The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (27 page)

So in a small room in Tremontaine House, tonight three candles burned. One was in front of a miniature, a portrait of a woman with soft brown hair and worried eyes. Katherine stood before it, fingering the pearl at her neck. Another candle illumined a bundle of papers tied with tape. She did not need to open them, she’d read them so many times. Marcus had helped her to collect them after the old duke had fled: letters he’d left behind, a curious mix of the deeply personal —invitations, love notes, hastily scribbled theories about the world—and daily trivia: guest lists and menus and bills. In the early days of her duchy, she had consulted them as if they held the secret of just what she was supposed to be doing there. There were also the few letters the vanished duke had sent home from Kyros, again a disparate lot: a request for money, a description of the house he was building, a request to see the little daughter he’d left behind. The duke had disliked sitting for portraits; those that existed, Sophia had in Riverside House.

The third candle burned on a table in front of a mirror: an invitation, of sorts, to the spirits of this night, of this House, to attend the festivities, to cast their gaze on the current duchess and see what they made of her tenure in their place. When she was a girl, Katherine had tried the little spells that country girls know in front of mirrors on Last Night, hoping to glimpse her True Love’s face looking over her shoulder, or boldly calling up ghosts.

Fleet light, last night
Old year out
Show what is past
As I turn me about

But the Duchess Tremontaine did not turn her in a circle to see vanished sights. She looked directly into the mirror, and saw them all in her own face: the centuries of noble ancestors, bound to this city and to the land that sustained them . . . and, like a caddis-fly, her own brief life so far: the people she had loved and learned from, feared and desired, who had all in some way left their mark on her.

She turned from the mirror, leaving the candles to burn, and looked out the window. In the drive below, horses were kicking up gravel, pulling up to the door with the first of many carriages. She heard children shouting, and the voice of her oldest friend, Marcus, who had chosen the name “Ffoliot” for himself because he liked the pattern the letters made. Marcus was laughing, and Katherine laughed too and went downstairs to join them.

LAST NIGHT FELL AS CLEAR AND BRITTLE AS THE ICE that skimmed the river. It was the kind of night where a shout is visible and hot air dances over open flames. Sundown was marked by a tocsin on the Cathedral bell, echoed by the bells of the University, Sessions Hall, and the Council Chamber as the Brands’ Procession set out from the Cathedral. First came the High Priest, the Mayor, and the Crescent Chancellor in an open carriage, and behind them the other chancellors of the Inner Council—Raven, Dragon, and Serpent—accompanied by as many members of the Council as cared to come out, mounted on horses caparisoned with golden bells. Then came the City Magistrates, their horses decked in holly wreaths, and a company of priests on foot, carrying banners embroidered with suns and deer and boar and sheaves of wheat and other signs of plenty. The end of the procession was brought up by the three MidWinter Brands—a noble, a student, and an apprentice, holly in their hats, carrying the flambeaux with which they’d light their respective bonfires.

The nobles’ bonfire in the cobbled yard in front of the Council Hall was attended mostly by secretaries, minor officials of common blood, and the luckless lord told off to be that year’s Brand, who was forced to be late for the glittering Last Night parties on the Hill, with their smaller, private bonfires.

Justis Blake, standing among his friends at the mouth of the Great Court, heard all this and more from Vandeleur, who had attended city Last Nights in his mother’s arms and ever since.

“The Crescent chooses all three Brands from the civil rolls,” he informed Justis as they stamped their feet and waited for the procession to come round. “With a silver pin, they say, blindfolded, completely by chance.”

“If you believe that, you’ll believe anything,” said Fremont. “All the artisans and merchants want one of their apprentices to be MidWinter Brand. It’s supposed to bring good luck; it certainly brings customers. And none of the nobles want the job—it means they have to spend the night being polite to no-bodies. It stands to reason there must be a brisk trade in bribes and favors.”

“Can’t you give it a rest, Henry?” Justis asked wearily. “It’s Last Night. We’re supposed to be bidding the old year and its worries farewell.”

Fremont’s answer was drowned in a shout from the end of the street. The blackness was punctuated by bobbing torches and everyone began to cheer. From the center of the Court, a group struck up the chorus of a traditional Last Night song, old as the hills and at least as dirty, and soon the air shivered with it. Justis found himself bawling along with the rest, tuneless as a cat in heat and ignorant of everything save the chorus, which he sang twice as loud because he knew the words.

It’s
one
for luck and
two
for love
And
three
for beer and brandy.
Four
times a night
I can do it all right
And the sun comes up in the morning!

The leading carriage passed, glittering in the torchlight as if each gilded curlicue were a tiny, separate flame. The three men it bore, massive in furs and velvet, tossed posies of scented herbs into the crowd. One of the posies struck Blake’s forehead, but he wasn’t quick enough to catch it. He caught the flask Vandeleur tossed him, though, and took a swig of what it contained.

“That’s
three,
” Fremont said. “Maybe later, we’ll get lucky and have a taste of
two
and
four
.”

EVERYONE AT THE DUCHESS TREMONTAINE’S LAST NIGHT family party was eating except its newest member, who was spitting up.

“Ooh,” said his mother, “that was a good burp!”

“Diana,” her brother Andrew objected, “do you absolutely
have
to do that in here? It’s disgusting!”

Her twin sister Isabel, pregnant as a whale, waddled over to take the baby from her. “Oh, Andy, you were ten times as disgusting, wasn’t he, Mother?” The baby settled into her arms. “There, my little cuddle-bunny, yes.”

“Andrew was not disgusting,” said his mother loyally. “He was a lovely baby. You all were.”

“Except for Alice.” Andrew poked his youngest sister with a sugar stick. “I remember, she threw up all the time.”

But in the last year, Alice had stopped crying when he teased her. She snatched up a stick of her own, shouting, “Guard yourself, evildoer!”

“Oh, well done,” applauded the duchess, who was giving the child sword lessons. “Nice form, Alice.”

Alice’s brother drew back with all the dignity of his thirteen years. “Alice is such a child,” he remarked to his sister Beatrice, who was sixteen.

“So are you.” She turned her back on him to fuss over the baby.

Their father waved a mug of steaming ale expansively. “You are
all
children,” he said. “Lovely children.”

Alice drew herself up. “I am not a child. I am a swordsman. Will I get a sword for New Year’s, Papa?”

Marcus Ffoliot crouched down to look his youngest daughter in the eye. “Well, that depends, doesn’t it? This is Last Night, and it’s ten whole days ’til the New Year begins. Those ten days are very important.”

“Why?”

Marcus had not had a traditional childhood. He looked over at his wife for help. Susan smiled and said in a storyteller’s singsong, “Because the old year is dead, but the new one’s not begun. The doors are open between old and new, and anything can happen.”

Her oldest daughter, Diana, full of the authority of new motherhood, said practically, “You have to be good for ten whole days, then you get First Night presents. Last Night isn’t for new things, it’s for getting rid of the old. Did you give alms today?”

“Yes,” answered Alice. “We went with Nurse to give away our boxes of old clothes and things. I gave away my red ruffled blouse,” she added virtuously, spoiling the effect with, “Swordsmen don’t wear ruffles.”

“Papa!” Andrew whined. “You’re not
really
going to give her a
sword?
”

“Oh, no,” said Marcus mildly, catching Katherine’s eye. “I’ll let the duchess do that.”

“But only if she practices hard these ten days,” Katherine added.

Andrew rolled his eyes. “If
you
get a real sword,
I’m
leaving home.”

His sister Isabel hugged him. “That’s all right, you can come live with Carlos and me.”

He pulled away from her. “And another baby? No, thank you!”

Beatrice said, “Don’t worry, Andy, she’s not getting a real sword. They’re mad, but they’re not that mad.”

Alice swung her candy stick in an arc. “Maybe Jessica will get me one. She sends
excellent
presents.”

It was Katherine’s turn to roll her eyes. “Indeed. And she never asks if you’ve been good or not.”

“I hope,” said Susan mildly, “she doesn’t send any more of those rather
curious
carvings.”

“I hope,” Beatrice breathed a prayer, “she sends
silk
.”

“I hope she sends swords,” Alice muttered.

Diana’s husband, Martin Amory, was a banker. With the birth of his son, he was feeling expansive. “Come on, Alice,” he said. “What do you want besides a sword? How about a new necklace?”

His wife put her arm through his. “No, dear,” said Diana. “That’s what
I
want.”

Her twin looked at them enviously for a moment. Her husband, Carlos the musician, was out playing for a larger party elsewhere on the Hill. Katherine would pay for him to be with them at Tremontaine House, of course, but they’d agreed that that was no way to make his reputation. Still, it would be nice if he could be with her for the bonfire. Isabel helped herself to another piece of marzipan and looked up to find her twin at her side.

“Another year,” Diana said companionably.

Isabel nodded and put her hand to her huge belly. “I’ll feel better when this little one’s decided to come and join the rest of us.”

“Yes,” said her sister, “you will. Do you want me to rub your back? Sit down and put your feet up.”

Isabel eased into a chair. “I feel like I might pop at any moment.”

“Ooh!” Diana shivered deliciously. “A baby born at MidWinter! How spooky. It’s said they can see ghosts.”

“Theron always said he could.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Diana asked acerbically. “Off lighting a few fires on his own?”

Isabel laughed. “That was last year. Sophia’s not here either. She’s probably been deluged at the infirmary, and he’s escorting her.”

Predictably, her words seemed to blow open the door, ushering in the Lady Sophia and her son. Like everyone else at the party, Theron was dressed in festival splendor. His shirt was green silk, his waistcoat a fantasy of winter ivy and gold thread, his coat a richly patterned brocade of copper brown with gold piping. An emerald drop hung from one ear. He circled the room, kissing his relations by blood and by adoption. He admired the baby extravagantly and congratulated Martin. Diana waved from the corner: “Hoo-oo! Theron! I’m the one who did all the work!”

Grinning, he came over. “Just because you couldn’t get anyone else to do it for you.” She kissed him anyway, because it was Last Night.

“Isabel!” He sprang back from her pregnant sister. “Do you think it might be twins?”

“I know,” she sighed from the chair; “I look like a pumpkin.”

“At least,” he said, “I can finally tell you apart.”

“Bah,” said Diana, “you always could. We had to work extra hard to fool you.”

“Why, thank you.” He bowed. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all year.”

“Well,” she smiled poisonously, “you’ve got ten more days to deserve something better.”

THE MIDWINTER PROCESSION CROSSED THE GREAT COURT, past the heap of logs and sticks the University Brand and his cohorts had been building for a week, and out the far side on its way to the Sessions Hall. The magistrates waved cheerfully at the singing students, many of them joining in for a chorus or two. The priests, singing their own MidWinter hymn, moved through the jollity like pebbles through a cow. They paced slowly and deliberately in the magistrates’ wake, their ungloved hands patchy with cold.

“Are they deaf?” Justis bellowed into Vandeleur’s ear.

“You could say that,” Vandeleur bellowed back. “I think they’re just so full of shit their ears are plugged.”

A passing priest scotched this theory by shooting a furious look in their direction, bending Vandeleur and Justis almost double with helpless laughter.

“Look, look, you asses,” screeched Fremont; “they’re lighting the fire. Look, or you’ll miss it.”

ALL RIGHT!” THE DUCHESS KATHERINE CLAPPED HER hands, and the whole room looked up. “It’s almost time for the bonfire. If you don’t have your lists all written, there’s pen and ink laid out on the table.”

It was the same every year. She always left plenty of time for them to collect their thoughts, time to savor the heavy paper, the different colored inks (some of them scented), the old-style quills cut from the feathers of geese and swans and even peacocks. Beatrice snatched up one of the latter, and a bottle of violet ink. Andrew found a crow’s quill, and the gold.