Six Months of Summer
I
I am the Staryk lord. I have been these many winters past, ever since I won the throne from the one before me, who grew too complacent and feeble to maintain it. He grew sloppy as ice melt in the summer, only deserving of being washed downstream and into the dark. He allowed himself to become indebted to me, captain of his soldiers, and up the ranks I progressed until he had no other token to give me in exchange for all I offered him but the throne itself.
I have never doubted my actions in this matter; the lands of winter have been safe under my rule, and I have sacrificed much of my own safety and comfort to ensure the same for my people. It is what I owe them in fair compensation for their loyalty to me.
As the Staryk lord, I must be careful never to be vulnerable in the way my predecessor was. All special favors, if not avoided entirely, are fairly repaid immediately. Gifts, already in poor taste among our kind, are unthinkable to me. I grant no person access to me in a way that another would not have as easily. Until my lady, none ever dared—or had the right to dare—ask me to share a private table with them. My life was given equally, for all gave equally to maintain me in the place I held.
Loneliness is an inevitable inheritance of my position. Yet for the Staryk, loneliness has not the same melancholy aspect for us as it does for mortals. Though many Staryk mate and reproduce, true marriages of affection—to say nothing of love—are rare. Most evenings I sit alone, enjoying the quiet of my own mind after the demands placed on it by so many, and reflect on the deeds of the day in perfect complacency and silence. My own company is pleasant, and few are the times I have been troubled by useless pangs of conscience. Fear I have known, since Chernobog wrested his own way to power in the mortal realm and caused so much trouble in mine, but it was a balm to my pride that none knew of that fear save myself.
Now Chernobog is cast down, his corrosive evil removed from both my lands of winter and the mortal realm. My mountain, my kingdom, is safe again. And though I was instrumental in delivering safety back to my people, it stings unbearably that my hand was not the one that dealt the final blow. Perhaps 'stings' is a strong word. It does not wound me. It...irritates. Rankles. Disturbs my peace, which once was so untroubled, smooth and flawless as a fresh blanket of deep snow. Yet as I sit, night after night, alone, thinking of the debt I owe, I am not upset. Rather, I am intrigued.
'Open-Handed' is the name my lady has been given. Given by her bondsmen, who are the only ones who might address her so without any vicious irony poisoning their tongues as they utter it. It is a name that, among the Staryk, should only ever attract mockery. The idea that one could give, with an open hand, and not try to grasp first for anything with the other, is not only foolish, but insulting.
A Staryk owes no one anything, save for the first and deepest bonds between parent and child. A mother owes her child its life, if she can bring it to birth. A father owes his child its name, once it is born. After those unspoken promises have been fulfilled, all else is a negotiation. A bargain. And those who rise highest in Staryk society are those who make the most of every opportunity. Generosity is not a quality we hold in any esteem, for it carries an unspoken presumption that the receiving party is incapable of offering fair return.
But such a name suits my lady, who showers her favors and thanks among those whose service to her is too slight to bear such recompense. It is a name I ought to use now, for I have lost the right to call her what I cannot help but name her in my mind. She is truly not 'my' lady any longer. Nor is she my Queen. She won her freedom from me, then won respect among my people, by the very nature of her open hand and open heart.
Strange, that she should give so much of herself in some instances, yet withhold herself so stubbornly in others. I have no right to make a claim on her, so I say nothing. Do nothing. I watch her spend her smiles and fritter her favors on others, and know that I myself have lost the right to benefit from her open hand. Thrice I insulted her, underestimated her worth, took advantage of her ignorance of my kind. I would have killed her without ever knowing her, and that knowledge is almost as painful as walking barefoot over the coals that bound me beneath the city of Visnya. Coals I should never have managed to cross had not my lady set me free.
She owes me nothing. That she labors by my side, shares the privations of my people, brings her own strange, precise methods to codify and manage the ineffable magic of my kingdom...if I did not know of her generous nature before this, I would be in a fury from dawn till dusk, wondering what price she would set on the effort she expends so tirelessly on our behalf. She asks for nothing. I give her what I can, no longer thinking to buy her cheap for gifts so dear.
There is only one thing I can offer her in return for all she has done. Yet it is an exchange she has already refused from me, fought to free herself from. I dare not offer it again, however much I—
I should call her Open-Handed. Yet that is not the name my heart whispers in the chill purple twilight near every evening, when the heavy clouds overhead seem to thin to gossamer, allowing faint starlight, cold and pure as the jewels of my hoard, to glitter on the veins of gold she poured into the wounds of the crystal mountain.
I try to keep the name—her true name—from my mind. It was stolen, though I did not think so at the time—for nothing she had was, to my mind, worth stealing—taken from the mouths of her parents as I watched their house one night, desperate to know if this peasant girl had the gift she boasted so loudly of. I sneered at it, at them, so foolishly squandering the power of their true names, not appreciating then what it was to feel so safe with another that you could give them your heart and trust them not to hold you ransom for all that you had in return.
Among the Staryk, one's name is everything. And unless one seeks to share everything, it is never otherwise given away. I have never desired to give my name to anyone, nor be burdened in that manner myself. Even had I married among the Staryk, one of the noblewomen most acceptable to me before my lady, I would never have been tempted to give her my name.
For all these reasons, I try not to think of my lady's name. She did not give it to me as a wife would give it to her husband, whispered into his ear once, a gem to prize above all others, bought only with the price of his own name returned. Some nights, I imagine this is how I had heard it from her, wound in the silks around her bed, a soft cocoon enclosing us together so all I might hear is the soft murmur of her voice, dropping the name, sweet as honey, on my tongue. Some nights, I long to know how her flesh, warm and soft, yielding where Staryk skin never does, would feel under my lips as I whisper my name in return, unspoken since my father placed it deep within me.
These thoughts, these dreams, are unworthy of me. Still I have them, feeling myself grow weaker and more shameless with each vision, tempted almost beyond restraint to ask her the gift of her name once more. She would give it, I think. Well, perhaps not. With her bondsmen she is generous enough, not thinking to ask for anything other than their duties would require them to fulfill regardless. With me...but I cannot be irritated that she has learned her lessons well at my hands. Hands which were crueler and colder than they ought to have been. She does ask payment of me now, even in a gently mocking way.
What will you give me for this? How much can I ask in return for that?
I have taken to answering her: Ask, my lady, and I will give it you.
She never asks for more than a trifle. Enough to fill the form of Staryk barter, but never to drive a hard bargain, or even a fair one. She won my kingdom with her bravery against Chernobog, to say nothing of her victory in restoring the mountain. She won me, had I not been hers by rights already.
Does she know it? Perhaps. But if she does...why does she not ask for it?
For the first time, I wonder at my own worth. Does my lady see enough value in me to consider her hand a worthwhile exchange for all that I am? Would she want my name if I gave it her for safekeeping? Would she give me her own, to whisper to her, close enough that none should ever hear?
These questions are futile, for it is not for me to answer them. Nor is it my right to ask. Putting them from my mind is difficult, but it must be done. There are other, practical matters to think of.
It has been a month. A month of summer, a hard month always, even in a year without war. It took a week to bury the dead with all the proper rites, harvesting enough fruits to plant in the hearts of all our fallen soldiers. Those trees have grown, but it will be months before they bear anything to sustain those who remain.
The Staryk do not complain; we are not so brittle, never so weak. Yet resentment runs deep in our cold hearts, and I know this is a dangerous time for me. Did I win a victory for my people? Yes. But, it could be argued—and undoubtedly will be, by some—that my own actions precipitated this conflict, and all these deaths. My lady almost bargained me to my death. Could I have ignored what I owed her, avoided her clever trap? No.
But such reasoning will not matter to some, and they might lead those whose hearts are shattered and whose stomachs are empty and whose children are frightened into forgetting what they owe me.
Again and again, I return to the thought: I am indebted beyond anything to my lady. She has returned, given validation to all the choices I have made—those foolish and those sincere—and, without bargaining, she has accepted all the responsibilities a Staryk queen would have. The Staryk value actions over words; doing a thing proves a thing in a way that speaking never does. In acting like a queen, my lady becomes one.
But she does not wish to be one. At the end of this summer, she will leave. I will have no claim to hold her, no right to ask her return.
As I think on all this, I find my thoughts disordered. Surely, the most important thing about my lady's choices are how they will affect my position? Without her, my reign may destabilize. I will have to fear the vulnerability of trade with those who, seven years prior, would not have dared approach me with their paltry bargains. Perhaps I, too, will become flotsam on the river, floating into the dark, unable to grasp for safety to either side.
But these thoughts are not the ones that most trouble me. What troubles me is knowing that one day, I will leave my chambers and walk among my people, and not find my lady anywhere. I will search for her brown hair, curling irrepressibly against her hollowed cheek, and only glimpse it in my imagination. She will not be the seat she favors in the grove, nor walking with her bondsmen, nor will her soft voice echo through my halls as she sings her blessings over the trees and flowers.
I will be alone, wondering what I could have done to be otherwise. I will regret my choices. I will miss my lady, my Mir—