The Bitterbynde Trilogy (98 page)

‘Burn, then.'

‘I do not want to leave your side, even for a trice.'

‘Remain, then.'

‘Soon, forever. Now I must go.'

He relinquished her hand. Someone's knuckles rapped at the outer door. Thorn bade the door-knocker enter, and Rohain fled. Outside in the passageway, a convocation of tall lords stood aside, bowing respectfully, to let her pass. She inclined her head in acknowledgment of their salutes.

In the dressing-chamber a slight figure jerked its head up when she entered in a flurry of silver and black. The dressing-table was bereft of all accoutrements save a bowl and ewer.

‘Pod! What are you doing here? Where are my purse and vial?'

‘I don't know,' he rapped out, rather implausibly.

‘You have them. Give them to me, please.'

He backed away, his hands concealed behind him.

‘Prithee, Pod.'

The lad's eyes slid from side to side, like loosely strung beads.

‘Such as you,' he said in a stilted voice, ‘such as you and such as he shall never find happiness together.'

‘Say not that!' shouted Rohain vehemently. ‘Take it back! Wish me well instead. Say it is not so!'

‘It is so.'

‘A king may marry a commoner—why not? He may marry whomsoever he chooses! Why do you hate me?'

‘I hate all of you.'

‘Do you not wish to find friendship?'

‘No.'

She lunged at him, hoping to catch him off guard and retrieve her belongings. He dodged past, skipping lopsidedly to the door and out.

‘Take your pessimistic prophecies hence, base villain!' she cried after him. ‘They are false, in any event. Never speak to me again!'

She sat before the looking-glass and wiped away a few glassy tears that trembled in her eyes. Pod's prediction had disturbed her deeply. He had stolen the swan's feather and the Dragon's Blood, but it no longer seemed to matter.

A reek of siedo-pods preceded Viviana into the chamber.

‘My lady! I am ready to return. I cannot wait to leave this miserable place.'

‘Stay back, please!' Rohain held a lace kerchief to her nose.

‘There is no ridding oneself of it,' mourned the lady's maid.

Her mistress waved her away. ‘Ask Caitri and Pennyrigg and Featherstone and Brand Brinkworth the Storyteller whether they would like to accompany the King-Emperor to Court and abide there. All who wish to do so must assemble at Royal Squadron Level by noon.'

Viviana fluttered from the room. Rohain returned to the Highest Solar, before whose door a second crowd milled. Saluting, murmuring, the concourse parted to allow her through. Silver-and-black hat-hedges lined her path. A daunting assembly of lords and attendants now filled the hall, with the King-Emperor at its focus. All fell silent at Rohain's entrance. Boldly she walked to the window embrasure where once again he stood, framed against the sky, with Errantry positioned on his shoulder. Yes, let them witness how it was.

Smiling that brilliant smile which left her weak, he kissed her hand.

‘Our business here is concluded. And so to horse,' he added to the assembly at large.

They led a procession from the hall. Due to his stature, Thorn's cloak was full-yarded enough to billow from his shoulders like a great banner; as he walked its edges flicked the denizens of the Tower in the passageway, who had shrunk to pilose dwarf borders, having removed their hats and fallen to their knees.

There was a stirring in the stones. The procession halted abruptly when Thorn sidestepped, reached into the bruised shadows of a gouge in the wall, and pulled out a small, yelping figure that stank like a goat-pen. Pod quailed, weakly flapping against Thorn's grip like a half-dead fish on a hook.

‘Knave!' said Thorn sternly. ‘Think you that you can spy on us, hidden, as you erroneously believed?'

Pod hung limply, sullenly.

‘Speak!'

The lad pointed an accusing finger.

‘She told me not to speak.'

‘What?' roared Thorn. ‘Have you been troubling the Lady Rohain? I might have your shape shifted to that of a viper's liver and feed you to my hawk.'

‘No, no!' squealed Pod pathetically. To Rohain, he looked such a miserable, scrawny thing that compassion and deflection seemed the only possible reaction.

‘He has not—' she began then broke off.
He
has
been troubling me. I would not accuse him, but neither would I lie, especially to Thorn. There have been too many lies, since my tongue was loosened
.

‘Any past wrongs are forgiven,' said she. ‘He is able, conceivably, to be an amiable lad.'

‘He does not look so,' said Thorn. ‘Get yourself some clean clouts, lurker, and a courteous tongue in your head.'

He released the boy, who unclotted to a nerveless blob and subsided against the wall.

They moved on.

A phalanx of footmen in mustard livery edged with silver braid stood to attention in straight lines, their gloved hands knotted behind their backs. Saddled and ready, eotaurs cluttered the upper gatehalls with the jangle of their flying-gear and the ring of sildron against stone. Their warm breath scented the air like a harvest.

Lord Ustorix, with Lady Heligea at his elbow, took leave of the King-Emperor and his entourage. The Son of the House croaked his farewells, hoarse with some kind of pent-up emotion.

‘Your Majesty has honoured our humble abode by this visit and by the succor Your Majesty has bestowed on Your Majesty's undeserving subjects. May Your Majesty and the Lady Rohain ride with the wind at your backs.' In his pompous efforts at civility he seemed to be tying clove-hitches with his tongue

Thorn nodded and leapt astride his steed, thrusting his boots down between the rustling wings and the smooth flanks.

‘Lord Ustorix, are you quite recovered from your ordeal?' inquired Rohain.

‘No complaint shall escape my lips, most exalted lady,' he answered with studied fortitude.

‘Until you are, I recommend that Heligea take over your Relayer duties. She is adept at riding sky. In fact, I suggest that she should Relay as often as she wishes.'

A murmur of surprise ran through the gathered Household of the Isse Tower. Heligea's grin of triumph eclipsed the scowl of dismay her brother tried to conceal with a low bow.

The sun, at the keypoint of its arch, hung at the centre of the sky's dome. The Imperial Flight, a fleet of some three score mighty Skyhorses, burst from an upper gatehall. Banking to the southwest, they formed an arrowhead and passed away to the distance like charcoaled galleons slowly sinking beneath an azure ocean.

5

CAERMELOR PART III

Fire and Fleet

If you are the lantern, I am the flame;

If you are the lake, then I am the rain;

If you are the desert, I am the sea;

If you are the blossom, I am the bee;

If you are the fruit, then I am the core;

If you are the rock, then I am the ore;

If you are the ballad, I am the word;

If you are the sheath, then I am the sword
.

L
OVE
S
ONG OF
S
EVERNESSE

Viviana and Caitri rode pillion. They had no experience in riding sky, and onhebbing the eotaur flying-gear was too delicate an art for beginners to master. The sliding of andalum chain-plate along the inner courses of the sildron girth-strap to gain or lose altitude took skill born of practice. For the duration of the illicit skyride that had so disjointed the nose of her brother, Heligea—who had secretly practiced for years—had onhebbed like a professional. Rohain, however, had exhibited the clumsiness of the novice. Yet this was not the reason Rohain now rode sideways behind Thorn, her arms encircling the wood-hardness of his waist, watching the world dissolve into the flying thunderwrack of his hair.

She leaned against him, almost paralyzed by the exquisite sensation. Later, she could not recall much of that ride save an impression of a storm-whipped shore and a seashell tossed on a dark tide.

Three miles out from Caermelor, the riders heard distant trumpets blare. Watchmen on the heights had recognised their approach. A mile from the city, the cloud of hugely beating wings began to lose altitude on its long, low final descent. The eotaurs came in over the palace walls, their feathered fetlocks barely clearing the crenellations. They hovered like giant dragonflies over the baileys, churning the air with a backwash as thunderous as a hurricane. From the courtyards below, hats and straw and dust swirled in a chaotic porridge. The cavalcade landed with flawless precision.

Equerries ran to slip off the sildron hoof-crescents and lead away the Skyhorses, to unsaddle them and scrape the sweat from their gleaming flanks, to preen and water and treat the steeds like pampered lords and ladies. Servants hurried to meet the riders, to bear away the jewel-backed riding-gloves they stripped from their hands, to offer fluted cups of wines and cordials. The splendid foot-guards of the Household Division formed two ceremonial columns, creating a human arcade leading to the palace doors. Flowers had been strewn along the cobblestones. Along this arcade walked their sovereign and the dark-haired lady.

As the couple entered the doors of the palace, a slender young man stood upon the flagstones, barring their way. He seemed, in fact, no more than a youth—not much older than Caitri; fourteen or fifteen Summers, a sprout-chinned adolescent. His black hair was impeccably bound into a long horsetail, framing a face that was pale, serious, comely. He bowed briefly to Thorn—a look of understanding flashed between them—and regarded Rohain quizzically from behind soot-coloured eyelashes.

There was no need for introductions.

Rohain performed a deep, gracious curtsey. The youth pronounced her current name in the crack-pitched tones of his years and she replied with his royal title. Then they regarded one another. Rohain glimpsed a flicker of what lay behind the starched facade and smiled.

‘I am joyed to greet you.'

‘And I you,' he said guardedly, but he smiled too and added, ‘well come.'

The Heir Apparent stood aside, that the King-Emperor and Rohain might enter first.

The rooms of Rohain's suite burned with frost and flame. Snowy plaster moldings of milky grapes and vine-leaves twined across the ceilings. Brilliant garlands of flowers had been woven into pure white carpets, upon which stood carmine couches and ottomans. A pale marble chimneypiece was drizzled with sparkling ornaments of ruby red glass. Between the casement windows stretched tall mirrors, polished to perfection.

In one of the three bedchambers—vermilion-carpeted—there stood a bed whose canopy was supported on massive pillars of mahogany. It was hung with curtains of crimson damask embroidered with an interlocking pattern of clover, over and over. The table at the foot of the bed was muffled in a blood-red cloth. The walls had been painted a soft cream colour with a blush of rose in it, and around them were arranged several clothes-chests, lace-draped tables upholding jewel-caskets and chairs of dark, polished mahogany. A tall cushioned chair had been placed near the head of the bed, with a footstool before it.

The main dressing-room was sumptuously over-furnished with looking-glasses. Boxes on the dressing-table contained numbers of miniature compartments and drawers to hold trinkets and jewellery, with further mirrors fitted to the undersides of the lids, which could be propped open, in case one didn't see enough of oneself elsewhere. In the writing-room, an impressive ink-stand with a double lid and a central handle dominated the polished jarrah escritoire.

Long fingers of windows, half-disguised by festoons and falls of wine-coloured velvet, looked out upon the Winter Garden where crystal wind-chimes had been tied to the boughs, ringing soft and pure, in random melody. Between the green cones of the cypress pines, cornelian fires sprang from high stone dishes, admiring their own fervent lucidity in tarnished ponds.

This, Viviana informed Rohain, was the Luindorn Suite—a vast and exquisitely furnished apartment usually reserved for state visitors.

After breakfast, two height-matched footmen skilled in the art of unobtrusiveness wheeled out the dining trolley and melted quietly away. Caitri, who had rung for them, leaned wide-eyed from a sitting-room window as though she might presently shift to a linnet's shape and fly out into the sky. She appeared oblivious of Rohain and Viviana, who sat head to head, deep in conversation.

‘My lady,' said Viviana, ‘that you have found favour in the King-Emperor's eyes is advantageous for us both. As long as his favour lasts, we can
never
be Cut. As for your secret history of service in Isse Tower, why, you can depend on me never to divulge it to anyone. See, you have become a lady after all! I have but one concern—this dresser who has been assigned to you, and this footman also. What next? There is talk that you are to have a noblewoman as your own bodyservant! Are my services to be dispensed with?'

‘Of course not. You are to remain as my maid, if you wish it, as I do. And there are to be no ladies-in-waiting—not yet.'

‘Ladies-in-waiting?'

As the implications of the term sank in, Viviana's eyes widened. Only a queen would have ladies-in-waiting.

‘Six there shall eventually be, chiefed by the Duchess of Roxburgh whenever she is at Court,' whispered Rohain.

Simultaneously, maid and mistress burst out laughing. Seizing each other by the hands, they danced the circumference of the floor like children around a beribboned pole on Whiteflower's Day, finally falling breathlessly on two couches of plum-red velvet.

‘So 'tis true!' panted Viviana. ‘His Majesty has asked—'

‘Yes! We are troth-plighted, he and I. But it is not generally known—the announcement has yet to be officially made.'

‘In sooth, rumour has been rampant! I did not like to pry, but everyone guesses it. I cannot believe this! My mistress to be Queen-Empress!'