Vennaday, the 25th day of Winter's Beginning, 992 KY
"The Queen is in labor?" said Anda.
The spoon in Temmin's hand stopped midway to his mouth and he snuck a glance around the dining hall. His last petitioner had taken longer than expected, and by the time he entered the room most of the diners had already finished; near-empty tables and padded benches surrounded them. Satisfied no one might hear their conversation, he answered, "Yes, I got the message just after lunch with the Holy Ones. How'd you know?"
"Allis made a cryptic remark to me in private. Never worry, nothing indiscreet." Anda pushed back her rose-colored sleeve to avoid dragging it in her soup as she reached for the bread basket; Temmin put down his spoon and hurried to hand it to her. "Thank you. I'm glad I was delayed in my dinner, too. I rarely get to see you any more. Are you still having trouble sleeping?"
"I'm hoping the next Supplicant snores."
Anda stuck her tongue out at him and buttered a roll. "It took me some time to get used to my new room, I confess. When d'you think you'll hear about your mother?"
"It's her fourth child, so I'm told it shouldn't take too long." He took another spoonful of soup, mindful he didn't slurp. His manners in the last two years had improved; he almost never dribbled soup down his front in his haste to fill his stomach now. Jenks would be proud.
"Isn't it rather early for the baby?" said Anda. "It's not quite six spokes since Neya's Day—that went by quickly. Well, I suppose it's not too early. I hope so, anyway. Aren't you worried, though? Shouldn't you be there?"
Temmin shrugged. "I don't know what I could do if I were, apart from pacing up and down with my father." He finished the soup and pushed it aside to attack the chicken and rice before him. "They'll send for me once the baby is born, and then I'll go see my new little sister."
"How do you know it's going to be a sister?"
"Educated guess," Temmin grinned.
"Have they picked a name?"
Temmin swallowed his mouthful of chicken. "Anneya. She's a Neya's Day babe, after all!"
Ansella paced her bedchamber, her gait heavy and waddling. Midwives supported her on both sides; when a contraction swelled she stopped and held onto them. Her voice rose high, verging on a shriek. "Low, Your Majesty, low. Oooooo…" encouraged the midwives. Ansella brought her voice down as they urged; somehow the lower pitch brought the pain down, too. She rested for a moment, letting the women hold her up as she regained her breath, and then resumed the slow walking up and down.
She grew tired. "Why is it taking so long?" she moaned.
"It's not so very long, my dear, though it feels long," soothed the lead midwife. "You'll be able to greet her soon, just think of that!"
"I can't!" wept Ansella. "I can't do this any more!"
The midwives exchanged a knowing smile over her head. "Come dear," said the lead, "let's sit you down in the birthing chair for a rest."
Not long after, Ansella needed to push…and push. She pushed far longer than she had for any of her other children—even Sedra, the first. Once her body understood what to do, Ellika and Temmin came easily, but not this little one. She was stubborn, or reluctant—or stuck. It was as if Ansella lost every precious inch when she stopped to rest; an invisible hand pushed the baby back. She was so tired.
The Sister midwives murmured encouragement, no Your Majesty or ma'am, just sweetheart and dear and little mama; they rubbed her back and supported her as she squatted on the birthing chair. Someone—Donnis?—mopped the sweat from her face with a cool rag. She would have cried from the tiny pleasure, but she was already crying, gasping and moaning as she fought the invisible hand. A black foreboding came over her. I can't, I'm going to die before I get her out, I'm going to die and take her with me, no, she can't die, take me, Lady Harla! Ansella gathered her strength to push again. Anneya, move, come out, please Amma, let her come out!
By the time the head was crowning she had no further thoughts, reduced to grunting like the animal every birthing mother becomes. A great ring of fire, and she screamed as Anneya's head crowned. "It's out, sweetheart, her head is out!" Donnis cried. The pain retreated, but Ansella remained deep in herself. "One more push and out come the shoulders, dear," said the midwife rubbing her lower back. "Come, one more push!" Ansella pushed.
Anneya slipped from her in a rushing slither. She did not cry.
The midwives quickly set the birthing chair into a recline and lowered Ansella onto it. "Here, here, see, she's here!" one of them murmured in her ear.
The baby lay on Ansella's belly, the cord still attached to them both. Neither moved. The cord pulsed slower and slower as the baby's body began to work on its own, until it stopped. They were no longer one, but two.
Ansella's eyes rolled back in her head, away from the midwives calling her name and muttering to one another about the silent baby. The choice came to her in the dark, in that place of no conscious thought: One life. Two beings.
Her decision was instinctive, instant and irrevocable. The midwives' voices calling to her made urgent fiery arrows in the dark, the baby's sudden cry a beautiful, throbbing cloud of gold; the colors and the sounds drained as Ansella began slipping away. Even the dark retreated. She hung in a void.
The void spoke in a thousand voices as one, dry, whispering and soothing. It is time, daughter.
Anguish and fear flooded her. "Time? It can't be time!"
There was life enough for one. You gave it to your baby.
"But my other children—what will happen to Seddy, Elly, Temmin? Harsin, my mother? The baby! What will happen to my baby!"
Leave her to the Gods, leave them all to the Gods—your time to worry is ended. They will be all right without you. Come with Me.
"I'm frightened!" No sooner had she said it than the anguish retreated. Peace, acceptance, love took its place in an overwhelming gush. Her brother Patrin's voice was among the thousand, her father's voice too, and she knew the thousand voices spoke the truth.
I am with you. I have been with you since your birth. I am with all things, always—stars, rocks, flowers, ants, humans—all things—and I love you.
Ansella's own voice sang among the thousand now, and the void seemed to form for a brief flash into a black-skinned Woman, compassion shining from Her ruby eyes. "Blessed Harla, You're beautiful!" was Ansella's last thought as she dissolved into Death's welcoming arms.
The chief midwife came into the Queen's sitting room, where Ansella's daughters and husband waited. Her face formed a professional mask, but the moment the woman entered Ellika knew. From the Queen's bedchamber came a newborn's wail and the sobs of women. The midwife cleared her throat. "The Queen…the baby is fine, healthy and whole, but I'm sorry. The Queen is gone."
A shocked silence fell. Ellika's insides dropped to the floor. "Gone? The Traveler Queen said she'd be all right!"
"No, she said it was up to Mama," said Sedra. "It was her choice. I didn't know this is what she meant! Mama chose the baby. How could she—how could she leave me!" Sedra fled from the room, crying.
Ellika stood stock still, her hands over her leaden stomach. "May we see her?" The midwife hesitantly led Ellika and Harsin into the room.
Ansella had been shifted from the birthing chair to the bed. Her golden hair lay over one shoulder, still in a long plait; the strands around her face were drying. Her eyes were closed, and a smile just touched her mouth. Donnis knelt at the bedside, holding her cousin's hand; her forehead rested against the bed and her body shook in grief. In one corner crouched the sobbing Miss Hanston. In another, three midwives were muttering over a large porcelain basin beside a heap of bloodied linen, and a Sister walked up and down, carrying a small wailing bundle.
Ellika stopped the woman's pacing to look at the baby wrapped in swaddling. Her indignant face already favored her father, crowned in a soft cap of black hair. Ellika's heart hadn't stopped pounding since the chief midwife had brought them the news; her grief was so great it kept her tears from flowing. But as she stared at her new sister a purpose gripped her.
"Wouldn't you like to see your daughter, Your Majesty?" asked the Sister. "She's a little early, but she's healthy."
Harsin waved the woman off, his face pale; Ellika saw in an instant what he would look like as an old man. "I don't care if I ever see her in this life," he said. "Take her away."
"Give her to me," demanded Ellika. "And send for my brother."
Temmin sat beside the bed with his father, trying to listen to Eldest Sister Imvalda. Something about the afterbirth—it was blasted, shriveled and black as if scorched. "None of us have ever seen anything like this before, not even the oldest and most experienced among us. My poisons expert tells me in one quite obscure textbook in the Hearth's library there is a description of such a toxin, but it was written five hundred years ago and to anyone's knowledge it had never been used—until now, apparently. The poison should have killed the Queen, but whatever the Blessed Maeve did left her with enough life for one of them. Her Majesty chose the baby." Imvalda cleared her throat. "Ibbit's knowledge and inclinations run more toward death than life, to a degree that shocks me."
"I will take great satisfaction in bringing her face to face with death," said Harsin in a voice so hollow the Eldest Sister gave an involuntary shudder.
Silent tears ran down Temmin's face. Mama was gone. What would he do, how would he go on? Mama had been everything—mother, sometimes father before Jenks came, teacher, solace. Who would he turn to now? Who would love him now? His father? He hardly knew the man, and what he did know disturbed and angered him. His sisters, yes, and he loved them but it wasn't the same. Alvo and Jenks were far away. Allis? Oh, how he loved her, but what did that matter?
Every happy memory of his mother rushed at him—her laughter as they rode over the plains of home, her kiss as she tucked him in at night when he was small, the two of them in the stables as she taught him to take a horse's measure, her sympathetic listening to his troubles boy and man. Worse by far were the memories of every time he failed her. He could love no one like that ever again, and no one would love him like that ever again.
Temmin put his head down on his mother's cold breast and let out a deep, sobbing roar.
Tremontine flags trimmed in black flew at half mast throughout the City, the dark red field and its three golden mountains limp on this cold, still day. Every bell, from the great War Bell in the Keep to the time-keeping carillons at the University tolled, echoing desolate against the City walls as the funeral procession passed through the streets. Harsin walked before it, dressed in severest black but for the Tremontine red sash beneath his coat; his head wore neither hat nor crown. Emsa, the high priestess of the Friends of Harla, and Harla's Embodiment Trudannis walked beside him, their black hoods lowered to show their stubbled heads.
Black horses drew the Queen's bier behind them. A Brother held the reins; his helmet sat next to him on the box. Bare-headed Friends walked four to a side. Commoners lined the streets, hats in hands, ears and noses red with the cold; as the procession passed, they pressed flowers on the Friends to be placed on the bier. The mass of flowers had grown so deep the simple coffin holding the Queen's body could no longer be seen. While Ansella had passed most of her time as Queen outside the City, the people still loved her. The popular press had idolized her as an exemplar of motherhood since Sedra's birth, and never more so than now.
Behind the bier came Ellika, Sedra and Temmin, all in black. Though Ellika ordered new clothes for every possible occasion, when her maid Miss Clommert asked in her gentle way if she should call for Mistress Naister Ellika flew into such a rage that poor Miss Clommert retreated deep into the wardrobe in self-defense. Ellika pulled all the black lace, ribbons and rosettes from the dress her maid chose, a gown first made for the old Duke of Barle's state funeral almost three years prior: "I have no patience for dressmakers and no taste for fashion, Iddie. I may never again. I don't care if I wear a black sack!" She wore her golden hair in a girlish plait hanging down her back to her hips, and no jewelry at all.
For the first time ever, Ellika dressed more severely than Sedra. The oldest sister had also pulled out her dress from the Duke of Barle's funeral. She wore the jet mourning jewelry she'd inherited from their mother, a much more elaborate set than anything she ever chose for herself: ear bobs, a high choker with pearls separating its many strands, a round brooch framing a white, empty space pinned over her heart.
Temmin dressed in his role as Duke of Whithorse and head of his mother's family. He fingered the green silk sash across his chest beneath his coats. He'd been head of the family for fifteen years and he was not quite twenty; heads of families should be older. At his wrists, the horses engraved on the cufflinks Sedra had given him last Nerr's Day flashed their emerald eyes; Ellika's stick pin reared silver against his black silk cravat. In his waistcoat pocket he carried a new gold mourning watch, a gift from his father. His mother's portrait, done in brilliant enamels, had been taken from another decorative piece and fashioned into the watch's cover. Crystal faced the cover's inside; between the two layers would go a lock of Mama's hair. They walked down the Promenade, past Pagg's Temple and through the City gates, where the Promenade became a broad road through the sacred woods leading to Harla's Hill in the southwest.
Once, each of the seven Temples had its own hill, scattered throughout the City. Now, Harla's old Temple was the only one still in use, the others long since moved from the hilltops to the graceful Temple Green, though their old temples still stood as shrines. While the City had grown to surround the other six—indeed, marched up their hillsides—Harla's Hill remained alone outside the old City walls, surrounded by what was left of the original woods once covering the Valley of Three Mountains.
The Temple itself burrowed into the Hill rather than sitting atop it like the others had once done. Smooth, black stone tiled its entrance. A cool wind emanating from the Hill's wide, dark mouth smelled clean and damp, faint incense floating on it.
The Friends collected the flowers onto a cart and took the box containing Ansella's body down from the bier. They carried it through the great archway and into the Hill; Temmin and his family followed behind with Friend Emsa and Trudannis Embodiment.
A natural cave formed the Hill's main hall, its ceiling high above them; from this vault, the Friends had hollowed out the Hill in all directions to make room for the niches where bodies rested long enough to rot to bones, the private chapels of nobility and the wealthy, and the great royal ossuary, the resting place of its kings dating back to Temmin the Great almost a thousand years before.
They followed the Friends bearing Ansella's coffin into a smaller preparation hall, hung with the royal family's Tremontine red and gold, and Whithorse's grass green, white and silver. A stone table stood in its center; a large basin stood at the table's head. The Friends set the coffin down on a nearby bench and opened it. They picked up the edges of the sheet on which Ansella's body lay, lifted her from the coffin and placed her on the stone table.
Emsa approached Harsin. In her hand was a knife, exquisitely sharp, knapped from slick black obsidian. Harsin took it from her and began cutting away the simple white dress on Ansella's body. "All this is fleeting, all this is lost, all this is unnecessary," said the King.
"All this is ending, all this is beginning, all this is needed," answered the rest, Friends and family in gentle chorus. Temmin did his best to follow along. He knew the words but they kept sticking in his throat.
"Life is fleeting, life is lost, life continues," said his father.
"Her life has ended, her life is beginning, all this is needed," came the response.
Mama's body lay naked now on the stone table, pale but for her still-bright hair, and so small, almost childlike. Her belly was flaccid from the birth, and Temmin flinched, thinking of his new sister. Part of him wanted to hate the baby for living, but the better part of him loved her as the last part of Mama left behind.
Harsin cradled his wife's head in his hands; he bent over the stone basin before him and began to cry in earnest, letting his tears drop into the salt water filling it. Temmin's tears began again, and beside him Sedra folded herself into broken sobs. The Friends wiped away the siblings' tears with a soft cloth, but for Ellika. She remained stoic, face so blank Temmin wondered if she understood.
Emsa took the soaked cloth and dipped it into the basin, spreading the tears through the water. "See, our tears are endless as the ocean," she chanted. "See, our tears make up your bath." Emsa wrung out the cloth and gave it to Harsin, who began washing Ansella's already clean face. Her children took cloths as well, and the four gave their wife and mother her final bath. The Friends turned her on her side. They washed her back and laid her down onto the shroud again; Sedra arranged her mother's long gold plait over her left shoulder. Harsin picked up the braid and used the black knife to cut it off; Emsa accepted it from him and wrapped it in a red velvet cloth.
Harsin took up his mourning braid, woven from the hair growing at his left temple and omitted from the queue at his nape. A flick of the knife severed it, and he placed it on his wife's chest above her heart. Temmin did the same. The knife tip cut him; he could see his blood on the braid he placed beside his father's, and he pressed a handkerchief against his temple, swearing to himself. Sedra unfastened the mourning braid at her left temple, cut it off and laid it next to the others; the dark hair coiled down Ansella's chest from her shoulders to her navel. Sedra handed the knife to her sister.
Elly set her mouth in a firm line and looped her full braid around her hand in a tight twist. Sedra cried, "No, Elly, don't!" just as Temmin realized Ellika had no smaller mourning braid and reached for her himself. Ellika sawed her entire braid off at the shoulder before anyone could stop her. Harsin gasped and sputtered something Temmin didn't catch, and his chest squeezed harder as Ellika laid the thick braid where Ansella's own had been; its color matched but for a few gray strands among the Queen's. "Oh, Elly!" choked Sedra.
Ellika pulled a hand through her ragged, newly-bobbed curls. "It doesn't matter."
"It would have mattered to Mama!" her sister replied through renewed tears. Ellika shook her head, still dry-eyed.
Harsin folded Ansella's arms over her chest. The Friends brought the shroud around her body; Harsin and the children took turns sewing it closed. Emsa gave Ansella's velvet-wrapped hair to Sedra, who accepted it with shaking hands. The Friends took up the body in its coffin again and returned to the main hall for the walk to the royal section of the catacombs.
A ramrod-straight, barrel-chested man in the dark Tremontine red uniform of a colonel of the Royal Cavalry waited in the hall; the uniform's markings were of the First Cavalry Battalion of the Whithorse Guard, and medals covered its front. Tradition banned weapons from the Hill, and his sword sheath hung empty at his side. The man held his black fur winter uniform hat under his arm. Gray threaded the black hair fringed round his head as well as his neatly trimmed beard, and his weather-lined face flashed a heavy grief before he snapped to attention.
It was Jenks, Temmin's valet since boyhood, the man who'd raised him with his mother, who'd helped teach him to ride, the other male member of the little family that would sit beside the nursery fire at home of a night at the Estate. Temmin resisted the urge to run to him like a little boy.
He took a second look. Why did Jenks wear a colonel's uniform?
Harsin didn't seem surprised to see him and shook his hand. "At ease, Colonel."
Jenks took each girls' hands in both his own—"Miss Sedra, Miss Ellika—Miss Ellika, have you been ill? What happened to your hair?"
"Oh, Jenks!" cried Ellika, pressing her forehead to his hands. She burst into tears, the first Temmin had seen. She recovered herself enough to release him and turned to her sister, who held her while she cried.
Jenks snapped to attention again. "Your Highness," he said to Temmin.
Not knowing what else to do, Temmin followed his father's lead: "At ease." He added, "Jenks, why are you in uniform? I don't understand."
The older man took Temmin's hand in a strong grip. "Later, sir. It's past time for explaining, but not now."
They all walked deep into the catacombs, past sealed and empty niches carved into the walls. Jenks should have been with us when we gave Mama her final bath. Technically he was a servant, but Jenks was as much a part of Temmin's family as anyone—but was he a servant? Seeing Jenks in a colonel's uniform confused and unsettled Temmin.
The unhappy group stopped at a niche prepared for its new occupant in the section reserved for high nobility; masons waited, bricks and mortar beside them. The Friends slid the coffin inside, and the masons began to seal the temporary tomb closed. "Goodbye, Mama," whispered Temmin.
The family spent the long day's remainder accepting condolences in the Keep's main Receiving Room until Temmin thought he would go mad. The worst was shaking hands with Fennows, that spotted git. The lordling gave Temmin a syrupy condolence, almost snubbed Sedra and clung so hard to Ellika's hand that the princess had to shake him off with unfeigned annoyance. By now, Miss Clommert had insisted on covering Ellika's shorn locks in a black snood. Perhaps she should have let the shaggy mop be seen; it might have thrown Fennows off.
Each condolence bit at Temmin, leaving his soul as bloodied as his temple; a Sister assigned to the Hill had stitched his cut closed, and Harbis had helped him arrange his hair so it hardly showed. When he escaped to his rooms, he found Jenks standing by the hearth, still in the grand red tunic covered in medals. Relief at seeing his dear friend warred with irritation and no small alarm. "Why are you wearing a cavalry uniform?" he demanded as he came into the room.
Jenks fiddled with his hat. "I am in the cavalry, sir."
"Put that down," snapped Temmin. "You know exactly what I mean. You are long retired, and you were never a colonel."
"Oh, but I was, Temmin—I am," sighed the big man. "Forgive me, but will you sit, sir? You look tired and hungry—and I can't sit until you do."
"Of course!" cried Temmin, abandoning his attitude. "Please, sit. May I offer you a drink? How strange to offer you a drink, I'm not used to playing host with you. I'll order dinner. Is that idiot Harbis around? Harbis!"
The annoying, perfect valet emerged from Temmin's bedchamber. "I have taken the liberty of ordering dinner for you and the Colonel, sir, and have laid out your favorite carpet slippers and house jacket. Shall I help you with your attire, sir?"
"Oh, push off, Harbis. I can attend to it myself." He caught Jenks's disapproving eye. "And thank you. You think of everything, really, and as difficult as these few days have been, I have appreciated your service. Truly."
Harbis bowed. "Thank you, sir. I'll…'push off,' sir, but I shall stand by if you need me." He glided across the floor and let himself out.
"Thank Pagg he's gone. Oh, Jenks, I'm so very glad to see you! I don't know about you but I need a drink."
Jenks sat down in the rarely used wingback chair before the fire. "I confess I would not say no to a glass of wuisc, sir."
Temmin poured them each a glass from the decanter on his sideboard, handed one to Jenks, and tossed himself on the moss green sofa. "What's this colonel nonsense? Has Father given you an honorary commission?"
"No, no. It's not honorary." Jenks took a deep breath. "It's time you were told, especially now that…" He cleared his throat and began again. "I wasn't a corporal in the cavalry, sir, and I was never your uncle's batman. I was his aide-de-camp—a colonel. I still hold that rank. I'm chief of your security detail and your personal bodyguard, which has made this time apart very worrying indeed after all these years."
"My bodyguard? You're my valet! Brother Mardus heads my security detail when I'm away from the Temple, at least here in the City, and I never had one at the Estate."
"Ah, but you did, and still do. Your mother—" Jenks swallowed hard again and took a long drink to cover his distress. "Your mother didn't want you to know about the dangers to your life until you were old enough to understand. Being with you most of the time made that possible, and being your valet was my most plausible option."
Temmin wondered when the world would stop pulling itself out from under him. "I never—it never occurred to me. When were you planning on telling me?"
"When you finished at Temple. Speaking of which, may I ask how your time there has gone, sir? You have two—no, two and a half more spokes left, don't you?"
Temmin paused. What to say? That he'd fallen in love against both his training and Temple rules? That he had no idea how he would make it through the next two spokes, how he would console anyone else when he himself was near-inconsolable? "It's complicated."
The older man sat back in the wingback chair. "Life's complicated. If you don't want to talk about it, you certainly don't have to, sir."
"What have you been doing at Whithorse?"
Jenks finished his wuisc. "I wanted to come back very badly after that business with Sister Ibbit. I was worried for you, and for Annie…that is, Her Majesty…" He shook his head and leaned forward. "Temmin, you need to know your mother was my very dear friend, more dear than you realize. It was for her sake, and for your uncle's, that I came into your service. I was ready to resign my commission when that old crow, Teacher, came to me. It wasn't long after Patrin died, you see. I felt responsible for his death. I still do. He was my best friend. He and Annie and I, we grew up together rather like you and Alvo—my father was attached to the old Duke's household as Captain of the Whithorse Battalion. I thought once…" He covered his mouth. "I thought once I loved your mother. It's how I got my early commission—to get rid of me so your father might court your mother more easily. We knew it was never possible, Annie and me, but we were young. Patrin took me on as his aide and we rose together. He was the best, the dearest friend I shall ever have in this world. I would never have spoken of it were it not…were it not…" Jenks put his face in his hand; Temmin looked away to the fire, tears rising in his own throat. "I never thought I could bear to go back to the Estate," Jenks continued, his voice rough but more composed. "It contained too many memories of Patrin, but I did it for her sake. Now I don't think I'll be able to return but for your sake, Temmin. You are what I have left of them both."
By now tears were running down both men's cheeks unchecked. Temmin rose from the sofa and crouched before his old friend. He took the man's hands. "Then don't return, Jenks. Stay here and wait for me."
Jenks shook his head. "I have work at the Estate to do. When you're through at the Temple, your father will let you come home for a visit, I'm sure. When you return to the Keep, then I will return here with you."
The two spent the three days of Temmin's leave riding together, talking of Ansella when they could bear it, but more often of the doings at the Estate. "How is Alvo?"
Jenks pursed his lips. "More taciturn. I'll say this, though. He hasn't gotten in trouble once since you've gone. Make of that what you will, scapegrace. He misses you but won't speak of you unless forced."
"I miss him. I'm bringing him to the Keep, you know, Jenks."
"He may have other ideas, sir."
"I don't really care. How are Fen and Arta?"
"Miss Dannikson is now Mistress Wallek."
"She wrote me," Temmin nodded. "I read my letters even if I'm not very good at answering them. She's gotten the hang of reading and writing very quickly."
"She would make an excellent housekeeper some day in one of your houses, sir."
Relieving news; Temmin had no choice but to take the two young servants into his household once they'd become embroiled in his father's attempts to stop his Supplicancy, and he'd been wondering what to do with them. "Have they forgiven me yet for almost getting them killed on the Temple steps?"
Jenks chuckled. "Forgiven you? They worship you!"
"Oh, dear. How is married life treating them? Well, I hope. I need some good news."
"Their little boy is three spokes old now, and a strapping infant he is, too," said Jenks as they walked their horses back to the stables along the War Road. "Red-haired like his father but looks more like his mother, lucky little chap. The elder Wallek is learning a number of skills."
"Useful ones?"
Jenks gazed at a spot just above his horse's right ear. "Caring for a gentleman's wardrobe, hand-to-hand fighting, and keen attention to potential threats."
Temmin looked over at the older man in surprise. "You're training him to take your place."
"That I am, sir." He glanced at his Prince almost guiltily. "Temmin, I'm forty-four. Still in fine shape, but no longer young. I will serve you till the end of my days, but in a few years I will no longer be the best man to be your bodyguard. I will still direct your security detail, but I want Fen to become your personal bodyguard and valet. He has a sweet, take-no-prisoners street-fighting style that's just the ticket, and he's coming along nicely in the other respects, except I'm having trouble teaching him the proper way to fall off a horse rather than the way he's insisted upon so far."
"That bad a rider?"
"That bad at first. He's coming along, sir."
"Well, if he's got you to teach him, he'll be fine. You taught me everything I know about horses and that's quite a lot. You and…and Mama."
Temmin's heart plunged into blackness again, and the two men entered the stables in silent, shared grief.
A week after the Queen's funeral, Allis handed cups of tea to the Most High Beloved and Most High Lover. The two high priests and the two Embodiments sat together in a room warmer than most Tremontine rooms, but the two old ones held the handleless winter ceramic cups close to their bodies, letting the heat sink in. Allis wondered if she would be cold all the time when she grew old. She dropped a sugar in one cup for Issak and passed it to him. "What are we going to do about Temmin?" she said.
"Do? Nothing," said High Lover Gan. "He will grieve, and we will help if we can."
Allis sipped her tea. The cup felt good in her hands, too, though hers were smooth and young; it must be a colder winter than she'd thought. "He's not doing anyone any good here," she murmured. "He can't concentrate. He's done nothing but help the Postulants clean the petitioning rooms, and he rarely speaks to anyone. Perhaps he should take a longer leave."
"His vows bind him for less than three spokes more. Mightn't familiar routine be a comfort? It has been so for me in troubled times," said High Beloved Malla.
"I am surprised you'd wish to send him away," Issak said to his sister.
"I think only of his utility to the Temple and his own wellbeing," she answered, meeting his eyes steadily. You will not make me give myself away, brother. Do not make me give myself away! "Whithorse may be more comforting to him than the Temple."
"It's also a reminder of his mother," said Issak.
"Perhaps he wants to be reminded of his mother," said Allis a little too sharply.
"Gently, Allis, gently," remonstrated Gan. "I don't like the idea of sending him away. It seems unkind."
"He has nothing left for petitioners at present, Most High," said Allis. "Perhaps we should proceed with choosing a new Supplicant to replace Anda."
Issak put his cup down and studied her.
"No, one is quite enough for now," replied Gan. "You don't always have to have two, dear, and oftentimes Temples don't have any Supplicants at all. Look at Ronnul Embodiment at the Warrior's Temple. He doesn't have one at present."
"You seem quite eager to find a new focus either for Temmin or yourself," said Issak.
Allis flushed at last. "I cannot believe you of all people, Issak, would not remember what it's like to lose one's mother. I remember it clearly."
Issak straightened his broad shoulders. "That was cruel."
"It's cruel to keep him here!" exclaimed Allis stubbornly.
"To you or to him?"
"Children!" said Gan. "You are both excused until you compose yourselves. No, your apologies are due to one another. Go away. I'm tired and I still have matters to discuss with Malla."
Allis put down her teacup and rose from the couch, her skirts tangling round her ankles. She kicked them loose, curtsied and stalked from the room, Issak close behind. "I'm not a child, I'm almost twenty-three," she muttered to herself.
"If you think no one knows about Temmin, Allis, you're quite mistaken," Issak hissed as he followed her down the hallway.
"We are not alone," she replied in kind.
"Let's remedy that, shall we?" Issak grabbed her arm and yanked her into an empty receiving room, slamming the door behind them. The rarely-used room was decorated less to the Temple's tastes and more to the general world's in a conservative, restrained style, chairs instead of couches and no warming braziers. No fire burned in the grate. "You have to stop, Allis. Ask for help. This cannot continue."
"What cannot continue?"
"You cannot love him. You cannot."
"Love him? I wonder, are you jealous? Seeing rivals that aren't there?"
"Rivals?" he exclaimed. "Allis, I'm your brother. Listen to yourself!"
"I seem to recall many tender moments between the two of you."
Issak took one of the few conventional chairs the Temple possessed, spindly and insubstantial, as if it wouldn't bear Allis's weight let alone his, but it didn't complain—much—when he sat on it. "At least you've clarified who it is I'm supposed to be jealous of. In this case I have managed to confine myself to proper emotions. Allis," he coaxed in their shared patois, "We no per he, he no per we. Tha knowst it!"
"You're mistaken."
"You love him."
"You're mistaken!" she repeated, keeping her gaze steady and her face relaxed and unsmiling. "I love him as you do, no more."
"Allis, you have got to swallow your pride!" Issak glowered beneath his strong brow, anger mixed with pain. "You know what may happen."
Allis's heart clenched. "Na gimme thy grief, frer mine!" she shouted.
Issak's glower turned to a grim smile. "Na me who givee the grief, ser mine. The grief's a thee." He stood; the little chair gave a tiny, relieved squeak as he walked through the door.
Allis hugged herself, cold in the unheated room. She slipped back into the Temple's warm, busy hallways, but the chill lingered.
In the end, Allis prevailed. The Most Highs dismissed Temmin for a few weeks to return to Whithorse and mourn his mother, an extra spoke to be added to his vow; though he was to have left in two spokes he would stay now until Summer's Beginning at Nerr's Day.
Ellika rarely let the baby go, relinquishing her little sister long enough for the hastily-called wet nurse to feed her before snatching her away again. She declared to the family that Anneya was her responsibility: "No one else seems to care, so I'm taking her back to Whithorse with Temmin. Nurse and I will see to her." She even learned to change the tiny girl's diaper, refusing assistance with a savagery once reserved for incompetent milliners and dancing partners who trod one too many times on her toes. Her famous gusts of tears never appeared; her eyes were red but dry. Her soft, shorn curls framed a face displaying few emotions except the smiles she showered down on her baby sister. She took no interest in the mourning clothes Miss Clommert arranged for Mistress Naister to make for her.
Ellika spent her days and evenings in Anneya's nursery, making the customary mementos from Mama's hair with alarming speed and intensity as the baby slept. Sedra's jet brooch now framed a spray of golden plumes. Their father's mourning watch cover carried an intricate knot, Temmin's a simple coiled lock at his request. For Miss Hanston, Ellika planned a framed display of the bright hair fashioned into a bouquet of flowers. Their old Nurse at the Estate, who'd helped raise Ansella as well as the royal children, would get one, too, if Mama's death didn't kill the poor old lady at last. Ellika wrapped her mother's remaining braid in tissue. She would save the delicate work for the Estate.
She and the baby wore bracelets plaited of Mama's hair. A simple four-strand round braid circled the baby's tiny wrist; Ellika wore a flat, many-stranded herringbone pattern as wide as two fingers, its round clasp made of pearls set in gold. She would make an identical one for her little sister to wear when she was grown. She won't remember Mama, but at least she'll have that.
To Sedra it seemed as if her childish, giddy sister had aged overnight into a woman—or perhaps gone a little mad. Sedra's own grieving surprised even her. She spent hours in her room, crying until she ran out of tears and stared at nothing. Her books held no interest, nor did her walks. She ate little, talked less, and her chocolate brown eyes took on the darker hue of the jet mourning jewelry she wore every day.
Ansella and Sedra had sometimes argued. They had the same temper, and there were times when they were too much alike. Every petty argument between them stuck in Sedra's heart. Now her mother would not be there to see the marriage cord tied, to give Sedra advice on dealing with a husband just as likely to stray as her father had. Though Mama hadn't dealt with that at all well, had she? Anger towards her father surged inside her, and she pounded a sofa cushion so hard it burst open, scattering feathers all over her sitting room.
Harsin's untouched dinner lay on the partners' desk he shared with his secretary Embis Winmer. He rubbed his tired eyes. Temmin, Ellika, the baby and the rest of the Whithorse-bound contingent had left quite early that morning in the crown's private train, and in spite of his apathy toward his new daughter he'd seen them off at the station after a long, sleepless night.
"What of Miss Shelstone, Your Majesty?" said Winmer. "Her child is due soon, isn't it? I have the paperwork here. Do you still wish to elevate her to Countess Middlemont on the child's birth?"
"Yes," said Harsin. "In time I'll find her a lord's second son or some such and marry her off, but the child will be recognized as mine. If the little one comes of age I will accept her at court. Middlemont will fall to the girl and her husband if she survives and marries, but the title will die with Twenna. Make it so, Winmer."
"Very good, sir. May I ask if you've you chosen a name for the new child?"
"Twenna wishes to name the baby after her mother. Deannis. A bit High Street, if you ask me, but…" He shook his head. "In truth, Embis, I don't care. She can name the baby whatever she wishes. I don't care. I am done with babies." At his secretary's respectful, lowered eyes and gentle throat-clearing, he snapped, "Oh, Pagg's Balls, out with it."
"I merely question whether you should have let the youngest Princesses go back to Whithorse, sir. Your preference to keep your children close by, expressed so recently by the ongoing search for Miss Dunley and your solicitude for Miss Shelstone's child, seems at variance with their departure."
"I suppose so." Harsin scratched his jaw through his thick, graying beard, perhaps harder than the itch demanded. "I just can't…it's too…" Tears formed in his eyes, almost soothing. His eyes hurt so much these days. "I never knew I would miss her so. She was at Whithorse all those years, yes, but she was as close as the next room any time I chose. Teacher could have taken me there in an instant."
"If we are speaking freely, sir, the situation was not all of your choosing. She was a difficult woman at times."
"How much of that was my doing? If I had been more attentive, if I hadn't let Ibbit insinuate herself into the house—" His voice raised in a roar. "I swear, I swear on Ansella's bones, I swear on the Father's Rock, I will kill that woman myself. I let her take Annie away from me and then just as I was getting her back—" The roar broke, and he let his tears fall. "Do you remember when we first were married, Embis? I had her then and could have kept her, but I let her go. She pushed me away…or I walked away…and I let her go. I didn't think twice about it. Women surrounded me, and yes, she was more than just a woman to me, but… and just as I saw her, just as we'd begun to really understand one another… I was getting her back, and then…"
Winmer placed a gentle hand on his master's shoulder. "Harsin, I don't believe in the afterlife. You do. Take comfort in that if it helps. If it helps, think of her waiting for you in the Hill. Here and now you have the children she gave you, including the new little Princess. That will have to suffice."
Harsin covered his friend's hand with his own and wept.