Sara Douglass - The Serpent Bride

Lady Ishbel Brunelle, ward of the Coil, offered Maximilian and Escator a lifeline. Perhaps some of the eastern princelings would smile disdainfully at a handful of vast estates and the Deepend manorial rights, but to Maximilian they represented salvation. The income would make all the difference to the country.

They would make all the difference to Maximilian’s guilt. Although he knew he had no need, he did feel guilty about the loss of the gloam mines. Yes, they were vile, but they had kept Escator rich, and it was now Maximilian’s task to replace those lost riches.

A ring on Ishbel’s finger would do it.

Ah! Maximilian paced restlessly about the chamber, his thoughts tumbling. Marriage to a woman tainted with the Coil to restore Escator’s riches, or continued personal isolation and poverty for so many of his subjects?

“Damn it,” he muttered. “Why couldn’t I have found someone else with that kind of dowry who was interested in me?”

He paced about for a few more minutes, stripping off his jacket and shirt and tossing them over the back of a chair, running his hand through his too long hair and thinking he really ought to get it cut, rolling the Persimius ring around his finger, over and over.

Finally, coming to a decision, Maximilian walked to one of the high windows and opened wide the glass panes. He stared out into the night for a moment, then returned to stand by his bed, his back to the window, the fingers of his left hand absently running over the ungainly outline of the Manteceros on his right bicep.

He waited long minutes, finally relaxing when he heard the faint sound of movement in the window.

“How arrogant you are,” she said softly, “that you were so certain I’d be crouching on a rooftop somewhere waiting in hope that you’d open a window for me.”

Maximilian smiled, slowly turning about. “And how glad I am, StarWeb, that you were sitting on that rooftop, waiting for me to open the window.”

She crouched in the window, her dark wings held out gracefully behind her for balance, watching him with unreadable dark eyes. She had a mop of black curls, a fine-boned face and a dancer’s body, currently clothed in a short silken robe as dark as her hair and wings.

Maximilian slowly walked over to her and held out a hand. “StarWeb, I took a chance, knowing you often soar over the palace late at night. Arrogant assumption didn’t open that window. Hope did.”

StarWeb hesitated, then took his hand as she jumped down to the floor. She started to walk into the chamber, but Maximilian’s grip on her hand tightened, and he pulled her close enough for a soft kiss.

“Smile for me,” he whispered, drawing away fractionally.

“Why? What good news could you possibly have to make me smile?”

Still keeping her hand locked in his, Maximilian drew back enough so he could study her face. StarWeb was an Icarii, one of the race of bird people who had once ruled over the land of Tencendor to the west. StarWeb had also been one of the elite among the Icarii, a powerful Enchanter who could manipulate the magic of the Star Dance. But then Tencendor had descended into chaos, the ruling SunSoar family had imploded into tragedy; the Star Gate, through which the Icarii Enchanters drew the power of the Star Dance, had been destroyed. Tencendor itself vanished into the waters of the Widowmaker Sea, taking all its peoples into doom.

But not quite all its peoples. Caelum SunSoar, who had ruled the land in its final years, had maintained strong diplomatic ties with both Coroleas and the continent over the Widowmaker Sea. During the final wars that had destroyed Tencendor, almost five thousand Icarii had been scattered about Coroleas and the eastern continent. More had joined them before the final cataclysm. Currently, StarWeb had told Maximilian, there was an expatriate community of almost six thousand Icarii scattered about the lands surrounding the Widowmaker Sea, as well as the Central Kingdoms. There were at least six hundred living in Escator alone.

The Icarii may have kept their lives, but the Enchanters among them had lost all their power, and Maximilian well knew from his relationship with StarWeb what that had cost them. It wasn’t so much the power they resented losing, but the constant touch of the Star Dance, without which, StarWeb had once confided to him, their lives were but pale reflections of what had once been.

Maximilian pulled StarWeb closer again, and kissed her a little more lingeringly. They had been lovers for some months now, their relationship based almost entirely on a sexual bond rather than an emotional one, which suited Maximilian well, although he often wondered about StarWeb. He knew she disliked the fact he kept their trysts secret.

StarWeb pulled away. “What do you want, Maxel?”

He sighed. “To talk, to share some companionship. To make love, if you want. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

She shrugged, moving deeper into the chamber, running a hand lightly over a table, then the back of a chair, folding her wings close in against her body — a sure sign that she remained annoyed with him.

“Is it only kings who want companionship completely on their terms, Maxel?”

“You’re in a bad mood tonight.”

She swung about to look at him. “That’s because I hate it, Maxel, that I always come whenever you deign to open that window.”

“I’m sorry, StarWeb. I am not what you need.”

She studied that statement for any hint of sarcasm, and then decided the apology was genuine. “So what’s up, Maxel? You’re tense. Worried about something.”

“I’ve been offered a bride.”

StarWeb burst into laughter, her expression relaxing back into that of a delighted girl. “Well done, then! Are you going to take this one?”

“She’s been offered to me by the Coil.”

All StarWeb’s amusement vanished. “I’ve heard of them.”

“And not liked what you have heard, most apparently.”

“You are truly considering taking a priestess of the Coil to your bed? As a wife? ”

“She’s not a priestess, merely a ward taken in after a plague wiped out her family and half the population of the Outlands. And she comes with wealth that Escator could well use.”

“Oh, well. That makes it all right then.”

“I don’t need that sarcasm, StarWeb. If I was merely Maximilian Persimius, I would have winced and torn up the offer into a thousand pieces. But I am King of Escator as well, and with that comes a responsibility to my people. Escator needs that wealth.”

“So shall you meet with her?”

He hesitated, then gave a nod. “Eventually, but —”

“But you want something from me first.”

“I trust you, StarWeb. I trust your perception. I need someone to act as an emissary between me and the Coil. I need someone to meet her, and tell me what they think. Will we suit each other? Is she good enough for me to forget her association with the Coil?” He gave a shame-faced grin. “And I need someone who can do all this relatively quickly. This is not a decision I wish to linger over.”