The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (64 page)

“I don’t feel like a Sharer anymore, Prince.” She turned back to look at the body. “I don’t know what I am, now.”

He could not bear her anguish. He was also furious with her superiors or pathbrothers, or whoever had arranged this little
display, because he understood now that it had been done for him. To warn him that he lacked the skill to ease her pain. They were hurting her to drive him away.

So he squatted beside her and took her hand. “Come away from this place.”

She blinked in surprise. “What?”

“The girl is dead and it had to be done. That’s what peace requires, sometimes. Accept that or not as you please, but don’t sit here and wallow in it. Come.”

He pulled her hand until she got up, then took her with him as he headed for the Hall of Blessings. But the Superior moved neatly to intersect them, frowning at their joined hands. “My Prince, Sharer Hanani has duties—”

“Yes,” Wanahomen said, “tending the
living
, not the dead. I’m taking her where she’s actually needed.”

The Superior was so surprised by this that he actually fell silent for a moment. “Where?” asked Hanani.

“Every man, woman, and child in this city has just been through a battle.”

“Then let them come here,” said the Superior in a stern tone. “The acolytes and Sisters are out now, collecting those who can’t travel, and the Sentinels are dealing with those who resist returning to the ways of peace. We’ll heal those we can, and for that we need Hanani here—”

“But
she
does not need
you
.” Wanahomen heard the anger in his own voice and realized he was doing a poor job of being tactful, but he no longer cared. “What will you do? Stuff her full of dreamblood and lock her in a cell until she stops crying? That’s not what she needs!”

“You presume to know best what she needs,” said the Superior just as hotly, though he kept his voice down. “We would—”

“Enough.” Hanani spoke more softly than either of them, but the
bleak disgust in her voice cut across their anger like a reprimand. “There’s no sense in this. Superior, I ask a few days’ leave. I know every Sharer is needed, but…” She shook her head. “Right now I’m no good to anyone.”

The Superior looked taken aback. “Well, that’s—improper, but—I, I suppose it’s a reasonable request, and yet—”

“Thank you,” Hanani said, cutting him off with breathtaking rudeness. Pulling her hand from Wanahomen’s, she walked away from them toward the Hall of Blessings. Just as taken aback, Wanahomen found himself exchanging a confused look with the Superior.

But at the door to the Hall, Hanani stopped and looked back at them. “Prince?”

Unable to resist a smirk of triumph, Wanahomen gave the Superior a barely civil nod and hurried after her.

*  *  *

He rode to Yanya-iyan with the Aureole carried on a horse behind him, and Hanani seated before him on his own mount. Had Charris and Hendet been present, no doubt they would have disapproved of the latter. Not only had he made it blindingly obvious to all the city that Hanani was his lover—gods knew how the Hetawa would react when they heard of it—but in showing favor to her, he damaged himself. Every noble and wealthy family in the city would be angling for political alliances now that he had returned. His choice of firstwife in particular could strengthen his still-fragile rule. He had no more illusions about Tiaanet. But what other high-ranking, well-connected woman would willingly become firstwife to a man who so plainly already had a favorite?

As they traveled the avenues of the city with his army and allies in tow—Wanahomen nodding to the crowds that formed to cheer and weep at his passing—Hanani seemed not to care about propriety for once. She rested against him as they rode, her head on his
shoulder, her eyes open but lost in some inner turmoil. He could not have said whether she took any actual comfort from his nearness.

At Yanya-iyan, the faces of the servants and staff bore welcome—and a surprising amount of familiarity from the days of his youth. It seemed the Kisuati had not been foolish enough to interfere with such competent and efficient function. Thus Wanahomen felt safe in turning Hanani over to their care, ordering them to treat her as they would one of his wives. It troubled him, though, that she did not look back as she went away with them.

He spent the next hours holding meetings to secure the city and set in place the nascent structures of his rule. It was necessary but trying work, and Dreaming Moon had shown her full four-banded face by the time he finally retired to the apartments that he would think of as his father’s for many months more. There the servants bathed and perfumed him, took apart his ragged braids and rewove them rope-fashion, took away his Banbarra clothes and dressed him in a golden torque and a loinskirt of such soft cloth that he barely felt it on his skin.

It was in this state—feeling naked and alien to himself, weary and incomprehensibly lonely—that he went to Hanani.

She lay curled amid the pillows of his great round bed. The servants had tended her as well, replacing her Banbarra headband with a diadem of gold and tigereye, and dressing her in a pleated linen gown that clung to her curves and was far, far too sheer for a woman of her pale coloring. The sight of a fully dressed woman had never aroused him so powerfully.

But he restrained his desires as he came to the bed, for he knew with a warrior’s instinct that to move too clumsily now would mean losing her. And suddenly
keeping
her was powerfully, desperately important to him.

So he lay down beside her and waited. As he had hoped, Hanani
turned to face him. He noticed only then that she still wore the ruby Sharer’s collar.

“Congratulations,” he said, jerking his chin toward the thing. It was a more graceless and stiff gesture than he should have made, but he thought it foolish to pretend what he did not feel.

She nodded slowly. “Mni-inh-brother would be proud.” She reached up to touch his fresh-woven hair. “As your father would be, of you.”

He could not resist; he caught her hand and kissed the open palm, then rubbed her arm to assuage some of his longing. To his great pleasure, some of the melancholy left her eyes. It returned quickly, however.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “The Hetawa… I sat today in the Sharers’ Hall, in the Hall of Blessings, and felt like an interloper. I’ve spent most of my life there, but it’s no longer home to me.”

He forced himself to say, “That feeling might pass with time.”

“No. I don’t think it will.” She swallowed hard, clearly struggling for words. “I still love the Goddess. I think I could love healing again, in time. But to go back to that life… I no longer have the strength, Prince. Not after all I’ve lost. Not—not knowing what else I might have instead.”

And Wanahomen privately rejoiced when her eyes met his, for just a breath, before she looked away.

But oh, softly, softly. He wanted so much from her, and things between them were fragile still.

“Stay here and decide,” he said. “A fourday, an eightday, a season, a year. However long you need. Spend every day praying in the garden, if it pleases you.”
And every night with me.
“You’ll have no troubles here.”

She frowned. “I won’t presume upon your hospitality—”

He touched her lips to silence her, as she had once done him. “As
you have reminded me, we aren’t Banbarra,” he said. “And Gujaareh is Kisuati-free. Now we may behave again like civilized people, and be kind to each other
without
compensation or cause.”

She smiled back, shyly, though again the smile faded. It troubled him that her happiness was so fragile. She nuzzled his hand and pressed closer to him, seeking greater comfort. He pulled her into his arms, savoring the warm scent of her, and would have been content to lie that way all night. But she lifted her face and sought his mouth, and her tongue tasted sweet with desire.

Softly, he reminded himself, though his body forgot its weariness all at once. But before he could begin the slow seduction that was in his mind, she abruptly pulled back.

“I don’t love you, Prince,” she said, looking troubled. “Do you understand that? I want to, but there is a part of me that withdraws. I’ve lost everyone I loved, lately. It’s easier—safer—not to love you.”

Taken aback, Wanahomen sat up on one elbow, and considered this. In a way, it was only to be expected. She had coupled with him in the midst of mourning, to ease her heart. Would she have wanted him at all if not for that? Impossible to say. The waking realm was not like dreams; one could not will it to change as one wished. He could only accept, or reject, what was given to him.

And he did not want to reject her. That much, if nothing else, was clear.

“I won’t pretend I like that,” he said. But as he said it, he put a hand on her belly. “I’m vain enough to want every woman I lie with to love me. But I’m a prince: love is not a necessity.” He hesitated. “I suppose I owe you honesty too, though: I
had
thought to marry you. But I’ve learned from Yanassa that it’s a poor idea to propose to a woman too quickly, and without settling certain matters first.” He pretended lofty consideration. “I can wait a fourday, perhaps.”

He was glad to see her smile return. “You asked once if you were nothing to me. I want you to know… that isn’t true. You are my
friend, Wanahomen. One of the only people I have ever called that.” She sighed. “That’s part of it, I suppose. I, I don’t know how to have friends, Prince. I don’t know how to be a lover, let alone a wife. I don’t know what I want.”

He leaned down and kissed her broad forehead. “Then stay until you do.”

She said nothing at first, and that troubled him.

“You want children too.” Hanani’s face was solemn. “If you want me as a wife.”

“Of course. You’ll make a fine mother…” But he trailed off at the look on her face.

“We can never make children together, Prince,” she said. “The dreaming gift is a chancy thing; the Goddess’s will can never be predicted. But I’ve told you before that you could be a Gatherer—and there has never been a child made between Gatherer and Sharer. There never
should
be such a child. At best we might only strengthen the dreaming gift that runs in your lineage—and that alone would be a dangerous thing. At worst… we could make another Wild Dreamer, between us.”

That shocked Wanahomen into silence for a full minute. He sat up, troubled on so many levels that he could not put his feelings to words.

With a heavy sigh, Hanani sat up, leaning against his back. Her breath tickled the nape of his neck. “I’m sorry. But I will never lie, Prince. Perhaps that’s something proper lovers do, but—I am who I am.”

Was he glad of that? She could easily have kept silent, lain with him for years and pretended to simply be barren. She was a healer: she could prevent anything she didn’t want. It was better, wasn’t it, to know why?

Still, she did not love him. She did not want his seed for children. She did not need his wealth, for she could return to the Hetawa; she
did not need his strength, for she had plenty of her own. What, then, could he offer her? He was not used to feeling so at a loss.

“If you want me to leave,” she began.

“No.”

“Prince—”

He turned and lay down with her again, stroking the curls back from her farm-girl face, wondering what was wrong with him. Was it Yanassa’s rejection that had made him want this woman so much? Tiaanet’s falsehood? The looming fact that he was unlikely to love or even like his other wives, whom he would marry for duty? He yearned to have one woman who would love him back. It was not so impossible a dream; his father had had that much in his mother. But apparently Wanahomen’s heart had chosen
this
woman.

So he said, “I am certain of nothing else between us, Hanani, than that I do
not
want you to leave.”

The unease faded from her expression, and she relaxed. “Thank you.” She shifted closer then, and put a hand on his. She seemed to like his hands more than any other part of him. He let her open his left, parting the fingers, stroking the palm with her thumb. When she lifted his hand to her lips for a kiss, however, her collar shifted, the stones clacking together, and he realized there was something else he felt sure about.

He took a deep breath. “Well. Whether we make a child or not is a matter for your healer’s judgment,” he said, reaching up to finger the collar’s stones. They were beautiful, high-quality rubies, easily the rival of jewels he’d seen in the palace collection. The Hetawa had accorded her proper value at last. “I’ll have servants fetch the necessary sheaths and unguents, if you’d rather not waste magic, or there are other ways we can please each other. But it is you I want, Hanani, not the Hetawa. Choose me or not; I will live with either. At least choose
something
regarding them.”

She touched the collar for a moment, thinking, for longer than
his held breath. It was not a fair thing he had asked of her, and he knew it. The Hetawa was more than a power of Gujaareh, to her; it was her family. But her eyes were clear as she gazed at him. Whatever her decision, she’d already made it.

When she sat up to unfasten the collar, he stifled triumph. He knew better. Still, it was difficult not to smile when she folded the collar neatly, laid it aside, and lay back down with him.