“They were due to leave. He came to see me the final afternoon. My parents left us alone in the parlor of our house outside the city, and kept the servants away from us…. The bars of light through the curtains were the last sunlight of summer.” Her voice hung in the air, gentle and far away. “We lived in the north, you know; the light was like a halo at that time of year. It glowed on faces, poppies, long fields of meadow. It seemed to come from within the things themselves, not an outside source at all…. He asked me to marry him again.”
Iolanthe was lying back on the couch, her eyes closed with weariness, half-dreaming of dappled alien sunlight on her body.
“I wasn’t in love, you see, and love was very much the fashion in my city then—as my maid tells me it is now on the Diamond. But I knew from one or two bruises in the past that I wouldn’t be able to live with a man who could make me laugh without falling in love with him eventually. So I told him I would marry him if he would shave off his mustache.
“He called for soap and water, and shaved it off right there in the parlor. When he left, I went with him.”
She put a cold hand on Io’s wrist, but it wasn’t enough to bring her fully awake. “I really didn’t think he would do it, you know. That was my escape route, to make it his refusal and not displease my family. I thought he had too much pride and wouldn’t accept a condition from a lady. … And so here I am. I’ve been here for sixty-eight years.
“I fell in love with him, too. But he died in the Venn System Battle. We’d been married for eight years.
“That day he shaved for me was the last day I saw real sunlight.
“That’s all I can tell you about love, child.”
Chapter 34
It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other.
Book of Common Prayer
What is wedlock forced but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part One
On the late morning of June sixteenth, Tal looked over the collection of lenses on his desk. Aesthetically, the blue lenses would go best with the clothes of the groom’s party, and it would be more proper to appear at Adrian’s wedding in an eye color not associated with demons. Of course, one never knew Adrian’s preferences for certain. Sometimes he was discreet, and sometimes he pushed things dangerously. It might even amuse him on some level if Tal appeared in the cathedral with no lenses at all.
Tal stared speculatively into the mirror on his wall. Naked golden eyes looked back quietly; it was a view he didn’t often see, and others never saw. He didn’t understand why humans found his eyes troubling, but they did. They had made that very clear to him in his younger days. He’d tried to analyze it, without success. Half his genes came from the Elaphites, and they were yellowed-eyed—and were notoriously appealing to humans. So much so that neither the Republic nor the Empire even tried to stop mixed human-Elaphite marriages, provided the couples submitted to irreversible sterilization first. The story they gave out was that childbirth was too dangerous under those conditions, which in a way it was. And then there were cats with yellowish eyes, and humans liked cats. So why did his own eyes bother them so?
No, it was possible that Adrian might not be amused after all. It was dead odds Iolanthe would not be. He lifted a set of lenses and held them to the light. Blue, then. He would be above reproach.
Meanwhile, Iolanthe had arrived at her own quarters and was quickly taken inside by Prudence Taylor and helped into her gown. Five other women, friends of Prudence, were waiting in Io’s rooms with flowers, gloves, and the Mercati heirloom necklace Adrian had sent over. Io stood uncomfortably as Prudence applied cosmetics carefully to her face and the others bustled about; she had a large white bib tied around her neck, to keep the gown from harm, and felt silly. It was so unfair, she thought, as Prudence wiped her lips dry with a cloth—like a mother with a year-old baby—and tried the color again. Why are the standards for women so ridiculous? she thought resentfully. Men didn’t have to go through this self-critical nonsense.
“Where’s Tal?” asked Adrian for the sixth time. “Is he here yet?”
“They’ll send him straight in when he gets here,” said his valet. Lucius pulled the white sash over Adrian’s shoulder and began attaching it to the sash at his waist. They were facing a three-way mirror, and Adrian groaned.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, touching his face.
“Stop looking,”
