It was amazing how quickly a castle could be transformed from the stoic place it had been, into a hall fit for funeral rites. It spoke eloquently of the tenacity of women, or one woman rather, who took notions in her teeth like a hound on the hunt and ran with them. Amazing also, that the whole metamorphosis could be avoided by the simple virtue of sheltering behind the doors of the upper levels where none of the frantic arrangement was taking place. Kall-Su supposed things were going smoothly. Yoko had said as much when she'd slipped by the study later that afternoon, mercifully interrupting a game that had gone dreadfully wrong from the first move. It seemed the merchant had reluctantly accepted the offer of funeral rites. Yoko claimed to have spoken to the man at length, but did not go into details. She understood people in a way that he nor Schneider ever could. Her tolerance was boundless. Her acceptance was generally universal.
The work went on into the night. The smell from the kitchens permeated the castle into the wee hours of morning. Kall honestly did not know what to expect, nor what was entirely expected of him. Yoko had been vague about that. He got very little in the way of sleep that night. Between anxiety over this upcoming public display, the reason for it, and recollections of last night's activities he lay awake and very much ill at ease. He was tired and fuzzy headed when morning finally did creep over the horizon and pulled on a bit of his arcane reserves to chase away the fatigue. He did not quite know what to do with himself. Keitlan sent one of the kitchen girls by with his breakfast, which meant she was mightily distracted by this whole thing and too busy to do it herself. The girl looked uncomfortable, but he thought this once it wasn't due to him, but rather what would be happening downstairs. He picked at breakfast, drank the coffee and sorted through his reduced wardrobe for the most severe thing he had to wear. Black. The same thing he'd worn to the impromptu meeting with the bandit representatives. And hadn't that encounter gone abysmally well? He tried not to be superstitious, but sometimes the urge just got the better of him. He put it on just to spite himself, looked at himself in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door and thought it made him look ghostly and pale. His eyes looked too big in his face, which made him seem damned young and that annoyed him. He narrowed them and glared at his reflection. Better. He still looked like he'd barely seen twenty, but at least he didn't look apprehensive and uncertain. Which he was.
He hoped Yoko had planned the rites for morning, because he didn't think he could stand to wait all day. He felt stupid not asking for details. Yesterday he hadn't wanted to know. He prowled the upper levels until he got tired of wondering like a lost soul and went looking for Yoko. She wasn't in her rooms, but Schneider was, still abed and threatening dire and unpleasant things if he was not left in peace. One supposed he had no intention of attending the funeral rites. It was probably just as well.
He went to the solar next to his library, which had a balcony overlooking the main courtyard. Stone latticework made a railing about it and thick columns rose to support the overhang. He leaned against one of the columns where he was mostly hidden from view from below and looked to see what activity was taking place below. The guards were out in full dress uniform and a great many of them. He suspected Kiro had been even less enthusiastic about Yoko's plan than he had, what with recent assassination attempts and a dismal lack of security to think about. Opening the castle gates for the city to pour in had to have him pulling out his hair. Common people were drifting in the wide open main gates. Merchants, craftsmen, common laborers. One could almost tell from their dress what class of folk they were. The guards were not lax in their scrutiny of those entering. Everyone was stopped at the gate and politely checked for hidden weapons. Kiro was not taking chances. Kall-Su wondered what other precautions his captain had taken.
There was a flurry of activity just outside the gates. People already inside gathered to look and see out. The guards cleared them back, making a path for a garland draped wagon, bearing two painted, wooden coffins. A white robed priest followed after, his reedy voice chanting a prayer. Behind him came more people. Family, close friends. A man in the midst of them that might have been the father and husband. Kall could only indistinctly remember his face. So it had begun. He didn't know if he ought to wait or go down. A priest of Eno Marta was performing the rites and he didn't know how much pomp and ritual funeral rites looked over by that patron goddess entailed. He did not wish to be trapped down there if it were going to take forever to get the thing started. He very much wanted to make a dutiful appearance and flee. Plainly astounding that he did not flinch in the face of armies or challenging incredibly powerful elementals, and yet the prospect of this morning had him nervous to the point of sweating.
They passed the gates and beyond his view into the main hall. Everyone seemed inclined to follow and the yard was left with nothing but guards standing at ready. He chewed on his lip and waited, assuming Yoko would send someone after him when she thought he needed to be there. Not wanting to go a minute sooner than that. The door to the solar opened quietly and Keitlan approached him, looking relieved to have tracked him down.
"Milord? The priest is starting the rites and Lady Yoko sent me to ask if you'd come down."
He nodded, schooling his face into neutrality, and walked past her. Down the stairs and into the main hall where he knew every eye would be drawn to him, every face filled with accusation. And they were. He felt it the moment he left the shadow of the stair, as if they had all been waiting for him to appear. A hundred sets of eyes that slowly migrated his way, drawn to him by the notice of their neighbors. A rustling of clothing of bodies turning. Of small whispered comments. But not all filled with denunciation. Most were heavy with awe, with no small nervousness to be here in this hall, in the presence of the Ice Lord himself. Probably none of these people had ever crossed the boundary of the castle gates in their lives. Probably none of them would again. Oh, there was accusation there, but it was tempered with other less troublesome things. They had taken the coffins to the front of the hall where a platform had been constructed before the hearth. There were heaps of garlands surrounding them. He couldn't guess where Yoko had come up with so many with spring so newly upon them. The old priest was standing behind and above them, behind a podium.
He hesitated for a second and Yoko and Kiro descended upon him from different directions. Kiro didn't say a word, just settled himself a step behind him, while Yoko took his arm, entwined it in hers and guided him towards the front of the hall. Everyone was standing. All the chairs and benches had been cleared out, although the tables had been pushed to the side of the wall and covered with linens in preparation of a funeral feast after the ceremony. She did not force him into the forefront, merely stopped with him along the sidelines against the wall, at a respectful distance from the real mourners and stood there with him, a presence that everyone in the room was aware of.
It might have been a signal she'd worked out with the old priest. The old man raised his voice and gathered the attention of the room to him. He launched into a dissertation of the afterlife. Kall-Su stared at the coffins dismally, blocking out the words. He'd heard too much debate on the state of the soul in regards to the righteous man from the Prophet.
It was finished eventually, with much crying and sobbing from several female relatives along the front line of mourners. The coffins were taken out one by one, to be loaded back on the wagon. Tonight there would be a funeral pyre outside the city where the winds would catch the ash and whisk it away to freedom. There were very few graves here, for most of the year the ground was too hard to break.
Yoko squeezed his arm and whispered. "Five minutes." Which he supposed meant she wished him to remain at least that long. She unwound herself from him and melted into the crowd. Kiro stood a yard away from him, stern faced and silent, watching the gathering of mourners as if he expected them to draw knives and start attacking.
Someone else came quietly up along his other side. Kiro's eyes flicked that way, then back to the crowd, unconcerned. He almost didn't look himself, he was so preoccupied.
"My lord." Very softly, very deferentially spoken. Lily stood far enough away not to seem presumptuous, a black shawl over her red skirt and white peasant blouse. He drew in a breath and stopped himself from taking a step towards her. He could not quite keep himself from staring.
"This is a very good thing you've done." She said.
"A good thing for a bad one." He returned, very softly.
"Things even out." She said, shrugging. "The word on the street today is better than it was yesterday."
Her mind worked the same as Yoko's. Practicality of a vein that he did not possess. He wished Kiro wasn't so close. He wished he could draw Lily away to a private place because he just wanted to touch her again.
"You came." It wasn't even a whisper. He mouthed the words and she understood and her eyes beneath the hair flickered uneasily away from him.
"I heard of the open funeral rites." She said, an explanation. An excuse. It hurt. He looked away and into the face of Yoko coming towards him with a man in tow. A man he did recognize now. The merchant. He drew a breath, blindsided and not prepared after the surprise of seeing Lily, of having his wits scattered by Lily.
School his features. Don't look as distraught as he felt. He didn't even know this man's name. Why hadn't someone told him his name? He felt Kiro straighten behind him. Lily stepped back a pace, but no further. Yoko smiled slightly at him, her arm laced with the arm of the merchant.
"Lord Kall-Su, this is Master craftsman Cornel. I have expressed to him the depth of your regret over what happened."
The man stared. The anger on his face had faded to weariness, the grief eating up all the other more fiery emotions. There still resided in his eyes a simmering denunciation. How could it not? What had he said the last time he'd been face to face with this man? He could not recall. If he repeated himself, so be it.
"I am deeply sorry, Master Cornel. Your loss -- this thing should not have happened. Circumstances drove me beyond rational thought and innocent lives were taken. I regret it."
"You regret it?" the man said dully. "How can you know the meaning? How can you know what I've lost?"
Kiro almost took a step forward, protectively, as if words were a threat. The merchant ignored him, ignored everything but his own clenched hands. "I fought for you when I was a young man, during the last war and you never cared then when innocents died. Why should I believe you now? I know assassins drove you to it, I found that out since, but it don't make much difference to my wife and girl. All that talk from the caravans from the south about magic being the devil's work and it being the destruction of us all sooner or later -- never believed it before. But now, after what you did -- because you weren't rational -- makes me believe them." He shook his head once, then shrugged out of Yoko's arm and walked slowly into the crowd of his fellows. They swallowed him up with sympathetic embraces.
Yoko looked after the man, torn. Her eyes huge and worried. "Oh, Kall ---" she started and he shook his head at her.
"No." Just no. He wanted out. Even the draw of Lily's presence couldn't keep him here another minute. He walked past Kiro, face gone impassive and cold, shields slammed back into place.
Up the stairs, seething with guilt - outrage - indignity - recollection. He did know the meaning. He did understand the loss.
"My lord."
He was at the top of the stairs. Lily was half way up, looking as if she feared being caught there with him. He glared at her and whirled, angry at her for that. Not wanting forced sympathy from her when she did not wish to be here to begin with.
She followed him down the empty hall. "Please wait, my lor --"
"Don't call me that." He hissed at her and did turn and fixed her with his coldest, most menacing stare. She closed the distance, not balking at a look that almost everyone else was extremely wary of.
"Forgive me." She said and stood there looking at him as if she expected a yea or nay answer to that plea. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Stymied by her calm, expectant stare.
"For what?" he finally asked, grudgingly.
"For whatever it is that I've done to make you look at me so balefully. I didn't mean it, I assure you."
Whatever she'd done? For getting his hopes up and dashing them. For being a witness to what that man said.
"Nothing. You did nothing." Thank you for coming. Enjoy the festivities. He turned away from her.
"Kall-Su?" She didn't touch him. She didn't have to. He froze, shut his eyes a moment, while his back was to her. She shattered his shields so effortlessly with something so simple as his name upon her lips. How had this happened? If he kept playing this game she was going to hurt him.
"I didn't come for the rites -- I came to see you." She said it steadily, coaxingly, as if she knew what was going through his head. He glanced over his shoulder at her and she smiled shyly. "It was a good enough excuse to get into the castle without Keitlan wondering if I was back to steal the silverware. She has a low opinion of bards."
Someone was coming up stairs. He heard the tap of boots on stone. She did and bit her lip. He caught her hand and pulled her down the hall and into the library. Tried to let her go, but she clasped his hand with her slender, callused fingers.
"Loss makes people cruel." She said. "I know what you said is true. And I know you won't let it happen again. Don't dwell on it."
"I had no such intention." He said.
"Liar." She accused softly. "I could see it on your face."
He didn't know what to say to that. So he didn't say anything, just stood there uncomfortably with the heat of her hand burning his. She sighed. Looked about the room, at the books and the various collected items on the shelves.
"I -- dreamed about you last night." She said, then smiled a little wickedly. "Some of them were even sleeping ones."
He colored a little at that. She was not the shy girl one might take her at upon first glance. She had proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt two nights past. She had learned things in her scant years that he in all of his, had never dreamed of.
"When I was a little girl and traveled with my second master -- he was the leader of a gypsy troupe -- I used to look at his books. He kept them in a chest. There were maybe five of them. I'd never seen a book before. He treasured them more than gold. I remember loving the pretty pictures. He taught me to read music but not words. I was always sad about that, because I just knew that wonderful stories went with the pictures. You've read all of these?"
"Most of them."
"Is it true, that they hold worlds within them?" There was such a look of yearning on her face.
"I -- could teach you to read, if you like?" he suggested it hesitantly, offering it like a bone to a dog he wanted to lure within his reach. "But, it would take time."
"I would love that." Wistfully said, as if she knew she hadn't the time.
"You won't come back here to stay, will you?" He phrased it as a question, but he knew the answer.
"I didn't say that."
He drew a frustrated breath. "I don't understand you, Lily."
"I'm sorry." She said softly, and slipped in so close to him that he had the reflexive urge to step back. All he saw was the top of her head until she looked up, inviting. Gods, she threw him off balance. He didn't know what to expect of her.
She sighed again, he seemed to be making her do an awful lot of that, and rose to her toes, placing a light, brief kiss upon his lips. "I think I should go. But if you wish, I might come back tonight? If you could arrange it---?"
It was not what he had hoped. But it was better than not having her at all. It was simple enough to manage, since she had a fear of wagging tongues. She never had to pass a gate or walk by the scrutiny of a guard. He fetched her under cover of night and with her clinging to him as if she were convinced the winds would give out and drop the both of them to their deaths, flew up to the tower roof and through that back entrance to his chambers. He felt like an adolescent doing something he ought not, with all the subterfuge, but he wasn't sure she would have come had he walked her in through the main hall. He put a spell on the door to keep anyone out who couldn't magic it open and spent a very pleasant night loosing himself in her.
And a dismal morning after when she woke before him at an hour he had not willingly woken at in recent memory and begged to be spirited away. It was entirely frustrating and yet he found himself backed into a not terribly uncomfortable corner with her. If he pushed, she got skittish. Got that look in her fathomless dark eyes that said she was on the verge of running. He thought he understood her to a degree. She was young and newly granted her own head. She needed to run with it. She needed to taste freedom -- and her concept of it seemed to be wondering aimlessly about the country with a pack of penniless musicians -- more than she needed permanent stone walls hemming her in. At least for now. She was not decided though, he had her uncertain of her own wishes. But he was not adept enough of talking a woman into, or out of anything to know what pretty words to say that might change her mind. He should have talked with Schneider.
As it was, he was content enough having what he did of her. She made him feel good. She made him forget old guilt's and old betrayals. She told him of her life as a slave. Of the things she had done, of the many men and of the shames she had endured. She was a little frightened he would think less of her for it. That was so very clear in the nervous catch in her voice, in the way she let her hair shift to cover her eyes. He told her things he had never willingly told anyone before and she did not recriminate him for them. Her sins were so much less than his, but somehow it seemed an even exchange.
Days passed. Bandits did not plague them. The city did not rise up in arms against him. The people in general were well pleased with him, according to what Lily had picked up and she seemed to be in the hub of gossip and speculation due to her profession. The fates were generous. And as always, it was only a matter of time before their fickle favor turned the other way. When they gave with one hand, they always sooner or later took away with the other.