The White Monk arrived the following day, two days before coronation.
He arrived so inauspiciously that I wasn’t notified as I had been with Kaedrin. I’d cut through the arcade on my way back from leaving some texts in Ursula’s rooms that she’d asked for, when I encountered the white-robed and hooded man standing, arms folded into his sleeves in a small courtyard. Not the one Ursula liked to use for private workouts, but one just down from that, attached to the family wing. He seemed to be staring at the grass. Dry autumn leaves whirled in a chilly breeze, chuckling in hoarse whispers as they brushed the stone walls. The urns had been emptied of flowers following the first frost, but for some reason the patch of grass remained green.
Perhaps that’s why he stared.
I cleared my throat. He didn’t move.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“I know you’re there, Lady Mailloux,” he replied, his voice a softer scratch than the leaves, the voice of a man who seldom speaks. “So this is where they did it.”
Was it? I hadn’t known. Though it made sense, given the relative privacy of the place. I shivered, abruptly cold without my cloak. The arcade would have to be closed for the winter soon.
“Thank you for coming to Ordnung.” I stepped closer.
“It’s not a small thing,” he said, still not looking at me, “to sacrifice a king to the land. Tell me. Did all three daughters have a hand in it?”
“As I understand it. I wasn’t present.”
He glanced at me then, icy blue eyes the only color in a pale face, lined with age. “No. You wouldn’t have been. Your sacrifice is still coming, isn’t it?”
I began to understand why Ursula complained about vague prophecies. “I think you’re mistaken. I’m only a librarian—now councilor to the future High Queen. I asked you here to participate in her coronation, as a representative of Glorianna.”
He only gave me a slow nod of confirmation that I’d spoken the obvious.
“How shall I address you?” I tried.
“I am the White Monk.”
Exactly as Ash used to say. I nearly smiled at the memory of Ami stomping her foot and screeching, “That’s a title, not a name!”
As if I’d called him with the memory, Ash came striding through the arcade, then stopped in his tracks. The old man turned to him and made the circle of Glorianna. Ash bowed deeply, then approached the monk and knelt, bowing his head, and the man laid his hands upon it. All in silence.
Feeling like an intruder on something sacred that did not belong to me, I slipped away. But not before the monk caught my eye, and winked.
* * *
The morning of the coronation found me in Ursula’s rooms as the ladies dressed her for the ceremony. Zynda would arrive with the priest of Moranu at any moment, Andi had assured me. Goddesses make it so. Ursula didn’t need my help, but I had taken over her desk, fielding last-minute emergencies, mostly via notes and pages running frantically about. I occasionally needed her to weigh in on a decision. It was easier, I justified to myself, to remain with her.
Mostly, I wouldn’t have missed seeing the assembly of this gown for anything.
The ladies I’d assigned to her bustled about happily, enjoying their rare opportunity to primp their future High Queen for what might be the only coronation they’d see in their lifetimes, Goddesses willing. For her part, Ursula showed more patience than I’d expected for the extensive preparation it took to make her concept work. Of course, she’d confided, a month of ceaseless politics, ruffled feather-smoothing and negotiating made her grateful for any respite.
I agreed with her, nursing a secret plan to slip out of the celebration ball early, crawl under the covers of my bed and sleep for days. It wouldn’t happen, but the fantasy kept me going.
“One point of troubling news,” I told her, “is that Prince Cavan of Erie and his bride, Princess Nix, late of the Remus Isles have arrived.”
Ursula raised an eyebrow. “Did Uorsin know about that alliance?”
“I believe King Wyn kept that information quiet. Old Queen Isyn, Nix’s mother, yet lives—but once she passes it appears that both Erie and Remus will fall under Cavan’s rule.”
Harlan, observing the proceedings from a chair by the fire, frowned. The weather had grown decidedly chill, though the sun shone brightly enough to satisfy those who worried over omens. It surprised me a bit, that he elected to stay for the primping, but something about the way he kept an eye on Ursula made me think he had good reason. Whatever significance the gown held for her, he understood and was careful of it. “Remus is not one of the Twelve, correct?”
Ursula flicked him a glance in the full-length mirror Ami had sent over from her rooms. “No. It’s a chain of islands, very insular people. Rumors of magic even wilder than we’ve seen.”
“Apparently quite a bit magical has happened there as well in the last month or so,” I told her. “And we’ll have to discuss how that alliance will affect things.”
“Put meeting with them on the schedule for tomorrow then.”
As if said schedule wasn’t already overloaded, but I made a note.
The ladies had so far fastened her into a corset over a light shift, which Ursula accepted with reasonable grace as they insisted it would be necessary to support the gown. Denise had tackled the challenge of creating the unusual gown with enthusiastic determination—along with the extensive and unprecedented collaboration with the armorer—using steel boning inside the stiff fabric of the corset.
“Being able to breathe would be helpful,” Ursula commented wryly as they tightened the laces.
“Believe me, Your Highness,” Denise replied, surveying her work and nodding at Ursula in the mirror, “you’ll be grateful for the back support before this day is done. This is not an inconsiderable amount of weight to carry. Think of it as a kind of armor.”
“A bulwark against protocol?” Ursula huffed out a pained laugh.
To my gut-clenching relief, an out-of-breath page arrived with a note from the gates that said Zynda had arrived. Minutes later, the Tala woman knocked and was admitted. She came in, dusty from the roads, but also radiant and tanned from Annfwn’s sun, bringing the scent of wintery air and tropical flowers with her. Halting, she scanned the elaborate skeleton of the supports for Ursula’s gown, whistling in amazement.
“So not how the Tala do it,” she remarked.
Ursula frowned at her in the mirror. “Blame Dafne. She insisted on all this pomp and ceremony.”
“You picked the gown,” I reminded her. It hardly seemed possible all would be done by day’s end. “Did you...” I started to ask Zynda, then broke off in panic at what I’d do if she gave me the wrong answer.
She grinned easily. “Moranu’s shaman is here. He’s consulting with the White Monk and the Priestess of Danu in the small family courtyard. Kaedrin asks you meet them there, when you’re available, to discuss details.”
Interesting that they picked that spot. “Thank you,” I told her, fervently. “I’ll be right down.”
“No need to hurry, I think.”
“But they don’t speak Tala and he speaks nothing but. I should go translate.”
“They seemed to have a plan. I wouldn’t worry.” She patted my shoulder, wholly unaware of how much could still go wrong, and nodded to Ursula. “I’m glad we made it back in time. I must go bathe and change.”
“You don’t need to be present,” Ursula told her. “Aren’t you tired from the journey?”
Zynda’s grin lightened her face. “A bit, but I wouldn’t miss seeing my cousin crowned High Queen for anything in the world. Salena would come back and haunt me for it!”
Zynda turned with a jaunty wave, missing the strange expression that crossed Ursula’s face, the way she touched a hand to her stomach. She left again, singing a song I recalled Zyr had liked. It felt like forever ago since that going away party. The ladies finished strapping on the metal kirtle needed to support the heavy skirts of the gown.
“I feel like I’m in one of those cages the ladies keep their birds in,” Ursula remarked. “As I can barely breathe, don’t be surprised if I make whistling noises.”
“This was your idea,” I said again, to save Denise having to. Though I’d been dubious about Ursula’s concept, and whether it could be done in time—or at all—I had to admit that, as they added the final layers, it was an extraordinary accomplishment.
The ladies added first the petticoats over the metal kirtle, then the red velvet undergown in pieces. The bodice followed.
Then the actual gown on top of it all.
Made from polished silver chain mail from the armory, the skirts required three ladies to lift and hold them in place as they attached them with sturdy hooks to the boning of the corset. Denise fitted the bodice over the top, using silver ribbons to secure it, then stepped back to study the effect.
The gown fell as any dress would, from the high neck to the narrow waist, then flaring out to mimic cloth skirts, but constructed entirely of metal. The armorer had created it according to the lines Denise gave him and he’d outdone himself. The final result looked as if she wore armor shaped as a gown. The armorer had even been able to create a golden sheath affixed to the waist and skirt so she could wear her sword.
Ursula tested the grip. “It’s not exactly the right angle for my best speed.”
“If you have to draw your sword today,” I said, “we have bigger problems than that.”
She flicked me a glance and didn’t reply, but Harlan snorted softly.
The rubies at her breast and wrists, set in gold, matches to the one in the pommel of her sword, caught the color of her hair and the undergown. Her eyes glinted as silver as the sparkling links, striking exactly the right note
She was magnificent.
The ladies oohed, put the last touches on her hair and the subtle makeup Ursula had agreed to, and bowed out to take their places in the hall. Ursula remained still for a moment longer, a somber expression on her face as she studied herself in the mirror, making me wonder what she saw there.
“Nervous?” Harlan asked her, before I could, which meant he earned the glare instead.
“I’m having a big piece of jewelry stuck on my head,” she retorted. “What’s to be nervous about?”
He stood, surveying her, then gave her a hand to step down from the pedestal they’d had her on, and some of her tension melted at his touch. Though the toes of her silver heeled boots showed under the shorter hem at the front, the back dragged heavily on the floor, making a soft gravelly noise, like the amplified sound of a snake sliding through grass or over sand. A dramatic effect, but...
“Does it weigh too much?” I asked her.
“I won’t be sprinting in it, Danu knows. If you wish me to be painted in it, you’d best hire a fast artist.”
“But can you dance in it?”
“I will not be dancing,” she said in a firm tone. “I shall sit on my new throne and oversee the dancing and that’s final. Hopefully no one will try to attack me as I’d be a sitting duck even if I could draw fast enough.”
Harlan grinned at her. “Then I shall have to stand at the ready to defend my lady fair.”
“Ha-ha. More likely I’ll need those muscles to lever me up off the floor if I topple over. That would scandalize the court, their High Queen stranded on her back like a turtle.”
“You look magnificent,” Harlan echoed my thoughts. “The chain-mail gown is the perfect choice. Is it like enough to your vision?”
What vision? Her lips trembled a bit as she smiled at him. Tears pricked my own eyes. To compose myself and give them the illusion of privacy, I checked the crown. It also was a fine choice, much simpler than Uorsin’s had been, a broader gold band than the circlet, that swelled to an upward point over her forehead, set with three of Salena’s rubies in a staggered line, to represent the three goddesses, the topmost cut to resemble Danu’s star.
“Close enough,” she answered him. “And all the better that this one does not paralyze me.”
“And you’re not alone,” he said. “You changed the story.”
“I think you did. I wouldn’t be standing here today without you.”
They were quiet. If I could have, I’d have vanished myself from the room. Finally Harlan said, “It’s the perfect symbol. Salena would approve—and be very proud of you at this moment.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything.”
Satisfied the crown had no smudges and that Ursula would have composed herself, I closed the lid. “Ready?”
They looked good together, Harlan also in matching chain mail, with a crimson velvet shirt beneath that matched the rubies. Just as well the banner Ami designed had been also done in gold, silver and ruby red: a hawk stooping—though its talons clutched a strand of ivy, the symbol for peace—with a sun and crescent moon on either side, Danu’s star at the peak. It lay ready to ascend Ordnung’s heights as the coronation was completed.
I didn’t expect the overwhelming swell of sentiment. As long as I’d dreamed of this day, I hadn’t expected to feel like this, as if everything had truly come together, shimmering like the harmony of gold and silver together. A shining omen of a good future for us all, one of peace and prosperity.
“Yes.” Ursula touched the hilt of her sword and squared her shoulders. “Let’s get this over with so we can get back to doing something useful. Like breathing.”
It felt good to laugh. Good to enjoy this feeling for as long as it lasted.