“Yes, he—”
“A very handsome fellow, and the image of Panurgus. Really. You haven’t seen the Gallery? Oh, it’s frightfully tedious, nobody ever goes, but in winter, you know, one can at least take exercise by walking there, and I can never count the portraits, I declare they move around, I never find the one I want twice, but they all laugh and say I’m just being silly. Really. I suppose I am. There are more interesting things to do than count portraits here, I assure you. The conservatories are very pleasant, Princess Evote and I often have— Oh, here’s Prospero.” Viola’s voice dropped; her fan went up; and Luneté turned to see the Princess attempting an expression of faintly veiled disdain. On her plump face, it appeared as a pout.
The Countess of Lys looked back toward Prince Prospero, the man whose ambitions had so disrupted her own life. She had already decided she loathed him, and she viewed his nose with particular intent to dislike it, but his nose was inoffensive—aquiline, but inoffensive—and his eyes were intense and intelligent, his brow high and his mien all that befitted a son of the great King Panurgus, princely and austere. He wore a black-sheathed sword, and Luneté remembered from her etiquette book that the Princes, initiates of the Well, could bear arms in the presence of their ruler. His severely-cut clothing was restrained, of near-black blue satin unornamented with jewels or laces; his bearing was dignified, and he surveyed the company coldly, detached and above them.
The Countess was reminded forcefully of Prince Gaston, whom she had met but three days before as she and Ottaviano arrived, who had looked through her in a glance and, she thought, comprehended her at once. He too had seemed remote, preoccupied with more important things than the Countess of Lys, though the Baron of Ascolet had gotten a few low words that had made him look down, words which he had declined to repeat to his wife.
Prince Prospero was inclining his head, speaking to Dewar, and Princess Viola was whispering behind her fan with someone else now, so that Luneté watched undistracted as her husband the Baron of Ascolet was presented to Prince Prospero by Prospero’s son. They straightened, Otto’s bow decently formal and deep, the Prince barely nodding (but princes need bow to no one); Dewar said something, smiling with one side of his mouth, and Otto nodded and looked around them. The room was becoming crowded, but there was space around Prospero and his son, an arm’s length at least. Prince Prospero turned his head and gazed straight at Luneté, into her and through her, just as Prince Gaston had.
She felt her face growing red; it was rude to stare so, unless one were flirting in the most obvious way—she knew that much about Court manners—but Prospero was staring too, calmly, assaying her with the eye he might use for a landscape or a fine ship.
Luneté looked away, lowering her eyes and recollecting her fan; and as she lifted the silly feathered thing, she met Prospero’s eyes again. His mouth was quirking at the corner, just as Dewar’s did. She liked him in the instant, her prejudice overthrown. Prospero returned his look to Otto, who was still craning his neck, trying to see through the crowd, and Luneté realized that he was searching for her.
There was space around Prospero and Dewar, but little elsewhere; Luneté sidled through clouds of scent and jostled fragile hothouse posies, brushed silver- and gold-laced sleeves and detoured around wide, expensive gowns shimmering in the candlelight.
“Countess,” said Dewar, touching her sleeve, and suddenly she was out of the crowd, in the bubble of silence around Prospero and his son and her husband. Her eyes crossed Dewar’s; she knew she spoke, faltering, some word of greeting, but he only bowed to her and turned his attention back to Prospero. She was trembling. She held herself still: Otto was right there.
“There you are,” Ottaviano said; “I’d begun to think you’d left.”
“I’m not about to leave now, I assure you,” Luneté replied. The food at the Palace had been disagreeing with her, and she had jokingly threatened to go to the nearest ale-house and seek better fare.
Otto said, “Uh, sir, my wife, the Countess of Lys, daughter—”
“Bors’s girl,” Prospero said, and he took her hand and bowed, more deeply than he had to Ottaviano. “Thou’rt the image of thy gracious mother, madame. It is a pleasure to behold thee.”
“Thank you,” Luneté said, amazed, and a smile joined her blushes, embarrassing her further—she would be the laughingstock of the Court, she thought, if she could not better govern herself. She wondered for an instant if he were mocking her—her gown had been her mother’s, made over in newer style—but the Prince straightened, releasing her hand, and gave her an approving nod.
“But thy good father’s eyes betray his wit in thee,” said Prospero, fixing her with his cloud-grey gaze, “and thy deeds as well. Blend thou thy mother’s grace therewith and Lys shall thrive in thy hand.”
Otto was wearing a face Luneté had known well in Sarsemar: neutral, opinionless, hiding his thoughts.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Luneté murmured, curtseying.
“No thanks are due,” Prospero replied, “ ’tis simple truth.—Dewar, hast seen thy sister?”
“Hm. No,” Dewar said apprehensively.
“Comes the Emperor, led by his dogs and trained apes,” Prospero said beneath a brassy fanfare of trumpets, “Dewar, do thou go to her chamber; ascertain that she’s gowned and fetch her hence.”
Luneté backed away, dismissed; the hard note in his voice as he spoke to Dewar was utterly different from the kindness she had heard. It was just as well; she did not know what to say to Dewar, how to look at him without blushing to think of what she had done, and her husband was here.
Otto caught her elbow. “Court’s opening,” he whispered, “you go there, see, and that guy in the curly hat will tell you where you stand. We don’t stand together.”
“I know,” she said, although she hadn’t, and went to find her place alone in the stir of the crowd.
People jostled and pushed as if they were in the market-square. Luneté tried to be polite, but her patience failed her and she began nudging and shoving like the rest, all of whom were hurrying to sort themselves into the proper ranks. She found her place between a very tall, thin old man in unrelieved ash-grey mourning and a cask-bellied wine-smelling fellow whose wispy beard did not enhance his leering smile. Luneté remembered her fan and used it.
“Pardon my forwardness,” murmured a dry voice above her, “madame …”
Luneté looked up. The gentleman in mourning addressed her; his face was lined and his eyes sad, yet she thought he looked good-humored though terribly old—how old must he be, if he lived here in Landuc, where a favored man could live forever blessed by the Well? Or was he out of favor?—and so she smiled a little, still screening her face from the gentleman on her left.
“… yet when we are forced into such close quarters, as cattle in the slaughter-pens, we need must take some note of one another,” the ancient man said in the same dry, low voice.
The simile was startling; Luneté’s eyes widened. Maybe he too was drunk, she feared.
“You are the Countess of Lys,” he said.
Luneté blinked. How had he known that? Gossip travelled fast here. “Who has told you that?” she whispered.
He smiled, barely. “Why, you yourself, Countess, standing there. For there did Bors your father stand through many an hour in Court, beside me for many a year. And the place hath been empty long and long. Welcome.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, understanding. There was a place for everyone, and everyone stood in his proper place, and if no one was there, the place was vacant.
“The Count of Punt hath taken advantage of the vacancy to flood himself and o’erspread his allotted banks,” observed the man in mourning, in the same emotionless undertone, “yet I misdoubt he resenteth your intrusion. The ranks be not so rigid that we may not change our places, you and I, should you find that such a small alteration would please you.”
Luneté unravelled the courtly speech and smiled, warmly this time.
“For now I will hold my father’s place,” she whispered, “but if your courtesy will allow it I may beg the favor of you later, should it be needful.”
He nodded a hair’s-breadth and looked away, up the ranks of people and along, toward the empty throne. Luneté looked too, between the exceedingly high hair-sculptures of two outlandish noblemen in front of her who were muttering gutturally to one another and shrugging often. She saw Prince Marshal Gaston in blood-red unadorned with frills, without jewels save his sword and a dagger; dark Prince Herne, green-coated, who glowered toward the other end of the room; and, dwarfed by his brothers, Prince Fulgens in frothing diamond-dewed lace and pale blue. But where was Prince Prospero? Luneté could not see him at the throne, with his brothers, where she supposed he ought to be. These were the four great Princes, the four eldest sons of King Panurgus, who had endowed each with dominion over an Element and set them above his other children forever.
Luneté of Lys shivered, moving from side to side to see them. She had never thought of Court, when she had thought of being Countess of Lys; she had thought of the castle in Lys and its gardens, the high-walled city and the long plains. But never had she thought of going to Landuc, seeing Princes and Emperor and people whose names were in histories and ballads. She felt small and insignificantly young.
A little distance from their mightier brothers stood the Princesses Evote and Viola and new-made Prince Golias; Golias wore no sword. Panurgus had had other sons—dead Sebastiano, exiled Esclados the dabbler in sorcery, and long-vanished Hyetos the Philosopher Sublime. What would crude Golias do, Luneté wondered, to distinguish himself in such a company? Had he passed the Well’s fire yet, as the children of Panurgus were entitled to do? She supposed not, or he would have been permitted the privilege of bearing arms. Even rattle-tongued Princess Viola had stood that test; what would it do to Golias? She studied him, looking for resemblances between him and the other sons and daughters of Panurgus, and gave it up; she saw none. Sometimes it was obvious even to Luneté that members of a family shared features, but, she thought, as often as not strangers do as well.
A stir at the other end of the hall—Luneté looked that way, toward laughter and a murmur of voices. With a shock she recognized Prince Prospero there—as far from the throne as one could stand and still be in the room. Disseized of his estates, out of favor, the fallen Prince’s position in the world was shown by his position in the Court. The untidy crowd of the least-favored there gathered parted, bowing deeply and obsequiously. Prince Josquin the Heir emerged, all in cloth-of-silver, shining and fair as a fountain, and strode quickly down the hall, smiling, greeting his Princess aunts with bows and hand-kisses, slapping Prince Golias on the shoulder, moving like quicksilver upward toward the dais. The Master of Protocol intercepted him and (with respectful gestures and bows) directed him to stand above Gaston, on a step; Josquin rolled his eyes comically (even Luneté could see it), smiled indulgently, nodded condescendingly, stood with one hand on hip, bent slightly to conduct a whispered conversation with Fulgens, smiling still. Luneté thought she had never seen anyone so elegant in her life.
The Master of Protocol seemed twittered about something; he paraded down the length of the room to approach Prince Prospero skittishly and Prince Prospero glared down at him and shrugged, very slightly, as if the gesture were not worth the energy to make it. As before, there was an empty space around Prince Prospero, despite the crowd: as though the Emperor’s displeasure might be catching.
Something was wrong, Luneté guessed, and she remembered that Dewar had been sent to find Prince Prospero’s daughter—his sister—and the chief spectacle of the evening’s ceremonies was to be the girl’s betrothal to the Prince Heir. Under the circumstances, Luneté supposed that she’d be late herself, dressing, putting on cosmetics and jewels, getting her hair to go right. She patted it; the ribbons and the aromatic hothouse flowers Otto had brought her were still in place, and if the whole elaborate pile hadn’t fallen down by now she supposed it wouldn’t. Laudine had anchored everything firmly with pins and tight curls, and it felt more like a strange hat than Luneté’s own hair.
She wondered what Dewar’s sister, Prospero’s daughter, might be like. Luneté had never heard of such a person before, but she had never heard of Prospero’s son until recently, either. It seemed to be the custom here not to mention one’s offspring until they were well grown.
A sweet trumpet sounded, high and long, and a cascade of notes followed. Luneté straightened and told herself to stop gaping. It was Court, not a mummers’ show. She managed not to gape, and even, she thought, to look blandly respectful as everyone else did, lowering herself as everyone around her did, as even more courtiers and footmen and guards streamed in to fill the room and the Emperor led the Empress past the kneeling Court (Luneté, not daring to crane her neck, saw only the top of Her Majesty’s crowned head) up to the dais and left Her Majesty at the bottom and seated himself slowly, surveying the Court assembled with, it seemed to Luneté, a cold and calculating expression, all as wonderful sweet music such as Luneté had never in her life heard before played on and on. She felt light-headed with excitement.
The music crescendoed and stopped, and a man whose title Luneté couldn’t recall cried out, in a long and involved way, that the Emperor was here and Court assembled before him, which Luneté thought must be plain to a blind idiot. And then she remembered that she was here to take her oath, and she panicked that she had forgotten it, and a great deal of Court business and trumpeting and music went on while Luneté stood, looking fixedly at nothing, running over and over her words. She would have to say them in front of everybody, everyone important in the world, she, Luneté of Lys, and she would have to get them right, and she was certain she would get them wrong like the princess who jumbled her prince’s name in the wedding-vows and the marriage was cursed thereafter—
Luneté wished very much she had not come to Landuc.
A “hm” from the sad gentleman in mourning-clothes beside her started Luneté out of her iteration of the oath. A stir in the crowd up near the dais; heads turned, all along the room with a gust of whispers; Prince Gaston moved slightly and then resumed his hands-behind-his-back watchful stance. Prince Herne tossed his head and snorted; Prince Fulgens scowled and looked coldly, and Luneté could not see the Princesses or Golias. The towering hair-sculptures moved together, apart, together, conferring.
The Emperor himself bestowed a searing glare on the disturbance and then on the Master of Protocol, who had stepped forward—to sort things out, Luneté supposed. He stepped back so quickly he trod on someone’s foot. Luneté glimpsed Prince Josquin, whose face was immobile and bland as a porcelain statue’s.
The man kneeling before the Emperor rose and stepped back, bowing deeply, and with a shock Luneté recognized Ottaviano. She had missed his oath! She blushed with guilt. Why, that meant she had missed Prince Prospero’s oath as well, she had been so preoccupied with—
“Luneté who claimeth the County of Lys, approach the Throne,” cried the Master of Protocol, consulting a list.
Luneté went ice-cold and red-hot and stepped forward, murmuring excuses to the tower-headed gentlemen, who parted with ill grace before her. She remembered the approach. Deep curtsey. Walk. Curtsey again. She hoped by the Well she was getting it right. Nobody was laughing, anyway. Walk. Now she was at the dais. Curtsey and stay down.
She felt herself sway, almost faint.
By what right did she claim the title of Countess of Lys and the lands and privileges and forces and duties thereto pertaining?
She claimed the title of Countess of Lys by the Fire of Landuc that leapt in her father and now in herself and the lands and privileges and forces and duties thereto pertaining. Oh, she had muffed it, would he say anything?
The Emperor acknowledged that the Fire that leapt in Luneté and in Lys were one.
Approach the Throne.
Stand, not falling over, up the steps (hold the long heavy gown correctly), kn
eel on the flame-patterned carpet where Otto knelt a few minutes ago. That was heartening. Look up—oh, one isn’t supposed to, or is one—
The Emperor folded Luneté’s hands in his. He leaned forward, his eyes bright and sharp-pupilled. “Very like your mother,” the Emperor observed. “Uncanny.” He studied her a moment longer, nodded. “We receive Luneté daughter of Bors of Lys in our Presence,” he said more loudly, “and do countenance her claim to the County of Lys and do consent to grant to her the governance of the County of Lys for so long as our Well shall sustain her, in exchange for her devotion of her person to the office of Countess of Lys.”
Now for the hard-to-remember part. Luneté took a breath and said, “I Luneté do solemnly swear by the Well of Landuc that nourishes me to devote my person to the County of Lys and to the Well of Landuc that sustains it, and to undertake no act against the Well.…” It wasn’t difficult at all; Luneté listened, amazed, as her voice pronounced all the words in the correct order, vowing her person and her life to the service of the Well, the Emperor, and Lys.
The Emperor accepted her fealty and appointed her Countess of Lys with all the rights honors and obligations pertaining thereto, and Luneté’s mind skipped ahead and recalled the formula for thanking the Emperor, backing away from him, descending the steps and returning to her place—more curtseys, careful small steps down, curtsey, back away, be dismissed from the Presence, rise, back to her place.
When she was once again standing between the dignified man in mourning and the bibulous glutton, Luneté felt suddenly hot and giddy. She had done it, she had taken her vow, she had escaped Sarsemar, no one could take Lys from her now, the Emperor had granted it; Lys was hers at last, and she was Lys’s; she was suddenly homesick with a throbbing, resonating pang.…
The Price of Blood and Honor Page 12