Beltain did not have time to be properly surprised by the temerity of the woman, when the Infanta herself stepped forward, and pronounced, gathering air into her lungs so that her voice came out clear and strong: “I am Claere Liguon, Grand Princess of the Realm and its environs, and I seek the hospitality of the Royal House of Lethe.”
The severe man with the grizzled temples was the Crown Prince Roland Osenni of Lethe, and the woman seated next to him, holding a book, was the Princess Lucia.
At the sight of the Emperor’s daughter, wearing her poor servant’s disguise, with her thin ashen hair lying in matted wisps on her shoulders, with her pale and bloodless skin, but holding herself up as a proper Royal, there was no doubt as to who she was. Prince Roland hastily got up from behind the desk. He gestured to his advisor to move aside and walked toward her, taking the Infanta’s hands into both of his own, regardless of Royal or Imperial protocol.
“My dear child! Your Imperial Highness, you are most welcome here! But oh, what has happened to you? What abysmal horror! We have heard everything, and Lucia and I are both grief-stricken at your plight!” The Prince’s voice was painfully emotional, and his countenance was weary with chronic grief.
Princess Lucia had dropped her book and was up also, coming forward to reach out with her hands for the Infanta, with a similar grave and exhausted look on her face. But something made her pause at the last instant, just before actually touching the dead girl’s grey, ice-cold fingers. “Dearest Claere,” she said gently, instead of touching. “Welcome indeed! Anything that you might wish for is yours. Lethe is at your disposal, and surely, a change of more suitable attire might be in order—Oh, I remember you as a much younger girl, the last time I saw you—has it really been five years ago? But oh, you likely don’t remember any of it now, for we had all been at the Silver Court at such a busy time, and the Silver Hall was filled with so much other Royalty—”
“Princess Lucia, I do remember you,” Claere replied. “You were so kind to me even then, and I remember your gift of the windup tumbling monkey. I still have the toy in my bedchamber—that is—” and here the Infanta’s voice became more stilted, laborious, as she pulled in the air for the shaping of each word. “That is, I had the toy in the chamber that had been mine while I was still . . . alive.”
“Oh, dearest child! What a tragedy, and oh that the villain who did this to you were to suffer a thousandfold for what he had done! He ought to be put to death—but, oh, what am I saying, of course, it is not possible now—now that no one can die—no one—” The Princess grew silent, and her lower lip started trembling.
While she had been speaking thus, Vlau Fiomarre, standing at the back, had grown impossibly still, and his expression was more lifeless than that of the dead Infanta.
Claere’s great smoke-hued eyes, sunken in their deep hollows, however, had a momentary transcendent, almost joyful spark in them. “Oh, but he is not a villain, he who struck me down,” she said unexpectedly.
And then the Infanta turned around and for the first time in days, it seemed, looked directly and openly at Vlau Fiomarre—looked at him with an intense all-seeing perusal that cut deep, far deeper than the skin, or even the heart—with a sight of wisdom and serene acceptance. “The Marquis Fiomarre has been wronged terribly, in what I believe is a misfortunate set of circumstances. In trying to revenge his family, he merely followed the true calling of his conscience. He is my companion now, and I have long forgotten what it is like to be without him at my side.”
With a fragile smile, strange and impossible, she came up to him and took Vlau by the arm. Holding him thus, all the while looking up at his face, she led him a few steps forward, while everyone stared in dark unbelieving wonder.
“Please accept this man as my companion,” she spoke to the room at large.
And feeling that shocking touch of her cold, faerie, lifeless fingers upon his arm, Vlau Fiomarre trembled with an emotion for which there were no words.
“What? You!” said the Prince of Lethe, training his thunderous gaze at the marquis. “Why, you are the one who did this foul, treacherous deed? And you dare show up here, at Her Imperial Highness’s side?”
For his part, Lord Beltain Chidair stared at Fiomarre, hard and stricken. “I was not aware—” he began.
But the Infanta raised her arm and stopped all their tumult and protests and accusations with one Imperial gesture of power.
“Enough,” she said. “It is all over and done with, and I repeat, this man is not to be treated as a criminal, but as my loyal servant. He is here because it is my will. Everything is different now; the world itself is no longer as it was. Old laws do not apply, and old wounds will not be healed with old retribution.”
“But my dear child—” the Prince tried again.
“No,” the Infanta said loudly, and her voice rose to echo in the chamber. “I am a child no longer. And thus, I ask for your forbearance.”
“Claere—Your Imperial Highness,” said Princess Lucia in pliant resignation. “It will be as you wish. This man will be tolerated and treated courteously, for as long as such is your desire.”
“For that I thank you!” The Infanta’s countenance, fixed in death, somehow managed to hold relief and the closest thing to animation. She stood aside then, as though having accomplished all she intended, and grew silent. Fiomarre, the man at her side, dark and distraught, stepped back also. He, her one-time murderer and now her strange companion, had been silent through all this revelation, for truly there were no words, nothing that he could say either to justify or further condemn himself.
Indeed, with just a few kind words she had devastated him.
Several uncomfortable moments passed where no one said a word.
Eventually Prince Roland Osenni cleared his throat. “Now then,” he said, with one serious look to his advisor who was dutifully waiting nearby. “And who else have we here? I see Chidair colors. . . .”
The black knight stepped forward, with a curt but proper bow, and introduced himself.
“The Blue Duke’s young son! Ah, I do remember you now, Lord Beltain,” said the Prince. “I recall you’re one hell of a jouster, and they say quite a wild thing or two about your prowess in battle. Indeed, I see some bruises on you even now.”
Beltain merely inclined his head, with a somewhat darkened expression, and meanwhile could not help another hard, questioning glance in the direction of Fiomarre.
Percy, who had been standing right near the doors, in back of them all, and digesting the same impossible news about the marquis as everyone else, noticed that Vlau himself was in a truly bad state. He was hardly able to remain upright, and she noticed how his fingers were locked together in such a grip that they almost shook. He did not look at anyone except the Infanta. She alone was his anchor now. . . .
“So tell me how fares Duke Hoarfrost, your father?” Prince Osseni continued. “From what I hear these days, not too well, especially after that fateful battle last week. Might one hope that the Chidair and Goraque matter is settled for now?”
“My father is dead,” replied Beltain. “And as a dead man he has been acting in a manner which does not suit a man of honor, having gone against your own Decree in regard to the Cobweb Bride. Therefore, I am forsworn, and serve the House Liguon directly.”
“Hmm—does that mean that you serve the House of Lethe also? Or have things gone off completely?” There would have been a trace of bemusement in the older man’s voice had he not been so exhausted.
“Indeed, I do.” And the knight bowed in a genuine expression of fealty.
“Good! And I see that you have done well by Her Imperial Highness and had delivered her safely here, despite all that unfortunate Cobweb Bride business, through all that snow and ghastly bad weather, I am told, and various other obstacles, I assume—”
“That is so,” Beltain said. “And now, I would ask Your Highness for a favor of an added escort, carriage and a change of horses, so that we can continue on, to
return the Grand Princess to the Silver Court.”
“You shall have it, naturally,” said the Prince, his voice fading tiredly. He glanced around the room, at the surface of his desk, noting belatedly one of his discarded powdered wigs sitting there, and not on his head, yet again. Prince Osenni then straightened the edges of his jacket and again looked at his advisor. “And now, I seem to have a bit of other Court business that must be handled. Therefore, if Your Imperial Highness would pardon me, and I am certain, Lucia can entertain you while—”
“Ah, but first there is another important item of business, Your Royal Highness!” Grial spoke up unexpectedly. It seemed that, for the last few moments, in a very peculiar way they’d all forgotten she was there. But now that she spoke, everyone once again was aware of her overwhelming presence.
“Dear Lord! Not you, Grial!” Prince Osenni exclaimed, with an immediate frown. “How did you—who let you in?”
“Now, Roland, please!” Princess Lucia hastily intervened. “It is always good to see Grial here, is it not?”
“The pleasure is mine, Your Royal Highness!” Grial exclaimed, stepping up. “Now then, as I said, there’s an item of business that cannot wait for any other items of business—if you get my drift.”
The Prince and Princess both started in varied degrees of confusion. “No, as usual I don’t ‘get your drift,’” muttered Prince Osenni who was one of the very few people in all of Lethe who bore no love for Grial and instead found her an infernal nuisance.
“It has to do with Her Royal Majesty! Why, I assume the poor dear Queen Andrelise is still unrelieved of her suffering, is she not?”
“What?” The Prince stilled and listened, as though he had forgotten briefly and now again could hear the echo, the endless death rattle that followed him in every room of the Palace.
He could almost hear it . . . the eternal rhythmic dying breath of the old Queen who lay in final agony yet would not die.
“Yes, I see it is precisely as I was afraid it would be,” Grial said with a sympathetic look at His Highness.
“What? What are you going on about? Yes, of course it is all the same as it has been!” Prince Roland exclaimed in sudden fury, as the remembered grief struck him full force.
“Oh, Grial, is there anything, anything that you can do?” Princess Lucia interrupted, starting to wring her hands at the sight of her husband’s condition.
“Goddammit! There is nothing she can do!” he cried. “You know it; we have tried her and her witch ministrations already, and all her so-called good advice—”
“It’s so very true, Your Royal Highness,” Grial said in a calm voice. “There is nothing I can do. However, there is someone else here who can do a whole lot.” And Grial turned to point at Percy.
“This, Your Highnesses, is Persephone Ayren, from Oarclaven, in Goraque. Step up, Percy, come forward now, yes, right here—”
Percy felt her breath catch in her throat as she obediently moved forward while everyone looked at her. Holy Lord, the Crown Prince of Lethe and his wife were staring at her!
Percy swallowed, then made the most accurate and deep curtsy since she was five and her mother had first taught her how to bend at the knees and clutch her skirts. . . .
Prince Osenni glared at her in leftover anger. “Who? What’s this?”
In that moment his advisor discreetly moved up to him and whispered something in his ear. The Prince replied also in sotto voce, ending with “—no, it couldn’t be, is that her?”
But it was Grial, with her bright ringing voice, who clarified. “Yes, Your Royal Highness, you’ve heard the rumors, this is that girl from Oarclaven that everyone’s talking about. Took ’em all of one day to spread the news here and back!”
“What. . . ?” Percy opened her eyes wide, parted her lips, probably muttered something—she was unsure what was happening. . . .
The sudden griping terror of the notion that out there, in the great big world, everyone was talking about her, in addition to the other thing—the boiling current of darkness now permanently running in the back of her mind—it made her head spin! Earlier, back at Grial’s house, when the older woman first mentioned it, brought up the rumors in the marketplace, for some reason Percy did not quite register the full significance of it. She had listened to Grial’s words, paid heed, but did not understand. But now, here before the Royals, for the first time, the meaning sank in. . . .
Prince Osenni’s grim expression changed to thoughtful, and the intensity of his gaze eased somewhat. “Is this true? You are the girl? The one who supposedly did some magic mumbo-jumbo or witchcraft or other unholy nonsense and cured her grandmother?—not cured, I should say, but killed her?”
“Your . . . Royal Highness. . . .” Percy lowered her head again, took a breath and looked up into the old man’s tired sorrowful eyes. And as she did thus, seeing their true nature, her own terror receded. He was not a Crown Prince, but just an aging man, grieving for his own mother, nothing more. “Yes,” she said, meeting his gaze with her own clear eyes. And then added: “If there is something similar I can do here—”
“Yes!” Princess Lucia exclaimed. She rushed forward and gripped Percy, and squeezed her arm until it hurt. “You can help Her Majesty pass on!” Then, glancing at Grial, she added: “Oh, yes, I knew you would come up with something, dear Grial, thank you! Oh, thank you—”
“Wait! No, no, this is impossible, how can we be certain she can do it, whatever it is she does, or that it would work?” The Prince frowned, suddenly indecisive when given the prospect of a real choice in the matter.
“It never hurts to try, Your Royal Highness. Nothing to lose, that hasn’t been lost already,” Grial said. Her so-very-dark eyes trained on him were sympathetic. And as always they made the Prince of Lethe inexplicably shiver. . . .
Prince Roland Osenni inhaled deeply, tasting this sudden new air of choice. For it was not merely grief that moved him. Oh, grief was there, proper and filial, naturally. But if things took their proper turn, he was profoundly aware that he would be King.
Percy was taken through several finely decorated corridors along luxurious runner carpets upon which she gingerly took each step with her dirty peasant footwear. While others of their party remained in the first chamber, she followed the Crown Prince, Princess Lucia, Grial, and several liveried servants, into a great opulent chamber, dimly lit and smelling of linen, rosewater, and old age.
A roaring fire was lit in the marble fireplace to keep the boudoir of the Queen comfortable, and the brocade window curtains were drawn to keep the daylight out.
In the center was a great four-poster bed with tasseled, gathered valances, and rich ancient wood that had been polished and trimmed with gold. The bedding was soft mahogany fleece and pale cream silk, imbued with layers of time and royal tradition. Generations of royalty had been lulled in it to their rest.
Several physicians were present, and half a dozen servants performed quiet useless tasks because they must.
Yet another tray of food stood cold and untouched, going to sinful waste at a time of coming universal hunger, next to a tray of elixirs, medicinal brews, and mixtures in flasks and decanters.
But the first thing, of which Percy became aware when she entered, was the regular rasping sound of the old Queen breathing.
The death rattle. . . .
It instantly reminded her of Gran. Like a flood, the memories came, of only two days ago, when she first took death’s shadow by the hand and gave Gran her release.
And now, here it was, the death-shadow of Queen Andrelise, standing up like a royal sentinel at her bedside. As soon as Percy entered, the shadow focused, gathered its shape of translucent smoke and darkness . . . and it turned to her. The Queen’s death-shadow regarded Percy as a hound regards its master. And the old Queen herself, a goblin creature of shrunken flesh and bones, lay, surrounded by the ocean of silken bed coverings, and her rolling eyes followed Percy’s movements.
“Well. . . .” Princ
e Roland came up to his mother, and taking her withered hand in his own, he regarded her silently. After a few moments he started to shake and broke down, his age-lined face contorted into a disarray of grief, tears coming in big sloppy drops that turned to running streaks.
Percy stood at the foot of the bed.
“What must you do?” Princess Lucia was right next to her, whispering in her ear.
“It is not much,” Percy replied. “I need to touch her, just for a moment, I think. It takes only a moment. . . .”
“Then do it!”
“No, wait!” The Prince raised his tear-soiled face. “Not yet—”
Rasping, drowning in her spittle, the old Queen breathed . . . and breathed.
“Will it hurt her?”
Percy thought for a moment, remembering. What was it like, she thought, in each of those moments as the death-shadow entered the body? Could she recall any pain, any wrongness in those instants of mutual connection? But no, it had all been empty serenity, nothing more.
“No,” she replied gently to the Prince. “It will take the pain away.”
He nodded then, quieting, squeezing his mother’s cold fingers that barely flexed in return. Did she blink at him in those moments? Was she even aware any longer, or was it a trick of the firelight?
Percy approached the bedside. She gathered her breath with each step, her mind filling with turbulent darkness that was power. It filled her, the power, filled the bottomless well of her, resounding in her lungs and gut and skull, and the cathedral bells came to life, tolling with bass bone-rumbling echoes, filling her, flooding. . . .
One instant, and Percy held her grandmother’s hand again. Only, no—this time, it was the grandmother of a nation. And this time the death-shadow came to her on its own—bowing before her as though she were the queen—and was pulled within, with a rush of seraph wings.