Free The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin Page A

ships with red sails, carrying plumed warriors, gorgeous-robed emissaries, and a few veiled women.
    “Let the daughter of Thol the High King, who sits upon the Throne of Thoreg and whose ancestor was Wuluah, wear the Ring of Peace upon her arm, as Queen Elfarran of Soléa wore it, and this will be the sign of everlasting peace between the Western and the Eastern Isles.”
    That was the High King’s message to Lebannen. It was written out in big Hardic runes on a scroll, but before handing it to King Lebannen, Thol’s ambassador read it out loud, in public, at the reception of the emissaries at the court in Havnor, with the whole court there to do the Kargish envoys honor. Perhaps it was because the ambassador did not actually read Hardic, but spoke the words loudly and slowly from memory, that they had the tone of an ultimatum.
    The princess said nothing. She stood among the ten handmaidens or slave girls who had accompanied her to Havnor and the flock of court ladies who had been hastily assigned to look after her and do her honor. She was veiled, entirely veiled, as was, it appeared, the custom of well-born women in Hur-at-Hur. The veils, red with lines of gold embroidery, fell straight down from a flat-brimmed hat or headdress, so that the princess appeared to be a red column or pillar, cylindrical, featureless, motionless, silent.
    “The High King Thol does us great honor,” Lebannen said in his clear, quiet voice; and then he paused. The court and the emissaries waited. “You are welcome here, princess,” he said to the veiled figure. It did not stir.
    “Let the princess be lodged in the River House, and let all be as she desires,” Lebannen said.
    The River House was a beautiful small palace at the northern edge of the city, fitted into the old city wall, with terraces built out over the little River Serrenen. Queen Heru had built it, and it was often called the Queen’s House. When Lebannen came to the throne he had had it repaired and refurnished, along with the Palace of Maharion, called the New Palace, in which he held court. He used the River House only for summer festivities and sometimes as a retreat for himself for a few days.
    A little rustle now went through his courtiers. The Queen’s House?
    After urbanities among the Kargish emissaries, Lebannen left the audience room. He went to his dressing room, where he could be as alone as a king can be, with his old servant, Oak, whom he had known all his life.
    He slapped the gilded scroll down on a table. “Cheese in a rat trap,” he said. He was shaking. He whipped the dagger he always wore out of its sheath and stabbed it straight down through the High King’s message. “A pig in a poke,” he said. “A piece of goods. The Ring on her arm and the collar round my neck.”
    Oak stared at him in blank dismay. Prince Arren of Enlad had never lost his temper. When he was a child he might have wept for a moment, one bitter sob, but that was all. He was too well trained, too well disciplined to give way to anger. And as king, a king who had earned his realm by crossing the land of the dead, he could be stern, but always, Oak thought, too proud, too strong for anger.
    “They will not use me!” Lebannen said, stabbing the dagger down again, his face so black and blind with fury that the old man drew back from him in real fear.
    Lebannen saw him. He always saw the people around him.
    He sheathed his dagger. He said in a steadier voice, “Oak, by my name, I will destroy Thol and his kingdom before I let him use me as a footstool to his throne.” Then he drew a long breath and sat down to let Oak lift the heavy, gold-weighted state robe from his shoulders.
    Oak never breathed a word of this scene to anyone, but there was, of course, immediate and continuous speculation about the princess of the Kargs and what the king was going to do about her—or what, in fact, he had already done.
    He had not said that he accepted the offer of the princess as his bride.