The Lord Marshal squeezed her hand. “Your abilities were sufficient to keep me from death, to return me to health, if not vitality—”
“It is not enough,” Rhapsody interrupted. “If you are to lead the forces of the Middle Continent again in a war that is perhaps directed by malicious greed and a desire for conquest, or perhaps something darker, something demonic, you will need to be as hale and able as it is possible for you to be. And what I have come to understand since Meridion’s birth, since my time in Elynsynos’s Lair, is that I have been going about this in the wrong way. I could heal you, Anborn, save you from death, but I cannot remake you to what you were, because only you can do that. Only you know the man you were, and are, what you have seen and done. Only you own the memories of everything that has happened to you in the course of a very long lifetime. Good and bad, those memories are what make you whole—and I believe only you can embrace them enough to allow them to restore what you were.” The large hands that encircled her small ones trembled slightly. Anborn looked down at where their hands were joined. “I don’t know that I want that man back,” he said tonelessly. “I’ve done many terrible things in my life, Rhapsody, things you may know of, many more that you don’t. Perhaps, in the course of prosecuting the war that is to come, I will do them again, or worse. If the cost of purging those things from my soul was the loss of my legs, then so be it.” Rhapsody inhaled. “It was not,” she said, her voice ringing with a Namer’s truth. “You cannot purge anything that has happened to you, as if it were an impurity of steel to be smelted away in a forge fire. All that has gone before has made you what you are, like notes in a symphony. Whole or lame, you are who you are. Ryle hira, as the Lirin say. Life is what it is. Forgive yourself.” She released his hands and pushed the shell against his chest. “At least try to be as whole as you can, if not for yourself, then for the men you lead. And for me.” The Lord Marshal’s rigid face relaxed a little. “You are very infused with admiration for yourself, and your place in my esteem,” he said jokingly. “All right— what must I do?”
“Hold the shell to your ear, perhaps before you lie down to sleep, perhaps when you wake. Listen to the music within it; it may take you a while to even hear the song in the crashing of the waves. Hum it, or sing it if you can hear the words, though that is not an easy thing to do unless you are trained as a Singer. Just try, please—try to remember who you were and blend that in with who you are. I don’t know if it will make any difference, but we are about to be parted, one from the other, for what we both know will be a long time, if not forever. I beg you, Anborn, do this one last thing for me. If not for me, do it to add one more healthy body to the fight for the survival of the Middle Continent, and perhaps the world.” Their eyes met sharply, and for an instant they both recalled another discussion years before, the meeting in which she had asked him to consider being her consort. Let us not mince words, General. We both know that war is coming; it draws closer with every passing moment. And while you have seen war firsthand, I have seen the adversary—or at least one of them. We will need everything we have, everything, to merely survive its awakening, let alone defeat it. I will waste neither the blood nor the time of the Lirin fending off a martial challenge over something so stupid as my betrothal. A marriage of convenience is an insignificant price to pay to keep Tyrian safe and at peace for as long as possible. We will need every living soul when the time comes. “I will,” the Lord Marshal promised finally. “Even as I split the ears of the men encamped near me with the horror of my singing voice, for you I will make the attempt, Rhapsody. I will try to imagine you as I do, singing to my great-nephew, and perhaps that will ease my sense of ridiculousness. But, in return, you must promise to let go the silly burden you have carried of the responsibility for my laming. My rescue of you was foretold in prophecy centuries before I ever laid eyes on you, and if I learned nothing else from my cursed mother, may maggots eat her eyes, it was that you cannot fight Fate.” His blue eyes twinkled in the growing darkness. “Of course, if I see Fate coming, I intend to make a good tussle of it anyway.” A knock sounded as the door opened, and Ashe’s shadow appeared in the doorway. “The preparations are under way, and should be completed shortly, Aria,” he said. “The quartermaster intends to have the horses tacked and ready to leave in a quarter hour.” He eyed Anborn for a moment, then extended his hand to his wife. Rhapsody rose and came to him, taking his hand. “Who has the baby?”
“Grunthor.”
“Do you think that was wise? Did you feed him first?”
“The baby?”
“That wasn’t who I meant.” Rhapsody turned one last time and smiled at the Lord Marshal. “Good fortune in all that you will be undertaking,” she said. “And remember your promise.” Anborn swiped an impatient hand at her. “Go,” he said curtly. Rhapsody watched him for a moment longer, then let go of Ashe’s hand, came back to where the Lord Marshal sat, and stood before him. She bent down slightly and pressed her lips to his, allowing her hands to rest on his wide shoulders, taking her time, breathing in his breath. Then she returned to her astonished husband and left the room without looking back. Anborn waited until the heavy door had closed solidly behind them, their footsteps fading away in the hallway beyond. When at last he could no longer hear any trace of sound, he picked up his spectacles and returned to his work. “Goodbye,” he said softly to the map on the desk in front of him.
13
“I’m not even going to ask what just happened,” Ashe muttered as they walked down the hallway with the same sense of controlled urgency that had been in place since the meeting. “That was not a sight I had hoped to keep in my eyes as we are about to be parted in the advent of war. Please be certain that you do not do that to Achmed where I can see—I’ll be unable to take nourishment for weeks.” Rhapsody was lost in thought and didn’t hear him. “Who did Anborn neglect to kiss goodbye that never came home?” she asked when they finally reached the door to their chambers. Ashe looked blank, then took the handle and opened the door. “I’ve no idea,” he said, gesturing for her to enter first. “Anborn has lived a long time, and through some terrible days. I imagine he has lost many people he has cared for, though no one special comes to mind except perhaps Shrike, and I don’t expect they did much kissing.” Rhapsody went to the candelabra on the table near the bed and touched the wicks, sparking them into flame. “His wife, perhaps?” Her husband closed the door. “I would doubt that. Estelle was a fairly horrid woman, and when she died a decade or so ago my father told me Anborn was more relieved than anything else. I was in hiding then, so I don’t really know much about what has gone on in Anborn’s life. He has an oft-stated fondness for tavern wenches and serving girls; I don’t think it’s impossible that he may have lost one or more that he cared for.” Rhapsody shook her head and came into his arms. “I don’t think that’s the answer, though you are probably right that it was not Estelle.” She thought back to a frozen glade at the forest’s edge in Tyrian, on the night Constantin had made reference to in the council meeting, when the Lord Marshal had come in answer to her Kinsmen’s call on the wind to find her and the then-gladiator lost and freezing to death. Anborn had rescued them both, had taken her, frostbitten and all but naked, into a hidden shack that had served as a way station for him, where he tossed her a soft wool tunic of fern-green, long of sleeve, pointed at the wrist, to cover herself. This doesn’t look like it would fit you too well, Anborn. To whom does it belong ? It belonged to my wife. She won’t mind you wearing it— she’s been dead eleven years now. It looks far better on you, by the way. I’m very sorry. No need to be. We didn’t like each other very much. We didn’t live together, and I rarely saw her. But you must have loved her once. No. For such an intellectually gifted woman, Rhapsody, you can be charmingly naive. Then why did you marry? She wasn’t an unattractive woman. Her family was an old one, and she was principled; if she ever cuckolded me, I never knew it, and I believe I would have. I was loyal to her as well, until she died. The honest cynicism had stung her. That’s all? Why bother? she had asked him. A fair question, to be sure. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you. Did you have children? No. I’m sorry to disillusion you, Rhapsody. You obviously know what my family is, and so know that we don’t have the most romantic history. From the very beginning, sex and mat- ing in our family has been about power and control, and it has remained thus. And I can’t foresee a time when that will change—dragon blood is pervasive, you know. The brutality of the observation had not been lost on her. Ashe pulled her closer. “In these last moments before we part, forgive me if I say that I couldn’t care less about whoever Anborn kissed or did not kiss—except that it was quite disturbing to witness it being you.” She shook her head to clear it of the memory and smiled up at her husband. “We only have a few fleeting moments—either the quartermaster will declare the provisions and mounts ready, or the baby will wake, screaming, in Grunthor’s arms, and we will need to rescue them both. Perhaps we should forget about An-born for the present and just be alone together, while I am still here.”