Plenilune

by Jennifer Freitag

  It was a smooth, slow dance into which he led her, like the slow swing of stars—and it was the one she hated most of all. Its unhurried but inexorable steps seemed all too akin to the persistent pull of Rupert’s will. Bound up in his arms, moving to his steps, Margaret felt more than ever that she was moving through a nightmare. She once saw Skander close at hand, warped by her weariness into a pale stag-like figure, dancing with an enormous, graceful swan. She met eyes with him for a fraction of an instant and struggled with a fresh surge of panic not to let the weariness and huntedness show in her face. She forced a smile. He, she thought, forced one in return, and the couples swung apart again.

  How long that dance lasted she did not know. They seemed to dance down the corridors of time, from the first sung dawn to the world’s last night. Civilisations rose and fell beneath their feet. Stars bloomed and shed their petals overhead. In her muffled state the only clear feeling was her lip, which was stinging worse tonight. She wondered in a detached way if the rouge might not be harmful to it. More and more Rupert had to support her through the movements until, at last—she gave a half-checked sob of relief—he stopped completely and the dance was over.

  “What is this?” he murmured. She was not sure if his tone was one of concern or condescension. “Lift up your chin, my dear. You are born to this.”

  Another sob welled up in her throat but she forced it down in time. In a spurt of rage she wanted to strike his hand and face away, but she only turned her face from him and said, “I would like to sit down again. I have not danced like this in too long. My feet are weary.”

  He turned her about, supporting her without seeming to, and she managed to glide gracefully toward the perimeter of the room where a new chair waited for her. It was a heavy, plush, winged thing of white wood and gold satin cushions, and a sweet smell wafted from it when she sank down, doing her best not to look as tired as she felt.

  Rupert leaned close and let the back of his hand brush her hot cheek. “I will fetch you something cool to drink. Sit quietly and do not stir.”

  “For myself or for you?” she asked with a flicker of annoyance.

  He quirked a smile. “For both, I imagine.”

  She leaned her head back against the chair when she was left alone, as she had been left alone before, but this time relief did not come to her. Her hair-piece—a jewelled butterfly of rubies and shards of amber—got in the way of her comfort, as did the knowledge that soon Rupert would be coming back. The room, which had been cool when it had been empty, was full and hot now. There was a pressure building behind her eyes which was only faintly alleviated by shutting them.

  A familiar voice began speaking beyond the darkness of her closed lids. “It is my understanding that the dancing is going to be cut a bit short by a solo piece by your wife.”

  She recognized the voice as Darkling’s, but it was a new voice which replied.

  “Romage is to play her harp. Capys so greatly enjoyed her performance last year that nothing, he said, would satisfy him until she had played this year.”

  Centurion gave his shivery, silvery laugh that was nearly inaudible. “It is a great compliment to her, sir. No one plays the harp so well as the Carmarthen folk, and among them no one so well as she.”

  The second speaker said nothing but the silence was not disapproving. He is a good gentleman, Margaret thought with a touch of a smile, to not milk Centurion for more praise of his wife than comes willingly. The silence was brief, however, for with a new tone of warning the second gentleman said, “Hie to your wit. There goes Baron Malbrey.”

  Her eyelids fluttered involuntarily but she kept them down. The silence that lingered between Darkling and his neighbour was long and hot, broken at last by the former musing,

  “I smell a rat.”

  “Indeed?” replied his neighbour.

  “Oh, aye!” She risked cracking one lid open and saw Centurion turn, his head up, gazing at his shorter companion with a supercilious air. “He sold his soul to the devil and lives on the devil’s land. Moreover, he and the devil are friends.”

  It was Mark Roy who was Lord Darkling’s companion. He turned his head away and looked after the baron, his own face clouded by thoughts, the muffled sound of thunder in the lift of his shoulders and the gold-traced dragons that were depicted there. “I do not like de la Mare’s baron,” he admitted carefully. “There is an air about him which I do not like—moreover there is some dispute between him and my man FitzDraco which puts him not in my graces.”

  “Really?” Centurion raised a brow. “The game moves on apace. What cause?”

  Mark Roy only shrugged, the dragons soaring and falling and rustling as with wings. “FitzDraco has never told me, and much as I stake my life upon him, he is not a man I would pry for information. I let him keep it to himself on the condition that it not upset affairs of state.”

  “And does he mind that it would?”

  For a long while Mark Roy looked after the baron, who had long since disappeared, and there was an uncertainty in his dark, noble face which chilled Margaret’s blood. “Not him, I think, never Lord Gro. Lord Gro is among the best of men. And I think that, for all his chanticleer pride, Baron Malbrey would not strike a blow of any sort for anything. He would not risk himself like that.” Mark Roy looked to his companion. “He has not the power. But de la Mare, on the other hand…”

  Centurion said in a soft, serious voice, “But de la Mare, on the other hand, throws the equation of power against us.”

  Mark Roy shivered involuntarily, as if someone had trod on his grave, and he crossed his arms tightly over his chest with a great murmur of scarlet velvet. “Ill I like him!” he whispered vehemently. “Ill I like him…”

  But the moment of seriousness had slid from Centurion and he gave a breathy but genuine laugh. “Our host tried—worthy man! But it seems the gates of hell prevail yet.”

  With a spark of premonition, just in time, Margaret looked away before Mark Roy turned a furtive gaze to her. “Truth to tell, I thought Capys a little mad to go running his head into such a lion’s mouth. But what is bravery and what is madness, and is there such a difference between them? Capys tried—and he is a worthy man—but de la Mare is a man who will dare all things.” And again he shivered, nostrils flaring, and again Centurion said with a light air,

  “Despair not, sir. God works in mysterious ways.”

  “Fair mysterious,” grunted Mark Roy. “I would like a light in the dark all the same.”

  Lord Darkling put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and gave him a little turn-about. “You never know, sir, but there might be. You never know, sir…” His gaze slid, as he and his friend began to move off, over Margaret and lingered there, eye linked with eye, and for the briefest moment she felt pierced by him, plumbed by him…She was not sure what he read in her face, or her eyes, or her soul, but at the last instant he smiled and his gaze passed on from her.

  Margaret turned her lip between her teeth and then let it go at once, wincing at the pain. With a heavy sigh she shifted in her chair, uncomfortable, uncertain. No—she gave a mirthless breath of laughter—wishing she were uncertain. She knew what Centurion meant by his look, no matter what he read in hers. He, far from despising her, hoped her to be a friend within those alleged gates. Little did he know, she considered with her elbow on the arm of the chair, her chin in her hand, and a small, mocking smile on her face, little did he know that there could be no friends within those gates, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

  9 | The Red Pawn

  “Ah, my jailer,” she wanted to say aloud when she saw Rupert returning. The glass which he placed in her hands was cool, made of cut crystal, and he seemed to have poured light into it for her to drink.

  “You look better,” he remarked. “I was gone so long for this.” He held out a fan to her, spread open, distorted images of fieldmice on it in beige and ecru.

  She took the fan. “Never mind. I have been quite content to sit here on m
y own.”

  He smiled like steel. “I’m sure you have.”

  For a few minutes they kept their own silence. Margaret drank the cool wine, which tasted as much of sunshine as it looked, and fanned herself until the tendrils of hair around her brow danced wildly and her wrist began to hurt. Rupert stood by her, looking to her from time to time, but not speaking. If he had found his temper after losing it over the Comitissa Woodbird, he did not mention it. Meanwhile the last dance was coming to a close and there was some movement among the servants which, catching it out of the corner of her eye, Margaret thought must mean the end of dancing altogether and the preparations for the performance Lord Darkling had spoken of. She was just rousing herself to mention it when Rupert said,

  “Ah, I seem to have tarried not long enough. The pigeon is going to warble for us.”

  So, she thought, pursing her lips, he had not found his temper.

  With a sigh Rupert held out his hand. “Come along, vixen. We must find ourselves a good seat.”

  “I think this one will do,” she snapped, sore on the pigeon’s behalf. With an uprush of scarlet she rose, skirts in hand, and waited while he hefted the chair over one shoulder. He beckoned her on before him and she went, weaving her way among the others while chairs were set up and the orchestra was rearranging itself to accommodate the solo performance. In the dark wings of the north end of the ballroom the players sat, tiered on their benches, like a jury of angels. They were all in warm, dark colours and seemed to melt into the shadows, illumined only by their single candles. It was a strange, eerie thing to sit below them, looking up into their shadows, while it seemed the candles, not their fingers, played the light upon the strings. It was a strange, eerie note they played, a minor key which seemed to conjure the formless, painful longing in her soul and give it a kind of voice. Margaret sat in her seat, her hands gripping the arms of it until her knuckles turned white, and suffered the mournful song to wash out of the high dark down over her. Rupert sat stiff and sidewise in his chair by her side, and if the music affected him as it did her, she was not sure: she only knew that his eyes were hooded with bare displeasure and his lips were pressed into a thin, iron line.

  Someone spoke. Margaret did not know who or where they stood. The voice seemed to come out of the dim dark, as if Plenilune itself were introducing the harp-player.

  “I am honoured to give to you tonight a song by none other than Queen Romage of Orzelon-gang. Please—”

  As if the voice had drawn back a veil, Margaret noticed the woman at last. She sat foremost among those in the orchestra, on a level with the audience and not far from Margaret herself. And in her pomp and quiet, smothering splendour, Margaret knew she was only gracing the orchestra’s ensemble: she belonged among the lords and ladies. Her hair was caught up with pins of blue amber—which the candlelight behind her was making into a furious cluster of fractalled flame—but if it had been let down it would have been long and tawny-striped like honey and a tiger’s coat, and Margaret almost hated her for the beauty of it. She was in a gown of peacock-blue, the same colour as the drenched night outside the windows, and her gown was chased over heavily by gold threads as if the golden harp-strings of her instrument were tied to her, and she to it—and when she glanced up across the audience from attending to her harp and the light of the chandeliers illumined the look in her eyes, Margaret was certain of it.

  There was no more introduction. The lady smiled in a small, bewitching way, and her fingers began to work the strings. The lights ran up and down the strings, pale as her fingernails, red as her lips.

  Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

  Nor the furious winter’s rages;

  Thou thy worldly task hast done,

  Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.

  Golden lads and girls all must,

  As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  Her voice and the harp’s were matched to perfection, and both of them golden, so that it seemed to Margaret as if they had but one voice between them and spoke at once two languages, though their words were the same.

  Fear no more the frown o’ the great,

  Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;

  Care no more to clothe and eat;

  To thee the reed is as the oak:

  The sceptre, learning, physic, must

  All follow this and come to dust.

  Fear no more the lightning-flash,

  Nor th’ all-dreaded thunder-stone;

  Fear not slander, censure rash;

  Thou hast finisht joy and moan:

  All lovers young, all lovers must,

  Consign to thee and come to dust.

  Their voices, harp’s and woman’s together, rose up hauntingly toward the arched rafters of the ballroom hall and hung there as if on golden wings, hovering, tremulous, and seemed to draw all the light out of the room so that it was dark to Margaret, dark and hollow and golden with singular song. Slowly her hands unclenched.

  No exorciser harm thee!

  Nor no witchcraft charm thee!

  Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

  Nothing ill come near thee!

  Quiet consummation have;

  And renowned be thy grave!

  With this potent benediction the queen’s voice fell away from the harp’s into the silence, and still the harp played on softly, softly under her hands, until it, too, hushed into the quiet dark. Margaret’s eyes were fixed on her and could not look away, for her song, like the panpipe’s, bore a power she had never known music to possess. The queen sat with her head bowed by the instrument, the flat of her hands upon the still strings…and then she turned her head slowly, turned up her amber-coloured eyes, and looked back at Margaret as if they were the only people in the room. As with Lord Gro she felt something run between them, but what she did not know, only that it sent shivers along the backs of her arms.

  The gaze turned away and the queen smiled to her audience. Someone began clapping and the rest followed. She rose, curtsied, and Skander stepped forward to thank her and help with the harp.

  Rupert leaned in, his hand on Margaret’s arm. “It is in my mind,” he whispered, “that you hate Plenilune a little less now.”

  She flung a hot look at him, all the splendour of Queen Romage’s song whistling down the wind. “Plenilune, perhaps,” she retorted. “But not you.”

  His brows flickered betrayingly, but he only took her by the arm and raised her up; cold now, cold from the eerie song and Rupert’s persistent attacks at her will, she laid her fan down on the seat cushion as she left. It was one less thing to carry about with her, one less thing of his to be concerned with.

  “What do we do now?” she asked dispassionately. The orchestra seemed to be retiring for an interim and there was a definite flutter of apprehensive expectation in the air.

  Rupert took a firmer hold on her arm. “We go to light the fires—which is a thing your people have not done in many generations. How faithless you all are!” His tone was one of mockery and triumph.

  But his blow fell wide of Margaret. Far from attending to his words, she had caught sight at that moment of Skander on the east side of the room. He was talking with a lady in a great swan’s dress and his figure was one of contradiction. Even at that distance she could see the idle, genial softness in his countenance—but when her eyes travelled to his hands, which hung at his sides, she saw they were clenched to white. He seemed on the verge of leaving politely, the woman intent on holding him back—for her figure was one of rigid constraint. Whatever she spoke to him, Margaret thought it could not be pleasant.

  Well, I shan’t stick my neck out for you again, the young woman thought savagely.

  Abruptly Skander bowed and stepped away. With a snap and muffled thunder of feathers the woman opened a fan and whirled away like a cloud driven by an angry wind.

  Margaret lost sight of him. The crowd came between, moving out of the ballroom and down a long, high, dark passage which was full of draughts. Margaret shivered a
nd wished for a wrap, but there did not seem time to get one and she would not have asked Rupert. She went with him until they reached a high beaten copper door, tabbied with red glint and verdigris, and were let out into the dark, windy garden. The wind rushed at Margaret, sending her red skirts dancing, and she clenched her fists to keep from recoiling or being carried off on the gale. What a wild night on which to light bonfires!

  The crowd fanned out naturally, making room, and as she looked about she found they were on a wide, level place of short grass bordered by a thick, square hedge of ilex. Other than three dark lump-shaped objects in the middle of the lawn, there was no other feature in the square. The emptiness of the sky reigned supreme, despite its stars, and seemed closer and deeper than ever before, and made Margaret seem small indeed.

  Skander reappeared at their side momentarily, looking, Margaret noticed, somewhat overrun and trying not to show it. “How are you enjoying yourself, Margaret?” he asked in a preoccupied tone.

  “Well,” she replied, then added, fearing she had been rude, “it is very Good King Whenceitwas.”

  “Hmm?” Skander was already looking away as if for something that should be there and was not, not fully attending to her. Margaret, cold, blind weary, and not at all sure, now that she thought about it, that she had got it right, chose to let it pass without further attempt at explanation. Skander muttered something, shot her a hurried glance and smile, and melted off with a mixture of reluctance and haste which puzzled her.

  Her stomach growled in the low murmuring quiet of people moving and talking. She pulled it in and clenched her fists. “Will we eat after this?” she asked.

  “Yes, afterward,” said Rupert. He, too, sounded preoccupied, but not flustered, and when she looked at him she saw a low, slumbering pleasure in his darkened face. He drew in an immense breath, as though he were breathing in the crowd, the lumps, the ilex, the turf, the dark, the hill, the sky, the stars, the night itself, all down into his lungs, his veins, his soul. But all he said was, “There will be snow tomorrow.”