Her eldest son made to lean in to kiss her, then, realizing what a mess he was, stopped short of the gesture. “Mostly, I think.”
“It is in my mind,” said Dammerung, pursuing his original subject, “that her grace had little doubt of that.”
Mark Roy pushed through them all and took his wife’s hand—though which supported the other, Margaret, looking carefully, could not say. “All things are laid bare before him with whom we have to do. Come in, all of you. My men will see to the field. Tonight I will toast to the victory on the field and show you—my lady, did I not say that you ought to come and dine with us here in Orzelon-gang?” As they walked into the forecourt he half turned, catching Margaret’s eye.
But her gaze was already being drawn off into the golden lights and thick red shadows around them. Was that a dragon she saw at the top of that pillar—was the pillar itself a dragon holding up the colonnade roof? “Yes, you had,” she answered absent-mindedly. “And it quite surpasses your description.”
“Come along in,” came back Romage’s jewelled voice. “I will take her ladyship. Will Black Malkin and Grane join us?”
“They are seeing to their own people,” said Brand, “and then I think they were of a mind to join us for supper.”
At the inner gate, which was made of bronze and decorated with the sweeping bodies and tails of two enormous metal peacocks, Romage slipped out of her husband’s grasp and held out her hand—a long, fine, beautiful hand—and beckoned for Margaret. A swift, powerful loathing to detach herself from Dammerung stopped her for a moment, but then she made herself go, one foot in front of the other though her legs seemed like unlovely lead. The queen slid an arm in hers and took her through the doors.
They passed into the fabled room of the black pools and golden fish. At first, disoriented by the sudden dark and peeps of red light and draped red linen from the upper corners of the atrium, Margaret thought the golden flickers in the water were reflections of hidden light until, passing on the edge of one long pool, she saw the light turn slowly, hugely, and drift to the surface. A red-and-white mottled face appeared out of the shifting black, wet and whiskered like a water-drake, and then slipped under again with a kiss of closing water.
“You like them?” Romage did not turn her head.
Had her legs been more serviceable, Margaret thought she might have stopped and knelt on the water’s edge to get a better look at the creatures, and perhaps even—her flesh tingled—have touched one. In the dark she could get no clear image of them—they never moved quickly, but seemed to be always shifting out of the light into the dark again—but they looked enormous: huge, half-spirit things made of light and blood and bodies living in a strange, powerful medium. They seemed, in those disjointed, dark moments, to be akin to her.
It was not until later that she realized she had never answered Romage’s question.
The queen took her down a dark hallway, up a flight of stairs, and all the while Margaret was aware of those sentinel dragon-pillars rising on either hand, holding up the sky, holding down the earth. She felt akin to those, too. They went through another wide atrium, with a lower roof this time and mobile panels of red honeycombed wood, over acres of rich carpet, to a gold-painted door that slid in the wall. Romage put her hand inside the little indentation that was the handle and said,
“This is your suite…My lord, you are not allowed in.”
Out of the dark behind her Dammerung’s voice, softly laughing, said, “Oh, I know. Surely the smell of holiness grows stronger here. You will find me, if you have need of me, behind the next door. I’ll come back for her ladyship when we have washed.”
She and Romage watched him go, swallowed up over-quickly in the heavy darkness that seemed to fill every corridor of the palace. He was still there—he seemed to be everywhere—and yet he had withdrawn, hiding behind the dark as God hid his face behind the vault of heaven: watching, ever-present, and unseen.
Romage said, “I have seen it only once. That man, I think, has its face ever before his and walks in its white shadow.”
“You know,” murmured Margaret, “I think you may be right.”
The queen’s face was a bright flash of almond and fire-colour in the dark, laughing at her soundlessly. She slid back the gold panel and ushered Margaret into a well of black room lit only at the far end by a long narrow of rectangle and the slit of green night sky that showed through.
Beside her there was a sound of thin metal being shifted and a red coal-light sprang up against Romage’s bent face. In the gloom Margaret saw her dip a taper into a little bin of lit coals. Lifting the flaming taper, the queen passed quickly into the dark, moving from place to place with her light outstretched until she had found a few dozen candles and the room was coming reluctantly out of the dark.
Fishing in the wall gap, Margaret slid the door shut again behind her. Her fingers left a smudge of blood behind on the gold.
“Never mind.” The queen came back, hands outstretched for Margaret’s surcoat. With gestures and glances, and very few words—Just as if she were handling a wild animal—Romage got Margaret out of her soiled clothing and had her kneel on a square setup of travertine tiles in one corner of the room. There was a drain to one side and several bowls of scented water. Shivering in the air, a great length of cloth heavily played over with spangled grouse gathered around her waist and over her legs, Margaret let the queen systematically wipe the grime from her skin. She never used the same cloth twice once she had got it dirty, but presently, as her skin was coming clean, Romage settled on a piece of soft linen and dabbled rose-water over Margaret’s skin until the room was full of the scent of rich gardens and candle-smoke.
“Bend forward now,” said Romage, twisting to pick up one of the largest bowls which she had not used yet, “and put your hair in this.”
The powerful smell of lemons and honey hit Margaret in the face as she crouched over her knees, her back screaming in protest; but Romage, pulling the hair through her fingers, gently plied out the worst of the tangles and began to soothe the warm smelly mixture down the sorry hair.
Silent, too tired to make conversation, Margaret glanced aside across the room toward the door. Romage’s handling was relaxing: it occurred to her that the fear had gone now. She was careful not to think about the battle that had just passed. I wonder what Dammerung is up to. Does he get honey run through his hair? Or is he, perhaps, miles away in his mind, dreaming and scheming about what Skander is doing? If he is not rattling the ear off any poor servant assigned to him, he probably is miles away. He is probably miles away regardless. He can rattle and travel at the same time. I wish—her heart clenched in her chest—I wish he wouldn’t go without me.
“Oh!” she said of a sudden as a chill ran up her spine.
Romage’s warm hand, slick with honey, ran down her back like a man soothing the neck of a horse. “Ah, someone tread on your grave? There, that is the last of it.” With a deft movement of her hands she had wrapped the hair up in a twist, piled it on Margaret’s head, and thrust a pin of blue amber into it. “Now come to the bath.”
Still bent over, Margaret looked up, startled.
The queen rose and looked down from her height, laughter in her eyes. “That is not all! When we get very dirty we take baths, but we do not get into them completely filthy. We do not bathe in such grime. You are just clean enough to come really clean, I think. This way…”
Margaret hitched the damp silk up from her hips to her shoulders, got laboriously to her feet, and padded after Romage to an upright tub of travertine set in a little alcove along the west wall. It was lit by several squat plum-coloured candles; the light skipped off the surface of a white liquid and shone off a number of lemon-slices and several handfuls of rose-petals.
How far I’ve come from the dirty girl who knelt in a cellar and cried.
She flung the silk down and stepped into the tub.
As the milk closed over her body, Romage sat down on a little three-legged
stool, unscrewed the cap of a squat glass jar, and scooped out a handful of sweet-smelling stuff into her palm. With it she began to rhythmically massage Margaret’s hands.
“Was this your first battle?” she asked conversationally, but always in that careful, low tone.
Again, as if I were a wild animal. Her skin threatened to shiver again at the thought of the fight and how close she had been to death, but she clamped down on the feeling before it could break. “Yes…And no.” She forced a smile. “I have been at this war for awhile now.”
“So you have. So have we all. Rinse that.”
Margaret stuck her hands in the milk and shook them while Romage, without asking permission, suddenly craned her head back and began the same plaiting movements with her hair until much of the honey had been washed out.
Presently she did not have to force the smile. Lying back against the cool edge of the stone, the milk soft against her sun-scorched flesh, a smile untwisted with her muscles. A perfect circle of lemon, alight with the reflection of candle-flame, drifted across the surface of the milk and settled on her freckled shoulder. Her voice came out of her as if conjured by magic, and she did not wholly realize what she was saying.
“You are a people fond of battle and glory, but I think you know gentleness and comfort too.”
Romage rose and washed her hands. “Man is the student of many things. When you are finished soaking I will rinse you again on the tiles. Meanwhile, I will lay out your clothing for you so that you may see.”
Hope, a strange and girlish hope, turned Margaret’s head like a shot. She said nothing, but her eyes followed Romage like a hawk following a hare. The woman moved a panel in the wall aside, revealing what looked from across the room in the circle of candlelight to be a great well of darkness. Out of the dark Romage lifted several dark, shimmering gowns, and from a drawer in the well she took a number of items which fit roughly in one of her hands. The items she put on a table, out of sight for the moment, then she laid the clothing on a chair and began to shake them out.
“Your underdress,” she announced, and held up a gown purple like thunder, cut wide and low with fantastic sleeves. She held it up so that the light could play a drum-beat on its folds, then she put it aside and reached for the next part of the gown. “Your overdress.”
Margaret put her hands on the sides of the tub and hefted herself forward.
The gown was made of a blue-black fabric—it seemed to play at being one or the other, depending on the light, and sometimes both at once—and was picked out all over, unevenly, in clear jewels that shone white even under the harsh glare of the candles. This, too, fell in many folds about, but never quite on, the shoulders, and was cut like a robe to be wrapped round the body and tied with the enormous black-and-silver slashed ribbons that Romage produced from the pile on the table.
“There is jewellery to match,” said Romage, “and I will put up your hair with a heron’s feather. I think that will look best, don’t you?”
Margaret knew without asking that these things were meant for her to keep, as a kind of grace-gift from one mighty woman of Plenilune to another. Pain jangled at the back of her throat. “I—I will look as though I wear the universe,” she stammered.
Romage put the clothing down. “That will be no great change in things,” she noted. “Come, or you will wrinkle like an old damson.”
Once more Margaret knelt on the travertine tiles with the grouse-silk wrapped around her waist, but this time it seemed Romage could not work fast enough. Rhythmically, as if rubbing down a horse that has had a hard run, the queen swept the linen over and over, down and down Margaret’s softened limbs, and while she knew the work was meant for good, she was impatient to try on her new gown. She would never admit it, she would never complain, but she had not known until now what a relief it was to slough off the months of half-pressed, burn-washed clothing for something truly glamorous.
If I could stand in the middle of a battle like this, she considered as she rose and stood while Romage wrapped the purple folds about her body and laid on her the airy lightness of the silk sky-cloth, there would be no battle, there would be no war. I should do what Helen should have done—gone out and thrown down their shields and spears with a single glance. I am some kind of cause of all this, am I not? Why shouldn’t I—why shouldn’t I…
Bending her fiery crown, Romage fixed a little row of buttons on the sky-gown to be sure it would not slide open unadvisedly, then round and round she passed the wide ribbons about Margaret’s body, pulling them tight until her hourglass was more pronounced than usual.
“Kneel again, and I will do your hair.”
The dark brown folds, which boasted none of Romage’s tiger-striped beauty, were nevertheless closely attended to. While she could not see what the woman was doing, Margaret felt the heavy lengths go up strand by strand, curled and twisted and tweaked and coaxed, sweet-scented, pinned, piled, slung about with a heaping trail of clear gems and encircled as with a cloud with the single white plume of heron’s feather. Romage slid two strands of diamonds through the hole in either ear, then laid a simple short ribbon of three diamonds about her throat and tied it off.
“Am I all ready?” Margaret’s fingers touched the precious diamonds in a shiver of wonder scarcely suppressed. Was there a woman in Plenilune as richly blessed as she? From the pit into which she had been thrown, to have climbed so high, to be so free—to wear the heavens on her shoulders!
“I will do your eyes—” from the mess of things on the table she took a little pot of black stuff “—for the eyes are the window of the soul, and then, I think, you will do.”
Margaret held still, although instinct told her to jerk away from the tiny paint-brush Romage dragged across her eyelids. It seemed an elaborate process, but at last it was done, Romage had put a little scent on her hands and smacked Margaret’s cheeks smartly once or twice, and then, no less in awe of her, but less in fear, Margaret went out with her into the gloom of the red-panelled atrium to discover Rupert waiting for them.
Margaret’s heart stopped in her chest, but then the man in black swung round into the faint light and she saw his flash of a kill-devil smile in the familiar, freckled face. He was not all in black: on the breast of his heavy, smouldering tunic was a dragon etched in pearl-coloured thread.
“I forgot,” Dammerung remarked in an amused, superior tone, “how long it takes women to prepare.”
“Perfection takes time,” retorted Romage. “Even our Lord tarries over his kingdom yet.”
“Touch�,” said the War-wolf, but his attention was elsewhere. “Nay, but I had come to wait on the little merlin-bird that I entrusted to your care. Do you not remember? That fierce little falcon-barred thing I carried into battle with me. This is a swan to rival the one they keep in Thrasymene!”
Romage’s voice was warm honey. “Do you like what I’ve done with it? I am sorry to let it go: my temper was relieved to find an outlet on someone other than myself.”
“Such is the artistic fire man shares with God! that he is never content to make something good merely for himself. The merlin was all well and good, but I’ll take the swan. You won’t hear me complain.”
“When you two are done,” said Margaret, “isn’t supper waiting?”
“Indubitably.” Dammerung slid an arm from each of them in his. “But we will make a better entrance if we come in last.”
Margaret could not help agreeing, and she blushed with surprise at her own forwardness.
The dinner, when they arrived, proved to be a simple affair. The table was laid in a long low atrium like the one of the red honeycombed panels—it was encircled by the dark and laid across with bars of golden lamplight—and a number of couches and chairs had been drawn up round the table’s perimeter. Upon seeing them enter, Mark Roy got up from his chair and Centurion, who was still seated, leaned away and flung an arm around the back of his chair.
“The body count,” he said, raising a piece of paper between
two fingers.
“Indeed?” Dammerung put Romage off on her husband’s arm and indicated a couch for Margaret. She sat on it, reclining as she saw Grane was doing on a similar couch across from her. “Let us have it, then.”
“Grace first,” said the lord of the house.
The gesture was familiar now: Dammerung, seated in his chair, held out a hand, palm upward, and Margaret laid hers in it, head bowed. Her smallest finger lay across Dammerung’s wrist: she felt the vein of it swell as the lord of the house began the invocation.
“For the grace of life, we thank you. For another day of freedom from oppression, we offer our most heartfelt gratitude. We remember the dead who have suffered for the sake of a kingdom that is passing, and we remember together the kingdom to come. Come, Lord—”
The pain, unexpected and swift, closed her throat.
“—come soon. We commit ourselves to your hand.”
Mark Roy seated himself and the dishes of fruits and white meats began to pass. There were no servants, Margaret noticed, looking round: every man served himself and passed the dish on to his neighbour.
Dammerung crossed one knee over the other and twisted imperiously in his chair, elbow on the table, a fluted glass of red wine in his hand. “Well, Centurion?” he prompted. “Whom all have we sent out of life today?”
Centurion hurriedly spooned summer fruits into the little bronze bowl before him and shoved the cut crystal dish off on Aikin. “Among ourselves,” he said, clearing his throat, “we have lost Sparling—” he glanced up at Black Malkin, but the lady only shook her head sadly and said nothing “—Zealon of Tarnjewel, the border lords and brothers Mirran and Kahmeny of Orzelon-gang, I believe; Howl of the Wastes I saw go down with my own eyes in a blaze of glory and many enemy dead. You would have been proud to have seen him, my Lord Dammerung.”
The War-wolf’s face wore an appreciative smile, but to Margaret’s eye it seemed distant and she felt his deeper darkness move restlessly beneath them.
Many names followed she did not know. Theran of Darkling. De Montfort of Darkling. Hama of Thrasymene. Birch of the Wastes. The steppe-lords from Drakeskar in the north. Jermaine, Lady of the Tribute. Bri Hearthstone. Chevalier of Darkling. Spyridon of Capys…
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