“Margaret.” She started at her name. Dammerung was twisted round in his chair, one of Skander’s red pieces in his hand. “You have not turned a page in half an hour.”
With an angry sigh she shut the book. “
Je ne sais quois
. I do not know where my mind is this evening. I cannot seem to focus on what he is saying.”
“Who is it?” asked Skander, frowning in concentration over the board.
She squinted at the spine. It was growing dark and the light was thinning into a rose-grey. “Marlitos.”
“He will do that do you.”
Dammerung set the piece down on the tabletop with a click. “We are almost finished here. Then perhaps you had better go to bed.”
Go to bed early! Margaret carefully did not meet his gaze, but made another attempt to read. If she could gamble on Skander’s face and Dammerung’s dream-ravaged mind, she could hope they would both be asleep as soon as they hit their beds. She, curiously, did not feel tired. Every nerve was stretched until she felt Dammerung, in a moment of playfulness, could reach out and pluck one like a harp-string if he cared to.
Skander sucked in a breath and put his elbows on the table, dropping his head into his hands and running his fingers through his hair. “I see it, I see it. There is nothing I can do.”
“Checkmate.” Dammerung gave an abbreviated salute and leaned back in his chair. “Checkmate, and what was that little ruse you were trying with your queen? I could see right through that.”
Margaret’s blood ran cold.
Skander swept the red into the tray and rose, setting back his chair from the table. “I had no great hope, but it was all I had.” Then, voice sharpened with melancholy, he added, “Passing strange that we sit here playing at chess, who have been playing it in greater scenes the past few months.”
“Passing strange.” Dammerung, too, rose. “But I am glad for the game. I know I do not lose my life if I should lose my ivory crown.” His finger, hard upon the crest of the king, knocked it into the tray. “Good-night.”
“Good-night. Good-night, Margaret. Rest well.”
“Thank you—and you.” She got up in the dark, moving with the heavy weight of shadows on her shoulders.
Skander picked up his empty goblet and turned on his cousin. “I will be up for awhile reading, if you have need of anything.”
Dammerung’s brows flinched as if a wound had been touched. “I will be wrapped in linen like a dead man and asleep in my bed, if you have need of anything from me—which you are unlike to get if you do.”
A horse called up from the stables. In the gloam, the last rim of late sunlight catching at his hair and signet-ring, Skander dropped his hand heavily, briefly, on his cousin’s shoulder. They stood a moment so, still, sharing some weight between them that was more hopeless than what Margaret herself bore. It cut at her again; she felt herself bleeding inside and knew that not even Dammerung could fix this wound. It was his wound, Skander’s wound, the great mortal gash plunged into Plenilune’s heart, that she was going to fix herself.
“Come, you,” she said softly. A moth puttered by, brushing against Dammerung’s face as he turned to her. “You need your sleep.”
For once he came without any pretence of mockery or playfulness. His feet skimmed the floor wearily; his strong, lean shoulders were bowed beneath the weight Skander had dropped on them. Looking back over her own shoulder, Margaret saw Skander watching them go, his hand moved to the back of his chair as if to support himself.
It cut her again. And again.
They went up wordlessly to Margaret’s room. She walked beside Dammerung with a mingled sense of dread and cold excitement that made her feel faint. At every step she wished he would break off, bid her good-night in the way he always did—lightly, carelessly, knowing that tomorrow he would have cause to cheer and tease and worry her again—but she knew he would not do it. He was too keen a man, too honest even in the midst of his little charades, to lie like that. She was more afraid than anything that he would ask her bluntly what was on her mind. He wanted to know, and if he asked she knew she could not deny him. That would be breaking a faith too dear. That would be ruining all.
Finally they reached her door. She wanted to slip in and bolt the door at once, but she did not dare. She waited with the pretence of normality, a faint smile on her lips, looking through the grim grey agony in his eyes. She smiled, but her soul was bleeding badly now, and he seemed to be watching it bleed, eyes blindly fixed on hers, watching, as it were, some nightmare from which he could not break. She opened her mouth to say good-night, to release him gently and hope her voice went with him into sleep, to charm away the horror of the past few months, but the movement seemed to break him violently from the nightmare. He started, the reckless anger that had driven his chess game leapt into his eyes like fire, and she stiffened with a sudden unreasoning fear. Rupert had hid it from her until the last moment and he had bit her lip, hard, at once angry and triumphant over her. She saw it in Dammerung’s eyes. She had the warning, she had the narrow slip of time in which to turn her head away. But she did not turn her head away. She felt his hands, hard and trembling, entwine in her hair and pull her forward. Her heart was in her throat: could he taste it? His lips were firm against hers, but trembled: did he smell her fear? She tasted salt and did not know from which of them it came. Instinctively she had shut her eyes—had he shut his?—but she could feel no tears tracking down her face. She could feel only the rage of her heart and the rage of fear, and the warm touch on her lips of something that might have been but would never be.
He drew away; his forehead brushed hers, his fingers still tangled in her hair. She did not remember opening her eyes, but she found herself looking into his, closer than she had ever been before, clearer and bluer and fiercer than they had ever been before. They seemed to stab into her, to probe into the wounds her own resolve had left on her soul. She did not know how long he held her, searching her eyes, gently but relentlessly; all the while the little finger of his left hand moved counter-clockwise, idly, combing the hair at the base of her neck. She held her ground, though it hurt worse than anything she had ever endured before, though she wanted to crumble into his arms and give him what he wanted: the awful thing that was in her mind to do. But she could not give it to him and she had to endure it, and finally his thumb brushed over her lips and he let her go as a man lets go a wild thing he hopes might come back some day.
“Good-night, Lady Spitcat,” he murmured. There was no reproach in his voice.
Her hand went out of its own accord and touched the back of his. “Good-night, Dammerung.”
His hand turned, as if he meant to grasp her hand in his, but he checked himself and drew away. His face plunged into shadow. Already he felt a world away and the shadow that lay between them was the shadow of death. She could feel the warmth of his hands on her neck, the pressure of his lips against hers…
Swiftly, smoothly, she turned to her door and went in, shutting it behind her—and shutting out, too, the thing that had happened and could not be. Her room was dark; earth-light fell like petals through the thin patterned curtains, and through its light she moved mechanically, pulling at the tie of her gown, flinging it carelessly away as a man, baring for a fight, flings down his hampering gloves and strips for war. Dammerung had made her hair a wreck. Bending in the thin silver light before the mirror she thrust it back up, pinning it in place, then went to her wardrobe and pulled out a heavy travelling gown. She pulled it on with ruthless vigour, careful not to think, careful only to do what needed to be done. She would need a bath, but she could do that later. She put on her boots and paced the next half-hour away, walking the length of her room over and over, careful not to think, careful not to think…
When she was sure Aikaterine would have gone to bed she stole out of her room, fingers brushing against the wall to guide her—she dared not light a lamp—until the many winding hallways and staircases of Lookinglass finally brought her to the kitchen. There was a little red light coming from the banked coals of the stove. She found a candle on the huge central table and, kneeling, eased back the door of the stove until she was staring into a phoenix-nest of embers. With the heat beating on her dry face she thrust the candle in among them until the wick caught, then she bore it to the pantry.
Trusting to her instincts and common sense, she went straight to the back and began hunting among the jars and cans and dusty paraphernalia. She was not disappointed. Though it seemed to take many long minutes, the flame of her candle finally flashed up on the ominous lettering of the can she was looking for. She took it down—it left a telltale dustless mark on the shelf—and tiptoed back to the kitchen sink. Easing the spigot open she refilled the can with water, put the lid back on, and shook it until the powder was sloshing all around inside. Then she blew out her candle and stood, heart hammering, in the red hollow dark.
“Determinas loco—” she whispered “—come home to me! Determinas loco—far from the sea! O hunter, come home from the hill!”
She was hit in the chest by the boom of a drum-wind. Lookinglass tore away behind her. Somehow she kept her feet. Somehow, fists clenched, teeth ground, eyes tight shut against the shriek and roar of the fabric of everything, she stood her ground until the ground stood still. The wind stopped. The roar died to a soft summery calm. Opening her eyes she found herself looking up at the grim, stalwart front doors of Marenové House.
The great doors were imposing and uninviting, especially under the pallid glow of earth-light. Shadows huge and full of form stood guard on either side, their curves and jagged edges made of a kind of otherworldly iron. Margaret felt the blades of them slide across her skin as she mounted the steps and stood small under those doors. But she did not hesitate. If anything, the long empty lawn and lane behind her made her feel more naked than those doors. She pressed down the latch, surprised and relieved to find that it had not been bolted for the night, and she slipped out of sight into the vaulted entryway.
It was dark inside, and had an almost deserted air. She felt at once that something hung over the place. Around a corner, within the dining room, she thought she could see a single light. On the ground floor no light nor form stirred. She stood alone by the doors, her breath loud in the silence.
A latch clicked. She jerked her head around to see Rupert’s big black man Livy step out of the north wing of the house. He saw her upon the instant and he, too, froze, his white eyes uncannily gold in the light of the candle he carried.
She was the first to make a move. “Good evening, Livy,” she said coolly.
“Lady Margaret,” he replied in a wary tone. Somehow he shifted the candle so that his eyes were lost in the shadows thrust up by his cheekbones, but she could feel him searching her, noting her travelling attire.
“Livy, is your master at home?”
His eyes sprang out again. She hated how wide and white they were. “Ye-es,” he said slowly. Then he shifted toward the stairs. “He is upstairs in the astrolabe chamber. Come—I’ll put you through.”
Margaret stepped up after him. After the spell she knew she ought to have been bone-weary, but if her bones had been cast of spring steel she could not have felt lighter. She swept after the manservant; her skirts filled the quiet—for Livy’s feet made no noise—with an urgent rustle. Against the steel cage of her ribs her heart jostled and thumped.
From the first floor landing they took an immediate left into a long wood-floored corridor of the north wing. At the end of it they began mounting a long spiralling staircase, and Margaret knew they were going up to the curious tower that presided over the whole length of the house as a watchtower over a garrison. The foreign, forbidden chamber to which she climbed did not help to calm the shaking in her breast, and she was glad for the thickness of her coat lest the movement be visible. She would have reached into her own chest and crushed her heart to stillness if she could.
There was a single door at the head of the stair, shut and barred with hinges of iron scroll-work. A wide beam of saffron light leaked out beneath the door and brushed up the front of Margaret’s gown.
Livy knocked. “Sir,” he called, fetching a glance over his shoulder at Margaret. “There’s someone here to see you.”
There was a long pause behind the door, then, muffled through the wood, came Rupert’s weary voice: “Show him through.”
The old latch squealed in protest as the manservant opened the door for her. The light of dozens of candles dazzled her vision. She stepped through into a profound sense of thick darkness that was not the darkness of mere shadows. She heard the door shut and latch to behind her.
It was a wide octagonal chamber that she stood in, rather larger than she had expected, but cluttered profusely with tables, chairs, bookcases, candelabras, cabinets, and countless smaller objects that she did not have leisure to observe. In the centre of the room stood the largest of the tables, a great pale oak thing with dragons for legs, and by it stood Rupert—Rupert, who stared back at her like a stag caught on a woodshore scene, staring as if he were looking at a ghost.
“Good evening, Rupert.”
Her words fell from a great height, dissipating into the silence.
He stirred at last, slowly, as if afraid his movement might cause her to vanish. “Fiends of Hell,” he murmured, and he took a hesitant step closer. “Margaret.”
She laughed airily. “You once chastised Skander Rime for pressuring you into entertaining here at Marenové. I can see why you were so reluctant.”
The old spark flashed into his face. “You come upon a man in the dead of night like a vision, and expect a cool reply? You might let a man collect his wits once you have dashed them out of his hands.” Then, after he had fallen quiet, he began again in a quieter tone, “Am I to believe you…
have
come back?”
“You are to believe it.”
All the while Rupert had been bent a little over the table, supporting himself on his splayed fingers. Now he seemed to come alive again and he pulled away, coming upright. The darkness seemed to thin a little. She had never seen his pale eyes so softened, nor, strangely, so afraid. He was still expecting her to vanish. Suddenly he laughed, softly, self-deprecatingly.