning flat and strained.

“It isn’t that simple,” Jerusha repeated. “They wanted the
same things—your father, and this world’s freedom from the Hegemony—but not in
the same way.”

Ariele shook her head, her face twisting with disgust, and Jerusha
knew that they had lost her. She started away down the pier, her bare feet
splashing. As she reached the shore she began to run, disappearing down the
diminishing strand of beach.

Ariele slowed again when she knew that she was beyond earshot
of anyone calling after her. She stopped, looking out at the bay, waiting for
the sight of Silky’s head. She whistled shrilly, calling the mer to her. Silky
came out of the water, moving awkwardly up the beach on her wide, flat
flippers, her neck weaving in curiosity. Ariele leaned down, nuzzling her;
feeling the cold space inside her heart fill with warmth and love, feeling her
mind fill with thoughts that held brightness and promise, a future not bound up
in anyone else’s past.

“Come on, sweet Silky, you hear that?” she asked. “My
fishbrained brother trying to make your music with his flute. Let’s go sing him
some real music—” She began to walk again, slowing her pace this time so that
the mer could keep up with her. She watched the shining sand under her feet,
stooping to pick up an occasional agate pebble from the flotsam of stones and
weed and shells underfoot.

Ahead of them was a steep hummock of eroded sandstone, almost
like a castle. They had always called it the Castle, pretending it was
something out of the stories that Jerusha had told them when they were
children. Tammis still liked to sit up there in its sun-warmed crannies (and
sometimes even she did) and play his flute, the way he was doing now. Merovy
was probably up there too, hanging on every note, on his every word, like the
infatuated little idiot she was.

They had all been happy enough as playmates when they were
children. But Ariele had long since lost patience with the younger girl, just
as she had lost patience with her cautious, moody brother and his obsession
with his music. She was sure he only played to impress Da, but he would never
impress Da, not until he stopped being such a whining bore.

She stopped at the foot of the Castle, listening to her
brother’s music, which reached her purely and clearly now: a mix of old traditional
Summer tunes and freeform improvisation on some of the mersong fragments she
had taught him, all of it flowing together into a surprisingly coherent and—though
she hated to admit it—beautiful whole. Silky raised her head and began a low
singsong in response; breaking off, her head swaying, starting up again, as if
she wanted to continue the music, but was uncertain of its pattern.

Ariele began to sing and whistle, encouraging her, until a
head peered over the top of the rock far above them. Ariele looked up, seeing
Merovy’s long, curly brown hair, her pale face and gray eyes framed by its
thick waves. Her face disappeared again, and the music stopped.

Tammis looked down now, the sunlight glinting red-gold off
the highlights in his darker brown hair, his expression caught between
annoyance and concentration as he listened to their music. The expression
turned completely annoyed as he realized she was only parroting back his own
song. “Go away,” he said. “You’re interrupting me.”

“Oh—?” Ariele cocked her head. “Really? And I thought you
were just playing with your flute.” She laughed, making her own face into a
travesty of romantic longing, wriggling suggestively. “Come on, Silky, we’ll
leave the lovesick birds in their nest ....” She sauntered away down the shore,
picking up agates and carbuncles, with Silky trailing reluctantly behind her.

“Lady’s Eyes!” Tammis settled back into the warm palm of
stone where he had been lying beside Merovy with his head in her.lap, playing
his music for her. He felt his face burning with anger and embarrassment as he
looked away from his sister’s retreating back; back into Merovy’s gray, calm
gaze. “Sorry,” he said, looking away again. “I just wish she’d leave me alone.
She always has to ruin everything.” He looked at his flute, with the memory of
how she had tried to take it from him, years ago, still as fresh as the way she
had taunted him just now. The memory of how their father would have let her;
how, when their mother had stopped it, Da had given her his very own flute. She
had hardly touched it since, as far as he knew; while he had practiced and
practiced. But the only time his father listened to him was when he had discovered
a new fragment of mersong to play ....

He dropped his flute irritably, heard it clatter on the
stone behind him.

“Oh, don’t—” Merovy leaned over and picked it up with quick
hands, brushing off the sand, checking it for fractures. She held it out to
him. “Here, it’s all right ....”

He grimaced, shaking his head. “I don’t care—nobody else
does.”

She looked at him.

“Sorry.” He sighed, sitting back down under the gentle
censure of her gaze. He took the flute from her; held on to her hands as he
did, drawing her close. She settled into the curve of his body, putting her
arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. He stroked her hair, turned his face
to kiss her on the mouth, a little self-consciously; feeling the sudden giddy
rush of heat inside him, the sudden uncomfortable pressure against the
fastenings of his pants. He pulled back, catching his breath, still half-afraid
of his body’s unexpected and unpredictable responses to things that excited it.
But at least this time it was a girl’s body he was excited by, and this time it
was not simply because she was a girl, and touching him, but because she was Merovy
....

What he felt for her ran far deeper than newly awakened
sexual desire, far beyond the shared memories of old friendship. Because when
he looked into Merovy’s eyes as he did now, he saw only himself reflected
there, and not the son of the Summer Queen; not prestige or power or
superstition or anything else. Only deep, unquestioning trust, and unspoken
yearning. Shy and soft-spoken, half Winter and half Summer, she was lost in the
casual wit and flash of their usual crowd of city acquaintances. But out here in
the peace and silence, he saw her real beauty.

And, trusting her as she trusted him, he drew her down
beside him into the warm hollow of the rock. He kissed her again with sudden
longing, his hands touching her, cupping her breasts through the soft cloth of
her shirt with gentle insistence. She let him, as she had let him before, only
kissing him more passionately, her lips soft and open against his. She made no
move to stop him as he loosened his shirt and then her own, slipping his hands
up under it, dazzled by the softness of her skin, while her own hands caressed
his face, his chest, the muscles of his back; never daring to wander below his
waist. He felt himself aching for her to do it, to touch him there .... He let
his own hands leave her breasts and slide down, loosening her pants, curving
around the soft lines of her thighs and hips, in between, as her knees tightened,
resisting, then loosened again.

They had done this much before, exploring each other tentatively,
achingly; but always she had stopped him from going further, and always, afraid
of hurting her or driving her away, he had been content to stop. There were
girls he knew in the city who were more than ready, who had tried to make him
feel what he suddenly felt now, as Merovy’s hands abruptly tried to push his
own away. He had not given in to them, wanting it to happen with her, only with
her; an act of love, not just the impulse he felt when he had looked at those
other lithe, willing young bodies, both the girls and the boys ....

He pushed her hands aside, pulling open the fastenings of
his own pants. “Come on, Merovy, please, let me, let me ....”

“Tammis—” She pushed at his chest, turning her face away
from his kisses.

“I love you so much, Merovy. I don’t want it to happen with
someone else .... It’s only you I want, forever; I want to pledge my life with
you—”

She turned her face back again, her eyes wide with
amazement, and he found her lips, kissing her long and deeply, smothering her
attempt at words. He felt her hands give way, and her arms go around him then
in answer. He freed himself, freed her, from the confinement and the protection
of clothing, until there was nothing between his eager body and what waited to
receive it. He slid in between her legs, felt her tremble beneath him; hating
his clumsiness and confusion in the middle of his desperate need. She whimpered
as he found the place where he was meant to be and began to push; cried out,
like a seabird crying, as the membrane that held him back abruptly tore, and he
entered her.

He froze as her arms tightened around him; held her tightly,
kissing her with passionate tenderness as he saw the tears shining on her
cheeks. And then, astonished by the sensation of being within her, he began to
move, slowly and tentatively at first, and then more deeply, as her body began
to respond to him, and he realized that the sounds she was making were muffled
sounds of pleasure. His body controlled him now, carrying him like the sea
through wave after wave of pleasure, until at last his pleasure crested and the
tides flowed out of him. She gasped and sighed, and then she was kissing him
wildly, gratefully. “I love you,” he whispered again, wonderingly, as he
understood at last how a lifetime together with someone that you loved could seem
like eternity, and yet not be long enough.

BZ Gundhalinu stood smiling at the edge of the perfectly
manicured expanse of lawn, as his wife began the introduction to her latest
work. The lawn rolled like a wine-red sea into the twilight, toward the distant
shore of trees, with KR Aspundh’s invited guests scattered over it in expectant
silence.

“The performance is about to begin—?” Aspundh came up beside
him, and Gundhalinu turned, with his hands in his pockets, to acknowledge their
host.

“Yes.” He removed a hand to glance at his watch. “In
precisely two and a third minutes, at sunrise. I wanted to thank you for your
kindness in inviting my wife to debut the performance of her new work here,
Aspundh-ken. The gods themselves couldn’t have picked a more perfect setting
for it. Our own knob of rock would never accommodate such a display, even
though it is a celebration of our marriage.”

“Yes, so Gundhalinu-bhai told me. She is a unique and charming
woman.”

Gundhalinu smiled, glancing down. He looked away again at
the view, as dawn’s lavender-blue sky brightened with rose and peach, as the
last fragile vestiges of the night’s auroras began to fade from the zenith. He
stifled a sudden yawn.

“Dear me,” Aspundh chuckled. “Is it the hour, or the company?”

Gundhalinu shook his head vehemently, feeling his face
flush. “Neither, 1 assure you,” he murmured. “Well ... the hour, perhaps; but
Dhara insisted that the work had to be presented exactly at sunrise. And I’ve
been on stims for three days straight; my body doesn’t take it as kindly as it
did in my student days.” He touched the skin patch pasted unobtrusively on the
back of his neck. “Production schedules up at the shipyards were lagging
behind. It was only a run of last-minute serendipity—call it a miracle—that I
was able to get down here for the performance at all. I really thought I wouldn’t
make it. I would have hated that.”

Aspundh smiled, with fleeting, inscrutable amusement. “Your
presence here is a provident miracle indeed, then,” he said.

“Dhara was pleased and honored at your offer to sponsor her
performance, and so was I,” Gundhalinu added, sincerely. “It’s good to see you
again, Aspundh-ken.”

Aspundh shrugged modestly. “The honor is mine. I’ve been an
admirer of her work for years—and yours. And also I have felt it was time—past
time—that we spoke together again, Gundhalinu-ken; in light of our mutual interests.
I know that your private time is nearly nonexistent, but there are some
strangers far from home who share our concerns—” He glanced over his shoulder
toward the manor house. “They would like to speak with you too.”