Plenilune

by Jennifer Freitag

  “Damn.”

  She opened her eyes to a wide, fox-coloured light. The window-panes were overlaid with spider-fine frost, the patterns cast on the floor by the light coming through the frost looked like footprints left by seraphic visitors. For the first time it felt, not like autumn, but like Christmas.

  Margaret crawled out of bed and stood shivering in her shift while the frozen light played on her skin. She peered across the lawn at the thin, argent sky, listening to the creak and coo of the wild agrarian birds. Geese were calling somewhere, hurrying toward Darkling where winter was warmer. They would pass Centurion on the way, she thought.

  Rupert was out on the lawn with Talbot and Livy; the two men were watching the dog romp in the hoarfrost, the breath of all three of them smoking in the air. They were too far away for Margaret to hear even the murmur of their voices. Round the end of the stable-wing old Hobden emerged, toting a full bucket of slops in either hand. His ancient, gnarled frame barely seemed to notice the weight and strain put upon it.

  I hate this place. Yet I want to belong, desperately. The life of this place calls out to me and I do not know why. Maybe old Hobden is right. Maybe it would have been better if the other man had not died. But I am always losing to Rupert: what could I do for Marenové’s sake even if I should stay?

  She pressed her hand against the glass. The cold burned her skin.

  What do you want from me?

  She turned away from the srcying-glass scene and went into her closet. For a long while she stared at the clothes by the light of a lamp, wondering what would be both warm enough for the bitingly clear winter day, dignified and beautiful, but understated enough not to frighten the shy-sounding White Ones. She found herself thinking of them as little horned creatures the like of which she had seen at Lookinglass.

  In the end she chose a gown of pigeon-coloured velvet that purled back in places to let out the silky sheen of the ocean at sunset. With the muted flame of colour she moved across the barred light of the room, paused only to thrust her hair up and hold it in place with pins and sky-fire gems, before stepping out of her room as one stepping out onto a battlefield that has already been lost.

  From day to day, Margaret had noticed that Rupert tended to go about his own routine, presumably as he had before he brought her to Marenové House. Only on occasion would he look in on her, drifting by as he went from one place to another. Accustomed to her father living a life separate from the feminine, domestic life she and her mother and sisters had lived, Margaret had not thought much of it. She had been glad to be left alone. But today Rupert seemed to hover closer than usual. When he realized she had emerged from her room he seemed always close by, just in the next room or, when she found a moment to sit down, in an armchair near her reading one of his dolphin-skinned books. She had just finished a battle with Rhea over the silverware she wanted to use and the placement of people at the supper table, and had collapsed on a sofa in the sitting room only to hear a soft expletive muttered nearby and looked round to see Rupert, again, leaning over his work with his elbow on the table, slashing out lines of writing on a page.

  “What, you too?”

  He looked up, but did not look round at her. “Was Rhea giving you trouble?” he evaded.

  He never speaks of that work of his. Margaret sighed and pressed her fingertips against her forehead. As the hours went by she was growing more and more restless and nervous, her temper shorter and shorter. “I sorted it out. Have you given notice to the stable-hands?”

  He frowned into his work again. “I hadn’t. When I am done here I will go take care of that.” He did look up then, swinging round suddenly on her, and hung a moment with a curious, searching look in his eye. “You look very well,” he remarked. Was that a note of surprise in his voice? “That dress becomes you.”

  Her stomach clenched. With an effort she rose. “It is certainly more understated than scarlet.”

  “The scarlet,” he pointed out, “was your idea.”

  She looked down into his pale, hateful eyes. “True. I will see to the stable-hands.”

  “Margaret—”

  She had turned away. Her heart stopped at the tone of his voice, gripped in emotion. She knew without looking what his countenance would be. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.

  The silence drew out, falling like snow upon his emotions. At last he seemed to break away, repelled by the stiffness of her shoulders; she heard the nib of his pen scratching softly at the page again. Trembling she walked away, realizing that she had fully expected him to get up and grab her by the arm—or the throat. The fox’s reassurance of his character seemed far away in that moment.

  Her nervousness mounted almost to madness by the time evening dropped down Seescarfell and turned the eastern flanks of the Marius Hills to wine-coloured darkness. A low, cold wind moaned in the hawthorn. The stars, shaken out of the folds of the sky, reminded Margaret of Lookinglass, which reminded her of freedom. She had stepped out into the last flicker of dusk on the front stoop to listen for the tell-tale, wind-blown splutter of hooves coming from the road. There was no sound but the wind, and she lingered on the step and watched the stars break out of a ragged dark sky shredded and coloured like an old war-banner, and she found solace in the sight.

  She was turning to go back inside when a dog barked down the lane and the wind, changing direction for a moment, brought through the gloam the soft drub of hooves on turf and dirt. There was a momentary jink of light down the hill between hawthorn and wind-swept barberry. It was only for a moment, then it was lost again in the curve of the pasture; but it would reappear shortly at the end of the lane and come steadily toward her, horses emerging like wraiths from the night tide, travel-worn faces awash with the moth-shuttered lantern-light. Margaret waited, feeling the moments ebb away her anxiety little by little so that, by the time the string of muddy, tired horses shambled into the ring of light cast beside the great front doors of Marenové House, she felt perfectly at ease.

  “Centurion,” she said, vaguely surprised by the warmth in her own voice. “Surely this is a case of there and back again. How was your journey?”

  The man, wrapped up in a wine-coloured cloak ring-streaked with shadow and mud, swung stiffly down from his leggy chestnut mount and retreated toward one of the horses behind him to help a deeply-muffled figure down. His face flashed in the light for a moment as he flung a smile toward Margaret.

  “Cold and tiring!” he said. “But it did not rain as I thought it might. I could smell something suspicious coming over the Marius Hills and the sky looked threatening, but nothing came of it.”

  Margaret watched the shrouded figure slip into the light, joined by another much its height and almost as thoroughly wrapped. She could not see any faces. “No, that was only the goose that was roasting for supper.”

  Centurion laughed heartily, but wearily. As he turned the horses over to the hands of the stable servants and stepped into the full glare of the light, his hood falling back off the crown of his head, she saw the long road up from Darkling-law had left him tired. As his eyes slid past her to Rupert, who had appeared with a soft breath of warm air from inside, she saw in his face the unmistakable look of a man too tired to fight.

  “I must thank you again for inviting us. It is better boarding than a way-house, and no mistake.”

  Margaret stepped back, gesturing into the hall. “Do not thank me yet until you have tasted the goose and felt the beds. Do come in. Do come in!” she gently urged the two shy creatures that hung about Centurion’s flanks. “Your luggage will be taken up and you will have time to wash and change. Supper is in half an hour. The servants will bring you down.” She shot a warning look at Rhea, who had been placed in charge of Centurion. The maid did not meet her gaze, though Margaret was sure her look had been seen. “Make yourselves at home.”

  “Again, thank you.” Centurion shook Rupert’s hand in a weary, obligatory way, then, greetings past, he turned to the two creature
s behind him. “Go with the servants. I’ll see you at supper.”

  Between the curves of brindled fur Margaret caught sight of a white cheek and a deeply scarlet mouth, but otherwise the two seemed to avert their faces from all eyes with a practiced dexterity. She felt Centurion would have liked to have said more to them, to reassure them out of their shyness, but Rupert’s presence seemed to quench him. They all went wearily after the servants, Centurion treading heavily, the other two slipping soundlessly up the stairs.

  “Well!” Margaret breathed.

  “I like them even less than Centurion,” said Rupert darkly. He shivered and crossed his arms. “Shuh! They smell of uncanny magic.”

  Margaret had to admit that they left her feeling uneasy, but she did not say it. Feeling oddly defensive of them, she turned wordlessly away and went into the dining room to wait.

  Her anxiety was warring with her again by the time Centurion reappeared. She started from her seat, seeing again the Centurion she knew, polished and fair of face, his mood sturdily restored along with his self-confidence. The servant announced him and he strode into the dining room, flinging a look round to get his bearings before fixing his gaze on her. “Lady Margaret! Please—let me introduce you to my brother and sister. This is Julius and Julianna.”

  The two shy, white creatures slipped in behind him. They were stripped now of their fur and seemed to blaze out bare like candles. The girl was dressed in a gown of fire-coloured tabby silk, the boy was dressed in a suit of chocolate-brown corduroy. But what took Margaret by surprise, though she realized it should not have, was that they were both white. They were pale, almost translucent, in their whiteness. The boy’s hair was cropped close like his brother’s, but it was silvery white, throwing back the mellow candlelight with subtle hues of pink. The girl’s hair, white as swan’s down, was braided and coiled expertly in a fashion she was coming to recognize as common to the Honours, but surely, Margaret thought, even her cousin’s outlandish hair could be no whiter than this. The lashes on both of them were dyed dark, which made their orchid-coloured eyes stand out in their soft, lean faces with an almost appalling beauty.

  No wonder people thought them unlucky!

  But then the shock was swept away and Margaret was smiling sincerely, caught by the undiluted beauty of the two young people before her. It felt viciously good, too, to not be the only strange one in the world.

  “Julius. Julianna. I am so glad you could come.” She found herself dipping politely, withdrawing just a fraction so that her greeting might not frighten the shy things.

  The boy’s pale face coloured and, stiffly, he bowed, looking at Centurion as he did so. The girl folded her hands upon her breast and, like Margaret, plunged in a froth of fiery silk toward the floor, her curtsy graceful and deliberate as someone flinging down a torch. Jewels yelled in the light from her throat and ears—but no jewel was as poignant as her uplifted, piercing eyes.

  Rupert and Margaret took the ends of the table. Livy placed Centurion on Margaret’s right with Julianna across from him directly on Margaret’s left, her brother beside her to Rupert’s right. Julianna’s hand flickered beside her, as if searching for Margaret’s, but, catching her older brother’s eye, she put it back down in her lap.

  She thought we were going to say grace, Margaret thought with a wince. If only we were! We need it.

  “I heard the weather was clear for you coming over the Sound,” began Rupert as they plunged into the goose.

  Centurion looked up. “Remarkably pleasant, to tell the truth. It was very cold in the hills but we had clear skies nearly all the way. I thought the clouds might turn to something, but they never did. It has been a mild winter thus far.”

  “They do not get very stormy around here until after the New Year.”

  Centurion quietly peeled meat away from bone, but Margaret saw the half-laughing, half-hopeless look on the lord’s face. He, too, would be bracing for the wretched change in the weather that was to come at the turn of the year…

  Rupert’s knife flashed, sending a scale of light over his cheek. “Our weather moves from east to west; if it did not break on you as you were coming over, it probably broke behind you and moved on. Incidentally, you should have fair skies for your journey tomorrow.”

  “How long is the ride down?”

  Rupert thought a moment. How polite he is being! Margaret realized with a pang of worry. She wondered how long it would last. “If you take the Branhoch and don’t turn off at Shirling, but keep going south through the junction at Crown, it will take you three days. If you mention my name at the Blue Royal, you will get a better room and a better price. They are none so bad a way-house as some.”

  Centurion quenched a look of surprise. With a tell-tale sweep over Julius and Julianna he said, “Thank you. I am…heartily grateful.”

  Rupert set his mouth in a hard, thin line, and for awhile it was up to Margaret to make conversation.

  She turned slowly to Julianna. “I saw you have a dappled grey horse. Is that yours?”

  The girl raised her head and looked steadily, wide-eyed, into Margaret’s face. The dark lips were parted in surprise—and Margaret was seeing, again, the horned creature in the woods, and saw Julianna weighing whether to be spooked or at ease with her voice. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Centurion looking across the table at his sister’s face, breath bated, willing her with an almost physical power to calm herself.

  The jet-black lashes flickered over the eyes. The tension eased. “Yes, that is Bridget. She is my mare. Splendour of God is Julius’ horse.”

  Margaret smiled in spite of herself. “I can think of no better mount to bear you than the splendour of God.”

  Rupert drew in an audible breath; the sound of it seemed to jab at Margaret under the breastbone. Grey flickered on the edge of her vision.

  “Mine,” Margaret went on through the tightness in her lungs, “is Hanging Tree. It is not as pretty a name as yours, but my mare looks so much like yours, I could not help marking your mare when you came.” She floundered for another question, if only for the sake of hearing that sweet, lyrical voice again. “Did you raise her yourself?”

  “No.” The brows twitched. “Centurion—he breeds the horses. Chanticleer Down is his horse. My family has raised Down horses for generations. They are the most famous family of horses in the Honours.”

  Margaret looked to Centurion. “You must be very proud.”

  “Horses are very important to us,” Centurion explained. “They are a symbol of wealth and power, a kind of magic, and often very keen friends. And,” the falcon-coloured eyes laughed, “in a pinch they can get you from place to place.”

  Laughing back into those friendly eyes, Margaret was surprised by the thought—

  Could I ask him about the dragon?

  Julianna spread her hands in a sudden fit of confusion, for her napkin had slid off her silken lap onto the carpet. Spurred into motion, Livy brought a fresh one and held it mutely out to her. Julianna took it, but Margaret saw the shiver of the jewel in her ear as she trembled in the presence of the huge dark manservant. Seeming to catch her distress, Julius reached out, just beneath the edge of the table—Margaret could see his shoulder move—and touched Julianna. The simple gesture seemed to settle and reassure her, the roosting softness in the boy’s eyes seemed to transfer instantly into Julianna’s face as though by some half-magical link between them.

  No wonder people thought them unlucky!

  “There is chess and rummy in the withdrawing room,” said Rupert when supper was finished. He added to Livy, “We will take coffee and dessert there.”

  “And sure we ought not stay up late,” said Centurion, rising and twisting back his shoulders, stretching contentedly, “but I will play you in a game of chess.”

  They descended on the withdrawing room with its roaring fire and windows curtained by night. Rupert and Centurion, each a little wary of the other and each deftly not showing it, sat down on either side of the c
hess-board. Rupert had the red, Centurion had the white: Centurion opened. Left to entertain the White Ones, Margaret drew up a few chairs to the coffee table and began shuffling the deck of cards.

  “Have you played rummy before?” she asked, assuming that they had and hearing, not her own voice, but the fox’s mockingly in her head.

  Julius, in a low, rich voice, said, “No, madam.”

  She came back with a start. “Oh. Well, I will teach it to you.”

  She felt she taught it badly, especially since neither twin said a word as she explained, but when they began to play she realized they had taken in every word she had said—and, what was more, they played expertly. She could not tell if they got any pleasure out of the game, for their faces were concentrated. They ate their dessert and drank their coffee almost mechanically, which disturbed her.

  She lost every time they played and as the soft, triumphant word “Checkmate,” was spoken in Rupert’s baritone, she leaned back on her sofa and smiled pathetically. “Through no skill of mine you have both played tremendously. Of course, I have always been a bad player,” she added ruefully.

  Julianna seemed to latch onto her brother’s face with her eyes. “It is but mathematics,” said Julius patiently. “You have only to acquaint yourself with the number of cards in the deck and the placement of them. Then it is a simple matter of probability and logic.”

  Margaret put her chin in her hand, head shaking so that her earrings swung. “If I were half so well educated as you I might know what you mean. You must be very excited to be going to the University.”

  They both smiled and looked down at their laps. How curious—they were perhaps only four years younger than she and yet their shyness, despite their obvious intelligence, was tangible. To Margaret, it seemed only to add to their unique charm. She found herself regretting that they would be going away in the morning. She caught Centurion’s eye across the room and smiled at him. A little perplexed, he smiled back.