The Rose Throne (5 page)

“Prince Edik is a child,” Issa said, struggling to keep her voice calm. She knew that much of the ruling family of Rurik.

“He is twelve years old and will soon be thirteen,” Duke Kellin answered. “He has already begun to
show the wealth of taweyr that is his inheritance as the son of King Haikor, and his father believes that he is ready to be betrothed. Of course, the wedding will not take place until he is of age, at eighteen.”

“Of course,” echoed Issa. Though there had been stranger marriages than this one in the history of the two kingdoms.

“Your father has a portrait of the prince, which King Haikor also sent to you,” added Duke Kellin.

At this, Issa looked up, and King Jaap passed her a miniature portrait, small enough to hold in the palm of her hand, the decorative wooden frame around it dwarfing the subject.

Issa saw a boy with dark hair and small features. She hoped that the grim expression was the painter’s attempt to make him look martial, for it did not seem to fit the rest of the figure at all.

“He is every inch his father’s son,” said Duke Kellin, as if that were something that would sway Issa in the boy’s favor.

In her own mind, Issa was glad to see that Prince Edik looked little like the descriptions of King Haikor she had heard. The king was supposed to be an enormous man, in height and girth, known in his youth for his red hair, though now it was streaked
with gray. It was said that he was capricious, ruthless, very canny, and had not an ounce of loyalty to anyone but himself. How could she marry the son of that man, however unlike him? How could her father expect that of her?

She looked at King Jaap, but his expression told her nothing. “What else can you tell me of the prince?” Issa asked, turning to Duke Kellin.

“He is well mannered, a little shy of court as yet, though he is still young and will grow into his place. He reads widely and has a good hand. I’m sure you will see that when you receive his letters. He has already learned the elements of combining sword-play with taweyr and practices daily with the king’s guard.”

All these were things that Issa would expect the emissary to say about the prince and future king of Rurik. Duke Kellin could hardly say anything other than what would be complimentary, whether or not it was true.

“When would the betrothal take place?” asked Issa.

“On the first day of autumn in the new year,” said Kellin. “That would give enough time for the preparations to take place, and for the negotiations to be complete.”

In little more than a year’s time, she would be betrothed to a thirteen-year-old boy? Issa could not imagine it. “And it will be in Rurik? Not in Weirland?” said Issa.

“Yes, of course.”

Of course, because Rurik was the more powerful kingdom and because King Haikor would not allow anything to happen to his son that was not in his direct control.

“So I shall be coming to Rurik before the betrothal?” asked Issa.

“You will come next summer, so that you and Prince Edik will have a few months to become acquainted with each other.”

Though by then the arrangements for the betrothal would be done. There would be no chance for either of them to change his or her mind.

No, this was the moment of decision. Once Issa gave Duke Kellin her agreement, there would be no turning back, no matter how she found the prince in person. If he was disgusting or mute or an idiot, he would be her husband even so. Because she was the princess, and in the end, she must do what her father asked her to do.

This is what he meant when he had told her he had sheltered her from responsibilities. Since her
mother had died when she was eleven and Issa had come into her own neweyr, she had done everything she could to fulfill the responsibilities of the queen with regard to the neweyr. But Issa had always believed she might marry for love, as her father and mother had. Her father had hinted at the changes in Weirland’s position as King Haikor grew more powerful and wealthier in his trade with the continent. He had allowed her to hear stories of the king’s spies sent to Weirland to discover its weaknesses. But he had not come out and told her that she would be sacrificed to protect Weirland. He had waited until Duke Kellin had come to bring the difficult news to her, and she had no time to prepare herself for this.

“Will my father not come with me?” asked Issa.

Duke Kellin’s eyes flickered toward her father. “King Haikor believes your father would prefer to stay in his own kingdom, to keep it safe.”

Of course, King Haikor did not want King Jaap in Rurik. The betrothal and the wedding were to be all in his control, and King Jaap was not to be seen as a different sort of king to the example King Haikor himself presented.

“If you agree to this, Princess Marlissa, I can tell you of all the details at some length.”

Issa nodded. It was not Kellin’s fault that her father had not told her of the news he’d brought. “Thank you. I shall think on the betrothal and give you an answer on the morrow.”

Duke Kellin bowed and departed.

Now Issa was alone with her father. “How long have you known?” she asked.

“King Haikor sent an official letter early in the spring,” King Jaap admitted.

“Lord Umber?”

Her father shook his head. “He did not know if it.”

“I suppose he will have plans of his own in Rurik. And I must accept the offer,” said Issa. Did she want her father to treat her as a child again, tell her a comfortable lie instead of the real truth?

“There would be consequences if you insulted King Haikor,” said King Jaap.

“Perhaps that is what he truly wants, to be given an excuse to invade us and take Weirland for his own.”

Her father shook his head. “If he wanted to have an excuse to invade, there are easier ways of arranging it. No, I think he has decided that this is the easiest way to get Weirland. No more need for spies, no need to expend either armies or taweyr. Only his son.”

“And your daughter,” Issa put in.

“You cannot be king, Issa, but you can serve Weirland this way.”

“You will make Edik your heir, then? He will be king of Weirland and Rurik?” The distant cousin who was currently her father’s heir would be disappointed, but he had been waiting for years for King Jaap to remarry and have another child. He would not suffer from shock.

“He has the taweyr, and you do not,” her father reminded her. “The throne needs to be held by both weyrs, you know that. Only one, and there would be an imbalance.”

“That does not seem to bother King Haikor, who refuses to allow the neweyr to be used anywhere in his palace. Though his queen is not much bothered by the rule, since she has nearly as little neweyr as her daughter, so we hear.” They were sharp words, and out of character for Issa, but she felt she deserved to be out of character just now.

“And that is another reason for you to accept the offer,” said her father. “You can help restore the balance of the weyrs in Rurik, before the effects there are too strong to reverse, and before they touch Weirland, as well.”

Yes, this was what she had been born for. It was all laid out for her now. Should she blame her father
that she had not seen what was so obvious? He had encouraged her blindness, but she had been willfully blind. Perhaps that was the effect of her immersion in neweyr. She had spent all her life trying to see the connections between all living things. She could look out at the pink flowers that grew on the hillside and sense the sweet nectar that waited for the bees. She could sense the field mice quivering in the shadows of the castle, fearful of the hawk circling above. But she had not thought of what the kingdom itself needed, the balance of the weyrs.

“And then there is the prophecy to consider,” said King Jaap.

Issa knew the prophecy. She had learned it as a child.

The prophecy was said to have been spoken by King Arhort on his deathbed, his vision of the future that would heal the breech of the two islands he had himself divided in his great grief after his wife’s death. Issa did not know what kind of power would
have allowed him to tear two landmasses apart, leaving only a small land bridge between them, but legend said this was also what separated the two weyrs. King Arhort had taken the magic of death and anger for himself, leaving the magic of life and growth to women.

“But it’s just a rhyme,” said Issa. “It’s an old story, a myth.” That was what most people even in Weirland believed now, though the prophecy had a stronger tradition here than in Rurik. Issa could not understand how it was possible that the weyrs could ever be combined or how the two islands, so long separated, could be literally joined again.

“It is real,” said King Jaap. “And this may well be the chance to make it come true. A child of yours and Edik’s would sit on both thrones. Perhaps that child would also have both weyrs, and would bring the islands together literally, as well as in name.

“Edik is young enough that he may still be molded,” the king added. “Perhaps you may be able to do a little of that yourself. You may write to him over the winter if the betrothal is agreed upon. I imagine that will give him even more reason to be swayed by you.”

“I always thought that I would remain here in Weirland all my life, as you have,” said Issa. If she went to Rurik in the following summer, would she
ever return home? She might for a short time, but she would only be a visitor then.

“When you arrive in Rurik, you must learn quickly the ways of Haikor’s court. Women have power there, though it is not the power that you are used to.”

She would have to begin all over again, making friends and allies. And it would be in a new court where she would be seen as the interloper. She would have to give up all thoughts of love. Because her kingdom needed her to do so and because she was a princess and had been born to be sacrificed for her kingdom and her people from the first. Her father had never forgotten that, even if she had.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, with a clear head, Issa could see the advantages of the betrothal. It would end the threats of war with Rurik and the constant fear of spies from King Haikor. The stress in her people’s hearts would be decreased, and the neweyr would benefit, as well, since it could unfold more freely in the south, without the threat of invasion.

And even if the two islands were not magically combined as the prophecy promised, they would still be politically united. Weirland had suffered for years from the tariffs that the Rurese charged when goods were transported north. Because ships from the
continent could more easily cross the ocean to the southern island of Rurik, the Rurese had almost complete control of continental trade that was shipped north over the land bridge. But all that would be ended if the two kingdoms were one.

Telling herself that she had not yet given up her place in Weirland, Issa went out to the tangled Queen’s Garden, which lay in a far and private courtyard of the palace. She could always feel the neweyr strongest here, since both she and her mother had left paths of it in past years. This was where she had gone the day her mother had died, just before she had come into her own neweyr, when only the earth itself seemed able to comfort her.

Issa fingered a wilting pansy. She could withdraw the neweyr from it, letting it wither quickly and sink back into the earth, but she felt that it had beauty even at the end of its life, and so she let it be. She noticed the ivy growing near her window, and with a wave of her hand, directed it to remain at a height that would keep it from pulling down the white stones of the castle.

Putting a hand on the ground, she let her sense of neweyr sink down into the lower level of the dirt, beneath the upper layer of soil, below the bedrock on which the castle’s foundation had been built. Each
part had its own distinct taste of neweyr, the oldest parts darker and colder, the newer parts richer and fuller. Guiding the neweyr, Issa brought water up from an underground stream to saturate the dirt. Coming from this depth, the water was cold, which would stimulate the plants to prepare for winter. She enjoyed the smell of the decaying leaves, the neweyr floating off of them into the air to share with all the surrounding life.

When she looked up into the sky again, she realized she had spent too long in the garden. She had to prepare for her meeting with Duke Kellin. She hurried inside to dress.

Issa’s maid used neweyr to coax her thick, curly dark hair into a single plait that sat low on her back. The braid was traditional in Weirland, the sign that a woman had come fully into her neweyr. Only a girl without neweyr wore her hair unbraided. But there were some women who wore many bunches of small braids, who looped their braids into elaborate coifs to mimic the court style of Rurik. For today, Issa would wear the simple style to show Duke Kellin that whatever happened with the betrothal, she would always be a princess of Weirland.