Cobweb Bride (35 page)

A few minutes later, Lizabette approached the Infanta, and with an awkward curtsey offered a hot mug to the Marquis Fiomarre.

The black knight sat near the fire, wrapped in his borrowed blanket. Even in the warm golden light of the flames, his skin seemed ashen white, and he looked again near-death. The bruises around his face and forehead were more swollen and blue than before, but some appeared to be healing.

Percy handed him a full mug of tea, and he took it wordlessly, and drank. She watched the muscles of his exposed throat moving with each swallow, and the woolen gambeson, without the external layer of armor, covering his wide shoulders.

“When you’re done, get in the cart,” she said curtly, and then moved away.

“As my lady wishes . . .” he said with a twinge of mockery, in her wake.

T
hey all huddled together for warmth that night, lying in the cart. Even Vlau Fiomarre had crawled in, because at this rate he knew he was freezing far beyond repair—and yes, he still expected he would need the use of his limbs, even if death would not take his frozen mortal flesh. And indeed, the Infanta insisted he stay alive, by giving up her own usual spot there, saying that she no longer mattered, and even if her body froze to rigor, it was not anyone’s concern. She also insisted that her dark burgundy wool cloak was given to Emilie for additional warmth.

The dead girl thus sat down on the ground near the wheels of the cart, directly in the snow, and closed her eyes. It did not matter if more fresh powder came down in the depth of night, she did not even bother to cover herself against the elements.

Percy glanced at the eternal shadow sentinel standing in silence next to the seated Infanta. And it seemed to her that the
shadow
had gained in strength somehow, was more tangible. . . . Or maybe it was but a trick of the darkness.

Some time after midnight, Percy woke up, lying between Gloria and Jenna on one side, and the black knight on the other. He had taken the same spot in the cart as when he had been tied up and restrained, but this time his arms were lying free. And he had moved in closer and placed one arm in the groove of her neck and his elbow was pressing at the back of her shoulder. It was the touch and the pressure that had woken her.
 . . .

Percy had the strangest sensation of being strangled by him. One move, and his heavy arm would curve inward and crush her windpipe, and she felt an instant of panic.

She took in several deep breaths, then put her hand tentatively on his arm and slowly pushed it away.

He woke up with a shuddering breath, then pressed himself even closer against her, the entire length of her back, and his arm returned, this time to lie against her waist. His face was now directly in her neck, sinking into her woolen shawl and the few wisps of her hair. Thus, breathing against her throat, he slept.

Percy lay for a long time, afraid to move a muscle, with eyes wide open to the blue night. But eventually the great expansive warmth of him was so comforting that she let go and slept also.

When the light snow fell toward morning, she was so warm otherwise that she did not even feel its light touch against her exposed skin.

D
awn came spilling its pallor unto the blue of the forest. And in those ephemeral moments between light and darkness, the snow-filled clearing engendered massive walls of granite that obscured the forest. Above them, like surreal stalks growing toward the light, arose towers and turrets, painted in exquisite gradations of dun heather and graphite smoke against the lightening sky. . . .

Death’s Keep was back.

The last shadows of the night converged to shape its unearthly mirage and overlay its temporary translucence upon the winter world.

But it lasted for a few moments only, growing solid enough to reveal the dark gate of perfect onyx black, which again beckoned mortals to enter.
 . . .

They would have slept through it all, except for Jenna turning over and pulling her bit of blanket away from Percy, and elbowing her in the gut for good measure.

Percy’s eyes flew open, and she sat up, brushing off snow, shivering, pushing herself away from Beltain’s warmth on one side, and squirming Jenna on the other.

And she glanced at the clearing, where now only a ghost of the keep remained, and she saw its last vestiges dissolve into the light of morning.

Before it was all gone, the Infanta’s upright death shadow had turned toward it slightly, as if in acknowledgement of its master’s stronghold.

And then the shadow turned back to its grim post at the dead girl’s side. But Percy had the sensation that it had looked at
her
also, acknowledging her too—but how? She was unsure. . . .

The black knight awoke. Percy felt his gaze upon her, and then he was up, his large limbs extending around her, stretching, and she involuntarily moved away, and then slipped out of the cart, landing on her feet.
 . . .

“Good morning,” she muttered, to no one in particular, stamping her feet to get the blood circulating in her numb toes.

And then Percy saw the frozen, vaguely human shape that had been the Infanta, sitting like a sack forgotten in the snow.

The dead girl was covered, overnight, by a thin layer of white powder that reposed evenly on her head, cheeks, nose, lashes, brows, sculpting her shape into crystalline delicacy, so that here was indeed a life-size doll—made of candied ice, folded into a seated position, with her hair like spun sugar, and her brows like caramel dusted with confectionary powder.
 . . .

“Oh, Lordy, Lord! The Princess is the Snow Maiden!” Jenna’s loud whisper came in awe, from behind Percy’s back.

“Your—Your Majesty—Highness,” Percy whispered, steadfastly ignoring Jenna, and crouching down before the Infanta. “Are you—can you hear me?”

The frozen sugar doll slowly opened her eyes. The movement of her eyelids caused snow powder to rain down from her lashes, and her revealed eyes were motionless cabochon jewels.

And then there was a sound of softly crackling ice as her lungs inflated, and she parted her bluish lips and spoke, one word at a time riding upon the escaping breath.

“Please leave me be. I am dead, and I am useless.”

And the Grand Princess went silent. Only her death shadow regarded Percy.

Percy had the strangest desire to grab the shadow by the hand, and feel its tangibility, test its solid nature in her own living grasp.

Instead, she refrained and spoke again. “Forgive me for speaking out of place, Your Imperial Highness, but you are neither useless nor truly dead. For as long as you are here, upon this mortal earth, moving and speaking and thinking, I say you have some use left in you. Whatever it might be, I don’t know. But you might have to think on it, in order to find it.”

“Thank you
 . . . for your kindness.”

“Nothing particularly kind in pointing out the way things are,” said Percy. “I’ve seen how some truths can hurt, worse than being beaten. But not this one, Highness. If anything, I know what it’s like to be useless. And you’re far from it. You’re the daughter of the Emperor! And your
will
can command and accomplish more things than I, or any of the girls here, can even dream of. . . .”

“But none of you are dead.
 . . .”

“We might as well be! If you recall, Death still does not have his Cobweb Bride, and nothing has changed. The world is still broken. When all food runs out, we’ll starve, and eventually our bodies too will be like yours, and yet we will all remain, neither dead nor alive, with no relief in sight for anyone, great or low, unless—”

“Now is a good time for you to tell us what really happened,” the black knight interrupted, coming up to stand behind Percy, “last night, between you and Death.”

Others in the cart had woken up, and Percy realized that they were all listening.

“What happened is, I am going to
find
her,” she said suddenly, rising from her squat, and wiping snow from her knees.

“What?” Beltain said.

But Percy was staring at him hard. And then she looked around at the others, Gloria and Marie clambering down from the cart, Vlau and Flor and Niosta standing behind her, Emilie squirming under her blanket, Lizabette paused in rummaging through their supplies.

“I spent
 . . . what felt like hours inside Death’s mind,” Percy said. “And now I am going to find that Cobweb Bride, whoever and wherever she is, because . . . because I
can
.”

“But how?”

Percy closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and then visualized, in her mind’s eye, a very specific
shadow
. And she reached for it, in all directions, with her thoughts.

In a mere span of a few heartbeats, she felt its distant pull. She opened her eyes, and then pointed in the direction of the pull. It was as simple as taking a breath.
 . . .

“There,” she said. “It is south, I believe. I feel it calling to me.”

“What is it?
What
is calling to you?” The black knight observed her with a complex expression of doubt and scrutiny and wonder.

“The Cobweb Bride’s true death. It waits, alongside her. They are both in one place, but they are separate
 . . . and an unknown abyss lies between them.”

As Percy spoke thus, Jenna was staring at her. And there was, for the first time, uncertainty and fear in her childish eyes. Jenna was afraid of
her
.

“Percy? What are you going to do?” whispered Jenna.

“First, we’re all heading back, some of us to Oarlcaven and the rest of you onward to your own homes.” Percy replied. “You go home and stay there, Jen. And the rest of you girls, too. If someone asks, we tell ’em the truth, we’ve been to Death’s Keep, and
he
did not want any of us. There’s no shame in that.”

“But what if they don’t believe us?” Lizabette said.

Percy shrugged. “What can they do? Send us back out? Worry about what the neighbors say? Phooey!”

“My Ma is going to be really mad
 . . .” whispered Flor. “She was hoping, if I were to be chosen by Death, our family would get that promised gift of the King.”

“Mine too,” said Gloria. “My Pa says, at last he might get some use out of me, instead of ‘highfalutin rhymes and foolery.’ And now he’s counting the imaginary coins and thinking he’d build on to the barn with it, enlarge the smithy, and get a second cow.
 . . .”

“That’s just too darn bad,” Percy drew the back of her hand across her reddened nose. “But you can blame it all on me, if you like.”

“My parents will be sad too . . .” Marie whispered. “I have three sisters, and I am the oldest, and we don’t have much. Father is getting old, and no sons to help with the woodworking. They said I—I may not come back. . . .”

“Marie, I am sorry.
 . . .” Percy stared at the tiny dark youngster.

But Marie already shrank away, huddling in her darned coat, staring at the ground.

And so Percy returned her attention back to the Infanta, and lowered herself again before her. She gently touched the Infanta’s exposed hand—it felt like a block of marble, cold and unyielding.

“Can you feel this, Highness? Begging pardon, but I am touching you.”

“Yes . . . but, it is distant, as if through many layers of clothing, past my skin. But oh! And now—now it feels more solid somehow. Indeed, I can feel
you
more than anything else I touch. . . .”

Percy decided to ignore the implication of the dead one’s words.

She can feel me, because I can feel death. . . .

“Then you are alive enough to care about what happens. I suggest you go home, Highness, back to your faraway palace and your Emperor father, and your mother. I venture they’ll be happy to see you!”

“The Silver Court has no place for me. They know not what to do, how to behave around me. My Ladies-in-Attendance cringe and shrink away from me. I do not blame them.”

“But you’re the Princess!” Jenna suddenly exclaimed. “You can do what you like! You can tell ’em all to pack up and leave, if they don’t like you being dead an’ all!”

For a long pause, Claere Liguon did not answer. Gears were turning, deep in the clockwork of her mind, choices, despair, all mingling.

And then she spoke: “Maybe.
 . . . Maybe I will return. To stand again before my Father and Mother. To look at them, one last time. . . .”

“A fair choice, Your Imperial Highness,” the black knight said. He then bent before her, and offered her his hand. “Allow me to assist you.”

At his words, Marquis Vlau Fiomarre visibly started. And momentarily it seemed to Percy that he would step forward and dispute the knight’s right to serve the Infanta. He was staring so; the fierceness of his gaze was palpable. It was unclear what manner of bond there was between this courtier and the Grand Princess, but this was clearly a loyalty bordering on jealousy. . . .

But the Infanta saw none of it. Turning her head slowly and with difficulty to look up at the great towering figure of the knight, she put her ice-marble hand into his, in a gesture of courtly trust. And he lifted her easily but with great care, so that she straightened by degrees and at last stood upright on her stiff legs.