The Summer Tree

She was seventeen that spring, not yet accustomed to men calling her beautiful. A pretty child she had been, but adolescence had found her long-limbed and coltish, prone to ski

Proud she remained, as were all of her blood, and strong-willed, a quality rare in dissolute Cathal, though not unexpected in her father’s daughter. Within her, too, there flickered yet a secret flame of rebelliousness against the demands of position and ritual that trammelled her days and nights.

Even now the flame burned, within beloved Larai Rigal, where the scent of calath and myrrh, of elphinel and alder enveloped her with memories. Memories that fired her with brighter longing than had any of the men who had knelt before her father’s throne seeking her hand, with the ritual phrase: “The sun rises in your daughter’s eyes.” She was young yet, for all her pride.

And it would have been for all of these reasons, the last perhaps more than any of the others, that when the letters had begun to appear in her room—how, she knew not—she kept them secret unto herself; deeply secret, too, she kept the suspicion, burning like a liena in the gardens at night, of who had sent them.

Of desire they spoke, and called her fair in words more strung with fire than any she had ever heard. A longing was in the lines that sang to her, and it awoke within her breast, prisoner that she was in the place she would one day rule, longings of her own: most often she yearned for the simplicity of mornings that were gone, leaving this strangeness in their place, but sometimes, when she was alone at night, for other things. For the letters grew more bold as time went by, and descriptions of desire became promises of what hands and lips might do.

Still, they were unsigned. Finely phrased, elegantly pe

Bright One,

Too long. Even the stars now speak to me of you, and the night wind knows your name. I must come. Death is a dark I seek not to find, but if I must walk within its provinces to touch the flower of your body, then I must. Promise only that should the soldiers of Cathal end my life it will be your hands that close my eyes, and perhaps—too much to ask, I know—your lips that touch my cold ones in farewell.

There is a lyren tree near the northern wall ofLarai Rigal. Ten nights past the full of the moon there should still be light enough at moonrise for us to find each other.

I will be there. You hold my life as a small thing between the fingers of your hands.

Diarmuid dan Ailell

It was very late. Earlier in the evening it had rained, releasing the scent of elphinel from below her window, but now the clouds had drifted and the waning moon shone into her room. Gently its light touched her face and glinted in the heavy fall of her hair.

It had been full nine nights before.

Which meant that he had somehow crossed Saeren and was hiding somewhere in the dark of the land, and tomorrow…

Sharra, daughter of Shalhassan, drew a long breath in the bed where she lay alone, and returned the letter to its secret place. That evening she did not dream of childhood or of childhood games when at length sleep found her, twisting from side to side all night, her hair loose and spread upon the pillows.

Venassar of Gath was so young and shy, he made her feel protective. Walking the next morning on the Circle Path, she did most of the talking. In yellow doublet and hose, long-faced and clearly apprehensive, he listened with desperate attentiveness, tilted alarmingly towards her as she named the flowers and trees past which they walked, and told the story of T’Varen and the creation of Larai Rigal. Her voice, pitched low to exclude their retinue, which walked a careful ten paces ahead and behind, gave no hint of how many interminable times she had done this before.

They walked slowly past the cedar from which she had fallen the day her brother died, the day before she had been named heir to the throne. And then, following the curve of the path over the seventh bridge past one of the waterfalls, she saw the giant lyren near the northern wall.

Venassar of Gath, gangling and discomfited, essayed a series of coughs, snorts, and comments in a hapless attempt thereafter to revive a dead conversation. The Princess at his side had withdrawn into a stillness so profound that her beauty seemed to have folded upon itself like a flower, dazzling still, but closed to him. His father, he thought despairingly, was going to flay him.

Taking pity at last, Sharra carefully placed her hand on his arm as they crossed the ninth bridge, completing the Circle, and walked up towards the pavilion where Shalhassan reclined, surrounded by the scented finery of his court. The gesture launched Venassar into a state of petrified automatism, despite the predatory look it elicited from Bragon, his father, who was sitting beside Shalhassan under the waving fans of the servants.

Sharra shivered as Bragon’s glance lingered on her and the smile deepened under his dark moustache. It was not the smile of a potential father-in-law. Beneath the silk of her gown, her body recoiled from the hunger in his eyes.

Her father did not smile. He never did.

She made obeisance to him and moved into the shade, where they brought her a glass of m’rae, deeply chilled, and a dish of flavored ices. When Bragon took his leave, she made sure he saw the coldness in her eyes, and then smiled at Venassar, extending a hand he almost forgot to touch to his forehead. Let the father know, she thought, with no possibility of mistake, why they would not be returning to Larai Rigal. And the anger in her almost showed.

What she wanted, Sharra thought bitterly, even as she smiled, was to climb the cedar again, past the branch that had broken under her, and, reaching the very topmost point, to turn into a falcon that could fly over the shining of the lake and the glory of the gardens all alone.

“A brute, and the son is a callow fool,” Shalhassan said, leaning towards her so only the slaves, who didn’t matter, could hear.

“They all are,” said his daughter, “the one or the other.”

The moon, thi