once again a messenger had arrived at The Jugged Hare with a letter from Corson, and as usual Steifann did not regard its contents as the exact unvarnished truth. In fact, he believed very little of it, and it was only with difficulty that the courier succeeded in convincing him that he and his people were indeed invited to witness the investiture of Corson brenn Torisk with the title and rank of Desthene, at the court of the Edonaris in Rhostshyl, upon the occasion of the solemnities attending the marriage-alliance between the noble Houses of Edonaris and Teiryn.
And Steifann still found it hard to believe, a few days later, when he stood in the great hall of the palace among the distinguished citizenry and aristocracy of Rhostshyl, watching Corson’s pert little friend Nyc confer honors and dignities upon those who knelt before her. She had somehow taken on the manner and mien of an empress, and it seemed impossible that she could ever have been a familiar visitor at his own tavern. Steifann felt that he must have dreamed it all, and that he was dreaming still.
He had always before refused to leave the Hare for more than a day, no matter how Corson had urged him to go off with her somewhere. This jaunt would take nearly a week in all, but it was not one of Corson’s fool escapades, after all.
This was an important event that would never come again. How could he fail her at such a time? In the end, he had determined not only to go but to do the thing handsomely-this once, he would close the Hare and give everyone a rest, to celebrate Corson’s good fortune. Walden had declined to join him, but Annin had accepted, curious to see the pageantry. And Trask had given him no peace till he’d agreed to take him along as well.
Everything had been arranged for them, at Nyctasia’s personal order. Her courier had escorted them to Rhostshyl, and seen to their lodgings. A page was assigned to look after their needs and serve as their guide at court. They had even been provided with suitable clothes for the occasion. But Steifann felt out of place and awkward nevertheless. He was uncomfortable with his fine, stiff new clothes and with the refined, stiff courtesy of those around him. He was too tall to go unnoticed in any crowd, and he was sure that these elegant gentlefolk were all staring at him, calling him a clumsy, mannerless oaf. And why hadn’t he had any sign from Corson since he’d arrived in Rhostshyl? When wine was offered to the company, Steifann partook of it very freely, and often.
Annin was indifferent to the behavior or the opinions of her fellow guests, but now that her curiosity had been satisfied she was beginning to grow bored with the spectacle, She wished that Nyc would get on with it, for the Hlann’s sake, so that she could be off to keep an assignation she’d made with a handsome steward for a tryst when the morning’s festivities were over. “It’s a shame Corson’s the last,” she complained. “We’ll have to wait through the whole lot, to see her.”
“It’s a place of honor,” Trask informed her with the air, of one who had long been thoroughly familiar with court procedure. He was already learning to mimic the manners of the nobles around him, and he felt neither uneasy nor restless in their society. He had exhausted Nyctasia’s page with his questions, then patronizingly promised to commend him to the Rhaicime, who, he explained, was an intimate friend of his household. The bewildered page had no idea what to make of Trask and his companions. They were clearly common working people, yet they were here as guests of the Lady Nyctasia herself, and they referred to her as
“Nyc,” speaking of her with the most shocking familiarity. It would seem that at least some of the strange stories about the Rhaicime must be true…
Corson would have been on hand to welcome Steifann herself had she not been a prisoner, all that morning, of a formidable array of maids and seamstresses who were intent on making scores of final preparations to her apparel and her person. Corson was bathed, scented, powdered and fussed over endlessly before she was permitted to dress in the precious gown of brittle cloth-of-gold and ivory lace. Her hair alone took hours to wash and arrange to her handmaids’ satisfaction. Corson would simply have braided it and pinned it up, but instead they somehow gathered much of it into an intricate net of pearls at the back of her head, and let the rest fall over her back, entwined with long skeins and loops of pearls. Another fillet of pearls circled her brow, and strands of them adorned her gown as well, fastened at each shoulder with an ivory clasp and falling gracefully across her breast just above the low-cut bodice.
Corson had been draped in layers of frothy undergarments that made the skirts of her gown stand out stiffly around her, like the wings of a golden pavilion. Then the long, trailing sleeves were stitched into place at last, making Corson feel more than ever like a ship in full rigging, becalmed by dead seas. She could not be expected to carry herself down a flight of stairs, not like this! It was impossible. It must be some mistake.
But then it was time to present herself to the assembly waiting in the half below.
Nyctasia had anticipated the sensation Corson’s appearance would make on the company, and she was not disappointed. Those who had disapproved of her raising her bodyguard to the rank of Desthene would never again question her judgment, she thought with satisfaction.
The sun was high in the sky, filling the tall windows with light, and Corson was bathed in a golden radiance as she began very slowly to descend the marble staircase. Her bearing was straight and graceful, her beauty undimmed by the splendor of her garments. She seemed to drift down the steps, holding up her billowing skirts slightly before her, with her long hands bent elegantly at the wrist, exactly as she’d been taught.
“The Lady Corisonde Desthene li’Rhostshyl brenn Torisk,” announced the herald.
An absolute silence fell on the hall at first, but it gave way almost at once to an excited murmur of admiration and speculation. Few of those present recognized this statuesque beauty as the sullen, suspicious guard who had been following Nyctasia for weeks like a grim shadow. Even Trask forgot himself so far as to clutch Steifann’s sleeve and gasp, “Asye’s teeth! Look at Corson!”
“Don’t be an idiot,” said Steifann. “That’s not-”
But, to his horror, it was.
Steifann had expected Corson to be preened and prettified for the celebration, in a fancy dress, but he had not been prepared to see her looking not only so breathtakingly beautiful, but so cold, so distant, so regal… She seemed to belong in this palace with its noble lords and ladies, not in an ale-house with a common taverner. He’d laughed at her when she’d insisted, “I could better myself if I chose!” But now she seemed to have chosen, and chosen the life of a lady, and a stranger. When she passed almost within arm’s reach of where he stood, she did not so much as spare him a glance, but glided past him like a proud young queen. Steifann felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse and forgotten to fall.
It was not pride of place, however, that lent Corson this air of majestic dignity-it was simply that she was rigid with terror. Fear of snarling her feet in her heavy hem made her move with a measured, stately tread, and dread of tearing the seams of her tight bodice kept her back stiff and unyielding. She held her head high and perfectly still, not daring to look to the left or right lest the pearls fall from her hair and clatter to the floor. Unthinking, unseeing, almost numb, Corson moved through the great hall like a puppet on strings, keeping her eyes fixed strictly on Nyctasia, in hopes that she could thus somehow cross the immeasurable distance between them and reach her without mishap. When she found herself kneeling at last before the dais where Nyctasia stood, she could hardly remember how she’d come there, and she was not at all sure whether she’d just performed her ritual curtsey or forgotten it entirely.
But she must surely have done it, for Nyctasia was smiling as she took her by the hand and bade her rise.
Nyctasia had finally abandoned her mourning-clothes, and now wore a velvet doublet of purest white, crossed with a gold sash from shoulder to hip, and fitted with golden trimmings. Her hose were of a spotless white as well, and her boots of white kid with golden buckles. A cape of white ermine was fastened at her throat with a golden clasp, and she was crowned, as usual, with her heavy gold chain of office.
“I shall look as sallow as a stirred egg,” she had complained to Corson, at the last fitting of these dazzling garments. “But vanity must be sacrificed to tradition on such an occasion, I suppose.”
And certainly she did took even more starkly pale than usual, but she tipped a wink at Corson as she took the golden medallion and chain from a white velvet cushion held by a page in white silk. After kissing Corson ceremoniously on both cheeks, Nyctasia slipped the medallion around her neck, whispering in her ear as she did so, “Now aren’t you glad you didn’t kill me?”
Corson blushed and bit back a laugh, remembering where Nyctasia had first asked her that question. But then trumpets were sounding, and she realized suddenly that the formalities were over. She had done her part. She was a lady, a Desthene…! In a moment she was surrounded by a throng of well-wishers and flattering courtiers, all lavishing extravagant compliments and congratulations upon her. If this was what it was like to be a lady, Corson thought, she would be well able to bear the burden.
Seeing Corson receiving the attentions of the nobility with seeming ease, Steifann felt more desolate and heartsick than before. He couldn’t get near her through the crowd that pressed around her; Annin had disappeared, and Trask was busy explaining to someone how very well indeed he knew the Lady Cori-sonde.
Steifann went in search of more wine, and found a great deal of it. By the time Corson had escaped from the circle of her admirers and sought him out, he was drunker than she’d ever seen him.
Trask and the page between them had managed to convey him to a small, empty antechamber, where they left him sprawled on a couch, senseless and snoring.
When they led Corson to him an hour later, he hadn’t moved a muscle.
She shook him indignantly. “Steifann, you rutting pig-where have you been?
You’re the only one I wanted to see, you bastard, and I couldn’t even find you!
You could have stayed in Chiastelm to get drunk and sleep all morning!”
Steifann opened his eyes on a vision of a golden goddess bending over him and cursing at him in a decidedly unladylike tone. “Corson,” he said thickly, “thank the Hlann-!”
Reaching for her, he tried to rise, misjudged the whereabouts of the floor, and fell heavily against her, nearly knocking her over.
Corson pushed him off. “Let go, curse you! You’ll tear the sleeve.”
Steifann sank to his knees and embraced her clumsily. “You’re so rutting beautiful, Corson,” he said brokenly, almost sobbing.
Corson’s resentment suddenly lost much of its force. Steifann had never said anything of the sort to her before, and his rather inelegant compliment was more welcome than all the polished praises of the courtiers. But she didn’t mean to let him off so easily as that. Not yet-“Well, why didn’t you come to congratulate me, eh?” she demanded, giving a spiteful tug at his hair. “Everyone else did, and they don’t even know me. They weren’t off somewhere getting stinking drunk while their friends were being presented at court.”
But Steifann wasn’t listening to her tirade. “Every time you go away, I’m so afraid you won’t come back,” he mumbled, burying his face in her skirts. “… so afraid… I thought I’d lost you to those lordly folk. You’re my treasure, Corson, you’re my jewel…”
Carson’s bodice seemed somehow to have grown even tighter. Her heart was so filled with joy and gratitude that for a moment she couldn’t breathe or speak.
Steifann would probably deny it all when he was sober, she thought, but she would remember every single word. Forgetting to be careful of her costly gown, she leaned down and helped Steifann to his feet. “Up you get, you sotted swine,” she said cheerfully. “You can’t lie about here all day-it wouldn’t be seemly.
You smell like you fell into the wine-press at harvest time.”
Steifann looked around the unfamiliar room, which seemed to be turning and moving away from him. “Where are we?” he asked suspiciously, swaying.
“Asye-!” Corson held him around the waist and pulled his arm over her shoulders.
“You’re worse than Nyc when she was drunk in Hlasven, and tried to raise a demon. And you’re a deal heavier, that’s certain. Come along, then, we’ll take the back, stairs. I’ve rooms of my own here now-you’d not believe how grand.”
Steifann leaned against her all the way, keeping his eyes closed much of the time, because of the unpleasant way the stairs were shifting. He trod on Corson’s train several times, nearly tripping her, but somehow she dragged him up the narrow stairway and reached her own bedchamber with only one strand of pearls broken. “Look!” she said proudly. “All this space just for me. I have plenty of room for you. Did you ever see such a bed? Nyc’s is even bigger.”
Steifann muttered something disrespectful about Nyctasia’s personal habits, adding sanctimoniously that everyone knew the aristocracy were nothing but a pack of brazen wantons and whoremongers. Then he collapsed on the bed, pulling Corson down with him.
Corson chuckled and kissed him. “They sewed this gown onto me-I don’t know how to get the thing off. But maybe you can help me, hmm?”
Steifann’s only answer was a thunderous snore.
He didn’t wake when Corson pulled off his boots and breeches, unlaced his shirt, and drew the bedclothes over him, laughing to herself. “Sleep well, love,” she said, kissing him again, and closed the curtains about the bed. Then she summoned a maid to set her gown to rights again, and went back downstairs to the celebration for a while, to garner more flattery and admiration.