A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 00: Prologue

All the chapters for this novel have been written already and I'll be posting them regularly. I am looking for critical feedback so please leave comments for me. Thank you! (Diolch.)

NB There's an earlier story I've posted on Lit which takes place before the action in this one, called An Honourable Slut.

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The council chamber was a seething babble of noise. Council clerks leant across the table, gesturing at each other, shouting out their points. They tossed the sleeves of their robes impatiently aside, they clutched at their long locks of hair.

It was a hot day. Light spilled onto the huge polished table littered with papers. No air moved in the green velvet curtains draped at the long windows though the windows were flung wide open. The dark wood panelling of the walls, the low ceiling smoky from candle-lit conferences going on into the night seemed to increase the weight of the humid atmosphere, to press the distressed faces of the clerks into frowns and scowls and force their clashing voices into shriller and more anguished tones.

Lord Pava el Maien van Sietter, Privy Councillor and King's Representative for Foreign Affairs, sat absolutely still. His chin was in one cupped hand, his other arm lay negligently over the back of his chair. His long thin body in its flowing green robe looked deceptively relaxed, his cold grey eyes in his close-cropped head were fixed to the man sitting opposite him.

General-Lord Esha el Gaiel van H'las had pulled back his chair from the table as if to separate himself physically from the row. Although he wore a red robe he was clearly a soldier: broad and bluff with short greying hair, a neat beard and gentle brown eyes. He gave the impression of ignorance about politics but van Sietter knew he could come up with tactics in politics as great as those he demonstrated in warfare. van Sietter had cause to know how great a tactician van H'las was in warfare.

General-Lord van H'las suddenly stood up, thumped one fist on the table so that the jugs and glasses jingled and pointed out of the long windows. The council clerks slowly fell silent.

"We cannot talk here," van H'las said, looking intently into the motionless pale face opposite him. "This is solving none of our problems."

van Sietter removed his chin from his hand and said to a footman: "Fetch two chairs."

They walked through the long windows into the brilliant harsh sunshine outside. They sat down where no one would overhear them, in the middle of the long green palace lawns, at some distance from the sandy paths and neatly clipped hedges. The clerks clustered in the windows to stare at them, seated side by side in the sunshine with their backs to the council chamber.

The two of them had already fought a war to stalemate. They had over-taxed merchants passing through the Sietter Hills from Port H'las until it was cheaper to travel to court by a route twice as long as the one through their lands. They had met in this way seven times. Merchants across the country well beyond their two regions were trying to work out what they wanted and begging the council clerks to give it them.

"Let us bind our families with a tie," van H'las said bluntly, looking with frank clear eyes into van Sietter's face.

van Sietter raised one eyebrow, staring coldly away down the hot empty lawns. "I have come here willing to discuss a mutual lowering of taxes," he said.

"How long would such an agreement last?" van H'las asked. He opened his arms and stretched his hands out to van Sietter. "Let us give the merchants a guarantee of the goodwill that should lie between our lands. We are one body, el Maien. My port is the left hand, your Maier Pass the right hand to our prosperity. Why do we not bind our families closer?"

van Sietter turned to look at him from a completely expressionless face. He did not seem to understand what van H'las was hinting at. van H'las frowned, impatient that van Sietter was being slow when there was so obvious a tie they could make between their families.

"I have one son," van H'las went on. How much more did he have to say? van Sietter was still staring blankly at him. "He is my only child, the future sworn Lord. Commander of an H'las troop, a fine boy, intelligent - and sweet-tempered." He gritted his teeth at this disgusting necessity to describe his own Vadyan as if his son were some horse he were selling to the dealers.

van Sietter said: "Do you want me to place my son in his troop?"

van H'las said angrily: "You forget that I know your son. I saw him come to court to plead with us for peace. I know it well that he is a Commander himself. I am not seeking to insult you by asking him to serve under my son!"

van Sietter said: "That was my older son, Clair."

"You have another son?" van H'las asked in surprise. "If you have a younger son ... What troop does he serve in?"

van Sietter sat silent by his side then said, "my sons are both former officers of Fourth Sietter." van H'las scowled at the mention of this particular Sietter troop. "My younger son's current designation is ... privy." van H'las' eyes flicked in puzzlement. van Sietter's grey eye turned with his habitual cold expressionless stare in it. "You are not asking for one of my sons to be placed in your son's troop," he stated.

"N-no," van H'las said hesitantly. "I am asking, I am thinking ... I have not yet sought to arrange a marriage for Vadya."

van Sietter's eyes opened wide then suddenly he laughed. "Sweet Hell!" he exclaimed, his face lit up in the sunshine. This suggestion pleased him far beyond what van H'las had expected. "Of course. Dear Anastelle, the flower of my family's honour. Angel of Grace! So ... do you know much of her? My daughter. The daughter of the el Maiens."

"Well, I came to the child's Angel blessing," van H'las said, eyeing van Sietter mistrustfully. "My wife was, um, Lady el F'lara's cousin." He turned his eyes away in embarrassment.

van Sietter's first wife had been a famous beauty: a Northern heartbreaker with exquisite slanted dark blue eyes, a creamy magnolia petal face and a mouth bunched like a rose-petal. At her daughter's Angel blessing, she had stood with her baby in her arms and by her side - as was traditional for members of the high nobility from the North - the grim figure of her Guard of Honour. In his arms, he had incongruously been holding el Maien's son; a boy with the delicate thin el Maien frame and grey eyes and his mother's curling dark hair and slanted features. When van H'las next saw that boy, he was a battle-hardened commanding officer, on his knees to plead for peace. The face which Commander-Lord Clair el Maien lifted in the King's Council had been twisted with an agony that was made the more appealing by his heartbreaking Northern beauty. They still said of him that he was the most desirable man at court.

van H'las wondered if the baby girl whose Angel blessing he had attended had also inherited her mother's beauty. That would be some consolation to his son for not getting to choose a bride. His son was a gentle and dutiful young man who would do everything to make a happy marriage with any woman his father put up to him for the sake of the region. He deserved something in return for his good heart.

Lady Anastelle el F'lara's scandalous love affair was still the subject of gossip in court circles. Lord Clair el Maien had a reputation too but van H'las had never heard gossip about the daughter of the el Maiens and he hoped she might be the kind of modest young Lady who would suit the el Gaiels van H'las. He cleared his throat and said: "I suppose ... the Lady Anastelle el Maien must be a lovely young woman now?" His voice faltered in question as he turned back to van Sietter.

"Mm ye-es." In that brief moment, van Sietter's face had smoothed out from an irrepressible grin of triumph. van H'las had missed van Sietter's silent laughter but he eyed his fellow Lord uneasily. "I prithou pardon me," van Sietter said. "My delicate flower Anastelle and your honourable son. What a charming solution to our problems. The betrothal can be formally announced at our old family home, my son's residence."

"You and the Princess van Sietter will not announce it at your new palace in Arventa?" van H'las tried to prevent what might be needless suspicion from creeping into his tone of voice.

van Sietter sat with his expressionless face and his cold grey eyes looking down the hot green palace lawn. He said: "My children and the Princess do not associate. Castle Sietter is more convenient for travel from H'las."

"Your daughter lives in Castle Sietter?" van H'las asked. "Under the eye of your daughter by marriage?" He tried to prompt van Sietter into telling him more about the girl. "She prefers a quiet life in your son's home to ... to attending parties with the Princess?"

Some years previous, Commander-Lord Clair el Maien had had bestowed on him a daughter of the el Jiens van Iarve. She was said to be a beauty and her domestic virtue had been praised in a poem by el Parva van Selaine. Her reputation for chastity and honour was even greater than her reputation for beauty. This was frequently remarked on in comparison with her husband's reputation. van H'las felt a pang of hope for his son's chances of happiness. A young woman who preferred to live quietly in the Sietter Hills with her sister by marriage the honourable Lady el Jien van Sietter, perhaps helping to manage her brother's household, would be a bride van H'las could put up to his son with complacent pride. Particularly if she were a heartbreaking beauty.

van Sietter was unable to repress an upwards flick of the corner of his thin mouth, he bent his head away to hide the return of his silent grin. "Not exactly," he said in a voice in which he successfully stifled his laughter.