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  “Hold!” Trevin cried. “My viper…”

  “I shall,” she winked.

  He was taken aback and laughed.

  “Well, Trevin, you cannot go swimming in these clothes, and my lord must take a bath. You have not in weeks, obviously.”

  Trevin blushed, his brow furrowing.

  “Oh, hush! I cared for seven boys, and each I bathed from infants. It isn’t my fault that you didn’t bring a swimming cloth.”

  “I’m not an infant.”

  “My lord, bathing is an Ameulintian custom. In this case, a necessary one, upon which I must insist.” She rolled down his eelskin trousers.

  He sighed then, acquiescing with a heavenward glance. “Would evil not choose a subtler path?” he muttered.

  They stumbled at the edge of the pond as both sloughed off their clothes and teetered, plunging into the cold water together with Neuvia’s stockings still tangled on her legs and Trevin’s left boot and trouser hanging off one foot. They tossed these last beside the pool and then, with nervous care and trembling delight, began to bathe each other.

  “Well, it’s an excellent custom,” he agreed.

  “Isn’t it?” she said.

  Humbled by the paradise that was in store for them, they splashed each other like nervous children hesitating before going through the next gate. And their delay only made it increasingly sweeter.

  Trevin paused to charm some tiny minnows in the pond so they would jump through the hoop he made with his thumbs and index fingers, and she laughed and praised the fish as they leapt so admirably well.

  Then they crawled onto the smooth stone shelf to dry in the sun beside each other, forgetting all about the still-mesmerized fish vaulting out of the water. Breathing fast, Neuvia sat up and turned to him. “If I am to be your Queen—” she began.

  “Yes?” Trevin sat up and faced her. Remembering the poor fish then, he rescinded his charm. “Could that be so?” He looked at her and smiled.

  “Which I am quite sure should be so,” she confirmed, “considering the spell you cast on your treehouse as a boy and the spell I cast when I was a girl. I have been taught that I must get out all the mischievous angels of a boy’s loneliness, all the flowers of pleasure grown wild in his lustful heart, for this must be set free before true love can grow between a man and woman.” She said this looking frankly into his eyes.

  “You have been taught this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am young,” he said. “I rather wish to share my mischievous angels with you for the rest of our lives and never be cured of them by you, of all people on Hala. For you could not rid me of them but only set them free to multiply in heaven, forever.”

  “It seems my work will never be done then.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then we’d better get started.”

  Incandescent in the aftermath of their passion, Trevin gazed into the pond and fretted at the shadows leaning long over the glade like reproaching old prudes. “I am at odds,” he shivered in the shade.

  “Why?” she said embracing his back.

  He looked up through the trees. “Selwyn warned me to fear what I love most. Yet here I am, as if in a spell.”

  “Selwyn warned you of that?”

  “Yes.”

  She was horror-struck.

  “After he died but before he came to peace, he gave me that warning.” Trevin bowed his head. “Crimson was the sign he warned me of. And I must wonder: if I love that crimson sparrow sunning on yonder stone, will it stab my eye with its bloody beak? If I love this pond, red-spotted with moss, will it drown me? Or that tiny crimson flower—is it poison? Or you, with shoots of crimson hair! I think that I’ll just love them all, Neuvia…” Trevin raised his arms. “I shall choose the whole world, and love that which is good, as all men must, and stand against evil, as all men must. For it is as Artimeer said: we can know good from evil.”

  Trevin turned to her and she clasped his hand.

  “Since I cannot imagine ever loving anything more than you, and since I will only love you more each day, there is nothing on this Earth that can ever overtake that contest in my heart. So, if you would be my doom, my lady, I could not choose a fairer fate. Will you be my doom?” He smiled, ready to accept it at her word.

  “My lord, I will fight beside you against your foes. Your fight is mine and forever will be.”

  Trevin knelt and took her hand. “Marry me, then, Neuvia. Be my queen.”

  She nodded, marveling at the moment even as she had foreseen it countless times in daydreams. “Marry me, Trevin,” she answered. And tears streaked from her eyes like spring rain.

  They kissed and their kiss was a promise with a tiny lifetime of its own that died young, and furious.

  “Come, wife! Tonight and a million after we shall have for our secret feasts. Let’s mingle with our people now.”

  “Yes!”

  “I shall confound this foe that circles me, looking for my heart’s desire.” He laughed and lifted her off her feet. “Because I have you I shall love the whole world too much for my foe to find a target! Everything is solved!”

  “Splendid.” She pointed a finger. “But first, I shall get your clothes and dress you.” She placed the point of her finger on the dimple of his upper lip. “They should be dry and much fresher now, my sweet Lord.”

  He was deafened by the roar of love and enslaved with pleasure as she gathered his clothes from the banks of the pond, simply to see the glow on her face and the wild and lustrous way her hair had dried in the gusting wind.

  As Trevin and Neuvia strolled through Cintairn Gheldron they saw a child zigzagging as he booted a bright blue ball through the trees. “Ho, Trevin!” shouted the rascal as he punted the ball in their direction.

  Pumping his legs and scrunching his apple face, the lad skidded to a stop as he caught the rolling ball under a scuffed shoe only a few feet from them. He dropped to his knees and held his stomach as he panted.

  “You’ve run too hard, little one.” Trevin grinned.

  Fanning the dust, Neuvia pulled the boy to his feet and brushed him off. “What’s the emergency?”

  “Lord Trevin!” he huffed. “Won’t you come and join the par-tee?” The pug-nosed brat grinned, dimpling his freckled cheeks.

  “Of course!” Trevin said. “Tell them I bring the new Lady of Ameulis, too—her name a surprise for all!”

  The redheaded rascal gasped as his green eyes bugged at Neuvia: “A Queen, too?”

  Neuvia winked and kissed his ginger head. “Off you go!”

  “I’ll tell them, your Majesties!” The boy blasted the blue ball and bolted after it toward the Lightstone Tower shimmering through the treetops.

  Chapter 5

  Party!

  By the time Trevin and Neuvia reached the greensward the ladies and gentlemen of Ameulis had already gathered to greet their future King and Queen.

  It was taken as a wondrous sign that Trevin had already chosen an Ameulintian woman for his bride. And a fairer bride she could hardly be, even dressed in servant’s clothes. It was a point of pride that any Ameulintian could reach any height, so that the fair Neuvia would wed Trevin, the dashing Cirilen-King, was as perfect a union as they could imagine.

  Trevin and Neuvia ascended the musicians’ dais outside the courtyard wall and looked over the great lawn. “Good people,” Trevin called, to a great cheer. “My father has passed away, his shape a splendid eagle of pearl and gold. The beauty of sea and land bore him to the Gairanor.”

  A cheer swept the crowd, and those who had seen the shining bird circle ever higher until it disappeared now recounted the news to those around them.

  “As my father did before me and my grandfather before him, I promise to rule this land with a light hand. And those who would try to rule instead of me shall feel my heavy fist.”

  “A toast to Trevin!” cried a young mariner with a thick, blue-black beard. He stood tall in an aquamarine cape and hoisted his fl
agon. “Long live the King!”

  The women and men of the Tintilisair raised their cups and toasted deep.

  Trevin turned to Neuvia. “Now I wish to make an announcement. The radiant Neuvia shall be my queen, our wedding on the morning of our coronation.”

  Nothing could ignite the crowd like Trevin’s own confirmation of the rumor. Gifts spontaneously appeared for the royal bride: gold silks and chains from Norlanian emissaries, perfumes from Ameulintian traders, jewelry from the necks, waists, wrists and fingers of wealthy dowagers who lovingly surrendered their heirlooms, chafing only a little to miss introducing their own daughters to the future monarch in the nick of time.

  Within the hour, Neuvia had a dowry equal to the noblest daughters in the kingdom. In only moments she acquired the wealth to live as nobility for the rest of her life even without her royal estate. She cringed as her fellow servants waited on her, but yet she found that they took their new roles quite seriously.

  Trevin was swarmed by courtiers with salutations, congratulations and a multitude of invitations to visit their provinces scattered across Ameulis. Throughout, he noticed a contingent of mariners who seemed to keep a watchful distance.

  He listened good-humoredly to the nearly frantic representatives lobbying for his ear but soon found himself repelled by the obsequious groveling he had abhorred as a boy. And so he held up a hand to an Ameulintian who was boasting about the hunting in his forest and said, “Dear sir, I should simply pay a visit to your good land and let my arrows sing there rather than tease my ear excessively with words. Now, let me speak with those who represent the mariners of Ameulis for whom I admit a special favor.”

  Surprised, the captain of the delegation of mariners, who wore a short gray beard on his lean, bronzed face, stepped forward. He sported a silver fox cape over a green tunic, black trousers and polished brown boots. “We’ve a special favor for you, as well, Lord.” He planted a spiraling cane of narwhal tusk. “My name is Karlok Isopika, Captain of the White Shark, which is the finest vessel afloat if I do say it, myself.” He glanced at the others. “And I do!”

  Hearty groans rose from the other captains.

  Karlok crumpled his feathered hat, giving a skeptical look at Trevin. “Lord, we’ve been meaning to ask, though you were indisposed, but it’s been gnawing on us…”

  “What?”

  “Well… you see… ever since one of our vessels bore you to the Isle of Damay, and you favored our sailors to your courtiers and listened to our tales and learned our skills like the best of our children on that voyage, we mariners have held you to be a kind of foundling son, as it were. And, well… perhaps we remember other things you did for us, as well?”

  Trevin was puzzled at what he might be getting at. “Eh?”

  Karlok swallowed. “We have tales, Lord.” He glared at the others. “Perhaps too tall.”

  “Here—you’ll tell me what he means, won’t you?” Trevin pointed to the younger fellow beside Karlok, who seemed a bit more skeptical.

  The tall, brooding man, whose hair and beard were so black they were almost blue, bowed before Trevin.

  “Nil Ramesis, Lord,” said Karlok. “My second mate on the White Shark.”

  “Speak, Nil Ramesis,” Trevin said.

  “Mariners have many tales, lord, of you saving ships and rescuing men in storms, or sending dolphins and seals for drowning rats like us.” Nil pointed with a dubious finger now at the bald, tattooed seadog beside him. “Some like Lince, here, say you lit landmarks with lightning in the fog and blew sails to save a reefing, or—”

  “Nilly,” said the bald mariner, bowing his head at Trevin. “He saved my life, and that’s enough for me.”

  “Indeed?” Trevin shrugged at Neuvia, who looked at him, intrigued. “I’ve had dreams about mariners. And they have always been my favorite dreams…”

  “We believe you did these things, my lord, when you were a lad!” Lince insisted. “A statue of you as a boy is mounted over the crow’s nest of practically every ship in Ameulis.”

  “It’s a lucky token to us,” Karlok explained.

  “Indeed! Well. I am most grateful to the mariners for holding me in such high esteem. Of all the citizens of Ameulis I shall exert my influence especially for mariners, whose work is done on the sea where nowhere is home for men. Teach me the trade winds, the hazards, and the bounties that most concern you and I shall try to make your way easier. Let us take counsel.”

  Trevin departed with the mariners to a nearby clearing of the forest even as Neuvia stayed behind to mingle with the people of Ameulis and the emissaries from Norlania. And she was not overwhelmed by the attention that converged on her from all directions. Her composure was soothing and regal, as it always was when she was a cook’s apprentice.

  “Are the reefs dangerous?” Trevin asked.

  “Yes and no,” Captain Karlok said. “There are places where the reefs are too shallow—places where ships pile up and make the reefs grow higher. But the reefs are where the red minnows school, and they are home to green abalone, striped shark, white oysters, pink squid, red shrimp, and purple sponges. The reefs are more friend than foe when not they’re not too shallow.”

  “I believe I can fix that,” Trevin said, to the awe of the mariners.

  “Thank you, Lord,” Karlok said. “But how?”

  “Are charts available?”

  “Nil Ramesis here is the best cartographer in Ameulis,” Lince said.

  “Though that’s not his main ambition these days.” Karlok prodded the younger mariner.

  “Eh?” Trevin said. “What is, then?”

  “He plans to build a ship that can’t be sunk!” Lince ribbed.

  Nil blushed.

  Trevin nodded. “A great dream!”

  Nil looked at him, startled. “It’s the very thing you said to me, long ago…”

  Trevin was taken aback.

  “Nil’s parents were lost at sea,” Lince said.

  Nil lowered his head, and Karlok elbowed Lince.

  There was something familiar about Nil Ramesis, Trevin noted now. But his name was not. “Well, Master Ramesis, can you draft a chart of the southern reefs?”

  “By Gieron, he’ll draft the smartest chart you ever saw!” Lince said.

  Nil nodded. “Yes, lord.”

  “Good! The Crown shall pay you a thousand gierons of gold, Nil Ramesis, for charts of the Southern reefs. Then, maybe, you’ll have enough left over to build that wonderful ship?”

  The men gasped and Nil gaped as Karlok reached out to steady him. “You’ve stilled his tongue.”

  Lince grinned like a shark and the blue eye tattooed on his bald head peeked forward at Trevin. “Lord, may I take this opportunity to ask a question?”

  “Surely.”

  “Do you remember?”

  Trevin shrugged, politely. “Things may have been stretched, I think, Mariner…” Then Trevin glimpsed unlikely events like those they had described, realizing that they might be memories of dreams he had had when he was a boy. But then, as he looked at the tattooed eye on Lince’s head, he remembered one morning when he told his father about a dream in which he saw a sailor blown from a ship in a typhoon. The sailor became tangled in lines and barely kept himself above water when Trevin saw the big blue eye on his bald head staring up at him. He remembered swooping down then and taking hold of the lines and pulling the sailor over the swells. He set the mariner on a wave that carried him over the well deck, where his mates grabbed onto him. His father had exulted at his son’s dream. “I remember,” he said, bewildered, and he gripped Lince’s hand. “That was you?”

  Lince blushed and pumped Trevin’s hand. “Yes! I told you, Nilly!”

  Trevin wondered how his childhood dreams might have had such effect, and he decided he must ponder it later. In the meantime he decided he must spend more time with these mariners to find out more. “Captain Karlok, if you take me sailing tomorrow morning perhaps I can charm your vessel.”

 
Karlok’s eyes widened. “To do what, exactly?”

  “Perhaps I could make my statue glow over your crow’s nest if there is danger, for example.”

  Lince laughed and slapped Karlok on the back.

  “That would be fine, lord,” Karlok coughed.

  Trevin rose. “Tomorrow then, bright and early, let’s go fishing! I would like Neuvia to accompany me. Perhaps we can fish for something… big?” Trevin winked. “If the White Shark’s up to it?”

  “She is, lord,” blurted Lince.

  Karlok nodded, queasily. “Tomorrow at dawn it is.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Trevin smiled. “I guarantee the safety of your men.”

  “That is more than I can do, my lord.”

  They followed Trevin back to the great lawn as the sun sank into a vermillion bed in the east.

  Trevin summoned his surprisingly numerous attendants, who materialized around him. “Have tables brought out here and light torches around this lawn,” he said. “Tend to the feast and kindle the roasting pits. Bring my father’s golden spyglass to me from his chambers, and bring Neuvia to me—oh—and one more thing,” Trevin considered. “Could someone find me a cold mug of Ameulintian beer?”

  His attendants scattered and Neuvia was led to him through the crowded gentry. She kissed him openly, and it brought a happy applause and a gossip of approval.

  They glanced sidelong at each other as they climbed the musicians’ dais before the outer wall of the courtyard. Trevin addressed the anxious audience on the greensward. “It’s such a welcoming night, such a clear night, I thought we should feast outdoors on this lawn below my grandfather’s tower. If any are worried about insect aggressions—” Trevin waved a hand, closing his eyes: “There shall be none!”

  The crowd purled with pleasure, for this was a blessing Selwyn bestowed on fairs and festivals.

  “Here is your beer, lord!” said an attendant. “Poldur Herrig, the best draft in Ameulis.”

  “Many thanks.” Trevin took the cold tankard and toasted the crowd. “Dance and dine, my people! But pay close attention to the sky, for mysterious entertainment might meander there tonight.” Trevin bowed with a flourish and the Ameulintians clapped their hands and rang hand-bells, wagering what they could expect.