Chapter 1 - A Marriage Made Well

Of all the places to wake up, the marriage bed is the best.

 

This is true even when one is alone, as Rovasurinn was.

 

The young girl stretched under the gossamer sheets whose ivory weave hazed her dark figure like a cloud. The air was warm, comfortably so. When the wind rose a little, playing with her sheets, she could smell the lilacs on the balcony whose petals had been wooed open by the morning sun.

 

She reached out to her husband, but he was not there. In his place, she felt the long stem of her favorite flower, a white lily. Smiling, she brought it to her nose and adored its bouquet. Though she always preferred him beside her, Rovasurinn could not deny that she loved how her husband said goodbye.

She found a folded letter of thick white paper, its edges feathered like a dove's wing. She opened it. In her husband’s handwriting, she read:

 

R—

 

Love me through my many days,
All angels sing of you, I hear;
Bless with kisses, my wants and ways,
For heaven sings when you draw near!

 

C

 

Purring, she pressed the letter against her heart and adored her lily.

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Her lord and husband was Casqaban, King of the Temirian Shore. Here in the Southern Fortunes, near the Desert of Two Suns, kings were called Sulokhans, installed in former ages by their northern masters. Temir was an old longsoul or elven word for iron. So it was that Casqaban ruled the Iron Shore, or Shore of Iron.

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As for the king himself, Casqaban was tall, very broad of shoulder, and narrow in hip. His frame was quite muscular, but as required for the chase and not mere contests of stone-throwing. A Khytherian, his complexion was as dark as carob and glabrous, the smoothness accentuating the thick interplay of his muscles, each built up and broadened out to the next. He had no tattoos or piercings; instead, his imposing physique spoke for itself, declaring his discipline. His straight black hair, once long and braided, had turned grayish-white. Now short, it framed his forehead like a box. His beard was gone also, revealing the sharp line of his strong jaw, while his eyes smoldered like dark brown moonstones. He possessed the ruthlessness and reserve of a seasoned warrior who had killed many men for many reasons. As king, Casqaban wielded fury and force with equal effect. Yet, he was no stranger to forgiveness.

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Years ago, when he first appeared and his smooth, deep, commanding voice was heard, Rovasurinn almost swooned. Casqaban’s good looks and physique reminded Rovasurinn of her father and male cousins, who trained to great physical extremes. At once, all the anxiety she felt at the prospect of marrying a stranger melted into a single ache, low, warm, and welcome. Even so, the marriage was not without its strangeness, nor was it without urgency.

Beset by conspirators, Casqaban was dying. Racked with swelling pain and fading vigor, most believed he would not live to see the new year. His only surviving heir was his son Casqabor, conceived by Subira, a lovely now-deceased concubine. Raised by his father and loyal to him, an enchantment had wounded Casqabor, who could father no heirs. Therefore, if Casqaban wanted sons, he would have to sire them himself. Having learned of the House of Yale, he agreed to marry one of their princesses, a teenage girl he had never seen.

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Rovasurinn Tuscara Yale.

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The Yales and the Sablers were inclined to keep the match secret, but on learning of it, disloyal officers within Casqaban’s court and others he had exiled invoked the ancient right of marriage by combat. Other women came on the appointed day, each as beautiful as the next, all coveting the queen’s chair. They brought boxes of gold, silver, and fine jewels. Another gave rare silks and rarer spices, while another offered champion steeds, doves, and the best swords. By the Laws of the Temirian Shore, past their pledges, women who desired their place in the king’s bed had to win it.

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What began as a beauty pageant turned into a deadly trial. Each woman, not willing to risk their looks, put forth a champion. If Rovasurinn’s stand-in won, Casqaban would marry her and get his heir. Moreover, all of his enemies would become the enemies of the Yales—a reversal of fortune none had yet survived.

 

Due to her age, Rovasurinn appointed her much older cousin, Sintanzaré, her champion. And it was by that winning name that Rovasurinn ascended to the queenship.

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Rovasurinn came to her master’s bed in virginal innocence and without secrets. All political incentives aside, and there were many, Rovasurinn was there because she wanted to be there. And though there were decades between them—too many, some believed—she honored him in all the ways a woman can honor a man.

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Still, many anticipated the king would die.

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However, against his enemy’s expectations, and to their complete astonishment, the very act of making love to his young wife rescued Casqaban from the poisoned drinks of traitors. Somehow, the intimate healing of one reversed the scheming harm of many. In a powerful volte-face, every part of his young bride that passed the king’s lips, by kisses or licks, returned to Casqaban that vigor he had lost and, when brought to balance, added to him more than a little. By all this, the widowed Casqaban was retrieved from grief and evened out by the kindest, most curious opportunity. With all his hopes renewed and his flesh revitalized, the king spared his queen no affection.

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The urgency of an heir faded, with Casqaban believing he could live well over a hundred years and sire a dozen children with his young bride. Yes, there would be time for all that, and he did not want to rob his wife of her independence or her delicious figure, although the latter was never really at risk. What quickened the king by proximity was at home in his queen, enchanting her flesh and fluids with delectable fitness. Also, despite her white mother, Rovasurinn was more Khytherian than not. The black women of Khyther could choose the very hour of conception and with whom. At least once, for there was a bizarre fidelity at work in the fecundity of Khytherian women: they could only bear children to one man. In this, their wombs were “loyal” to the first seed that made them mothers, regardless of all rivals.

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Over the years, Casqaban molded Rovasurinn into his perfect lover and emissary. And in return, she sharpened his instincts as a husband. Being young and entirely loved by her lord, Rovasurinn luxuriated in a romance most girls read about in poems. As women do, what love and affection the queen received, she returned double. The deep love of the king resized the young girl’s expectations and always left her tender. And in that tenderness, along every part of it, she felt a loyalty to her lord and husband that bordered on obsession.

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As for Casqaban, he adored Rovasurinn so fiercely that only the worship he gave to God surpassed it.