The Suitor

"Hurry, dear, for the Stars' sakes, hurry!" Merilanth's aunt called from outside the dressing chamber. Merilanth's mother finished adjusting her daughter's veil and stepped back, eyes travelling appraisingly up and down Merilanth's silk-clad and perfumed form. "Darling of my heart, by all that's holy do not

touch

your face until he's gone," she said. "House Szirion does our family great honour by considering your hand— do

not

smudge yourself."

"Yes, mother," Merilanth said, outwardly demure but inwardly seething. As the youngest daughter she should have been free from arranged marriages, but her older sister had had the

gall

to run away on an adventure with a band of louse-ridden nobodies— as if she hadn't known perfectly well that Merilanth had intended to go travelling with a noble group of warriors herself, when she came of age.

And

now

she was stuck

here

, dressed up in clothes— admittedly fine— intended for her older sister, about to be introduced to a

suitor

intended for her older sister, and she didn't even have the pleasure of rubbing Lerisell's nose in getting married first; she'd just had a letter from her wretched sister announcing Lerisell's recent wedding to the oafish half-orc that had been a member of her travelling party.

That

letter had brought Merilanth to an almost frothing rage. If she was going to be forced to play her older sister's game, she'd at least have liked to have played it better, and now she wasn't even going to be the first daughter married. She was only able to console herself with the knowledge of her sister's complete and utter disgrace, should she ever return to the city again. Not that such an occurrence seemed likely— her letters made life on the road sound too appealing for Merilanth to believe Lerisell would ever return.

I'll have to send her a gilded invitation to the wedding,

she thought.

If only so Father can turn her away at the door. Run off to marry a half-orc indeed.

"He's here!" squeaked Merilanth's aunt from outside the room as the bell at the front door rang, and Merilanth ran her suddenly damp palms down the front of her silk dress.

"Don't rumple it!" her mother snapped. "Quickly, the kohl!" The older woman hastily applied the dark unguent to her daughter's eyes, and then ushered her out of the cramped room and into the parlour, where her aunt pressed her into the armchair that would frame her girlish figure to the best effect, and then filled the tea pot from the silver kettle on the nearby end-table. Merilanth's mother fluttered about dusting the other chairs and adjusting the drapes by the window or the tassells of the woven hangings that graced the walls. Merilanth slouched in her chair ever so slightly, until her aunt swatted her across the knees with her fan and told her to sit up. She had opened her mouth to ask where this suitor was, then, when her father's frame darkened the parlour door, and she snapped her teeth shut on the question as her mother sat jerkily down on the divan beside her sister, the two women looking for all the world like fat little birds, and then her father stepped inside and to the left, revealing the creature behind him.

"Oh," said Merilanth's mother, surprised. "Was your master unable to come himself?"

Behind Merilanth's father, standing framed by the beaded curtain that hung in the doorway, was a lizardman dressed sharply in black fabric carefully creased. He bore the livery of House Szirion stitched in blue thread upon his breast, and his clawed hands were clasped carefully behind his back.

The lizardman blinked, nictitating membranes sliding across his yellow eyes. His tongue flicked out, tasting the air briefly before he said in surprisingly good tradespeech for a creature with the wrong sort of mouth for the language: "This one begs your pardon?"

Merilanth slouched down in her chair again and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. All that preparation for nothing, but even if today's encounter was off and the suitor from House Szirion had only sent a flunky, her mother would tan her hide if she broke the injunction against smudging her makeup.

Merilanth's father, looking uncomfortable, chose to proceed as if neither his wife nor his guest had spoken.

"Wife, Daughter, I present Ssilikesh of House Szirion." His smile was entirely the one of a man made the brunt of a joke he desperately wishes had been played on someone else. He'd been ecstatic when House Szirion had offered his House a marriage; his was a small merchant concern, and marrying into the Szirion empire would be to his family's immense benefit— and then this Ssilikesh had arrived at the door.

"Do you mean to say," began Merilanth's aunt. "That you are to be Merilanth's..." she trailed off desperately, gesturing vaguely with one prim hand before Merilanth's mother pulled her to her feet, holding the silver teapot.

"More tea," she said firmly, and pulled her sister out of the parlour in the direction of the kitchen. Merilanth's father's shoulders sank as he gestured the lizardman towards the most comfortable chair in the room and himself sank dejectedly onto the divan. He had no idea what sort of message House Szirion was giving him by sending the lizadman to court his only daughter, but now that the creature was here, politeness forbade him from ejecting the reptile without the promised meeting. He could only hope his daughter had more tact than than his wife— enough tact to rebuff any advance without giving offence to the representative of so powerful a House.

For her part, Merilanth sat up and leaned forward a little bit. Now it was getting

interesting

.

"You are, then, the suitor sent by House Szirion?" she asked, as Ssilikesh sat uncomfortably on the most comfortable chair in the room, trying not to crush his sinuous tail. He turned his large yellow eyes on her and flicked his tongue again. She suspected he was tasting her perfume on the air.

"Yes," he said at last. "This one is an adoptive son of House Szirion, sent to court the daughter of House Erebet. This one assumes that one is yourself." He glanced awkwardly at Merilanth's father, who sat glassy eyed on the divan. "This one believes his letter of introduction was mislaid by the courier. There should have been no surprise."

Merilanth laughed, once, loud and clear like a bell. "Oh, but this one

likes

surprises," she said, leaning forward a little more. Her father's obvious discomfort and her mother's moment of frank crisis tickled her wicked streak.

Serves them right for trying to marry me off in Lerisell's place

, she thought. Her father's stricken look at her words was gratifying.

"But Father!" she went on. "This chair won't accommodate poor Master Ssilikesh's tail! Perhaps we should sit in the garden instead, where there are benches." She fluttered her eyelashes over her veil at the lizardman, who looked taken aback, as far as she could read his facial expressions. Her father's wall-eyed look made her laugh inwardly.

"A bench would suit this one's needs better..." Ssilikesh conceded, tearing his gaze away from Merilanth toward her father. "But this chair is perfectly serviceable." Her father opened his mouth to speak, but Merilanth didn't give him the chance.

"No, no, I insist!" she said. "We'll go down to the gardens. Father, be so good as to fetch Mother to chaperone us." Her smile, behind her veil, was broad. She'd make today as traumatic for her parents as possible, and

then

let them try to arrange her marriage again. If she ever saw Lerisell again she'd slap her sister for leaving her in this mess.

Before her father could respond, she'd stood up sharply and taken Ssilikesh by the arm, and was pulling him out of the sitting-room and down the stairs to the garden door. He stumbled briefly on the stairs, but caught his balance with his tail as he followed her down. She could feel the texture of his reptilian flesh through the fabric of his sleeve— tough scales smoothly overlapping— and then with a start realized she had clamped his arm to the side of her breast.

She blushed and released her hold as they reached the bottom step, and then she was ushering him out into the garden.

Ssilikesh, for his part, was glad to have escaped the confines of the parlour. The patron of his House had done him a great honour in sending him to court the daughter of another House, and he'd assumed when he'd been sent that the overture would be appreciated. He hadn't expected Master Erebet's shocked look at finding Ssilikesh at his door, and Madam Erebet's behaviour had made it clear that his presence was not merely surprising but unwelcome. He was used to that— he was lizardkin, after all, and belonged in the desert, not the parlours of the polite. Not all were as enlightened as his patron was, and not all lizardkin were as civilized as

he

was. Scorn he knew how to deal with. It was the daughter that he didn't know what to do about. She seemed to have some quarrel of her own with her parents, and she had wasted no time in drawing him into it. He eyed her with one baleful yellow orb as they descended the stairs towards the garden— she moved with a fluid grace that reminded him of the warriors of his tribe, before he had been brought in chains to this city-port on the coast. She turned the strangest shade of red briefly when his arm brushed her chest, like one of the skinpainter tribes of his kind from the east, with their chameleonic shifting hues.

When they burst into the garden, she turned to him and spoke, breath moving her veil gently, dark eyes full of cruel smiles as she fixed them on him.

"So tell this one about House Szirion, Master Ssilikesh," she said loudly. "This one is

dying

to know."

"That one is mocking this one," he said, half genuinely annoyed and half curious. "That one does not share this one's beliefs." She turned that shade of red again at the chastisement, and her eyes went wide for a moment.

"Oh," she said, much more quietly. "I... apologize. I didn't mean to mock. To tell you a secret, I only wanted my parents to think I was madly in love with you" She turned a way, still red. "Please, we have to have this meeting at least: why don't you sit and we can talk? I've never met a lizardman before."

She gestured him towards a stone bench in the shade of the courtyard wall, surrounded by flowering vines. As they walked over he felt the hot stare of eyes on his neck, and turned to look. All three of Merilanth's relatives were staring down at them from the parlour window above.

"Very well," he said, sitting down more comfortably, now that his tail could swing free over the back of the bench. "This one will answer a question for that one if that one will answer a question for this one."

"Done," she said, returning to her normal colour. "You ask first."

"What is that one's quarrel with her parents?" he asked, tasting the air again. The garden smelled of jasmine and lilac, and of Merilanth's perfume— a soft musk not unlike the desert at night.

Merilanth smiled behind her veil. "Come closer," she said. Ssilikesh blinked and leaned in a fraction of an inch.

"No, closer," she said, and she took hold of his collar and pulled his head so that his ear-hole was right next to her veil. He started in surprise and then allowed himself to be pulled, and she looked over his head at her parents in the window as she moved aside her veil and spoke. Let them wonder what sweet nothing she was whispering in the lizardman's ear.

"I have an older sister," she began. "Who by rights should have been married first and best between us. When she was, I was going to leave the city and take the life of the road. But my conniving sister ran away with a group of adventuring louts in the middle of the night last year, and now

I

must enter into an arranged marriage in her stead. My parent's are eager to marry me into your House, but less than eager to marry me to

you

, and I intend to make them squirm while I have the opportunity." She paused, breath tickling Ssilikesh's ear-hole.

"That's why I spoke as you did for my parents to hear— I was feigning a romantic fascination. I

am

sorry." She let go of his collar and withdrew. "Now you answer: what beliefs were you talking about when you accused me of mocking?"

"That the lizardkin are scales from the wings of the Sun-That-Is-A-Dragon." He shrugged, lean shoulders rising and falling gently. "It is a matter of theology this one isn't fit to discuss in detail. This one is a merchant and a fighter, not a scalepriest."

Merilanth leaned in, intrigued. "You're a swordsman? Show me!" she said. "I was teaching myself from old books, before Lerisell ran off and stole my future. Here!" She stood up sharply and cast about before breaking two sticks out of the trellis which held their flowering shade and tossing one to Ssilikesh. "On guard!"

Ssilikesh caught the stick deftly, and then glanced up at the window to see what the girl's parents made of this development. All but the aunt had gone back inside, and the aunt was simply shaking her head softly and staring mournfully down into the courtyard.

Ssilikesh turned back abruptly to Merilanth when her stick came down sharply on his shoulder, and he hissed in surprise. She held the piece of wood in both hands, like the long blades of the city guard.

"If you don't pay attention in a fight, your opponent will win!" she said, grinning broadly behind her veil once more and dropping into a clumsy fencer's crouch more appropriate to a single handed sword. She'd clearly been reading from too many conflicting manuals.

"This one thinks that one has never been in a real fight!" Ssilikesh said, half-teasing, and he broke his stick into two shorter lengths, one for each hand. "This one knows, or that one would have better footwork!" and he stepped in smartly and tripped her with his tail before tapping her gently on the forehead with one stick as she went down. He'd been told time and again by his patron that fighting was beneath his decorum now that he was civilized, but this girl had started it, and defending oneself was always the correct action. It was... satisfying, to be fighting. The girl irked him pleasantly, too, and he looked forward to teaching her a lesson. Whoever won they might yet become friends; it was the way of his people.

After Ssilikesh had knocked her over, Merilanth got up and watched his feet for a full minute before trying to move again, and this time when she stepped it was in a decent approximation of the lizardman's stance. After another minute of circling she tried to hit him again, stick lancing down towards the other shoulder. He deflected it with one short stick and then stepped in himself and swung low for her ribs with the other. She jerked back and the tip just grazed the front of her silk dress, leaving a streak of dirt and splinters of wood. These had been fine clothes.

Mildly incensed, Merilanth swung at the lizardman again and again, but his superior skill was telling, and he deflected strike after strike, returning each with speed and precision, and all the time her dress was getting dirtier and dirtier, and her blood was beginning to boil. Her hair had long since started to come loose from its coif, and she could feel herself flushing with the exertion. Determined to hit Ssilikesh fairly just

once

, she stepped in, ducked under his swing, and jabbed with all her might towards his torso— only to take the swing from his other stick full across the chest, knocking her onto her back again.

This time when she stood up there was no minute of composed observation. She shrieked once, piercingly, threw her stick at the lizardman, and then threw all of her weight into a tackle that took him in the chest. She rode him to the ground, teeth buried in his shoulder, and when she came to her senses she was lying on his chest, face pressed against the silk of his shirt, and her jaw hurt.

"That one would have made a good adventurer," Ssilikesh said, gingerly fingering the bite mark on his shoulder. Luckily her teeth had been unable to pierce his tough green hide. "She is a fierce berserker, and turns a terrible shade of red to frighten her foes."

Merilanth's hands flew to cover her mouth when she realized how indecorous she'd been, and then she blushed even more fiercely when she realized that her veil had come askew in the tussle, and that he could actually see her face.

"I'm so sorry," she said, getting off of him. She extended a hand to help him up, keeping her face covered with the other. "I've ruined your suit... and my dress. Come inside, we can find you some of my father's clothes." She cast around for her veil, and found it crumpled and torn on the ground, useless.

"Don't look," she cautioned Ssilikesh, mortified. "This way." She led him back inside the garden door, and down the flight of stairs to the room where a servant did the laundry, still covering her face. No one was about.

"Here," she said, gesturing to a rack of clothes hung up to dry. "Find something that fits. I need to find a different dress."

Even so, she watched as he stripped of his black silk shirt, strange muscles shifting under the scaled green skin. There were tougher ridges of thickened scales along the lines of his shoulders and down his back, and his ribcage was lean and narrow, muscles wiry. Scars of darker green dotted his torso— some clearly made by claws, some unidentifiable. He sensed her looking and turned, yellow eyes staring curiously across his blunt, scaled snout, tongue tasting the air again. She saw two thick bands of darker green scar tissue circling his wrists, and she blushed and turned back to looking for her own clothes.

She found a dress of her own that would do for now, but no veil. She didn't dare go back upstairs for another in her current state; her mother might be distraught, but she would certainly rouse herself for a scolding at the sight of her daughter's bare face and ruined dress— she would be forced to change here, and find something to cover her face with afterwards. She turned back to Ssilikesh, who was already wearing a pair of her father's loose trousers, and was just doing up one of his shirts.

"Stand in the hall," she hissed at him. "And don't peek." She held the clean dress defensively in front of her, obscuring the one she was currently wearing. "I have to change."

Ssilikesh cocked his head to one side and flicked his tongue again, but a moment later he complied, taking the shirt out into the hall with him. Merilanth waited an absurd moment to see if he would peek— as though a lizardman had any interest in human women, whatever political marriage had been arranged— and then began to strip out of her soiled dress. The fight had made her sweat, and she would have liked to have bathed, but her only recourse

here

would have been filling one of the great laundry basins and climbing in, and she had no intention of doing any such thing. She scrubbed herself as best she could with a sheet from the nearest laundry pile, and then began to slip into the clean dress she had found.

She was still working at the dress's fasteners when Ssilikesh darted into the room, picked her up bodily by the waist, and hauled her into the supply closet in the corner of the room, shutting the door behind them. She beat furiously against his back with one hand while she kept her dress on with the other, neglecting her bare face in her anger. It was lucky her rage had left her unable to articulate an imprecation, or she might have cried out when Sslikesh had grabbed her; as it was, she went very still when she heard footsteps outside the closet.

"A servant in the hall," the lizardman hissed in her ear, holding her still. His breath puffed against her face, smelling not of carrion as she might have expected, but of anise.