by Victor Milán
“Of course, Melodía, mi corazón,” her father said, waggling his fingers at her. She curtsied and started to march out the door past the usual lines of favor seekers, bureaucrats, and idlers.
“Wait one moment, young woman!” a female voice called out, in a tone like knuckles rapping wood.
Melodía turned. Everybody turned. A tiny, incredibly wizened old woman—a thing rare enough to see in Nuevaropa, or anywhere on Paradise of which Melodía knew—had stepped out from behind the Fangèd Throne.
“Who is this wretched crone, who dares intrude in the Imperial Presence?” demanded Countess Bluemountain.
But Melodía thought to see a haunting familiarity in the strangely shriveled features. And she noted that the quartet of Scarlet Tyrants who stood flanking the throne and the door—who were trained to remain impassive and immobile for hours on end, seemed to have positively frozen.
Her father frowned. “¿Abuelita?” he said. “Granny?”
María de Montañazul’s eyes went round and big as target shields, and her dark face turned the color of fine wood ash. Her tart words seemed to follow her color in headlong flight.
“Come, let me look at you, Pepito,” the old lady said. Amid a lake of astonished faces, she walked right up to the Fangèd Throne on the side Melodía had just left, her gait showing no sign of a hobble, or her spine of stooping. She wore what might be taken for a mendicant nun’s plain brown robes—until one noticed that they were made of finest silk.
She leaned in to kiss the Emperor’s cheek. Which she then pinched between thumb and forefinger. Felipe winced.
“Ah, mi niño,” she said, “being Emperor agrees with you, ¿qué no? You’ve lost the slim figure of your boyhood, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve never been slim, Grandmother,” Felipe said aggrievedly. “I was a pudgy child. I was a pudgy youth, even as a pikeman in my uncle’s army in Alemania. As a man I may have grown still pudgier, but…”
She let go his cheek and patted it. “Ah, forgive me, nieto. I forget these things in my dotage, you know.”
“Horseshit,” the Emperor said, evoking gasps from onlookers. Even Melodía felt surprise; her father seldom used vulgarity. “You haven’t forgotten a thing in all your three hundred years, Granny.”
“Here, now! Don’t go aging me prematurely, boy. Two hundred fifty—well, más o menos. Más, to be truthful.”
The Emperor was starting to look as if his pale-green eyes, always protuberant, were about to pop straight out of his face. She turned away from what was in fact her multiply great grandson. To fix her gaze upon the Heralda Imperial on duty. “Well? Aren’t you going to announce me? You know who I am, don’t you, girl?”
The herald, a short woman with short iron-grey hair and the build of a wine-tun, as befit a person of her profession, didn’t pause to inhale before declaiming, “All rise to greet her Most Serene Excellency, Rosamaría Manuela Juana Martina—”
“Enough,” the old woman said. Without raising her voice, she somehow shouted down the bellows-lunged herald. “I know my names, and no one else gives a pinch of dried nosehorn shit. The only ones that count anyway are my given name, and the name of my family. Everything else is dross. So wrap it up and put a bow on it, and let’s get on with things.”
“—Great Mother of La Familia Delgao,” the herald finished. She may have been taken by complete surprise by the ancient woman’s abrupt apparition in the throne room—everyone else was—but she was a dedicated artisan and had quickly recovered her professional aplomb. Melodía, who had acquired no little of Karyl’s love of dedication to craft while serving under him, was impressed.
She was impressed by her forebear as well, although in a very different way. I always expected the notorious and shadowy La Madrota to be a constant lurker in shadows, silent and subtle, a weaver of webs of intrigue and espionage. Our family equivalent of Abi’s father, really. Whom she knew was mentioned, always in whispers, as a frequent rival and ally both of the Imperial family’s undying matriarch.
But here she’s a blunt and foul-mouthed old lady—whom I’m pretty sure is sprier than she has any right to be. Though I can’t be sure; I’ve never known many old people.
Nobody did. Hardly anyone got old enough to start looking elderly, which usually happened around the century mark. It was an axiom that everyone grew up with: “You could live forever here on Paradise, if nothing killed you first. But here on Paradise, something always does.” Rosamaría was reputed to be the oldest living person in the world. She certainly was in the Empire.
“Now that I’ve formally appeared and made my obeisance to the Emperor, I’ll withdraw now and cease interrupting your doubtlessly vital and gripping presentation, Don Armando,” she told the Finance Minister. The little bread-loaf man bowed graciously. Which showed Melodía he had either more courtesy or active sense of self-preservation than she’d taken him for.
Turning to fix Melodía with eyes the color and hardness of obsidian, she said, “And I am taking your daughter with me.”
“But shouldn’t you ask His Majesty’s leave to do that?” an Alemán voice asked with a ring like a servant-summoning bell. Margrethe of Hornberg leaned forward from her chair set altogether too close to Felipe’s left hand. Her heavy white breasts swayed forward.
La Madrota turned her black eyes to the Dowager Duchess’s light blue ones. It was a cliché out of the hoarier novelas that gazes clashed like flint and steel. But now Melodía could all but see the sparks fill the hot, heavy air between them.
“I have permission, Dama Montecuerno.” She added something in fast Alemán, a language Melodía didn’t understand—it always sounded to her like someone choking to death on roast scratcher bone—but which made her father, who did, blanch. Margrethe said nothing, but sat up with the arrogant dignity befitting a queen.
La Madrota grabbed Melodía’s left upper arm with a strength the Princess, by this point, hardly found surprising.
“Let’s go, girl,” her multiply great grandmother said. “Try to keep up.”
Chapter 27
Juana I Delgao—First Empress of Nuevaropa, and the first person Elected to the Fangèd Throne. Also called Juana la Roja (“the Red”), on account of her red hair, or Juana la Sabia (“the Wise”), on account of her rule. The older daughter of the first Emperor, Manuel Delgao, Juana was a brilliant, beautiful, and charismatic woman who succeeded her father after he died under unclear circumstances during the siege of his new capital of La Majestad by noble insurrectionists in 223 AP. She instituted the system whereby the Throne would not be hereditary, but rather eleven Electors (then nine, two more being added after the annexation of Anglaterra) would vote in each new Emperor or Empress out of her and Manuel’s family, Torre Delgao. She subsequently abdicated the Fangèd Throne, to be promptly Elected Empress under her new system. From uncertain beginnings, Juana, in concert with her even more intelligent half-sister, Martina (called la Negra, “the Black,” because of the color of her hair), built up both an Empire and an Imperial family which grew and prospered under her long reign, and which continue strong after half a millennium.
—LA GRAN HISTORIA DEL IMPERIO DEL TRONO COLMILLADO
“Keep that pet monster of yours under better control!” Margrethe snapped at Falk. “He’s frightening my poor horse.”
His mother’s mount of the day was a dun ambler mare lent from the Corazón riding stables, sturdy and serviceable, as was characteristic of her breed, but a bit flighty to Falk’s eye.
She’s annoying him with all her absurd prancing and fidgeting, he wanted to tell her. But what he said was, “Certainly, Mother.”
Leaning forward, he scratched the smooth, white, pebble-shaped scales of Snowflake’s neck and murmured, “There’s a good boy. Calm, now. You can’t eat her, however much we both want you to.”
“What’s that? What are you mumbling about?”
“Just trying to soothe my dinosaur. Just as you asked me to.”
He wasn’t altogether cer
tain the beast wasn’t catching the enormous parasol his mother was using to shade her fair skin on their morning ride over the scrubby foothills around the foot of Glory Plateau in the corner of her eye periodically, and spooking at that. Most likely it was both; a marchador was as well-trained as a war-horse, and just as expensively so. But unlike a courser or rare destrier, it was never trained to endure the nearness of a gigantic fearsome predatory dinosaur like Tyrannosaurus rex.
“Hrmph. Given that you’re riding a King Tyrant who eats nothing but fresh meat and enough of that to beggar a Riqueza canton, what do you need with them?”
She jerked her head, wound about today in enormous white braids, back toward the quarter of Scarlet Tyrants who followed at a discreet distance of twenty meters or so on their horses, their red plumes and cloth capes bouncing to their trotting. The mountain air was still, which was rare. Falk himself wore a cap, a feather cape, and silken trunks, in his family colors of blue, silver, and black.
“Mostly to remind everyone that I command them,” he said. A thought hit him. “And to make an impression. After all, only the Emperor and his daughters are normally entitled to such an escort by the Imperial bodyguard.”
His mother chuckled. “Not bad. Sometimes you show promise you’ll be worthy of the name I secured for you and the plans I’ve made for you and worked hard to bring to fruition. Briefly, at least. So why was it so urgent that you talk to me?”
“The old woman. The monster from the mountain. The one they call La Madrota—Great Mother of all the Delgao.”
“What about her? She’s well-preserved and spry, I’ll give her that.”
“But she’s—she’s here! She’s rumored to be the secret true head of Torre Delgao.”
“Rumored? I thought every blockhead knew it was true. But apparently not every blockhead. Do you have a point, or am I risking blistering the dainty skin of my ass, which I need to keep unblemished for the Imperial eye, for nothing?”
Falk physically shook himself to dispel the image that conjured up. “Why is she here?”
“I hope that’s a rhetorical question and merely wasting my time right now, rather than serious, thereby showing I’m wasting my time overall.”
“She’s here to help Melodía against us, Mother. She has to be!”
“And?”
“I—I—she’s very powerful. And she must be a great intriguer, to have kept her family in power for hundreds of years.”
“It’s a system that works,” Margrethe said, “and for the most part smoothly. Until an ambitious sort like Felipe turns up to steer it down the rocky road to adventure. Which is the core of our opportunity. But certainly, she’s been a master of intrigue. She’s helped generations of unprepossessing Delgao whelps maintain their death grip on the Fangèd Throne, without a doubt. But still—I have my doubts about her, frankly.”
“What do you mean? She didn’t get that old by being slack at intrigue, Mother.”
“Perhaps. Who even knows if she’s real? I’m far from satisfied she’s not a ringer—one of a succession of similar-looking crones to play the role of La Madrota. But if she is real, and centuries old: well, then sooner or later, she’ll lose her edge. Perhaps that’s happened already. And mine—mine is still busily being honed.”
And she showed her son a smile that frankly discomforted him.
But he still didn’t feel she’d answered his question. His fear of having it remain unresolved outweighed his fear of what she might say if he pressed.
“Well, be that as it may, what are we going to do about her?”
This time his mother laughed out loud: a deep, booming laugh, matching her large and powerful frame.
“You aren’t going to do anything. You are going to strut about and play the great hero and cock slayer. Which role you perform admirably. You may not be overburdened with brains, but thank the King of the Creators and our strong blood that you’re blessed with a stout frame and fast hands. The rest you are going to leave to your loving mother. You didn’t think I came down here just to take the mountain air, did you? The aridity dries my complexion awfully.”
They had almost completed their circuit and come back to where the road commenced to wind up the Plateau to La Majestad. Where a small stream gurgled through a dressed-stone culvert beneath the highway, hitch-bars and stone tables with benches had been erected in the shelter of a stand of young plane trees to provide a way station. Another trio of Scarlet Tyrants had chased the usual gaggle of hawkers fifty meters down the road. A two-wheeled carriage with a pair of bays in harness stood parked in the shade.
“You see, boy,” Margrethe said as they rode toward the station, “now that Rosamaría Delgao has left her den tucked away high in the mountains above La Fuerza to come to the Imperial Palace, we know where she is. And here we can keep our eyes upon her.”
“‘Our’?”
The Dowager Duchess held up a hand. Commanded as if he were a mere servant, her son the Duke obeyed like one, halting Snowflake well short of the trees to allow her to ride her horse up to them in the brisk walk called an “amble.”
Young male and female grooms in silk trunks of Imperial red and yellow swarmed out to meet her, taking over the reins and her parasol, even placing a red-and-gold-painted stool to ease her climb down from her horse’s back. She could have vaulted off the beast, and back on, had she wanted; but she was where Falk had learned the desirability of making an impression, after all. The liveried grooms would return the mare to the Palace stables while Margrethe rode in comfort up the promontory in the conveyance.
A pair of figures stood apart beneath the trees. The taller, gawkier, clean-shaven one sidling uneasily from foot to foot was Albrecht, Falk’s squire. The shorter was Parsifal, dressed in a scanty loincloth and buskins. He trotted forward and offered his arm.
“Oh, thank you, Parsifal,” she said, taking it. “It’s so good of you to wait upon me today. I understand you’re being assigned to wait upon the Lady Rosamaría.”
“It is indeed my great honor, Your Grace,” he said. “As it was an honor to wait upon you, as well.”
He turned and showed Falk a smirk. Falk had dismounted and stood with Snowflake, nuzzling him with his huge dagger-toothed head while he scratched him behind the nostrils and ear tympani and murmured endearments.
Margrethe likewise turned her head and gave her son a wink. “I do wish you wouldn’t coddle that monster so,” she sang out, as Parsifal led her to the waiting carriage, and Albrecht approached the duke and his Tyrant, reluctantly as always. “It’s a disgusting display for a man of your age and station.”
She climbed into the carriage. After helping her up, Parsifal went around and got in the other side. The coachwoman, who wore a headband with ridiculous, enormously tall gold-and-scarlet reaper plumes (to signify that she carried Imperial personages or, in this case, was an honored guest) clucked up the bays and set off up the ramp.
As if to spite his mother, who doubtless wasn’t looking, Falk said, “Who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy,” as he scratched Snowflake beneath the chin. The Tyrannosaurus made a sort of deep purring sound and bobbed his head happily.
Falk handed his reins to his squire. The purr turned to a soft rumbling growl that Falk felt through his buskin soles. Albrecht, not swarthy by any means at the best of times, went as white beneath his curly black mop of hair as the albino meat eater. He began to quake.
Falk paid no mind; he never did. The lad had a sure yet gentle hand with Falk’s beloved mount, though, and was a precise and dutiful arming-squire as well. Who never spoke back to his knightly master, much less subjected him to abuse the way the vile wretch Bergdahl did. Falk had no idea why his mother had chosen to detach her creature from Falk’s back and visit him on Karyl’s newly ennobled guttersnipe lieutenant, much less how she’d managed it in absentia, but he felt wonderfully relieved by the fact. He only hoped Rob, Baron Korrigan, was a horrible enough person to deserve him.
Instead, he laughed and patted
Snowflake’s cheek. “Here, boy. You know Albrecht. He’s your friend.”
The growl subsided. Albrecht did not look notably reassured.
“Come on, lad,” Falk said to the squire, “buck up. Snowflake knows you. And he knows not to bite your head off until I tell him to.”
And he laughed and laughed out loud at the look of utter horror on the young man’s face. Really, it was a splendid joke, if he did say so himself.
* * *
“You need my help, granddaughter,” La Madrota said as they walked side by side down the back passage that led to the upward stairs.
Though she was a head or more taller, and much longer in the legs, Melodía was finding she did have to hustle to keep up. For some unknown reason, that annoyed her more than La Madrota’s high-handed way of simply marching in on her father’s important, if boring, business and taking over.
“Do I?”
La Madrota snorted. “Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter, child.”
Melodía shied away from her like a horse—well, one less mannerly and self-controlled than her beloved Meravellosa—shying away from a dry leaf skittering toward it across the cobblestones.
“Does language like that really befit the dignity of your age and position?” she asked, knowing the instant it came out how colossal a reaper that made her seem.
“I’m three fucking centuries old, girl. My fucking dignity is whatever the fuck I say it is. You were in Karyl’s Fugitive Legion. You’ve heard such talk before. You’ve heard it from your ladies-in-waiting back at the Firefly Palace—whom your fool father should have summoned instantly to your side to aid and comfort you, not banned. Which is one of many matters whose bottom I intend to delve to.
“And speaking of bottoms, I saw the way that white-haired nosehorn cow of an Alemana has captured your father’s eye, flaunting those great pale boobs and backside at him.”
While she was no Rob Korrigan, Melodía was not a woman who found herself at a loss for words too often. Now was one of those times.
But La Madrota seemed willingly to go on supplying them. “I’ve been watching what went on in the Heart quite closely since you returned.”
