girl?” he asked.
She nodded. “Sad story, huh? Promising young talent gets elevated too high too soon. Ends with a young woman with a bullet in her throat.”
Amzîn got a pained look on his face, but it was the wrong kind of pained look. He could tell she was doing more than repeating the facts, but he had no idea why.
She said, “You and me, Amzîn. You’re the promising young talent. Let’s do our best not to reprise the part where someone takes a bullet because of it, eh?”
Chapter 33
~The Guile~
40 years ago. (Age 26.)
“This,” Lord Dariush announces, spreading his arms grandly, “is the world’s last surviving Solarch!”
He is so proud that I almost burst into inappropriate laughter.
“No,” I say, but with not nearly the true degree of horror I feel. I infuse my disbelief more with ‘No, really? How’d you manage that, you brilliant man?’ than ‘No, no, it’s not.’
“Oh yes!” he says. He is delighted.
“This?” I allow myself, for anyone would have doubts, not just anyone with a brain.
And here, moments ago, I had hoped for this man’s daughter to breed in some emotional brilliance to the Guile family line. Maybe his wife is very, very smart. I shall have to hope.
He chortles. “I told you you’d find it incredible.”
I clear my throat. “I thought you meant the other definition of that word,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I know. Study it. You’ll see.”
I’m never going to want to look at another painting in my life.
But, dutifully, I lean close and pretend to be enrapt.
I didn’t come to Atash for art appreciation—unless one wishes to call enjoying the nude figure of this man’s daughter ‘art appreciation.’
Alas, there’s not only been none of that, but I’ve barely even seen the woman I’ve come to woo and wed.
In a full week, I’ve seen more of her sister, Ninharissi, than I have of her, and when I have seen Felia, it’s been at dinners—where I wasn’t even seated next to her.
My pique is nearing the level of rage.
I’ve figured out why he’s kept me from her now—it’s all part of his maneuvering for these barbaric bride-price negotiations these savages practice—but it still rankles me.
“Speaking of definitions of words,” he says, “how did your parents come to bestow such a name on you?”
“You’ve been wanting to ask that for days, haven’t you?” I ask, as if amused.
I’m not. I think I’m coming to hate this man. I turn briefly away from the painting. Honestly, I’ve not caught even two details about it, I’m so focused on not letting my rage bleed through.
I shall need to take a break from drafting red, I think. I am not naturally a patient man, even without it.
He smiles. “Was it so obvious? I tried to wait until it wouldn’t be rude.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, staring again back at the painting as if I care. “Well . . . I knew that a philologist such as yourself would be disappointed if I said my mother simply liked the sound of the words, so . . . I’ll tell you that the name came to her in a dream.”
He laughs. “Fair! Fair. I suppose not all men spend their lives trying to escape the shadow of their name.”
“Did you try to escape yours, my lord? Roshe Roshan Dârayava-hush is no easy yoke for the shoulders of an infant. Nor even for a man to bear, one should think.”
I don’t quite suppress my pleasure at saying the name with precisely the correct diction and accent.
On the ship here, hoping to make a good impression on my father-in-law-to-be, I practiced for three dark days so I could say his name exactly as a local would. Three days I’ll never have back, for one offhand sentence, to woo a woman I may no longer want.
But I continue nonchalantly. “Quite a lot to live up to.”
Felia explained the name to me in one of her letters. It took her two full parchments, and she is not a woman to ramble. It means Judge Bright (or Light) Who Possesses Much Good (or Many Goods). ‘Judge’ placed first to hearken back to when petty kings (called ‘judges’ here) had ruled Atash. Judging—literally ‘bringing justice’—was what Atashians understood as sole reason to have kings. It’s something they’re still quite proud of, centuries after the fact, believing it denoted some deep truth about their national character: here rulers were established in order to serve the people.
Funny how that didn’t last. Denying reality only works as long as enough