R’shiel decided that she didn’t really care if she never returned to the outside world at all.
Chapter 13
Karien was a vast country, full of tall evergreens, rugged valleys and steep, but distant, snow-capped mountains to the east. With autumn approaching the weather grew colder as they sailed north. Adrina found herself shivering each morning when she took her daily exercise on deck.
The Ironbrook was a heavily populated waterway. They sailed past numerous villages, some large and prosperous, some mean and depressing, some barely deserving of the name at all. They seemed dirty and crowded to a princess raised in the spacious, pink-walled cities of Fardohnya. In fact, Karien seemed a nation lacking in colour. The villages were drab, the people even more so, and the frequently overcast weather leeched the remaining pigment from the world. She was not looking forward to spending her life among these people, not even as their queen.
Adrina was easily bored and the seemingly endless journey up the Ironbrook River toward Yarnarrow offered little in the way of entertainment. She had exhausted most of the opportunities for distraction available to her. She had admired all the scenery she could bear and waved at so many ragged peasants lining the riverbank that her arm felt ready to drop off. When she wasn’t being hounded by Madren regarding the proper way to behave in a Karien court, Vonulus dogged her heels with his instruction in the unbelievably demanding laws of the Karien Church. Adrina was beginning to think the reason so many people sinned was because it wasn’t humanly possible to remember everything that would lead one into temptation.
The only other activity Adrina had to while away the long days on the river was socialising with her ladies-in-waiting. She was not certain what a lady-in-waiting was supposed to do. They hovered around her like flies around a corpse, and seemed anxious to perform small, meaningless tasks for her, but they were offended if she treated them as servants and too sheltered to serve as entertaining companions.
Adrina was unusually cautious in dealing with them. It would not do for these young women (virgins one and all) to learn that for her sixteenth birthday her father had given her a handsome young court’esa. Nor would it do to disillusion the Ladies Hope, Pacifica, Grace and Chastity regarding her virtue. As far as Adrina could tell, every one of them had been raised in finest Karien tradition, which meant they could read (barely), sing (acceptably), play a musical instrument (tolerably well) and discuss such riveting topics as needlework, banquet menus and the convoluted family bloodlines of the Karien nobility. All of these topics left Adrina cold, so she listened and smiled and pretended she didn’t understand them when the conversation became unbearable.
Today was proving particularly trying. Tall, dour, Pacifica had taken it upon herself to enlighten Adrina regarding the long and incredibly dull history of her family, the Gullwings of Mount Pike. She had only got as far as Lord Gullwing the Pious, who lived three centuries past, when Vonulus disturbed them. Adrina welcomed him into the crowded cabin. Even a lesson in the complex duties of a woman according to the Church of Xaphista was preferable to another three hundred years of Dullwings.
“Vonulus! Have you come to instruct me?” she asked. “Or perhaps another discussion about the definition of sin?”
“You would do well to heed both, your Highness,” Pacifica advised, a little put out at Adrina’s shift in attention.
“We may discuss whatever you wish, your Highness.”
Adrina glanced at Pacifica and her companions thoughtfully. “Sin shall be the topic today, I think. I am interested in your definition of adultery.”
Predictably, the Ladies Hope, Pacifica, Grace and Chastity gasped at the suggestion. Vonulus, however, was not so easily rattled.
“Certainly, your Highness. What were you planning?”
Adrina’s eyes widened innocently. “Planning? Why nothing, sir. I simply seek to avoid pitfalls. I have no wish to do or say something that in my country would be considered perfectly normal, but in yours would see me stoned.”
“A reasonable precaution,” he noted with a look that said he didn’t believe her for a minute. “What exactly did you want to know?”
“Define adultery. The Karien definition.”
“It is not the Karien definition, your Highness. It is the Overlord’s definition, and therefore, the only acceptable definition.”
Adrina chose not to pursue that particular argument. “As you wish, define it for me.”
“Adultery, according to the Overlord, is any thought or deed that causes a man to lust after another man’s wife, or a woman to lust after another woman’s husband.”
Adrina’s brow furrowed. “So, let me see if I understand you. If I lust after an unmarried man, then I have not committed adultery, but if I lust after a married man, I have? Is that right?”
“I think you take my meaning too literally, your Highness,” Vonulus began with a shake of his head, but Adrina did not allow him time to continue.
“So that would work the other way, too, I suppose?” she asked. “If my husband... well, for argument’s sake, let’s pretend Cretin falls madly in love with one of my ladies...” she glanced around at the four rather appalled young women, before fixing her eyes on Chastity. “Say... the Lady Chastity here...”
“Your Highness!” Chastity cried in horror.
Adrina smiled sweetly. “Oh never mind, Chastity, I only use you to demonstrate my point. With a name like yours, how could you be anything but pure? Anyway, let’s pretend that Cretin and Chastity... indulge in a bit of... sin... then by your definition, Cretin would get off free as a bird, because Chastity is unmarried, yet my poor Lady would be stoned, because Cretin is married to me. Is that right?”
Vonulus did not look pleased. “That could be regarded as the strictest definition, I suppose, however —”
“I see,” Adrina cut in. “And I can sin merely by thinking something lustful?” Gods! Am I in trouble! “How would you know what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t need to know, your Highness. Xaphista sees all. The Overlord would know.”
“He must be a very busy god, then,” she remarked irreverently.
“It is by resisting such thoughts, that we spare our god the need to constantly watch over us,” Vonulus replied.
“And do you ladies resist temptation?”
The young women nodded quickly in agreement. Too quickly, she thought, with a private little smirk.
“The Overlord teaches us that to resist temptation is to ensure a place at His table in the next life,” Pacifica said.
“You mean if you’re a good little girl in this life, you won’t come back as a cockroach in the next?”
Vonulus sighed heavily. “Your Highness, I believe we discussed the matter of reincarnation several days ago. There is no such thing. We are given one life. When we die, our spirit ascends to the Overlord’s table if we have lived according to his rules.”
“And you drown in the Sea of Despair for eternity, if you don’t,” Adrina replied with a nod. “I remember our discussion. That would mean, that by your definition, every soul who ever lived, who didn’t worship Xaphista, is splashing about in the Sea of Despair, wondering where they went wrong. It must be pretty crowded down there.”
“Your irreverence will lead you into trouble, your Highness,” Vonulus warned. “Have a care when you reach Yarnarrow. Such comments will not sit well at court.”