Winternight
By: Amber Michelle

Written for the Feburary challenge "wounded" over at FE Contest on LJ.

I've never been happy with this story, so I don't think I'll be editing it any further. Hopefully it's still enjoyable. However, if you spot a really terrible error, I'll take care of it.

Hundreds crowded the sandstone court atop Jehanna Hall, shouting, cheering, cursing, as the chamberlain's voice fought to be heard above them - round one victor: General Carlyle. His tone fell flat and unsurprised. Blood streaked the sandstone floor in three splattered arcs, red as the queen's dress where it gleamed still wet, soaking his opponent's hanging sleeve.

He bowed to the throne as tradition demanded and turned his back on Ismaire as soon as the formality was observed to leave the chalk circle of the fighting ground and push through the crowd. Proof of her favor thumped and squirmed against his chest, a thin golden chain of her own and her wedding ring suspended beneath his coat. You carry my husband's honor as well as my own. It was a lodestone while he fought, and yet, the man who faced him - the son of a mercenary lord, not completely incompetent - his bladework was too hesitant, and five minutes of patience had provided Carlyle the opening he needed to win.

Five rounds would pass between this match and the beginning of his next bout; he didn't bother to watch the others, but let his gaze rest on the queen instead. Even from afar he saw Ismaire's gaze wandered, and wondered if the contestants noticed - or perhaps their audience, which must be searching for signs she favored one man or another. How sad and lonely she looks was a common remark nowadays. How deep the wounds of the king's death, and her son's disappearance, that she refuses to remarry- that she refused to see to her duty. Oh, but she was only a woman; of course she was ruled by her emotions. The king's insistence in handing the throne to her was a flaw in his thinking; the matter should have been settled the traditional way, by war between the clans and buckets of blood to quench the scorching sands.

Tell her, Carlyle. It has been almost ten years since Prince Joshua's abduction. If he cannot return - if he is even alive to contemplate such a thin! - she must provide insurance for Jehanna's stability or hand the throne over to someone who can.

Carlyle was not one to defend the king's decision - not anymore. He told her.

I wondered how long they would wait, Ismaire had said, seated on a cushioned bench before the window in her chambers, one leg bent and drawn up beneath the green and white layers of her dress. The shutters were open to the garden, where olive blossoms flipped and fluttered on the wind, scattered across the walk, caught in her rose bushes. They've been whispering about it for some time. She paused, brown eyes fixed on the wall, and he remembered how tightly her fingers creased her silks when they clenched, and the web of shadows and folds lashing out from her fists. There's always the Winternight bout, his queen said then, turning her face fully to the sun so Carlyle saw only the back of her head and the golden pins holding her hair in a figure-eight knot. You'll fight, won't you? If I give in?

You'll save me, is what she really said. You will, Carlyle, won't you?

In his youth Carlyle hadn't the capacity to imagine thirty years of service; he could have envisioned five or ten, but not twenty or more, the sum of his life to the day he was knighted, and the words I pledge my life and my sword to the king sounded right when he recited them in the throne room, but implied an eternity of an acidic twisting in his gut when he caught sight of Ismaire in the garden - Ismaire in the observatory, the dining hall, the practice yard. He crossed swords with her, and lost one bout in seven because his arm shook or he lost his grip. Her steel caressed his throat, the sharp edge grazing skin, nicking, but her laugh (finally! I claim victory over my knight protector!) always came with a pleasant tingle.

Her callused hand was the most beautiful he'd ever held. How foolish, he often thought, holding that hand, pressing his lips to the white bumps of her knuckles, that the king allowed her to consort with him in this way. How utterly ridiculous. There were men in the guard who would not hesitate to interpret her blushes as permission to go further - kiss her wrist, her elbow, the slope of her shoulder. Carlyle thought of it often, though he tried not to; it was easier at first to simply avert his eyes when they spoke, or to assess her as an opponent and judge the speed of her reactions, the flexibility of her wrist- whether she wore her hair bound or not, and how she compensated for keeping it out of his way. She made an agile swordsman despite her vanity. Her hair flew loose, drifting and tracing the patterns of wind in her wake, and while he turned to follow, a second too slow, Ismaire struck. A thin, shallow, stinging line across the back of his hand was his reward. But Ismaire never scolded him. Perhaps she didn't realize. No- no, of course she didn't notice the turn his thoughts took, or she would have claimed a more trustworthy knight as her escort.

He thought he was satisfied merely to serve - to watch, guard, keep her secrets. Every morning he spent attending her, Carlyle reminded himself he was a dog instead of a man, loyal and single-minded, that he longed for nothing more than a few scraps of affection. She bandaged his cuts after their clashes, sometimes lay a smooth white hand against his cheek to ask isn't it terribly boring to follow me around all day, Carlyle? Shall I send you to subdue the northern nome, maybe let your blade see some use outside of the practice yard? and he would say no. His skill wasn't meant to mow down her clansmen, but to guard her life - yes, the king's too, of course. Of course he meant to say that.

She had him accompany her to the king's chamber the night her son was conceived; she must have done it in ignorance, for she was not cruel, nor prone to playing games - and he saved their lives that night, all three of them. Carlyle heard the splinter of the shutters, her gasp, and couldn't remember afterward how he arrived in time to cut the intruder down. All he knew was how close the curved blade had come to her pale throat, and how the heavy oak door hung on one hinge that squealed as it drifted shut. Half the blood staining her hair belonged to her husband, but he didn't know it then - only later.

His liege lived, of course- as did Ismaire's moonlit ghost half-curled on the bed, a sheet drawn up and clenched between her breasts, but too low to cover them. Hair stuck to her skin like streaks of blood and Carlyle had to lean over, grab her shoulders, shake sense into her, before he realized she wasn't hurt and turned to check on his king.

You shouldn't have done that, she said later when they discussed the incident, after the sun had risen and the Hall had been searched. What were you thinking, tending to me before your lord?

Carlyle kept his gaze fixed on her lap, and his hands clenched, one pressed to the floor, the other propped on his knee while he knelt. That day she wore indigo trimmed with gray and silvered silk, but it was not dark enough nor thick enough to banish his memory of what hid beneath: long legs on which the moon's shadows traced hard lines of muscle, wide hips, the dimple on her belly; the weight of her breasts and their dark tips, tattooed with blood and hair.

I wasn't thinking, he said. He couldn't think. He wouldn't.

Ismaire sighed, and he wondered if that sound was the same in the dark, warmer, sharper, moist on the ear. Don't ever do that again. Jehanna will die without him.

Not so, no.

Not so.

Ismaire might have been lovely in the moonlight, but fire suited her best. It gilded her skin when he faced her at the conclusion of his second Winternight bout and bowed, that recollection vivid in his mind's eye, his opponent's blood a thread on the edge of his sword, just like a single hair from her head. The orange light glittered on her rings, crowned her with a golden halo. His breath clouded when it left his mouth; the night had begun mild and laden with jasmine perfume, blessed by a gentle wind, and now it seemed he should feel the cold. Torches burned ten to a wall, floor lamps were placed to either side of the throne, at the corners of the battle ground, all bright, warm smears of color in his peripheral vision. The crowd was so loud Carlyle couldn't hear it anymore. His ears rang as he went to sit on his bench, where he wiped his blade clean and watched the queen, who watched the challengers - or so it appeared.

A circle of women surrounded the throne - dancers, singers. Their brass charms glittered like stars. Ismaire raised her arm and the chamberlain shouted for the next match to begin. Carlyle heard the clash of metal twice, the slither of one blade coasting the edge of another, strike, strike, break. He knew the footwork without looking up; he knew by the tone one man wielded a curved sword, and the other a silver short sword with one edge. The former would win, if he was smart- but his noisy steps didn't sound smart, and the clang of a disarmament, of his weapon striking the sandstone floor, did not come as a surprise.

Carlyle would win this tournament. The queen's callused hand would be his, at least until she withdrew for the night. If Ismaire had wanted a lover she would have taken one. I want Joshua to come home was all she said when he asked what she wanted. If I cannot have Joseph-

Stop.

That man didn't realize what a prize he had in Ismaire. He knew only that she was beautiful, that she doted on him- Carlyle, which of the five nations raises the finest peaches? She was just a girl in his memory, barely out of childhood, but she couldn't have been less than eighteen summers, or perhaps nineteen. Oh, they can't be out of season- what about dried varieties? Perhaps wine? He loves the flavor, it's almost his naming day-

Carlyle remembered himself as he was now, though he was young at the time of that conversation, younger than the king - older than Ismaire, yet just experienced enough to know the honor, the unprecedented favor, bestowed when the king assigned him to guard her. She made much of his skill after witnessing a match in which he'd bested her husband, but Joseph was not a swordsman. He knew the use of a blade because one was not a man in Jehanna without one, but his skill lay elsewhere. Before returning to fight his brothers for the right to rule, he'd studied history and politics at Grado's university and magic in Rausten. He emerged from the battle nearly unscathed.

Ismaire, lowly handmaid, was the prize- and the throne, also. Joseph didn't appear interested in it when he first laid his gaze upon the red velvet cushion, according to her. He only stared at it a moment, then ordered a smaller one made and asked her to sit with him at audience to learn the way of governance.

Plums, she said after a moment of thought, her fingertips tapping her unrouged lips. No, apricots are closer. If we had even one tree- but olives were all Jehanna was suited to grow, and the fruits of other countries required care and science to maintain, yet were never as generous or sweet. Her sigh was sharp, piqued. We'll have to do with rose and pomegranate syrup, she said, her lower lip swelling slightly, as if Carlyle's participation in her plans for the celebration was a foregone conclusion- as if Joseph would humor her, thank her for such frivolity while reports of rebellion up north continued to trickle in. He opened his mouth to tell her the whim was out of place, and said, for some reason, I know of a merchant who traffics such goods. Shall I speak to him? It was like her smile cast a spell to warp the words before they left his mouth. Ismaire, enchantress of the shimmering sands.

She turned to meet her husband a moment later, her back to Carlyle, her red hair swirling. Though she thanked him later, he only remembered the void of silence that dropped beneath his feet, separating them. Joseph caught her by the waist, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and his attention immediately settled on Carlyle - he didn't even let go before he started talking, but held her against his hip as he would a child.

That was just like him. Once he had his hands on a treasure, a jewel or a woman, a throne, a game piece, it bore his fingerprint forever, a smear across the polished surface.

A battleground has been chosen near Hesed. You will take three thousand men and conquer Medina. The queen protested, and he shushed her with his thumb pressed to her lips.

Carlyle emerged from that battle victorious, pushed the rebellious clan back to Yohanna, and if he lost after that, still- he'd yet to lose a fight that mattered.

"They aren't interested in another prince, of course," Ismaire said, the list of contestants in her hand again, her finger counting each name while her eyes moved to note each clan. A stick of graphite lay on a tray at her elbow to circle applicants unwelcome at the Hall's Winternight celebration. The table creaked when she leaned on the edge to pull her legs from beneath her. "Look at this, someone had the nerve to identify himself as a son of the Medina. How many of them survived?"

"A dozen or so." A single candle stood at her elbow for her to read by, flicking too close to her hair whenever her breath stirred the flame. Carlyle gave the coals in her iron brazier one last jab with the poker and crossed the room in three long strides to move it before the vision in his head could become reality.

Ismaire turned to look, blinked, reached back to gather her hair over her other shoulder. "Interesting." Her eyes slid back to the parchment. "Women?"

Carlyle leaned the poker against his chair. The tip scraped the floor. "Children."

Her shutters were closed and locked, and the silk curtains drawn. Rose still lingered on the air from her bath; it still tasted moist, felt thick and humid when drawn into his lungs, and the room appeared many times smaller than it actually was at night; there was space enough to practice forms, and he remembered, years ago, the cedar frame of a cradle occupying that corner right there, behind the door. If he tried, he could imagine its wooden scent lingering as the memory of its occupant often did when Ismaire sat the way she did now, in the dark, her gaze pointed at the shadows dancing on the wall.

"He told you to kill everyone."

"Yes." Carlyle folded an arm against his back, watched her. She didn't need golden pins or bands in her hair when firelight flecked it with gold and citrine. "Instead, ten children and their mothers were allowed to escape to Carcino. My orders were to return once their camp was destroyed, so I had no choice."

"Of course not." The paper tilted inward, the edge caught on her robe. The corner bent against the curve of her breast. "I wouldn't have wanted you to..." She licked her lips, glancing at the table, into her empty water cup, and waved him away when he reached for it. "Do we have any information on these people? Family names, personal names-"

He couldn't tell, from that frown, if she hoped they would claim relation to her or not. It was why they rebelled to begin with- they were denied the honors normally given to the family of a queen in the name of a clean succession. Carlyle could have been more thorough, but when confronted by those faces - not the children, but the wives, that one in particular, who resembled his queen so strongly, his sword had grown heavy and unwieldly. He'd wanted to drop it like a hot iron. "None. He can't be more than fifteen, if he truly is one of Medina's refugees. At worst he will get himself killed."

Ismaire sighed, flat-lipped. That was the wrong thing to say, and he knew it. "Ban him from the match."

Carlyle bowed slightly. A boy wouldn't be much good as the victor, in any case. Even if he managed to perform, the experience would be lackluster at best, and his queen deserved better if she was to abandon her dignity to- to. Just thinking about it made the muscles in his chest spasm. His nails dug into his palms.

"I'm glad you didn't do it," she said under her breath.

A moment passed before he realized she was referring to the slaughter at Medina. "I knew you wouldn't like it."

The smile he loved came and went quickly, merely a shadow. "You've always been the one I can count on to make my wishes come true. See to this one, please." Ismaire finally let the paper fall to her lap and leaned on the table again, rubbed her temple. "I would have liked to enjoy Winternight this year. Why do the patriarchs have to complicate everything? I'm perfectly healthy. There is no danger of a succession war."

That, he could not say. Every new year began with a tournament, but tradition stripped the participants of rank and let them win or lose without penalty, according to their own merits. Why did she agree to politicize it? "It won't be complicated once my name enters the roll," he said, and Ismaire laughed, covering her mouth. She would enjoy Winternight. Perhaps she would blush again, as she used to, when he took the opportunity presented by his victory to kiss her hand.

"When you win," she said, her hand drifting to rest, splayed, against her throat, and her eyes moving to the candle flame, "will you claim your prize?"

He watched her rings glitter. Gathering words to answer was like grasping at air - literally, he could not breathe for a time. A few seconds. A minute. His heart might have dropped down into his stomach.

In the end he didn't answer.

The final blood-letting, flew from the lick of Carlyle's blade in a single arc of glittering garnet, moving in increments of heartbeats, as if the air had congealed or the arena was suddenly submerged in the lake. He watched it shine and made the obligatory mental comparison to Ismaire's hair, lips, the heavy red brocade of her dress, and thought it should be his own blood, drawn by his queen's sword to leave a stinging mark behind. Her skill was such a man might earn hundreds of tiny cuts criss-crossed over his arms and legs that pulled at every swipe, strike, and block.

Ismaire could flay the skin from one's body. She did it every day. She may as well peel him like an apple.

Carlyle couldn't remember how he appeared at his queen's side to take her hand; the sequence of events following his victory must have slipped by because he'd repeated them five times already - or perhaps Ismaire had dominated his field of vision from the moment he turned his back on the torchlit battleground. Neither complacency nor his infatuation were adequate excuse. She could have been killed five times over in the time he took to walk to the dais and bend knee.

Sweat drenched the collar of his coat and made his hair stick to his neck and scratch when he lowered his head. His queen had seen him like this before. She'd driven him to exhaustion in practice, facing him with her hair tangled, looking no better than a dunked cat. When she offered her hand, it was only habit that made Carlyle reach and take it, lean down, press his lips to the henna painted on her dry skin. He felt her thin bones flex, and her fingers curled around his hand.

That henna tattoo, dark and brown and as reminiscent of blood as her hair in its own way, it curled and spiraled out of sight beneath her sleeve and cast its skeins all the way around her arm, up to her shoulder, down to curl over her ribs. He could imagine. How could he forget-

"Our victor has proven himself." Her voice rang across the open space. The talking behind him quieted to murmurs, then to silence. Ismaire clasped his hand tightly and yanked- get up. "Does anybody contest his claim to the spoils?"

Silence - real silence, broken by the snap of pitch and torch flames, the clank of coins around a dancer's hips. The sound of robes and skirts rustling blended together like wind, and sandals scraped, and he smelled her perfume - sweet, resinous myrrh and honey, wine, like temple incense and sweet, succulent fruit. Perhaps three hundred people spilled onto the arena floor: clan heads, family representatives, aristocrats, mercenary lords, merchants, everyone with a stake in Jehanna's continued peace.

His hand twitched. She wasn't a chest of gold- Carlyle was not her king, ready to seize her with long-fingered, grasping hands. He was not any of those men or women facing them, who cared only for their trades and work contracts.

Ismaire held his hand up as she would a scepter or a book, something she could as easily throw away as draw close to her breast. "Very well then. Light the bonfire." One of her women left the circle around the throne and pushed into the crowd, disappeared. She stepped down from the dais and took his arm as usual, and instinct folded her hand to his side, as Carlyle felt stiff and frozen now that his perspiration had cooled and dried. Behind whispered the long train of her red dress and the jingle of flat gold teardrops draped from her sash. "Midnight is approaching. Let us greet the new year at the lakeside and pray for Jehanna's continued prosperity!"

The crowd parted, clapping, smiling, wishing their queen a happy new year, and above, washed out by torchlight, by the moon, the sky was vast and empty.