Labyrinth Gate (31 page)

“He must ha’ drowned, your ladyship,” said footman James as she knelt, heedless of her fancy gown and fur-lined cloak, on the muddy bank. “There’s not a mark on him.”

“Nonsense.” She reached out with a hand to touch the slack face tenderly. When her fingers met the water-pale skin, her own skin took on a kind of nimbus, a faint, luminous glow. The unscarred throat of the corpse shimmered slightly, like a heat mirage rippling in the distance, and steadied back to whiteness.

In a neat line around the curve of his neck, the skin was parted as a piece of meat parts to the cut of a butcher knife. It was as clean as immersion in the river could leave it; all the blood had drained out.

The footmen gathered above gasped and muttered to each other. Lady Trent withdrew her hand, and the corpse’s neck appeared clear and unmarked again. She rose, leaning on her cane. In that movement her years sat clearly on her, and footman James had to help her up, one hand solicitous on her elbow as he escorted her back to the carriage.

“We will bring him to Vole House,” she ordered. “Have Mistress Housekeeper lay him out as is proper, and Master Butler to inform his heir and relatives of his death. By drowning.”

It was a silent trip back, with Lady Trent seated on one side of the carriage, Lord Felton’s body propped up by a footman on the other. When they arrived at the entrance of Vole House, the initial flurry of activity—summoning Mistress Housekeeper, calling for housemaids to open the back parlour for the laying out of the body, sending a kitchen boy out to Felton House—kept Lady Trent separated from her butler for some minutes, so that when a footman opened the door into her front parlour so that she could sit for a time in quiet, she was unprepared for her visitor.

She stopped on the threshold of the room. For an instant, like a hallucination, she seemed to blaze with a luminosity that bathed the dim room in a suffusion of light. As quickly it was gone, and she appeared a frail old woman who has seen the death of too many of the dearest companions of her youth.

“Your highness,” she said, curt. She sketched the merest fragment of a curtsy.

The Regent turned from her contemplation of the fire and the painting above the mantel of Our Lady and Her Son. “Lady Trent.” She too wore a lace veil. She swept it aside with one hand. “I will be brief. By the powers vested in me as regent in this realm, I confine you to the walls of Vole House for the rest of this year. You may have correspondence with no one, may receive no visitors, none of your peers or relatives or acquaintances.”

Lady Trent waited a moment to speak. In that time she set her cane firmly against a chair, removed her cloak and hat with neat preciseness, and inspected the stained hem of her gown with what appeared to be disapproval. “And in three months, at the Festival of Lights, you will lift this ban?” Her voice showed no sign of weakness.

“It is likely,” replied the Regent.

Lady Trent smiled, with irony. “How carefully you phrase it. If your work progresses and, I assume, succeeds. But meanwhile, how am I to be expected to live under such circumstances?”

“You can spread it about that you are quite ill. As for day-to-day living, your servants of course can attend to tradespeople and those of their own class as needed. I do not intend to deprive you of your supper, Lady Trent, nor your servants of their no doubt well-deserved half day off.” Her tone was halfway between sarcasm and amusement. “I believe you understand the limits of what I intend.”

For the first time Aunt Laetitia met the Regent’s gaze, and neither woman looked away. “I understand quite well, your highness. Should I be grateful that you have spared me?”

“It is a pity,” said the Regent in a ruminative tone, “that you never followed your gifts as far as you could have. I have no intention of attempting a struggle against them now. You might have been an unparalleled mistress of the arts, Lady Trent.”

“I might have been,” she conceded, “but I did not have such a lust for power that I was willing to cut out my heart to achieve it.”

“A great loss.” The Regent lifted her hand to her veil, and paused with her fingers poised in the act of drawing it across her face.

“I should think that would depend on what you valued,” replied Aunt Laetitia. She reached for the bell pull and eased it down. “Master Butler will show you out.”

The Regent veiled her face. “Remember, Lady Trent, this house will be watched, and the movements of your servants as well. Do not attempt to send them to the home of some relative or friend. I cannot be duped by such stratagems.”

The butler appeared, bowing, and Regent left, her skirts sweeping the floor as she went.

“Don’t be so sure,” murmured Lady Trent as the door shut behind her. She rang again. “Ah, yes, Master Butler. Do any of the people in my employ ever frequent the Crusader Inn? It is in—” She hesitated.

“The Hutment district, my lady,” he supplied. “Be assured, my lady, that no one under my supervision is allowed to harbor any radical leanings …” He hesitated in his turn.

“But one, or two, have been known to go there? Good.” She smiled. “I have surprised you. But it is always a mistake to discount that class which provides the foundation on which ours lives. I have learned that much in my life. I have a number of orders for you, but foremost among them, when next it is likely that these ‘one or two’ might go to that inn on their half-day off, they must come to see me first.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Very well. I will need Miss Botherwell to bring my mourning blacks to me, and then I will attend Lord Felton’s body in the back parlour until his people arrive to take him.” Her eyes shone with the temper of best steel. “Your death will be avenged, Henry. I promise that.”

O
NLY TWO INCIDENTS MARRED
the Harvest Fair holiday. When the members of the earl’s party rose that morning, they found the entire valley in bloom: an unseasonable flowering of white climbing roses, spread across the rubble and slopes of the ruins in such profusion that it could have been the welcoming decorations set out in preparation for the visit of the queen.

When they gathered at midday for the mile walk to festivities at the laborer’s camp, just south over the containing ridge, Kate was discovered missing. The children found her at the Marketplace. She had, it transpired, gone out early with a lantern to dig deeper down the central stairwell, and had slipped on a damp corner of loose dirt, spraining her ankle. Cursing all the while, she endured without much grace Julian’s sardonic commiserations as he carried her back to camp. In the end they put her on the gentlest mare and Lucias led her along the trail that led to the other camp. She went with as much dignity as she could muster, and sat meekly in her chair throughout the festivities.

“We’re no match for her, Kate,” said Chryse with a mock sigh as, late in the day, they watched Charity crowned Harvest Queen. A very self-conscious and reluctant Thomas Southern was voted King by the unanimous vote of the workers. They crowned him with a wreath of wheat and berries and seated him in a chair next to Charity.

“What do you mean?” Kate sat with her foot propped up on a stool. Chryse had sat next to her throughout the afternoon’s games and feasting, and now, as dusk lowered, they chatted softly as the Harvest Sovereigns were invested and a large circle of lanterns lit and hung about the dancing area.

“They look well together, don’t they?”

Kate nodded. Charity’s fair, pliant beauty set off the obstinate handsomeness of Thomas Southern’s face to perfection.

“Just that with Charity here, none of the rest of us could ever hope to win such a contest.”

Kate chuckled. “Do I detect a note of envy? You’re well-looking enough, but you don’t carry the expectation of beauty around with you like she does. Personally, I think her hair is a rather insipid blonde, whereas yours is like real gold. Almost,” she added with another grin, “as beautiful as the earl’s hair.”

“Flatterer. She must be hot bundled up in all those clothes. She looks positively rotund.”

“You
are
in a cat’s mood today, aren’t you?”

Chryse smiled, looking smug in her trim, tailored gown and matching military-style jacket, the legacy of the treaty of Amyan, the signing of which had caused military fashions to go out of style and Julian’s sister to consign the outfit to her closet.

Kate’s eye wandered back to Thomas Southern. “Wouldn’t have me, you know,” she added conversationally.

“What?” Chryse laughed. “You didn’t proposition him?”

Kate looked offended. “Of course I did. Just look at him. There’s something about an abstentious man that attracts me. I suppose it’s the challenge. But damn me if he isn’t as staid as he makes himself out to be.” Chryse was still laughing, pausing only to brush a tear from the corner of one eye. “It’s all very well for you,” continued Kate, “having Sanjay, but what am I to do? His Blackness is obviously quite out of the question. And Lucias—well, even
I
have some compunction about despoiling innocent young virgins.”

“What about Julian?” asked Chryse, suddenly acutely curious.

“Julian?” Kate’s expression bore honest surprise. “Why would I proposition Julian? Lady, but we’ve known each other since we were babes-in-arms.”

“Haven’t you ever—I mean, ever even been attracted to him?”

Kate shrugged. “We grew up together, as close as two foals in a paddock, having no one else to play with. So of course it fell out that the spring we both turned sixteen—” She smiled. It was an expression that softened her face to a remarkable degree. “That was a happy time, that spring and summer. Then in the fall Julian was sent off to university, and I was banished to my grandfather’s estate for expressing a desire to study medicine. We saw each other next—” She shook her head. “—six years later. By that time I was well on my way to being disinherited, and Julian was … well on his way to having a reputation as a cicisbeo of married ladies.”

“Tell me, Kate,” said Chryse slowly, turning her face away to hide her expression, “does Julian often take married women as his lovers?”

“He
only
takes married lovers. I don’t know why. Baste me and burn me—” Her tone altered abruptly. “The earl is dancing with his wife!”

“To a waltz!” exclaimed Chryse, as startled by the familiar dance as by the sight of Maretha gliding past in her husband’s arms. “I can dance this!” She got to her feet. “I’m deserting you, Kate. This is too good of an opportunity to pass up. Have you seen—there he is.”

She hurried over to Sanjay. He was standing to one side, smiling as he watched Julian attempting to teach Pin how to waltz, an effort hampered by Pin’s hiccoughs of excitement at this attention from her hero. Mog glowered jealously at them from his seat next to Lucias.

“Shall we dance?” Chryse asked, and Sanjay accepted.

At first they waltzed in silence. The laborers had cobbled together a quintet of amateur musicians from their ranks, and the music was a little rough, but sincere.

“I should have offered to play with them,” said Chryse, and fell silent again, watching the earl and Maretha through the other couples.

The earl stared down at his wife, and the only word Chryse could think of to describe his expression was “hungry.” Maretha danced with her eyes lowered, but now and again, as if she could not help herself, she glanced up, then down again as quickly. At those moments, the earl’s hand would shift at her waist, Maretha’s at his shoulder, in a way that somehow combined the standoffishness of strangers and the intimacy of lovers.

As the dance ended, Chryse followed Sanjay off into the shadows beyond the light of fire and lanterns.

“How long do you suppose a marriage can go on without being consummated?” she asked as they strolled through the quiet of the laborers’ camp, the sounds of dancing and laughing and festivity fading behind them.

“It’s too late now,” said Sanjay quickly. “But if I’d known how you felt, I wouldn’t have insisted.”

She made a face at him. “Where are we going?”

“I have a fancy to hike up the ridge and see how the valley looks in the moonlight.”

“What did I do to deserve you? That’s a mile away!” Nevertheless she did not halt or even slacken her pace. “Good thing it’s a temperate night.”

“What makes you think that the earl and Maretha haven’t consummated their marriage?”

“Because she told me.”

“They don’t act like lovers,” he said, thoughtful, “but then, Julian and Kate often interact in such an intimate way that you might suspect they’re lovers, but they aren’t.”

“I worry,” said Chryse in a subdued voice. “I worry about what he really wants of her.”

“I wonder.” He lapsed into a silence made deep by his contemplation.

The trail led into a light scattering of trees. The first fallen leaves rustled under their feet, and they walked for a long time just listening to the rhythm of their strides on the path.

“Sometimes,” said Sanjay at last, taking her hand, “I feel that I wouldn’t care if we never went back.”

The height of the ridge opened before them, and they scrambled up the slope and arrived gasping to look out over the valley called the labyrinth gate. Gasping, now, not just from being out of breath. In the twilight of Harvest Fair evening, the city had come to life below them.

Chryse did not see so much as hear it; festival music, bright songs of thanksgiving, but also solemn music that inspired dread as well as glory. And from another direction, festive dance music. She slipped her hand out of Sanjay’s and, slowly at first, tried a few, tentative steps, as if by finding the dance she could understand the music.

Sanjay scarcely noticed her separating from him. The entire city was laid out before him: the simplicity of its structure, its architecture, as profoundly beautiful as any natural object’s, formed to nature’s laws, magnificent and cruel. The buildings, the thoroughfares, were suffused by light, glowing from within like a translucent, whorled shell. They stood for a long timeless space.

“It’s a beautiful place,” said Sanjay at last, “and a terrible one.”

As if triggered by his words, the vision faded, and they saw only shadow in the great hollow below, the dull mirror of the pair of lakes that surrounded the valley reflecting a strange pattern of stars.