Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) Page 6

  The maids took them to a large airy bedchamber where the furniture was covered with sheets, and then bustled to make the room ready.

  There was a grand four-poster bed in the middle of the chamber and Percy looked at it with sudden warmth in her cheeks. Meanwhile, Beltain seemed to be no less affected by the implications of the single bed, as he turned his back to her and began to remove his plate armor with the assistance of a valet who had swiftly arrived after the maids, to offer his services.

  “Would you like me to take that, Miss?” said a young maid, pointing to Percy’s coat and shawl.

  Percy knew better than to argue. She was soon down to her coarse burlap and wool dress, and the maid ran off somewhere then returned with a light cotton dress which she set on the bed. The material was not costly fabric but ordinary country clothing that a simple country lady or even the maid herself might wear.

  Before anyone could protest, two sturdy wooden bathtubs were brought in, one after the other, by four burly servants who looked as if they had been borrowed from country fieldwork.

  Next, came endless buckets of water, steaming hot, and finally the baths were ready. Two maidservants came to stand in the middle of the room between each tub, holding up the ends of a large opened sheet to create a curtain of privacy. The valet helped Beltain disrobe further and enter his bath, while the same was done on Percy’s side with a maid.

  Even though she had gone through a similar bath service at the Silver Court once before—though admittedly this was much simpler and countrified—Percy still blushed when disrobing, and still felt the awfulness of revealing her threadbare underclothing to anyone.

  But sinking into the heaven of hot water made her forget everything else—even the ever-present billowing death-shadow of the Lady Leonora that stood patiently waiting a few steps away in the corner of the room, invisible to all but herself. . . . The bliss of the warmth, the overwhelming relaxation after relentless events of so many days, was a pleasure unimaginable to Percy. She hardly even noticed when a maid came to help her wash her hair, because she was utterly groggy with sleep.

  The maids with the privacy curtain had also gone away while she was not looking. The next moment she opened her eyes and focused, Percy could see Beltain a few feet away, seated in his own bath. He seemed to sense her scrutiny immediately because he too turned his face in her direction . . . and she saw the blooming of his soft smile and the intimate look of his slate-blue eyes.

  Percy felt such a breathless pang of joy in her heart at the sight of him, with his wet curls of slick hair and the water running down his face and his great bronzed shoulders, and his mesmerizing kind eyes, that she felt herself flushing beyond any heat the bathwater held.

  She smiled back a him shyly, and quickly turned away, and then the next moment the maid poured a bucket over her face, so it was all for the best anyway.

  An hour later they were washed clean and dried and clothed into a fresh set of simple but well-made clothing from the D’Arvu family personal or guest wardrobes. Beltain was now clean-shaven and wearing a white linen shirt with loose lace-trimmed sleeves, dark pants, and buckled shoes that were likely fashionable at some point at the Sapphire Court, but now were sufficiently ordinary so as not to provoke undue foppish attention. It was fortunate that the clothes fit his very tall and large muscular frame, for they certainly must have belonged to some other gentleman than the Count who was a much smaller man.

  Meanwhile Percy had her hair swept up in a simple but attractive knot arrangement and was attired in a light dress with a tightly laced and somewhat revealing bodice that left her neck and shoulders and some of her chest frightfully uplifted and exposed. After the maid was done lacing it from the back and left her to her own devices, Percy spent several futile moments attempting to pull up some of the fabric higher over her bulging bosom and tucking it around the armpits of the sleeves, while Beltain stood watching her with amusement. It only made things worse when Percy realized the direction of his gaze upon her and the fact that his eyes once more seemed so very dark, and their dilated pupils overwhelming the irises, as he stared at her—to be precise, certain parts of her, in particular.

  “How can ladies wear such peculiar dresses?” Percy muttered, because she felt she must say something to cover her embarrassment.

  But in reply he continued to look at her, so that Percy felt herself on fire. And then he said, “You have never been to a Court assembly, my sweet girl. The ladies there are always close to naked. Your dress is quite demure and you look—very well in it.”

  And then Beltain smiled.

  Percy’s heart had no time to even begin racing because in the next breath he offered his arm to her. “Come,” he said. “They are waiting for us downstairs, and you have an important task ahead of you.”

  Percy exhaled with a shudder and nodded. She then took his arm, feeling an immediate outpouring of honey warmth at the place where their arms touched. And then she called upon the nearby death shadow to proceed after them.

  The D’Arvu family had gathered in the parlor. The Count had not bothered to change for dinner. Seated on a brocade-and-silk upholstered divan, the gaunt and dark-haired Countess Arabella was dressed far simpler than Percy had ever seen her to be, as a country matron. Next to her, Lady Leonora their daughter wore a flowing girlish dress of mauve silk and linen that emphasized the pallor of her skin and offset her chestnut curls.

  The moment Percy saw Leonora, pale and stiff-backed, and with an apathetic glassy stare, she had no remaining doubt that the young woman was dead. And oh, her death shadow! How quickly it flew to be at her side! It was as though an invisible string of power was jerked, tossing it forward across the distance, and setting it next to her rightful mistress, at long last. . . .

  The culmination of all things was now at hand. But first, the formalities had to be observed.

  “Come, my friends!” said the Count, to his guests and then, turning to his wife and daughter—“We are blessed to have our dear friends in our midst once again, and so soon!”

  Beltain bowed, and Percy curtsied very carefully. The Countess arose from her seat and rushed forward to take Percy in a very unexpected motherly embrace. “Welcome, dear child, you are always welcome in our home, wherever it may be!”

  The Lady Leonora turned her face to the visitors and then arose somewhat stiffly and curtsied also. Her chestnut hair was sweetly arranged, and she was attempting to smile, but her facial muscles were struggling to form the movements necessary, and the result was neither here nor there.

  It pained Percy to look at her and see her for what she was, even though neither her parents nor she herself had any idea of her true condition.

  After everyone was once again seated, a small pause ensued.

  “Percy Ayren, I must thank you again for saving me,” Leonora said, her voice measured precisely and slightly monotone.

  “Lady Leonora,” said Percy gently. “I only wish I could have done more. . . .”

  And then Percy steeled herself and clenched her hands at her sides, and continued, “I wish—I wish I did not have to say this, and—and things had turned out differently. Maybe, if I had gotten to you sooner—”

  “What do you mean, my dear?” Count Lecrant had been looking away at something else in the room, cheerfully ready to summon the servants for pre-supper refreshments, but the tone of Percy’s voice made him turn back and look at her with attention.

  But Percy was looking at Leonora, unable to take her eyes off her, and her expression was unnaturally composed, controlled somehow. None knew it, but she was watching the maiden and her death, how they were together, how close to its seated mistress the shadow stood. . . .

  “I am so sorry to say this now, dear Lady Leonora, but I must. We have come here, returned to see you so soon, but not for a happy reason. As you remember, we thought we had the Lady Melinoë with us, she who was the Cobweb Bride. We took her to see Lord Death in his Keep. But we—that is, I, everyone—was mistaken. The d
eath that was attached to her was not her own—”

  “What are you saying?” the Countess D’Arvu interrupted, paling.

  Lady Leonora had grown absolutely motionless. She regarded Percy with her glassy eyes.

  “I am saying, the death shadow at Lady Melinoë’s side belonged to someone else—another lady—it belonged to you. I am sorry, Lady Leonora, so sorry, with all my heart, but I had to return, and bring the death back here, to you. Your own true death stands now at your side, waiting. . . . You are the rightful Cobweb Bride. And I must return you to Lord Death, so that the world can be set aright once more. Will you come with me, My Lady?”

  The room had become as silent as a grave. The afternoon sun came in soft dappled patches through the window and upon the old marble of the floor.

  And then Lady Leonora, motionless as a doll in her flowing silk, opened her lips and evoked the mechanism to expand her dead lungs, and uttered in fierce gasps: “No . . . not dead . . . I am not dead! It is not true!”

  And the Count and Countess, also agitated, made exclamations, while the Countess clutched her daughter’s hand, saying, “My child cannot be dead! Look, see how rosy her cheeks are! And I can feel her heart beating, surely it is beating!”

  Percy stood up and approached, then gently touched Lady Leonora’s hand also. “You are cold, My Lady. And I feel no pulse, nor hear a heartbeat. I am so sorry. . . . As for your cheeks, they are rather pale already. Any remaining pink is but the last shadow of your former health, and it will not last long. . . .”

  Leonora jerked her hand away from Percy, while her death shadow flickered in response to Percy’s touch. The lady drew backward, sinking deeper against the divan pillows like a stiff plank of wood. “No!” she said again, clutching at the seat and cushions then putting her hands up to claw at her face. “No! I am not dead, I cannot be!”

  “This is a terrible mistake!” the Count D’Arvu added. “No indeed, my daughter is perfectly healthy!”

  “But your death is right beside you!” Percy insisted. “I can see it!”

  “That is a lie!” Leonora’s fixed gaze hardened and her brows arched downward with effort. From her seated position she glared at Percy with a dark maddened expression, then looked around her at both sides of the divan, past her mother, as though searching for any sign of ghostly death in her proximity. “No!” she said yet again, her chestnut ringlets of curls trembling. “No and no! You lie now! I know not why it is that you are really here, what horrible lies you’ve brought to torment me, but you will not have me! I refuse! I will not die! I will never go with you!”

  And with a cry, followed by some other incomprehensible exclamation, Leonora got up once again, her hands and arms shaking with awkward jerking motions, and she ran out of the parlor.

  Her death shadow followed her.

  Chapter 4

  Lady Amaryllis Roulle and Lord Nathan Woult opened their eyes . . . and found themselves in a low-lit but unusually busy corridor of the Imperial Palace at Silver Court.

  “Ah!” Amaryllis exclaimed, as a liveried servant carrying something in a wooden box crashed into her shoulder rather painfully, nearly knocking her against the hallway wall, and making her let go of Nathan’s hand.

  “Oh, a thousand pardons, My Lady! I must be terribly blind!” the servant exclaimed in abject confusion, for his way had been entirely clear only seconds ago.

  “It is of no consequence,” replied the lady with tired magnanimity, but then suffered a pang of mortification as the servant took a good look at her and noted her disheveled appearance, her horrible tangled hair, and the dirt stains on her face and dark red travel clothes.

  His expression changed from groveling to suspicious and then haughty.

  But then he took in the terrifying sight of Lord Nathan, wild haired, overgrown with a black beard, and even more filthy in attire. The servant’s jaw fell open, but just then Nathan said: “On your way now, good fellow! Stop gawking, scram!”

  And the liveried servant fled.

  The next few passerby in the hallway, also servants, heard the interaction and gifted Amaryllis and Nathan with similar glares, before hurrying away.

  “Are you all right, dearest?” Nathan inquired. He considered for a moment taking the lady’s hand, but refrained.

  “Dear Lord in Heaven!” Amaryllis whispered in icy fury, clutching her filthy brocade skirts. “I am mortified! To be seen looking thus, and then to be disdained by serving staff! Fie! I must now kill myself!”

  “Now, now,” said her dear friend and companion. “Killing yourself, nowadays that is an empty threat if ever there was one, unless you’ve managed to become Death’s Auxiliary Champion while he was not looking. Considering we have been through hell and Tartarus, literally—well, at least its front parlor—I dare say no one would blame us for the stains on our clothing after days in a Chidair dungeon—”

  “I do not care!” the lady cried. “I must be on to my quarters immediately, where I shall bathe for two days straight, have these clothes burned, the chamber fumigated, and then eat something that is not gruel—and you too! Speaking of fumigation!”

  “Well, yes, naturally, my dear. But do you not think it might be important to attend the Emperor first and let him know what we know?” Nathan glanced at a pair of running servants that passed them just now. “Lord knows, but this entire Palace might be under siege, or worse, getting sacked this instant by that mad Goddess Persephone and her army!”

  “The goddess and her army be damned!” Amaryllis hissed, and began walking in a general direction of her Palace quarters. “It can all wait till after I am fit to be seen in public. Nathan! If you see anyone we know, warn me, so that I might turn around and hide my face, and you can block me with your brute nightmarish figure—”

  “Well, certainly, yes, but—”

  “But what?” Amaryllis cried, turning to glare at him. “Think, Nathan, we know nothing. Nothing, really! What good are we to the Emperor, but to tell him that Death and a few antique Grecian gods have come to our mortal coil and are having an insane quarrel that is going to tear apart the world and us with it? Seriously? What can we tell His Imperial Majesty that will not have us made into a laughingstock worse than we already are?”

  And she continued on her way.

  “Amaryllis, you do underestimate what we know,” Nathan said, swiftly matching her rapid pace with his longer stride. “I really think the Emperor needs to see us now, exactly as we are—no baths, no rest. Now.”

  “And why is that, Nathan?”

  “Because,” he replied, “for once, in the greater scheme of things, we can make a difference.”

  Within a quarter of an hour of walking past a myriad corridors, rushing servants, and occasional harried nobles, Amaryllis and Nathan were ushered into a small elegant parlor in the Imperial Quarters of the Palace.

  Here a man of advanced middle years with a dark beard met them, attired in expensive but subdued clothing. He frowned slightly, squinting at the unsightly but vaguely familiar pair—for in the dirt and disarray, the horrific stained outfits, and Nathan’s unkempt wild hair and beard he could hardly recognize two of the most foppish and brilliant young members of the aristocracy.

  “Dear Heaven, is that you, Lord Nathan Woult?” said the Duke Claude Rovait eventually. “You look a fright! What in God’s name has happened to you? Where have you been? And oh, my dear Lady Amaryllis!”

  The lady and gentleman curtsied and bowed before the distinguished Duke Rovait who was one of the Emperor’s closest advisors. Amaryllis’s usually pale, elfin features were flaming mulberry with a blush of mortification.

  “I beg pardon of Your Grace for our dire appearance,” Nathan hurried to speak. “But we come straight from having escaped a Chidair dungeon up north where we’ve languished for days, and then Death’s Keep where we languished an unspeakable number of hours that felt like centuries. We request an audience with His Imperial Majesty, for we have news to impart that might be considered si
gnificant.”

  The Duke frowned. “Go on. . . . Before I allow you an Imperial Audience on such short notice and at such an inopportune time, I need to know what this is about. As you can imagine, the Emperor has an overwhelming number of concerns to deal with—”

  “Are we besieged?” the Lady Amaryllis interrupted. “What has happened here at Court that we have missed during our absence? Is the Sovereign here yet?”

  The Duke glanced at the lady with a grave countenance. “So you do know that we’re at war?”

  “Yes, I imagine it is the inevitable outcome of all this horror,” Amaryllis retorted.

  “You claim to be newly sprung from a northern Lethe dungeon. How did you manage to get here, inside the walls of the citadel? No, there is no siege, but the Silver Court is on lockdown. No one can enter or leave without our knowledge or permission.”

  “That is precisely why we must speak with His Imperial Majesty,” said Nathan.

  “Well?”

  “The answer is rather unbelievable,” Amaryllis spoke again. “And it involves Death—who, it turns out, is not merely an apparition but a god.”

  The Duke Rovait’s frown increased.

  “In short, we were brought here, by unnatural means,” Nathan said. “Death, who is Hades, Lord of the Underworld, sent us here—through air, or shadows, or some kind of wind tunnel—or Hades himself only knows what, but it involved neither carriages nor horses.”

  “Lord Nathan,” the Duke interrupted sternly. “I am not going to pay you the discourtesy of asking if you are in your cups. What you are saying is beginning to sound like bad drivel. Is this supposed to be some kind of exquisite jest on your part? If so, it is in poor taste.”