“Mama,” she whispered, the barest outrush of sound, hardly discernible at all, much less as a word. In her thoughts, that word burst forth as a cry from the farthest depths of her being, with all the passion and grief she was capable of. A cry of loss, at being alone, and one of rage, at being so abandoned.
“Papa,” as quiet in one form, as loud in the other.
It came to her then, in a flash of realization that once might have been dismissed by all and sundry as childish pique, that she hated her life and title as the Sacred Princess. Not for what it was, but for what it represented. She’d been too long the Princess in her bejeweled cage, a bauble fit only for display. She hadn’t accepted until now how wonderful it was to be a part of a family, of a community, as she’d been with Torquil and Manya, among the Rock Nelwyn.
She buried her face in the pillow, using its case as an impromptu cloth to wipe her eyes dry, then called out to the figure whose presence she sensed lounging in the sumptuous armchair close beside the bed.
“Duguay?”
She heard a hesitation in breathing patterns that told her she’d been heard, and realized with the texture of his next breath how terribly wrong she’d been.
“No,” Rool said softly, without any inflection to his tone to give her a clue to his reaction. “Shall I summon him, Elora Danan?”
The brownie was up and gone before she could muster any reply. She gathered the comforter about her shoulders like a cloak, feeling very small amidst this vast expanse of bedding and wondering if the bed could be persuaded to eat her.
“Are we in Sandeni?” she asked the troubadour from her down-and-cotton redoubt upon his entrance.
“Safe and sound,” Duguay noted cheerily. “And rest assured, we’re at a fair remove from your mentor Drumheller’s residence. Lads may come from far and wide seeking Elora the songstress, but not a Princess of any kind, sacred or otherwise.” He perched himself on the edge of the bed and lifted the lid from the bowl of soup that was set on the bedside table. “I’ll confess, though, that last stretch through the Shados gave us something of a turn, me and your brownie both.”
“What happened?”
“We were riding along, normal as could be. Thought you might be dozing. Then, of a sudden, you screamed. That horse of yours, she’s one damn smart animal, sidestepped right away straight to the Wall so you wouldn’t tumble far. If she’d had hands, I daresay she’d have caught you in the bargain.”
“Windfleet, is she—?”
“Nicely stabled.” His eyes roamed the room appreciatively. “As are we.”
“A tavern?”
“Food and drink and lodging, and no objection to an evening’s entertainment.”
“That’s good.”
She pulled the quilt over her head to shut out the world, but it quickly grew too warm beneath the covers and she was forced to poke her head, then most of her body, back into the open. Duguay leaned forward, a quizzical expression on his face, to press splayed fingers on the mattress.
“What?” Elora demanded, seeing this.
“Just curious, is all. Wanted to see who in here would spend the night on a cat’s-claw bed.” Then, mockery gone from his voice, he asked, “Care to talk?”
“How’d I get here?” she wondered.
“Dissembler.”
“No such thing!”
“Answer my question with one of your own, what else d’you call it?” In a single, smooth motion he pirouetted to his feet from where he sat on the edge of her bed, the utter, raw grace of the movement taking Elora’s breath away as he held out a hand. “You’ve played the slug too long, Elora my pet. Up with you before you’re mistaken for a piece of furniture.”
“That’s mean.”
“Aren’t we all, given spur and circumstance?” She flushed with anger as she struggled free of the covers and he spread hands wide in a placating gesture. “I’m not the one whose spirit went wandering, Elora,” he said, temporizing. “You ever stop to consider that answers sometimes can’t be found because there are none to be found.”
“Bollocks.”
“Think a bug looks at the world the same as you?” he asked her, scuffing the toe of his elegant boot across the floor, stirring dust in the darkness that floated more like ash from the body of something long since dead and decayed. “Or I? And where stand we”—now he waved his arms to encompass not only the room, but everything that lay beyond—“in the face of all that is? Everything has its place and proper purpose; if nothing else in Creation holds true, it’s that. Bass baritone might have one hellacious voice, but don’t expect him to hit a soprano’s notes.”
“No transcendence, Duguay? No dreams? Then why are the circles interwoven?”
Surprisingly, he needed no explanation of what she meant, though she’d been ready to present one.
“Are they truly, Elora? Or just because that’s how you want to see them?” He faced her again, a glorious figure of a man, and oh, how he knew it. By movement and manner he dared her to join him.
“Myself,” he continued, “I’d rather form circles of my own.” Eyes flashed at her from beneath hooded brows, a come-hither glance that gave her chills and goose bumps that were nothing like how she’d felt when Luc-Jon kissed her. The sensations were electric and tantalizing but they left her vaguely unsettled, as though she’d been sent signals she had no desire yet to comprehend.
Almost in defiance, Elora swung one leg across the other and as smoothly as though she were on ice pirouetted up from where she sat in a match for Duguay’s turn.
His eyes were waiting, and his hands. Avoiding the one, she almost took the other.
Right before they touched, her eyes fell toward the table where her belt and traveling pouches lay, and the small figure that stood there, holding them out to her. Duguay responded with the savoir faire of a cat, as though he’d known all along this was how the moment would end. His fingers never closer than an inch to hers, he pivoted as she ducked beneath his arm and past him, paralleling her movements so that it seemed he was the one casting her loose, rather than Elora departing of her own volition.
“Am I interrupting?” Rool inquired, making it obvious that he was, and intentionally so.
Duguay’s response was another of his trademark smiles, though he held an outstretched forefinger toward the brownie and mimed the action of pulling the trigger on a crossbow. On the surface it could be taken as an exchange of physical banter with no harm meant. Rool clearly considered it something altogether different. He watched the troubadour as if Duguay was the incarnation of a Death Dog.
“The room’s paid for,” Duguay told Elora. “But if we want to stay here, we’ll have to work for it. I promised tonight at least.”
“I’ll be down directly,” she replied, “as soon as I’ve bathed and dressed.”
“Fair enough. See you then.” And he was gone.
There wasn’t a shred of apology in the brownie, not for his manner toward Duguay nor his refusal to leave Elora in private. She retaliated by ignoring him, as if he wasn’t there.
* * *
—
The establishment was called Black-Eyed Susan’s, so named for the proprietor, a handsome woman of middle years whose calm and generous nature made her the ideal host. When Elora found out its address was the Street of Lost Dragons she directed a very sharp glance Duguay’s way, assuming some deliberate confluence with her dream. All he did in return was shrug and proclaim all innocence with such a lack of guile that she threw up her hands in despair. There was no way to tell when he wasn’t dissembling, he was too good an actor.
Tavern and street were located on a small island called Madaket, one of the modest parcels of earth and rock scattered across the floodplain formed by the upland rivers as they rushed toward the falls. They were connected by a network of bridges that linked them to the main body of the city, but even tha
t small separation allowed each to develop its own separate charm and character. Madaket, being most convenient to both the university quarter and a whole host of government ministries, attracted an eclectic mix of students and professionals. On any given evening a tour of its taverns and coffeehouses could provide a fair example of the young passionately declaiming to their seniors about how badly they’d screwed up the world and getting just as impassioned a response that they couldn’t possibly know anything until they worked a real job.
Construction here was predominantly brick, which held true across the whole of the city, since good clay was more economically feasible on the plateau than forests. Also, it was far more effective at withstanding the onslaught of damp from the rivers. Civic design was more regular on the mainland, buildings tended to be set in rows, sharing common walls along the length of an entire street. On Madaket, by contrast, and many of the other islands, houses were snugged together on stand-alone plots which allowed for some quite spectacular gardens.
Elora had hardly any opportunity for sightseeing this first day. The afternoon was spent in introductions to the staff and preparation for the evening meal. It was a communal enterprise, everyone pitching in as and where needed, so Elora found herself dragooned into accompanying Susan and the chef to market and then to work peeling and slicing the vegetables she brought home. Then, after a visit to the washhouse, she and Duguay closeted themselves in her room to make whatever repairs were necessary to her paint. No work was needed to her costumes, because it had already been done, with the invisibly fine stitching that was the hallmark of a brownie’s hand. Thanks to Rool, the clothes looked better than they had when they were new and Elora felt churlish for her anger toward him.
She wanted to apologize, but he was nowhere to be found.
Early arrivals, once the tavern opened for business, were regulars, with favorite seats and favorite dishes, who greeted Susan companionably and were more than a little intrigued by the new guests. There was no requirement for Elora to help with serving meals but she found that she enjoyed the work. She had had so few opportunities to mingle with people before now, especially those of her own kind, that she wanted to take full advantage of them. The more she watched and listened, the more she learned, not only about the news of the day but how people reacted to it, hopes and fears, ambitions and frustrations. Each moment, each life, was a thread that she wove into the tapestry of every performance, the means she used to make it a personal and lasting experience for her audience.
From one clutch of ministerial scribes she heard of Thorn’s status within the Sandeni government. The Nelwyn had done well for himself as an adviser without portfolio, his status as high within the councils of power as his title was intentionally nebulous. The net result was that he had access to the Chancellor whenever required and that his advice might actually be heeded.
Her own reputation was somewhat less stellar.
“The Sacred Princess has a reputation?” she asked a student in all innocence.
“No more than any self-respecting lightning rod.” One of his companions laughed as he polished off the last of a pitcher of beer and took the replacement Elora held out to him.
“Not so bad a strategy, that,” commented an older man at a neighboring table. He wore the robes of a lecturer and the students deferred to him. “If you spread the tale that everywhere Elora Danan takes refuge falls before some terrible onslaught, how long before none will dare to take her in? And with every door closed to her, how then to raise an effective resistance against the Maizan?”
“Your pardon, Professor,” said a student, “but suppose the tales are truth? It’s said Angwyn is sheathed in the hoarfrost of a bleak and perpetual midwinter.”
“No traffic on the Cascadel anymore worth a damn,” a trader noted in passing. “Short-haul, that’s all that’s left, town to town on this side of the High Desert of the Saranye. Nothin’ goes beyond the Ramparts”—which were the range of coastal mountains that fronted the Sunset Ocean. “Whole of Angwyn Bay’s s’posed to be frozen, an’ a piece of the ocean beyond. Surroundin’ country’s glaciating worse than any of the Ice Lands. The Ramparts are as good as their name for now, holdin’ back the worst of this false winter. But mark my words, young masters, there’ll come a time, and soon, when they won’t be enough. Summer’ll be a memory from the Wall to sunset.”
From a far distance Elora heard the staccato drumbeat of fingers on a “doumbek,” establishing a rhythm that fit her body as naturally as her own skin.
Her feet began to move in time to the drum, hips and shoulders articulating ever so slightly to match its infectious beat. They were small movements, flowing so effortlessly one into the next that once started, there seemed no natural way to stop. Elora was the active partner in the dance, Duguay assuming the passive role with his drum, the hub around which she revolved.
She flung her arms up to full extension as she sidled clear of the tables into the open floor before the hearth that Susan had cleared for their stage. Then she brought them back to her body with an almost languid grace, sometimes in total harmony with the music, others intentionally at odds. The drum became her pulse, each hammer of her heart adding fiery spice to the flow of her blood as it went coursing throughout her body. She spun on the ball of a foot, threw back leg and shoulders and head until her body was bent double, then followed through on the motion to kick herself up and over in a sensuously acrobatic flip. She drew on the performances of gymnasts she had seen, and warriors, to craft a dance that was part purest movement, part combat, all suffused with an elemental passion that entranced the gathering crowd almost as completely as she was herself.
Always, Duguay was there to complement her, keeping fair distance to make clear to the audience that this was Elora’s solo, but likewise never relinquishing the equally unequivocal sense that he was the principal half of their partnership. Whenever he extended an arm, hers curved toward it in response, as a plant seeks out the life-giving radiance of the sun. Any move he initiated, she echoed in gentler resonance. The merest touch would instantly bring her back to him.
Duguay took Elora’s left hand in his right, pulled it up and across her body in a gesture so natural that she couldn’t help but follow and complete the circle. He spun her once, twice, a third time, then followed those triple pirouettes by bringing her close into his arms, gripping her snug about the waist as he led her through a fourth and final circle that somehow encompassed the first three, making what had been a solo into a duet. She not only let him do so, she welcomed it.
At the end, as the pounding rhythms built to their final, almost violent crescendo, the bodies of the two dancers appeared to flow together, as though both beings were composed of nothing but wiry sinew without a decent skeleton between them. How else, those watching wondered, to appear so elegantly, inhumanly limber?
He meant for Elora to finish facing him but at the last she twisted in his grasp so that they came together back to front. Duguay didn’t seem to mind, taking hold of her around the waist and by the right hand with such remarkable ease they must be following long-practiced choreography.
Elora spun gracefully to her knees before him, settling on her heels in the Chengwei manner while her back arched along its entire length like a drawn bow. Duguay stood above her, apparently ready to receive any arrow she cared to hurl forth. Presumably of love, but from the undertone of their performance in the raucous opinion of many onlookers, more likely of sin.
There was a moment of absolute stillness, the only sound that of Elora’s breath pumping in and out through a mouth that was curved into a smile of exultation. Otherwise, the whole of the tavern seemed to be holding its collective breath.
Then came applause, and cheers, caps materializing in the hands of both performers as they slipped among their audience to gather every coin to come their way. Elora was exhausted, yet at the same time she was flush with the most intense and incredible energy
. She’d stopped dancing, not for tiredness, but because she’d come to the end of that song. Given that music, and players whose vigor matched her own, she had the giddy certainty she could go on forever. Even now she couldn’t stay still. She was too receptive to every wayward rush of sensation without and within her own body, each providing the impulse to a new movement, and each of those the inspiration for a new dance.
People stared. Those who hadn’t given her a second glance when she served their meal found themselves fascinated. Elora didn’t care. She thrilled to the adoration, but more important to what she had achieved.
The talk had been of winter and despair. She’d grabbed tight to their spirits and lit a fire there she hoped would warm them, sustain them, for a good long time to come.
They would need it.
Alone in her room, Elora Danan opened the present Luc-Jon had given her.
It was a small book, quite a contrast to the massive tomes piled in the cubbies and on the shelves of his master’s library. The bindings were a leather whose condition made no concession to its evident age, and it was fastened by a single strap. Few details survived on the cover but the leather had been lovingly polished and oiled by the hands that held it to the point where its mahogany color was so rich it created the illusion of depth. Elora had the thought that if she placed her hand on its surface it would pass right through, as though she’d reached into a pool of water. She had never touched anything that felt as smooth or lustrous.
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