by Jim Grimsley
“Another custom?”
“Yes, at least for where you’re supposed to come from.”
“Tell me about that place.”
He smiled. “House Turissa is now one of the adoptive houses, meaning it has no real blood link to himself; he being childless and the last member of the house dead a good long while before he was born, before the war. The house title was granted to one of the King’s loyalists in the King’s day, and holds lands in the west moors beyond Arroth, but also farther north, near the Svyssn land, where folk live who have ways similar to ours but who speak different local dialects of the older tongues. You’re costumed as one of those northerners.”
“What if someone asks where I’m from? What should I say?”
“Say your home country is in your heart, as we do, and say no more than that.”
This was an expression she had often heard herself, though she had never understood it for the evasion that it was. “And my name? Let me guess. I should tell them my name is Kartayn, like all the women do to strangers.”
He laughed, a raspy sound that ended in a cough. “You’ll do,” he said, “with that sort of attitude. Kartayn is the modern spelling of Malin’s mother’s name, did you know that?”
She looked at him and waited.
“The Twice-Named Lady Kiril Karsten, or Karstayn, or Kartayn, as it has become in usage. The man’s names usually given by strangers, Kirith or Kirin, were the King’s names, of course.”
“She had two names. In the old days, when that meant something.”
“Yes. She was Queen of a city called Drii, where live a people who have been our allies for a long while. Lady Malin is half Drii.”
“I didn’t think the Erejhen could breed with other races.”
“Only with the Drii, who are very like us.” He had lain out a line of undergarments, some rather elaborate, including a sort of frilly halter to contain her breasts, and stood aside for her to start to climb into them.
“Why can’t I wear my own underthings? Do you think someone will inspect me?”
He smiled. “One never knows.”
“How do you people ever get anything done,” she fussed, climbing into a pair of bloomers that tied at her waist.
“Don’t tie that so tight, you’ll regret it later when you cant reach the waist ribbons anymore.” He helped her to adjust it. “Don’t worry, they won’t fall off.”
“What a lot of bother.”
“I’m sure that all fashion on your own world is logical and sensible.”
Moreso than this, she wanted to say, but honesty prevented her, since she doubted it was true. The dressing continued, first a few layers, the trousers and blouse, then the coat for practice. Why drag yards of fabric in a train to start with, she wondered, but soon enough was lost in the concentration required to master the movement. She had no real anxiety about fooling anyone; this was not her game, after all, even if she had a stake in it; but always in her head was the instinct that she should be able to do whatever was required.
“You’re getting the hang of it. It’s perfectly all right to move the train by hand but you mustn’t look at it; feel the weight of it and move the weight as you need to, but don’t look behind you.”
She rehearsed and dressed as the storm continued, mostly rain now, sheeting the windows in a constant wash. After she was dressed came the descent to the ground floor where Arvith and another householder helped her with the protective over-garments and then into a carriage waiting for her in the anteway. The animal pulling the carriage was smaller than a horse, and the carriage was large enough only for Jedda and her piles of fabric; Arvith stood behind on a runner; she could feel his presence through the shuttered window as the carriage pulled away.
She had a moment of disorientation in the moving carriage, almost like dissolving into the rain herself; who was she and where was she going? What were these clothes? What was she supposed to be? And why so trusting of Irion? Why was she letting him completely beguile her?
There was a good deal of traffic on the palace road; she fixed her attention on the people, secluded from the rain in so many ways, including what could only have been a group of Prin making their way along the foot-walk beneath a transparent dome into which the rain did not fall; the image reminded her of Karsa and Kethen in the storm that swept over Arroth. She thought of them frozen in that moment as if time were suspended, waiting for Jedda to return. Nonsensical to picture it that way but she could not shake the image from her head.
She had expected the carriage to drive her to the welcome hall again, for some reason, as if she could only enter the formal palace through the front door; but instead the carriage pulled into a narrow space between the third hall and the second. The shadow of a roof appeared overhead and the noise of rain ceased all at once, a relief. She felt the carriage shift on its shocks as Arvith swung himself down to open the door. He took her hand and stepped her onto a mat of rushes, where she glimpsed the rain again, beyond the entrance to the carriageway. There flowing by came the group of Prin under their clear protection, the sound of their singing making a harmony with the drift of wind.
“Come in, lady,” said Arvith, his voice more formal than in the apartment. He had pulled down his dripping hood and looked at her with a twinkle in the eye. The theater was beginning, she supposed, and smiled.
As the householders unwrapped her rain garments to reveal the really splendid spectacle she made, she admired herself in the mirrors in the small room. She felt like a princess in a story for just a moment before she snorted at herself, and Arvith caught her eye. “Madam?”
She shook her head and gestured with the slim, sheathed dagger he had given her to carry. She could feel the haughty upturn of her chin; he had advised her that a sufficiently arrogant silence would get her through any number of awkward moments, if she preferred not to speak, so she intended to practice a bit here with this smaller audience.
After a spell of this, Arvith gave her an approving nod and signaled her train bearers that she was ready to be conducted to wherever dinner would be held. Arvith gave her a Hormling two-fingers signal, used among intimates to wish luck on happy occasions; the sign itself was not Jedda’s style of communication though she acknowledged him, wondering where he could have learned it. She tilted up her chin and, when the doors were opened, swept down a stone corridor to a stairway that led to another corridor, through more doors into more public parts of the house, where she began to see traffic of the sort she could imagine as part of this occasion.
Arvith spoke into her ear quietly before a set of doors carved with an intricate pattern of flowered vines; the wood, polished and scented, looked soft as velvet. “When these doors open you’re in public and more or less on your own. You’ll be announced and taken into the greater hall, where himself will greet you and hand you off to Malin. No one will try to talk to you directly unless you leave Malin’s company, at least until the dinner is laid.”
“Your customs are a bit formal, are they?”
He shrugged. “We like our privacy. The guests will all be paired off for early conversation; the custom is for the pairs to separate and switch, though that’s only an option, not a requirement, and Malin always does as she pleases. Most of the guests are here to see himself, anyway, so they won’t be worrying you. If you’re paired with someone you’re not comfortable with, simply refuse to speak. You’re dressed as someone of a rather high rank, higher than any of the other guests excepting Malin herself. And she hates these sorts of occasions and may not allow you out of her company at all.”
The thought of that made Jedda curiously happy; was she really so afraid of a dinner with strangers? No time to work it out, as the doors opened almost immediately, and her bearers moved her forward through the room.
A voice rang out, “Kartayn of House Turissa, cousin of Irion,” and she was moving forward through a throng of people almost as grandly dressed as she. The crowd parted as if in deference to her and she felt a thrill at
the stir, as if she were indeed this person who could inhabit such clothing, as if her status accounted for this behavior. What game was Jessex playing with her? What could he intend? Her cloak bearers moved forward with her and she found the grace needed to look the part of whatever rank of person she was supposed to be; she donned an expression that felt like arrogance and followed Arvith, who carried a staff of what was supposed to be her house, into an even larger, grander hall, though this one was quiet and empty of any persons whatsoever except for Irion himself, Malin, and their attendants.
Arvith called out, “The Lady Kartayn of Turissa, in respect of the Lady Malin and the Lord of the Woodland.” He struck his staff on the stone floor and Jedda’s attendants knelt; Jedda, as Arvith had taught her, waited till the rest were kneeling and bowed her head. Irion held out his hand for her and she stepped toward him.
“Welcome to Inniscaudra, daughter. Come and join our daughter, Malin; I wish her to show you my hall Thenduril, which I call Trinithduril, after the King.”
He stood tall and splendid on his dais, and suddenly she wondered why she had ever thought him plain; his face was beautiful, a skin like porcelain, hair dark and thickly curled, a neck long and slender like some exotic bird, simple clothing and jewels arrayed on him; and beside him stood Malin, who took Jedda’s breath, radiant in clothing of equally simple layering, her stark white hair arranged in a net of silver studded with white gems and pearls, her gown cut low across her shoulders, her pale bosom rising and trembling as she breathed. She had the same long, slender neck as her uncle. Her beauty cast a glow around her, all the oddity of her height suddenly swept away. The light of many lamps colored her face and pale, graceful arms. Her skin glowed a dark, dusky silver. She was moving off the dais now, toward Jedda, with a smile that seemed formal at first. She took Jedda’s hand.
A feeling like a current passed from skin to skin and Jedda felt a blush start from her shoulders; her retainers were removing some of the outer layers of clothing, and she tried to use the activity to take her eyes away from Malin’s, but found she could not. Her heart was pounding. She felt like a girl.
“My good Kartayn,” Malin said, and Jedda stepped to the side of the dais as the bearers drew away; Jedda tried to get her breath, glad that Malin was to the side now, not in sight. “Welcome. While my uncle receives the rest of his guests, let me show you Thenduril. You speak our language as if it is a second tongue for you. Do you understand the name?”
“Yes. I think so.” She had heard the name from Irion, and remembered that it meant something like “Hall of the Forest” or “Woodland Hall.” A tall, central vault rose overhead, flanked on either side by slightly lower and narrower vaults, the whole supported by columns of carved, dark wood, in the shape of tall, thin trees whose branches wove a lacework of branches over the ceiling, gleaming with leaves of gold, silver, copper. A row of lamps burned high in the vault, light that varied in color through some trick of the oil or through some construction within the lamps. Light like rose or like the reflection off a field of snow, white almost to blue. Other lamps lower down created other spills of light that appeared precisely gauged and placed; the whole vault glimmered and flickered in warm light and color.
Malin waited beside a pillar on which sat a clear, transparent cylinder made of no material Jedda could recognize. Within it stood an image, a man in a park walking among a grove of trees. The forest was old and dense, a place like nothing Jedda had ever seen or imagined, like something out of a vid. The man was tall, broad shouldered, dark haired, dressed in a scarlet tunic over black leggings that looked like leather or mail, or like the one changing into the other. The image was like a hologram but not like any Jedda had ever seen before, captured within the solid, crystalline stuff. The image moved, the man pausing to look around, to touch a silver chain at his throat, to say something and smile. “This is the King,” Malin said, “walking in the forest at Aneseveroth. Do you know the place?”
“No,” Jedda said.
“A country house north of the Old Forest. My uncles built it after the Long War, on the same land where my uncle Irion was born. Neither of them is really my family, but I always called them uncle. This kind of image is shilthirin, captured in this chuth stone. Have you ever heard of it?”
“No. It’s marvelous.” She wanted to say more but figured it best to keep her answers short and most uninformative. There was no Erejhen word for hologram anyway, and how to explain one when she barely understood them herself.
“It’s of my uncle’s making,” she said. “The Prin can make them though not so large or with so many images. This one cycles through half a dozen.” Her expression had grown sad, suddenly.
“Is something wrong?”
“I get sad sometimes, watching him, trapped in there. As if he really were inside the chuth. I miss him, I guess.” She gestured to the hall. “This whole room is my uncle’s memorial to the King. I guessed from the fact that he asked me to show it to you that you’ve never seen it before.”
“This is my first visit,” Jedda answered.
“Where are you from?”
“I’d rather not say.”
A frown, slight, crossed Malin’s face. “Of course.”
“Your uncle told me to claim to be from near the Svyssn border, since he has estates there, he says; but that’s for the other guests. I don’t want to lie to you.”
It was Malin’s turn to show a slight flush through her oddly colored skin. A hint of rose appeared along the neckline, climbing the neck toward the cheeks. “I’m flattered.”
“I don’t mean to flatter you, simply to tell you the truth.”
The color rose in degree. “Among my people, there is no higher praise or compliment than to refuse even the polite lie.”
“My real name is Jedda. I told you the truth about that, too.” She could not take her eyes off Malin’s face. Her heart was pounding.
Malin broke away, signaled a servant for drinks. “Would you like wine?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“This is my favorite sparkling wine,” Malin said, “very dry and cool.”
“I’ve never tasted anything like it.” The glass, narrow and tall, was light in Jedda’s fingertips, of a crystal so thin it felt like lace. The bubbles in the wine gave it a peculiar quality, a bite that made her giddy. The figure in the stone continued to move, the King sliding through a forest on a gray day, something out of a storybook. “Is there more to show me?”
Yes, there was. The two glided through the gleaming colonnade, Malin explaining the images of old tapestries, pieces of armor, swords that had belonged to the King. A set of gems in a gilded, ornate box. Treasures from a very long life. At first the purpose of all this confused Jedda; what interest could anyone expect from her in a subject so old? But quickly enough she noticed the change in Malin, the further softening of her tone, the air of wistfulness. Jedda stepped closer to the other woman, feeling the catch of the body that soon became a connection, a sensation of pleasantness. “You knew him very well?”
“Yes.” Her sadness became apparent, deep. “I was only a girl. This is the last place I saw him alive, this room. He left us and walked through those doors at the end.” She pointed to the doors as tall as the vault itself, planed each from a single piece of wood, seamless. “Through there is YY’s tower and the way down to the Deeps.”
“He died?”
“He crossed the gates,” she said, nodding. “When I came of age, sixteen years.”
Jedda sipped the wine, allowed a servant to pour more.
Malin had stepped away, took a breath, and stepped back again. She looked Jedda in the eyes. “You listen as if you’ve never heard any of this.”
“Maybe I haven’t.”
“How could anyone not know the story of the King’s leaving?” she asked.
“Your stories aren’t the only important stories in the world,” Jedda said. “Perhaps my head is simply full of my own.”
Malin laughed. “How
fresh. Where on earth did my uncle find you?”
“I thought you weren’t going to be curious about that.”
“Perhaps I’ve changed my mind.”
There was a pause for the announcement of someone, a loud voice and a lot of sounds that went to a blur in Jedda’s head; the wine was really effective, could the bubbles make that much difference? “I suppose I ought to be flattered by the attention.”
“You may be flattered or not, as you choose.” Malin smiled. “What on earth can you be up to, to be so close to him and yet for me to know nothing of you at all?”
Jedda laughed herself this time. The feeling was pleasant, and for a moment she lay her hand on Malin’s arm. The pressure was returned, briefly, before each broke away. “How funny that you think we’re close, he and I.”
“You seem to be.”
“Only because I’m a fairly trusting soul,” Jedda said. “I’m taking a good deal on faith.”
Malin looked quizzically at Jedda. “Faith? Well, you’re unlikely to be disappointed. Faithfulness runs in our family.”
“But he isn’t your family,” Jedda said. “You just said so.”
Other guests entered in procession, shedding glorious outer layers of skin, descending the entry steps and crossing to the dais where Irion waited, erect and shining, his single gown of black and indigo enfolding him, simple and dark.
“You know his business here?” Malin asked.
“I know he’s about to change the sky.”
She paused, touched her lips to the glass. “You believe he will?”
Jedda faced the dais again, then looked Malin in the eye, a lingering that drew them both closer. “I believe he does what he says he will. That’s my impression of him.”
“We’re accustomed to his power,” Malin said. “But the sky itself?” She shook her head. “The burghers and senators are here to dissuade him from trying. There are people who believe God will come back to punish him.”
