Anderith culture revolved a great deal around honor and word given in solemn oath-about holding to your pledge. But Anderith was changing. It was a matter of great concern to many that moral bounds had, over the last few decades, fallen to scorn by many. Debauchery was not only accepted, but expected, among the fashionable elite.
Dalton glanced over at Teresa, back at the Director, and to Teresa again. He held out a hand.
"Director, could I introduce you to my lovely wife? Please? I would consider it a personal favor if you lent your considerable influence to the issue of decency. You are a greatly respected man, and could speak with moral authority I could never begin to command. She thinks I speak only as a jealous husband."
Linscott considered only briefly. "I would, if it would please you."
Teresa was encouraging Claudine to drink some wine and was offering comforting words as Dalton shepherded the Director up beside the two women.
"Teresa, Claudine, may I introduce Director Linscott."
Teresa smiled into his eyes as he lightly kissed her hand. Claudine stared at the floor as the procedure was repeated on her hand. She looked as if she wanted nothing more than
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to either jump into the man's arms for protection or run away as fast as she could. Dalton's reassuring hand on her shoulder prevented either.
"Teresa, darling, the Director and I were just discussing the issue of the women's dresses and fashion versus decorum."
Teresa canted a shoulder toward the Director, as if taking him into her confidence. "My husband is so stuffy about what I wear. And what do you think, Director Linscott? Do you approve of my dress?" Teresa beamed proudly. "Do you like it?"
Linscott glanced down from Teresa's eyes only briefly. "Quite lovely, my dear. Quite lovely."
"You see, Dalton? I told you. My dress is much more conservative than the others. I'm delighted one so widely respected as yourself approves, Director Linscott."
While Teresa turned to a passing cupbearer for a refill, Dalton gave Linscott a why-didn't-you-help-me? look. Linscott shrugged and bent to Dalton's ear.
"Your wife is a lovely, endearing woman," he whispered. "I couldn't very well humiliate and disappoint her."
Dalton made a show of sighing. "My problem, exactly." Linscott straightened, smiling all the way. "Director," Dalton said, more seriously, "Claudine, here, had a terrible accident earlier. While taking a walk outside she caught her foot and took a nasty tumble."
"Dear spirits." Linscott took up her hand. "Are you badly hurt, my dear?"
"It was nothing," Claudine mumbled. "I've known Edwin a good many years. I'm sure your husband would be understanding if I helped you to your rooms. Here, take my arm, and I will see you safely to your bed."
As he took a sip, Dalton watched over the top of his cup. Her eyes swept the room. Those eyes held a world of longing to accept his offer. She might be safe if she did. He was a powerful man, and would have her under his wing. This test would tell Dalton what he needed to know. It
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wasn't really a huge risk to play out such an experiment. People did disappear, after all, without ever being found. Still, there were risks in it. He waited for Claudine to tell him which way it would go. At last, she did.
"Thank you for your concern, Director Linscott, but I'm fine. I have so looked forward to the feast, and seeing the guests come to the estate. I would forever regret missing it, and seeing our Minister of Culture speak."
Linscott took a sip of wine. "You and Edwin have labored vigorously on new laws since he was elected burgess. You have worked with the Minister. What think you of the man?" He gestured with his cup for emphasis. "Your honest opinion, now."
Claudine took a gulp of wine. She had to catch her breath. She stared at nothing as she spoke.
"Minister Chanboor is a man of honor. His policies have been good for Anderith. He has been respectful of the laws Edwin has proposed." She took another gulp of wine. "We are fortunate to have Bertrand Chanboor as the Minister of Culture. I have a hard time imagining another man who could do everything he does."
Linscott lifted an eyebrow. "Quite a ringing endorsement, from a woman of your renown. We all know that you, Claudine, are as important to those laws as Edwin." , "You are too kind," she mumbled, staring into her cup. "I am just the wife of an important man. I would be little missed and quickly forgotten were I to have broken my neck out there tonight. Edwin will be honored long and well."
Linscott puzzled at the top of her head.
"Claudine thinks far too little of herself," Dalton said. He caught sight of the seneschal, impeccably dressed in a long-tailed red coat crossed with a sash of many colors, opening the double doors. Beyond the doors, the lavers, with rose petals floating in them, awaited the guests.
Dalton turned to the Director. "I suppose you know who will be the guest of honor tonight?"
Linscott frowned. "Guest of honor?"
"A representative from the Imperial Order. A high-
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ranking man by the name of Stein. Come to tell us Emperor Jagang's words." Dalton took another sip. "The Sovereign has come, too, to hear those words."
Linscott sighed with the weight of this news. Now the man knew why he had been summoned, along with the other Directors, to what they had thought was no more than an ordinary feast at the estate. The Sovereign, for his own safety, rarely announced his appearances in advance. He had arrived with his own special guards and a large contingent of servants.
Teresa's face glowed as she smiled up at Dalton, eager for the evening's events. Claudine stared at the floor.
"Ladies and gentleman," the seneschal announced, "if it would please you, dinner is served."
CHAPTER 21
SHE SPREAD HER WINGS, and her rich voice sang out with the somber strains of a tale more ancient than myth.
Came the visions of icy beauty,
from the land of death where they dwell.
Pursuing their prize and grisly duty,
came the thieves of the charm and spell.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
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Alluring of shape though seldom seen,
they traveled the breeze on a spark.
Some fed twigs to their newborn queen,
while others invaded the dark.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Some they called and others they kissed
as they traveled on river and wave.
With resolve they came and did insist:
every one touched to a grave.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Roving to hunt and gathering to dance,
they practiced their dark desires
by casting a hex and a beautiful trance,
before feeding the queen's new fires.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Till he parted the falls and the bells chimed thrice, till he issued the calls and demanded the price, the bells chimed thrice and death met the Mountain.
They charmed and embraced
and they tried to extoll
but he bade them in grace
and demanded a soul.
The bells fell silent and the Mountain slew them
all. And the Mountain entombed them all.
With an impossibly long note, the young woman concluded her bewitching song. The guests broke into applause.
It was an archaic lyric of Joseph Ander and for that reason alone was cherished. Dalton had once leafed through old
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texts to see what he could learn of the song's meaning, but found nothing to shed light on the intent of the words, which, there being a number of versions, weren't always the same. It was one of those songs which no one really understood but everyone treasured because it was obviously a triumph of some sort for one of their land's beloved venerable founders. For the sake of tradition the haunting melody was sung on special occ
asions.
For some reason, Dalton had the odd feeling that the words now meant more to him than ever before. They seemed somehow nearly to make sense. As quickly as the sensation came, his mind was on to other things and the feeling passed.
The woman's long sleeves skimmed the floor as she held her arms wide while bowing to the Sovereign, and then once again to the applauding people at the head table beside the Sovereign's table. A baldachin of silk and gold brocade ran up the wall behind and then in billowing folds out over the two head tables. The baldachin's corners were held up with outsized Anderith lances. The effect was to make the head tables appear as if they were on a stage-which, in many ways, Dalton supposed they were.
The songstress bowed to the diners at the long rows of tables running down each side of the dining hall. Her sleeves were overlaid with spotted white owl feathers, so that when she spread her arms in song she appeared to be a winged woman, like something out of the ancient stories she sang.
Stein, on the other side of the applauding Minister and his wife, applauded apathetically, no doubt envisioning the young woman without her feathers. On Dalton's right, Teresa added enthusiastic calls of admiration to her clapping. Dalton stifled a yawn as he applauded.
As the songstress strode away, her arms lifted to wave in winged acknowledgment of the whistles trailing after her. , After she'd vanished, four squires entered from the opposite side of the room carrying a platform atop which sat a marzipan ship floating in a sea of marzipan waves. The ship's billowing sails looked to be made of spun sugar,
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The purpose, of course, was to announce that the next course would be fish, just as the pastry deer, pursued by pastry hounds leaping a hedge of holly in which hid aspic boar, had announced one of the meat courses, and the stuffed eagle with its huge wings spread over a scene of the capital city of Fairfield made of paper board buildings had announced a course of fowl. Up in the gallery, a fanfare trumpeted and drums rolled to add a musical testament to the arrival of the next course.
There had been five courses, each with at least a dozen specialties. That meant there were seven courses yet to come, each with at least a dozen distinctive dishes of its own. Music from flute and fife and drum, jugglers, troubadours, and acrobats entertained the guests between courses as a tree with candied fruits toured the tables. Gifts of mechanical horses with opposing legs that moved in unison were passed out to the delight of all.
Meat dishes had included everything from Teresa's all-time favorite of suckers-she had eaten three of the infant rabbits-to fawn, to pig, to cow, to a bear standing on its hind legs. The bear was wheeled from table to table; at each table its hide, draped around the roasted carcass, was pulled back to allow carvers to slice off pieces for the guests. Fowl ranged from the sparrows the Minister favored for their stimulation of lust, to pigeons, to swan's neck pudding, to eagles, to baked heron that had been re-feathered and held by wires in a display depicting them as a flock in flight.
It was not expected that everyone would eat such a plenitude of food; the variety was meant to offer an abundance of choice, not only to please honored guests, but to astonish them with opulence. A visit to the Minister of Culture's estate was an occasion long remembered, and for many became a legendary event talked about for years.
As they sampled the dishes, most people kept an eye to the head table, where the Minister sat with two wealthy backers he had invited to dine at his table, and the other object of great interest: the representative from the Imperial Order. Stein had arrived earlier, to the whispered oohing and
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aahing of all at his man-of-war outfit and cape of human scalps. He was a sensation, drawing the inviting looks of a number of women weak in the knees at the prospect of winning such a man to their bed.
In vivid outward contrast to the warrior from the Old World, Bertrand Chanboor wore a close-fitting, sleeveless, padded purple doublet embellished with elaborate embroidery, gold trim, and silver braiding over a simple sleeved short jacket. Together, they gave his soft rounded shape the illusion of a more manly frame. A frill of white stood above the doublet's low, erect collar. A similar ruff stood out at wrists and waist.
Slung over the shoulders of the doublet and short jacket was a magnificent dress coat of a deeper purple with fur trim running around the collar and all the way down the front. Below the padded rolls standing at the ends of the shoulders, the baggy sleeves had slashes lined with red silk. Between the spiral slashes, galloon braiding separated rows of pearls.
With his intent eyes, his easy smile-which, along with those eyes, always seemed directed at no other than the person with whom he had eye contact at the moment-and his shock of thick, graying hair, he struck an impressive figure. That, and Bertrand Chanboor's presence, or rather the presence of the power he wielded as the Minister of Culture, left many a man in awed admiration and many a woman in breathless yearning.
If not watching the Minister's table, guests cast stealthy glances at the table beside it, where sat the Sovereign, his wife, and their three grown sons and two grown daughters. No one wanted to stare openly at the Sovereign. The Sovereign was, after all, the Creator's deputy in the world of life-a holy religious leader as well as the ruler of their land. Many in Anderith, Anders and Haken alike, idolized the Sovereign to the point of falling to the ground, wailing, and confessing sins when his carriage passed.
The Sovereign, alert and perceptive despite deteriorating health, was dressed in a glittering golden garment. A red
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vest emphasized the outfit's bulbous sleeves. A long, richly colored, embroidered silk stole was draped over his shoulders. Bright yellow stockings laced at midthigh to the bottom of teardrop-shaped puffed and padded breeches with colored slashes. Jewels weighed each finger. The Sovereign's head hovered low between his rounded shoulders, as if the gold medallion displaying a diamond-encrusted mountain had, over time, weighed so heavily on his neck that it bowed his back. Liver spots as large as the jewels mottled his hands.
The Sovereign had outlived four wives. With loving care, the man's latest wife dabbed at the food on his chin. Dalton doubted she was yet out of her teens.
Thankfully, even though the sons and daughters brought their spouses, they had left their children home; the Sovereign's grandchildren were insufferable brats. No one dared do anything more than chuckle approvingly at the little darlings as they rampaged unchecked. Several of them were considerably older than their latest stepgrandmother.
On the other side of the Minister from Dalton, Lady Hildemara Chanboor, in an elegant silvery pleated gown cut as low as any in the room, gestured with one finger, and the harpist, stationed before but below the head table's raised platform, gently trailed her soft music to silence. The Minister's wife directed the feast.
It actually needed no directing from her, but she insisted she be acknowledged as the regal hostess of the majestic and stately event, and therefore from time to time contributed to the proceedings by lifting her finger to silence the harpist at the appropriate time so that all might know and respect her social position. People were spellbound, believing the entire feast turned on Lady Chanboor's finger.
The harpist certainly knew when she was to let her music end for an impending slated event, but nonetheless waited and watched for that noble finger before daring to still her own. Sweat dotted her brow as she watched for Lady Chanboor's finger to rise, daring not to miss it.
Though universally proclaimed radiant and beautiful, Hil-
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demara was rather thick of limb and feature, and had always put Dalton in mind of a sculpture of a woman chiseled by an artisan of greater ardor than talent. It was not a piece of work one wished to consider for long stretches.
The harpist took the chance of the break to reach for a cup on the floor beside her golden harp. As she bent forward for the cup, the Minister ogled her cleavage, at the same time giving Dalton an elbow in the ribs lest he miss the sight.
Lady C
hanboor noticed her husband's roving eye, but showed no reaction. She never did. She relished the power she wielded, and willingly paid the requisite price.
In private, though, Hildemara occasionally clouted Bertrand with any handy object, more likely for a social slight to her than a marital indiscretion. She had no real cause to raise objections to his philandering; she was not exactly faithful, enjoying at times the discreet company of lovers. Dalton kept a mental list of their names.
Dalton suspected that, like many of her husband's dalliances, her partners were attracted to her power, and hoped they might earn a favor. Most people had no clue as to what went on at the estate, and could imagine her as nothing other than a faithful loving wife, an image she cultivated with care. The Anderith people loved her as the people of other lands loved a queen.
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