Labyrinth Gate (47 page)

“But still—” She hesitated, tilting her head. “What’s that noise?”

“What noise?”

“Sort of a low drone—”

The next instant he, too, heard it; their eyes met with the same idea. On the table, the cards showed a faint blurring nimbus of light and a shadow above. The drone ended abruptly, and an envelope dropped one inch to land with a light smack on the tabletop.

“Well?” cried Chryse after a long moment of stunned silence. “Open it!”

He did so.

“‘My dear Chryse and Sanjay,’” he read. “‘I promised that I would write, and so I shall, having some expectation that this letter will be able to reach you, although little that any further communication will prove able to.’

“‘There is a great deal of news to impart. The coronation of Georgiana was a great success, and her wedding to young Prince Frederick, a rather plain, unassuming lad, I must say, went off to great acclaim by peer and populace alike. Thank Our Lady that that business is now settled.’

“‘As well as private meetings with the Earl and Countess of Elen, Julian, Miss Cathcart, and myself, the queen took the surprising step of granting a royal charter to the so-called correspondence societies of the working classes, as a tribute to the help they gave her in passing my letter on. Of course the charter itself means nothing if the government chooses to suppress what they consider to be seditious writings, but the recognition is doubtless worth twice its weight in gold to folk like Mr. Southern.’

“‘However, it is the more personal news that I expect will interest you the most. Maretha was delivered of a baby girl on the day of Hunter’s Run, speaking in the ancient year—’”

“Wouldn’t that be the exact same day as—”

“Shh, you’re interrupting. ‘—and the child has been christened Elena. The earl continues as cold and aloof as ever, but there is a new quality tempering him now which I will not attempt to define, except that Maretha at least seems to be flourishing. She has a certain, shall we say, glow about her that has sustained itself without fail since the Festival of Lights.’

“‘Mr. Southern and Miss Charity Farr were wed some six months ago in a very quiet ceremony. She is, I understand, expecting again. One is constantly amazed at the fecundity of the lower classes, although one also wonders if Mr. Southern’s rise in the world will doom his progeny to small families. He is progressing in his studies, as I hear it, but has refused a vicarage in a rich parish on lands the earl owns in favor of a Heffield parish in the midst of the worst slums. Ah, well, one reaps as one sows.’”

“He would, of course,” said Chryse. “The better to incite the new generation of union agitators.”

“‘The youth Lucias, having recovered from his injuries, has proven to have very common antecedents: he is the son of one of the grooms at Blackstone Palace. He has been given a position as an undergroom in the Queen’s establishment, and by all reports is quite happy there.’

“‘The two urchins saved from the factory have, at Julian’s insistence, been apprenticed out to respectable trades, a far cry better than they could have expected even had they not been sold to the factories. However, this social conscience sits strangely on Julian’s shoulders—he is not to my mind of the reformer’s cast of mind, but we all of us need one purpose or another in order to give some sense to our lives.’

“‘I had thought that your sudden departure might prove to be the catalyst on which Julian and Miss Cathcart would resolve their differences, but it did not prove so. After one very
long
month, Julian at last proposed a scheme to end the stalemate once and for all: He made her a wager, to a game of cards, where if he should win, she would marry him, and if he should lose he would never mention the subject again.’

“‘This seemed to me a clever enough ploy, since Julian has, like all the Voles, the devil’s own luck with the cards. I was frankly surprised when Miss Cathcart accepted, until it occurred to me that perhaps she
wanted
to lose. Imagine my amazement when
Julian
lost!’

“‘I had not realized up to this time the subtlety of my nephew’s plan, for of course now Miss Cathcart had what she had claimed to desire all along—freedom from Julian’s importunities. But the result produced was quite the opposite. With a group of the most disreputable rakes and sharps you have ever met, she went on a spree of wild drinking, gambling, and carousing that quite scandalized polite society—only to disappear from sight the day after winning a handsome fortune at the tables. When she reappeared one month later (poor Julian left in ignorance of her whereabouts and cross as flinders the entire time), she was quite sober and enrolled as a student at the College of Surgeons. Whereupon she promptly seduced my nephew—so I hear—and then, claiming that she had compromised his reputation past redemption, said there was nothing to it but that he must marry her.’

“‘You may guess that I am pleased.’”

“I might at that,” said Chryse, laughing.

“‘It all has fallen out exactly as I hoped it might years ago. You may also guess that I wish the very best for you and your son, and that I shall always remain, your fond aunt (if I may style myself so), Laetitia Haldane, Lady Trent.’”

“How did she know we had a son?” asked Chryse.

Sanjay did not reply. There was a little silence as they sat together. The baby had fallen asleep.

“What are you thinking of?” asked Chryse at last.

Sanjay took her hand and smiled at her. “Weddings and gifts and the fragmented remains of old paintings. I suppose the real treasure is in learning to connect the lines and isolated pieces into a coherent whole. The same picture is hidden there. We just each of us see it in a different fashion.”

“One that makes sense depending on who you are?”

He reached past her to pick up the central card of the deck: the Gate. “I think it must be so,” he said.

THIS IS THE DECK
as it usually appeared in medieval times.

Many different permutations have appeared in other places and other times.

1. DAWN

Letter: C

Picture:
Out of a cottage comes a little child, walking stick and satchel in hand.

Meaning:
Beginning; optimism, “a new day,” setting out on a new endeavor; inexperience, newness, development; early understanding, origin of idea or activity.

2. DUSK

Letter:

Picture:
Same cottage—an old person, bent and weary, returns to the hearth within.

Meaning:
Ending; completion of a cycle, a task achieved; pessimism, oldness, finish; rest and hope of shelter.

3. THE GATE

Letter:

Picture:
A gateway of stone.

Meaning:
The path, road, or passage to another place or state of being; the hinge on which all decisions and choices are made, however large or small, changing the traveller in the act of passage.

1. THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

Letter:
A

Season:
Midwinter Solstice

Picture:
A young woman, wearing a circlet of burning candles, crowns a young man with a circlet of unlit ones, soon to be lit.

Meaning:
The birth of the new year, or of any venture or quest.

2. TWIN’S FAERE

Letter:
J

Season:
The Thaw

Picture:
Tents of a medieval crafts fair fill the background; in the foreground, a man works smithing over a hot fire while a woman weaves an elaborate tapestry on a loom beside him.

Meaning:
Aspiration and inspiration; work and labor, individual and unique; expression of one’s own self.

3. SOWER’S DAY

Letter:
AE

Season:
Spring Equinox

Picture:
In a field, a woman and a man work side by side, the woman furrowing, the man sowing.

Meaning:
Planting; sowing for a future project or for future use or harvest; planning ahead, working to purpose, worthwhile and effective labor; balance and harmony.

4. FEAST OF SOMORHAS

Letter:
O

Season:
The Flowering

Picture:
At the high table, the bride and groom preside over a lavish feast. The bride is dressed in green, the groom in black; on the wall behind hangs a tapestry depicting the Harvest Faire—it is seen to be the same tapestry that the artist in Twin’s Faire is working on.

Meaning:
Marriage, unity, choice and renewal; fertility; desire.

5. HIGH SUMMER EVE

Letter:
E

Season:
Midsummer Solstice

Picture:
An obviously pregnant woman kneels before a mature man. A “daisy chain” is looped around his wrists—it is impossible to tell if the woman is putting this chain on him, taking it off, or receiving it from him.

Meaning:
Fruition and ripening; but also separation.

6. HUNTER’S RUN

Letter:
W

Season:
The Long Heat

Picture: A group of hunters hunts a stag (if one looks closely, it can be seen to be a man wearing a deerhide and antlers).

Meaning:
Sacrifice; uncertain rewards; fear and the implacability of Death; but also the hope of harvesting all one has striven for.

7. HARVEST FAIRE

Letter:
I

Season:
Autumn Equinox

Picture:
A young man and woman, the woman with a tiny babe in arms, seated at the assembly of the fruits of the harvest.

Meaning:
Harvest, thanksgiving, joy; plenty balanced against barrenness to come; the ability to sustain oneself through difficult times; the seeds from which the next year’s growth will spring.

8. LORD DEATH’S PROGRESS

Letter:
U

Season:
The Freeze

Picture:
Lord Death, mounted on a stallion, leads the parade of the doomed: a weeping woman holding a child in her arms walks beside him, one hand gripping the trailing end of his fine robe; others walk behind her, each closer to death than the last until, at the end, walks a bleached skeleton.

Meaning:
Death, but also conception; a sundering from old ways, but also the beginning of new; barrenness, but also the suspended power of growth.

T
HE MONTHS OF THE
year equate to the Journey—moving from the small self-absorbed circle of The Hut (the child’s self) to the larger circle of the Village (the family), breaking away by means of The Road that leads to The Town Square (provincial life), through stages of introspection—The Temple representing collective, guided study, often of a religious bent, and The Tower true introspection, self examination in an isolated place or state, meditative and illuminating. Such study allows the traveller to then take leave of old boundaries, by way of The Harbor, for new horizons, represented by The City, where larger possibilities for social interaction and endeavors are available (The Hall). One still can separate oneself out, to contemplate in The Garden, but such contemplation leads to study of the deeper mysteries, which demands a descent through The Barrow, the separation of life from death, into the Labyrinth, the place of mysteries from which none emerges unchanged and in which many become irretrievably lost. It is here, if one survives the perils of the journey, that one can find The Castle, the center, or the heart, of life.

1. The Hut/The Meadow B

2. The Village/The Forest L

3. The Road/The River N

4. The Town Square/The Lake F

5. The Temple/The Marsh S

6. The Tower/The Mountain H

7. The Harbor/The Sea D

8. The City/The Shore T

9. The Hall/The Fields K

10. The Garden/The Waste M

11. The Barrow/The Ravine G

12. The Labyrinth/The Cave P

13. The Castle/The Spring R

1. THE MIDWIFE

Letter:
A

Element:
Earth