Post by indifferentred on Jun 16, 2012 7:54:48 GMT 10
Series: Quiet Affections
Title: The Sky and the Sea
Rating: PG-13
Event: AU Hammer Throw
Words: 6503
Summary: Apologies for the huge length of this... it started tiny and just grew and grew! A very AU piece - the basic premise being "what if Vivenne had been the one to disguise herself as a girl for page training?" And so it begins...
The room is draughty and sparsely furnished, reflecting perfectly the mood of the two people seated in it. Both wear mourning black, but that is where the similarities end. The young man is in his mid-twenties, with blonde hair cropped short and a round face that would usually be relaxed in genial kindness. Now, he broods over a glass of dark wine, his left leg propped up on a footstool. The girl who sits with him is dark-haired, pale skin, and her features are sharper, somehow. Her glass has been abandoned, undrunk, on the small occasional table resting between them. At last, the man sighs, and places his own glass next to hers. “He would have done what I no longer can, Vivenne,” he murmured. “We were to have had another knight in him.” Both pairs of eyes stray towards the ornately carved walking stick, resting against the wall. Jos’s accident had been hard, coming as it did so quickly after their father’s death, and leaving the new lord a cripple, unable to ride or remain in knightly service.
Vivenne, ten years old and too clever by half, is silent for a long time. Then, voicing this thought for the first time since its conception at Viden’s deathbed a fortnight ago, “Perhaps we still can.” Her right hand, buried in the folds of her too-elaborate sleeve, crosses its fingers. Goddess, and Mithros and Trickster, let this be.
Jos frowns, confused. “What do you mean?”
A pregnant pause. Vivenne’s heart thuds unpleasantly, but she bravely replies, “Send me instead.”
“You?” Jos’s voice is filled with disbelief, and when he starts to laugh a moment later, it is no comfort to Vivenne that her words have prompted the first sign of mirth in him since Viden’s death. “Send you to the palace?”
She leaves her armchair and crouches by the side of his. “Give out that Vivenne of Rosemark died of the fever, and that Viden still lives,” she explains earnestly. “I’ll go to the palace and become our knight, Joscelin.” The laughter dies away from his face - he has realised that she is perfectly serious.
He scoffs. “Impossible. What would happen if you were found out? What would happen when you started to become a woman? There is a reason there have been no lady knights for two centuries, Vivenne.”
Primly, she rises, hands folded behind her back. “Well, maybe it’s time that that was changed.” Her voice alters, subtly, takes on the pleading wheedle that she has not used since she was five, begging Jos to teach her to climb the tallest tree in Papa’s orchard. “Please, Joscelin.”
He shakes his head vehemently, face red with irritation. “Absolutely not.”
“Please.”
“No, Vivenne!” But there is a tinge of wavering uncertainty in his voice, and Vivenne presses home her advantage.
“I’d make a better knight than Viden would have!” Immediately, the flash of pain in her brother’s eyes makes her regret her words. He had trained them both himself, when they were younger, and it had always been a thorny point with him that Vivenne could ride, shoot, hunt, fight better than her twin. She blushes and looks away.
Jos grips her chin with gentle fingers and makes her look at him. “Be that as it may, the obstacles are insurmountable.“
Vivenne closes her eyes, and utters the words she had hoped she wouldn’t have to. “If I was found out, I’d leave Tortall and never darken your door again. I wouldn’t expect any extra help from you - or even an allowance.” It is a risk. If Jos agrees, and she is found out, then she will be cast off, friendless, homeless, penniless. But it may just convince him.
As an afterthought, she points out, “And you’d save on money for a dowry later, too.”
Her brother passes a hand over his weary eyes, and Vivenne realises how hard he has been working. He gives an amused sigh. Dryly, he tells her, “Only you would describe eight years of hard work and deception as an economic advantage.”
She can almost hear the cogs turning in Jos’s brain as he weighs up her request - properly, this time; she has awoken him to his prejudices, and to her abilities.
At last, he makes an exasperated noise, and throws his hands into the air. “Very well. I suppose I shall not win. Fetch Gil here - if we are to do this, then there are things I need to discuss with him.”
Vivenne’s squeal of delight pierces his ears, but Joscelin of Rosemark cannot help smiling slightly as she runs from the room.
“Viden of Rosemark?” The page speaking is a head or so taller than Vivenne, and perhaps three years older. His dark hair is cropped short and for a boy of thirteen, he looks impossibly serious. Vivenne bows and stammers out a ‘yes,’ and her gaucheness makes the boy smile thinly. “I’m Wyldon of Cavall. Duke Gareth has asked me to sponsor you. Come along.”
And so begins a new friendship. Wyldon drags her around the palace on a tour, then drops her off with the palace tailors for her uniform. Swathed in red and gold, and staring nervously at herself in their mirror, Vivenne begins to think she can do it.
Corus is terrifying and wonderful, the palace even more so. Duke Gareth, tall, stern and razor-sharp, wins her instant respect and awe. Her fellow pages welcome her easily into the fold, and Vivenne breathes a private sigh of relief that no one seems to think her occasional shyness odd. Each evening finds her exhausted, poring over mathematics in one of the palace libraries, or running through staff moves with Wyldon on the practice courts. And so the days melt quickly into months.
Before she realises it, Vivenne has been in Corus for a year, and Wyldon is on the verge of being made a squire. Already, he has had three offers from potential knight masters, and it makes Vivenne nervous. What if, when it comes to it, no one offers for her? It almost never happens, apparently, but she has seen squires wandering the palace halls in the blue and silver livery of the unattached, and dreads the same thing happening to her.
Wyldon’s father plans to visit him before the pages return home for the summer, she hears. “He wants to speak to Sir Devlin,” he explains, somewhat glumly, naming the knight he is likely to accept. They are spending a rare free hour, grooming their horses in the pages’ stable. Reaching for a fresh brush, Vivenne asks, “Won’t your mother come as well?”
“No.” He pauses, apparently weighing up how much more to reveal. “They rarely spend any time together. He isn’t in love with her, you see, and… er, Mother can’t stand Father, either.” From what Vivenne can remember of her long-dead parents, they were devoted to each other. She can’t imagine what such a loveless household would be like to live in, and feels embarrassed for bringing the subject up. “I’m sorry.” It is inadequate and they both know it.
He shrugs. “It’s not too bad. They’re both very discreet.” He is talking of lovers, of course, and she pities him even more.
Wyldon does end up with Sir Devlin. Luckily, he spends much of the winter and all of the following year at Court, so Vivenne is not deprived of her best friend. He is busier, of course, but when the older pages begin to learn tilting and fencing, Wyl is there for her. He doesn’t even laugh much when she goes flying from her saddle the first time, or when her sword flies across the practice courts under the wrathful eye of Arram Sklaw.
With spring, a bevy of ladies fresh from the convent arrive in Corus. It is a season of firsts. For the first time, Vivenne disarms her opponent in fencing, and earns a half-approving nod from Arram Sklaw. She is permitted an afternoon in the city alone by Duke Gareth. For the first time, Wyldon joins the ranks of young men exercising their gallantry. Lady Gwynnen proves to be the prettiest and most popular, and, watching the young lady waltzing gracefully across the Grand Ballroom from her vantage point high up on the balcony, for the first time Vivenne envies the life of a court lady. Her mood does not improve when Wyldon is released by his knight master to mill about with the guests - and dance with Gwynnen.
Before long, Wyl is writing poetry to Gwynnen and, worse still, she seems to return his affections. He abandons Vivenne in favour of squiring Gwynnen around the city, and on one memorable night, Vivenne accidentally comes across them kissing in the gardens. Later, she isn’t sure which of the three is more embarrassed. But she is sure of one thing: somehow, somewhere, she has fallen in love with Wyldon of Cavall.
Vivenne’s fears regarding knight masters prove to be unfounded. A week after she is made a squire, she is called to Duke Gareth’s office, heart thumping lest someone has discovered her secret, and finds Lord Norden of Irenroha taking tea with His Grace. She has seen the knight around Court several times and heard him spoken of as a good and brave knight. Tall, in his thirties and still handsome despite losing an eye in combat on the Scanran border a year ago, he rises and shakes Vivenne’s hand before she has time to bow. Duke Gareth slips from the room. “I’m looking for a squire, Rosemark, and I wondered if you’d care to take the position.”
Dazed, Vivenne asks, “Me? Be your squire, my lord?”
“Close your mouth, lad, or you’ll be catching flies. I’ve been watching you older pages for some time now, Rosemark, and you’re one of the best. A steady fencer, neat archer, and a fair rider too. Your tilting needs some work, but there’ll be plenty of time for that. I don’t spend my days lazing around Court - I’m a working knight and I’ve applied for border patrol. Any squire I take will have to pull their weight - what do you say?”
“Y-yes, my lord. Thank you.”
He gestures to the door. “Go along and pack what you need. I’ll send my man along to help you move, and then we’ll talk properly.”
Despite his somewhat brusque manner, Vivenne soon loses her fear of Norden. He proves himself a steady, dry-humoured knight master, and by the time they ride north to the Scanran border six weeks later, Vivenne feels she has known him for a century. He is all she could have wished for. Once at the border and ensconced at Fort Mastiff, their days settle into a regular pattern. Vivenne rises early to perform the exercises that have become second nature to her. Then, she breakfasts with the soldiers coming off guard-duty - Lord Norden, she soon learns, does not require his squire to act as valet as well. The rest of the morning is taken up with assisting Norden in training the soldiers stationed at Mastiff, and in tilting and weapons practice. Lunch, usually taken on the walls during guard duty, is followed by academic study, for Norden is a stickler for this as he is for everything else. The evenings are filled with more guard duty, chores and, finally, sleep.
She writes to Wyldon, of course, and he writes back. Gwynnen’s name gradually disappears from their correspondence, and eventually he writes that she is being courted by another man. Vivenne knows she should feel sorry for him, but she cannot help the bubble of joy that rises in her stomach as she reads his curtly worded missive.
All goes well for almost six months - the border is unusually quiet, and they fight very few skirmishes - and then it happens. Vivenne is just easing herself into a well-deserved bath after a long day of tilting when her door bursts open, and Norden sprints in, dragging on his mail-coat and swinging his helmet from his right hand. “Fire drill, squire! Out in the courtyard in three min - “
And then he notices everything. Gentleman that he is, he turns about immediately and shuts the door. Bright red from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, Vivenne realises that she had forgotten to lock her door. Grabbing her shirt and breeches, she struggles out of the bath and into clothes.
“Squire,” Lord Norden says at last with remarkable calmness, “would you care to explain just what in the name of Mithros, Mynoss and Shakith is going on?”
Vivenne takes a deep breath. “I-I’m a girl. I’m not Viden. Viden’s dead. I’m his twin sister. Vivenne.”
Norden turns gingerly around and, looking much relieved to find her clothed, heaves a sigh and sits down on the edge of her bed, helmet wilting forlornly in his hand. “How simple you make it all sound!”
Vivenne chews her lip and looks at the floor. Suddenly, her knight-master starts to laugh. Startled she looks up to find his eyes filled with mirth. “Goddess, Rosemark. You’re a fool, but you’re a plucky one!”
A slight smile crosses his squire’s face, before a thought strikes her. “Will you tell anyone, my lord?”
He shakes his head, and rises. “It would be a pity to lose you now. I do hate training new squires.” He pauses for a beat, and then begs, “Next time, please remember to lock your door.”
Vivenne bows deeply. “Yes, my lord. Thank you.” Only when Norden has gone does she sink into her chair, hands shaking like leaves on a windblown tree.
To her great relief, Norden mentions nothing more of her pretence, and she could almost believe he has forgotten it, were it not for the occasional searching glances he sends her way over the next few months. Eventually, he summons the courage to ask her what her plans will be once she has earned her knighthood. Vivenne does not know, and tells him so; Norden murmurs something about the contradictions of her character and drops the subject.
And then, suddenly, Midwinter is fast approaching, and with it Wyldon’s Ordeal of Knighthood. The last letter Vivenne receives from him beforehand sends her pacing round the walls of Mastiff. He writes of his fear, and his impatience, and foolishly, she gnaws all her nails down to their quicks with worry. He is her love and she cannot help her anxieties. Norden watches shrewdly and sends a messenger to the district commander.
A week later, four days before Wyldon’s Ordeal, he knocks on Vivenne’s door and orders her to pack. They have been granted leave to rest and enjoy the delights of the season in Corus. If Vivenne had not been so shocked and glad, she might have kissed him. As it is, they arrive in the city on the morning before the night when Wyl will enter the chamber. She foregoes packing to visit him, determined to see him in good spirits.
He has grown since they last saw each other, and she sees flashes of the man he will be. She wonders what it would have been like to be a proper girl, to have learnt the skills of a noblewoman, to have come here and been courted by him - and then shakes herself for her silliness; he is he and she is she, and if they were any different… well, things wouldn’t be the same. It sounds suspiciously confusing and philosophical, and Vivenne forces herself to abandon this line of thought and content herself with wishing her friend luck.
She and Norden are sitting at the very front of the Chapel when he staggers from the Chamber, unseeing and sweat-soaked, looking as though he has lived a thousand years of misery since entering it. She bites her lip so hard it bleeds, to stop herself from crying with joy, and later, when Norden presses a glass of brandy into her still shaking hands, she does not question his logic. The spirits burn, but at least she can stand and watch in relative calm as King Roald touches the flat of his blade first to Wyldon’s shoulders and then to his head, knighting him before the Court.
She rests the shield on her bed and steps back to gaze at it. She should be happier, should be relieved that all these years of work have finally brought her here to this day, a knight of Tortall. But all she can think of is the stunned murmurs of the Court as she solemnly pronounced her true name aloud for the first time in years, the fury on Wyldon of Cavall’s face, the hurried conference of royal advocates, their verdict - “Nothing can be done, sire. The Chamber has pronounced this female a knight.”
The door slams behind her and she knows without turning who it will be. “Wyl…” she whispers tiredly.
“You lied to me,” he spits. “All those years, you pretended to be my friend. I told you things I told no one else!” The betrayal has bitten deep - of all the men she knows, he is the one least likely to accept disloyalty. And this is what she has given him. She turns, folding her hands behind her back. “I know, I know and I’m sorry,” she admits softly. “But I couldn’t tell you! What would you have said? “What’s that, Viden, old chum? You’re a girl? Oh, well, no matter, you’re still my friend and I’ll keep your secret for you…””
He scoffs, and her face twists angrily. “Don’t be stupid. Your honour would have dictated that you run straight to Duke Gareth and I’d have been on my way back to Rosemark before I could say ‘shield.’” His face is unreadable, and she cannot bear to look at him. The shame is too much. When he speaks, his voice is cold and distant. “Well, now you’ve deceived everyone and got what you wanted, where will you go?” A hint of vindictiveness bleeds into his voice. “The king won’t permit a female knight patrolling his borders.”
Her temper snaps. “No,” she agrees, voice sounding to her ears as though it is very far away. “The king only wants self-righteous prigs like you, doesn’t he?”
His lip curls. “I can see now why you didn’t want to go to the convent, Lady Vivenne.”
She sweeps him a mocking bow. “Goodbye, Sir Wyldon.”
Only when she has packed all her belongings, and curled up by her fireside for the last time, does Vivenne allow herself to weep.
She leaves the next day at dawn. As per her wishes, no one is there to say goodbye. The presence of others would only serve even more forcefully to remind her of her lost friend. She rides hard, and if her eyes water somewhat as she passes the road to Cavall, then she can easily blame it on the icy wind that howls mournfully around her.
After a year and a half wandering the Eastern lands from the Great Southern Desert, through Tyra and up to Sarain, she is ambushed by lowlander forces. Luckily, a young half-K’mir princess (a runaway from the convent) and her full K’mir escort are riding by and they fall in together. Thayet and Buri are on their way back to her mother’s clan, and Vivenne goes along with them, an extra sword and an extra pair of eyes. She is not the only one. When the Shang Lioness, red-haired and fiery-tempered, crosses their path, Vivenne finds a kindred spirit.
The K’mir are friendly, and welcoming despite all their hardships - men who make grim jokes, and fiercely armed women who carry their children in linen slings across their backs. They are a people at war, but it is part of their defiance against the lowlanders that life carries on - there are weddings, births, the laying to rest of old people. Vivenne settles here, learning to cook K’miri dishes, shoot K’miri bows, sing K’miri songs. Tortall, quarrels and Wyldon seem a distant memory and that is the way she likes it. Here, no one cares what you have been, only what you are trying to become. She even dares to grow her hair, and the girls of the clan help her experiment with skirts and face paints, in exchange for lessons in fencing and exhibitions in tilting. She wakes one morning and realises she is happy.
Alanna does not stay for long - no Shang does, after all - but she leaves with a promise to stay in touch, which is all Vivenne can hope for, she supposes. “Good luck,” the Lioness tells her, wrapping her in a quick, tight hug. “And say hello to my brother when you go home.”
Vivenne opens her mouth to say she has no plans of going back to Tortall at present - ever, her mind corrects firmly - but at last, she just smiles and nods and waves the Lioness off as she rides away.
And then, one night - “I want to leave Sarain,” Thayet whispers from her bedroll, laid out next to Vivenne’s. “Will you come with us?” Reluctantly, Vivenne agrees. You have to face him sometime, she tells herself.
But she is still shaken when their boat docks in the busy waters of Port Caynn, and she hears the gossip from the capital. His beloved father has died and he is lord of Cavall.
His rooms are the same as they always were - sober and bare of decoration. A plain, heavy-looking mirror hangs against one wall, the only luxurious item. He himself looks older, greyer, more serious. He looks her up and down without comment for a moment, and then observes, “You’ve let your hair grow. You look different. Like a girl.”
She rolls her eyes despite herself. “I am a girl.” She pauses, and then adds, somewhat vindictively, “The K’mir don’t mind that.”
His mouth tightens and he brushes an arm across eyes swollen with lack of sleep. “Why exactly are you here?” His tone is brusque, and he is making it more than clear that the sooner she leaves, the better.
She decides on the obvious answer, the one she has been giving to everyone. Dutifully, she reels off: “Princess Thayet wanted an escort to Tortall. There’s no place for her in Sarain now, you know.”
“No,” he corrects her patiently, “why are you here - in my rooms?”
She leans forward, sympathetic now. “I heard about your father.” Hesitantly, she reaches out and covers his cold hand with her own. “I know you were close to him - “
He flinches away from her touch as though scalded. “Lady Vivenne, please. I appreciate your concern, but it is entirely unnecessary.” He rises, suddenly in charge again. “And now I would thank you if you left me alone.”
“Of course.” No point in forcing herself upon his notice any further. At the door, she pauses, head bowed. “You still haven’t forgiven me,” she observes ruefully. He is surprised, and since she is not looking at him, he has no need to school his features into inscrutability. “You have no need of my forgiveness, or my good opinion,” he reminds her bleakly. “You proved that when you lied to me for eight years.”
Jollity is the only way forward if she does not wish to lose face. Her laugh sounds false even to her. “You cannot forgive and I cannot persist in making apologies. How alike we are!”
His parting words hit her like an iron bar to the stomach. “You and I, Lady Vivenne, are no more alike than the sky is to the sea.”
“What a foolish metaphor!” Thayet comments, when Vivenne returns to her rooms later, depressed, and is forced to admit the outcome of her sympathy visit. “They’re both ever-present, incorrigible, inexorable…”
Buri, slouched against the wall, snorts. “Ignore her. She met Prince Jonathan today, and now she’s gone all poetic.”
“Oh,” Vivenne whispers, and tries to smile.
He changes his mind after a while, which is a first. She never receives a formal apology, but once she has established a routine for herself, he begins to appear on the practice courts at the same times. They spar together with swords, and when they meet at formal court functions, they will spend whole evenings sparring verbally. She teases him for his politics, he makes dry biting comments about her skills on the tiltyard. By Midwinter, they have formed a sort of grudging alliance, if not a friendship, and found some kind of mutual respect again.
While Thayet is shyly courted by Prince Jonathan, and Buri astounds the knights of Corus for entirely different reasons, Vivenne finds herself free to choose her own company. The ladies of the court are not like the K’miri girls. On Beltane, while sunlight stretches its warm tendrils over Corus, Wyldon finds her on the palace walls, staring out across the sweeping roofs and winding streets of the city, and drags her off matter-of-factly to dine at Naxen’s Fancy. Both parties surprise themselves by enjoying the evening.
The final turning point comes during a ball on the third night of Midwinter. She vanishes from the ballroom close to midnight, and when half an hour has passed and she has still not returned, he follows. Outside, in a courtyard, he arrives just in time to watch Vivenne dump an obviously hostile knight into the nearest fountain. Stifling a laugh, even as he gauges the probable cause of her behaviour, he approaches and offers her his arm, leading her away. She is shaking, and when they reach her rooms, she looks up at him, stricken, and whispers, “I should never have come back.” He cannot think of anything to say, and wonders absurdly what would happen if he kissed her. When he loses his shyness and does so, her soft gasp of surprised delight - “Oh, my…” - convinces him to repeat the experiment. Several times.
“You’re leaving again.”
Vivenne jumps and spins around to the door. He is leaning comfortably against the frame, his serious expression strangely at odds with his relaxed position. She bites her lip. “How did you know?”
He raises one perfectly poised eyebrow. “Did you truly think that people wouldn’t notice if the famous Lady Vivenne started gathering supplies for a long journey?”
She turns back to her packing case and hears his footsteps as he advances further into her room. “By ‘famous’, I suppose you mean ‘notorious’,” she replies absently. “Please don’t try to spare my feelings, Wyl.”
The door shuts with a snap. “Stop avoiding the question.”
She sighs and pauses in her action of folding shirts. “Yes. I am leaving.” His breath escapes in a rush, and it is only when she feels the warmth of it on the back of her neck that she realises how close he is. His hands rest on her upper arms from behind, thumbs stroking the skin just above her elbows. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He is quiet, disappointed, and she feels suddenly, shabbily, ashamed.
“Because I didn’t know what you’d say.” It is a lame excuse, and they are both aware of the fact.
“Goddess, Vi.” The curse sounds weary, though, and defeated. “I’ve been sharing your bed for three months - I’m sure you could have hazarded a guess!”
“Alright,” she admits. “I was afraid of what you’d say.”
“Where will you go?” he asks quietly, and she thinks her heart will burst with love for him that he does not beg her to stay.
“Tyra’s nice this time of year, I hear,” she replies, forcing levity. “Or there’s always the Scanran border. They’re in need of fresh knights and King Roald is not so opposed to female warriors as he used to be.”
His hands slip away from her arms and she feels him move away. “Well, that’s that, I suppose.”
She turns, frowning. “Sorry?”
He looks up at her, and if she didn’t know him much better, she’d swear that she saw panic in his eyes. He swallows. “Vi.. Please… Is this your way of throwing me over?”
Her face slackens in surprise. “Throwing you - ?” she breathes. “Mithros, is that what you think?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” His voice is suddenly harsh - although she is astonished to note that it is with fear and not anger. She steps forward slowly and hugs him. He is unyielding and unresponsive in her arms.
“I’m… I’m not throwing you over, Wyl,” she whispers. “I’m not. I just… things are moving very fast, and I need time to think about what I want.”
His arms tighten around her and he tilts his head down to rest his forehead against her own. “Alright - then think about becoming my wife.”
Vivenne’s eyes burn and she swipes at them fiercely. “I’ll miss you.”
Inevitably, though, whatever she said to Wyldon, Vivenne ends up in Sarain again, welcomed back to the Hau Ma like a long-lost daughter. There is a fragile peace now - one of Thayet’s numerous cousins has wrested power and, according to Khanh, the clan headwoman, he is intent on solving the mistakes of his predecessor. Another westerner, a red-haired Shang named Liam Ironarm, is also staying with the clan. He is an old friend of Alanna’s and Vivenne quickly finds that her own acquaintance with the fiery warrior woman is a sure route into Liam’s good books. They exchange stories about their mutual friend, and then about themselves and before long, Vivenne has persuaded him to teach her a few Shang tricks.
She tries to settle into clan life again, but her thoughts seem always to be turned towards Tortall these days. She spends much of her time (when she is not being tortured by Liam) walking, and thinking; one day, she discovers a small, very much worn shrine, tucked into the mountain rock as though carved from it. It is dedicated to the Four Horse Lords, and Vivenne offers them a prayer that they will help Sarain’s new ruler. They are K’miri gods, true, but she doesn’t think they will begrudge the granting of a westerner’s wish. After that day, she returns to the shrine often, bringing incense and flowers with her. She calms somewhat, but her long, lonely visits do nothing to answer her questions.
So used is she to having the shrine to herself, she is much surprised when old Khanh hobbles up to her one day and lowers herself onto a suitable rock. “You are troubled,” she announces without preamble. Khanh has raised four children, and ten grandchildren, and ruled the clan with a velvet-covered fist for thirty years - beating around the bush is not in her nature. “You have been troubled since you got here.”
Vivenne sighs. “You know, when I first got my knighthood, I thought that I’d be happy to roam for the rest of my days, alone…”
Khanh eyes her sympathetically. “And you find that you are no longer built for solitude. I see. But there is something else, too.” For a long time, Vivenne does not answer. Khanh lights a stick of incense and makes her greeting to the gods. Both women watch a slender tendril of smoke wind its way up from the incense and then Vivenne murmurs, “Lord Wyldon proposed marriage to me before I left Corus.” Khanh’s old wrinkled face shows no surprise. “Did he indeed? Your stiff western noble?” She had mentioned Wyl once or twice to Khanh during her first stay in Sarain, and this was the less-than-flattering epithet with which he had been unceremoniously dubbed.
Vivenne half-smiles, and protests, “He isn’t so stiff now.” Khanh shrugs her old shoulders, slowly returning to her seat.
“Or perhaps your way of looking at him is no longer so severe,” she suggests wisely.
Silently, Vivenne acknowledges the truth of this. Out loud, she says, “Perhaps.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Khanh’s dry smile. The headwoman asks, “Have you decided what answer you will give him?”
Vivenne shifts irritably and faces her. She loves Wyldon, of course she does - she has since she was thirteen years old. But she has wondered whether loving him has become a matter of habit, rather than feeling, and the possibility makes her anxious. How can she possibly tell? “I wanted to ask your advice,” she admits, feeling twelve and foolish. Knights ask no one for advice, not on trivial matters of the heart, anyway.
“We K’mir have a saying…”
“The K’mir have a saying for everything,” Vivenne reminds her friend wryly.
The old woman taps her hand on her rocky seat for attention. Her voice is severe when she informs Vivenne. “The saying is: ‘Seek counsel of him who makes you weep, and not of him who makes you laugh.’ I cannot advise you in this.”
Vivenne nods, resigned. “I thought not.” But, biting her lip, she persists, “Would I have your blessing if I did choose to marry him?”
Only among the K’mir would such a statement provoke laughter, and Khanh does laugh - long and wheezing and echoing around the hills. Vivenne winces. Finally, she sobers. “It is not for me, or anyone else, to bless or disapprove of your choice. I will only tell you that you seem to care very much for this Lord Wyldon, and that you have been unsettled here, without him.”
“That is true.”
Khanh lights a fresh stick of incense, and her next words are said almost as an aside, absent-minded and deceptively mild. “However - the Shang Dragon looks upon you with a fond eye.”
Vivenne lurches up in surprise and not a little horror. “Liam? Oh, that’s impossible. I don’t think about Liam in that way.”
Khanh takes her arm and begins to lead her away from the shrine. “And why is that? He is a fine specimen of a man.” Since Khanh has been married twice, Vivenne dares not argue with her assessment. “Yes, but Wyldon - “ She stops suddenly in the middle of the path, and exclaims softly, “Oh!”
Her cheeks are mantled with a sudden blush, and Vivenne wonders how she could ever have been so foolish. The headwoman smiles thinly. “I see.”
“You did that on purpose,” Vivenne accuses.
“Perhaps. But it has given you an answer.”
Vivenne stares out over the misty mountain scenery and does not reply.
“Sir…”
Lord Wyldon of Cavall looks up impatiently from his now-ink-blotted paperwork and snaps in exasperation, “Squire Colm! Knock, can’t you?”
The boy - young man now, really - at least has the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry, sir… but Lady Vivenne is here to see you.”
A blot forms again on the paperwork, for the second time in as many minutes. Wyldon carefully sets aside his pen and tries to get his feelings in check. “Lady Vivenne?” he replies at last, feigning disinterest. “Impossible. She’s - “
“Here.” Music to his ears. He looks up and she is framed in his doorway, the same half-smile on her lips. He would think he were dreaming, were it not for the fact that she is sun-browned and dressed in a gaudy red K’mir jacket that he is sure he would have remembered. “Hello, Lord Wyldon,” she murmurs, almost shyly.
He rises and speaks as if he is in a dream. “That’s all, Hannalof. You may retire for the night.” His eyes don’t leave Vivenne’s face for a second. The squire bows, hiding a mischievous grin, and makes his escape. “Yes, my lord. Thank you.” His master cannot move fast enough. The desk is in the way, but once that has been negotiated, he stands before her and drinks her in. It has been a year, and yet she is just as he remembered - the same fierceness brewing under an apparently calm surface, the placid sea he once compared her to, just waiting to erupt into broiling stormy waves. “Vi…” he whispers. It is all he can manage.
Her voice is faltering when she speaks, as though she is holding back tears, and yet her eyes are dry. “Well, I’ve come home, as I promised. All safe and sound. No limbs missing.”
“Goddess, Vi.” He pulls her into his arms and squeezes her until all their intertwined bones begin to creak, and when this happens, they seek each others’ lips and silence falls for quite some time. When they pull apart, she comments, “I hear the King is planning to allow girls into page training.” It is so completely unexpected, and yet so completely Vivenne that he has to laugh. “Yes. His Grace of Naxen was instrumental in convincing him, I believe.”
She nods firmly. “Good.”
He raises an eyebrow, and informs her, “You seem to have been keeping up with our gossip well enough. And yet we’ve heard nothing from you in six months.”
At least she has the grace to look a little ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. Things got a bit hairy in Galla on the way back, and I fell in with a Shang warrior…”
He masks his worry with a question. “Another?”
“The Dragon,” she says shortly. “Liam Ironarm. He was staying with the Hau Ma.”
He takes her hand, merely because he can, and because her Dragon is not here and cannot. “He’s handsome, I suppose.”
Her pause is just long enough that he believes an unfavourable answer is coming. “So-so. I already had someone waiting for me.”
He lets out a loud sigh of relief. “Mithros, I wish you wouldn’t tease a fellow like that, Vivenne!”
She raises his hand to her lips and kisses it. “Sorry. I hope you’ll let me restore myself to your good graces.”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
She looks solemnly up at him, and he is in no doubt of her sincerity when she finally says, “By accepting your proposal of marriage. If you’ll have me.”
The marriage of Vivenne of Rosemark and Wyldon of Cavall was a quiet affair - only the bride’s brother and the groom’s newly-knighted squire attended as witnesses. Indeed, most of the palace were unaware the ceremony had taken place, until some sharp-eyed debutante noticed a few days later that the third finger of Lady Vivenne’s left hand was now adorned with a plain band of gold.
Vivenne smiles as she recalls the incident, pausing for a moment in her packing to gaze at that same ring. Wyldon wants to take her back to Cavall for the summer, in a bold manoeuvre designed to overcome his younger sister’s stringent objections to their marriage, and Vivenne wants to show him the places to which she travelled during her exile. Either way, it seemed as though both knights would be absent from Corus for many months to come.
Not our loss, she decides firmly. Definitely not our loss.
Title: The Sky and the Sea
Rating: PG-13
Event: AU Hammer Throw
Words: 6503
Summary: Apologies for the huge length of this... it started tiny and just grew and grew! A very AU piece - the basic premise being "what if Vivenne had been the one to disguise herself as a girl for page training?" And so it begins...
The room is draughty and sparsely furnished, reflecting perfectly the mood of the two people seated in it. Both wear mourning black, but that is where the similarities end. The young man is in his mid-twenties, with blonde hair cropped short and a round face that would usually be relaxed in genial kindness. Now, he broods over a glass of dark wine, his left leg propped up on a footstool. The girl who sits with him is dark-haired, pale skin, and her features are sharper, somehow. Her glass has been abandoned, undrunk, on the small occasional table resting between them. At last, the man sighs, and places his own glass next to hers. “He would have done what I no longer can, Vivenne,” he murmured. “We were to have had another knight in him.” Both pairs of eyes stray towards the ornately carved walking stick, resting against the wall. Jos’s accident had been hard, coming as it did so quickly after their father’s death, and leaving the new lord a cripple, unable to ride or remain in knightly service.
Vivenne, ten years old and too clever by half, is silent for a long time. Then, voicing this thought for the first time since its conception at Viden’s deathbed a fortnight ago, “Perhaps we still can.” Her right hand, buried in the folds of her too-elaborate sleeve, crosses its fingers. Goddess, and Mithros and Trickster, let this be.
Jos frowns, confused. “What do you mean?”
A pregnant pause. Vivenne’s heart thuds unpleasantly, but she bravely replies, “Send me instead.”
“You?” Jos’s voice is filled with disbelief, and when he starts to laugh a moment later, it is no comfort to Vivenne that her words have prompted the first sign of mirth in him since Viden’s death. “Send you to the palace?”
She leaves her armchair and crouches by the side of his. “Give out that Vivenne of Rosemark died of the fever, and that Viden still lives,” she explains earnestly. “I’ll go to the palace and become our knight, Joscelin.” The laughter dies away from his face - he has realised that she is perfectly serious.
He scoffs. “Impossible. What would happen if you were found out? What would happen when you started to become a woman? There is a reason there have been no lady knights for two centuries, Vivenne.”
Primly, she rises, hands folded behind her back. “Well, maybe it’s time that that was changed.” Her voice alters, subtly, takes on the pleading wheedle that she has not used since she was five, begging Jos to teach her to climb the tallest tree in Papa’s orchard. “Please, Joscelin.”
He shakes his head vehemently, face red with irritation. “Absolutely not.”
“Please.”
“No, Vivenne!” But there is a tinge of wavering uncertainty in his voice, and Vivenne presses home her advantage.
“I’d make a better knight than Viden would have!” Immediately, the flash of pain in her brother’s eyes makes her regret her words. He had trained them both himself, when they were younger, and it had always been a thorny point with him that Vivenne could ride, shoot, hunt, fight better than her twin. She blushes and looks away.
Jos grips her chin with gentle fingers and makes her look at him. “Be that as it may, the obstacles are insurmountable.“
Vivenne closes her eyes, and utters the words she had hoped she wouldn’t have to. “If I was found out, I’d leave Tortall and never darken your door again. I wouldn’t expect any extra help from you - or even an allowance.” It is a risk. If Jos agrees, and she is found out, then she will be cast off, friendless, homeless, penniless. But it may just convince him.
As an afterthought, she points out, “And you’d save on money for a dowry later, too.”
Her brother passes a hand over his weary eyes, and Vivenne realises how hard he has been working. He gives an amused sigh. Dryly, he tells her, “Only you would describe eight years of hard work and deception as an economic advantage.”
She can almost hear the cogs turning in Jos’s brain as he weighs up her request - properly, this time; she has awoken him to his prejudices, and to her abilities.
At last, he makes an exasperated noise, and throws his hands into the air. “Very well. I suppose I shall not win. Fetch Gil here - if we are to do this, then there are things I need to discuss with him.”
Vivenne’s squeal of delight pierces his ears, but Joscelin of Rosemark cannot help smiling slightly as she runs from the room.
“Viden of Rosemark?” The page speaking is a head or so taller than Vivenne, and perhaps three years older. His dark hair is cropped short and for a boy of thirteen, he looks impossibly serious. Vivenne bows and stammers out a ‘yes,’ and her gaucheness makes the boy smile thinly. “I’m Wyldon of Cavall. Duke Gareth has asked me to sponsor you. Come along.”
And so begins a new friendship. Wyldon drags her around the palace on a tour, then drops her off with the palace tailors for her uniform. Swathed in red and gold, and staring nervously at herself in their mirror, Vivenne begins to think she can do it.
Corus is terrifying and wonderful, the palace even more so. Duke Gareth, tall, stern and razor-sharp, wins her instant respect and awe. Her fellow pages welcome her easily into the fold, and Vivenne breathes a private sigh of relief that no one seems to think her occasional shyness odd. Each evening finds her exhausted, poring over mathematics in one of the palace libraries, or running through staff moves with Wyldon on the practice courts. And so the days melt quickly into months.
Before she realises it, Vivenne has been in Corus for a year, and Wyldon is on the verge of being made a squire. Already, he has had three offers from potential knight masters, and it makes Vivenne nervous. What if, when it comes to it, no one offers for her? It almost never happens, apparently, but she has seen squires wandering the palace halls in the blue and silver livery of the unattached, and dreads the same thing happening to her.
Wyldon’s father plans to visit him before the pages return home for the summer, she hears. “He wants to speak to Sir Devlin,” he explains, somewhat glumly, naming the knight he is likely to accept. They are spending a rare free hour, grooming their horses in the pages’ stable. Reaching for a fresh brush, Vivenne asks, “Won’t your mother come as well?”
“No.” He pauses, apparently weighing up how much more to reveal. “They rarely spend any time together. He isn’t in love with her, you see, and… er, Mother can’t stand Father, either.” From what Vivenne can remember of her long-dead parents, they were devoted to each other. She can’t imagine what such a loveless household would be like to live in, and feels embarrassed for bringing the subject up. “I’m sorry.” It is inadequate and they both know it.
He shrugs. “It’s not too bad. They’re both very discreet.” He is talking of lovers, of course, and she pities him even more.
Wyldon does end up with Sir Devlin. Luckily, he spends much of the winter and all of the following year at Court, so Vivenne is not deprived of her best friend. He is busier, of course, but when the older pages begin to learn tilting and fencing, Wyl is there for her. He doesn’t even laugh much when she goes flying from her saddle the first time, or when her sword flies across the practice courts under the wrathful eye of Arram Sklaw.
With spring, a bevy of ladies fresh from the convent arrive in Corus. It is a season of firsts. For the first time, Vivenne disarms her opponent in fencing, and earns a half-approving nod from Arram Sklaw. She is permitted an afternoon in the city alone by Duke Gareth. For the first time, Wyldon joins the ranks of young men exercising their gallantry. Lady Gwynnen proves to be the prettiest and most popular, and, watching the young lady waltzing gracefully across the Grand Ballroom from her vantage point high up on the balcony, for the first time Vivenne envies the life of a court lady. Her mood does not improve when Wyldon is released by his knight master to mill about with the guests - and dance with Gwynnen.
Before long, Wyl is writing poetry to Gwynnen and, worse still, she seems to return his affections. He abandons Vivenne in favour of squiring Gwynnen around the city, and on one memorable night, Vivenne accidentally comes across them kissing in the gardens. Later, she isn’t sure which of the three is more embarrassed. But she is sure of one thing: somehow, somewhere, she has fallen in love with Wyldon of Cavall.
Vivenne’s fears regarding knight masters prove to be unfounded. A week after she is made a squire, she is called to Duke Gareth’s office, heart thumping lest someone has discovered her secret, and finds Lord Norden of Irenroha taking tea with His Grace. She has seen the knight around Court several times and heard him spoken of as a good and brave knight. Tall, in his thirties and still handsome despite losing an eye in combat on the Scanran border a year ago, he rises and shakes Vivenne’s hand before she has time to bow. Duke Gareth slips from the room. “I’m looking for a squire, Rosemark, and I wondered if you’d care to take the position.”
Dazed, Vivenne asks, “Me? Be your squire, my lord?”
“Close your mouth, lad, or you’ll be catching flies. I’ve been watching you older pages for some time now, Rosemark, and you’re one of the best. A steady fencer, neat archer, and a fair rider too. Your tilting needs some work, but there’ll be plenty of time for that. I don’t spend my days lazing around Court - I’m a working knight and I’ve applied for border patrol. Any squire I take will have to pull their weight - what do you say?”
“Y-yes, my lord. Thank you.”
He gestures to the door. “Go along and pack what you need. I’ll send my man along to help you move, and then we’ll talk properly.”
Despite his somewhat brusque manner, Vivenne soon loses her fear of Norden. He proves himself a steady, dry-humoured knight master, and by the time they ride north to the Scanran border six weeks later, Vivenne feels she has known him for a century. He is all she could have wished for. Once at the border and ensconced at Fort Mastiff, their days settle into a regular pattern. Vivenne rises early to perform the exercises that have become second nature to her. Then, she breakfasts with the soldiers coming off guard-duty - Lord Norden, she soon learns, does not require his squire to act as valet as well. The rest of the morning is taken up with assisting Norden in training the soldiers stationed at Mastiff, and in tilting and weapons practice. Lunch, usually taken on the walls during guard duty, is followed by academic study, for Norden is a stickler for this as he is for everything else. The evenings are filled with more guard duty, chores and, finally, sleep.
She writes to Wyldon, of course, and he writes back. Gwynnen’s name gradually disappears from their correspondence, and eventually he writes that she is being courted by another man. Vivenne knows she should feel sorry for him, but she cannot help the bubble of joy that rises in her stomach as she reads his curtly worded missive.
All goes well for almost six months - the border is unusually quiet, and they fight very few skirmishes - and then it happens. Vivenne is just easing herself into a well-deserved bath after a long day of tilting when her door bursts open, and Norden sprints in, dragging on his mail-coat and swinging his helmet from his right hand. “Fire drill, squire! Out in the courtyard in three min - “
And then he notices everything. Gentleman that he is, he turns about immediately and shuts the door. Bright red from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, Vivenne realises that she had forgotten to lock her door. Grabbing her shirt and breeches, she struggles out of the bath and into clothes.
“Squire,” Lord Norden says at last with remarkable calmness, “would you care to explain just what in the name of Mithros, Mynoss and Shakith is going on?”
Vivenne takes a deep breath. “I-I’m a girl. I’m not Viden. Viden’s dead. I’m his twin sister. Vivenne.”
Norden turns gingerly around and, looking much relieved to find her clothed, heaves a sigh and sits down on the edge of her bed, helmet wilting forlornly in his hand. “How simple you make it all sound!”
Vivenne chews her lip and looks at the floor. Suddenly, her knight-master starts to laugh. Startled she looks up to find his eyes filled with mirth. “Goddess, Rosemark. You’re a fool, but you’re a plucky one!”
A slight smile crosses his squire’s face, before a thought strikes her. “Will you tell anyone, my lord?”
He shakes his head, and rises. “It would be a pity to lose you now. I do hate training new squires.” He pauses for a beat, and then begs, “Next time, please remember to lock your door.”
Vivenne bows deeply. “Yes, my lord. Thank you.” Only when Norden has gone does she sink into her chair, hands shaking like leaves on a windblown tree.
To her great relief, Norden mentions nothing more of her pretence, and she could almost believe he has forgotten it, were it not for the occasional searching glances he sends her way over the next few months. Eventually, he summons the courage to ask her what her plans will be once she has earned her knighthood. Vivenne does not know, and tells him so; Norden murmurs something about the contradictions of her character and drops the subject.
And then, suddenly, Midwinter is fast approaching, and with it Wyldon’s Ordeal of Knighthood. The last letter Vivenne receives from him beforehand sends her pacing round the walls of Mastiff. He writes of his fear, and his impatience, and foolishly, she gnaws all her nails down to their quicks with worry. He is her love and she cannot help her anxieties. Norden watches shrewdly and sends a messenger to the district commander.
A week later, four days before Wyldon’s Ordeal, he knocks on Vivenne’s door and orders her to pack. They have been granted leave to rest and enjoy the delights of the season in Corus. If Vivenne had not been so shocked and glad, she might have kissed him. As it is, they arrive in the city on the morning before the night when Wyl will enter the chamber. She foregoes packing to visit him, determined to see him in good spirits.
He has grown since they last saw each other, and she sees flashes of the man he will be. She wonders what it would have been like to be a proper girl, to have learnt the skills of a noblewoman, to have come here and been courted by him - and then shakes herself for her silliness; he is he and she is she, and if they were any different… well, things wouldn’t be the same. It sounds suspiciously confusing and philosophical, and Vivenne forces herself to abandon this line of thought and content herself with wishing her friend luck.
She and Norden are sitting at the very front of the Chapel when he staggers from the Chamber, unseeing and sweat-soaked, looking as though he has lived a thousand years of misery since entering it. She bites her lip so hard it bleeds, to stop herself from crying with joy, and later, when Norden presses a glass of brandy into her still shaking hands, she does not question his logic. The spirits burn, but at least she can stand and watch in relative calm as King Roald touches the flat of his blade first to Wyldon’s shoulders and then to his head, knighting him before the Court.
She rests the shield on her bed and steps back to gaze at it. She should be happier, should be relieved that all these years of work have finally brought her here to this day, a knight of Tortall. But all she can think of is the stunned murmurs of the Court as she solemnly pronounced her true name aloud for the first time in years, the fury on Wyldon of Cavall’s face, the hurried conference of royal advocates, their verdict - “Nothing can be done, sire. The Chamber has pronounced this female a knight.”
The door slams behind her and she knows without turning who it will be. “Wyl…” she whispers tiredly.
“You lied to me,” he spits. “All those years, you pretended to be my friend. I told you things I told no one else!” The betrayal has bitten deep - of all the men she knows, he is the one least likely to accept disloyalty. And this is what she has given him. She turns, folding her hands behind her back. “I know, I know and I’m sorry,” she admits softly. “But I couldn’t tell you! What would you have said? “What’s that, Viden, old chum? You’re a girl? Oh, well, no matter, you’re still my friend and I’ll keep your secret for you…””
He scoffs, and her face twists angrily. “Don’t be stupid. Your honour would have dictated that you run straight to Duke Gareth and I’d have been on my way back to Rosemark before I could say ‘shield.’” His face is unreadable, and she cannot bear to look at him. The shame is too much. When he speaks, his voice is cold and distant. “Well, now you’ve deceived everyone and got what you wanted, where will you go?” A hint of vindictiveness bleeds into his voice. “The king won’t permit a female knight patrolling his borders.”
Her temper snaps. “No,” she agrees, voice sounding to her ears as though it is very far away. “The king only wants self-righteous prigs like you, doesn’t he?”
His lip curls. “I can see now why you didn’t want to go to the convent, Lady Vivenne.”
She sweeps him a mocking bow. “Goodbye, Sir Wyldon.”
Only when she has packed all her belongings, and curled up by her fireside for the last time, does Vivenne allow herself to weep.
She leaves the next day at dawn. As per her wishes, no one is there to say goodbye. The presence of others would only serve even more forcefully to remind her of her lost friend. She rides hard, and if her eyes water somewhat as she passes the road to Cavall, then she can easily blame it on the icy wind that howls mournfully around her.
After a year and a half wandering the Eastern lands from the Great Southern Desert, through Tyra and up to Sarain, she is ambushed by lowlander forces. Luckily, a young half-K’mir princess (a runaway from the convent) and her full K’mir escort are riding by and they fall in together. Thayet and Buri are on their way back to her mother’s clan, and Vivenne goes along with them, an extra sword and an extra pair of eyes. She is not the only one. When the Shang Lioness, red-haired and fiery-tempered, crosses their path, Vivenne finds a kindred spirit.
The K’mir are friendly, and welcoming despite all their hardships - men who make grim jokes, and fiercely armed women who carry their children in linen slings across their backs. They are a people at war, but it is part of their defiance against the lowlanders that life carries on - there are weddings, births, the laying to rest of old people. Vivenne settles here, learning to cook K’miri dishes, shoot K’miri bows, sing K’miri songs. Tortall, quarrels and Wyldon seem a distant memory and that is the way she likes it. Here, no one cares what you have been, only what you are trying to become. She even dares to grow her hair, and the girls of the clan help her experiment with skirts and face paints, in exchange for lessons in fencing and exhibitions in tilting. She wakes one morning and realises she is happy.
Alanna does not stay for long - no Shang does, after all - but she leaves with a promise to stay in touch, which is all Vivenne can hope for, she supposes. “Good luck,” the Lioness tells her, wrapping her in a quick, tight hug. “And say hello to my brother when you go home.”
Vivenne opens her mouth to say she has no plans of going back to Tortall at present - ever, her mind corrects firmly - but at last, she just smiles and nods and waves the Lioness off as she rides away.
And then, one night - “I want to leave Sarain,” Thayet whispers from her bedroll, laid out next to Vivenne’s. “Will you come with us?” Reluctantly, Vivenne agrees. You have to face him sometime, she tells herself.
But she is still shaken when their boat docks in the busy waters of Port Caynn, and she hears the gossip from the capital. His beloved father has died and he is lord of Cavall.
His rooms are the same as they always were - sober and bare of decoration. A plain, heavy-looking mirror hangs against one wall, the only luxurious item. He himself looks older, greyer, more serious. He looks her up and down without comment for a moment, and then observes, “You’ve let your hair grow. You look different. Like a girl.”
She rolls her eyes despite herself. “I am a girl.” She pauses, and then adds, somewhat vindictively, “The K’mir don’t mind that.”
His mouth tightens and he brushes an arm across eyes swollen with lack of sleep. “Why exactly are you here?” His tone is brusque, and he is making it more than clear that the sooner she leaves, the better.
She decides on the obvious answer, the one she has been giving to everyone. Dutifully, she reels off: “Princess Thayet wanted an escort to Tortall. There’s no place for her in Sarain now, you know.”
“No,” he corrects her patiently, “why are you here - in my rooms?”
She leans forward, sympathetic now. “I heard about your father.” Hesitantly, she reaches out and covers his cold hand with her own. “I know you were close to him - “
He flinches away from her touch as though scalded. “Lady Vivenne, please. I appreciate your concern, but it is entirely unnecessary.” He rises, suddenly in charge again. “And now I would thank you if you left me alone.”
“Of course.” No point in forcing herself upon his notice any further. At the door, she pauses, head bowed. “You still haven’t forgiven me,” she observes ruefully. He is surprised, and since she is not looking at him, he has no need to school his features into inscrutability. “You have no need of my forgiveness, or my good opinion,” he reminds her bleakly. “You proved that when you lied to me for eight years.”
Jollity is the only way forward if she does not wish to lose face. Her laugh sounds false even to her. “You cannot forgive and I cannot persist in making apologies. How alike we are!”
His parting words hit her like an iron bar to the stomach. “You and I, Lady Vivenne, are no more alike than the sky is to the sea.”
“What a foolish metaphor!” Thayet comments, when Vivenne returns to her rooms later, depressed, and is forced to admit the outcome of her sympathy visit. “They’re both ever-present, incorrigible, inexorable…”
Buri, slouched against the wall, snorts. “Ignore her. She met Prince Jonathan today, and now she’s gone all poetic.”
“Oh,” Vivenne whispers, and tries to smile.
He changes his mind after a while, which is a first. She never receives a formal apology, but once she has established a routine for herself, he begins to appear on the practice courts at the same times. They spar together with swords, and when they meet at formal court functions, they will spend whole evenings sparring verbally. She teases him for his politics, he makes dry biting comments about her skills on the tiltyard. By Midwinter, they have formed a sort of grudging alliance, if not a friendship, and found some kind of mutual respect again.
While Thayet is shyly courted by Prince Jonathan, and Buri astounds the knights of Corus for entirely different reasons, Vivenne finds herself free to choose her own company. The ladies of the court are not like the K’miri girls. On Beltane, while sunlight stretches its warm tendrils over Corus, Wyldon finds her on the palace walls, staring out across the sweeping roofs and winding streets of the city, and drags her off matter-of-factly to dine at Naxen’s Fancy. Both parties surprise themselves by enjoying the evening.
The final turning point comes during a ball on the third night of Midwinter. She vanishes from the ballroom close to midnight, and when half an hour has passed and she has still not returned, he follows. Outside, in a courtyard, he arrives just in time to watch Vivenne dump an obviously hostile knight into the nearest fountain. Stifling a laugh, even as he gauges the probable cause of her behaviour, he approaches and offers her his arm, leading her away. She is shaking, and when they reach her rooms, she looks up at him, stricken, and whispers, “I should never have come back.” He cannot think of anything to say, and wonders absurdly what would happen if he kissed her. When he loses his shyness and does so, her soft gasp of surprised delight - “Oh, my…” - convinces him to repeat the experiment. Several times.
“You’re leaving again.”
Vivenne jumps and spins around to the door. He is leaning comfortably against the frame, his serious expression strangely at odds with his relaxed position. She bites her lip. “How did you know?”
He raises one perfectly poised eyebrow. “Did you truly think that people wouldn’t notice if the famous Lady Vivenne started gathering supplies for a long journey?”
She turns back to her packing case and hears his footsteps as he advances further into her room. “By ‘famous’, I suppose you mean ‘notorious’,” she replies absently. “Please don’t try to spare my feelings, Wyl.”
The door shuts with a snap. “Stop avoiding the question.”
She sighs and pauses in her action of folding shirts. “Yes. I am leaving.” His breath escapes in a rush, and it is only when she feels the warmth of it on the back of her neck that she realises how close he is. His hands rest on her upper arms from behind, thumbs stroking the skin just above her elbows. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He is quiet, disappointed, and she feels suddenly, shabbily, ashamed.
“Because I didn’t know what you’d say.” It is a lame excuse, and they are both aware of the fact.
“Goddess, Vi.” The curse sounds weary, though, and defeated. “I’ve been sharing your bed for three months - I’m sure you could have hazarded a guess!”
“Alright,” she admits. “I was afraid of what you’d say.”
“Where will you go?” he asks quietly, and she thinks her heart will burst with love for him that he does not beg her to stay.
“Tyra’s nice this time of year, I hear,” she replies, forcing levity. “Or there’s always the Scanran border. They’re in need of fresh knights and King Roald is not so opposed to female warriors as he used to be.”
His hands slip away from her arms and she feels him move away. “Well, that’s that, I suppose.”
She turns, frowning. “Sorry?”
He looks up at her, and if she didn’t know him much better, she’d swear that she saw panic in his eyes. He swallows. “Vi.. Please… Is this your way of throwing me over?”
Her face slackens in surprise. “Throwing you - ?” she breathes. “Mithros, is that what you think?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” His voice is suddenly harsh - although she is astonished to note that it is with fear and not anger. She steps forward slowly and hugs him. He is unyielding and unresponsive in her arms.
“I’m… I’m not throwing you over, Wyl,” she whispers. “I’m not. I just… things are moving very fast, and I need time to think about what I want.”
His arms tighten around her and he tilts his head down to rest his forehead against her own. “Alright - then think about becoming my wife.”
Vivenne’s eyes burn and she swipes at them fiercely. “I’ll miss you.”
Inevitably, though, whatever she said to Wyldon, Vivenne ends up in Sarain again, welcomed back to the Hau Ma like a long-lost daughter. There is a fragile peace now - one of Thayet’s numerous cousins has wrested power and, according to Khanh, the clan headwoman, he is intent on solving the mistakes of his predecessor. Another westerner, a red-haired Shang named Liam Ironarm, is also staying with the clan. He is an old friend of Alanna’s and Vivenne quickly finds that her own acquaintance with the fiery warrior woman is a sure route into Liam’s good books. They exchange stories about their mutual friend, and then about themselves and before long, Vivenne has persuaded him to teach her a few Shang tricks.
She tries to settle into clan life again, but her thoughts seem always to be turned towards Tortall these days. She spends much of her time (when she is not being tortured by Liam) walking, and thinking; one day, she discovers a small, very much worn shrine, tucked into the mountain rock as though carved from it. It is dedicated to the Four Horse Lords, and Vivenne offers them a prayer that they will help Sarain’s new ruler. They are K’miri gods, true, but she doesn’t think they will begrudge the granting of a westerner’s wish. After that day, she returns to the shrine often, bringing incense and flowers with her. She calms somewhat, but her long, lonely visits do nothing to answer her questions.
So used is she to having the shrine to herself, she is much surprised when old Khanh hobbles up to her one day and lowers herself onto a suitable rock. “You are troubled,” she announces without preamble. Khanh has raised four children, and ten grandchildren, and ruled the clan with a velvet-covered fist for thirty years - beating around the bush is not in her nature. “You have been troubled since you got here.”
Vivenne sighs. “You know, when I first got my knighthood, I thought that I’d be happy to roam for the rest of my days, alone…”
Khanh eyes her sympathetically. “And you find that you are no longer built for solitude. I see. But there is something else, too.” For a long time, Vivenne does not answer. Khanh lights a stick of incense and makes her greeting to the gods. Both women watch a slender tendril of smoke wind its way up from the incense and then Vivenne murmurs, “Lord Wyldon proposed marriage to me before I left Corus.” Khanh’s old wrinkled face shows no surprise. “Did he indeed? Your stiff western noble?” She had mentioned Wyl once or twice to Khanh during her first stay in Sarain, and this was the less-than-flattering epithet with which he had been unceremoniously dubbed.
Vivenne half-smiles, and protests, “He isn’t so stiff now.” Khanh shrugs her old shoulders, slowly returning to her seat.
“Or perhaps your way of looking at him is no longer so severe,” she suggests wisely.
Silently, Vivenne acknowledges the truth of this. Out loud, she says, “Perhaps.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Khanh’s dry smile. The headwoman asks, “Have you decided what answer you will give him?”
Vivenne shifts irritably and faces her. She loves Wyldon, of course she does - she has since she was thirteen years old. But she has wondered whether loving him has become a matter of habit, rather than feeling, and the possibility makes her anxious. How can she possibly tell? “I wanted to ask your advice,” she admits, feeling twelve and foolish. Knights ask no one for advice, not on trivial matters of the heart, anyway.
“We K’mir have a saying…”
“The K’mir have a saying for everything,” Vivenne reminds her friend wryly.
The old woman taps her hand on her rocky seat for attention. Her voice is severe when she informs Vivenne. “The saying is: ‘Seek counsel of him who makes you weep, and not of him who makes you laugh.’ I cannot advise you in this.”
Vivenne nods, resigned. “I thought not.” But, biting her lip, she persists, “Would I have your blessing if I did choose to marry him?”
Only among the K’mir would such a statement provoke laughter, and Khanh does laugh - long and wheezing and echoing around the hills. Vivenne winces. Finally, she sobers. “It is not for me, or anyone else, to bless or disapprove of your choice. I will only tell you that you seem to care very much for this Lord Wyldon, and that you have been unsettled here, without him.”
“That is true.”
Khanh lights a fresh stick of incense, and her next words are said almost as an aside, absent-minded and deceptively mild. “However - the Shang Dragon looks upon you with a fond eye.”
Vivenne lurches up in surprise and not a little horror. “Liam? Oh, that’s impossible. I don’t think about Liam in that way.”
Khanh takes her arm and begins to lead her away from the shrine. “And why is that? He is a fine specimen of a man.” Since Khanh has been married twice, Vivenne dares not argue with her assessment. “Yes, but Wyldon - “ She stops suddenly in the middle of the path, and exclaims softly, “Oh!”
Her cheeks are mantled with a sudden blush, and Vivenne wonders how she could ever have been so foolish. The headwoman smiles thinly. “I see.”
“You did that on purpose,” Vivenne accuses.
“Perhaps. But it has given you an answer.”
Vivenne stares out over the misty mountain scenery and does not reply.
“Sir…”
Lord Wyldon of Cavall looks up impatiently from his now-ink-blotted paperwork and snaps in exasperation, “Squire Colm! Knock, can’t you?”
The boy - young man now, really - at least has the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry, sir… but Lady Vivenne is here to see you.”
A blot forms again on the paperwork, for the second time in as many minutes. Wyldon carefully sets aside his pen and tries to get his feelings in check. “Lady Vivenne?” he replies at last, feigning disinterest. “Impossible. She’s - “
“Here.” Music to his ears. He looks up and she is framed in his doorway, the same half-smile on her lips. He would think he were dreaming, were it not for the fact that she is sun-browned and dressed in a gaudy red K’mir jacket that he is sure he would have remembered. “Hello, Lord Wyldon,” she murmurs, almost shyly.
He rises and speaks as if he is in a dream. “That’s all, Hannalof. You may retire for the night.” His eyes don’t leave Vivenne’s face for a second. The squire bows, hiding a mischievous grin, and makes his escape. “Yes, my lord. Thank you.” His master cannot move fast enough. The desk is in the way, but once that has been negotiated, he stands before her and drinks her in. It has been a year, and yet she is just as he remembered - the same fierceness brewing under an apparently calm surface, the placid sea he once compared her to, just waiting to erupt into broiling stormy waves. “Vi…” he whispers. It is all he can manage.
Her voice is faltering when she speaks, as though she is holding back tears, and yet her eyes are dry. “Well, I’ve come home, as I promised. All safe and sound. No limbs missing.”
“Goddess, Vi.” He pulls her into his arms and squeezes her until all their intertwined bones begin to creak, and when this happens, they seek each others’ lips and silence falls for quite some time. When they pull apart, she comments, “I hear the King is planning to allow girls into page training.” It is so completely unexpected, and yet so completely Vivenne that he has to laugh. “Yes. His Grace of Naxen was instrumental in convincing him, I believe.”
She nods firmly. “Good.”
He raises an eyebrow, and informs her, “You seem to have been keeping up with our gossip well enough. And yet we’ve heard nothing from you in six months.”
At least she has the grace to look a little ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. Things got a bit hairy in Galla on the way back, and I fell in with a Shang warrior…”
He masks his worry with a question. “Another?”
“The Dragon,” she says shortly. “Liam Ironarm. He was staying with the Hau Ma.”
He takes her hand, merely because he can, and because her Dragon is not here and cannot. “He’s handsome, I suppose.”
Her pause is just long enough that he believes an unfavourable answer is coming. “So-so. I already had someone waiting for me.”
He lets out a loud sigh of relief. “Mithros, I wish you wouldn’t tease a fellow like that, Vivenne!”
She raises his hand to her lips and kisses it. “Sorry. I hope you’ll let me restore myself to your good graces.”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
She looks solemnly up at him, and he is in no doubt of her sincerity when she finally says, “By accepting your proposal of marriage. If you’ll have me.”
The marriage of Vivenne of Rosemark and Wyldon of Cavall was a quiet affair - only the bride’s brother and the groom’s newly-knighted squire attended as witnesses. Indeed, most of the palace were unaware the ceremony had taken place, until some sharp-eyed debutante noticed a few days later that the third finger of Lady Vivenne’s left hand was now adorned with a plain band of gold.
Vivenne smiles as she recalls the incident, pausing for a moment in her packing to gaze at that same ring. Wyldon wants to take her back to Cavall for the summer, in a bold manoeuvre designed to overcome his younger sister’s stringent objections to their marriage, and Vivenne wants to show him the places to which she travelled during her exile. Either way, it seemed as though both knights would be absent from Corus for many months to come.
Not our loss, she decides firmly. Definitely not our loss.