Day Seven (Chapter Six - Interlude and Conversation)

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

Pear Tree

"My Lady," I said respectfully.
"My Lord," she replied, frostily.
It appeared she had heard Mitchenrall's comments the previous night, or had them reported to her.
"I hope that you are well this morning."
"I hope you are well also, now." She answered very fast, tumbling over the end of my sentence, and then fell silent. There was reproach in her words, but none on her face or in her voice. She gestured back with her racket to the game her ladies-in-waiting had paused at my approach.
"I'm very sorry if . . ."
"My Lord, we are in the middle of a game"
I nodded, defeated, and retired in some confusion.

I had awoken with a fierce hangover, and lain in bed, my breakfast untouched, watching Doctor Aldecrass mixing me something to settle my stomach. The old man's hands, moving slowly and surely, mesmerized me. He mixed tiny, precise amounts of substance together at the bottom of a tall green-glass beaker, judging each amount with experience and skill. I envied him his light touch, his instinctive knowledge of just how much of each ingredient to use to produce the best results. If i could have half his deftness of touch in my own life, I thought, I would be less unsure.

We had attended the opening of "The Dance of Knives" at the Grand Theatre of Khidremar together. Phlogistini was there, along with most of the leading lights of the social scene and not a few of the Professors. It was a very bright affair, and somewhere in the middle of it a play occurred, although I doubt too many people paid that much attention to it, being caught up in the excitement of politics. I thought that it was well acted, but that the set-pieces were a little overpowering. The play, I mean.

Afterwards we had returned to the town-estate of the Margravine Mitchenrall, for drinks. Mitchenrall employs only Scatterlings; this put me on edge immediately. I try very hard not to discriminate against them, but they make me uneasy for some reason. I go out of my way to be respectful to them, but I'm not entirely sure they notice. I drank a little more than a should have done - excellent sherry and some find brandy with friends is usually a more positive experience for me. The only topic of conversation was the Rham-Baldi Cup, of course, and I have little enthusiasm for sport at the best of times. Even the rest of the Debating Society were more interested in situation reports, discussing winds and weather and rope with an enthusiasm normally reserved for discussions about ethics. I drifted, here and there, greeting my peers. I spoke briefly with Datchworth about an expedition, and exchanged pleasentries with some of the Faculty. I discovered that fireworks were planned, and made a mental note not to miss them.

My Lady was the centre of a flock of gossiping Ladies belonging to other Lords, and so I dared not intrude, and when it was time to leave I was already too inebriated to be able to do much other than embarass myself. We travelled back to the estate in separate carriages, and it took the coachman and two of the porters to get me poured into my bed.

It was all down to the lack of an heir, all the frostiness and the careful talk. Mitchenrall had merely pointed out the obvious, in his loud voice. I tried to shush him, told him it was none of the business of anyone except myself and My Lady. He corrected me, of course. My family is one of the oldest of the Landgrave families. I have a responsibility to ensure that it continues after I am dead. He pointed to Minrothad, my brother, as an example of the sorts of sacrifices that might be neccessary.

Halfway to the library I froze in the corridor, a hazy recollection. Had Mitchenrall insulted My Lady, and had I challenged him to some sort of duel? I would have to ask someone. I did hope that I was not due to be duelling any time soon. It was the Season of Lord Rhadamanthus, after all. A time for reflection, and excessive spending, not for competing. I hoped it would not be swords this time, if it was to be a duel.

* * *

My Lady and I met for dinner in the Hall of Shimmering Crystal. It would not have been my choice for a quiet meal; the way the crystals echo and whisper when one speaks can be very disconcerting. In honour of the Season of Lord Rhamdamanthus there were dark green jungle flowers threaded through the crystals, themselves born of some deep red rock. They echoed the gentle chiming of the crystals in a way that should have been soothing, but was not. As has been the pattern for our meals for these last three months, we exchanged a few pleasentries and then ate in silence. Part-way through the third course, I had had enough.

"Last night. . . " I began, putting my fork down for a moment to look down the table towards her.
"My Lord, I am not interested in discussing your regrettable behaviour last night." Prim. Proper. Slightly snippy.
"No, that's not what I meant, I'm not interested in discussing my behaviour last night, either."
"Then I will be instructed by you; what are we to discuss instead?" She met my eyes, her own vacant and empty of any thought. She put her fork down and arranged her hands in her lap in a parody of the dutiful wife. I exercised my self control and did not grind my teeth.
"My Lady, you must have heard what Mitchenrall was saying; the entire ballroom heard."
"I must have heard it, must I? If you say so, My Lord, I will be instructed by you in this matter."
I ground my teeth.
"My Lady, we cannot keep avoiding this topic; it will continue to haunt us until we turn and address it."
"What topic is that, My Lord?"
I slammed my hand down on the table scattering two glasses and a small bowl of water. A servant moved forward to mop it up, but I dismissed them all with quick thanks. When they had left the room I stood up and addressed my comments again to my wife.

"We have been married for three years, My Lady. Three years."
"And what a delightful three years they have been." Her words stung me, fierce as blows.
"I have tried to be a good husband to you . . . " I could hear the whine in my voice and hated it.
"You have been a more than adequate husband, My Lord." She hurt me.
"This matter will not go away, we have to speak of it, discuss plans. I cannot do this alone."
My Lady stood up.
"I am quite overcome." She said, calmly. "The hour is late and I will retire to bed."
She swept from the room, leaving me with my mouth open. As the doors closed behind her, I picked up one of the amber-crystal decanters from the table and smashed it, hard, against the far wall. The deep purple wine within spattered over a priceless wall-hanging and two deep green-leaved plants that shivered their leaves reproachfully.

* * *

Later that evening, I sat on the roof with Issel, watching the stars - inasmuch as they can be seen from Khidremar, where the phenomenon of night-time lights and filth are making it increasingly hard to see the sky properly, even at night. Luckily, my estate is in a good position and does not suffer from the stink too much, except in Summer. It was a cool night. If I strained my ears I might hear the chorus of frogs in the nearby park. Issel and I were sat in companionable silence. He and his family have been tied to mine since the days of the Emancipation. When a mob of angry slaves came to my ancestor's house, wielding rough tools and fire, he met them on his porch, calmly, with a glass of wine, and asked them if they might be prepared to enter his service for a good wage and two weeks of holiday in each year, as if nothing had happened, as if they were there to interview for employment. My family weathered things much better than others, and our rise to prominence can be traced from that brave ancestor's decision to speak to his fellow men like equals, rather than like possessions.

"I don't know what to do, Issel. Other houses in the Landgrave are starting to comment. My Lady is not popular anyway, for obvious reasons."
Issel nodded, and offered me a pipe, but I declined. I do not smoke much, and I had no interest in dulling my senses tonight. I needed to think.
"It seems to me, sir . . ." He fell silent. I encouraged him with a grunt. In the distance, towards the University, a deep purple glow appeared and launched itself upwards, hundreds of feet into the air, and exploded. The detonation washed over us, loud even from this distance. I sighed in pleasure, and relaxed a little. A moment later red sparks and streaming yellow stars followed their older brother up towards the sky. It distracted Issel.
"What are they celebrating tonight, sir?"
"I don't know. I think it might be someone's birthday. Or else someone has died. Or they just have too many fireworks. You know how they are."
A whirling red spinning dervish thing the size of two ox-carts span upwards from the University, hung in the air, detonated, and rained what looked alarmingly like red-hot lumps of phosphorous down onto distant buildings. Wordlessly, Issel handed me two thrones. I accepted them graciously and dropped them into my purse.
"What were you saying, Issel, about the problem?"
"Well, sir, it's hardly my place to speak out of turn but . . ."
"Oh get on with it man and stop fishing for compliments."
"Maybe if yourself and the Lady shared the same bed things would take their natural turn."
We had tried sharing a suite of rooms in the early days of the marriage, but my noctural wanderings had startled her, and her insistence that the suite was always too hot for her, even at night, clashed bitterly with my desire for warmth. We were from two different worlds; mine warm and hers cold. It would be snowing in Bastopole, I mused, on a tangent.
"I don't see that happening any time soon; we can barely speak to one another as it is, without one or the other becoming angry. Not the right atmosphere in which to discuss bedroom matters."
"How were things between you when you were courting?"

Issel had not been in the City when My Lady and I married; I had needed him in Orinna, arranging the purchase of a large amount of red quicksilver to sell in the markets of Tri-Erian. We had made a sizable profit that had just about helped pay for the excesses of the wedding and the week-long reception afterwards. Allacious, my reeve, still shuddered at the thought of it, but a Landgrave must marry in style. I think that was my father's last piece of advice before he died. Mind you, he'd thought he was talking to his deceased sister at the time, so it's anyone's guess what he really meant by it.

"We didn't really court. It was all a little rushed, what with Minrothad . . . having gone to Isopolis and all."
It still pained me to speak of it, a wound three years old. Father had nearly ruined the family, with unwise investments. Creditors had come calling the day after the funeral. Minrothad was the elder brother, and the heir, and he had borrowed outrageously from the Bankers of Isopolis. When it came due time to pay them back at punishing interest, he laughed in their faces, and defaulted, losing his soul to them, but keeping the money and the security it had bought. He had been a wily, wily man my brother Minrothad. They took him away in a black iron ship. The family survived - prospered even - but had lost it's scion. I was named his heir. There was some scandal, but the legality of it all was quite assured. I had long ago grown used to people comparing me to my vanished sibling; I did not do things the way he did, I did not have his spark. I had accepted that.

"You must have shared a bed at some point." Issel sounded amused, as he sucked specualtively on his pipe.
"Well, of course. Of course we did. And very nice it was too."
"And, well not to be too prurient my lord, was everything satisfactory."
I couldn't help it; I was actually blushing. Luckily it was too dark for Issel to see. I (veteran of a hundred debates on the floor, and two hundred more at least in the taproom and the study, and at least two where knives were drawn)cleared my throat once or twice, failing to find the words. Stumbling.
"Yes, all quite . . . in order. Satisfactory. Yes."
"Well then, you must have done something to annoy her. When my Carashan is in an uproar with me, I find a small present usually brings her round. Some chocolates, or ribbons, or perhaps a new dress. The greater the argument, the greater the present, the greater the reward."

My mind began to work slowly. A present. This was the Season of Lord Rhadamanthus, and a time for giving presents to loved ones. A plan began to form.

We shifted our position on the roof, our conversation briedly abandoned to watch with interest a five-hundred-foot-tall fountain of green, blue and purple fire exploring the sky near the Unviersity. I fancied I heard distant screams. It seemed to be getting bigger.
"Is that supposed to be happening?" asked Issel.
"I have no idea. Maybe we should go inside, just to be safe."
We made it into the Eastern Attic just in time to avoid any unpleasentness.

(some days later)

I lead My Lady through the house, barely able to keep my excitement reined in. She had, after much cajoling, agreed to wear the feathered mask I had presented her with, the eye-holes covered in thick gauze - thin enough to allow a little light for navigating, too thick to prevent her from seeing anything. I had been at work on my surprise for the better part of two weeks, while around me the nights became cooler (although never cold) and the city began it's preparations for the Feast of Lord Rhadamanthus.

She was impatient with me, I knew. But it would be worth it.

I opened the door into the west-wing ballroom. It was cold, there, compared to the rest of the estate. The workmen had torn up the wood-panel floor, knocked down several of the walls, reconstructed the roof. There was still a little scaffolding on the outside of the great frosted-glass windows that now ran the length of the east and west walls. Condensation had formed on the underside of the glass dome that now covered the roof. It should have been a work of months, I was told. But with sufficient money, months become weeks.

She wore a deep magenta dress with great skirts that rasped and echoed as she walked along the corridor with me. I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and began my speed:
"My Lady, I have heard you several times complain that the climate here in Khidremar is not agreeable to you. With that in mind I have made this for you."
I reached over and removed her blindfold, letting her see what I had caused to be created for her.

I think it was an arboretum. Twelve fruit trees, one for each season we had been married, some exotic fruit from her home Realm. Fluttering between them, though, were the real prizes. I do not choose to traffic in live animals of any sort, I find it distasteful. I had sent Issel running around teh city until he had found an artificer capable of working on the small-scale I demanded. They were made of metal, my birds, set with tiny gemstones and animated with a little heart of red quicksilver and stranger ingredients. They even sang, twittering, their voices provided by perfectly shaped crystals farmed by the children of the moon. Each voice had cost twice as much again as the little mechanical treasures themselves; the children of the moon would accept no more for their crystals, though I think they were worth every thronem, and more besides.

The setting sun twinkled through the windows of the west, and I gestured to the arboretum, turning to smile at My Lady and shocked to see a tear glinting in her steely eye before she slapped me across the face. I was stunned. A bird began to sing, behind me, in the high branches of one of the trees, and it's beautiful song hurt me as much as the stinging hand to my face.

"My Lady . . . what . . . is my gift not to your liking?"
She stared at me with cold fury. I was speechless. Never have I seen her so angry, so furious. For a moment, even though she was unarmed, I felt a brief concern for my life.
"What are you thinking?" She asked me, her voice calmer than her demeanour supported.
"It . . it is a gift, this is the season of Lord Rhadamanthus after all, and I thought that as you are missign your home, I might bring it to you in a fashion . . ." I stuttered and faltered. How could she do this to me, how could she so effortlessly reduce me to a stuttering boy, drive all my speechcraft from me, with just a few words and an angry look. I was a Landgrave, dammit!

"Do you think me naive? My homesickness is not your concern, even if I were homesick, which I am most assuredly not. I see through your design. You try to lure me back into your bed with gifts. This is that Issel's idea, if I am any judge. Well, My Lord, I am a daughter of Bastopole not some . . . some trollop to be placated with a ribbon and a few pretty words. Do you think that if you pay me enough I will give you the heir you are so desperate for?"
I reeled back as if she had slapped me again. There was such hatred in her voice, it was an assault.

"If the garden is not to your liking . . ." I tried.
"The garden is very beautiful. How much did it cost? A thousand? Five thousand thrones?"
It had cost at least twice times that.
"How many mercenaries could you support for five thousand thrones, My Lord?"
I had not expected this. She was challenging me, and I was rapidly getting my feet under myself again, automatically looking for a weakness, evaluating her arguments. Were we . . debating? No, it wasn't quite like that. But something new was happening, if unexpected. I was still on the defensive.
"At standard hiring rates I could have five-hundred for a month, but I hardly see . . ."
"Is Phlogistini intending to make a play for the Throne?"
Her questions confused me. Since word drifted back to us of events in Lyriliheen, the entire city has been abuzz with talk of "Emperor" Adrastus Phlogistini, and how the Patrician will make slavery illegal within the Empire if he ascends to the Throne. Behind us, in the lengthening shadows, two birds started to call to each other in a delightfully artless display of mechanics and red quicksilver. Their mechanical mates joined in, a lilting and fluttering round that would have delighted me at another time.

"What do the Patrician's Imperial ambitions have to do with my gift for you, Lady?"
She shook her head, as if she were exasperated by speaking to a child. She looked back at the garden for a moment, and seemed to consider her words carefully. This was not the response I had hoped for when I made the arboretum a gift to her, but at least she was speaking to me. When she spoke her voice was sad.

"You Kothians. You don't understand how fragile your world is, do you? If Phlogistini opposes the Duke, do you think Khidremar will be better served by a beautiful arboretum, or by five-hundred trained mercenaries? Or a war galleon? Or a castle?"

I started to reply but she cut me off, and placed one light hand on my arm. She looked into my eyes and I could not read her soul. It was like staring into a shivering, dark mirror. We stood thus for a moment, just a moment, and something passed between us. Then she broke away, with a last regretful look at the arboretum.
"My lord, I am sorry. Your gift is very nice, but I am not to be captured thus, with expensive gestures, no matter how pretty they are. I am a daughter of Bastopole, and such things are not for me."

She took her leave. I locked the door to the arboretum with a copper key, closing the great doors on the sound of a love-bird calling mournfull for it's mate. I had the key hung from a fine platinum chain, and delivered to her chambers without comment. Let her enjoy the gift if she wished, whether she accepted it or not.

I returned to my chambers. I had a campaign to plan. When it had been a matter of heirs and of making the Landgrave's happy, I could disregard it. Now, though, it was a challenge, and I have never been one to turn away from a challenge.



Thanks first to pax_draconis for permission. This isn't quite what I wanted, but hopefully it'll polish up better. Normal service resumes shortly. I think Khidremar is much warmer than Bastopole, but I can't find any of the Realm details I had from GD, so I'm guessing.