Cobweb Empire (16 page)

Lord in Heaven, she was in the Winter
Palace!

They walked quickly along the corridor and
were delivered before two ornate wooden doors covered with dark
lacquer and with gilded crests upon them, bearing the formal
insignias of Lethe.

The doors were opened, and Lord Beltain
Chidair took one step forward, leading the Infanta within, making
sure she was properly in front.

But all his fine courtly effort was wasted,
because Grial came noisily from behind, and moved past them,
walking directly upon the Royal Persian carpet. An impressive but
severe middle-aged gentleman with grizzled temples, dressed in
expensive mourning and seated at a small writing desk near the
window was quietly speaking to a uniformed advisor. On the other
side of him, reading in a wing chair, was the gentleman’s exhausted
regal spouse. Seeing them both, Grial exclaimed with a brief bow:
“Your Royal Highnesses! Begging all pardons, but we are here at
last, arrived with such important matters and such important
people!”

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. . . .