Our Lady of the Snow

by Louise Cooper

  “Sadly, no, Your Grace.”

  “But perhaps a little sooner than anyone had thought. He seemed better these last few days. By morning, the physician says…? Poor Father. Still, perhaps for him it will be a merciful release.” He glanced at his wife but she had cast her eyes down again.

  “I pray so, sir,” said Urss urbanely. There was a pause. Then Kodor asked,

  “Has my brother been told?”

  “I spoke personally to the Princess Imperial, Your Grace. She wishes to explain to Prince Osiv herself…or at least…”

  “Or at least try; yes, quite.” Another pause. “How has my —our—sister taken the news?”

  A change in his tone, a softening, alerted Urss, and his gaze slid sideways to Pola once more. Her mouth had tightened into a thin line, as though she was biting back some emotion that threatened to force its way out, and her dark eyes were suddenly bitter. But still she didn’t speak, and after a few moments Urss looked away again. All was far from well between this couple, and he believed he knew the cause. Potentially, it could become a dangerous situation. It would need careful watching and, if it worsened, careful handling and—possibly—a slight adjustment to the long-term strategy.

  Aloud, he said, “Her Highness is saddened but quite calm, Your Grace.”

  “Did she send any word? Any message?”

  This time Urss had no need to look at Pola, for her silent reaction soured the atmosphere as surely as if she had screamed it to the rafters. “No,” he said, unmoved by the fact that he was lying. “She did not.”

  The prince was clearly disappointed, but shrugged it off with a skill that would have fooled any lesser man. “Well,” he said, “then we can only wait.”

  “And pray.”

  “Of course. Thank you, Father Urss. I assume I can leave it to you to make the necessary arrangements?”

  “They are already in hand, sir.”

  I’m sure they are, Kodor thought. “Then I trust you’ll send word to me as soon as my father is ready to receive his last visitors.”

  Urss bowed again. “Be assured of it, Your Grace.” Another bow to Pola, another dignified nod of her head, and Urss made his soft-footed way out.

  Nothing broke the room’s silence for some time when he had gone. Pola had set her knife down on her plate, at its usual precise angle, and Kodor stood staring at his own half-eaten meal. She knew that he had no intention of speaking unless she did, if then, but the tension in her was so great that at last she had to give way.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said in a low voice.

  She could feel Kodor’s gaze boring into the top of her skull. “Are you?” he replied. “Why?”

  “Because he is your father, and he was always kind to me.”

  “You’ve met him barely five or six times.”

  “I know; but he was kind.”

  Kodor laughed cynically. “Kinder than I am, is that what you’re implying?”

  Her head came up sharply. “No! I meant—”

  “Oh, don’t trouble to explain! What does it matter? I don’t expect you to like me; you have no reason to, nor I to like you. Don’t say any more. I don’t want to talk.”

  He sat down again, rang the bell to summon the footmen back, and told them to clear away the food. Pola sat still and mute. She would have liked another glass of wine but did not dare say so, for Kodor was clearly in a mood to vent his spite on her at the smallest excuse. In her present state of mind, that would have set the final seal on her misery.

  The table was cleared and the servants departed. Minutes passed; then, forgetting or choosing to ignore his own earlier words, Kodor said, “So, you’ll be Princess Regent before long. Does that please you?”

  Pola shook her head, not looking at him.

  “Well, it’ll please your father; we can be sure of that.” Cynicism laced his voice. “I suppose we’d better do the thing properly and send word by a personal ambassador. Let’s also hope that it isn’t the only news we have to give him.”

  Pola’s cheeks flamed as, without knowing it, he put his finger painfully on the real cause of her unhappiness. Their first sexual encounter had not borne fruit; nine days ago her monthly flux had come as usual and she had confessed it to him. Kodor had not been pleased. Brusquely, he told her to inform him when she was, as he put it, “clean” again, and last night he had taken her a second time. The act had been as cold and unceremonious as the first, and afterwards he had returned to his own bedchamber before she could even collect herself enough to sit upright. And the worst of it all, the terrible, tarnishing, degrading worst, was that Pola had wanted him. No matter how careless he was towards her, no matter how callously he used her, she had wanted him. And if the only way she could have him was by failing to conceive, then she would pray with all her heart for failure, and duty and dynasties and the expectations of Vyskir and Sekol could blow away on the north wind. That was the shame she could not face, and the thing that Kodor must never, ever know.

  But now the old Imperator was dying and a new one would take his place. Osiv. They had kept her away from him—or him from her; the reasoning hardly mattered—and other than that he was a mental cripple, she knew nothing about him. Osiv the…Fourth? Fifth? She wasn’t sure; she was still getting to grips with Vyskiri history. He would be the public figurehead, while Kodor ruled behind the scenes. As far as Pola knew, the title of Regent would not even be made official, so that the public pretence about Osiv could be maintained. But Kodor would rule. And part of her task was to satisfy her father’s ambitions by becoming the mother of Kodor’s successor and thus uniting her own and her husband’s countries. It was planned, it was arranged, it was simple. And she desperately, desperately did not want to conceive.

  She stood up. “I think I would like to go to my own rooms,” she said.

  Kodor waved a hand, uninterested. “As you please.”

  “I would like to… prepare for the—the—” Oh, what did it matter? What did anything matter? The truth was that if she must endure Nanta’s company at the Imperator’s bedside, she needed time to compose herself, to make sure that her suppressed feelings would not suddenly and uncontrollably erupt.

  Kodor was waiting for her to finish her sentence, with a faint air of one whose patience was being sorely tried. Pola looked at him, but any further words were dead in her throat. Turning away with a sharp movement, she went out.

  Kodor rested his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. A minute or so later, tears began to trickle between his fingers.

  ****

  His Gracious Majesty Arctor IX, Imperator of Vyskir, died two hours before dawn, with his family at his bedside and the antiphonal voices of ten Brothers and Sisters from the higher echelons of the Imperial Choir resounding in his failing ears. Just before he took his last conscious breath he focused his eyes on his elder son, who at that moment was sitting on the floor and plaiting the fringe of the richest rug into a ludicrous tangle. Perhaps sensing something of the look, Osiv glanced up with a quick, candid but vacant gaze, and smiled at him. Arctor returned the smile. Then one veined, unsteady hand groped to where he knew Kodor was sitting at his bedside.

  “Take care of your brother.” They were the last words he spoke, and a minute later the physician nodded fractionally, his expression somber.

  Kodor rose, reached out to his father’s face, and pressed his fingers lightly against the motionless eyelids. They closed; Kodor withdrew, then dropped to his knees beside the bed and pressed his brow to the coverlet, his lips moving in silent prayer. Across his bent head, the gazes of Nanta and Pola met. Nanta tried to convey something: a fellow feeling, an openness, even an invitation. Pola’s dark eyes reflected it back at her like a glass wall. Then she looked away.

  An hour of ceremony followed the death as Father Urss conducted them solemnly through prayers, psalms and the laying-out of the corpse, all punctuated by antics from Osiv, who was bored now and demanding something or someone to entertain him. Nanta did her b
est to keep him in order, but when finally he threw a tantrum just as the assembled company were about to make their obeisances to him as the new Imperator, the proceedings ground to a halt. Father Urss pronounced the last valediction with irritable haste, and to everyone’s relief the formalities were deemed over. Arctor’s spirit had been sent on its way in unseemly chaos, but under the circumstances it was the best that could have been done.

  Nanta saw Osiv put safely to bed, where with luck he would stay until well into the morning, then retreated to her private room. She was tired but knew she would not sleep. In a few hours she must go into the new ordeal of full morning; before it began she greatly needed a respite, the chance, both literal and metaphorical, to breathe a little.

  The apartments of the imperial family centered around one of the palace’s tallest towers, a domed minaret that commanded a view across the Metropolis and the river to the south, and the distant mountains that divided Vyskir and Sekol to the north. Nanta had only climbed the tower once; her free time was too limited and the servants had also made it clear that such activities were looked on as unsuitable and undignified. Now though, she chose from her wardrobe a long wolf and ermine coat—one of several, and warm enough to keep the night cold at bay—and, after ensuring that Dorca was within call if Osiv should wake, took a lantern and slipped out of the apartment by a private way that avoided the main corridors.

  As she began to climb the spiral staircase, Nanta felt tension ebbing and a sense of something like peace enveloping her. Solitude had become a rare treasure, and for the little of the night that was left she intended to enjoy it to the full. The tower summit was a long way up and she had little chance for exercise these days, so by the time she reached the top her legs were aching and her heart laboring with the effort of the climb. But her first breath in the open winter night was better than any physician’s nostrum. No matter that the air was bitterly cold; it tasted clean and fresh and alive, and she stood still on the circular parapet, eyes closed as she gratefully drank in the freshness before setting down her lantern and looking out at the huge vista spread before and below her.

  The snow clouds had cleared briefly and the sky was starry, mirroring the soft twinkle of lights in the city that never completely slept. There was the Fathers” seminary, with many of its windows shining; there the Academy, darker but still showing a few lamps here and there. Further, in the lower city, a curving ribbon of small, bright eyes marked the great central thoroughfare, illuminated from dusk to dawn; and beyond that lay the dim, phosphorescent sheen of the river. A cargo boat was moving slowly against the current, arriving, probably, from some remote port in another part of the kingdom. At the docks men would be waiting to unload amid a bustle of noise and activity. But up here the activity was invisible, and the only sound was the soughing of the wind.

  Leaving her lantern behind, Nanta walked slowly around the tower’s perimeter until the aspect changed and the city gave way to empty night. By the starlight she could make out the snow-covered contours of the mountain foothills, like the humped backs of vast, somnolent beasts, and behind them the mountains proper were dim ghosts against the sky. The wind was blowing from the mountains tonight, stinging her cheeks with its frosty touch. She wondered how far it was to Sekol, and whether Pola was homesick and the sense of alienation she felt from her thus explained. She wondered how Pola would fare as Princess Regent. She wondered how they would all fare now that Arctor was gone. She wondered if she would ever grow accustomed to the title of Imperatrix.

  She was lost in the reverie of inner questions that had no answer when Kodor found her. He had not come looking for her; it was simply that his own thoughts and impulses had followed a like pattern to hers. But his surprise on seeing her there, and alone, was almost as great as his pleasure.

  She turned and looked at him in some consternation. Against the sky Kodor couldn’t see her face, and he hesitated.

  “Nanta … Forgive me; I didn’t realize you were here.” Another pause. “Do you wish me to go?”

  Nanta shook her head. She wanted to be alone, but Kodor had as much right here as she. And his company was easy enough to share.

  He came and stood beside her, though at a circumspect distance, and leaned on the parapet. Feeling that she should say something appropriate, Nanta ventured, “This must be a very sad time for you.”

  “Sad?” Kodor considered the word. “I don’t know. I truly don’t. Father was old and tired, and I suspect he was glad to go.”

  “May the God and the Lady give him peace.” Nanta bowed her head respectfully.

  Kodor made no comment. Silence fell for a minute or so, then he asked, “How is Osiv?”

  “Sleeping.” Nanta’s expression closed in a little. “He doesn’t understand. I tried to explain to him after Father Urss brought the news, but I don’t believe he even realizes that the Imperator is…no longer here. And as to what that means for him—I don’t know what anyone can do to help him.”

  Kodor sighed. “He’ll be spared the funeral, at least. The people will be told that their new Imperator is too prostrated with grief. to attend, and they’ll love him all the more for that. The coronation is another matter; but that’s probably the best part of a year away.”

  “A year?” She looked at him quizzically, and he smiled a small, thin smile.

  “It’s the protocol, Nanta. Or are you too young to remember?”

  “Your father’s coronation was before I was born.”

  “Ah. To tell the truth, I recall little of it myself; I was barely able to toddle at the time. But yes; it will be of that order. First comes three months of morning, public and private; and after that our religious masters decree a decent interlude in which any form of rejoicing is looked on as bad form. Knowing Father Urss, I imagine he’ll make the most of that. So there’ll be time enough to prepare Osiv—and you—for what must be faced.” He paused. “I don’t envy your position, Nanta. I’m sorry for you. Your life will be harder still from now on.”

  She didn’t react to that, at least not outwardly, but only said with what sounded suspiciously like well-practiced composure, “The God and the Lady will give me strength.”

  “Will they?” Kodor asked.

  He hadn’t meant to say it, but the words were out before he could stop them. Nanta’s head came round so sharply that she looked for a moment like a hunting cat rather than the mouse to which some palace servants disparagingly compared her, and she stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  It was too late to back away or deny what he had said, and Kodor felt uncomfortable. “Oh… it’s my own tribulation; pay no heed to it.”

  “No,” she said. “Tell me.”

  He sighed. “It’s simply that I sometimes wonder… if there is any point in turning to the God and the Lady at moments like these. Or at any other moments.”

  She continued to look at him, and he saw that she was deeply shocked. “You doubt the benevolence of the God and the Lady?” Her voice was small, frozen as the mountain ice-caps. “How can you?”

  He shrugged. “Because I see no real reason to believe in it. Oh, I know all the stories; the prayers that are answered, the supposed miracles. But I see no worthwhile evidence of their compassion. So I find myself questioning whether they truly care for mortals at all. And at a time like this, the doubts become magnified. “

  “At a time like this,” said Nanta quietly, “you should be able to take strength and comfort from the God and the Lady. Not the opposite.”

  “I know. And it may simply be the melancholy of the hour that causes it.”

  “You’re naturally grieving—”

  “Yes, yes.” But not entirely for the reasons you think. As my wife is well aware.

  “Prayer can help you, Kodor. I know it can.” Nanta hesitated. “Unless you forbid it, I shall pray for you in the Lady’s sanctum. I shall ask her to intercede and—and restore your faith.”

  She hoped he had not noticed the slight snag in her voice, the momen
tary wavering as private memories of her own unanswered entreaties crept out from their crevices in her mind. Kodor had not noticed. He was watching her very intently, and all he said was, “It is not in my power to forbid you anything, Nanta.”

  Nanta saw only the outer and not the inner meaning of his words, but nonetheless her cheeks flushed. “Please don’t,” she said, then: “I’ve never wanted to be Imperatrix.”

  “Very few of us are able to have what we want. In the lower echelons it’s called ill-fortune. In ours, it’s called duty.”

  Nanta did not answer but turned away and looked northwards again, towards the mountains. There was a faint light on the horizon, Kodor saw; enough to halo her figure with a pale, cold. nimbus. Dawn must be close, and he should…

  The thought faded as he realized that he was not looking at the first signs of the dawn.

  Nanta heard his sharp, quick intake of breath in the moment before she was brushed aside as he took her place at the parapet.

  “Kodor?” Confusion and indignation warred. “What is it; what’s amiss?”

  “That glow…” Kodor was staring fixedly at the horizon.

  She frowned. “It’s only the dawn glimmer. The beginning of sunrise.”

  “Since when has the sun risen in the north?”

  Before Nanta could reply, or even consider what he had said, the entire northerly horizon flared into life. A ghostly wall of light, like a vast curtain in a celestial theatre, swept across the sky, and scarves of ethereal color began to move in it, towering and swaying and merging in an unearthly dance.

  “The Corolla Lights!” Kodor’s face, faintly but eerily illuminated by the great phantasm, was a study in rapt and awestruck disbelief.

  Nanta, too, could barely believe what she was witnessing. “I’ve never seen them,” she breathed. “Never…”

  “No one has, for twenty years past! I was a little child when they last appeared My mother took Osiv and me to her roof garden to watch them, and when they faded, Osiv cried because he could not command them to return.”

  But Nanta was not listening. She had clasped her hands before her breast, and her head was bowed over her interlocked fingers as she whispered a fervent prayer of reverence and thanks. Kodor’s ears heard the flow of her words: “Sweet Lady…Your blessing…Healing…Our homage…” but it meant no more to him than the murmur of snow falling. He was stunned, stupefied. Twenty years, and the Lights had returned—and on this night of all nights, as the old Imperator died and the new reign began.