The Lioness d-aom-2

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  There came a time when he had stopped being the young man who brooded over uncertainties and filled up pages of parchment with grim poetry. In truth, he still composed his darkly moody poems. Kerian did not much care for these. For all but she and the Queen Mother he wore the persona of a young man who vacillated between a kind of depression and the vapidity of a spoiled royal son. To the two women who loved him and knew him best, however, Gilthas was more. Uncertainty still dogged him, and nightmare haunted his sleep, dark dreams that to the young king sometimes seemed like terrible prophecy, but these no longer debilitated him, these he fought to rise above.

  There is the courage of the sword and the courage of the heart and soul. Gilthas had discovered the latter and for this Kerian loved him.

  A lot of what Rashas thought he knew about his king was false, and a lot about his king Rashas didn’t know at all. He did not know that a young Kagonesti woman in his service was beloved of the king. He did not know that much of what his servant heard made its way to Gilthas, dross to be sifted for grain. Rashas did not know-and if Gilthas and Kerian were careful, he would never know- that now and then, at a critical juncture, Gilthas found himself with just the kernel of information necessary to put him in a stronger position to bargain with his Senate than that august body might have expected.

  In the last few years he’d put two governors into power in the eastern provinces, and these governors awaited their chance to prove themselves loyal. He’d granted favors to certain lords and ladies, knowing favors would be returned if needed. He hoped today to have another choice of his installed. He intended to set up the young Lord Firemane in the lord’s late mother’s position as governor of a northern province. Rashas had been, if not hoping for the old woman’s death, ready to install a governor with no familial and sentimental ties to the royal family. Such positions were not hereditary among elves, but Gilthas was prepared to point out-correctly-that no other man or woman had the wealth or the personal regard among the people of that far province to rule well. There could be no other choice but young Firemane unless the senate was willing to fund the installation of an outsider. In these dragon-days, with so much tribute going to Beryl, few senators would be eager to underwrite a problematic candidate.

  Wily as Rashas, Gilthas played a dangerous game. He pretended to dance to the will of his senate, a senate ruled by Rashas, while working in the shadows to help his mother in her struggle to free the elf homeland from the Dark Knights and dragon dominion.

  Outside the bedchamber, Planchet’s voice threaded among the others, the king’s body servant calling the household to order. The Queen Mother, he told them, would not be joining the king for breakfast.

  “Take the place setting away,” Planchet said, following his command with a brisk clap of his hands.

  Silent now for the sake of those outside, Kerian glanced at her lover.

  “Mother received dispatches late last night.”

  Kerian raised an eyebrow, and Gilthas crooked a lean smile. “A note, delivered late while you slept, my love. She’ll make her excuses and not attend the procession or the Senate session.”

  “The treaty?”

  Gilthas nodded. Perhaps the dispatches were a packet of letters from Abanasinia, perhaps from one of the Plains-folk leaders; perhaps some word at last from the dwarves of Thorbardin, a sign that the High King and his thanes did, at last, thaw toward the idea of making a pact with the elves.

  Who ever knew about dwarves, those long thinkers, age-long deliberators? In centuries past, the elves had been fast friends with elves, Pax Tharkas stood testimony to that. In these times, the dwarves had a decent regard for the woman who had played so large a part in the War of the Lance but not so much interest in coming out from their mountain fastness to join treaties. There had been war in the mountain in the years of the Chaos War, a civil war among the dwarven clans that, it was said, had left the kingdom in ruin. Upon the will of these wounded, erstwhile allies hung the fate of a treaty that might stand a chance of delivering the elves from their captivity.

  Outside, the servants murmured to each other. Clothing was being laid out even as a breakfast tray settled on a carved ivory stand to await the royal pleasure.

  “Time to go,” Kerian whispered.

  Out into the start of a day long beloved of the Qua-linesti people. The elves would celebrate the change of the season and pretend not to notice the Dark Knights lurking. That was life in occupied Qualinost, but a much better life than in other Dragon Realms. Where blue Khellendros ruled, people starved; in the eastern parts of Krynn where Malystryx the Red reigned, the people wept blood. Here, in exchange for tribute, the elves had rags of freedom and full larders. It was the tenuous bargain.

  Kerian brushed her lover’s lips with a kiss.

  Beneath her lips, she felt his rueful smile as Gilthas traced the line of her cheek with his finger. “Go, then. Come back again tonight.”

  This she promised, now as always, willingly. She kissed him again, and the king held her just a moment longer before he let her go.

  * * * * *

  In the fabled city of the elves, with towers gleaming and silvery bridges shining, the people went in the colors of Autumn Harvest Men, young and old, dressed in nut-brown trousers, their shirts the russet of ripened apples, tawny barley, maples gone golden and dogwoods changed to the color of wine. The women, old and young and even the little girls, swirled in the streets and byways. They wore the same colors as their men, blue for asters in the fields, purple for the berries in the glades, gold, brown, and rose. In their hair they wove ribbons of silk, satin, and grosgrain. Around their waists they cinched sashes to match and the fringes hung down past the knee.

  Men, women, and children, lord and lady, servant and tradesman, the people of Qualinost rilled the streets. They went laughing from bake shop to wine shop, from weaver to jeweler; they gathered around the high-wheeled carts of apple sellers and nutmen and farmers in from the fields with the best of their harvest. In the horse fair, where traditionally elves met to buy and sell the fine beasts the kingdom was known for, folk watched the auctions of wide-chested dray horses and pretty palfreys for an elderly lady’s evening ride. They observed the sale of sturdy mounts for long riding and little ponies that would delight a rich elf’s child.

  For this one day, dogs loped in the gardens and children ran and shouted, their wrists and ankles adorned with bracelets of shining silver bells. Pipers played at every corner, bards declaimed their verses, and young girls sat in scented bowers of wisteria and roses, listening to minstrels sing them songs commissioned by their admirers. Songs of tenderest love, of deepest passion, songs of loss, of gain, of hope, these songs brought tears to the eyes of the maidens and sly smiles to the lips of those who passed by.

  The city rang with harvest joy, and through Qualinost, upon a route that might seem winding to a stranger, the elf king made his royal progress. He went in a fine litter canopied in tasseled green silk and borne by four strong young elves. These litter bearers were the handsome sons and lovely daughters of minor branches of House Royal. Privilege and place gave them the right to this honor.

  All his Senate went with Gilthas, the whole of the Thalas-Enthia surrounding. Shining in silks and satins, glittering in jewels, the lords and ladies of Qualinost rode upon either side of the king. By their colors they were known, pennons borne like lances and mounted beside saddles as though they were, indeed, weapons. Satins sailed the scented air, and ribbons of proper color fluttered in the manes of their tall mounts, bands of silk braided into hair brushed soft as a woman’s.

  Only one rode before the king, and he was Rashas, resplendent in his purple robes, his rose-colored sash. The senator glittered in rubies and amethysts, and upon his silvered head he wore a wreath whose leaves were of beaten gold, each so thin, so delicately wrought that closest inspection would betray no sign of the hammer’s blow.

  Gilthas half-closed his eyes to shield them from the sunlight leaping in glints and gleam
s from each delicate leaf. He sighed, not discreetly, and wished he’d given the senator something less glaring as a Winter Night gift last year. The sigh caught the attention of Lady Evantha of House Cleric.

  “It’s a long route this year,” Gilthas said, affecting to hide a yawn with a ring-glittering hand. He was not bored; he was not wearied. He was, in truth, edgy and eager and wishing he could leave the swaying litter and leap astride a horse as tall and fine as the shining bay Rashas rode.

  Around them, the city shone, the people laughed, and someone cried out from the garden of the Bough and Blossom tavern, “Look! There! It’s the king!”

  Gilthas recognized a rustic accent, some farmer in from the provinces with his harvest, determined to celebrate the festival in grand style. Perhaps he had gone to the horse fair, perhaps he had sold a good dray there or purchased one. He’d probably bought his wife a new gown in the Street of Tailors, his daughter some toys in Wonders Lane. Doubtless, the family would talk about this week through the winter to come, revisiting golden Qualinost in memory before the warming fires.

  Gilthas looked out from his litter, parting the hangings a little to see. A young elf stood with his hand on the shoulder of a very small girl who looked to be his daughter. He pointed when he saw the king’s hand on the silken hangings. The girl strained forward to see, and suddenly her father swung her high upon his shoulder.

  “The king!” she cried, waving her hand. The belled bracelets on her wrist rang like silvery laughter on the air. “King! Hello, king! Happy harvests!”

  People turned to smile at the child and her joyful, innocent greeting. Her father lifted her high over his head, and the little one squealed with laughter. Beside Gilthas, Lady Evantha sniffed and made a disdainful comment about how vulgar the folk had become in the provinces.

  “Why, they are as uncouth as our own Kagonesti servants. No,” she said, shaking her head in mime of careful consideration. “No, I misspeak. I think those provincials are worse. I think they live too close into the forest, and they forget how to comport themselves in cities. Whereas …” She nodded now, approving her conclusion before she spoke it. Sunlight glinted on her golden earrings; a warm breath of air gently lifted the filmy sleeve of her russet gown. “Whereas, I do believe, Your Majesty, that our servants are, indeed, gaining a certain noticeable-oh, can we say?-a certain degree of, well, if not grace, certainly refinement.”

  Gilthas nodded, and he pretended to consider her point as he watched the farmer and his daughter turn away, back to their family, back to their celebrations. How marvelous the city must seem to them! How sweet the child’s wonder and her impulsive, heartfelt greeting.

  Happy harvests!

  The greeting sat in his heart like wine sparkling as the procession wound through the streets. The esteemed leaders of the finest Houses of the Qualinesti riding in escort to their young king progressed through the city, past the fabled Tower of the Sun and Stars, out past homes humble and high, houses of the older style built among trees, magnificent houses of the newer fashion embracing the faces of the stone cliffs. The king and his court traveled at stately pace all through the winding avenues clogged with citizens of the city and elves come in from the provinces. Everywhere they went, people fell back to watch the king and his mighty senate, calling out greeting or blessing.

  At the Mansion of the Moons, Gilthas bade the procession halt, for here were the quietest of all the gardens in the city. No one celebrated here; no one danced, sang, or laughed. The mansion, in truth a tall tower of gleaming white marble, stood starkly silent. Within, all knew, acolytes of vanished gods lived as though they were exiles, filling the days with prayer and the kind of hope only exiles have, long pared down to the thinnest edge, never given over. There was a time-in Gil’s own living memory- when three moons had sailed the skies of Krynn, white Solinari, red Lunitari, and black Nuitari. There was a time when gods had walked upon the face of the world, when god-inspired magic existed that bore little likeness to the untrustworthy enchantments found in ancient relics and talismans. These days, not a deity among all the Houses of Gods spoke to any mortal, and mages were forced to move about in shabby gear with shabby hopes.

  At the king’s command, the procession rode on. Gilthas went in silence now. He didn’t look out at the city again until he heard Lady Elantha’s snort of disdain. Gilthas parted the silk hangings to see what had caught her attention. They had come to the library district, that place of gardens and groves where the dominating buildings were the Library of Qualinost, far-famed and respected even in these days when Beryl’s Knights kept most scholars out of the kingdom.

  The king leaned a little forward to see a band of autumn dancers. Musicians, pipers and drummers shaped a wide circle in the garden, and within the circle dancers spun like leaves come down from autumn. His face softened, for among them he saw Kerian. They performed the Dance of the Year, a complex series of steps that took them round in spirals which closed tightly then grew wide again, intersecting so that those standing on the high balconies of the houses surrounding the library’s garden would see the dancers as though they were patterns in a kaleidoscope. Variations of this dance went on in gardens all over the city, in parks and even in private gardens. This was a dance for the harvest, and elves who wanted to participate began practicing the complicated steps in the spring in order to be ready to perform in autumn. Kerian was an amateur dancer, perhaps not necessarily a gifted one, yet, what she lacked in precision or innate talent, she more than made up for in spark and spirit.

  The music soared, the notes of pipes like a flight of birds. It came back to earth again, caught and held by the subtle drum beat that guided the steps of the dancers. Kerian sailed among them, lovely in her festival garb. She had abandoned the colors of Rashas’s service in favor of harvest colors. She’d unbraided her hair and caught it loosely back in a shimmering scarf the color of corn silk. Her wide skirt swirled, golden as the oaks of autumn. Upon her wrists and the sum ankles of her brown naked feet, silvery bells rang. Sunlight warmed the day; she wore a thin silk blouse dyed the exact shade of the blue asters in the fields, the scalloped sleeves so short as to merely cover her lavishly tattooed shoulders.

  Winding, Kerian’s tattoos were like shadows upon her sun-burnished skin. Gil knew where each began and where each ended. He knew how they intersected and exactly where. Some of the Kagonesti covered their tattoos, either because a master decreed them uncouth or because they themselves had learned to feel ashamed of this unmistakable signing of the Wilder Elf heritage. Others covered the markings because they felt the tattoos were not for the casual observance of others. Kerian never covered her twining vines. She didn’t care who noted the tattoos or how they felt about them.

  “Ah, well,” Lady Elantha murmured, watching Kerian dance. “I suppose not all the servants have learned grace.”

  “Indeed,” said the king, smiling, because he must be seen to agree. He made a purposeful hesitation. “Yet she moves like shadows on the ground. Look, her feet barely touch the earth. That is a kind of grace, don’t you think, my lady?”

  Lady Elantha sniffed. “She is vulgar and half-clad, at that.”

  Not quite, Gilthas thought who knew this dancer clad and unclad, yet it was true that the silk of her blouse was so thin that she wore a camisole for modesty, and that was not of significantly more substance than the aster-blue blouse. The king saw the shadow of his lover’s breasts as she danced, and Lady Elantha saw his hand move, a small restlessness he couldn’t help. Gilthas then folded his hands as though casually, but he did not take his eyes from the dancers.

  Shining, swinging from hand to hand in steps so complicated they looked like madness, Kerian flung back her head, honey hair tumbling in rippling waves from her kerchief.

  The silk scarf caught a breeze and drifted toward a young man who stood watching the dance. He reached and caught the kerchief, holding it out to Kerian and teasing it back. Gilthas couldn’t hear what was said, but he understood the man’s
gestures. He’d return the scarf for the fee of a kiss. Kerian’s laughter rang like bells. Never missing a step, she took back her kerchief and lightly paid the fee as she passed round in the circle dance.

  “Move on,” the king commanded, his voice curt. He did not part the hangings again to look out until he discerned, by the receding sound of music and voices, that they’d come to a more utilitarian part of the city. They were in the Knights’ quarter now. Not far from here, Gilthas knew, Lord Eamutt Thagol sat in his ugly barracks building, the Skull Knight issuing orders to his minions. This day, at the request of Rashas who was the Senate’s liaison between the kingdom and the Knights, Thagol had agreed to keep his dark-armored patrols discreetly in the background of the festivities.

  Gilthas folded his lips grimly as they neared the eastern bridge the way out of the city. The king parted the litter’s hangings again, gazing eastward, feeling an aching and an emptiness. The bridge’s silvery span lifted high above king and lords, high above the city itself. Connected to the other three bridges by a series of towers, no more than guard houses for the watch, there had l?een a time when this bridge was no different from the other three.

  Recently, that had changed.

  Gil’s stomach turned, bitter bile rose into his throat. The eastern bridge bristled with spears like pikes. Upon the bloody points of those spears sat the fresh heads of elves. Above, high in the bright blue harvest sky, a darkness of ravens sailed. In the king’s ears, the sounds of festivity seemed as the sound of a distant sea, barely heard, hardly recognized.