Cobweb Empire (27 page)

And they went through the dark small
apartment into an even lesser cell, then up a narrow spiral
staircase of iron and wood planks, emerging on top of the
world.

All around them, slanting gilded rooftops
and ornate cornices. Only here, in this tiny spot under heaven was
a green niche open to the sun and partially enclosed from the
elements with a retractable translucent awning of fine fabric that
kept moisture away but allowed most of the sunlight through like a
fine sieve.

Under the protection of the awning stood
pots of roses, irises, gardenias, fuchsias, trellises with climbing
vines, and blossoms of every shape and color, blooming year-round
and emanating heady fragrances upon the cool morning breeze. A few
loud cooing pigeons flapped wings and scattered from underfoot,
flapping up and away into the pale blue winter skies.

“Her Brilliance is quite well, father, in
perfect health as always, and has today embarked upon a new
campaign. And she has instructed me to travel on an errand for her,
which shall take me away from the Palace for some time. Since I
will not be able to visit you again for many days, I thought I
might sit with you now, before I depart. Now, come, sit down and
sketch something for me.”

“Very well! Would you like a rose or maybe a
narcissus? An orchid!”

“You know I am not so expert in all the
different blooms you keep so well. Their names escape me for the
most part. Why not make a few sketches and I will tell you which I
like best. Make sure they are all the best and prettiest ones,
large and fully open.”

“Of course,” Micul replied, and grabbed a
small pinch of seeds from a little pot nearby, tossing it on the
floor, at which point a small grey pigeon hopped dutifully forward
and started to peck at his feet.

“Now, first, my father, I would like to see
an open rose, the greatest and most fair one of all.”

“How about this one?” And Micul Fiomarre
pointed to a nearby rose of the deepest musk burgundy, the color of
blood, wafting forth a powerful perfume.

“Yes, this one is beautiful,” his son
replied. “And the color is
precisely
right.”

I
t was time to send
the birds.

The Royal study was crowded. King Roland
Osenni of Lethe sat behind his large mahogany desk strewn with
parchment and abandoned vellum-bound tomes from his library. Next
to him, at an upright standing podium desk perched his secretary,
with a number of quills and inkwells ready.

All around had gathered courtiers, military
officers, and high-ranking advisors, pressed closely around His
Majesty’s desk—several rows thick—each one straining to find a
place nearer the King.

A few steps away, in a deep wing chair, sat
the Grand Princess Claere Liguon, with her back perfectly aligned
with the straight back of the chair, wood to upholstered wood. Next
to her, like her invisible sentinel death shadow, stood Vlau
Fiomarre, grave-faced as always.

The King cleared his throat. “First, Your
Imperial Highness, be so kind as to dictate a letter to His
Imperial Majesty, Your Father. Inform him of your health—that
is—”

“I am well aware how to proceed with a
letter, Your Majesty,” interrupted the Infanta’s measured,
bellows-driven, mechanical voice. Every advisor and military man in
the room turned to stare her way.

The King cleared his throat again, in a
combination of chagrin at his
faux pas
comment regarding her
“health” and in his general frustration with
her
.

Claere was strongly aware of this
frustration and displeasure, and had been in fact expecting it as
soon as she had discreetly given her order to Lord Beltain Chidair
the night before, to remove Percy from Letheburg. The knight had
complied and disappeared, together with the village girl. And
Claere spent the dark hours of her sleepless night not in mere
contemplation of her personal eternity—as had been her pastime
every night since her life had been taken away from her together
with any other human function such as sleep—but also in the
visualization of the highly unpleasant consequences that would
manifest the next morning. She had expected the King to send for
her in anger as soon as he awoke, but instead there was noisy
action in the Palace, and a constant hive of activity in the square
below, illuminated by golden street lanterns and occasional torches
carried by running convoys of soldiers on their way to the city
walls. From what she could gather by inquiring from a harried
servant, there had been a breech in the wall, or possibly the walls
had merely manifested the strange disappearing act that Grial had
talked about. Whatever it was, new defenses and barricades were
hastily being erected in the vulnerable spots along the walls.
There was also mention of someone who had ridden outside, and was
seen from the battlements. . . . And, rumor had it,
there were many fallen dead, each one a true corpse, gone in the
same permanent way as had the old Queen.

Claere could only suppose it was Percy’s
handiwork.

In the pre-dawn twilight, with only a candle
and a useless warm fireplace illuminating the fine boudoir
allocated to her, Claere paced, moving her desensitized limbs like
clockwork. At some point a soft knock came, and she uttered: “Come
in.” She expected a Royal summons, but instead it was the tall slim
figure of a familiar dark man. Vlau Fiomarre entered her bedchamber
and stood at the door, columnlike and peculiar.

“You,” she said. It simply came out of her,
unexpected. And because she did not make the conscious effort to
draw in the breath needed to inflate her lungs for speech, the
utterance was a silently mouthed whisper.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he said. “But I
thought you might want company, before the King’s inevitable
summons came.”

“Marquis,” she said. “My thanks. Though I am
not sure what is to be said now. I am not afraid of Lethe, merely
resigned to an unpleasant exchange. There is nothing he can do to
hurt or punish me.”

“He can lock you up and forget where he
keeps the key. That would be the worst indeed,” Fiomarre said,
taking the steps to approach her. “However, you can be sure he will
have far better use for you. You are his leverage with the
Emperor.”

“My father will not stand for
blackmail.”

“Ah,” said Fiomarre, and the firelight cast
moving shadows along his austere face and its sardonic expression.
“But it is not blackmail he will wield, Your Imperial
Highness.”

“What then?”

“Love,” replied the dark man simply. And his
absolutely black eyes were full of demonic liquid flames, barely
contained shadow-fire.

And as she stared up at him, her great
haunting eyes in their sunken hollows watching him with their soft,
tragic intensity, he continued: “Love is the force with which he
will manipulate the Liguon, and it will be a subtle, legal
manipulation, quite within what is permitted a loyal vassal king
merely asking for his liege’s aid. Osenni will ask the Emperor to
come to the rescue of his own beloved daughter who happens to be
safely ensconced at Letheburg. ‘The King of Lethe is merely acting
as your protector now,’ he will insist, ‘with the forces of the
city and the entire Kingdom at your disposal.’ ‘This siege must be
broken on your behalf,’ he will inform the Emperor.”

“And my father of course will come.” She
nodded, her delicate cold neck moving stiffly to indicate her
understanding.

“So you see,” Vlau continued, “there will be
no need to hide you away or do anything that might appear punitive.
So, be not afraid for the dawn to arrive. . . .”

“Thank you. . . .” She
continued to look at him, at the strange, unblinking, boundless
depths of his gaze. “As I said, I am not afraid. But—had I
been—your words offer comfort indeed.”

“I regret . . . I can offer
little more.”

And he stood then, at her side, silently,
with infinite patience, while the windows slowly filled with a pale
bluish glimmer of dawn. It was infinite patience and possibly more,
to thus attend the dead.

Soon afterwards, the summons had indeed
come. The Infanta and Vlau Fiomarre were brought before the King of
Lethe in this same study. And here, in snatches, the variously
upset and discombobulated King poured forth his grievances. “How
could Her Imperial Highness let the girl go? At such a precarious
time as now! How, in all Heaven, with the dead rebels surrounding
the city, about to storm us at any moment, and
that peasant
being the only known and effective means of stopping them?”

But Clare found herself more artful and
resourceful than she imagined. “Your Majesty,” she retorted, with
just the right expression of innocent surprise. “Surely you realize
that I have sent the girl out of the city on purpose—with my loyal
knight to back her—on my precise orders to find my father and
beseech him for aid on behalf of Letheburg. As Your Majesty clearly
understands, no one else is as qualified to pass safely and travel
the countryside in such turbulent times. My knight will protect her
against any threat from the living, while she will take care of the
hostile dead. Together they will arrive safely and relay the
message to the Emperor.”

The King was somewhat mollified,
absentmindedly scratching the top of his head and skewing his
fastened wig in the process. “My dear child,” he said, in a much
milder voice. “It is a good and noble and caring thing you have
done, on behalf of all of us in this wretched, besieged city. But,
have you any notion how much we lose now, in our defense
capabilities? Could we not have just as well sent messenger
birds?”

“Birds may be easily intercepted,” she
replied, getting into her role. “A bird can be taken out with one
well-placed shot of a marksman, or slain by a hunting hawk. And now
that death has stopped, a bird may be damaged enough to prevent its
flight or simply lose its living desire to return home to feed. But
my Percy Ayren will be unstoppable.”

“Well, it
is
a clever decision on
Your Imperial Highness’s part, I must admit. But, we will send
birds nevertheless—must send them in fact, with more details than
merely a request for aid. Details of all things must be urgently
conveyed to His Imperial Majesty and others.”

Musing thus, King Roland Osenni called for a
secretary and all his advisor corps, until in the next hour the
room had filled with every courtier imaginable, and several aviary
cages were brought in.

And now, here they were.

Claere Liguon was given first courtesy to
dictate her formal letter to her Imperial Father. She did so, in a
calm voice, powered by her soft bellows of lungs. It was brief and
to the point, easy enough to fit in a tiny square of parchment to
be attached to the leg of a small carrier pigeon. She was “not a
Cobweb Bride, but as well as can be,” and “merely asked for
assistance on behalf of Letheburg and herself.”

After she was done, the secretary brought
the parchment bit up to her on a tray, and she signed her name with
awkward clenched fingers. The King nodded with an approving smile
to her and ordered the letter sealed and attached to the most
reliable carrier bird in the Imperial cage.

Next, the Infanta was courteously ignored as
the King dictated several more missives. The first was to the
Emperor, directly from the King of Lethe. “Your Imperial Majesty,
your loyal vassal Lethe begs for urgent aid, ere we fall. Your
Daughter and Letheburg are besieged by a dead army of Chidair, and
supplies are limited.”

The second letter was to Duke Vitalio
Goraque. “Gather all your military forces immediately and come to
the aid of Letheburg and Your King,” it said, and was signed,
sealed and attached to a bird from another, lesser cage, this one
of locally bred birds native to Goraque’s holdings and keep.

The next two letters were intended for the
neighbors—Morphaea and Styx. Neither of the two Kingdoms were on
particularly warm terms with Lethe, or were expected to respond in
time, but it was an automatic gesture invoking the bonds of common
solidarity to the Realm. “Your Neighbor and Friend, the King of
Lethe, begs your swift aid, at a time of siege and despair, on
behalf of the Emperor’s Daughter and Lethe,” it said, in duplicate.
The mention of the Infanta was intentional—if either Styx or
Morphaea needed a stronger reason for action. The young King
Augustus Ixion of Styx in particular might want to garner favor
with the Emperor by assisting his daughter in her plight. And
Morphaea’s King Orphe Geroard would come eventually, out of a sense
of general duty to the Realm.

With the birds from the appropriate cages
selected, and letters attached, the King sat back in his chair
while the bird trainers took up all the cages including the special
one with the outgoing missives, where all the selected birds were
placed together with their tiny loads. This cage would be taken up
to the rooftops and the pigeons released into the fair weather sky
of morning.

“Now, we pray and wait,” His Majesty
announced to the room.

“If I may point out, Your Majesty,” said one
military man of high command wearing the cobalt blue colors of
Lethe. “We have been rather fortunate so far. The enemy outside the
gates has not yet given the orders to attack. Hoarfrost appears to
be waiting for something.”

“Or someone,” said the King. “Yes, it
troubles me, this calm before the storm. Why has he not attacked?
Why not, especially, take the opportunity this past night when the
breach occurred and that peasant girl and his own son plowed
through their ranks so easily?”

“Could it be he
knew
it was his
son?”

“Knowing Hoarfrost, that would hardly make a
difference. Indeed, he would be likely to capture and thoroughly
punish his boy in a protracted execution.”