Cobweb Empire (34 page)

It had grown dark enough now that the stars
had come forth like shards of ice. But the moon was not out yet,
and it had suddenly gotten to be very cold.

“I cannot even comprehend this
place. . . . It is not real, not like anything I’ve
seen or imagined,” whispered Percy, waking up with all her senses.
“Letheburg and its Winter Palace are small, so small compared to
this—all this.”

“Yes,” Beltain replied, glancing at her with
bemusement. “On my first visit to the Silver Court, when I was a
lad of twelve, I remember hiding behind my father’s back and
gawking at everything, even though he’d warned me not to show any
reaction or, Heaven forbid, undermine our family honor by revealing
ourselves as distant country bumpkins. It mattered not; my fool
mouth remained open and I think I caught more flies than a pot of
honey that day.”

A faint smile came to Percy’s lips. “I
cannot imagine you, My Lord, as a lad of twelve. Or, on second
thought, maybe I can. . . .”

He did not reply, merely continued riding
along an open plaza immaculately cleared of snow, then turned past
rows of lovely curving lanterns with fleur-de-lis frames into a
side street of stone houses, each one more impressive than any
single building in Letheburg short of the Winter Palace. Expensive
carriages were parked in even rows along the street, and pedestrian
walkways marked by more streetlights separated the roadway from the
houses.

The buildings here, Percy noticed, all had
proper façades, with moldings near the roofs and beautiful framing
overhangs above raised doorways, which were in turn preceded by at
least three stairs over ground level.

Here too, carriages moved along the street
and well dressed ladies and gentlemen were seen along the sidewalks
together with the more ordinary working class.

Beltain approached one such fine building,
bearing an elegant sign of an inn, and dismounted, then lifted
Percy down. Two liveried footmen approached immediately, and bowed
before him, and he conveyed Jack wordlessly into their care,
together with some coins. “Come along, girl,” he said, walking up
the stairs to the door, which was opened by another bowing servant
before him. Percy wordlessly followed, with a sudden pang of
discomfort of the same sort that she’d felt when entering Lethe’s
Winter Palace.

They were trailing filthy wet snow inside,
she thought, probably about to damage fine Persian carpet and leave
mud stains on polished marble. . . .

Well, it turned out, they were, and they
did.

The bewigged and liveried butler gave a
single look of distaste at the condition of their travel clothes,
and especially Percy’s “rags,” but quickly averted his gaze and
bowed in perfect decorum, while His Lordship asked for rooms for
himself and “the young lady,” plus two suppers and baths to be
carried up immediately.

Next, they were taken up a flight of stairs
along more fine Persian carpet, and shown within a suite that
rivaled the Winter Palace, with brocade upholstered sofas on
curving legs of polished wood, fancy chintz curtains and
embroidered silk throw pillows. There were two boudoirs, decorated
in tertiary tones of delicate silver-threaded lavender brocade and
pale green. Both were connected through a small interior dressing
room parlor, and each one, in addition to all the other
furnishings, sported a massive canopied bed, a carved marble
fireplace, and great windows of glass, revealing a picturesque view
of the street scene below and the magnificent rooftops of the
Silver Court.

“Oh, this is too much!” Percy whispered,
holding her hands over her mouth, for these accommodations were
worthy of a Royal.

But Beltain ignored her, and informed the
valet and maid assigned to them that they required laundering
services and a change of clothing for the night.

Within a half hour, two exquisite porcelain
claw-foot tubs were carried into each boudoir, along with endless
basins of hot water. Then a row of maids arrived with towels and
robes.

The black knight disappeared into one of the
boudoirs where his valet assisted him with the divesting of his
armor and under-layers. While he was being stripped, Percy was
taken by a maid and wordlessly assisted out of her own rough wool
and burlap dress, stockings, socks, and crude shoes. “I shall turn
around, Miss, while you take off your shift and drop it here, and
enter the bathtub.”

“Oh!” Percy was blushing all shades of pink,
mostly from mortification. What will the maid think, seeing all
such horrible filthy underclothing? As soon as the maid turned her
back discreetly, Percy stepped out of her dirty threadbare
nightshirt and hurriedly entered the steaming hot water. She had
never had such a luxury bath in her life. Indeed, a large wooden
barrel filled with boiled water in their barn was all that she had
known at Oarclaven of bathing.

As soon as Percy was submerged up to her
chin, the maid curtsied again, picked up the strewn clothing
without any comment, and left the room while holding it in a pile.
Moments later another maid came in, bearing a silver tray of soaps
and fragrant oils.

“Allow me to scrub your back and help with
your hair, Miss.”

“Oh, no, thank you . . . oh,
goodness!” Percy’s muttering however was tactfully ignored, while
the servant went to work, pouring basins of water over her hair,
and massaging her scalp with some kind of sudsy soap that had the
extraordinary consistency of cream and smelled of sweet alyssum,
orchids, and lily-of-the-valley. She then dutifully scrubbed
Percy’s back and other parts with a sponge, periodically pushing
the girl underwater to wash off the residue. At last, when the
rising steam began to cool, the maid held up a fine soft robe and
Percy was told to rise and wrap herself in the fabric.

As soon as Percy pulled the robe around
herself and settled in a chair before the fire, the bath was taken
away, and her maid stayed to brush her hair with infinite gentle
strokes, and tell her what a sweet and pretty head of hair she
had.

Percy thanked her in some confusion, since
her mousy hair had never received a compliment from anyone. But she
was feeling so warm and languid after the wondrous bath, her skin
all flushed and rosy, and her cheeks touched with a healthy glow
they rarely displayed, that she did not protest the kind words.

Percy’s hair, fine and listless, usually
wrapped around her head or braided and tucked out of the way, had
seemed to take on a strange new life and sheen from the creamy
soap. As it dried, it sparked with electricity under each brush
stroke, and spread in large waves upon her back.

“What an unusual color your hair, is, Miss,”
said the maid. “It is nether dark nor light, neither fair nor
raven, but almost like a warm breath of
shadows. . . .”

“Thank you kindly,” Percy said, “but I
believe that color is called ‘ratty poop.’”

But although the maid, being quite her age,
giggled, she also shyly protested, “Oh, no, Miss, it is so very
beautiful! I do think many Court ladies would love to have this
shade in their wig!”

Percy decided to imagine she was stolen away
into faerie paradise. And thus she sat with a softened countenance,
dry and warm and perfectly relaxed before the fire, and as
squeaky-clean as she hadn’t been in weeks.

Very soon afterwards, as the sky outside the
great glass windows went perfectly dark while the citadel lights
cast a golden radiance upon the snowed rooftops, supper was
served.

A small mobile table cart was rolled in, on
Beltain’s side of the suite, and then the knight’s valet knocked on
Percy’s parlor interior door from the dressing room separating them
and invited her to dine with His Lordship next door.

Percy arose, wrapped herself closer in the
fine lady’s robe of the faintest shade of mauve, and then put her
feet into a pair of embroidered slippers that had been brought for
her.

While the valet bowed before her, she shyly
walked through the small middle parlor and emerged in Beltain’s
boudoir, feeling like a crown princess of an imaginary kingdom that
took up exactly three rooms.

But a shock greeted her on the other
side—something for which she had no warning, no means to prepare
herself.

Lord Beltain Chidair—newly bathed,
clean-shaven by the valet, clad in a plum velvet robe, his softly
curling brown hair groomed in High Courtly fashion, and the skin of
his face polished and glowing from the warmth of the bath—was
seated in a tall-backed chair near the fireplace.

He was a man of devastating beauty.

And Percy stopped at the entrance, because
her breath had been taken from her.

She stilled with all her being, looking at
him. And then, very slowly, she curtsied deeply. Never again would
she casually meet the look of his clear pale blue eyes, for now it
was denied her. Always, from that point onward, must she steel
herself into a blank artful semblance of composure, and put on,
like a mask, an abstract shallow gaze that did not register the
full
depth
of him.

After a strange pause that she did not
particularly notice—for she was submerged inward, thinking all
this—he spoke to her.

“Come, Percy, our excellent supper is here,
and I am starved. . . . Sit down.”

B
eltain watched the
girl enter his quarters, and the sight of her caused an unexpected
jolt in his gut. It was followed by an effusion of sudden warmth
flooding his chest, or maybe a constriction within his solar
plexus. It was impossible to describe the series of sometimes
painful, sometimes joyful sensations of turmoil that came to
him. . . .

Gone were her colorless rags and her many
layers of peasant winter clothing. Her hair, a strange, soft
intermediate hue, fell long and loose around her shoulders like
that of a wild maiden nymph from a ancient woodland portrait.

Her form was Venus on a shell riding the
foam, as painted by the Florentine over a century earlier, only
richer, fuller, and as sweet as churned cream—even though it was
now hidden so well by the voluminous folds of her lady’s robe.

Her face—its childish roundness, and its
unconscious emergence of womanly lines—was averted, as she curtsied
so deeply before him—so well and with such genuine intent.

“Come, Percy,” he had told her, saying he
was starved. And she obeyed, sitting down at the short table across
from him, her hands in her lap, and her gaze still lowered.

He watched her with pleasure, sitting thus
before him, as he took the bread and the ripe fruits on his plate,
and cut into the well-aged smoked meat and cheese, taking up pieces
on the end of his knife and tasting the juices that ran down his
fingers and glistened on his lips.

But she remained motionless, even as the
valet poured red wine into silver goblets and stood aside
discreetly.

“Are you not hungry, girl? Or thirsty?”

She did not reply, simply took up a chunk of
bread, some cheese, and placed it in her mouth, then chewed without
appearing to savor.

“What’s wrong, now?” Beltain sensed that
something was amiss, something new. Could it be she was rendered
shy by their fine new circumstances, the exquisite fabrics and
clothes, the palatial surroundings? He realized she was immensely
weary, drained by the events of the day.

“I . . . I am so very tired,
My Lord,” she said, looking at her bread.

“I know. But you need to eat before you
rest.”

She nodded, took another bite, then picked
up the goblet, swallowed and grimaced. “What is this?”

“Wine. Have you never had wine?”

“No. . . . It is so
bitter.”

Beltain turned to the valet and asked for
tea to be brought for the lady.

“Thank you,” Percy whispered.

They ate thus, she nibbling at her food, he
eating ravenously, sensuously, watching her as he consumed the
flesh and the fruit and the generous chunks of bread.

When the tea came, she drank a cup
gratefully, along with a slice of flaky pastry followed with a
small dish of crème brûlée.

He watched her rounded cheeks and the
innocent movement of her lips, soft and puffy from the warmth and
comfort of the tea.

At last they were done eating, and she
simply got up, and once again curtsied, and then backed out of his
room and fled into her own boudoir.

Beltain was left alone with the mostly
consumed supper service and the courteous valet.

B
eltain was
awakened in the night by the soft sounds of weeping coming from the
other boudoir. He rose, casting off his silken sheets and
bedspread, and stood listening, his silhouette bathed in the
moonlight. He knew her voice, heard the soft repressed sounds of
despair. . . .

Taking up his robe to cover himself, he did
not pause for a second, but went to her, through the small parlor
dividing their suite.

Her room was a temple of the moon.

Bright as day, the light came through the
open windows, as the full moon rode high over the Silver Court,
eclipsing the myriad tiny golden lights of the city with its
immortal glamour. It filled the bedchamber, and illuminated Percy,
sitting on the bed, her hair strewn about her like translucent
cobwebs, her face half-turned to the window, shining with streaks
of bright liquid.

She looked impossible for a moment,
impossible and not of this world. . . .

He had made no sound, but she sensed him
enter, and gave a small start, turning her face with her haunted
liquid eyes to him. Her fine new nightshirt slipped low over her
shoulders, and they gleamed alabaster white.

“Percy . . .” he said in a
voice belonging to someone else. “What is it?”

She took in a shuddering breath.

He took the few steps toward her, then sank
down on the bed at her side, never touching her, only so very
close. . . .