The House of Emerald had a reputation for being one of
the finest purveyors of precious stones in the Realm. The clerk, a primly dressed young fellow with
an elaborate monocle and an officious air who bustled out of the back of the
shop in response to the tinkling of the door-bell, had no intention of letting
that reputation slip on his watch.
Clasping his hands before his breast, he bowed until his spine cracked.
“Welcome to Domus
Smaragdus!” he said as if he’d never seen anything so pleasant in all his
life as the two customers presently examining the glorious array of wares on
display. “How can I serve?”
“I need some…” a man and a woman said simultaneously.
The clerk blinked.
Then he grinned, larding his smile with a generous dollop of
unction. “Ahh, harmony! How delightful! My lady, my lord…are you together?”
The man and the woman turned and examined each
other. She was a good foot-and-a-half
the shorter, plainly clothed but slender and voluptuous, an obvious high elf
with a sound sprinkling of the Second House in her background denoted by
golden-brown hair. Her ears were high,
curved and delicately pointed.
The man, in marked contrast, was nearly six and a half
feet tall, wiry but thin, with a face that had once been ruggedly handsome, but
now looked careworn. He was dressed in a
long cloak, severely grey, almost military in appearance, and wore a
broad-brimmed hat against the snow.
Both cloak and hat were marked with some sort of
religious sigil that the clerk didn’t recognize. He couldn’t see the fellow’s ears, but the
man’s height alone suggested that they were unlikely to be pointed.
“No,” the woman said, eyeing the tall, elderly
gentleman speculatively.
“No,” the man agreed.
“Regrettably,” he added, smiling and bowing like a courtier.
The elf-woman grinned.
The man – the human – swept a gracious hand toward the
clerk. “Erae imprima, domina.”
She giggled at his pronunciation. “Nonsense,” she replied, the traveling tongue
lending her words a playful lilt. “You
are a guest, sir. And a priest, too,
unless I miss my guess?”
He nodded.
“Father Shields, of the Embassy of the Imperium, and the service of
Vorwenna.”
She smiled again.
“Cayless Agladora, of Starmeadow, of the service of Domus Casia, and of the domina
of Arx Incultus. I beg you, Excellency –
after you.”
“I never argue with a lady,” the man said, bowing a
second time.
He turned back to the clerk. “Diamonds,” he repeated brusquely.
The clerk blinked again. “Er…you are looking for a ring, sir,
perhaps? Or a wristlet?”
“No, just the stones,” the man said. His manner was clipped and brusque, as if he
were in a hurry.
The clerk frowned.
“What sort of cut?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the man said. He looked tired. “I also don’t care about clarity, colour or
carat-weight. They can be rough, or
uncut, or fragments, or dust for all of me.”
From beneath his voluminous cloak, he heaved a heavy
bag of triple-stitched canvas that depended from a broad strap slung over his
right shoulder. With a grunt, he swung
this up onto a nearby table, where it landed with a rattling thump.
The clerk’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his coiffure
– which, the man noticed disapprovingly, was oiled and lofted into a ridiculous
wave. The clerk nodded at the
satchel. “And that is…?”
“Payment,” the human said curtly. “Five thousand aureae.” He snorted. “Probably a few sovereigns, crowns and
doubleweights mixed in, and probably a spoon or two for good measure. But it’s an even hundred-weight of good,
yellow gold, right enough.” He slapped
the bag for emphasis, and it gave off a heavy chink. “That’s
how many diamonds I want.”
The clerk’s face reddened, and his ear-tips coloured
to an alarming purple. He looked
mortally offended. “My good sir,” he
said huffily, “Domus Smaragdus has
stood in this street for more than three thousand years! We have catered to kings and queens from a
dozen nations! Our wares have decorated
the high and the mighty for three ages of the world! We,” he declaimed, drawing himself up to his
full height, roughly an inch or so lower than the point of the man’s chin, “are
purveyors to the Filigree Throne itself!”
The man rubbed his eyes wearily. “I should’ve brought that Karrick fellow,” he
muttered under his breath.
To the clerk, he said, “What’s your point?”
The elf was positively vibrating with indignation. “Diamonds aren’t potatoes!” he shrieked. “We don’t sell’em by the pound!”
Father Shields put his hands on his hips. The gesture opened his cloak and exposed the
short, heavy, nail-studded mace that hung at his side. When the clerk saw it, his teeth began to
chatter.
The human rolled his eyes. Aware that the elf-woman was watching their
debate with wide eyes and a toothy grin, he half-turned towards her and bowed a
third time. “Perhaps,” he said to the clerk, “you should help the lady
first. Miss Ag...gladora, here. Before you and I continue our
discussion.” He cracked his knuckles
ominously.
The clerk swallowed visibly and made an obvious effort
to master his passion. “Most kind of
you, sir. Yes.”
“Yes,” the elf-woman piped up, favouring the towering
human with a smile that he felt all the way to the tips of his toes. “Most
kind, Excellency.”
“Think nothing of it, madam,” the priest said
politely. “I’m happy to wait.”
The elf-woman approached the table, and the clerk – as
if someone had wound him back up and set him back at the beginning of his track
– clasped his hands before his breath, inhaled sharply, and smiled. “And what, madam,” he said with a liberal
application of unction, “can Domus
Smaragdus do for you today?”
She replied, “I’m also interested in diamonds.”
“Excellent!” the fellow beamed, shooting the priest an
unfriendly glance. “A necklace perhaps,
or a choker? Earrings? Anklets? A tiara, for those lovely
locks? Or if you’re interested in –”
She didn’t wait for him to finish. Without expression, the elf-woman drew a
small, brilliantly-embroidered purse from beneath her chemise, unfastened the
latch, and upended it over the table. A
flood of coins spilled out of it…and kept spilling, and spilling, and spilling,
piling up into a heap, rolling off the table, and rattling noisily onto the floor.
The clerk stood stiffly still, his smile frozen onto
his face like a rictus. Within a moment,
he was standing in an ankle-deep pile of brilliant, golden cash.
When the last coin dropped out of the purse, the woman
gave it a shake to ensure that it was empty.
“There!” she exclaimed happily.
“Five thousand aureae, give or
take. That’s how many diamonds I want.”
Then she turned to the priest and winked.
Father Shields thought that the clerk’s descent into
spittle-flecked apoplexy was quite possibly one of the most satisfying things
he’d ever seen.
♦♦♦
“Is she still out there?” the maid
asked.
“Mmm,” the butler nodded. “Hasn’t moved in hours.”
They watched, mesmerized for a long
moment. “What’s she doing?” the maid
exclaimed at last.
She
had found it…found it, at long last. The
centre. The point of balance. The fulcrum upon which all of it, all things,
rested. The balance was unfixed, but
firm, stable; the limbs of the scale were long, but the weights resting upon
them were immense and eternal. Good, and
evil; kindness, and cruelty; love, and hatred; understanding, and condemnation;
compassion, and distrust; light, and dark.
The universe itself was the arm, and the weights at its opposing ends
bent it in the centre. It, too, was
eternal, or intended to be so; and unchanging, or intended to be so. Except that it was not. It was not.
She
could see it all. She HAD seen it all –
all of the vast boundlessness of creation that she had surveyed over the course
of six ages of existence, all of the endless starry skies, the outer realms,
the inner worlds, the Lantern and the Lamps, the mountains and the skies and
the seas, and all of the myriad things that dwelt within them. All of creation, everything she had ever
known, lay at her fingertips. And amid
all of it, everything that had ever been or ever would be, there was only one
truth, one fixed point, one eternal certainty, one pillar that upheld it all,
the pilaster, the bastion, the sole support of the fundamental order and the
Law…
It
was Life. She knew that, now; knew it at
long last, with a certainty cemented into promise by the new blood that flowed,
hot and vital, in her veins. The thing
that she had sought throughout all the interminable years of her damnation had
been right before her eyes all the time.
Life; mortal life. But not the
life contained in the blood; no, that was important, vital, but it was too
brash and ephemeral a thing. It was not
life that mattered, but Life – the vast, throbbing undercurrent of the
Universe, the force that Anā and Ūru had unleashed at the Making, and that Bræa
and Bardan had bent and shaped into the denizens, a thousand times a thousand
times a thousand again, that peopled their boundless creation. Life itself was the fulcrum, the point upon
which the Universe rested and rocked, endlessly and imperceptibly, between the
Dark and the Light.
And
the expression of that endless river
of Life, its tangible extrusion into
the world physical, was the thing that Breygon had spoken of: Kesatuan. The Unity of All. She had felt it, burning within all of them –
deeply buried in some, and closer to the surface in others. In her former shapes, either of them, she
hadn’t been able to sense it at all, and now she knew why. She hadn’t been alive. Life, to be Life, had to be capable of
ending. What she had known, both as a
servant of heaven and a slave of the darkness, was something else; something
eternal, artificial, as different from the men and women she had met over the
past few days as the clockwork things that they built.
The Minions
of the Powers – the angels and archons and eladrins, the demons and daemons and
devils – they were part of the Universe itself.
Things, not beings. Extrusions of
the stuff of the Making, animate perhaps, but not individuals. Their eternal servitude was not a command of
their makers, but a consequence of their making. For Bræa and Bardan, who had formed them,
were themselves extrusions of that selfsame Universe. They did not touch kesatuan, either; did not
partake of it, and could not affect it, for good or for ill.
Only
mortals could do that. Only mortals who
had tasted the divine gift of freedom, whose sielii had been crafted with the
stuff of the Unmade world beyond the Walls.
That freedom, that Life, was what had created kesatuan. The Unity, she understood at last, was not a
thing of the Universe, that mortals could touch; it was a thing created by
mortals themselves, all unwittingly, that had become an inalienable part of the
World Made. The Powers had created the
Light, and the Darkness; but their mortal offspring had created the fulcrum
between them. That was the secret that
she had long sought, and found, now that she was one of them.
Without
opening her eyes, she opened her senses, and the beauty and glory of the world
flooded in. The mingled odours of winter
flowed over her like a tsunami. Trees,
sleeping and slowly waking, blessed her with the tingling savour of new-formed buds. Flower-bulbs, resting warm and comfortable
beneath the earth, quivered with anticipation at the impending return of
spring. A hedgehog, burrowed beneath a
nearby juniper, was watching her with nervous anticipation; and without
thinking, she reached out with a tendril of thought, and soothed its jangling
nerves. And, for good measure, showed it
where a fat, juicy earthworm was hiding.
The
opening of her spirit made her aware of the consequences of mortal
existence. Her knees ached, and stones
fixed in the cold earth pressed dents into her buttocks. Her neck was stiff from long inactivity; and
she could feel cold rivulets of water trickling from her matted hair, down her
spine, puddling beneath her. She was
aware of all of these sensations, but only in the most abstract sense, through
her connection to kesatuan.
She
was hungry, too, and thirsty, and beset by baser needs; but she now knew what
to do about them. Throwing the gates of
her spirit open a little wider, she allowed the force and might of the Unity to
flow into her, through her; bringing her nourishment, body and soul, and
washing away hunger and thirst and bodily urges. The soothing embrace of kesatuan cured all
ills. For sport, she even stopped
breathing, and let the breath of the Unity sustain her. She only began again when she realized that
she missed the tentative, delightful scents of the world around her.
Her
newfound understanding both calmed and exalted her. It was, she understood at last, a new and
untried way, for her at least, of seeing the world. It could serve her needs, and she could in
turn serve its needs – perfect service, Life for Life, as the Balance
demanded. She could draw strength from
it, and it would protect and sustain her.
She would need no other support, no other guardian, no other sustenance,
no other weapon.
She
was – would be, forevermore – Life. And
the Life that she served, the eternal, unbending balance between the Light and
the Darkness, would lift her up, and guide her, until at last she stood at the
Asurshikara, with her beloved Cielagan at her side, craving pardon of their
divine mistress, and begging leave to live a normal life ever after, at one
with each other, and with the transcendent, evanescent glory of the green.
At
least...until it all ended. For could
kesatuan survive the failure of the Walls and the End in Fire?
She
didn’t think so.
“I think she’s sleeping,” the butler
replied. “The Lady said not to disturb
her.”
“But it’s snowing!” the maid
objected.
“Throw a blanket over her, then, if
you like,” the man shrugged. He turned
and disappeared inside the house.
The maid, vacillating and nervous,
stared at the azure-skinned apparition for a while longer. Then she, too, turned and fled inside the
house.
Lööspelian didn’t notice. The eyes of her spirit were turned inwards,
and fixed, firm and fast, on a whole other world.
♦♦♦
“I am sorry,” Shaivaun said
firmly. “It is not that I cannot; it is that I will not.”
“But I don’t understand!” Amorda
cried. “You were more than willing to succour my friends last night! You were happy
to take my money then! Why won’t you do
this for me?”
“It is you who does not understand, my friend,” the priestess said, an
unpleasant glint in her eye. “And I do
not appreciate your raising such pecuniary complaints with me in my own
temple.
“It is not,” she said firmly, “a
question of money. I am simply
unwilling.”
“But why?” Amorda wailed.
The two women were standing in one
of the dozen side-chapels of the Grand Temple of Istravenya. The rebuilt structure was nearly complete;
the last stones had been added to the vaults of the roof, and the glaziers were
busily installing the elaborate windows of stained glass set into lead, a
recent gnomish innovation that clerics throughout Erutrei were enthusiastically
adopting for their houses of worship. They were standing on opposite sides of a
sarcophagus; above it, suspended from a silver rod, an enormous tapestry of
snow-white wool marked with a stylized black tree – the sigil of the Fax Albus
– hung from the wall. Amorda didn’t know
whose crypt it was; but as the stone was cracked and blackened in places,
presumably it predated the dreadful conflagration that had gutted the place a
five-year since.
She had come dressed for worship, in
a conservative gown of dark red silk, with her customary winter cloak over
all. Shaivaun, by contrast, was attired
in the full regalia of her profession, a plain sheathe of white samite overlain
by a black chasuble bearing the Tree in silver thread. Her hair, normally loose and curly, had been
scrooped back into a severe tail, and was woven about with ivy worked into a
coronet, and trailed over her shoulders to sweep the floor. Amorda thought that her friend looked at once
both regal and desirable. But she wasn’t
feeling particularly friendly towards the priestess at that moment.
“Why?” Shaivaun snapped. “You have stood before me on Sîan Varra a
hundred times. Have you never listened
to my words, lady? I am a servant of the
White Fire, the guardian of the green.
She is life itself, a flame vital and unquenchable, like a conflagration
that obliterates all who stand against her.
But even in her eyes, as with life and fire both, when the ending comes,
it must be accepted.
“When there is no more fuel to burn,” she intoned
harshly, “the fire ends; and when the well of being has run dry, life ceases,
and the spirit returns to kesatuan,
and the flesh to the green. This is the
way of the world, Amorda, amica mea. The end of life is natural; joyful, even, for
it makes way for new life. To wrench flesh back from the bosom of the
earth, and to tear a spirit away from the all-encompassing unity of kesatuan...these are terrible, terrible
crimes!”
“You’re the only church that thinks so,” Amorda
snapped. “Hara’s priests, and those of
the Protector, are more than happy to return our loved ones to us, if they
can.”
Shaivaun’s face grew stony. “My colleagues serve different ends than I,”
she said coldly. “They may interpret
their responsibilities to the green as they see fit.
“And in any case,” she added with some asperity, “you
did not ask them, you asked me.
And I have answered. Please do
not raise the matter again.”
Amorda fumbled in her purse. “Look,” she said, sounding desperate. “Look.
I have…I have these…” She produced a handful of jewellery –
necklaces, bracelets, rings, anklets, long chains and short, of silver and gold
and platinum and mithral, all festooned with precious gems.
“It’s a fortune,” she moaned. “A duke’s ransom. Shaivaun, I beg you…please…”
Contemptuously, the priestess slapped the proffered gauds
aside. Untold wealth clattered and
skittered across the flagstones. “You
cannot bribe the White Fire,” she said coldly.
“No matter what you offer, I will not do what you ask. Not for you.
Not for anyone.”
Amorda froze in disbelief at the
priestess’s sudden violence. “Is that
your final answer?” she gasped.
“It is.”
“You’ll forgive me, then,” the noblewoman grated, “if
I select another faith to celebrate my nuptials!”
“That,” Shaivaun replied, her eyes glittering, “is
your prerogative. Of course.”
Amorda, quivering with rage, knelt and gathered up the
scattered baubles. She would’ve
preferred to have stomped angrily out of the temple, but she wasn’t fool enough
to abandon tens of thousands of aureae
worth of jewellery simply to make a point.
Shaivaun watched her without expression.
Amorda straightened up again, jamming the last of the
rings into her purse. “You’ll regret it,
you know,” she spat, her rage and disappointment getting the better of her at
last. “My sponsa will be most displeased.”
“I believe,” the priestess said, thin-lipped, “that I
can bear the displeasure of your little pet nemonothus.”
The noblewoman’s face went white. “How dare
you?” Amorda shrieked. “You have no idea who he is!”
“Nor do I care,” Shaivaun replied haughtily. “Not in the least. Farewell, your Ladyship,” she added with a
bow.
Amorda’s fist clenched involuntarily. With a supreme effort, she mastered her ire
and returned the priestess’s bow.
“Farewell, servant of Istravenya.”
Canicula celsa, she didn’t
say.
Then she spun in place and, heels clicking on the
new-laid flagstones, stomped out of the temple.
Nemonothus. A hybrid.
A mongrel. An illegitimate
nobody. A bastard outcast.
How dare she?!
Shaivaun, her expression coldly dispassionate, watched
the furious baroness go, her dark, brooding eyes twinkling with interest at
Amorda’s parting words.
♦♦♦
Myaszæron lifted her skirts and
walked carefully up the steps to the great wooden doors. The gown was a trial, but a necessary
one. One of the first things she’d had
to do upon arriving back at the palace, and being welcomed embarrassingly home
by the brazen trumpeting of the Great Wardens, was to move back into her old
quarters in Arx Magnificus, the royal residence. She’d immediately stowed her bow, dropped her
mail off with the Master Smithcrafter for a thorough going-over, and leaned her
beloved courtblade against the wall behind her sitting-room door. Her well-worn travelling leathers and cloak
went into one closet, and after bathing thoroughly and calling for her maid – a
previously unknown girl named Karalenya that her uncle Landioryn had sent over
from Lily House, along with a case of fresh fruit, another of wine,
multitudinous expressions of love and welcome, and a demand for news of Eldisle
– to brush and braid her hair, she’d begun pawing through her wardrobe for
something suitably feminine and elaborate to wear. Her grandmother tolerated her choice of
profession, but invariably demanded that she shelve her linen and leather, and
dress to suit her rank whenever she appeared at court.
That appearance had just taken place
in the Presence Chamber of the Sancalidor,
and it had been as harrowing as she’d expected it to be. The instant it was over, the princess,
flushed, sweating, and still trembling, had stumbled out of Tîor’s ancient
palace, directing her steps towards the first refuge she could think of: the Sanctum Defensor, the modest temple to
Larranel Sylvanus that stood just to
the north, between the Sancalidor and
the Palace Gate.
Myaszæron had always felt more at
home there than at any of the other temples in the city – even, it shamed her
to admit, her own principal chapter, the Grand Temple of Istravenya at the Lucum Spaðacódru. She had been coming to Larranel’s house, as
she thought of it, since she was a little girl, and the grim walls of grey
stone seemed somehow more welcoming than the bright, brilliant whites and golds
of the cathedral of Hara Sophus. She could see the newer church across the
great gardens of the palace, a few hundred paces away. There was no doubting its magnificence; but
it always felt colder to her, more austere (despite its incalculably rich
construction and decorations), and less like a house of worship and
contemplation than a brash and tasteless display of wealth.
Stepping carefully, she worked her
way up the narrow stairs. She wasn’t
dressed for a late-night excursion; in an attempt to placate her royal
grandmother, she’d donned a stunning gown of white satin oversewn with
interwoven flowers and gryphons in scarlet and gold. The design left her shoulders entirely bare,
making her feel exposed and half-naked, uncomfortable sensations for someone
whose day-to-day attire generally included a mail coif. She’d chosen the gown less for its
magnificence, though, than for the fact that it allowed her to wear a tiara
supporting an elaborate veil and wimple – the purpose of which was to conceal
the fact that her hair was now noticeably and irrevocably returning to
black. She’d come to terms with her
loss, or at least she thought she had; but she wanted to put off questions for
as long as possible.
She’d debated whether to openly wear
her sash, the emerald-green virga
laetitia that symbolized her plea to Hutanibu for children, but in the end
had decided that it would be a deliberate and unnecessary provocation. As a compromise, she’d tied it around her
slender waist, under the ribbing of her gown and snug against her skin…just
(she remembered with a smile) as she’d done for Kaltas on their wedding
night. High shoes of gold-filigreed
satin, and a long, narrow dagger in a gilt and ruby-studded scabbard completed
the costume. The members of the court,
when she’d appeared before them, had been suitably impressed; she’d caught many
a bold fellow eyeing her like a wolf eyeing a fawn. But there’d been no visible sign that her
efforts had placated her grandmother; the Queen’s face and voice had been cold,
damning and terrible.
At the top of the stairs, she lifted
the latch and pushed. The heavy oak
door, pitted and stained by countless years, swung easily inwards, creaking a
little as it reached the end of its swing, just as she remembered. Tip-toeing into the long nave, she shut and
latched the door behind her. At the
font, she dipped her fingers in the blessed spring-water, touching first her
lips, then her opposite hand, and then her heart, and then shaking the
remaining drops onto the well-worn flagstones.
The temple was dark; night had
fallen, and no services were scheduled for the evening. The only light came from the votive candles
nearby, and from the lamp that hung above the High Altar at the far end of the
temple. Myaszæron wasn’t going that way,
though; her destination was elsewhere.
She stepped to the memento mori,
where the relatives of departed supplicants left notes and memories and
offerings, and, with a deft twist, pulled a heavy beeswax candle out of its
sconce. She lit this at one of the many
lamps, then set off down the nave.
Her heels clacked mercilessly
against the stone. Rolling her eyes, she
paused and eased her costly and uncomfortable shoes off one by one. Carrying them in one hand and the candle in
the other, she continued on. Half-way to
the sanctum, a pair of massive pillars, columns of rough-cut granite, rose from
floor to ceiling. Just beyond them, a
narrow stair descended through the flagstones.
Wincing a little at the chill of winter emanating from the rock beneath
her bare toes, the princess descended the stairs.
Her grandmother had been busy with
affairs of state when she’d called at the Sancalidor. Myaszæron was used to seeing the Queen
surrounded by teeming throngs of nobles and bureaucrats, but not at
supper-hour; Ælyndarka had a strict rule, enforced by decree, that business had
to stop for meals, at least twice a day, at noon and at dusk. When the food came in, all talk of politics
ceased, on pain of the offender bearing the brunt of a royal tongue-lashing. The instant the butlers and maids entered
with the evening’s repast, the assembled company knew, too, whether Her Serene
Majesty intended to keep working after dark.
The lack of wine always told the tale.
Tea with supper was a blunt message to the royal councillors and staff
that there would be little or no trancing that night.
When Myaszæron had announced herself
to the junior chamberlains standing outside the Presence Chamber doors, she’d
been admitted at once, without announcement or demur. That made her nervous; obviously, she was
expected. Gathering her courage and her
skirts, the former to enable her to enter, and the latter to avoid an
ignominious tumble as she did so, she’d marched into the towering, domed hall,
her head held high.
The room had been set up for work,
not audiences, and as a consequence, she found herself striding into the open
end of a vast, U-shaped collection of heavy tables. In addition to the usual dozen or so
swordsmen of the High Guard and the customary two- or three-score Ancillulae glittering silently behind
the throne, Myaszæron counted at least twenty soldiers, twice as many
miscellaneous noblemen and women, and at least a hundred scuttling
bureaucrats. She recognized a few faces
among the crowd; Andrasa, Kalestayne’s adjutant, the wizard that everyone
called ‘the Traveler’ – she was there.
So too were her old friends, the generals Harrekal and Lalani.
She searched the faces of the mob of handmaidens,
wondering whether Szyelekkan was there, but she didn’t notice the young
Countess’s distinctive hair among the sea of midnight tresses. She did, however, catch sight of one of her
friends – Ara Latentra, a girl with hair of purest gold, a product of a Third
House father and a Second House mother, with a quick wit and a disposition
wrought of absolute sunshine. The two
were of an age, and although Ara was a typical (and to the princess’ mind,
typically brainless) scion of the over-privileged nobility, she was so
wonderfully pleasant that the two had become fast friends over the last few
years. When she saw the princess staring
at her, Ara waved happily, and Myaszæron decided to risk a smile. The smile widened to a grin when Ara held up
a hand, pointing to her ring-finger, then applauded silently and jumped up and
down in place with undisguised glee.
The thought that at least someone was happy for her
made Mya feel a little better.
Her grandmother, she was unsurprised
to see, did not share Ara’s enthusiasm.
Myaszæron strode towards the central spot at the bottom of the ‘U’,
halted the requisite ten paces away, bowed, made as if to draw her sword,
remembered belatedly that she was not under arms, drew her dagger, put it back,
and then, for good measure, curtseyed.
The Queen watched her
granddaughter’s gyrations for a long moment before speaking. At last, she said, “The Wardens tolled their
call an hour before noon. What stayed
thee, princess of the Realm?” It was a
formal performance, and both women knew it.
The Queen spoke in tones that carried throughout the vast chamber. It helped that the entire assembled company
had fallen silent the instant Myaszæron had halted.
Mya dropped her eyes. “Esteemed grandmother,” she said in similarly
portentous tones, “I stayed only to make myself presentable for you. I am new-come from Eldisle, and the task that
you assigned me, with news of gravest import.”
“Hast thou, then, abandoned the task
I set thee, granddaughter?” the Queen asked.
“By what right and authority dost thou dare to set down that which I
commanded thee to take up?”
Myaszæron took a deep, steadying
breath. Was she truly that angry? She decided to grasp the nettle. “Your Majesty,” she replied, “the task you
set me is done. Kaltas of Eldisle is
innocent of the charges levied against him.
“Furthermore,” she added as a collective gasp went up
from the assembled company, “his daughter, the lady Allymynorkarel, is innocent
of the crimes of which you accused her.
I have been privy to proof that she acted honourably in all
circumstances; and, in the place and manner in which she fell, brought great
credit to her father, her House, your Throne, and the Realm.”
The Queen, wisely, waited for the shouts and muttering
that erupted in response to those words.
When she adjudged that the rumbling had gone on long enough, she cast a
frigid gaze around the room, and silence descended like a shroud.
She stared coldly at the princess. “Hast thou forgotten, granddaughter,” she
said harshly, “that grace and mercy doth lie within my hand, not thine? It is not thy place to decide when thy task
is done. It is the Crown, recreant girl,
that levies proscription, and the Crown alone that lifts it.”
Myaszæron could say nothing to that; she could only
bow.
The Queen was silent for a long moment. At last, she said, “I will examine thine
evidence, when time is convenient. For
the nonce, thou’rt confined to the Palace, and will attend upon me, at mine own
good pleasure.”
That gave Myaszæron the opening that she had hoped
for. “I beg pardon, esteemed
grandmother,” she said loudly, “but I must refuse this decree. My service is no longer thine to command.”
The Queen’s eyes bulged. “Bend and obey, I abjure thee! Thou’rt daughter to House Æyillian, and a
servant of the Throne!”
“No longer.”
Myaszæron drew herself up to her full height. “I am Duchess of Eldisle,” she said
ringingly, “and by Dîor’s Law, servant first to my lord, my lifemate, and my
love, Duke Kaltas Aiyellohax, thy most loyal subject!”
Things had gone rapidly downhill from there.
At the base of the stairs, Myaszæron ducked her head,
stooping to avoid cracking her skull on the low archway that led into the
crypts. A few paces beyond, another set
of steps led down. She followed the long
corridor, passing cobweb-strewn sarcophagi of stone to the left and right. This section of the crypts was old, old; it
dated from the Age of Wisdom, before the Darkness. The foundation stones of this temple had been
laid in Yarchian’s day, after Mærglyn Kin-Slayer and her shadowed minions had
been defeated and banished to the Deepdark.
There were true heroes interred here, heroes who had
fallen at the Gloaming, or in the long darkness. Somewhere, here in the darkness, there was a
shrine bearing the skulls of Fineleor Orkarel and his archer-lifemate, Anja
Antaíssin; and here, too, the bones of Arngrim the Elflord lay entombed in
glory. Yardîor, Dîor’s son, and War
Chief and bearer of the Alurenqua
after his father, was here, too. The
Realm was drenched in incarnadine history, and much of it had gathered in this
place.
As a girl, Myaszæron had spent countless hours
wandering among the tombs, running her fingers over the time-worn inscriptions,
reading the dates and the names, and then hurrying back to her grandmother’s
library to discover what they meant. It
was one of the reasons that she had come to love the dark and brooding
place. Hara’s cathedral, as new and
bright and glorious as it might be, couldn’t hold a candle to the Protector’s
house. The newer church boasted no such
cargo of glory, or wonder, or...or time.
The other reason she came wasn’t far away. Mya knew the route. Innumerable twists and turns through the
bowels of the temple led her, at last, to the newest section of the crypts; a
more recent delve, wrought by magic, with stone worried gently away to make
room for those who had latterly gone to wind.
The last few paces she took led her towards a glimmering, golden
light. Rounding a corner, she entered a
low chamber, only four paces on a side, with a roof that arched only a few feet
over her head. Against the far wall, a
low table of carved wood served as an altar.
It was decorated only with a woven cloth of green and gold, bearing the
Dragon Rampant of House Æyllian. The
flickering light came from a small statuette, a flame worked in golden glass
that stretched about a foot high, and that sat atop the altar.
The room also contained two sarcophagi; one against
the wall on the left, and one on the right.
The princess frowned.
All of those things she had expected.
But there were two that she had not.
Atop the altar, there was a wilting flower – a chrysanthemum, the Floregalis of the Royal House. And atop the right-hand sarcophagus, there
was a small spray of old, brown oak leaves and a handful of acorns. And two small, nubbly pine cones.
The
Protector’s sigil, she thought. Not
surprising here, I suppose.
Myaszæron stooped to enter the chamber. Her feet were freezing, so she stooped and
put her shoes on again. Then she put her
fingers to her lips, and touched them briefly first to the left casket, and
then to the right. “Hello, father,” she
whispered. “And hello, my dear sister.”
Hitching up her skirt to keep from sullying the
priceless material, she knelt on the rough stone before the altar. Pebbles pressed into her bare knees, but she
didn’t mind. She had knelt here
countless scores of times before.
Where to
begin?
She wiped sudden tears from her eyes. “Well,” she said with a small, sad
laugh. “I got married.
“I’m sorry you missed it,” she went
on, talking softly to the empty air.
“You’d like him, I think. He’s
not an artist, like you, father; he’s a warrior, a knight and a commander. But he’s like you in some ways. He has poetry, such poetry, in his
heart.” She smiled. “I loved him the instant I laid eyes on him.
“You’d like him, too, Szelly,” she
added with a chuckle. Tears fell
unnoticed from her eyes now, running down her face and spattering on the altar
cloth. “I remember what you…what you
told me, about how your man made you feel.
Your…human man. It’s like that
with Kaltas. From the first word that
fell from his lips, I was his. When he
speaks to me, it’s like…it’s like a fire in my soul. He’s the most wondrous…”
Her voice trailed off. She found that she was clenching her fists,
and forced herself to relax.
“Grandmother is…is upset,” she went on in a whisper. “You both know what that can be like. You see, Kaltas…he was under
proscription. He couldn’t ask for my
hand, but…but I wed him anyway. She’s so angry. She might disinherit me.
“And…and he’s coming here now. I think…I think
there’s going to be war. I’m so afraid,
Szelly.” She sighed. “Not for myself; you know I don’t fear
battle. I’m afraid I’m going to lose
him. Before…before…”
There was a scraping sound behind her. “You won’t lose him,” a voice said
softly. “Not if I can help it.”
Myaszæron whirled in place, reaching for the hilt of
her dagger, and wincing as the stones of the floor cut into her knees. An instant later she had fallen flat, her
palms and forehead pressed against the floor.
The Queen ducked her head and stepped into the tiny
chamber. “Oh, get up,” she snapped. “There’s not enough room in here for a proper
prostration anyway.”
The princess straightened up, still kneeling. “Your Majesty,” she said, alarmed, “I’m
so…I’m sorry, about…about…”
“Shut up, Mya,” Ælyndarka sighed. “We both know you’re not sorry.” She grinned suddenly. “I wouldn’t be sorry either, if I had managed
to rope a stallion like Kaltas, and had him pawing around in my pasture.”
Myaszæron flushed a hot, furious pink.
The Queen put a hand gentle hand on her head. “I’m not angry with you, you idiot. Or at least, not for the reasons you
think.” She held out a hand, and when
the princess took it, she tugged the girl to her feet and swept her into a
fierce hug.
Myaszæron froze in shock, stunned both by the gesture
and by the surrealism of the experience.
She was at least three fingers taller than her grandmother, and the
different in their respective heights was exacerbated by the fact that the
princess was wearing heeled shoes, while the Queen, beneath her strictly utilitarian
gown, was wearing low, soft boots.
“Gods, you’re enormous!” Ælyndarka exclaimed. She stepped back and looked her granddaughter
up and down. She cast a wary eye at the
girl’s waistline. “Pregnant yet?”
The princess flushed.
“No,” she confessed. “At least, I
don’t think so.”
“Well, get on with it,” the older woman said
brusquely. “If you’re right and there’s
war coming, our House is going to need all the heirs it can get.”
“I belong to Kaltas’ House now, Majesty,” Myaszæron
reminded her. “And so will my heirs.”
The Queen shot the girl a narrow glance. “Are you trying to explain the Codex to me,
girl?”
“Necat!”
Myaszæron exclaimed. “Gods, no!” The Queen had a formidable reputation as a
legal scholar.
“Good,” Ælyndarka grunted. “Force my hand and I’ll simply wait until
you’ve whelped, and then adopt Kaltas under section nine-oh-nine. As mine is the senior House, he’ll take my
name and his heirs will become my heirs, and House Aiyellohax will cease to exist. Problem solved.”
“You wouldn’t!” Mya gasped.
“Would I not?
Of course,” the Queen went on with a frown, “if you push me to that extremity, I’d also have to order
you divorced.”
“What?” the princess squeaked. “You can’t!
We swore the Votum Magnus!”
“Doesn’t matter.
If I adopt Kaltas, he’ll be your uncle,” the Queen shrugged. “Section two-sixteen is very explicit in its
prohibitions against consanguinity. The
punishments for mating with a relative in the first degree are quite severe.”
“But...but..he’s not my cousin!” Mya stammered. “That’s...it’s nonsense!”
“Section two-sixteen doesn’t discriminate between
cousins by blood and cousins by adoption,” the Queen reminded her with a
shrug. “I don’t make the law, child; I
just enforce it. However I see fit.” Her eyes took on a steely sheen. “Or I don’t. It’s your choice.”
Myaszæron goggled at her grandmother. Her eyes filled again, and her hands began to
shake.
The Queen let it go for a long moment. “Problem?” she asked at last.
“You…you can’t…”
“As I just explained, I can,” the Queen snapped. “Of course, if you and your husband would
take a moment and think a little – maybe using what’s between your ears instead
of what’s between your legs – then I wouldn’t have to shake the Codex at you
like a deranged barrister. Do you think
you can do that for me? Use your head,
for once?”
The princess choked on the first words out of her
mouth. At last, though, she was able to
whisper, “Yes, your Majesty. I think...I
think I can.”
“Excellent. Now
that we’ve got that out of the way…” She
grinned, pulled the girl’s face down to her own, and planted a loud kiss on
each of her cheeks. “Congratulations,
dear. I’ve said a hundred times that
he’s the best man in the land, and now he’s ours! You brought him in for me! I couldn’t be happier for the Realm. Or for you.
“Although,” she added sadly, “you might have had the courtesy to invite me to the wedding!”
“He was…was under proscription,” Myaszæron muttered,
stunned beyond the capacity for rational thought by the Queen’s sudden change
of mood. “And besides, things…things
moved a little fast.”
“Couldn’t wait to get to the coniugum, eh?” Ælyndarka grinned.
The princess flushed to the roots of her hair.
“Can’t say as I blame you, girl,” the older woman went
on. “You had three centuries of yearning
walled up in there. Not many are strong
enough to take Valatanna’s Vow. I could
never have done it.” She took the girl’s
hand in her own, turned it palm up, and placed something in it.
“That’s for you,” she explained unnecessarily.
Myaszæron examined the object. It was a necklace of heavy silver, broad and
thick, with a pattern like interwoven thongs.
At each intersection, an emerald sparkled, set amid a nest of tiny
diamonds. It felt like it weighed at
least a pound, maybe more.
“Gods, it’s beautiful!” the girl breathed. “Grandmother, I…I can’t…”
“You damned-well can,” the Queen growled. “Your grandfather gave me that the night he
took my maidenhead. It’s an heirloom of
his house, that’d been in his family since before the Darkness.”
The princess regarded the glorious bauble
soberly. “May I ask a question,
grandmother?”
“Of course.”
The girl blinked, wondering how to put her query
without causing offence. “It’s said,”
she began slowly, “that you…you wed Duke Percorian for…for political reasons.”
“That’s not a question,” the Queen replied blandly.
Myaszæron smiled wanly. “Is it true?”
“Yes,” Ælyndarka replied firmly. “So what?”
“ ‘So wh...’?” Mya stammered. “But...if it was for...didn’t you...”
“Yes, of course I loved him,” the Queen said
impatiently. “More than life
itself. I would gladly have departed the
earth, instead of him.”
“Oh,” the girl said.
Her voice was very small.
“That’s…that’s good.”
“Yes, it is,” Ælyndarka said soberly. “Mya, you’re making the mistake I almost
made. Mixing love and politics. The two aren’t connected. Not at all.
Percorian and I...we did what…what we did, because it was
necessary. It was the best thing for the
Realm.” She smiled. “It just happened to also be the best thing
for us.”
“Did you…or he…really kill his brothers?”
“There was no other alternative,” she murmured. “They were bent on rebellion, dear. I had to choose between a little blood then,
or a deluge later on. That’s a lesson
that I hope you, and your lifemate, will take to heart.
“But that…that decision…” she sighed. “It was politics, too. It had nothing to do with us.
It never touched us.” She frowned suddenly. “Although it spared me the ignominy of having
to even consider a vow trimaritus
with those two idiots.”
“And you only had him for a score of years,” the girl
said, her thoughts still on her grandfather, then man who had died centuries
before her own birth. “And you’ve been
alone ever since. It makes my heart ache
to think of it!”
“In those twenty years, child, we loved a lifetime,”
the Queen smiled. “I’ll never forget him. And no matter how I choose to fill my time,
or my bed, I could never, ever
replace him.
“When I think of him,” she said wistfully, “I think of
a time before…” she made a futile, fumbling gesture, as if trying to indicate
the full, massive weight of her responsibilities. “Before all of this. When it was just…just
us. Just Perky and Ella, romping around
the Realm, getting into trouble, and causing my brother Callaýian no end of
worry.”
Myaszæron laughed aloud at that. “I have a hard time, your Majesty,” she
giggled, “thinking of you and my grandfather, His Grace Duke Percorian
Perfidelis, as ‘Perky and Ella’!”
“I know,” the Queen shrugged. “But those pet-names mean more to me than all
the titles I have to trip over every time I get up to void my bowels.” She patted the princess gently on the
cheek. “You’re more than your office, dear.
We all are. We have to be. You need to understand that, and make sure
that your man understands it, too.
“That’s the secret to ruling, and retaining your
sanity. Do what you must…but remember who and what you are.”
Her eyes – the glorious, amber eyes that were the
hallmark of her beauty – took on a distant cast. “I’ve never
forgotten what Percorian was,” she murmured.
“And whatever befalls you” she added, turning back to
Mya and speaking in an intense whisper, “remember this: take the time to live.
Take the time to love. Life without love, child, is nothing but a
waste.”
Myaszæron nodded wordlessly. Tears were sparkling in
her eyes as she remembered how much she had always adored her beautiful,
blunt-spoken, terrifying grandmother.
“Now, enough horse-muck,” the Queen said brusquely,
taking a seat on the altar table and patting the spot beside her. “Time to unfold, dear. Tell me…what, exactly, are you and my
deranged grandson-in-law up to?”
♦♦♦
