The Summer Queen (102 page)

Moon traced the rough, random patterns of ancient glue-lines
on the table surface, as she considered the fact that she had no idea Sparks
had even been working on such a project. “I don’t know. He isn’t at the palace
much these days He’s ... he’s involved in some ... business venture, with some
of the Winters he used to be ... close to, when he was with Arienrhod.” Her
voice faded until it was barely audible.

“Ah,” Fate said, and that was all. She glanced away, her
eyes moving randomly around the room. Moon wondered what she was seeing, inside
her thoughts.

“But we didn’t come to spoil your day with dreary moments of
our lives that probably mean nothing,” Clavally said, forcing a smile. “Everything
changes, today’s tears are tomorrow’s absurdities, after all.”

“And speaking of change—” Moon matched Clavally’s tone with
resolute lightness. “I’ve been informed by the offworld government that the
Prime Minister and the Assembly will be paying one of their traditional visits
to Tiamat, in only a few months.”

“A few months?” Fate said, her disbelief showing. “Isn’t
that early? They used to come every ... twenty-two years, wasn’t it—?”

“It would have been a hundred years, if they hadn’t got the
stardrive back, remember.” Moon smiled. “They are so pleased to have us as a
new jewel in their crown that they are breaking with their own tradition, and
visiting us out of sequence.” Hei smile, and her voice, turned faintly ironic.

“Is that so?” Fate said, her own voice still full of
incredulity.

“So they say,” Moon answered. “What they mean may be another
matter. But the offworlders are encouraging us to put on our traditional
Festival for the arrival, ?to celebrate ‘the new union of our cultures,’ as
they put it. I’ve said we’ll f cooperate .... Why not, after all?” She felt
something stir inside her, like spring. “We might as well embrace change
gladly, as we’ve always done, in our way; (because it will have its way with us
whether we like it or not. That’s what the Festivals mean; that’s what they’ve
always been there to symbolize: to greet change _with rejoicing and celebration,
make something beautiful and alive of the moment, i hold in our memories.”

“Will there be a Mask Night?” Fate asked, leaning forward on
the table. “How could there not be?” Moon touched her hand, remembering the
mask of the Summer Queen. “We need to cast off our old lives with the proper
ritual, because |we’ve been handed our new ones already.”

“But it takes years—decades—to make enough masks for everyone.
We used to : work from one Festival to the next, whole families of maskmakers,
to make them i’all ....” Moon saw the sudden realization and loss that filled
Fate’s face. She fiwould not be among them, this time.

“We have manufactories now,” Moon said; her hand tightened
over Fate’s. ? “They can do a great deal of the repetitive work .... The masks
may not be such |f’works of art this time; but they can be ready. And by the
next Festival, they can be i ‘both. Tor has recommended a man named Coldwater
to me; she thinks he would be ‘“willing, and his production complex is
suitable, with some minor alterations. She also said it would be a way to reuse
some of the vast quantities of trash the offworlders have been making us such a
present of ....” She flicked the plass wrapper from her meat pie. “The rubbish
can be turned into raw material to produce mask forms. She thought that if you
were willing, you might advise Coldwater about supplies, and designs ....”

Fate’s face eased as she listened, as she adjusted her
expectations and considered the possibilities that change had set before her. “Yes
... yes, I could do that, I suppose. I—”

There was a knock at her door. They all turned, startled by
the sound. “This day is full of surprises,” Fate said.

Clavally started to rise from her seat; Moon stopped her, getting
up in her place. The other women let her go to the door, their surprise
unspoken but palpable. She reached for the handle, somehow certain that it was
Sparks who had come here to see Fate, to share with her all the things he had
not shared with his wife. Suddenly eager to tell him that another Change was
coming, that there would be another chance for them to cast off old lives and
try again .... She opened the door.

She sucked in her breath, staring at the face she found
there, so unexpectedly. “BZ,” she whispered. She saw his stunned disbelief, as
plain as her own.

“Moon—?” He glanced away, at the house-front; past her into
its interior, and finally back at her face. “Is this the home of Fate
Ravenglass?”

She nodded and moved aside, opening the bottom half of the
door to let him in. He was alone, without bodyguards, and not in uniform. He
wore a loose-sleeved tunic and pants, a dark cloak and a wide-brimmed hat; everyday
clothing for a Kharemoughi businessman or trader. She would not have glanced at
him twice, in the street. He looked at her in equal wonder, seeing her wearing
the native clothing that she still preferred, when the requirements of politics
and ritual did not force her to dress to meet the expectations of others.

He stepped into the room, blinking as his eyes adjusted to
the light, and to sharing the room with her. He looked away from her finally,
taking in the presence of Clavally and Fate.

“Justice Gundhalinu,” Fate said, her own voice remarkably
calm.

He smiled wryly. “You recognized my footsteps.”

“You aren’t in uniform. You’re wearing different boots,” she
said. “But I knew you. Welcome. What brings you here to my home?”

“A special delivery, Fate Ravenglass.” He started on across
the room. Moon followed mm, avoiding cats. She watched silently as he produced
something from inside his cloak, and set it on the glue-scarred tabletop. He
opened the container and took something out of it, very gently—a glittering
mesh web that resembled headsets Moon had seen the offworlders use. But she had
never seen one like this. “Here ....” BZ laid it against Fate’s forehead, spreading
its tendrils with infinite care; Moon watched in fascination as the spreading
filaments seemed to take on a life of their own, conforming to the shape of
Fate’s head.

Fate, who had sat motionless even while he touched her,
gasped suddenly and stiffened, her hand rising—not to pull the thing away, or
even touch it; but instead reaching out, to touch Gundhalinu’s chest. She rose
slowly from her chair as he took hold of her hand, steadying her until she
stood before him, staring up at his face. Her own face filled with wonder. “Justice
Gundhalinu ...” she murmured, “I can see you!” And now her hand rose to his
face, touching its features, verifying its reality.

“Good,” he said softly, in his faintly accented Tiamatan. “That’s
good .. that’s as it should be.” He smiled.

Fate turned away from him, moving uncertainly as she matched
the sudden input of her eyes to the feedback of her other senses. She faced
Moon, gazing at her for a long moment, and although her eyes were still like
shuttered windows, Moon knew by the expression on her face that she saw. Fate’s
tentative smile widened, growing strong with her belief. “Lady ... Moon ... I
remember you,” she murmured “Oh, yes, I do, my dear .... I remember the moment
when you came to my door, like a lost child .... I remember the moment when I
placed the mask of the Summer Queen on your head.” She moved forward to touch
Moon’s face in turn, almost caressingly, and Clavally’s, which she had never
seen. “You are much as I imagined you, Clavally Bluestone,” she said contentedly.
ClavaUy’s hand squeezed hers.

Fate turned back to Gundhalinu again, and this time her
hands rose to touch the shining filaments that lay against her skin. “I see so
much more clearly, this time. I never saw this clearly, when I had my sight
before the Departure. Even my dreams of how clearly I saw are not like this—”
Her hands trembled faintly.

“This is the best sensor system available that doesn’t
require surgery.”

“Thank you,” Fate murmured. Her restless eyes held his for a
long moment. “I had forgotten ....”

“My promise?” he asked. “I didn’t. But it took some time to
get a special request through the maze of bureaucratic red tape, I’m afraid.”

“Justice Gundhalinu,” Clavally said, asking the question
Moon’s lips refused to form, “why did you do this?”

He looked at her, as if for a moment he couldn’t imagine why
she would even ask such a thing. And then he glanced at Fate again, at her gaze
moving everywhere with glad distraction. “To right an old wrong.”

“Do you mean the Departure?” Moon asked; thinking he meant
all the things that they had lost, that had been taken away from them like Fate’s
sight when the Hegemony abandoned them.

“Oh, you beauties!” Fate leaned down to stroke the cats that
were winding around her legs. “Look at you, I never dreamed you were so many
colors ....”

BZ shook his head, his own eyes holding Moon’s, but filled
with a secret he did not share with her. “An older wrong than that—and a more
personal one.”

Fate straightened up again, with a squirming cat under each
arm. “You are a sibyl, Justice Gundhalinu,” she said, gazing at him, at the
trefoil hanging against his shirt. It was not a question. But he said, “Yes,”
his voice oddly strained.

Moon’s fingers touched her own sibyl sign, as she realized
all at once that everyone in this room was a sibyl. She watched BZ’s eyes
flicker from face to face, as if he had suddenly realized the same thing. His
gaze came back to her again, touching her face, her pale, plaited hair;
glancing down at her pragmatic native clothing. His hands tightened
unobtrusively over the deep-blue fabric of his simple, ordinary shirt. She saw
in his eyes then no Queen, no Chief Justice.

She remembered with sudden clarity a moment half a lifetime
ago, when she had been a stranger lost in this strange city-world at Festival
time. How his eyes had gazed at her then, and pierced her heart like light
through windowglass ....

He looked away abruptly. “I have to be getting back,” he murmured.
“My staff thinks I’m on my lunch break.”

Fate smiled at him, letting go of her cats. She held out her
hands in wordless farewell. He touched them briefly, as Moon watched in silent
envy. “Bless you,” Fate said.

He smiled back at her. “Fate’s blessing is what I’ll need,
to accomplish my work here,” he said. He nodded to them all, not meeting Moon’s
eyes again as he started toward the door.

“Wait—” Moon said. He turned back, waiting as she picked up
her untouched meat pie from the table. “Don’t leave without something to eat on
the way ... Justice Gundhalinu.” She put the food self-consciously into his
hands, an excuse to reach out and touch him, for even a moment, across the
impossible distance that separated them. His fingers closed over hers briefly,
warmly, as he took the food from her hands. He smiled at her, this time looking
directly into her eyes. She saw the hunger there, before he turned away again.
He looked back at her once more as he went out; he was still looking at her as
the door closed between them, cutting off her view.

She turned back again, slowly, to find both Clavally and
Fate watching her. She felt her face redden; looked down, away from their
unspoken curiosity.

“He is a good man,” Clavally said at last, with what sounded
like surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, especially in an
offworlder who has so much power.”

“They really aren’t so different from us,” Moon murmured.
She pushed at her sleeves, raising her head again. “They’re only human. They
want the same things we want ....”

Fate shook her head, her face caught in a strange expression
as she looked at Moon. But then she looked down at her own hands, turning them
over and back, over again. She moved away, going cautiously across the room to
the painted wooden storage chest below the diamond-paned window. She raised the
lid and began to search through its contents. With a soft exclamation she
pulled something out, and held it up. Light flashed, the random beam spearing
Moon’s eye. She realized that it was a mirror Fate was holding.

As she watched, Fate turned toward the light to look at her
own reflection, which she had not seen even dimly in almost twenty years. Her
hand rose slowly, visibly trembling, to touch the deep lines of age on her
face, the whiteness of her hair, that had not been that way when she had last
looked into a mirror. Her hand fell away again. Still slowly, carefully, she
placed the mirror back in the chest and closed the lid. Turning to face them,
she found in their eyes the affirmation of what she had seen with her own. “I
still feel like the same person I was before. Where did this body come from ...
?” She spread her hands helplessly.

Moon glanced down; felt Clavally do the same beside her. She
made herself look up again, seeing the woman she had always known, standing
suddenly in a different light. “Fate,” she said, as realization struck her. “Mask
Night—”

Fate straightened, her face brightening as her thoughts left
the last Festival, coming back into the present, and reaching toward the
future. “Yes, of course—” she said, starting back toward them across the room,
holding up her hands. “I can work again, on my own. Only a few masks, but very
special ... My dear, you shall have one fit for a Queen.”

“... as you can see on your displays, the record clearly
supports Citizen Wayaways. The data shows both a desire among the people and an
historical precedent for replacing the Summer Queen with one chosen by the
Winters on our return. This is usually done during what they call the Festival,
when they celebrate the Prime Minister’s visit ....”

Echarthe’s data flashed on the screen in front of Gundhalinu
where he sat, surreptitiously folding a scrap of food wrapper into smaller and
smaller triangles. He looked up, his hands hidden below the edge of the torus
table that dominated the council chamber. His eyes touched briefly on the
members of the Judiciate and his government staff seated around him; he
pictured the Summer Queen’s Sibyl College and the Tiamatan civic leaders who
had once occupied those same seats. Only one figure was unchanged from that
image to this one ... Kirard Set Wayaways.