T
HE MASS BEGAN BEFORE SUNRISE. They trooped there in the black and cold, to rejoice in the icicled church.
Reemerging, they saw the sun had risen, but the ice lay white on Belgra Demitu.
“Our winters are harsher at Korchlava,” boasted Cirpoz. “And summers blaze.” He had also mentioned the cathedral, whose foundations were already laid. The great Church of St. Belor would fit into it, he had told the disgruntled prince, twenty times over.
Yet never mind that, this was Christ’s birthday. The feasting started an hour before noon, and would go on, with dancing and entertainments and the pageant and drinking, until midnight.
The palace hall was hot with its two broad hooded hearths, where quarterings of trees were burning. From the black beams hung garlands of evergreen and gilded kissing-balls decorated by ribbons—peasant foibles adopted for the season. On the higher tables, with their blanched cloths, vessels of silver stood about, and before Prince Tusaj’s place, marked by its carved chair, a gold cup and saltcellar from Draco’s own hoard.
The court warmed themselves and drank deeply. Holiday garments, which had seemed dismal in the church under God’s accusing eye, shone out.
Draco’s legal daughter, the Princess Candacis, escorted by her solitary attendant—the woman Ulvit—entered the room. She was remarked on, and many heads turned to see. None remembered this girl. She kept much out of sight—as she should, her mother being disgraced.
“Well—but she’s a paragon.”
“Would you say she was? She’s very slight. So pale.”
“A skin like alabaster and a heart to match.”
Candacis wore the green gown trimmed by fur, the headdress of gold with its stream of veiling.
“Such grace. Like a reed in water …”
And she was beautiful, too. Yet it was a beauty not always seen clearly. It was too unusual, too vital—also too complete. She had not yet entirely grown into this beauty. Unlike her grace, it was not her own, had not bloomed slowly and steadily up in her, but somehow fallen suddenly over her, like a shaft of light—or some reflection.
To the spectators’ gaze, she stayed mostly indifferent. She had attended other Midwinter feastings, just as she went to the church—but those times, she had not been richly dressed, and had avoided much notice. She forgot she might attract it now.
She was afraid she might have to see her mother again. This was her fear. But Arpazia had not been at the morning Mass. Candacis had, in terror, scanned every inch of the church. Now, again, Arpazia did not seem to be here.
When the time came to be seated, Candacis found herself at an outflung arm of Prince Tusaj’s own table.
Wine was borne up by the pitcher and ale by the barrel, processions of roast geese with quinces, and salvers of venison, hams and pigs’ heads with a creamy mash of greens, birds in their feathers. There were cakes dyed puce or yellow with saffron, and fruit painted over by edible gold.
The food and drink produced a noise which never abated. Dogs ran about the shouting, joking, gulping hall. Slaves dashed between the dogs, carrying pots and jugs, sweets and loaves baked in bizarre shapes. A riot of jollity.
Candacis had seen such festivals before, and only as a child had she marveled at them, being also frightened. Her fear was different today. Still she quested about with her eyes. Twice her heart jolted within her, once at a gown of black velvet, and once at the turn of a dark head, the sable hair in its taut silver net. Rut neither of these women was the queen.
And still she looked, not seeing those that looked at her.
“Who is
she
?”
Tusaj’s nearest noble leaned forward helpfully. “Your sister, sir.”
“My
sister
? Which sister? By God—is it her? Candacia, do they call her? I saw her a year or so back. She’s improved.”
“Like her mother, though, sir, would you not say?”
“Oh, very like. When the woman was young.”
Even Cirpoz, far, far down the tables, where the table-goods were wood and earthenware, noticed the girl in green with such black hair. A nice piece. Perhaps she was the prince’s fancy, since her clothes were costly and she was seated so high up. These great ones, damn them, they always had the best, deserving or not.
There was some music. The minstrels and a song-maker grew hoarse, trying to be heard above the din. The songs were of secular matters—love, war—Christ only mentioned in passing. Then jugglers had a turn, knives and live ducks whirled through air.
Couples strayed from the tables. They were dancing in long lines, clasping hands, waists, circling each other. Under the pagan kissing-balls they were permitted, now and then, to clasp lips. Some stole away together.
Candacis did not leave her place at the table. She sat crumbling a red pancake with a small knife. Sometimes she took a sip of the sweet spiced wine. A golden pear kept rolling about the table, batted by the prince’s nobles. She wished it would keep still.
Abruptly Prince Tusaj shifted and got up. He wore a long velvet tunic of a sticky pancake red, decorated by ermine tails. Less sartorial than years ago, he had got grease onto the velvet, and one of the ermine tails was sodden from some dish.
He moved along the table to Candacis, as the court watched and watched.
“Lady sister, I hope you’re well. Come down and lead a dance with me.”
Quite appalled, she rose unhesitatingly, fluidly to her feet. She put her hand on his arm, amid all the watching.
They went out to the floor’s center and led the dance. It was
one she knew well from Ulvit’s teaching. It had a sequence of skipping steps, and during these the prince’s beard also skipped and then flopped down.
“You must be more at the court,” he said. “We’ve neglected you. It’s sixteen you are now?”
She smiled, not contradicting or confirming.
Then he was tired, the skipping was too much for him. He gave Candacis genially over to a noble who, during the next dance, drew her under a kissing-ball and meant to stick his parted lips on hers. But she turned her head. “Oh, you tease me, Princess. Come on, you can accept a lusty kiss. I hear you go up to the wood, as your mother does.”
Candacis withdrew her hand quietly from his, and nodded to him, and walked away across the dancing lines, so graceful it was still as if she danced. How grave she had seemed, even smiling. Not nervous, not coy. People had slipped from her glassy surface, could not keep hold. And yet watching, wanting to detain, they did not do it.
The prince was thinking he was not much above thirty, and it was a pity she was such close kin, his father’s daughter. But when he looked around for her again she had gone. Frowning, he gawked at his court to see who was concealing her, or who she might have left with; he could not be sure. She would miss his pageant, going off now, which was bad-mannered and foolish of her.
Beyond the windows, the short winter day was also taking its leave.
New courses of sweetmeats came, bitter oranges preserved in sugar, crystallized ginger, almond pastries, and cinnamon syrups.
The windows flushed to black. Two Eastern lamps, kept for the festivals, burned high on their stands with perfumed oil.
A dragon sidled into the hall. Its metal hide contained ten men, and from its mouth the tenth man’s bellows gusted smoke. Women squealed, men swore freely, amazed by the prince’s dragon. Everyone was drunk, even the dragon’s crew. Bold knights came to fight it. It hiccoughed sparks and slew all but one, till, slain itself, it tottered with a crash. And the room cheered.
Then a castle of crystal was wheeled in, which being opened, let out shivering damsels nearly blue—for the castle had been sculpted from ice.
Marvel succeeded marvel.
As manned lions fought with giant black birds, both sides sustaining real injuries, and the sea-god arrived from myth in a vast shell drawn by horses masked as carp, Tusaj sat mute with satisfaction. And the court clapped and screamed and toasted him.
His bear was brought in dressed as a Persian king, and the reluctant lynx, snarling, adorned as a queen. The dignified bear, trained by honey, made the gesture of bowing. But the lynx ripped off its sequinned robe and chewed it, slavering.
“
Draco and Arpazia
,” the playful, vicious whisper ran.
Tusaj did not hush it, or mind. Drunk, he dreaded the witch-queen not at all. (Only Cirpoz was rather insulted for Draco, made a slight fuss, and was ignored.)
The climax of the tableaux was a fire-dance, where acrobats leaped in circles of flame. At the last, rare firecrackers were ignited and sprayed violently about the hall, and there were screams in earnest. The king had sent the fireworks, but no instructions on their peril. A hanging had caught alight, a page lay felled with scorched hair. But everyone, including Cirpoz, was laughing again.
After this the priests, sozzled as any, got up and blessed the hall. Boys sang. The assembly tried to put on a solemn face, for the end of the pageant was to be religious after all, the day’s last lesson in sinning, after which they might drink themselves to bed.
The story of Christ’s birth was enacted, with angels, shepherds, and scholarly kings with vessels of gold, under a great star of polished tin. After the reminder of God, the Devil marched in ranting, with a train of grotesques. This culminated in the play of the Seven Deadliest Sins.
The hall by then was thick with smolders and fumes, hot as high summer. All lights swam low in this smitch; there was the Hell-smell of sulphur from the fireworks. Sluggish, the feasters rallied. They were intrigued. And even Cirpoz was struck, for the first, by
how sinister they seemed, his dwarves, as they came gliding through the smoke:
Pride stalked flamboyantly, with peacock feathers on his mantle, his gold locks a lion’s mane. A fox—Covetousness—followed him, pawing at his heels with ox-blood gloves, her tail trailing—dwarvixen vixen—on the ground. But then Lust approached, slinking, ugly, and unavoidable. Her half-bared breasts were creamy white, and the sting of the scorpion emerged fitfully from under her skirt. Pride was taken with Lust. They drew aside, and fumbled in the shadows. About now two others grew visible. They had stolen in, and now settled themselves to one side. The first was a pig-thing, and from a leather satchel he took out a succession of foods, to the audience’s amusement, and seemed to be eating them. His companion, a sort of bear, lay down at once and snored. They elicited name-calling from the hall. For they must be Gluttony and Sloth. Nor did they take any notice when presently Envy appeared. She was carried in, wrapped about a wooden tree, but from this she swiftly unfolded. In the cloud of her hair, a slim pale face and green eyes ringed with silver, so they flared. But she was in a costume of scales, like a snake. Envy met with Covetousness. They embraced, perhaps wantonly However, Covetousness drew Envy’s attention to the more ardent antics of Lust and Pride. Envy and covetousness circled the lovers, scratching on the floor. There was a clang of thunder. Anger rushed in. He wore armor and a helm topped by a unicorn’s spike. He caught Pride and Lust. Anger bellowed—his voice shook the walls—he tossed his black hair. Any laughter left in the hall blew out as Anger swung the unicorn’s horn. He lunged, he gored—and howling, Pride fell dead, while Lust, mortally maimed, crawled away. Then Covetousness and Envy rejoiced. They ran to Anger, started by caressing him, then began dragging at him, nimbly tearing at him and shifting aside, before he could see what they had done. He seemed like a man beset by invisible hornets. During these moments Gluttony got up to fart and then sat down again, resuming his banquet. There was a tiny ripple of laughter and, as Sloth turned over, grunting. But they were no
longer risable, more terrifying, these two. They had missed everything. And now they missed how Anger strode about and saw them, and again all laughter ended. The slanting horn sheered—it slashed, impaled Sloth and Gluttony, and left them rigid in death, to which sleeping and eating were superfluous. At this Covetousness and Envy sprang. They were up on Anger’s shoulders, ripping at him like gulls. He held them near—even as he tried to beat them off. At last they had pulled him down. There on the ground he died in a fit, and a hemorrhage of crimson silk ribbons, uncoiling from him through the dying light, brought out one single wavering shriek from some woman of the audience. After that, hissing and spitting like the lynx, Covetousness the fox and the serpent Envy rent each other, until they fell dead among the rest.
A voice pealed through the sunken silent palace hall.
“So ends the vanity of the world.” (It was the voice of Stormy—Anger. Lying facedown he had long ago learned how to pitch it out.) “For all is vanity and death claims all. Only through God shall we live. Amen.”
And the crowd crossed itself, gasping, shuddering. Amen, amen.
But when the fearsome dwarves, under cover of shadow, had conjured themselves away, slaves replaced the candles. Light came back, the weary minstrels waxed their strings. Those that could began to eat and drink and jest and lust and argue and hate and live again.