most of our food is provided by our livestock. We eat beef and mutton, cheese and other dairy products, and game, of course.'
'How about bread? Vegetables?'
'We gather a wide variety of fruit,' she went on, as though he hadn't interrupted, 'and wild honey, which we use for a great many things besides preserving. We get a certain amount of flour from the Mezentines in trade, but it's still very much a luxury; for one thing, it's heavy and bulky to carry in any quantity. Nuts and berries-'
'And what you mostly trade with is salt,' he broke in. 'That's right, isn't it?'
She paused, as though his interruption had made her lose her place. 'Salt, some hides and furs,' she said. 'But salt mostly.'
'That's…' Valens couldn't think of a suitable word, so he shook his head. 'Changing the subject rather,' he went on, 'there's one thing I'm a bit curious about. How did you actually find out about us, in the first place, I mean? Because, to be honest, I'd never heard of your people, except as a name.'
Disapproval all over her face; clearly not diplomatic. 'You'd have to ask my uncles,' she said. 'Similarly, I'd never heard of the Vadani until I was told I was to marry you. However, I trust I have now made amends for my ignorance. I have put a considerable amount of effort into my studies.'
'I can see that,' Valens said. 'And you've done really well.'
'Thank you.' She hesitated, then said: 'Now there are three things I should like to ask you about, if that would be in order.'
Valens shrugged. 'Go ahead.'
'Very well.' The way she paused reminded Valens of several experienced public speakers he'd listened to over the years. 'If any of these questions strike you as offensive or impertinent, please say so. First, I should like to know why, at your age and in your position, you are still unmarried. Second, given that you are the absolute ruler of this country, why are you allowing your advisers to pressure you into a marriage that clearly holds little attraction for you. Third, I would be most interested to know your reasons for going to war with the Mezentine Republic.'
Valens shut his eyes for a moment. What the hell, he thought.
'Tell you what,' he said. 'Would you like to hear the truth?'
She looked at him.
'Fine. Look, can we sit down for a moment?'
She nodded. 'The pain from your injury is fatiguing you,' she said.
'Yes.' He sat down on the arm of a stone bench. She settled next to him like a bird pitching on a branch.
'The goshawk didn't attack you, did it?' she said.
He laughed. 'No. I made that up, sorry. No disrespect intended to your hawk.'
Her mouth tightened a little; if we were already married, he thought, I don't suppose I'd be getting off so lightly. 'Very well,' she said. 'What did happen?'
'I got carved up a little by a jealous husband.'
'I see. I take it the man in question will be punished.'
'Not necessary.'
She scowled. 'He drew the blood of his ruler,' she said firmly. 'There can be no clemency in such a case.'
'Let's not talk about it,' Valens said.
'If you wish. You were about to answer my questions.'
'So I was.' He looked away, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. 'When I was seventeen, I saw a girl. She was a guest here. I fell in love with her, but not long afterward she married someone else. After that-I don't know, there wasn't anything conscious about it. I stopped thinking about her as soon as I heard about her marriage. My father had just died, I had a lot of other things on my mind. I suppose I was glad of an excuse not to have to concern myself with all that stuff.'
'That seems plausible enough,' she acknowledged. 'My second question…'
'Why now, you mean? Well, various reasons, really. Mostly, to be frank, we need this alliance. We've-I'm sorry, I've got the country into a pretty awful mess, and it looks as though you're our way out. Also…' He shivered. 'It's been a long time since I was a seventeen-year-old kid. Everybody grows up eventually.'
She was looking at him again. 'I don't think I understand what you mean,' she said.
'Don't you? Well.' He smiled. 'Not entirely sure I know myself. Let's just say it's taken me a long time to come to terms with it, but I got there in the end.'
She shrugged. 'And the war?' she said.
'A mistake,' he replied. 'A very big, bad, stupid mistake. I thought it'd make the Republic leave us alone, but it had the exact opposite effect. Silly me.'
The frown was back. 'That seems rather unlikely,' she said. 'We've been studying your career, and the major decisions you've taken since you became duke. Before your intervention at Civitas Eremiae, your political judgment was flawless. I find it hard to believe that such a wise and resourceful man as yourself would have done something so rash and dangerous without a very good reason.'
'There you go,' Valens said with a grin (which pulled on the stitches and squeezed out a large drop of blood). 'It just goes to show, nobody's perfect. There are times when I surprise myself.'
She clicked her tongue. 'I gather you're not prepared to answer that question,' she said.
'No.'
'I see.' Her voice was cold; polite anger. 'Obviously you're entirely at liberty to keep secrets from me, but I trust you understand the nature of the relationship you're proposing to enter into with my family. A marriage alliance is a very serious business, as far as we're concerned.'
'I'll bear that in mind,' Valens said gravely. 'And you don't need to remind me what a serious business this all is.' He sucked the blood and spit into the back of his mouth and spat it out onto the grass, then wiped his mouth gingerly on the back of his hand. 'Well, this has been quite delightful, but I think we ought to be getting back to the others, or they'll think we've eloped.'
As soon as he'd handed her back to her uncles (the bald man wasn't there; off discussing the minutiae of the contract with Carausius, presumably), he hurried back to his tower room and threw up violently into the washbasin. He felt better for it, but not much. That set his lip bleeding again, which didn't help. He sat down at his desk, staring out of the window, then drew a sheet of paper toward him, dipped a pen in ink and started to write. Valens Valentinianus to Veatriz Sirupati, greetings.
This is stupid. My whole life has gone septic; everything hurts at the slightest pressure.
Isn't love supposed to be the most wonderful thing that can happen to you? I don't think so. I think it's a nasty, miserable thing that brings out the worst in people; if you don't believe me, ask Orsea how he got all those cuts and bruises.
Losing you to Orsea all those years ago was bad enough. Now, apparently, I've got to lose myself as well. I've got no choice: we need the alliance if we're going to stand any sort of chance of scaring off the Mezentines; otherwise we're all dead. Have you met her? No, I don't suppose you have. She's inhuman. She might as well be one of Ziani Vaatzes' mechanical statues. Her loathsome family have taken her apart and made her into an artifact. I'd be desperately sorry for her if I thought she could still feel anything. Anyway, that's what I've got to marry. Count yourself lucky; you got an idiot who goes around wrecking everything he touches and then tearing himself to bits out of guilt. I'm getting a machine. What the hell did either of us ever do to deserve this?
When my father died, I knew my life was over too. I realized I could never be myself again. To begin with, I tried to be him, but I couldn't do it. Strange how sometimes you only get to know someone once they're not there anymore. I couldn't be him because I can't bring myself to be deliberately stupid. He was a stupid man. Instead, I became what he should have been. The best joke about me is that everything I hate doing I do really well. At least I could be proud of what I'd done for this country. I kept the peace, nobody was starving, people could leave their houses and families in the morning and be fairly sure they'd still be there when they came back at night. Then Orsea started his war, you were in danger and I threw it all away.
I have to have something to live for. It used to be your letters. Now you don't write to me anymore, and I'm going to be married to that thing. I've been thinking about my options. I thought about getting up very early one morning, taking a horse from the stable and riding until I reached somewhere nobody's ever heard of me. I wish it was that simple.
I can't do it, Veatriz. My father used to say, there's no such word as can't. If you can't do it, all it means is you aren't trying hard enough. That used to make me so angry-quiet, speechless-with-resentment anger-that I'd
