Plenilune (25 page)

It was the drabness that caught her eye. To her left, on the extreme corner of her vision so that it was almost like catching a glimpse of an old dream rather than seeing anything real, she became aware of an anomaly in this rich tapestry of colour. With another start she looked its way and lost it a moment among a yellow plume and a slashed burgundy sleeve. Had she dreamed—no, there it was, breaking out of the press. It was a small, stooped figure, with the frailness and colouring of a withered apple-leaf. At that distance Margaret was not sure if it was a man or a woman, but it was not supposed to be there, of that she was certain. It looked round slowly on the crowd, but it did not have the wide-eyed startled attitude of the very old. Quite the opposite: it seemed to be horribly deliberate, like death, casting lingeringly over the crowd until it chose its victim.

“Ru—” Margaret began, then choked herself off. Her curiosity overwon her formless fear. She had some confused notion, too, that she was breaking faith with something if she spoke up against the withered apple-leaf figure. She felt that strongly, though she had no idea why, so she was not surprised when the slow swing of the figure’s perusal came to light and fixed upon Rupert beside her.

“
Ah-h-h!”

The screech of discovery it gave knocked the bell of happy sound from the atmosphere: Margaret saw it shatter on the floor of their consciousness as every head whipped round, every mouth open either for food or speech, every mouth empty, every face full of surprise—every face save her own. She felt like a spectator watching a play.

“Ah-h!” The crone—it was a woman—stepped forward with her hand upraised toward Rupert. Her movements were fluid for one so old, her voice blue-veined and thin, but certain. “Thou marks it, young man, and ‘twas a death-knell in thy soul for omen! Thou marks the star Frezen blinked out, like a snuffer put on thy hope! Let not Hell hope! Let not Hell hope! Aye! aye!” she laughed with both hands clutching the air before her, as if shaking something in their faces. “ ’Tis an omen! ’Tis an omen! It may yet go ill with the evil lords! He is the God not of the dead but of the living! Aye, thy omening star goes out and he sits in Heaven and laughs at thee! Uncovered are thy wickednesses! Unhappy are thy auguries! Ill will it go with thee! Treble confusion on thee! The death of thy enemies is wormwood and gall in thy bowels!”

Margaret did not remember rising. She stood at the side of the table, twisted round to stare at the old apple-leaf woman, her hand whitely clutching her napkin. They were all staring, some having risen, some still seated. For some time not one of them moved, though Margaret was aware of Rupert’s hand, which had been very tense upon the stem of his wineglass, slowly relaxing its hold and flushing with blood once more. But before he could do anything, if he was meaning to, Skander broke away from the rest and came gently toward the softly laughing old woman.

“Come you away, old mother,” he said kindly. “It is cold: warm yourself in my kitchens.”

She deftly avoided his hand, though her iron-coloured, sparking eyes laughed kindly back up into his face. “Let me be, young man, or I’ll vanish before thy eyes.”

“Well I believe it.” Skander’s tone was somewhere between laughter and vexation. Somehow he turned the old apple-leaf woman over into the care of two askance men and one of the head maids of the banquet hall, and with a lack of ceremony which troubled Margaret, the four passed from the room.

There was a breathless silence, a rush of taffeta and a sigh, and then the low, subdued murmur of talk and clinking of glasses. Rupert’s face, when Margaret dared to look at it, was oddly light and distant, as if he were careful to let the whole nightmarish matter slip from his shoulders like an old cloak. But she knew him better than that and was shocked to realize that he was quite shaken. He carefully finished his wine and carefully replaced the glass exactly upon the table, and under the hum of talk said to her,

“There has been enough excitement for
you
. I think it would be best if you retired to bed.”

“And if I am not tired?” she asked, arching a brow. She kept her head primly cocked to one side, so that if anyone looked their way she would appear aloof and no one would know how her heart pounded. “What then?”

“But you are, so do you go.” And the smile he turned to her, shocked out of its granite mockery, was actually soft and genuine when it lighted on her face. “I danced you hard tonight, and you did me justice. Go to bed now, Margaret.”

With all eyes on them, as she knew they were, she thought it best not to test him and risk ruining his good humour. She put her napkin in a tell-tale gesture on the table, hesitated, and, clenching her stomach, leaned close by Rupert’s cheek as though to peck it. No one could see: only he and she knew she did not actually touch him. He was laughing at her softly, coldly, when she drew away and rose. It was a light, awful, piercing sort of laughter. Walking away from the table and the soft surf-sound of talk, walking in the swish and swirl of her red dress, she felt like a red pawn on his chessboard.

Oh yes, she had played very well for him tonight.

Wave after wave of weariness broke over her as she mounted the stairs and made her way to her room. Her red dress and the knowledge of it seemed to grow heavier with each step she took. And there was no relief for her when she reached the high little garret for Rhea was there, rising silently from turning back the bedcover. Margaret stopped in the doorway and stared coldly and blearily, almost blindly, at the maid; the maid stared back, but Margaret was too tired and bewildered by formless thoughts to mind the look on the other’s face.

“Where is Aikaterine?” she asked bluntly.

“Does my lady’s lady know?” replied Rhea.

Margaret’s temper flared, clearing away the haze for a moment. “Ring for her,” she snapped. “And then lay out my nightgown. Aikaterine will dress me.”

Rhea’s face was closed and careful as she crossed the room and pulled the bell. While the maid opened the trunk at the foot of the bed to fetch out the nightgown, Margaret sat down before the mirror and began removing her jewellery. She kept a close eye on Rhea’s reflection, but she suspected that the maid was aware of that: her face never unfolded from its cool, careful expression.

There was a soft knock on the door and Margaret called to admit Aikaterine. The maid was dressed in white still, but there was a thin silver chain with a single diamond pendant around her neck, and a small clear gemstone in either ear. If she had not known that she was a maidservant, Margaret would have called her beautiful.

There was a brief moment when Aikaterine looked wide and saw Rhea, and Rhea saw her, but the looks were exchanged almost too fast for Margaret to mark them. “You called?” Aikaterine purred, and turned from Rhea without another glance.

“Yes.” Margaret rose and stepped away from the dressing table.

Gently the scarlet gown was peeled off and put over the manikin in the corner. Balling her fists to stave off her shivering, Margaret swam into the folds of her nightgown and stood with her chin up and her head to one side as Aikaterine deftly buttoned the clasps at the throat. Margaret kept an eye on Rhea, who was placing hot water-bottles in the bedsheets, to make sure the maid did not puncture them: but even Margaret thought such a joke rather below Rhea.

“Is there anything more that you need?” asked Aikaterine.

Margaret looked around on the sparse, clean room. In her weary state she was past thinking. She almost asked Aikaterine if she could inquire after the curious old crone—but even that was becoming distant, as though it had happened only in a dream, as though she had wandered into one of Rupert’s nightmares and watched what happened there. “No-o…” she replied slowly. She blinked hard. “No, I think that will be all. You may leave me, and tell Rupert I have gone to bed.”

Aikaterine looked at Rhea, as if to pass this duty off on her, and then moved to the doorway. Margaret saw that Aikaterine was careful to let Rhea go first. With a shudder, Margaret thought of having that evil-eyed cat stalking through the dark after her. Then they were gone, silently, taking one of the lamps with them so that her room was lit by only a low fat candle on the bedside table.

Margaret bent wearily over the flame and snuffed it out before climbing into bed. The sheets were stiff with cold but her feet were soon toasty from wrapping themselves around the water-bottles. She lay in the dark and the musty scent of blown-out candle, shivering from the cold, listening to the moan of the wind around the castle. The wind was loud tonight, loud and desolate, and it kept her awake when she should have fallen instantly asleep. Too soon the water-bottles went cool, and then cold, and she kicked them out from under the covers and fell to shivering, mournfully alone in her cold sheets. Her nightgown seemed too thin, her blankets inadequate, to keep her warm. For a quarter of an hour she told herself she ought to get up and put on the red dress for warmth—surely the red colour would be warming—and in a fitful, dozing state dreamed over and over that she had done so, only to reawaken and realize that she was still in her white nightgown, and still cold.

If I married Rupert
, she thought once
, I would not be cold. I wonder—do they keep separate rooms here in Plenilune or do couples sleep together?

In the morning she knew she would scoff at such a mercenary idea, but in the high garret among the roar of the wind, anything to get warm seemed permissible.

There was nothing to mark the time. Not the earth’s light, for the night was growing thickly overcast, nor even the distant chime of a hall clock; so Margaret did not know how late it was when it finally occurred to her that she had left her fan behind in the ballroom. She sighed and tried once more to find a warm, comfortable position in which to rest her aching, cold limbs, but she knew she would not be able to rest until she had gone down and fetched it. She could always yank the bell-pull to have a servant fetch it for her, but if she went downstairs herself, where there had been warmth and even some jollification—which was not to be found up here—she might feel better. Surely it was late enough that everyone had gone to bed: it did not seem likely that she would run into anyone worse than a servant.

Stiffly, her limbs frozen with weariness and cold, she crawled out of bed and felt in the dark for her matches. She burnt herself with the first match and accidentally extinguished it before she could reach the wick. The second match took and a warm yellow pall of light spread slowly over the room. By its light she slung on her dressing-gown and did up its toggles. Then she took the lamp from her table and stole out on bare feet into the long empty corridor. Her feet made no noise on the carpet: she glided mutely forward in a pool of candlelight, mingling now and then with other pools and passing on again through darkness. Sounds came, now and then, from behind the doors she passed: sleepy, creaky sounds of guests getting into bed and the old four-posters groaning in complaint, or someone, once—it startled her with its suddenness—stabbing at the remains of a fire in a grate. The night-witchery made the Lookinglass House seem long, as it had made Marenové House seem long, but Lookinglass was warm and Margaret was oddly not a whit afraid. She knew it was the sleepiness and light which dazed her, but she was nevertheless humoured by the sense of being a fairy passing through the dreams of others, always on the outskirts, always moving on.

The dark and sleepiness turned her about. She missed the turn for the nave overpass; she found herself blinking at the head of a new stair, a narrow one—probably a back way used by servants—with a panel of lattice as its right wall. Through the lattice shone diamonds of light, which turned the stairway into a freckled grouse’s wing, and up from the bottom of the stairway came the murmur of many voices. Margaret glided on, roused by curiosity. She took care to pass so quietly down the stair as to be taken, if seen, for a shadow, with the candle hid under her sleeve. Through the lattice she got a view of a narrow hallway, and across the hall, by which the stair ran parallel, she saw a door ajar through which came the voices. In the stairwell she stopped, bare feet chilled by the hardwoods, and stopped to listen, if she could, without exposing herself in the hall.

At first the voices were muffled and indistinct, seemingly from far away on the other side of the room within the door, then a voice nearer said, laughingly,

“Why, what about her?”

A muffled voice repeated its query.

That is Centurion
, thought Margaret.
I recognize that laugh of his: like rain when the sun is shining
.

“Oh!” said a woman’s voice, jumping to reply. Margaret did not know this voice. “I don’t know. I hardly met her, myself. She has a pleasant, husky voice, I think, and almost handsome.”

Someone asked, “Where did she come from?”

“Under a rock, for all I know,” retorted a man.

Margaret began to blush angrily. Of course they would speak of her. It was just what she feared, just what she expected, but she could not tear herself away. For a moment the fan was forgotten: she had to know what they thought.

The man who sounded angry went on. “This is a rum turn of luck, if I dare swear before you on it. We
had
hoped—”

“We had,” laughed Centurion. “Some of us still do.”

Several people bubbled at him like pipits, trying to get a better answer, but he only laughed and seemed to step away: a shadow passed over the crack in the door.

The woman held to her first assessment and tried to advance it. “Her voice is pleasant. I think she sounds almost as pleasant as Romage. Do you suppose she could sing? I wonder if they could perform a duet.”

A young man spoke up—hardly more than a boy, Margaret thought, perhaps in his late ’teens. “Your Grace, forgive me for saying so, but I should not like having that siren sing for my ears. I would not trust my soul with her.”

For one wild, blazing moment, Margaret considered coming forward and showing herself to them. Oh, to see their faces when she pushed the door wide, candle aloft, and looked round on them with all the knowledge of their words in her face! Her foot slid forward…