She saw then that Osiv had grown tired of the soup and was watching her with renewed interest. Careful to avoid his gaze, she lowered her voice and said, “I’ll try my best for you.”
“That’s all I ask. And anything you learn—”
“You’ll hear of it immediately.”
The handle of the inner door rattled. Dorca’s hints were growing broader, and Marine rose to her feet. “I must delay you no longer.”
Nanta nodded. “Thank you, Marine. With all my heart.” She raised her voice. “Dorca. You may come in now.”
Dorca appeared so promptly that it was obvious she had been hovering inches from the door. “Madam, the Guild emissaries will—”
“Be arriving soon; yes, I’m aware of that. The Imperator has finished his meal, I think, so I shall prepare myself to meet them. Please show Mother Marine out.”
The outer door of the suite closed behind her, and Marine turned away along the plush-carpeted corridor.
At the first turn, she came face to face with Prince Kodor.
Kodor stopped. “Mother.” He nodded graciously, but his grey eyes were suspicious.
“Your Grace.” Marine curtseyed, then remembered that Kodor’s title, too, had changed. “Forgive me—I mean, Your Highness.”
Kodor’s mouth twitched in a thin smile. “Either will do, thank you, Mother. Have you been to visit my sister?”
“Ah… yes, sir. The Imperatrix summoned me on a matter of…of…”
“Of a religious nature, I imagine. Quite.” He could see that Marine very much wanted to curtsey again and hurry on, but he continued to stand in her path. “How is the Imperatrix today?”
A muscle worked in Marine’s throat. “She is…quite well, Your Highness.”
“And well in spirit?”
Marine was a little surprised by that question. “Yes, sir. I would say so.”
“Good. Then you were not called to offer comfort, but for another reason?”
Marine cast her gaze down. “That’s so.”
For a few moments they were both silent, and Marine could feel the tension between them like a palpable presence in the air. Then Kodor said, “I imagine that my sister wished to talk of the Corolla Lights. To see them was a glorious and uplifting experience, was it not?”
Marine’s head came up and she saw that he was smiling; a very genuine smile that suddenly, extraordinarily, lightened not only his face but his entire demeanor. She realized that he, too, had been deeply affected by the Lights, and she found herself responding spontaneously, catching his enthusiasm. “Oh, yes, sir!” she said fervently. “Indeed it was!”
It seemed that her answer was what Kodor wanted to hear, for his smile broadened a little and the last of the suspicion vanished from his eyes. He stepped aside, inclining his head again. “Good day to you, Mother.”
“G…good day, Your Highness…”
Marine fled. For a few seconds Kodor stood watching her dwindling figure. Then he walked away towards his own apartments.
****
Arctor’s funeral rites began six days later, with the full pomp and solemnity expected for such a great occasion. With the new Imperator “too grief-stricken” to attend, responsibility for public family morning fell on Nanta and Kodor, and from the great procession through the Metropolis, accompanied by dismal horns and bells and wailing choirs, to the long, tedious hours in the throne room acknowledging condolences from a seemingly endless stream of dignitaries, they played their parts gallantly. By the time the rituals ended after two days and nights, Nanta was in a haze of exhaustion, surviving on little more than automated reflex and incapable of looking beyond the next hour.
She had seen little of Osiv and nothing of Marine. Kodor had made several attempts to talk to her as they carried out their duties; but always something intervened to stymie his attempts. Nanta was thankful. She did not want to speak with Kodor, for in the wake of the frost sprite’s warning she was beginning to fear him. Who, after all, had most to gain from harming Osiv? The answer was painfully obvious, and for all Kodor’s apparent affection for his brother, Nanta had learned enough in recent days to be aware that outward appearances could rarely be trusted.
Then there was Pola. Pola did not attend every stage of the funeral observances, but when she was present Nanta felt haunted by her. Tall and somberly silent in her earth-brown morning clothes, her face completely obscured by the layers of heavy veil, she was like a specter. No matter that Nanta herself must present a similar picture to any outsider; something in the nature of Pola’s grim dignity made her as frightening to Nanta’s tired and overstrung senses as Kodor was.
At last, though, the worst of it was over, and Nanta gave heartfelt thanks that all that lay ahead of her for the next few hours was a night’s uninterrupted sleep. The imperial suite felt like a long-lost haven as dazedly she allowed Dorca and her maids to release her from the encumbrance of her clothes, then, too tired even to look in on Osiv (who had not the least notion of anything taking place outside his own small world), climbed with the last shards of her strength into bed. Dorca, after giving the strictest instructions that the Imperatrix was not to be disturbed until morning, retired to her room adjoining Osiv’s, and all was at last silent.
Two hours after midnight, the Corolla Lights began their dance again.
Kodor was woken by his senior servant. He had ordered the man to rouse him instantly if this should happen, and despite the dragging weariness that blurred his eyes and made his body feel like lead, he pulled on the first clothes that came to hand and headed for the tower.
Passing the corridor that led to Osiv and Nanta’s suite, he paused. Temptation was tugging at him, urging him to wake Nanta and persuade her to come with him. Her women would be sleeping, and if the outer door was locked he knew how to deal with that. He wanted to share this wonder with her. He wanted to be with her. But to wake her now would not be kind. More pragmatically, to be snatched out of sleep when sleep was so desperately needed would not endear him to her; and above all Kodor did not want to open any gulf between them. So, reluctantly, he abandoned the impulse. He would speak with her tomorrow. He must speak with her tomorrow. For now, though, let her rest.
He walked on to the tower door, opened it, made to light the lantern he carried… and stopped, listening, as his ears detected a sound somewhere above. There, again; faint, but recognizable. The sound of feet on stone. Someone else was climbing the tower steps…
An irrational hope that it might be Nanta sprang up in Kodor’s mind and, forgetting the lantern, he started up the stairs in pursuit. The air in the tower felt unnaturally cold, but he did not make the significant connection until, rounding the fourth curve of the spiral, he saw his quarry ahead of him.
It was Nanta. Barefoot and dressed in nothing but a nightgown, she was steadily climbing the staircase towards the tower summit. A strange, pale aura shone around her; a glow strong enough to form dim shadows on the wall to either side. Hovering above her, like will-o”-the-wisps in the aura’s light, were two frost sprites.
Kodor froze against the stonework, mouth open and eyes stark with shock. The sprites were either unaware of or uninterested in him; all their attention was focused upon Nanta as she moved on up the stairs. She was vanishing around the spiral’s next curve now, the glow dimming as the wall’s bulk obscured her figure. Heart thumping, Kodor followed. Instinct, awe and fear were screaming at him not to betray his presence, but no reasoning in the world could have stopped him from going after her; it was a compulsion, a need, something far beyond his own control.
Nanta came into view again. The sprites seemed to be drawing her upwards, as though guiding or guarding her, or both. Still they ignored Kodor, and he strove to see Nanta more clearly. Was she awake or asleep? Until and unless he could get closer it was impossible to tell; but the way she moved, languidly, almost gliding, suggested that she had no conscious knowledge of what she was doing.
They climbed on, the sprites leading and Kodor mai
ntaining a cautious distance, while Nanta moved at her same steady pace between them. The door at the top of the tower stood open, as Kodor had left it after the previous incident. The sprites flitted through and Nanta walked under the lintel without hesitating. As he climbed the last few steps after her, Kodor could see the uncanny reflections of the Corolla Lights as they played across the sky and the city. Abruptly a new fear came; that Nanta would walk on to the edge, and the sprites would not stop her but would let her fall, unknowing, over the parapet wall and down, to be smashed on the stones of the inner courtyard far below. Alarm punched through him and he quickened his pace to catch up with her. But when he emerged on to the walkway, he realized that his terror was unfounded. Nanta had indeed continued walking; but the sprites were barring her way, their thin, unhuman fingers touching her and bringing her to a gentle halt. They took her hands, guiding them and moving them until they rested lightly on the parapet wall, then they drew back and Nanta stood still, gazing—or appearing to—out over the Metropolis to the northern horizon.
The mingled sounds of his own pulse and his own rapid breathing were harsh in Kodor’s ears. He was hardly aware of the Corolla Lights” magnificent display; all he could take in was the small tableau of Nanta and her unearthly attendants. Questions to which there was no sane answer were tumbling in his mind, and suddenly he was gripped by an overwhelming desire to make himself known to her, to be a part of this fantastic and mystical event.
He took a careful step forward, and the sprites saw him. He felt their scrutiny like a corporeal touch, and the air around him, already bitterly cold, turned arctic. The sprites moved, positioning themselves between him and Nanta, and their strange eyes locked with his in a silent challenge.
Kodor retreated as memories of his old dreams came sharply back to him; dreams of danger and threat and a deadly intent. He half expected the sprites to attack him, but instead they stopped, and their manner became less hostile. They would bar his way to Nanta, but beyond that it seemed that they wished him no harm.
He drew a ragged breath and hissed, “I must speak to her! I want—”
One of the sprites raised a hand, palm outward, to its own lips, and the other pointed a crooked finger at Kodor’s face. The words broke off and Kodor found himself silenced as his will collapsed under their silent command. The first sprite shook its head, while the other closed its eyes with meaningful deliberation.
And Nanta, still gazing northwards, began to speak.
“Lady, hear my prayer.” Her voice was unlike the voice Kodor knew; it had a strength and a timbre he had never heard before, and it carried as sharply as crystal in the freezing air. “Sweet Lady, I beseech you to hear and to grant me true vision.” The pitch of her voice dropped and she bowed her head, raising her hands and clasping them before her face. “Grant to me, Lady, knowledge of the peril that threatens Osiv, and let me be strong enough and wise enough to stand with him in the hour of his danger and to keep him from harm. I beg this boon with all my heart. Please, please hear me, and help me.”
She bent forward, pressing her forehead against her hands, and though her lips still moved, her litany was silent now. Kodor stood paralyzed. Though Nanta’s desperate plea had been uttered in little more than a whisper, he had heard every word of it, and a sick sensation clawed at his stomach as he watched her. The peril that threatens Osiv. What did Nanta suspect, and where had her knowledge come from? His gaze flicked to the sprites, which hovered to either side of her like faithful pets, and again he took an experimental step forward. The sprites paused, watching. Kodor took another step.
He didn’t see them move but an instant later they were in front of him again, barring any further progress. “No!” Kodor whispered harshly. “I must speak with her. I’ll do her no harm, but I must know!”
They raised their arms, crossing them before their faces and splaying their bizarre fingers, then shook their heads with a slow, explicit message.
“Please!” Kodor’s own hands were clenched unconsciously and, impossibly in this cold, his body was sweating. “Osiv is my brother! I will not harm Nanta!”
A pause, while the sprites appeared to consider this. They were intelligent, Kodor knew; though the nature and extent of their intelligence was uncertain. He waited, trying to contain his frustration but aware of the folly of making any wrong move at this moment. Then one of the sprites moved. It laid the palms of its hands together and, tilting its head, pressed its cheek against them in the unmistakable mime of someone sleeping. The second sprite touched its long fingers to its temples, and smiled.
Their meaning was clear. Kodor must go, and he must sleep. If he obeyed that injunction a dream would be sent to him.
There was a tight sensation in Kodor’s chest as he whispered, “When? When will the dream be sent?”
The smile became a look of admonition, and the other sprite turned its head away. So, then: they would or could not say. But the promise had been made, and as servants of the Lady the frost sprites always fulfilled their promises—and their threats.
Slowly, reluctantly, Kodor backed towards the tower door. The sprites made no move to hasten him on his way; they seemed to know that he had accepted their injunction and would obey it. From the doorway he looked past them one last time to Nanta, who still stood with bowed head, murmuring her prayer. She seemed lonely and insubstantial against the colossal backdrop of the Lights in their celestial glory, and a sharp pain snagged at Kodor’s emotions. But there was nothing he could do; no approach he would be permitted to make.
He left the tower summit, and the sound of his footsteps diminished down the stairs. The sprites continued to watch until they knew that he had truly gone, then returned to their task and their purpose, of which they alone knew the true nature. They would wait, patient and vigilant, until Nanta’s prayers were done. Then they would lead her, still sleeping, back down the long spiral, back along the empty corridors through which they had brought her, back to the safety and security of her protected rooms. All in secrecy, all unknown, and when she woke to another day she would remember nothing but a dream. For now, that was how it must be; for she had not yet found her true strength. But the sprites had learned patience. They had waited twenty years for this, and they would continue to wait. For a while yet.
Chapter Twelve
When, on the following afternoon, Father Urss received a message from Prince Kodor requesting his immediate presence, he was surprised and not a little curious.
Urss had summoned Mother Beck to his office that morning, and the discussion that took place had been brief and to the point. The second manifestation of the Corolla Lights had put an unwanted spoke in the wheel of their carefully laid plans, and Urss was resolved. Flexibility and efficiency, as he had said to Beck at their previous meeting, were now all-important, and the contingency he had outlined then must be put in train.
Apparently there had been some more disturbances among the Sisters. No visions of the Lady this time, which was one nuisance avoided, but further tales of frost sprites and other, less tangible manifestations. Beck had reacted quickly; calling all the women of the Sanctum together, she had delivered a homily on the physical and spiritual dangers of hysteria, adding a thinly veiled warning about the consequences of blasphemy. Urss approved Beck’s actions, said what he had to say and dismissed her, satisfied that she would do what was required. Now, though, came this summons from Kodor. Interesting, Urss thought. The obvious conclusion was that the prince wished to consult him about the significance of the Corolla Lights; but he believed he knew Kodor better than that. The Lights might have a bearing—but the motive behind the message would be something else entirely.
Accordingly he presented himself at the Prince and Princess Imperial’s suite, and was ushered into Kodor’s private office. Kodor was not at his desk. Instead he was standing by the fireplace, one arm resting on the carved mantel as he stared into the heart of a newly built-up fire.
Urss said, “Your Highness.”
Urss accepted deferentially, hiding his quickening interest. Considering their mutual dislike it was rare for Kodor to proffer this kind of hospitality; and besides, the prince had an excellent cellar. A servant was rung for and the order given—one of the finest old south-western vintages, Urss noted with satisfaction—and while they waited for the tray to be brought, he said urbanely, “The Princess Imperial is well, I hope?”
“As well as usual.” There was no mistaking the caustic edge in the response.
Urss allowed a few seconds to elapse, then: “She stood the strain of the funeral rites with great poise and dignity, if I may venture to observe.”
“She was trained to,” said Kodor. “As were we all.”
Urss smiled a practiced smile, aware that this might well be leading him in the direction of a clue. “Nonetheless, for one unused to Vyskiri ways such things can’t be easy. I gather that Sekolian custom is more…basic than our own.”
“If by that, Father, you mean it is crude and cursory, then you echo my own opinion,” Kodor told him. “However, we must give credit where it’s due, mustn’t we, and as you say, my wife performed diligently. In that regard, at least.”
There was real acid in his voice now, and Urss understood. “Ah,” he said, with a very precise degree of sympathy, “then am I to understand that as yet there is no prospect of issue?”
Kodor scowled and hunched his shoulders. “You have a remarkable talent for using twenty words where five would do for anyone else, Father Urss. But yes; you are to understand that. Pola is not with child.”
“A pity,” said Urss, baiting his trap. “Duke Arec will be disappointed to hear of it.”
“He need hear nothing for the time being. My wife is too busy these days to write more than the occasional letter to him.”
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