Death and the Emperor

Book 2 Chapter I: Preparations

Yes, they're engaged, and heaven help everyone concerned. -- L. M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

No matter where you were in the Carann Empire, all the papers were filled with news of Emperor Tinuviel's engagement to Princess Qihadal. Entire magazines were devoted to speculating on when the royal couple had met, whether or not they had fallen in love, what the bride would wear, who would be the bridesmaids, who would be best man, how soon they would have a child, what they would call it...

Nadriet was beginning to understand why there were times when her brother seemed to hate being Emperor.

"Listen to this!" she exclaimed over breakfast one morning, pushing away her bowl so she could hold up a newspaper. "According to this article -- and this is in the supposedly-respectable Kósong Herald, no less! -- you met Qihadal at a ball in Malish, were struck by her beauty and immediately fell in love with her, and begged the Iqui for her hand."

Kilan burst out laughing. "Someone tell that journalist that he'd make an excellent comedian," he said when he'd recovered enough to speak. "There were no balls in Malish, I've met Qihadal exactly once -- and she was wearing a veil, so I don't know what she looks like -- and I certainly didn't beg for her hand."

Nadriet turned the page and scanned the next article. "And according to this one, you and Qihadal hate each other, and eventually the two of you will either fall madly in love, or you'll kill each other."

Kilan laughed again. There was a strange edge to his laugh nowadays. Something about it made Nadriet think of the fairy-tale of Drusmat[1], who had been cursed to laugh even when she was miserable. Sometimes she worried for her brother's sanity, and then she regretted ever thinking such a horrible thing. Kilan wasn't going mad. He was just under a lot of stress, and his wedding was in five days' time. Who could blame him for slightly odd behaviour?

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Never before in her life had Qihadal been the centre of such attention. In the space of mere months, she had gone from being the fifth daughter of one of the Iqui's chlursargo[2] to being "an accursed whore", to quote one of her brothers. And then, when she was preparing to be executed for damaging the family honour, her father changed his mind. Now she was to marry a foreign Emperor and start a war -- though, of course, no one explicitly said that was the point of this.

Thinking about the whole sorry business made her head ache.

Regardless of whether or not the Iqui had pardoned her, her family and servants treated her exactly as they had since they learnt of her rape: with loathing, as if she was some vile insect.

Qihadal had never been considered an attractive woman. Her shoulders were too broad; her waist non-existent even before her... even before; her nose too reminiscent of a hawk's beak. She was too tall, too graceless, her voice was too deep. And it seemed that her dressmakers were going out of their way to emphasise her flaws.

They had designed a dress for her. They said it was a mixture of Carannish and Malishese styles. It looked like a shapeless mass of fabric, in her eyes. It didn't fit her properly. It was too tight around the arms and shoulders, too loose -- for obvious reasons -- around the stomach, too long for her to walk without tripping over it. The veil and train were approximately a yard long.

It had been designed to make her look foolish, she knew. A final insult added to a litany of injuries.

A week ago she had been shipped out of Malish with very little fanfare. Her father had graciously granted her a veritable army of maidservants, none of whom made any attempt to conceal their disgust at serving such a "tainted" woman. She had been provided with a tutor to teach her the Carannish language and customs, and housed on her future husband's orders in a palace somewhere in the Carann Empire. Gankolzasqes was the name of the province, if her tutor was to be believed, and the palace was called Vírkainth.