growing on the back of his left heel.
As the footman opened the hall door and stood aside to let him pass, he tried to clear his mind. He'd been reading about the Cure Hardy, of course, everything up to and including the reports he'd had compiled after Skeddanlothi's raid. He knew that there were at least seventeen different nations in the loose confederacy of tribes, each of them radically different from the others in several important respects. He knew that the Aram Chantat-this lot-drove immense herds of cattle from summer to winter pasture in a complex nine-year transhumance cycle, but ate only cheese, butter, yogurt, cream, wild fruit and berries and the occasional green vegetable bartered with more settled neighbors; that they believed that human life was a dream dreamed by one's equivalent in the higher world, and death was the equivalent's waking from sleep, and that birds, quadrupeds and some species of lizard were real, but all snakes, fish and insects were illusory shapes assumed by spirits of violence when they chose to wander the earth; that Aram Chantat carpets, knitwear and leatherwork (they were stroppy about eating their cattle but perfectly happy wearing them) were of high quality and widely exported, but that they were backward in the use of both wood and metal, and relied on imported goods obtained through a complex chain of intermediaries from the Mezentines. He knew that Aram Chantat women who wore their hair long were either unmarried or widowed, whereas if a man was clean-shaven, he was either disgraced or had sworn an oath as yet unfulfilled; that seven, blue and three ravens were unlucky, five, white and an eagle with something in its talons were good omens; that the women held their horses' reins in both hands but the men held theirs with the left hand only. About the only thing he didn't know was why they were there and what they really wanted from him.
The door was open. He took a deep breath and advanced, like a fencer gaining his enemy's distance.
Four of them; easy enough to recognize, because they stood a head taller than his own people. There were two men in early middle age, bearded, wearing long quilted red gowns trimmed with black fur; an old man, bald, with a mustache but no beard (what the hell did that signify?), dressed in a plain brown robe tied at the waist with a rope belt, barefoot; a girl.
Well, he thought. No animal bones.
She was wearing a variant of the quilted gown; red, with puffed sleeves, edged with white Mezentine lace. Her hair was straight, black, glossy, and reached almost to her waist; she wore a net cap of gold thread and seed- pearls, also Mezentine. Her face was triangular, sharp; not pretty, he'd have to think about whether it was beautiful or not. Her hands were clasped in front of her waist-high, and on her left wrist she carried a hooded goshawk. Her mouth…
(As he walked toward her, he caught sight of Orsea in the left-hand reception line, and next to him Veatriz. She was watching him, but looked away.)
Her mouth was thin, very red against her pale complexion-at this range he couldn't tell if it was powder or natural; the Aram Ghantat prized pale women, on the grounds that pallor comes from staying in the shade, therefore not having to work. She had long hands, and, he noticed, big feet. He realized that he'd been holding his breath for rather longer than was good for him, and he had to make an effort to let it out slowly and not gasp or pant. She was…
They were now the proper distance apart; if they both reached out their hands, their fingers would touch. Protocol demanded a bow; apparently she knew that. He lost sight of her for a moment, caught a fleeting glimpse of his ludicrous shoes before lifting his head again. She wasn't smiling, or frowning, but she was looking at him. Suddenly he wanted to laugh. She was looking at him as though committing the salient points to memory, so she could describe them to someone in a letter. Realizing that, he knew immediately what he must look like himself, because already in his mind he was phrasing descriptions, comparisons, all the main points of interest, for a letter he would never be able to write. For him, that was sheer force of habit. To see the same look in someone else's face was remarkable. He felt (he hesitated, checked and confirmed)-he felt like a stranger walking in a foreign town who sees a fellow-craftsman, a practitioner of his own trade, easily recognized by his stained hands or his leather apron, or a folding rule sticking out of his jacket pocket.
'Shall we withdraw?' Someone was talking, and he wanted to yell at him to be quiet; but it was Carausius, saying the words needed to get them out of there and into the next room. He saw the bald man nod, and they took a step forward; for a moment, he couldn't think what to do with his feet-should he retreat, still facing them, or turn his back on them and lead the way, or what the hell was he meant to do now? By the time he'd thought all that, she was next to him, and he could see that it was powder, and the red of her mouth was something put on with a brush, and her eyes were small and dark, set with a perpetual slight frown, like a hawk's. It occurred to him that he was now supposed to half turn and walk beside her to the formal solar (he had no idea why it was called that, so she'd better not ask). She looked at him now, and dipped her head in a small, private nod, as if acknowledging the presence of someone she already knew.
It felt like a long walk to the side door of the hall. He made a point of keeping his head up slightly, looking just over the tops of the heads of the people lined up on either side. There were eyes he didn't want to catch; guilt, a little, such as you might feel remembering a small promise forgotten, or a letter neglected and overdue.
As they walked together through the doorway, the goshawk shifted its wings a little. He couldn't remember offhand if that was supposed to be an omen of any sort.
In the solar; he'd forgotten that the tapestries on the walls were all scenes of the kill and the unmaking, the deer paunched, skinned and jointed; not, therefore, really suitable for a race of vegetarians. She stopped. He remembered that he had to take a few steps more, then turn and face her (but no salute or assumption of a guard).
'Duke Valens.' He wondered who was talking, realized it was the bald old man. Perfect Mezentine accent, made his own sound positively rustic. 'May I introduce the Princess-' And then he made some sort of uncouth noise, which went on for some time and contained sounds Valens was sure he'd never heard a human being make before. Her name, presumably. 'And these are-' More noises; the two bearded men, who turned out to be her maternal uncles; and the bald man had a name too.
He remembered, just in time. 'Please,' he said, and waved airily at the chairs, as though he'd only just noticed them. They sat; his people sat; he sat. That was as far as protocol was going to take him. From now on, he was on his own.
He tried to think of something to say; fortunately, Carausius was better prepared, or more articulate, than he was. 'I trust you had a reasonable journey.' The bald man assured him that they had. A brief silence; Carausius appeared to have forgotten his lines, or was waiting for a cue that hadn't come. 'The roads are generally quiet at this time of year. I hope the desert crossing wasn't too arduous.'
Valens was expecting a reply, a polite reassurance. Instead, there was dead silence, as though someone had just said something indiscreet or vulgar. Then the bald man (beautiful speaking voice) said, 'The Princess hopes that this gift will be acceptable to you.'
He means the goshawk, Valens realized with a slight flare of shock. She was holding it impeccably; King Fashion would've clapped his hands and called people over to see. It was an outstanding bird; a hen, not a tiercel, with its full second-season plumage; bigger and darker than the passagers the merchants brought from northern Eremia. It stood perfectly still on her wrist, and her fingers were lightly closed over the ends of the jesses.
People were looking at him. 'Thank you,' he said. That wasn't going to be enough. What he wanted to say was, How come you've got such good taste in hawks when you don't even eat meat? but he was here to agree a marriage, not start a war. 'It's a magnificent specimen,' he said.
'The Princess chose it herself,' the bald man said. 'She also…' He hesitated, leaned across to one of the uncles, who whispered something in his ear that made him frown. 'Excuse me,' he said. 'I believe the term is manning a hawk, meaning to train it.'
'Quite correct,' Carausius said.
'The Princess manned it herself,' the bald man went on. 'She is a highly accomplished falconer; I believe it is an interest you also share.'
'Yes, very much so,' Valens heard himself say. All lies, of course; she couldn't have trained a hawk, it took days and nights of agonizing patience and fatigue. I couldn't do it, so obviously she couldn't, she'd mess up her hair or break a fingernail-
(He noticed that her fingernails were all cut short.)
'Perhaps, if time permits, we might find an opportunity to fly the bird,' the bald man was saying. He looked as though he'd expected rather more enthusiasm for the gift-I know why, Valens realized; they've been told that the only thing I'm interested in is hunting, which is why this poor girl's been forced to take a crash course in advanced
