by Victor Milán
But the worries of his duty had prematurely aged the Francés knight, greyed his hair and made it retreat up his narrow forehead. He was stretched too thin already.
Mondragón and his staff provided such aid as they could. But the Chief Minister and his helpers were also overloaded by responsibilities. Not least of which was keeping an eye on the brash former rebel Duke Falk, who was acquiring a substantial following among the unattached young knights and nobles at court, and even among the ranks of the Scarlet Tyrants.
So the main burden landed crushingly on Jaume’s shoulders.
Yet somehow, long after the sun had sunk into the deep forests east of the palace, Jaume found himself at loose ends.
As he wandered between the gorgeous lamplit portraits and tapestries that adorned the palace corridors he found himself wondering what to do with the unfamiliar leisure. As he did the memory came flooding back that he had somehow, in his distraction, managed to offend his beloved Melodía that afternoon.
He felt guilty and alarmed. And horny. It was time to make up with his beloved. For more things than one.
The two Scarlet Tyrants guarding the stairs on the top floor of the Imperial Wing passed him with a broad-jawed nod apiece. He knocked on the door to Melodía’s personal chambers. Her maidservant, Pilar, answered.
“Count Jaume,” she said, her dark and quietly lovely gitana face unreadable. “Sadly, my mistress is indisposed.”
She stepped demurely back. Through the closing door Jaume glimpsed several of Melodía’s ladies-in-waiting, who sat tatting together bright feathers.
“Isn’t that the handsome Count Jaume?” he heard his fellow Catalana and distant cousin Llurdis say.
“Why does he look so peaked?” asked Abigail Thélème of Sansamour.
“I understand he suffers some indisposition,” Princess Guadalupe said, “which, some say, removes the spring from his steel.”
“How sad for him,” Llurdis said with mock solicitude.
“But sadder still for the Princesa,” said Lupe.
The door shut in his face.
Chapter 16
Sacabuche, Sackbut—Parasaurolophus walkeri. Bipedal herbivore; 9.5 meters, 2.5 meters tall at the shoulder, 3 tonnes. Named because its long, tubular head-crest produces a range of sounds like the sackbut, a trumpetlike musical instrument with a movable slide. One of the most popular war-hadrosaurs.
—THE BOOK OF TRUE NAMES
“You’re late, Día,” Fanny said reprovingly. She may have been the most easygoing among Melodía’s ladies-in-waiting, as well as her closest friend, but she did love her punctilio.
“I am,” Melodía said.
She took her place among her retinue in the shaded viewing stand. She might have sat with her father in the Imperial box, next to it and slightly higher. But she preferred not to suffer through being ignored.
Her little sister sat in the box beside Felipe. Her minders had clearly made her attend; Montserrat would have far rather been back in their apartments reading a book, or watching her friends the servants at their work. She had her arms firmly crossed and her chin down on her red-and-gold silk robe. Her expression suggested she was determined not to enjoy herself. The tiara set with large raptor feathers in the Imperial colors that was clamped to her head like a sort of lateral crest clearly didn’t soften her disposition.
As usual, the Emperor was talking animatedly with his crony and counselor Mondragón, seated on his other side, and ignoring the fact that he had daughters. He waved a half-eaten roasted scratcher drumstick for emphasis. As usual, he was also clearly enjoying the spectacle.
“What did I miss?” Melodía asked her friends.
“The monster’s entrance, for one thing!” Josefina said excitedly. “So big and so white, with blood-colored eyes!”
“I saw Snowflake during the cavalcade before the whole thing begin.”
“Surely you must have heard him roar,” said Lupe, “even in the palace.”
“It was amply loud,” Melodía agreed.
“It quite terrified the crowd,” Fanny said. She smiled sheepishly. “Me too, I have to confess.”
“I’ve seen a king tyrant.”
“Oh, Día,” Fina said, sighing theatrically. “The Verdugo Imperial doesn’t count.”
Don Rodrigo had been imported from far Vareta decades before to serve as Imperial Executioner. He was displayed in the Plaza del Alcalde once a week, on Kingsday, the day reserved for religious observance, and such rest as the city’s burguesía permitted themselves.
“Nobody’s been beheaded by Imperial warrant for over a generation,” said Lupe, sounding vaguely let down by the fact.
“And old Don Rodrigo’s toothless as a baby anyway,” Fanny said, “and fat and tame as an old tabby cat from having children climb all over him and feed him sweetmeats. He hardly inspires terror. Snowflake does.”
Melodía twitched her bare shoulders in irritation. Talk of dinosaurs bored her at the best of times.
“He’s beautiful,” Lupe said.
“Well,” Princess Fanny said, a little breathlessly, “yes. In a thoroughly scary way. The fact that he’s albino makes him more terrifying, somehow.”
“Not the monster,” Lupe said. “The man.”
“You missed a great bout, Día,” Fina burbled. “The Duke was magnificent!”
“Dominant,” Lupe murmured. Her eyes shone. A bit glassily, Melodía thought.
“You can leave off lusting for his sturdy Alemán haunches anytime, Guadalupe,” Abigail Thélème said. “He has eyes only for the Princesa Imperial.”
Melodía felt her lips tighten. “Lupe’s quite welcome to him.” The dust and smells were already starting to oppress her. She was sure the noise would give her a headache.
“Don’t forget, Melodía’s betrothed,” Fanny said.
Melodía shot her a slit look. Her cheeks flushed pink.
“Well, almost,” the Anglesa said. “As good as. Only a formality, surely.”
“You should loosen the lock on your knees, cousin,” Llurdis said, biting into a pear. “You haven’t gotten any in much too long. You’re starting to look haggard.”
“The Duke did see off his opponent quite handily,” Fanny said firmly.
“I heard the crowd go crazy,” Melodía said. “Did he win that handily?”
“Oh, yes!” Fina said.
“He didn’t just win,” Fanny said. “He beat poor Dom Xurxo de Viseu half to death before Duval found an excuse to step in and stop the combat. The poor young fool was too proud to yield.”
“That doesn’t sound chivalrous,” Melodía said. “Mercedes pride themselves on their sense of fair play. I’m amazed they didn’t turn on the Duke for it.”
“His opponent was a Gallego, Día,” Fina said.
“I got that from the name,” Melodía said. “I know the Mercedes haven’t forgiven their part in the Rape of La Merced, even if it was four hundred years ago. But isn’t this a bit extreme?”
“Three hundred sixty-four,” corrected Josefina Serena. “If you’d gotten here on time, Día, you’d know why the crowd’s so hostile.”
No tournament fan at the best of times, and horribly ambivalent about the outcome of this one, Melodía had exercised her prerogative to be fashionably late. She had purposefully avoided Falk’s first bout. He and Jaume were the clear favorites to win, and anyway she was pretty sure Mondragón had jiggered the matchups to maximize the chances the beloved Campeón Imperial and the charismatic ex-rebel from the North would face each other for command of the correcting army.
That was the joust she dreaded to watch, for a rainbow of reasons. And the one she couldn’t stay away from.
“Go ahead and tell me,” she said resignedly.
“Well,” Fina said, eyes glittering for once with something other than tears, “Mor Xurxo’s first opponent was the Barón del Valle Azufre.”
“Who is—?”
“He was a famous warrior in his youth.”
�
��Which was considerably behind him,” Abi said.
“Xurxo unseated the Baron on the first pass,” Fina said. “Then he pranced around on his morion waving his lance as if he’d just destroyed an imperial tyrant, like your ancestor Manuel.”
“All right,” Melodía said. “So he’s crass.”
“That’s not the best part,” Lupe said. “When he dismounted to let Sulfur Valley get up and face him hand to hand, the old man was dead as a rock.”
Fina glared at Lupe for horning in. “His heart gave out, the chirurgeons said.”
“So the Mercedes naturally put the worst complexion possible on de Viseu’s demeanor,” Melodía said.
Fina shrugged. “He’s a Gallego.”
“It was shockingly unchivalrous,” Fanny said.
Melodía shot her a narrow-eyed look. She was never sure to what extent her friend was playing a role, and to what extent she was actually that naïve.
An open wagon creaked slowly down one side of the jousting field. Laughing, a pack of sun-browned urchins dashed back and forth from it, gleefully splashing out buckets of water to lay the acrid limestone dust and keep it from obscuring the show and choking the grandes. Firefly Palace dinosaur grooms followed, dabbing the ground smooth with various tools. Another prime match was coming up directly—Jaume’s long-awaited debut in the tournament.
“Have you heard the latest rumor?” Josefina Serena asked. “The court is all aflutter with it.”
“You know I don’t pay attention to gossip,” Melodía said.
“You really ought to, Día,” said Fanny. “It can play an important role in statecraft.”
Melodía shook her head. She didn’t like to hear that things that didn’t interest her might be important.
Once Fina got started she was as difficult to stop or even deflect as a thunder-titan absentmindedly trampling a village to ruin as it strolled to new graze. Whether it was in a sudden outburst of enthusiasm or one of her more usual crying jags.
“They’re saying someone else saw a Grey Angel in Providence,” she said, eyes wide. “In the eastern foothills, near the mountains. Some people are afraid a Grey Angel Crusade might be coming!”
“Nonsense!” Melodía snapped. “Grey Angels and their crusades are nothing more than stories made up to frighten children.”
Fina blinked her lids rapidly over eyes awash in sudden tears. “Impolitic to say that out loud,” Fanny said, with a sideways nod of her head toward the Imperial box.
Lupe scowled. Her single heavy brow equipped her well to do so.
“You’re saying you don’t believe in the Demon War? But it’s in all those history books you’re so attached to.”
“Historians get paid to write,” Melodía said. “In this case, by my family. They have every reason to … make up stirring legends instead of retelling dry facts. Some of which might prove highly inconvenient for my Torre. The whole presentation of the Demon War is no doubt intended mostly to mythologize our ascension to the Fangèd Throne.”
She paused to accept a goblet of wine from Pilar, who stood behind her. Absently she noted the girl had a strange smile on her face, as if she knew something her Princess didn’t. But Melodía felt no more inclined to be deflected than Fina did.
“Your skinny butt could be planted on that throne someday,” Llurdis said. “You might not want to be so flip about the whole thing.”
“Not bloody likely, as the Angleses say. You know as well as I do that a child can’t directly succeed a parent on the throne. And my father’s antics are making our branch of la Familia unpopular enough that I’ll never get Elected to follow whoever his successor turns out to be. It’s back to Los Almendros for me. Unless I decide to let Father marry me off to that fat Treb Prince after all.”
“Let’s not do anything rash, dear,” Fanny said.
“It would be entertaining to watch, though,” Abi murmured. “If not from any closer than Laventura.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Imperial Herald bellowed from the lists. “I now call your attention to our next contender, the champion of many mighty contests before: the great and puissant Don Roberto, Conde Montañazul!”
That was something that could change Fina’s course. She clutched at Melodía’s arm, her tears forgotten even as they still shone on her cheeks. “Jaume’s up next!”
Abigail Thélème sniffed through her fine nose. “He’s a fool.”
“Jaume?” Melodía asked sharply. She seldom looked for a fight, and least of all with the Sansamour scion, who might well poison her pudding. But her emotions were boiling, pressed for release.
Fortunately Abi was enough her father’s daughter to keep her own passions tightly reined. Or possibly just hidden beneath that cool, perfect porcelain mask of a face of hers.
“Bluemountain,” she said. “He’s convinced he’ll command the Army of Correction. He’s been strutting around like a young cock-horror for the last week, crowing about it to anyone who’d listen.”
“He won his first bout handily enough,” said Fina. Briskly, for her. Pink shone on her olive cheeks. Her eyes, usually sunk in dark despairing pits, glittered like obsidian buttons. “He’s a great lover of tournaments. He fights frequently, and almost always wins.”
“That doesn’t mean he can beat that magnificent Alemán beast,” Lupe said.
“Or Count Jaume,” Fanny added pointedly.
“Sure,” Lupe said. “Him too.”
Abi Thélème looked thoughtful. “A wealthy fool, though—now, that has possibilities.”
“You mustn’t mock him!” Fina said, starting to cloud up. “He’s a great champion!”
“So much the greater fool,” Abi said, “for fighting where there’s no need. But I’m not mocking, child. He may need … consolation … once Melodía’s lover trounces him.”
“Isn’t Montador Fournier carrying your favor on his lance?” Fina asked, naming one of the younger and more vacuous of the stray knights who had flocked to the palace in the wake of Felipe decreeing his tourney and its remarkable stakes.
“A girl’s allowed to change her mind, isn’t she?”
The herald’s tabard swelled to an extra-deep breath. “Comes now the Imperial Champion, the Knight-Commander of the Order of the Companions of Our Lady Bella, el Conde dels Flors, JAUME!” he bellowed.
The crowd erupted in ecstasy as Jaume rode onto the field from between the gaudy silk banners that screened the waiting contestants. It thrilled Melodía to think that her lover might be the most popular man in all Nuevaropa. Certainly the Mercedes adored him.
And why not? He was young and beautiful, his orange hair streaming, his armor and his glorious orange-brindled morion, Camellia, gleaming white. Even better, his philosophy exalted as high virtues the very sorts of pleasures the Mercedes most loved to indulge in, as pleasing to his Lady and productive of moral good.
Melodía saw no reason not to adore her handsome knight. Her heart beat a quick march on her ribs, and she found it hard to breathe.
Scowling, Montañazul stroked his moustache with a thumb. He seemed to find plenty not to adore about Jaume.
Tournament Knight-Marshal Duval, his head bare, the gold-trimmed red feather cape signifying his command of the Scarlet Tyrants draped over broad shoulders, stepped out onto the thirty meters of bare ground separating the combatants. He held out his staff and in a trumpet voice ordered both to make ready.
From the historias Melodía had always loved to read, she knew the Iron Duchess hadn’t indulged in fripperies like tourney grounds when she raised her great fortress on its white stone headland to watch over the city she was rebuilding after its destruction by the pirate fleet. Felipe had ordered his lists set up in the middle of a kilometer of ground kept clear between the Firefly Palace’s white stone walls and the green wall of forest inland. Wooden stands rose on either side of a field fifty meters long and thirty wide. Panels of red and blue and yellow and green fabric shaded dignitaries on the north side—nearer the palace—and t
he less elegant but no less festive common crowd on the south. Bright pennons bearing the contestants’ insignia flapped to a moderate breeze from staffs around the yard.
It was a grand sight, surely. Melodía could see none of it now. She could only switch the narrow window her vision had become between the man she had been in love with her whole life, and the man intent on doing him all the harm he could.
The onlookers quieted. Jaume took his scoop-shaped sallet helmet from the crook of his arm and put it over his head. He clamped it to the bevor, bolted to his armor that obscured the lower half of his face. With a final sneer, Montañazul donned his own great helm, quartered blue and gold.
“That great helmet’s safer,” Fina said. “But the small eye-slits will be like trying to fight with a box on his head. He obviously intends to win this fight without dismounting.”
“I know that!” Melodía snapped. Normally that tone would have caused Fina to drown in her own tears. Now she didn’t blink.
Both knights took the five-meter-long lances from the holders beside their saddles, tucked the butts under their arms, and raised their shields.
“Go!” the knight-marshal shouted.
Melodía’s heart momentarily forgot to beat.
The two duckbills dropped onto all fours and rolled into gallops that made the stands rattle and the plank seat vibrate through Melodía’s cushion and up her tailbone. Camellia and her opponent were well matched in size: Camellia slightly bulkier, the sackbut longer.
They met in the middle, almost directly in front of Melodía. Montañazul’s lance struck Jaume’s white-enameled shield right on its red Lady’s Mirror and shattered. Jaume’s hit where his opponent’s breastplate met the flared steel pauldron guarding his right shoulder. His lance broke too. But the impact lifted Montañazul over his saddle’s tall back and sent him rolling down the sackbut’s cruppers.
Despite her lack of sympathy for Montañazul, Melodía winced at the sound of his impact.
“So much for his plan to lead the Army of Correction,” Abi said, languidly waving a fan of blue and white feathers at her face.
