If the homespun clothing and dirty hands aged Halina, Willem appeared even older, and his clothing was as fresh and clean as his hands. The Cormyrean’s eyes had sunk deep into his face, rimmed underneath with dark bags that made him look as though he’d been punched in both eyes.
“Senator Korvan,” Marek said with an over-wrought bow.
He glanced at Halina, who didn’t notice him. She stared at Willem with her mouth hanging open and tears in her eyes. The young senator stared back, and appeared as surprised by her appearance as she was by his.
Marek walked out of the greenhouse, past Willem. When he was out of earshot he muttered a quick incantation that would allow him to listen in on them. He walked at a brisk pace, under the watchful eye of more than one priestess, but was not prevented from sitting on a low stone bench under a strange sort of tree he’d never seen before, which grew in the central rotunda of the sisterhood’s glass house.
“… awful, Willem,” Halina said. Her voice was clear to Marek, though he knew no one else around him could hear her. “You’ve been drinking. Have you been drinking?”
“Yes,” Willem replied.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Why am I here?” Willem replied. “Why are you here? You disappeared. I couldn’t find you. I had to call in favors before I was told where you were.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d”
“Halina” Willem grunted.
Marek sighed. It was going to be a long conversation if they both insisted on stopping midsentence, and his spell wouldn’t last forever.
“I came here when I finally realized I had nowhere else to go,” Halina said.
Her voice sounded different to Marek, and it wasn’t just the spell’s occasional distortion. She spoke differently with Willem than she did with Marek. She was more relaxed.
“You’re looking at me,” she went on, “as though you don’t understand what I mean.”
“I don’t,” Willem admitted. “I didn’t drive you away, did I?”
“No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “But you didn’t take me in, — either.”
“Loved me?” she finished for him.
“Yes,” he said with much eagerness.
Marek heard footsteps, a sound of some small disturbance, and Halina said, “No, please don’t.”
More shuffling feet then Willem replied, “You won’t let me touch you? Have you taken some vow of chastity here?”
“Don’t be vulgar,” she scolded, and Marek lifted an eyebrow at her tone. “I am not a priestess here. I’ve come to help, and to think, and the sisters ask nothing more of me.”
“And that’s it, then?” he asked.
“Willem, you just said you loved me.” There was a pause during which Willem might have nodded. “Loved me. Past tense.”
“No, Halina,” Willem whined. “I love you. I love you in the present tense.”
“Then why won’t you marry me?” she asked and Marek was relieved that she’d finally come to the point.
“I will,” the Cormyrean replied.
“Why?” she asked. “And when?”
“Halina,” said Willem, “I will marry you now, this precise moment, if that’s what you wish.”
“What do you wish?” she pressed him.
“I want you,” he said. “I want you now, and forever. If I. have you, maybe I won’t have to drink to keep from shaking. If I had you to come home to at the end of the day, I would come home. If I knew that you loved me and would love me forever, I would never again ki”
He stopped short, and Marek held his breath. Was he going to say “kill”?
“Willem?” Halina said.
“I love you,” he replied. “I love you with my whole heart. I’m only happy when I’m with you. I’m a better man, with a brighter future. I smile only when I am with you.”
“Willem…”
“Forgive me,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “Halina, please forgive me for everything I’ve done and will ever do. Forgive me, and love me, and save me.”
“Save you?” she asked.
“Save us both,” he begged.
“And my uncle?” she asked.
Marek’s ears perked up at that, of course.
“What of him?” Willem answered, and his voice was so dismissive, Marek’s blood almost began to boil.
“If he doesn’t approve?” she asked.
“We don’t need his approval,” Willem said, though Marek thought quite differently. “I am a senator, and you are a grown woman. We can do as we please.”
“At the risk of an ally as powerful and important to you as my uncle?”
Ah, Marek thought, good question, girl.
“I don’t know that your uncle is an ally of mine as it is, Halina,” Willem saida point that Marek found surprisingly perceptive. “He is friends with several of my friends, and more than one of my patrons. I don’t think he’ll risk those relationships to stop ours.”
And there you are entirely wrong, my dear boy, Marek thought. Should I decide to, I will grind you into gravel.
“Marry me today,” he said.
“That can’t be possible, Willem,” she replied.
“Tomorrow then.”
Marek smiled again at Willem’s eagerness and thought, So much a boy still, this one. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Yes?”
“Yes, Willem,” Halina replied. “I love you,” he told her. “I love you too,” she said. Marek rolled his eyes. “Come with me now,” Willem said. “I can’t,” replied Halina. “I’ll need to speak with the ‘ sisters.”
“If I come tomorrow to collect you…?”
“I’ll be ready,” she said.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said.
“Tomorrow, my love,” she replied.
There were more sounds of shuffling feet, then the unmistakable echo of a kiss, and Marek cut the spell off with a scoffing grunt. The sound drew the further attention of the sisters, and he smiled and nodded at a few of them before rising and crossing to the door out of the temple of Chauntea. He left laughing.
47
19 Alturiak, the Yearof the Shield (1367DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
He couldn’t remember buying most of the clothes in his closet. They all looked the same, and none of them looked good. People often complimented him on his taste in clothing, on the cut and material, and so on, but looking at the contents of his closet, he couldn’t believe that. He didn’t let himself think about what he’d spentthousands of gold pieceson those pointless rags.
“Really, my dear,” his mother said. “Whatever are you doing?”
He ignored her. He didn’t have much time, and accommodations had to be made.
“You can at least answer me,” she pressed. “Willem?”
He stood back and looked at the closet. It wasn’t quite half empty, but it would have to do.
“Just like that, then?” his mother went on. “And you refuse even to discuss it? We aren’t a family anymore. Is that it? I’m no longer welcome here? My opinion is of no consequence to you? You have no care at all for”
“Please, Mother,” Willem finally said.
