Beneath Ceaseless Skies #22 Read online

  I quickly grew so confident in my knowledge of the palace I could walk its halls unaided, but Lys liked to have the reassurance of my hand on his shoulder. As he grew taller and his shoulders started to broaden, I pointed out to him the indignity of it. He would not relinquish the privilege, so we worked out a compromise: his new young man’s wardrobe included several short capes. Wherever he took off, whether exploring the palace and hiding from his tutor or attending an official function presided over by his father and mother, I would clutch the edge of his cape in my hand, trailing a step behind the prince, his constant companion, his shadow.

  That is what hushed voices called me behind my back: the Prince’s Shadow. Or, sometimes, with cruel humor, the Prince’s Sleepwalker, because of the way my eyelids drooped over my useless eyes. At least, that is what moderately kind-hearted souls called me. The plainly jealous and the resentful, of whom there was never any dearth, came up with more imaginative monikers for me, especially as I grew to maturity.

  Truth be told, as we both grew, more and more of Lys’s scuffles revolved around me. One day, a young Gilliannian nobleman with whom Lys practiced swordplay made the mistake of calling me a false virgin and Trattorian whore, accusing Lys of blindness on a par with my own in choosing my company over that of the realm’s princes, and got a bloodied nose for his trouble. While Lys was at his lessons the following morning, a guard came to fetch me: the king wanted to see me.

  Although I had lived in the palace for the better part of four years, I had never met the king or queen in person. I thought they were only vaguely aware of my presence, as though I were an exotic pet their son had formed a childish attachment to.

  I was wrong.

  King Hugh received me in his private audience chamber. I waited in the middle of the empty stone floor, hands clasped before me, head demurely bowed. I could hear his breath ten paces in front of me, his scent reminiscent of the boar he gladly hunted. His voice, however, belied that first impression: it was rich and cultured—the voice of a gentleman warrior. It reminded me of his sister in her more calculating moments. “Lift up your head, girl,” he commanded calmly, almost affably, in the manner of those accustomed to obedience. I obeyed.

  “Hmm,” he said after he’d scrutinized me. “Not bad. I can see why young Montfort would pick a fight on account of you.”

  It was the first I’d heard of Lys’s opponent—he had stolidly refused to tell me whose nose he’d bloodied in defense of my honor, and his.

  I spoke calmly: “If you permit me, my lord, I doubt young master Montfort picked a fight on account of me. His father the Duke’s objections to your rule over Gillianna are well-known.”

  The king’s laughter rumbled briefly, like a throttled kettledrum. “Clever girl, aren’t you? My sister chose well.”

  I resented being called a girl—he knew my name certainly—but knew better than to show it. I bobbed a curtsy instead. “I am my lord Lys’s faithful servant.”

  The king’s chair creaked as he rose, his soft boots whispering across the flagstones as he circled me. I had the unpleasant idea that this was how quails felt just before the hounds flushed them out, but kept my peace. The king’s scent was all around me now, potent boar but also something… something else. I struggled to identify it.

  He stood before me as he spoke, keeping—despite his vaguely menacing attitude—a respectful distance, no doubt remembering I was still a lay sister. “I’ve been told you object to my claim on the imperial title.” He spoke conversationally, but his blood sang with the challenge, the joy of the hunt.

  I picked my words with care. “My lord, I am merely aware of the dispute between you and our Holy Father.”

  He chuckled darkly. “And if I told you my army was ready to march on the Holy City within the fortnight to settle the dispute once and for all?”

  “Then I would wish my lord success and safety in the undertaking.”

  His tone carried that combination of jesting cruelty and gravity with which people often addressed me. “So I can leave with a light heart, knowing my son safe in your ever-vigilant company while I secure an empire for him?”

  He circled me again. His scent slid past me like an unwanted caress. With a slight shock I identified the mysterious ingredient: verdigris. The warrior king carried a strong trace of his sister’s perfume on his skin, warmed by his singing blood.

  As I already said, I was too reckless to ever make a proper Sister. Emboldened now by my certain knowledge of just how true the most hushed rumors about the king and his sister were, I faced the king squarely and spoke: “My lord, I do not care a fig about the empire, but I would give my soul and all my senses for your son. If he is to rule an empire, then I will do everything I can to prepare him for it.”

  I do not think the king was accustomed to surprises, and I suppose I should be proud that I managed to catch him unawares. In truth, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was struck by terror as the king came even closer than before, so close that I could feel his breath on my face and smell his breakfast. Yet despite the closeness, there was no menace in his steps or in his voice: “That is good. I will hold you to that, Daria, my son’s Shadow. And if you ever speak like that to me or anyone else again, I will have your head on a spike before the day is out.”

  He turned away then, dismissing me. I went back to wait for Lys’s lessons to be over with a steady heart, knowing the king had honored me more than he did most peers of the realm or foreign ambassadors: he had given me naught but the simple truth, clear and harsh as winter sunlight.

  The Holy City held out for barely a week—Hugh returned to Illia an emperor triumphant, recognized by God and man alike, bringing in his baggage train a sealed carriage in which the erstwhile Holy Father sat, blinded and defeated, on his way to a slow, obscure death in some Trattorian monastery. Many pitied him but dared not voice their feelings. I confess I was one of them, and that I said not a few prayers for the deposed Father’s soul. Unlike most, I did not pity his loss of sight as such—I pitied the transition he had to endure in the winter of his days, from a life accustomed to color and proportion to one in which shape and beauty spoke to one’s hands alone.

  But this passed, as most things do, and Lys’s fifteenth birthday arrived all too quickly. He officially came of age as heir to the empire. I kissed his cheeks, noticing with a pang that I no longer had to stoop to do so. He took my hands in his and asked me in a voice broken to manhood but breaking now with trepidation if I would lie with him now that he was a man.

  “I have my vows, Lys,” I said gently, tracing the lines of his face, more familiar to me than anything else I ever touched. “As you have yours.”

  “I’ve taken no vows,” he said, not quite suppressing the surly disappointment in his voice. He knew me too well to expect any other response, yet I was touched, knowing he’d lain with several kitchen maids already to prepare himself for this day.

  “Of course you have,” I countered. “You are vowed to rule an empire, as I am to serve you. It would not be proper for an emperor to couple with his Shadow.”

  He laughed at that, half a boy still. His hands squeezed mine, speaking more eloquently than we ever could, no matter that we knew each other down to the marrow in our bones. Some say our bodies are prisons for our souls, while others claim our bodies are the key to salvation. This I know: our bodies are inseparably, undeniably ours, and we cannot—any of us, prince or slave, light or shadow—be other than what we are.

  Wanting to console him, I said: “Think on this: when we are both dust and bones, they will still sing of the Lilly-Emperor and his virgin-companion, the blind seer, closer to him than ever a woman was to a man since Eve was Adam’s rib.”

  “Closer than my aunt is to my father?” he murmured.

  In this, if nothing else, Emperor Hugh and I are the same: neither of us is easily surprised. I gaped. Lys’s smugness was irrepressible, like cinnamon and cloves in a Christmas pudding.

  “You know about that?�
�� I whispered.

  “Mother told me once, after she’d quarreled with Father. She pretends she meant something else now, but… She loves Alys, you know, much as she also resents her. I think if he hadn’t needed church sanction to become emperor, Father would have married Alys and to hell with the consequences.”

  “And then where would you be, my prince?”

  Neither of us wanted to voice the answer to that. We hugged, like brother and sister, but with a fierceness that went beyond fraternal affection. Despite all the Sisters had taught me, I could not find it in myself to condemn the emperor and his sister. Their desire harmed no one as far as I could see, and God knew I would do worse for Lys’s sake.

  Breaking the hug, Lys told me of a discovery he’d made while poring over old maps of the palace in the library. Ever eager to refine my mental map of the place and unable to deny him a childish game when he was so nearly a man, I accompanied him for an afternoon of exploration.

  Gripping his cloak, I followed as he led the way down stone corridors and staircases which grew increasingly grimy and damp as we went, taking us far below the familiar cellars and storerooms, into a disused part of the dungeons, where the only sounds were dripping subterranean waters. Not even rats frequented this part of the castle’s bowels.

  “Everyone has forgotten this place,” Lys murmured. “A true oubliette.”

  “Hush,” I urged, hearing something beyond dripping water and the crackle of the torch Lys carried—a faint scratching noise, as of a body moving on straw. “There’s someone here,” I whispered, alarmed. I feared neither ghouls nor other folklore creatures which shun daylight, but the wrath of the captain of the guard if we were caught sneaking around in the dungeons. Despite the pretense of a childish adventure, we were no longer children.

  Lys grabbed my hand, pulled me along. Contrary to what pretty tales claim, the life of a prince had little room for adventure, and my prince was eager for a thrill. He plunged down the unfamiliar corridor as though its end would recede away from him and resolve into an unreal dreamscape. I kept up as best I could, nearly tripping over fallen masonry. Abandoned the dungeon may not have been, but it was certainly neglected.

  The smell of pine resin told me we’d found its unfortunate inhabitant as Lys stopped in front of a new door, its hinges well-oiled, its planks still fresh. Lifting his torch to the high, narrow observation slit he peered in while I caught my breath.

  “What do you see?” I asked finally, a bit peeved with him for dragging me so heedlessly, as though I were a puppy.

  The voice from the dungeon nearly made us both jump out of our skins: like the door that kept its owner penned in, it was not old, but it contained such a wealth of malice it positively clung to my skin and hair, like bat’s claws. “Hello, nephew,” it said in cultured Trattorian.

  Lys said nothing, thinking hard. I remembered at the same moment he did, but it was he who voiced our surprise. “Prince Philip?” he gasped. I squeezed his hand; he squeezed back.

  Philip of Trattoria was Lys’s maternal uncle. He had led an unsuccessful rebellion after Hugh gained the throne by force of arms and kept it by marrying into the Trattorian royal family. Philip was rumored to have died in prison years ago.

  A vision intruded upon the shadows that shrouded my mind’s eye, pushing them apart like dusty curtains: a man in his mid-thirties, his hair and face like golden firelight in the dark dungeon, shackled to the ancient stones by strong new chains, filthy and disheveled as the straw he sat on. His eyes blazed like hell’s own embers as he glared at us through the slit in the door. A century’s worth of frustrated anger was pent up in that cell; it made the musty air in the corridor smell like crushed peppercorns.

  “Ah,” Prince Philip breathed, a cruel smile curving his lips as my vision faded, leaving me disoriented and dizzy. “My dear captor comes to visit. Just like old times.”

  They were upon us before their footsteps intruded into my consciousness: Alys’s scent, verdigris and ink, mingled with the oiled weapons and old cuirasses of the palace guard. I shook my head in vain—the force of Philip’s hatred enveloped me still, like a cocoon, muffling but not blocking the rage that speared me now from Alys’s direction.

  “You!” The single word came out in a hiss, transfixing me. So many emotions roiled in it, a nest of snakes, all of them poisonous. And coming from Alys no less, always so cool and ironically detached!

  I groped for Lys’s hand. His quickened breath and the smell of his sweat told me he was utterly terrified, not least because he, too, realized that all of Alys’s anger centered on me. I understood the reason better than Lys did: when a prince and his companion erred, the companion would bear the brunt of the blame, the prince protected to the last by his position.

  But there was more to it than that: slow-witted and overwhelmed by the clashing wills of the imprisoned prince and the emperor’s sister, I remembered that once, when they were both young, Alys had been Philip’s warden while he was Hugh’s hostage.

  The force of the antagonism buffeting me was almost erotic. I needed no visions to tell me that Lys and I had blundered into a veritable witch’s cauldron of old resentments and unspent desires. Even so, I doubt Alys was a true witch or that she had ever cast a spell before that day. I doubt she would have succeeded then but for the raging flood of emotions flowing between her and Philip, feeding her anger, giving it shape, loosing it like an arrow pointed at my heart.

  I was already stumbling under the direct hit, Lys’s hands groping to keep me upright, when she thundered: “Who are you to see what every other soul gladly overlooks? Damn you and your eyes, girl!”

  For a while, then, there was only darkness, deeper than any blindness. My other senses intruded only gradually: I smelled bed linens and the dust of inhabited rooms, heard hushed, urgent voices, tasted bile and felt my body laid out in my own bed far above the dungeons, my very pillow throbbing with a fierce headache.

  Comforted by these sensations, I thought I still lingered between sleep and wakefulness when the shifting shapes I perceived did not vanish at once—I dreamt rarely but vividly, all my senses engaged, even the shadows briefly adopting distinct presences, definite shapes. But there was a lack of uniformity to the shadows slipping before me now, a variety of shades I did not recognize, and when one of them came closer, bending over me, the worried questions it directed at me coincided disconcertingly with the movements of its mouth.

  I knew it before I believed it: I saw.

  Not very well, but I did: I saw with my physical eyes. The profusion of shades must have been what they call colors, but I saw nothing charming or precious about them. The physician’s voice shrilled just by my ear, but his mouth seemed to move at a great distance, approaching me then receding. Two young women whispered behind him, pointing at me. All this I registered before a kindly pale face replaced the physician’s. My eyes still struggled when I recognized her smell, lavender and roses: Empress Sylva, Hugh’s wife. Her smile held an infinite sadness as she lifted a damp cloth to my forehead, which throbbed so hard I thought it would surely burst like an eggshell.

  I covered my face with my hands, large as slabs of beef, but the confusion did not recede. It grew over the following days, while I recuperated from the incident in the dungeons. My pains receded, my senses took up the reins, my head shrank back to its usual size, but my eyesight did not revert to nothingness.

  Nor did it improve.

  Shapes continued to loom out at me or slip away from my grasping fingers, forks and spoons refusing to obey me, stays and laces transformed into a complex web, walls and doorframes aiming for my nose while furniture sought to trip me up at every step. For all that I’d never made friends in the palace, apart from Lys, till then no one had ever mocked my inability to navigate rooms and hallways by myself. Even when I tried the experiment Lys abandoned long ago—walking with my eyes closed—sharp angles and hard surfaces crowded around me.

  In the midst of my misery came the news that Prince Phi
lip was brought out of the dungeons after many years—for his execution. Alys was packed off to Gillianna proper following a violent argument with the emperor. All this I learned from the servants: Lys reacted to my helplessness scarcely better than I did, and avoided my company for the first time in our acquaintance.

  I fasted and prayed until my knees were as numb as the flagstones, but no advice was forthcoming. I hoped for a vision to tell me I was not just a millstone around my prince’s neck, but visions only came to me unbidden, never sought. I wept till I was certain my eyes would melt away—in vain.

  I thought of my namesake Daria, who begged St. Brigid to restore her eyesight so she might look upon the world, but then begged to have her eyes shut again so she might be closer to God. I felt neither closer to Him nor more distant than I ever had been, but I could see clearly in my mind’s eye the chasm opening between me and him to whose service I had pledged my life. I thought of an old Hellene tale Lys had told me, about a king who blinded himself upon learning that, in his ignorance, he had murdered his father and wed his mother. I thought of Alys and Hugh, and of Sylva, who had nursed me out of an obscure gratitude.

  And I thought of Lys, always.

  We are all blind in God’s eyes, Alys had told me once. Despite what she had done to me, I was grateful.

  Clumsily I lit a candle, then rummaged in my chest until I found the small cache of ornaments I sometimes used when Lys received foreign dignitaries. I heated the tips of two silver hairpins and crouched on the floor of my room, holding them at eye level.

  I reminded myself how when my mother abandoned me under a frozen hedge, I refused to give in and squalled in a rage to live until I was found; how I learned to wash and dress myself and make my own way around as soon as I was old enough to totter haltingly from kitchen stool to table, from one Sister’s long skirts to the next; how I became the bosom-companion of a prince, heir to an empire, and taught him not to rely on his eyes alone.