64 - Marriage of agreement

However much it hurt, my reading by Jinai Oru had accomplished exactly what I had intended it to: set my course.

My lips are sealed, die cast, gates fast and all go home, so I become semanakraseye.

Again, I got used to living with a bitter secret. Two of them now; how many more might I amass? Now that I knew Arkan generals in hidden rooms were poring over maps of Yeola-e, I tried not to let Hetharin and Vae Arahi and the people walking in the corridors of Assembly Palace or the streets of Terera look different to me. Living with secrets that touch his whole nation, I reminded myself, is part of the life of a head of state.

Call me a coward; I gave up on love. By spring of the year I would turn twenty, I was ahead in my studies, but had no long-lasting lover. I had to think of Yeola-e. It was time to find a marriage of agreement.

I’d had a plan in the back of my mind, knowing I might need it. I would find a couple who were in love with each other but who had not yet had children, and who were both agreeable to the wife bearing my children as well as the husband’s. She must be healthy, intelligent, not necessarily a warrior but of strong physique, full-blood Yeoli (let me have no more arguments about that) and, of course, of good character.

My mother, the first person I told, said, “I wish I could tell you how soon you will find them; but I’ve never known of anyone who has done this.” At one moment it would seem that I would be flooded with offers; the next, I’d think, ‘No one will touch this.’ A man doing this; would my courage be admired, or my impudence be despised?

The second person I told, as I must, was Mana. He knew from one look at my face that it was something serious, as a friend that close will. We went up on the mountain.

“We are heart’s brothers and I hope we always will be,” I said, then seized on the last plausible hope. “You still don’t have a steady lover, do you?” He signed charcoal. “I don’t know why I’m asking... as if I wouldn’t know.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m going to give up on it… on love. And marry by agreement. It’s taking too long... I don’t mean you, I mean me.”

He stared at me, blinking. “What? Too long? Cheng…?”

“Mana... I know we’ve always planned to marry, I haven’t forgotten. But… I’m going to be semanakraseye in a year. I have to have heirs.”

“Right.” His face settled into resolve. “Who are we going to marry, Cheng? Or just you, for now?”

“What, you mean... it’s all right? You’re just agreeing?” It seemed too easy.

“You are anaraseye, Fourth Chevenga, and that means what it means, as I’ve always known. For your anaraseye, I understand, and then, if your spouses want me too... I haven’t had any serious offers, for some reason, either.”

“You haven’t had any because you haven’t wanted any,” I said. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that isn’t true.”

He shrugged and signed chalk at once. “It’s true. I’m not ready to settle down.”

“I am. I have to.” I told him my plan.

He whistled through his teeth. “People ambitious enough to just marry you for position, then? That’s hard, Cheng; would you like someone like that enough?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I like them,” I said. “Only that they are good people and good with children and agreeable to this.”

“How can you know whether someone is good with children if they don’t have them yet?

“Well, you can’t, but that’s always true. I don’t know that I’m good with children; no one does until they’re parents.”

“Ehh… I saw you with all your little brothers and sisters.” Commander in training, I thought wryly. “You’re sure you don’t want to wait for someone to wake up and offer you marriage? This is so… severe for your heart.”

“My heart is used to severity.” More than I can let you know, heart’s brother. “The deal I’ll make with this couple is that they’ll agree to the fourth of my choosing. Then love can takes its time.”

“You need heirs quicker than you need love, I understand.” He got up from where we sat in the grass and star-flowers, and paced back and forth, stamping. “I may understand it but I can still be kyashin upset,” he said, though I had not asked him to explain. I hid my face in my hands. He sat down with me again, but began hurling stones whistling hard across the meadow.

“I’m sorry, Mana,” I whispered. My eyes burned with tears.

For a moment he stared at me; then he caught me in a hard hug. “Idiot! You think I’d quit being here for you? Never.” I sobbed once and he smacked my back. “I’ve got you, Cheng. It’s not like I’ve flung myself into some luscious woman’s arms and am declaiming I’ll never be torn from her sight again like some overblown actor.”

I couldn’t help but laugh through my tears. “That would surprise me.”

“I will be here. And if things change, things change. I’ll have lots of fun in the meantime. It’s rough, but that’s life with the Shae-Arano-el, semana-kra-riven raving lunatics that you all are.”

“This one at least,” I said. “I love you, Mana. I’m sorry.”

Without letting go, he touseled my hair, hard. “Stop that. It’s just life. Nothing that’s yours to be sorry for. It’s your calling, and your line’s calling, and you are suffering more than I am, having to kyashin tell me, and worry that I’ll kevyalin walk away from you.” I don’t know what I did to deserve such a friend, I thought. He added, “Kyashin idiot.”

“You’re having to hear it,” I said. “I didn’t… really think you’d drop me as a friend… but I knew I’d be hurting you, and that’s bad enough.”

He tightened his arms. “You know, I figured on something like this when we talked about you not noticing girls wanting you.”

The finger of worry crept up my spine. What have I shown? “Something like that? How do you mean?”

“You’re so picky!” he said, grinning. I clasped my forelock, as if in admission. “So: we’ll deal with it. As always.”

“As always.” War had taught us.

“And you can have someone to complain to, if you feel lonely. I’ll get you drunk and we’ll find some fun; your wife, being in love with your husband as she will be, can hardly complain about you having numerous torrid affairs—ah, there’s a smile. Good. And when you find these paragons, I’ll shut Krero up.”

“I love you for that, Mana,” I said. “Making me smile in the midst of the worst shit... you never fail.”

“Well, someone has to do it.” He smacked me gently on the side of the head. “I love you too, Chevenga.” We sat in silence, shoulder to shoulder, for a while.

On the state visit, he’ll be in my escort, I thought. He’ll want to be nowhere else. What will become of him? All the world looks different, through eyes that have foreknowledge.

When I told my other friends, they all thought I’d got a badger bite. “But you’re such a passionate person!” they said. I don’t like it either, I wanted to say, but what do I do? Love comes when it will, taking longer with me, who has less time. I was already inuring myself to the idea it might be never.

I put out the word in Vae Arahi and Terera, just by the grapevine. (It didn’t seem the sort of thing for which you’d pin up a notice.) I got no offers, but plenty of fingers beckoning me into rooms for confidential conversations.

Esora-e said nothing; I think my mother headed him off. Veraha, like my friends, said, “Why you aren’t having to beat them off with sticks is utterly beyond me.”

Tyeraha signed me into her office. “You remember whoever you want to marry has to be approved by Assembly, yes?”

“Yes,” I said. “Am I not more likely to find someone Assembly will approve this way than by following the vagaries of my heart… or worse, my hot young loins?”

She pursed her lips and signed chalk. “You have a point. I can’t understand why you are in such a hurry, though; plenty of semanakraseyel have not married until after they took office, sometimes ten, fifteen years.”

“Oh, you know me,” I said. “Never put off until tomorrow what I can frantically scramble to get done early this morning so it’s not even put off until this afternoon.” She snorted, and signed chalk again. Let what necessity had driven me to all my life now be taken as my nature.

Time passed, and still I got no offers. Vae Arahi and Terera weren’t big enough. I’d start the speaking tour earlier, I decided, visiting even the smaller towns, and put out my wish in each one.