Cobweb Empire (8 page)

“I am sorry to startle any of you with such
a pronouncement,” said Claere, her breath coming like clockwork.
“Maybe I should have waited until we were stopped, so I could speak
to you alone, Percy. Maybe—but I am unsure if I might have had the
requisite courage to ask. This way, at least, I ask in public, and
make it more formal, more
real
.”

“What—what exactly are you asking me,
Your—Claere?” Percy said very quietly. She had nearly used the
Imperial form of address before the unsuspecting soldiers, nearly
giving the Infanta away, but stopped in time.

“You know what I ask. Do for me whatever you
have done for your grandmother, Percy, and help me pass on.”

It was certain that none of the soldiers had
known up to that point that it was the Emperor’s daughter, riding
in that peasant cart. And likely, most of them had no inkling of
the Infanta’s undead condition. But now, everyone knew that a
dead
girl was among them. . . .

“I—” Percy clenched the reins so hard that
Betsy was making unhappy snorting noises at the extreme pull on her
harness.

Vlau felt his head growing so cold, so
impossibly cold, and the sweat of fear was gathering on his brow.
“No,” he said again, this time more rationally. “You cannot take
your leave of this world just yet.”

The Infanta suddenly turned to him and her
great smoky eyes were trained fully upon him. “What does it matter
to you—Vlau?”
She too had almost said, “Marquis.”
—“Why in
heaven’s name would you protest something you have been fighting so
ardently to achieve? I thought you wanted me dead!”

At that last part, everyone looked at
Fiomarre. Several girls exchanged startled, unbelieving glances of
confusion.

“What had once been
intended . . . no longer matters in the least,” he
retorted, finding that he had to speak in this somewhat convoluted
manner now, for he could not reveal
anything—
neither his
role in her death to the others, nor his present feelings to
her
. Not a thing, to anyone! And least of all, could he
admit the extent of the cold, grieving, passionate darkness rising
within him—not yet, and possibly not ever. And thus he had to feign
indifference and practicality. “You cannot die just yet, for there
are things in this mortal world you must still do.”

“What things?” The Infanta was looking at
him with a strange, indescribable expression, a combination of
despair and serenity, and
something else
hidden even deeper
beyond. Vlau could not fathom what it was, but it held him,
mesmerized him . . . and thus he steadily returned
her gaze.

“He is right,” said Percy. “First of all,
what you ask is such a serious thing, that I am afraid to even
consider it right now.”

“But you
can
do it!” The Infanta
swiveled her stiff frozen head again to look at Percy.

“Yes, I can. But—but I am not sure I
should
.” It was obvious that Percy was painfully struggling
to express her conflicted thoughts. Ever since last night, she had
seemed extremely unlike her usual steady self—the self that Vlau
Fiomarre was used to seeing—and was instead like an uncertain
child, a bundle of vulnerable indecisiveness. This request was
apparently the last straw. “I mean,” she continued, stumbling in
her words, “Gran was one thing, it was what I’d set out to do all
along. And that poor pig, well, that was something else that had to
be done. But you! You are—” Here Percy sharply went silent because,
Vlau guessed, she had almost said,
“you are the Emperor’s
daughter.”

The black knight must have made a similar
conclusion, because he spoke up in a loud commanding tone. “Enough.
It is clear this discussion is untimely. Let us keep moving now,
and you can continue this—whatever
this
is—when we come to
our next stop on the road.”

Percy frowned and threw him one sharp
glance, but did not argue. She turned her back on the passengers in
the cart, deep in thought, and took up the reins.

They resumed moving forward along the snowy
road, past endless shabby hedges and fields, and occasional
poverty-ridden homesteads, in the direction of Letheburg.

Vlau gathered himself, maintaining an
impassive demeanor, and watched from the corner of his eye how the
doll of ice and spun glass, the sculpted undead creature at his
side, sat motionless in the cart, retreating into herself. She
raised the hood of her coat and now even her face was obscured.

And Fiomarre, next to her, imagined her face
as it had been in those moments, and the new grief ate at him
slowly, softly, turning into despair.

P
ercy drove Betsy
forward mindlessly, holding on to the reins with a fixed grip, and
she thought:
the Infanta of the Realm has just asked me to kill
her.

Holy God in Heaven, what was she to do?
Death’s Champion, indeed! Percy was a pitiful mess. She did not
know what she was doing. . . . Possibly, she was
still in shock.

No, that is not true. I know exactly what I
am doing. . . .

Percy exhaled a breath held far too long,
then ventured to look around her—at the slowly receding sparse
bushes laden with snow on both sides of the road, at the knight’s
men riding alongside the creaking cart, chain mail and plate armor
gleaming in the occasional bursts of winter sun past the cloud
mass. The black knight himself was far up ahead on his great
warhorse, Riquar at his side. They did not look back even once.

At some point, long moments later, things
began to lose tension, and the girls in the cart started chatting
softly.

Percy threw a dazed glance backward, and saw
the Infanta was motionless and hooded, while the dark young man
seated next to her had an occluded expression, and seemingly
watched the passing road.

“Did I somehow miss it,” Lizabette spoke up
suddenly, “but isn’t there supposed to be a scraggly forest at this
point, as we get closer to Letheburg? Why are there only tedious
fields, and not a tree in sight? Are we on a different road?”

Marie and Niosta, the only other remaining
girls in the cart, looked around them, and then Niosta said,
“There’s no other road, there’s only this one. Hmm, it seem’ like
’ere should be some trees now. I remember when my sis Catrine an’ I
were here last, headed in the other direction, there were trees,
an’ rotted stumps aplenty.”

“Yes, that’s what I remember too,” said
Lizabette. “Unless I am mistaken completely and we still have some
ways to go.”

“I don’t know,” Percy said, watching Betsy
plod forward. “I’ve never been this way before, never been this
close to Letheburg.”

Little Marie stayed quiet and simply
shrugged.

A
few hours later,
somewhat past noon, as the road meandered and curved around new
hillocks that seemed to spring up before them out of nowhere, and
it was apparent there was no forest anywhere, the black knight
called a stop at the foot of one such rise next to a semi-circle
clearing. They made camp in a spot that was not completely in the
open, as would have been the case had they stopped earlier in the
open fields.

“We’ll stop here for a meal and rest,” he
said, after approaching the cart. He was looking at Percy
directly.

She nodded, not quite meeting the gaze of
his slate-blue eyes, and slowed down Betsy.

The soldiers moved all around them, horses
were led off the road, and soon a fire-pit was fashioned out of
bits of twigs and frozen mossy earth underneath cleared snow.

The girls scattered around the shrubbery to
answer calls of nature, and there was some friendly general
conversation, as the men-at-arms opened travel bags, and got out
the bread and cheese and leftover sausage. There was even a small
flagon of ale that started making rounds.

Percy stood fiddling with Betsy’s feedbag
when she heard the Infanta’s measured soft voice behind her.

“When you are done with your task, I would
speak with you, Percy,” said Claere Liguon, with unusual dignity,
standing upright with difficulty, one lily-white hand holding on to
the railing of the cart. At her side stood her death-shadow—a loyal
eternal sentinel, a faint human shape, billowing like a smoke-stack
of quivering darkness. . . .

“Just a moment,” Percy mumbled, and turned
away, and continued handling the bag of grain, slowly, reluctantly,
then adjusting Betsy’s harness with dawdling movements.

Vlau Fiomarre approached the Infanta from
behind.

“Please . . .” he said in a
whisper, and reached out to place his hand on Claere’s slim
shoulder. His strong fingers dug into her skin, but her dead flesh
was unaware of the pain that she otherwise would have been feeling.
“Before you do this thing, I must speak with you. Come this
way!”

The Infanta obeyed, or rather, was
maneuvered a few paces away, where they stood in relative privacy
near a tall hedge, while the campsite bustled around them in the
rising smoke from the cook fire.

Vlau’s fingers were still upon her, holding
her shoulder in a vise.

“What would you have me do or not do now,
Marquis?” she said, raising the gaze of her great eyes upon his
own. Her expression was blank, emotionless—truly
dead
now.
But her voice retained a tiny last vestige of life, as expressed
through a tone of bitterness and irony.

He stared, his dark intense face leaning
over her, inches away. There was a rising fury there, barely
contained, as he observed this thing before him, this cold dead
thing that he himself had
made
. . . .

Why did he bother with her now? What was it?
Was it not over now, everything, since the events of Death’s Keep?
Had it not been revealed that the Infanta was not the Cobweb Bride,
and hence had nothing left in the world to do, no reason to go on,
no damned purpose?

She had sat down in the snow then, having
given up. And they had talked to her—Percy especially, had spoken
to her, words of encouragement and hope.

While he—he, the murderer who had plunged
the accursed dagger into her poor fragile heart—he had no purpose
remaining to him also. Neither hate nor revenge for his family’s
foul maltreatment at the hands of her father the present
Emperor—none of it mattered any longer.

“What would you have of me?” she repeated,
jerking him out of a dark madness, a momentary reverie of memory
and regret.

“You cannot die!” he responded fiercely in a
near-whisper. “I cannot allow it!”

Her eyes were impossible to describe.

“I am dead already, Marquis. Enough! It is
too late to change it. And now, in the name of God, if there is any
honor left within you, you must allow me the only possible peace I
may yet have—oblivion.”

“No—”

“No indeed. We are
done
speaking!”

And having uttered this, she forcefully
disengaged herself from his grip, then moved away with slightly
jerking movements, and retreated along the hedge in an even more
secluded spot, to await Percy.

Percy was taking her time with Betsy, more
than usual, and overheard some of their pointed, strange
exchange.

Lord, but she did not want to face the
Infanta, not for
this
. She just
couldn’t. . . .

Percy braced herself, and turned around,
having tarried long enough. She walked through the snow, powder
crunching underfoot, and stopped before the dead Grand Princess and
her death-shadow.

“Your Highness . . .” Percy bit
her lip.

Not far away, she noted Vlau Fiomarre still
stood in place, watching them with his relentless, burning gaze.
His lips were moving, whispering:
“No . . .”

“Percy Ayren. Thank you for your courtesy.
We may speak in private here. And, I would have you perform the
act
now.”

“Your Highness—are you absolutely certain?”
Percy felt a bone-deep cold rising inside her, a growing sense of
remoteness, so that she was pulled deeper within herself, seeing
the world through a thicker layer of distance. Indeed, her vision
warped and doubled. First she could see the Infanta’s death shadow
right alongside her, then it would wink out of awareness, then
reappear again as Percy struggled to focus.

“Yes . . . I am certain.
Please,
do it
. Do not make me beg again, for I might not
have the strength to proceed.”

“But—would you not rather return to your
parents at Court, and maybe say your goodbyes? Maybe you will
reconsider, since there is no going back on this kind of thing—I
mean—”

A pair of great beautiful eyes framed by
sunken hollows watched Percy.

“Please . . .” Claere Liguon
said. “That I am still here has been a miracle of additional time
given me. . . . I should not be
here. . . . It is wrong, and I do not belong among
the living. That you have the ability to set me free is another
miracle. Only, if I may ask you—afterwards, when it is all
done—return my body to the Emperor, my father, to be laid to rest
in our ancient family crypt, as has been the Liguon way
always. . . . And now,
please proceed!
”

Percy felt her heart breaking.

The death shadow stood poised, as though
realizing it was time.

Percy heard the darkness rising, the
churning in her mind, the layers upon layers of morass, opening
inside her like a starless night, and the tolling of bells.
Meanwhile, in the real world the sun came out momentarily and shone
a bleak spot of radiance upon the white receptive face of the
Infanta, her soft wisps of ashen hair. Somewhere behind them, high
above, a bird sped by, calling. . . .

Percy removed her mittens, stuffed them in
her pocket. The crisp winter air rushed in to numb her fingers. She
stepped forward and took the cold dead hand of the Grand Princess,
feeling it like a shock of ice, feeling the dead girl
tremble. . . .