Plenilune

by Jennifer Freitag

  ”He must think very well of himself,” she remarked.

  The blue-jay man laughed mirthlessly. ”Oh, he does. And come not long I will have to long-suffer his well-thinking of himself. That is Lord Bloodburn’s man, riding as the vanguard to make sure we know he is coming.”

  ”Lord Bloodburn?” She turned sharply upon him, frowning.

  Even his smile was mirthless. ”That is a name you know, by the look of your face. Lord Bloodburn is a close friend of my lady’s lord. Hol is beyond the Marius Hills—some dales beyond. Likely as not he came up with Darkling; we should see them presently. There,” he added, ”is Hol himself.”

  In a tunic of red and a cloak of sullen thunder-colour Lord Bloodburn emerged from the beech-wood. He had a woman beside him on a grey palfrey, but Margaret could not distinguish any features, only that she was blonde and wrapped up in some kind of grey fur so that she appeared to be attached bodily to the horse. The man himself sat like a rock in the saddle, the horse moved with trained precision, and the whole image gave Margaret a strange prickling feeling along the bare parts of her skin.

  ”It is an ill name,” she remarked with a carefully flippant air.

  ”It is an ill face,” rejoined the blue-jay man.

  With a sudden abandon she threw back her head, giving a soundless laugh at the manservant’s frank improprietous comment. ”For shame,” she said.

  He folded his blue wings behind his back. ”Is it? Sure as I am it is true—and my Lord Skander made me promise to get a laugh or two from you, for your health’s sake.”

  She nodded. ”And that is very considerate of your master, I am sure. Who is this now—Darkling?”

  A gentleman-looking fellow in aquiline gold and brown rolled at a canter from the woods, standard-bearers flanking him sporting smart yellow and green pennants. The wind of their going made the pennants look like the flame-work of leaves in spring.

  ”Centurion of Darkling-law,” said the blue-jay man, leaning close, ”politely behind Bloodburn though he has rights enough to be first. He is a good man, Centurion, and a seasoned warrior.”

  ”Is that the measure of a man?” asked Margaret with a faint edge in her voice. She watched the figure of the neighbouring lord drawing closer. A numbness, a disinterestedness, was stealing over her.

  The blue-jay man, having straightened with his arms still tucked behind the small of his back, said nothing, though his brows looked askance, and for some time he seemed to respect the distance to which she had withdrawn inside herself.

  You would be a queen, she thought, and you would be cold.

  She stood on the open parapet, the wind making a flurrying brown-and-tawny figure of herself, watching from aloft as the broken trails of horses and their dusty riders made their way across the bridge and through the levels of Lookinglass. Already Mark Roy was entering the gate on the terrace below them, his train much smaller than before, having shed at various levels his retainers which would not be honoured with entrance to the House itself. His purple and gold, splintered by the bare boughs of the garden trees, flickered peacock-like back at Margaret from below. His horse, a masked creature, leggy and of great height, pranced up the garden path; the ta-ta-tock ta-ta-tock of its hooves on the cobbles was a warm, persistent sound in an atmosphere which trembled with chaotic noise. Once out of the overhang of trees Margaret saw it give its head a mighty shake, antlers and tassels flying, caparison snapping like purple wings, and it belled furiously as only a stallion can bell.

  From within the courtyard came the answering scream of another horse, tell-tale defiant, and the blue-jay man laughed as if he knew the joke in the horse-language.

  ”Unhappy Altai-tek,” he said, grinning down at Margaret as they turned to watch Mark Roy enter the yard.

  Even Skander Rime’s horse, she mused, was inhospitable. Now the sun was in her eyes and she had to cup her hands over her brow to see. Below them the train was filing in, unusually tidy, each rider pulling his or her horse up in three smart lines before dismounting. In all Margaret counted nine: Mark Roy, someone who appeared to be his wife, their manservant and maid, and five men of soldierly bearing she guessed held land for the Lord of Orzelon-gang.

  She pulled her shawl tight cross-wise over her chest and wore her chin high, wishing keenly that she were a mere falcon on the blue-jay man’s fist. Sketched against the skyline, it would take nothing for one of those below to turn and see her—and know her. More than anything, save Rupert, she dreaded their censure. Unlike the fox she could not so lightly pass off the opinion of others. She was here for the express purpose of impressing them. She felt small and paper-thin on the parapet, as if the gilt-edged knife of the wind cutting out her figure against the sky might at any moment slip and slice right through her. With everything that weighed on her shoulders it took some effort to keep them rigid.

  The blue-jay man’s sleeves fluttered a little with his sudden bird-like movement: his master had come out of the House, stumping good-naturedly down the steps to greet his guests. He was dressed simply this morning, as though he had just been round to the mews and kennels and had not stopped to put on something more formal: the only elaborate piece of clothing he wore was a saffron-coloured cloak, which the wind took and made into an angry leaping flame behind him.

  And Rupert? Margaret looked upward at the bulk of House, wondering where he was, and whether or not he was the shadow cast by Skander’s flaming cloak, or the shadow which the flaming cloak drove back. But he was not to be seen.

  There was a soft thunder-splutter of talk in the yard. Skander she could hear clearly, but most of the communication was lost in the bustle of horse-boys and horses. Her eye fell on one horse, a grand, skittish thing of dun-colour, a bold stripe of black down its spine, and recognized its rider as one of the three best riders in Plenilune. He was talking in a low tone to one of the horse-boys, so low his voice was completely drowned in the surf-sound of the others, but Margaret could see his gentle, condescending face in profile. He even looked horse-ish, his complexion long and grey and brown-freckled beneath his dark forelock of hair. It seemed the conclusion of the matter was that he would put his mount up himself, though the horse-boy appeared, at the end of the conversation, not at all sure what to do with himself.

  The boy was just turning away, and Lord Gro FitzDraco was just attending to his dun, when suddenly he looked up and around. Margaret’s heart contracted in her chest. She did not have time to look away: he knew she had been watching him. He saw her, full in the sunlight, standing overhead on the guardhouse parapet, watching him. His grim horse-ish face showed little emotion, but it did not seem particularly unfriendly. She endured that light, emotionless gaze for almost longer than she could bear before Lord Gro nodded, just once, as though some communication had passed between them, and turned away to lead his horse off.

  Why, she wondered, do I always feel as though I were in the middle of a conversation between people, a conversation which I can neither hear nor understand, but people seem to assume that I can?

  Mark Roy’s attendance was all but squared away by the time Malbrey and his retainer, clattered through the gate. Drawing back against the parapet lest she have another silent interview with a newcomer, Margaret got a good look at the man’s face. He was big, built like a bear, and had a thick beard which was brindled like a badger’s coat. Contrary to his appearance, Malbrey was quiet-spoken: she could not hear what words were exchanged between him and his host when they greeted each other. Contrary to his appearance, he moved dextrously across the yard after dismounting, the jinkeh-jink of his metal accoutrements a sweet sound in the hoof-churned air.

  Malbrey had barely made it to the foot of the House stairs when Lord Bloodburn’s man came tearing in, dropping his horse to such a halt that it nearly sat down with a startled squeal and grunt, to spring up again, shaking its head as if with embarrassment at such an entrance.

  The blue-jay man turned aside to Margaret, hands spread as if to catch up the whole scene wit
hin them. ”If my lady would excuse me, I think I must tend to this matter.”

  She gestured him off and stood alone on the parapet, listening to the soft scuffling of his boots on the narrow stairs, watching his tall, thin, blue apparition blow across the yard toward the hot-faced manservant from Hol. Even among that press he strode like a heron cutting back the water around his legs: everything seemed to give way for him and wash back together again bewilderedly in his wake.

  Alone on the parapet, Margaret turned from the milling scene in the yard to the wind-swept prospect of the garden. Though the light and the colour of the fells were autumnal, winter had nearly got its hold on the garden. The holly trees were in red regalia and the elms, which had been splendid, were bare save for a single blackbird that was trying to sing above the noise. Abruptly it broke off, falling through the air with the military-red cap on its shoulder blurring with a sudden sullen thunder-red of movement on the level just below. Margaret remembered in time that it was Bloodburn; she moved instinctively into the shadow of the guardhouse.

  The singsong dog-snarl of the lord’s red clothing trembled through the garden as he came in by the lower gateway and passed at a collected trot up the path. She could not get a clear sight of his face until he was nearly beneath her—his horse seemed to hang a moment in hesitation at the upper gateway—and then she could see as clearly as if they were on level ground, face to face, what sort of face he had. It was a fleeting moment, one in which he was not on guard, and she saw him nearly perfectly as he was. His hair was thin and pale grey, cropped close, his brows thick but pale grey too; his features were all heavily hung, and yet strangely empty, as if they had been big and full once, but time had sucked the life from them and left them cobweb-bare. Scarred, grey, wrinkled and haggard, but with a cold and ruthless spark in his eyes that would make Rupert look warm and rustic, Margaret thought that if Julius Caesar had lived a long life, he would have looked like this.

  The inspection passed in a moment, as fast as the sidewise dart of a swallow. No sooner had she seen Bloodburn then Margaret moved on to the grey-shrouded figure at his side. The woman was entirely swathed in wolfskin and no features other than a fine-boned, ivory-coloured face and two long plaits of golden hair showed through. She was beautiful, but in her beauty she seemed oddly lifeless. Margaret, aloft on the parapet, cool and collected, felt a spark of pity in her own cold heart for that cold, lifeless woman.

  Lord Bloodburn and his lady passed through and, not a moment later, as Margaret was just turning away, the flickering gold and brown of Darkling’s representative showed at the lower gateway and she looked back to see him riding in alone, unattended. Centurion, who was a good man and a seasoned warrior, came clipping lightly up the path, the face-guard of his helm thrust back, a fair and cheerful face revealed beneath. He struck up whistling as he came, idly, pleasantly, some pretty song that Margaret liked the sound of, and a second later he spotted her. He flung back his head, still whistling, face-guard clanging, and gave her a raised hand in salute. Almost instinctively she replied, stretching out a level, silent hand—and flushed afterward with embarrassment: as if she were in a position to welcome anybody to Lookinglass!

  She felt it was time to go down, but before she went to the stair she looked once more at the bridge and beech-wood to know if any more comers were in sight. All was still, hazed with the sidewise blowing of someone’s fire-smoke, and turning light-saturated as the sun rose higher and morning wore on. Still she hesitated, lingering on the far horizon, wishing in vain that she did not have to go down, knowing that in a moment she would have to. The cowbird called again, liquidly and beautiful, and the song stung her cruelly.

  ”Margaret!”

  She did not think she showed it, but she felt a jump of shock inside as the voice snapped on her senses. She shut her eyes tightly, recovering for two heartbeats, then turned and with deliberate movements made her way down the stairs. Rupert was waiting for her, having materialized as darkly and as persistently shadow, and was standing by Lord Bloodburn. Bloodburn had turned away and was busy with other things; she thought that for the moment she might avoid making his acquaintance.

  She said nothing to Rupert, nor did he speak again to her, but she felt his high, cold gaze following her as she stood at his side and turned to watch the newcomers, felt the icy paleness like an almost unbearable pressure on her senses. But she bore it because she had to, and because she was English.

  With a flutter of brown and a bound Centurion sprang off his mount, leaving it in the hand of a stable-boy. After a moment’s bewildered look about, he spotted her with Rupert and came striding over, a hesitant but sincere smile on his face. On foot he proved to be tall and lean—rather like leather, Margaret thought—but he had a cultured look in his eye and, as he came up to her, acquitted himself by bowing largely, as sincerely as his smile. The sun flashed with a violent whiteness off his helm as he straightened, blinding her with its fierce pure colour, and it seemed that, in the faintly downward gaze he gave her, warm and supercilious—was there anyone in Plenilune who was not supercilious?—that same fierce pure white was in his eye as well.

  ”A good morrow to you, my lady!” he said in a warm, husky voice which made her think of autumn nut-gathering. He looked to her feet and back to her face, eyebrows rampant under the embossed rim of his helm. ”And sure I know all the pretty faces of Plenilune, but here is a fair one I have not seen—passing fair, I think. Is there a price on your face, stranger, that you hide it from the other girls and have not come out till now?”

  It was with supreme effort that Margaret kept from thoroughly blushing, though she felt the colour creep into her cheeks and the chill go out of the edge of the wind. She did not quite know what to say so, holding out her hand, she said truthfully, ”I am but lately come to Marenové, and Skander Rime was kind enough to extend an invitation to his gala to me.”

  For the flicker of an instant something dark and suspicious winged across the Lord of Darkling’s face and his eyes, swifter still, darted to Rupert’s. It was barely a moment, and so coolly done that if Margaret herself had not been so keenly conscious of the matter she might have missed it. But there it was, and when Centurion returned his gaze to her she felt he understood. He understood perfectly. Yet the warmth in his countenance did not diminish.

  ”Is there any possibility,” he asked in a gentle tone, ”of procuring a dance with this lady?”

  He spoke with a sort of high pity and boyish earnestness, as if it were only he and she, quite alone. But even if he could ignore, for the present, Rupert’s iron-dark figure, she could not: the figure made the pink cut on her lip sting anew, and the cut got in between her words and jostled them. ”There m-might be. I’ll beg your pardon in advance for I am new to these steps.”

  Centurion’s brown eyes winged with a violent stab of smile. ”And I!—used to making four legs dance, not two. We will be quite the couple on Rime’s dance floor, you and I.”

  With that he bowed again, still lower, still more flashingly, and took a polite leave of her. She noticed that he gave Rupert no other glance. She watched, without turning her head, the retreating brown-and-gold flutter of his cloak across the courtyard.

  ”I wish you had not accepted his invitation to dance,” said Rupert morosely.

  ”Why?”

  De la Mare, too, was watching the Lord of Darkling, his eyes narrowed so that either the sun could not get in or the fullness of his displeasure could not get out. ”His gallantry has too much of the feel of illusion. He gives himself too readily. I do not trust him with the ladies.”

  ”And you trust yourself?” she asked back before she had thought about her words.

  The barb had stung. The eyelids flickered open on the pale, hypnotic eyes and they looked at her, into her, with the pain of one driving in a surgeon’s knife. She shuddered.

  ”You,” he said coldly, ”get to your room. And do not come out until it is time to be introduced for the gala.”

  �
�Oh, you do a wonderful job at winning a woman!” Margaret wanted to retort—but she did not dare. Smarting, furious, and not wanting to admit just how terrified she felt, she picked up her skirts and dodged him, carefully masking her face so that no one would know the rage and torment that was crushing all the organs in her chest.

  ”And don’t you dismiss Rhea!” Rupert called after her.

  A sob nearly escaped. Hurriedly she climbed the stairs and plunged into the busy traffic of the nave, losing herself in it, anonymous in the crowd. She bumped against someone, felt someone catch her elbow to steady her, but she moved on at such a pace that she tore herself from the person’s grasp, only hoping that, whoever it was, her face had not been seen.

  I despise you. I despise you!

  In a blind rage she mounted the stairs, lost her way once along the corridors, and finally found her little high room. It was empty, for which she was glad. She knew she would have dismissed Rhea just to be alone, despite Rupert, despite everything. She locked the door with a quiet, deliberate thrust and threw herself into the corner chair. It rocked with a bang on its legs under her force, then the silence of the room was like a leaden sheet dropped over her. The only noise was her hot breathing, and even that seemed smothered.

  Presently her breathing evened, though she still gripped the arms of her chair in a strangle-hold, staring intently at the gap under the door. Now, very quiet, like the pulsing rush of the ocean, she could hear the bustle outside and below. In a flash she remembered herself as a little girl sitting in her room on a summer’s afternoon, alone, her door locked. She could not remember what she had done—she felt she had deserved the punishment—but she could remember the sounds of the other children outside, shrieking and playing and enjoying themselves while she, like some German fairy princess, was trapped in her high tower.