“You don’t say!” Grial rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and smeared a spot of greasy soot into a large streak. Percy, who stood nearby arranging clean dishes on another hall side table, reached over and handed her a wet dishcloth.
“Thank you, pumpkin,” Grial said, cleaning her face.
“Oh, oh! And worst of all,” Ronna said, “Duke Hoarfrost himself is one of those . . . you know,
undead
. He’s been struck a mortal blow, fell through to the bottom of the lake and came right back out as you please, an iced-over madman—so aptly named, wouldn’t you say. Who knew that he’d become the very thing that he was named? So anyway, he and Goraque declared a truce and he just marched back home to his godforsaken Keep. And now Hoarfrost’s terrorizing the locals—not just on his side of the lake but here too, in Goraque territory!”
“How so?”
“Supposedly—” and Ronna leaned in closer to Grial as though not wanting any of the girls to hear—“he’s patrolling the land with his armies and hunting all of you Cobweb Brides. Rumor has it he wants to stay among the living forever and so, none can get through and into the Northern Forest, which is just rotten awful, if you ask me.”
Grial exhaled loudly. “Oh, my
. . . yes.”
“And,” Ronna continued, “there’s supposedly this—this—well, a particularly terrifying knight. Some say it’s his own son—who’s dressed in midnight-black armor and slays anyone who tries to fight through! Ugh!” She shuddered again. “I certainly do not envy any of your pretties.”
“To be slain by a mysterious knight in black armor when one is on one’s way to meet Death—yes, that indeed is a hoary fate,” Grial said. “Though, sweetie, how does the slaying part work these days? I thought that was the whole point, no one
can
get slain?”
“Ah, Grial, you’re right! What am I blathering?” exclaimed Ronna, slapping herself on the hip. “My sources are daft to be spreading such tales at a time like this. There’s probably no black knight, and this is all a whole crock of—”
“Well now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s no black knight. He may very well exist, and I thank you kindly for warning me and the girls ahead, as to his possibility, especially if he is liable to hack us to pieces. Now, if you’d have told me there were a dozen black knights, or a bushel and a peck, or a whole platoon of them, I would find that a bit hard to believe. But one frightening fellow? Certainly within the realm of the reasonable.”
Flor and Regata came into the hallway from the kitchen, carrying the supper main course in a large covered kettle destined for the dining guests of the inn. While Ronna pointed to the side table, they deposited the heavy kettle upon an iron pot rest. And at that point, Flor, who had the most experience in the kitchen, being a baker’s child, cleared her throat and said to Ronna: “Begging pardon, Ma’am, but Mrs. Beck sends the pot roast, and here it is. But—” And here Flor paused, with an almost fearful expression surfacing—“but I’m not sure the dish came out quite
. . . right.”
Ronna frowned. “What do you mean? Mrs. Beck is the finest cook in town! What are you saying, girl?”
Flor turned extremely pale and then flushed pink and clutched her hands together until her knuckles turned white. “I—that is, Mrs. Beck is no doubt a wonder, and it’s not that the roast is burnt or anything, but—it has the wrong
smell
.”
“What?” Ronna exclaimed. “Does it smell
bad?
”
“Oh, no, no! That is,” Flor continued bravely, “what I’m trying to say, Ma’am, is that the nice cut of meat does not
have
any meaty smell at all—you know, the roasted sweet aroma that comes when it’s all done and cooked up juicy an’ ready to be served. Well, this piece—a very nice rump slice, to be sure—it just doesn’t smell
cooked
, although I’ve been supervising it over the fire for the last hour at least, upon Mrs. Beck’s instruction, Neither does it smell wrong, it just, well, it looks a little odd, is all, and that there’s no smell at all—”
“Did you tell Mrs. Beck?”
Flor again paled. “Well . . . No, Ma’am. I know how much pride a fine cook such as Mrs. Beck takes in their work, so it’s not my place to criticize. When my Pa makes bread in our bakery he tells us never to say anything because it’s his job to know how to bake things just right and only the paying customers can tell him their opinion, while it’s our job to make sure we don’t make mistakes when we do the baking—”
“All right, let me see this thing,” Ronna muttered. She lifted the lid off the hot kettle and leaned forward to sniff the vapor that started to rise immediately.
She took several deep breaths while Grial and the others watched in silence. And then Ronna frowned deeply and put the lid back down.
“You’re right,” she said. “It smells like
. . .
nothing
. In fact, less than nothing. Wood shavings would have more smell. Didn’t Mrs. Beck add several cloves of garlic in there? What in the world?”
“She did, in fact, and I helped her. We also put in dill and potatoes and carrots and two large onions finely cut up. It’s all in there, if you look. But none of it smells like
food
.”
“Funny you bring this up now,” Grial said. “But over the last day or so I’ve noticed that most food has been a little odd, to say the least. Even back in Letheburg. Tastes like hay or sawdust, and feels like lumps of clay going down.”
“Hmm. . . .” Ronna’s fluid eyebrows moved in and out of a frown, and she appeared to be deep in thought. While the girls stared at her, she approached the tray of baked rolls and stared critically at then.
And then she leaned forward and sniffed.
“Hah!” said Ronna in triumph. “Now these smell perfectly fine! Come, all of you, tell me I am not soft in the head, take a whiff.”
One by one, Grial, Jenna, Flor, Regata, and even Percy came to smell the rolls.
When her turn came, Percy inhaled a sweet floury smell of freshly baked breadstuff that made her mouth water, and there was an almost painful rumble in her stomach. None of them had eaten yet, what with getting the supper ready for the guests. . . .
“The rolls smell scrumptious, baked to perfection,” Grial said. “My compliments to Mrs. Beck and all of you lades who helped. Now, the mystery of the pot roast remains, however.”
Ronna went back to the kettle and lifted up the lid. Everyone gathered around it, staring at the dish inside, the chunk of meat surrounded by diced vegetables and steaming sauce broth. In fact, everything looked very much uncooked. As though the items were just placed into the pot over a minute ago.
Percy saw the meat and for a moment—maybe it was a trick of the eye, but it looked pink and raw and absolutely uncooked to her. In fact, if she hadn’t been sure she was looking at a separated chunk of some poor animal, she could almost say the flesh was moving, quivering, was somehow
alive
.
Percy stepped back, because all of a sudden everything flooded her, the awareness, all of it, and she started to gag.
And she was not the only one. Regata, already on the pale side, went livid and swallowed, then staggered back and rested against the hallway wall.
And then Jenna began to scream. “Oh God! Oh dear God, it’s just like the one my Pa couldn’t kill! Oh, dear God!”
“Hush, child, hush. . . . Oh, you poor dear, what is it?” Grial said, and took Jenna in a hug.
“Her Pa butchers livestock,” Percy said quietly. “The other day, there was
. . . a problem. There was a pig in their shed and. . . .”
“
No!
” Jenna shrieked and struggled to escape Grial’s hold, and put hands over her ears while squeezing her eyes shut.
“Oh, goodness!” Ronna said, “Hush, girl, what will the guests think?”
“I’d better not speak any more, Ma’am,” Percy said. “It was rather horrible, and Jenna was the one assisting her Pa that night, so—”
“All right, that’s enough then,” Grial said, stroking the wheat-colored top of Jenna’s tightly braided head in soothing motions. It seemed to work immediately, as though Jenna was a puppy and Grial had a magic touch.
In that moment a side-door opened and Lizabette, wearing a starched apron, peeked in from the large dining room where she had been setting out the flatware and dishes, and asked: “Pardon, Ma’am, but your guests are waiting for the meal. When are we serving?”
And then Lizabette noticed everyone’s long faces, not to mention Jenna, barely composed and huddling against Grial.
“Oh . . . my,” Ronna said, paying no attention to the new arrival and staring off into space. “Something just occurred to me. This cut of meat is
fresh
. It has just come in from the butcher’s earlier this morning. All the meat we’ve been using to make meals before that has been frozen and sitting in the inn’s pantry in the cellar. And—”
“And it has all been butchered either last week or at some point before Death stopped,” Grial finished for her.
“Yes!”
“Oh, my.”
So what does that mean, exactly?” Flor said. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It means, girlie,” Grial said, running her tongue against her mouth then pursing her lips, “that all the meat and other foodstuff that’s been killed or plucked or fished or harvested, or otherwise had its life or existence cut short
after
Death’s stopping, is in the same suspended state—let’s call it
undeath
, shall we—and cannot be used.”
“What? But we’ll starve!” Regata exclaimed. “That is, pardon me, Ma’am and you Grial, Ma’am. And also, that doesn’t explain the rolls! They seem to be fine! Why aren’t they also undead?”
“Undead rolls? Goodness, how gruesome. But—aha!” Grial exclaimed in turn, and quickly leaned forward and grabbed a puffy still-warm roll off the tray, then bit into it. “Mmm, delicious indeed. So then, who thinks they can explain this miracle?”
“Bread flour comes from grain that was harvested months ago in the fall,” mumbled Percy softly, not looking at anyone and sort of examining the dishtowel in her hands.
Grial whirled around with excited wide eyes and a sudden crazed look on her face and pulled Jenna by the shoulder turning her along with herself with one hand, then pointed with her other hand at Percy.
“That’s exactly right, duck! You have it!”
Percy stared at Grial’s extended finger, while everyone else stared back at her.
Then Lizabette spoke again, addressing Ronna. “Ma’am? So then, what should we do about the hungry guests?”
Ronna put hands on her hips, took in a deep breath, and turning to Flor, said: “So, you’re a baker’s daughter, is that right?”
Flor nodded.
“Excellent! I think for starters you’re going to march right back into the kitchen and tell Mrs. Beck to fire up that oven. . . . A couple of the rest of you will come along with me and we’ll take a look in the pantry to see what other grains and dry goods we have. I’ll pay all of you girls extra, on top of your free night’s lodging of course, but since we
are
short-staffed—”
Everyone groaned. It was turning into a horribly long evening and an even longer night.
C
laere Liguon, the Infanta and Grand Princess of the Realm, was impervious to the rolling movement of the splendid Imperial carriage. Despite its handsome padding and brocade pillows and other interior comforts, the carriage had been jostling along the icy roads for over two hours, moving at a speed entirely too wild for two of the other three passengers occupying the seats.
The first was a man seated directly across from her. Vlau Fiomarre had stilled in a state of apathy, his once-handsome bruised face turned to stare impassively through the slit in the window curtains at the rushing whiteness of the winter countryside. He wore a plain borrowed jacket and winter coat that had been given to him in the Palace guest quarters—not shabby but obviously the hand-me-downs of a ranking servant. As such, it was still a resounding insult.
The other two passengers of the carriage were a different matter. In the seat of rather dubious honor next to the Infanta sat Lady Milagra Rinon, First Lady-in-Attendance, clutching a handkerchief to her lips, bundled in an ermine cape-coat with a voluminous hood, both the coat and its wearer as pale as the snowscape outside. And across from her, next to the motionless Fiomarre, was Lady Selene Jenevais, also in Attendance upon Her Imperial Highness, equally pale and shaky from the road sickness, wearing a fox-fur coat.
Or maybe it was not merely the road sickness. The two Ladies had to attend an Imperial animated corpse and spend several hours confined in
her
presence and that of her murderer; queasiness and terror came with their duty.
The Emperor had insisted upon this escort. The Infanta wanted nothing and no one to slow down her journey, but in this the Emperor would not budge. In addition to the two Ladies of her Court, and a spare team of four horses that was driven by a second groom following immediately behind, there were four distinguished and valiant knights assigned to guard the carriage. Initially the Emperor had wanted to send along a whole cadre of soldiers, but relented, and the four knights were a compromise.
The Infanta herself wore unusually plain travel clothes for someone of her rank—a basic coat of deep sienna red wool, untrimmed, and hooded—and underneath she had changed out of her bloodied court dress into a plain grey gown which resembled a convent habit in severity and probably belonged to a maid. She looked nothing more than a mousy servant herself, and her Ladies-in-Attendance would have thrown shocked looks at her attire had they not studiously avoided looking at all in her direction, if possible.
On the third hour of such breakneck speed, just past noon, they had arrived in Letheburg. The Infanta herself required no stop, but the driver had paused in order to exchange the teams of horses and give the rest of the passengers a brief respite. While the horses were tended to, the two Ladies-in-Attendance stretched their stiff limbs outside and used the facilities of the best inn, all the while being watched carefully by the four knights who also availed themselves of the break, one at a time.
Fiomarre was escorted under guard by two of the knights to relieve himself if necessary, and then he was back, silent and unprotesting, in the seat across from the Infanta.
For a few minutes they were alone in the carriage, just the two of them. Claere did not blink, looking at the now familiar man before her who had struck her a mortal blow only two days earlier. He in turn avoided her infernally unfaltering gaze—the gaze of a dead wild creature, a bird with glass eyes—and observed his hands, at present free of shackles. He had spent the night before in a guest apartment in the Palace, and had kept his word to remain and attend her.
And now, here he was, and here she was, and it seemed at rather odd moments that the carriage was closing in on him, on her, and they were sharply aware of one another again, reliving that moment of greatest closeness and intensity, the stroke of death, the drawing of life that bound them together.
“What do you think about?” Claere said, breaking the stifling silence. Her breath came laboring to form the words, precise like the strokes of a clock.
He looked up with a barely contained jerk, and for the first time in hours his eyes focused on her face.
“I—” he said.
“What are your thoughts now, Fiomarre?” she repeated. “You must be in a very dark place. I am . . . sorry. For everything that happened to you—including myself.”
His brows moved and he exhaled loudly then looked away, down, to the side—anywhere away from her. And then he barely spoke, in a faint whisper: “It is too late
. . . for sorrow.”
“No,” she said, in a strong voice, unlike his own. “It is never too late. I should know. I am on borrowed time. While you have all the time in the world. Or—well, maybe not all, maybe not quite.
. . .”
“What do you want of me, Liguon?” he exclaimed suddenly. He was looking directly at her, and his face had turned several shades deeper red with emotion. “You want me to beg your forgiveness for cutting your life short? Well, is that what this is about, this mockery of a pleasure trip in the country? Why am I here, with you, and not chained in the dungeon of your accursed father—where I, a damned man, properly belong? Why? Can you tell me that much, or are your plans for my torment so subtle that I cannot even begin to guess—”
“It is not my intention to torment or punish you. I already told you this much when I said you were a free man. Free to go or stay. You can rise and leave, right now, if it is your choice. No one will stop you, if I order it—and I will. My only stipulation was for you to honor my investigation of your family’s fate. For, I must understand what has come to pass, the full course of events that have resulted in this misfortune for you and me, for so many. . . .”
“There is nothing to understand
. . .” he said. “I see now that you may very well be a fool innocent among vipers, that you were indeed unaware of your Imperial Family’s underhanded cruelty—but it will not diminish my hatred for you and yours. No matter how prettily you speak or how honorably you appear to act.”
“I do not appear. I
am
exactly as you see.”
“Very well! Then why do you take me with you on this one-way trip? What kind of investigating of my so-called fate can you accomplish in the forests, in the middle of nowhere, while headed to meet Death in order to present yourself as his Bride?”
And he glared at her with a triumphant smile, as though having caught her red-handed in an act of dissembling—tangible proof of Liguon dishonor.
But the Infanta returned his look with her own birdlike stare, and she said, “My understanding of your family will be based on my understanding of you. You are one and the same.”
“What?” he said.
In that moment the carriage door opened and Lady Milagra, followed by Lady Selene, were helped to ascend the stair and then they seated themselves, and the door was closed by a bowing footman.
Fiomarre went silent and dead, turning away once more. The newcomers gave him frightened brief looks.
“Begging Your Pardon for the delay, Your Imperial Highness,” began Milagra, sitting as far away on the bench seat as possible from the Infanta.
“Driver, proceed!” the Infanta said loudly on a harsh breath, ignoring the Lady. And then she stopped breathing again, and stared out the window as the carriage commenced moving.
“If it’s permitted to speak—I believe, Your Imperial Highness,” Lady Selene said in a soft careful voice, “the driver tells us we will be at the last town bordering the Northern Forest before nightfall. It’s a tiny fringe town at the very edge of the Dukedom of Goraque, called Tussecan, I think. Right after it, begins the wilderness.”
T
he Silver Court was in turmoil after the assassination of the Infanta. But because of the odd coupling of this event with Death’s stopping and everything that it entailed, the turmoil was low-key and subdued. Everyone spoke in whispers, courtiers of all ranks hurried in the halls, not stopping for longer than a moment to exchange information, and a lull of winter silence seemed to have descended upon the Palace.
On the second day after the Event—a word with capital letter emphasis, as everyone in the upper crust was beginning to refer to it, echoed readily by the upper servants—the food they were eating stopped being suitable for consumption.
They hardly noticed it at first, thinking the fault to lie with themselves, a lack of appetite, a malady that temporarily blocked the senses of taste and smell.
But toward suppertime on the end of the second day, it could not be denied—possibly it was at about this time that they had run out of older foodstuffs
harvested
before the Event, depleting supplies of freshly consumed edibles. The most grisly discovery was that newly butchered meat was
alive
—if butchering was the right word to refer to the unspeakable atrocity. The produce too, anything that was freshly cut from the hothouses, was suspended in that same
undead
state. Cooking things did not seem to have any effect. Fire did not consume them, hot water did not scald or in any way tenderize.
Priests were brought in, and Masses went on, full-time now, in various chambers of the Palace and its surrounding lands. In other, more clandestine chambers, other more occult rituals took place, such that went without a blessing from the church.
The sudden urgency to meet Death’s demand for his Cobweb Bride finally became more than clear to everyone—either the world complied, or they would all painfully starve . . . unto eternity. For not even death would come as a blessed relief.
And seeing how dire things had become—beyond obeying an Imperial Decree, beyond familial honor—this was now a common struggle for all to
exist
without pain.
Merely living was no longer an issue.
It was at that critical point that all women—from the highest-ranking noble to the nameless low-born—suddenly found themselves to be prospective Cobweb Brides.
T
he Duke Claude Rovait stood in the partial shadow of a long sparsely-used Imperial Palace hallway, staring through the window outside at the convoluted walls and the balcony overhang of another Palace structure, directly opposite, and no more than fifty feet away. Here the walls of the Palace angled and curved onto themselves, so that standing at the window and looking out one could observe the rest of the hallway beyond the bend, but from the outside looking in, as seen by looking into the opposite window near the balcony.
It was a very useful vantage point, unknown to many, but used regularly by the Imperial spy network of those who worked on behalf of the Realm under the leadership of the Duke of Rovait and the Duke of Plaimes. Here they could discreetly observe the Court in a far busier portion of the corridor that was centrally located. And here, to this locus of movement, it seemed, they’ve finally pinpointed a pattern of unusual activity.
Activity that could be pinned down upon enemy agents working on behalf of the Sapphire Court of the distant southern Domain.
Claude Rovait had his strong suspicions for many months that they had been infiltrated, but had come upon the pattern only a month ago—very subtle initially—and his other observers were positioned here and at other vantage points around the clock, until they could be sure.
Soon, they were. They observed questionable contacts between unlikely individuals, overly casual and quick exchanges, and most of all, they observed messenger birds being received and dispatched from this exact balcony near the window, around the bend of the hall.
And now, Rovait patiently watched a small dark speck of a pigeon hopping along the railing of the balcony, waiting. The pigeon was here earlier that morning, and possibly as a precaution on their part no one came for it. But this time, it was back, and he knew he was about to see positive results.
In about fifteen minutes, his wait was justified. The window near the balcony opened slightly, and what looked to be a woman’s hand—he could tell astutely from the delicate shape and the sleeve—reached out, and the bird immediately alighted. The hand withdrew together with the bird. Then moments later, the bird, with obvious remnants of dry feed scattering from its beak, and surely a concealed message somewhere around its feathered torso and feet, took off again, rising up, soaring in a black speck against the white winter sky.
The balcony window shut once more. All that remained was for the Duke to see who would come walking around the corner, either in his direction, or the opposite—where another one of his men stood ready to take note—and he will have his hostile operative in the bag, so to speak.
In his mind he counted, and just before he reached twelve, a laughing threesome strode boisterously toward him in the hallway. He knew them immediately. The Duke proceeded to lean down to adjust the buckle of his shoe, fumbling and making noises of frustration, then rising just in time to see Lady Amaryllis Roulle, Lady Ignacia Chitain, and Lord Nathan Woult, the three charming and trend-setting troublemakers known in Court as the League of Folly, saunter by, making their typical flighty and condescending commentary—at the same high volume level as though the disturbing current events of the last few days did not concern them.
Without bestowing any overt attention upon them he observed the women’s sleeves and recognized the fabric on one of them.