He coughed and straightened his cuff. “His Majesty is in conference in his private study, Your Highness.”
“In conference? On a full stomach?” This was out of character for Fidel. “With whom?”
“The Prince of Farthestshore, Your Highness.” The steward’s tone implied that he had far more important business to attend to than Una’s curiosity, so she let him go.
“Aethelbald,” she muttered and frowned. She had almost forgotten their meeting in the forest earlier that evening. Had she said something, anything, that she wouldn’t want Aethelbald repeating to her father? Would she be due a lecture come the morrow? She sniffed, frustrated, and twisted her mouth. Why couldn’t Prince Aethelbald let her alone for once?
Though, she had to admit, there was some chance they weren’t discussing her at all. Somehow this thought was still more galling.
She returned to the waiting jester and found Leonard contemplating a series of portraits in the hall where she had left him. They were not very good pieces; or rather, Una hoped they were not. If they were accurate, then her ancestors had been distinctly lacking in forehead and tended toward greenish complexion.
But the jester, when she neared, was not looking at a depiction of one of her ancestors. Instead she found him studying a small piece of far more ancient work. The figures in this painting, though no more proportionate than the paintings of Una’s grandsires, were gracefully worked, with life in their limbs and expressions on their faces. Three men stood on the shores of a black lake; one of the three wore a crown upon his head while the other two were bound in chains. Otherwise, their faces were identical. In the center of the lake lay another man upon a golden altar that rose up out of the water. Beside this altar stood a woman, her body bent over and her hands over her face as though she wept.
Una must have seen the picture a thousand times without ever pausing to look at it. Glancing at it now, she thought it ugly. Yet the jester appeared captivated.
“Leonard?” She spoke several times before finally touching his sleeve.
He startled but immediately masked his face in a smile. “You’re back.”
“Do you like the picture?” she asked “Not at all. A vile piece – wouldn’t you agree?”
But his gaze wandered back to the painting as though drawn unwillingly. “I believe I have met him.” He pointed to the man lying on the golden altar in the center of the lake. Though the figure was tiny, the artist had intricately painted a skull-like face surrounded by black hair.
Ghoulish, Una thought.
The jester laughed and turned abruptly away. “Reminds me of an innkeeper who tossed me out on the streets after a performance in Lunthea Maly.”
“You’ve seen Lunthea Maly?” Una gasped, forgetting about the ugly painting and allowing Leonard to lead her from it, though she realized after a few steps that she should be the one leading him. “You’ve traveled to the Far East?”
“I dwelt four years in Lunthea Maly, the City of Fragrant Flowers, which indeed is as fragrant as squashed daisies left rotting in the bottom of a wheelbarrow on a summer’s day.” He gave her a roguish wink. “I have even performed within the great halls of the Aromatic Palace, home of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Khemkhaeng-Niran Klahan of Noorhitam himself!”
“You performed for an emperor?”
“He gave me a peacock, he was so pleased by my foolishness.” Leonard coughed modestly. “Of course, his grand vizier showed up on my doorstep the following morning to reclaim the bird, declaring the young emperor rather too enthusiastic in his gift giving. But it’s the thought that counts, yes?”
With those words, the jester’s stomach let out a terrific rumble, and he clapped his hands to his middle and looked embarrassed. “Forgive me, m’lady. I have not eaten a full meal in many weeks, I believe. Since I left Beauclair.”
“Come to my father, then,” Una said, taking his arm. “He’ll hire you, and I promise he’ll pay more than the thought of food for your performances.”
“One can always hope,” the jester said with the doleful air of one who didn’t often hope anymore. But Una led him to her father’s study, determined to see him situated in Oriana Palace, at least for a time.
The hall in which her father’s study was located was empty except for a gentleman attendant, who stood just outside the door, covering a yawn with the back of his hand. He pulled himself upright at Una’s approach, though he sneered as he took in Leonard’s odd motley.
“Wait here,” Una told the jester. He leaned against the window opposite the study door, his hands behind his back, shifting his feet. She nodded to the still-sneering attendant and motioned for him to depart, then knocked on the door.
No one answered. Inside she could hear the rise and fall of voices and remembered that her father was in conference with Prince Aethelbald. She hesitated, wondering whether to knock again, when suddenly her father’s voice rose, and she heard through the heavy wood:
“That’s nonsense, sir, utter nonsense, if you’ll forgive my saying so.”
Prince Aethelbald replied but spoke in that frustratingly low tone of his, and Una could not make out a word. Her father responded. “She’s my own daughter. I would see that for myself, don’t you think?”
Una’s heart thudded to a stop in her throat. She felt wicked for eavesdropping, but somehow she couldn’t drag herself away from the door. Instead she strained her ears.
Aethelbald’s words were still indiscernible, but Fidel said, “We are in no danger. Southlands can burn to dust for all I care; it still means nothing! Parumvir has never been a temptation to their kind.” Another pause during which Aethelbald spoke, and then Fidel again. “You do what you think best, Prince Aethelbald, but leave me and mine alone. I don’t doubt that you believe every word of your warning. You’re an honest sort and a good man. But you don’t know Una, not as I do.”
Una backed away from the door. She desperately wanted to press her ear to the keyhole and catch every word.
But part of her was afraid.
What she feared she could not name. Yet as she listened to her father’s voice, she became aware of a tightness on her finger. Her opal ring pinched again, and her finger swelled up around it. She twisted it, trying to loosen the pressure.
Leonard came up behind her. “Princess?”
He was given no chance to continue. The study door opened and Prince Aethelbald emerged, head down and hands clenched at his sides. He saw Una and stopped, his eyes first darting to her hands, then to her face. He opened his mouth, and Una thought he was about to address her.
Then he became aware of the jester behind her. He closed his mouth and, without a word, hastened down the hall and away.
Fidel came to the doorway. “Una!” He spoke sharply and his face was gray. But the next moment he forced a smile onto his face, and his voice was kind when he said, “What in the world have you dragged in this evening, child?”
Una drew her gaze back from following Aethelbald’s retreating form and smiled at her father. “It’s a jester, Father.”
“It is, eh?” Fidel gave Leonard a once-over and raised an eyebrow. “He is indeed.” The jester offered the king a graceful bow.
Fidel nodded and crossed his arms. “Another lost creature lugged in from the Wood, Una? Does this one just need a good meal and a bath as well?”
“Heaven help us, he’d be grateful enough,” the jester muttered.
“Oh, but more than that!” Una stepped over to her father’s side, hugging his arm. “He’s ever so amusing, Father, and we haven’t had a jester in ages. Do you think we could hire him perhaps? He’s out of work and needs a position, and he’s really too funny for words!”
“Peace, girl,” her father said, putting up a hand. Then he turned again to Leonard. “Who are you, and from where have you come?”
Leonard bowed elegantly after a foreign fashion that Una had never before seen. “I am called Leonard the Lightning Tongue, Your Majesty, professional Fool of no mean skil
l,” he said. “I come from many places: Noorhitam and Aja, Milden and Shippening. Most recently Beauclair’s Amaury Palace, whereat I endeavored to amuse the court of King Grosveneur. But originally, Southlands.”
His gaze locked with Fidel’s. If the king wondered in that moment whether or not certain words he’d spoken behind his closed door had carried out into the hall, if he concerned himself with whether or not the jester had overheard, his face did not reveal as much. Stiff masks in place, each regarded the other, giving nothing, taking nothing.
But Una heard her father’s voice in her memory, harsher than she was used to hearing it: “Southlands can burn to dust for all I care.”
She lowered her gaze, twisting her hands before her. Then, to break the interminable silence, she said, “Ask to see his papers, Father. He says he brings a recommendation from King Grosveneur.”
Leonard produced the desired document for Fidel’s perusal, and the seal and signature were genuine.
Fidel nodded and grunted. “I’ll put you up for the night,” he said. “I do not host spectacles for my court in the same manner as Grosveneur, nor is Oriana Palace a scene of revelry on the scale of Amaury. But you may entertain my family this evening, and you and I shall discuss a long-term engagement once you’ve gone through your paces. Agreed?”
“Willingly, Your Majesty,” Leonard said with a deep bow.
–––––––
Una returned to her room for a light supper and a not-so-light scolding from Nurse, paying neither much heed in her eagerness to be off to her father’s private sitting room for Leonard’s first performance. Nurse told Una that she looked a sight and forced her to sit at the vanity while she pulled twigs and leaves from her hair, and Una did this with as good grace as she could manage, holding her supper in her lap and eating while Nurse worked.
Her meal and toilette completed, Una escaped Nurse’s ministrations and once more hastened down the stairs. The door to the sitting room had been left open for her, and she saw the glow of the firelight and heard Felix talking to someone inside.
But she paused in the hallway.
The strange picture of the dark lake caught her eye.
She frowned and stepped nearer to study the face of the figure sleeping on the golden stone. The scene was from some legend, she knew, but she could not remember hearing it referenced in any of her tutor’s lectures.
The hallway was deeply shadowed. Servants had placed candles in the wall sconces, but there were none near this particular piece. Nevertheless, the gold paint on the stone caught what light there was, making the painting seem brighter, the faces of the two chained men on the shore frightened, the king crazed, and the woman by the stone ready to break in two with sorrow. The sleeper with the white face was like stone.
Southlands can burn to dust.
“Princess Una.”
She turned and found Aethelbald standing in the sitting room doorway. Though she hoped he wouldn’t, he came toward her down the hall. “Princess, it is dark out here. Come in by the fire.”
Una did not move save for her eyes, which darted from the painting to Prince Aethelbald and back again. “What were you discussing with my father earlier?” she asked in a whisper.
He bowed his head, searching for the right words. Then he put out a hand and took one of hers. “Princess, please, will you allow me to – ”
She stepped around him, snatching her hand from his grasp, and hastened into the sitting room. Her father dozed in a comfortable chair, and Felix sat cross-legged before the fire, playing a complicated game of his own invention with sticks and marbles. He often asked Una to join him at the game, but since he had a tendency to change the rules to suit his convenience, Una rarely agreed. Monster, however, curled up by the prince’s side, his head turning to follow every click of marble and sticks, as alert as though he had eyes with which to see Felix’s game.
Monster chirped a greeting when Una entered, raising his pink nose. Una scooped him up and took him with her to sit in a chair opposite her father. Aethelbald followed her into the room, shutting the door softly, but remained back in the shadows. Una could feel his eyes watching her, but she refused to turn his way. Instead she gazed into the flames, stroking her cat’s head.
“I believe I have met him,” the jester had said of the white-faced sleeper in the painting.
Strangely enough, Una felt that she had as well. Where and when, she could not guess. The feeling preyed upon her. Monster purred, but the sound did not soothe.
The door opened and the jester slipped into the room.
“Ah, yes,” King Fidel said, coming out of his doze and nodding to Leonard. “I’d almost forgotten. I asked you to entertain us tonight, didn’t I?”
“Quite so, Your Majesty,” Leonard replied. He was clad still in the boldly striped yellow costume and somehow looked more ridiculous than ever in the context of the familiar sitting room. He carried a lute not unlike Prince Gervais’s.
Una, glad to quit the privacy of her thoughts, plopped Monster onto the floor and got up to greet Leonard. “I told you I’d get you a job, didn’t I?” she whispered, smiling.
“Don’t count unhatched chickens,” he whispered back. “Your father has declared little need for a full-time Fool, and I may yet find myself out on my ear.” He began tuning his instrument, which plunked sourly in his hands. “But I should not have this opportunity were it not for you. I hope I can properly repay your kindness. He would not have given me a chance but to please you.”
“It does please me,” Una said. “But make him laugh and you’ll be hired on your own merit.”
“I shall endeavor to oblige, m’lady.”
“Una,” King Fidel said around his pipe, “come sit by me and let the jester play.”
Una obeyed.
Leonard finished his tuning and struck a deep minor chord. “Hark!” he cried, assuming a sinister pose and strumming the same chord again. “Hark unto the tale I must relate. This is no tale for the faint of heart!”
Felix looked up from his game of sticks, trying and failing to seem uninterested.
“This is no tale for timid womenfolk, no tale for young children or babes in arms.”
He strummed again, a deep bloooome.
“This is a tale to make your blood race, your head spin, your eyes cross and recross.”
Blooome!
“This is a tale of darkest terror in the face of deepest inconsequentiality.”
“Huh?” said Felix.
Una giggled.
The jester continued to play and half sang, half told his story. His singing voice was deep and not beautiful. But he sang with spirit, and the point was the story not the melody.
“There was a lady of fairest face and vapid mind
Who one day sat a-knitting.
A-knitting, a-knitting, ho!
Who one day sat a-knitting.”
He told how a dark monster, a fiend of evil form, set upon this lady while she sat alone in her chambers one evening. He told of her horror as she faced the beast. He told of her attempts to flee, but the creature blocked her path. She tried to hide, but again and again the monster foiled her plans. Once she bravely took up a weapon to slay the beast, but to no avail, and found herself at the end of her means, standing upon a silken chair as her nemesis crawled toward her.
At the last possible moment, her hero came in the form of a portly maid, who squished the creature with a handkerchief and proceeded to revive her lady with smelling salts.
Una and Felix were both gasping with laughter by the end, not so much for the story itself as for the way the jester told it, with exaggerated expressions of fear, outrage, courage, and beastliness, leaping about the room even as he strummed his instrument. King Fidel chuckled heartily, and when she glanced his way, Una saw Prince Aethelbald grinning.
“Excellent.” King Fidel applauded with his children as the jester played the final sour chords. “Sir Jester, we are glad indeed to have you among us. If you are half as s
killed at mopping floors as you are at spinning stories, we may just find ourselves at an agreement.”
An eyebrow twitched on the jester’s face, but he swept the hat from his head and bowed. It was an elegant bow, Una thought. Courtly, even.
12
In her dreams that night Una walked a path she did not recognize through a desecrated garden.
Once these grounds must have been beautiful. The sweep of the hill, the remains of elegant shrubberies and groves, bespoke care and artistry. But all was grim and wasted about her, all the land one great grimace of pain. No growth grew higher than Una’s knees before it was chopped and trampled, as though some brute force could not bear to catch a glimpse of thriving green and had blasted all to grays and blacks. Even the sun, where it shone through an iron sky, appeared as a red scar overhead.
She walked the path she did not know, approaching a great palace she did not recognize. It was not Oriana but some other structure of foreign build. What once may have been elegant minarets were now crumbled towers, giving the appearance of having been chewed. Stones that may have been rich with color were filmed over with ash.
As she looked at it, Una felt hatred rise in her soul. What a wicked place this must have been, what an evil house to deserve such ruin. Never had she loathed a place so much.
Yet her steps took her forward.
He waited in the doorway, the man with the dead-white face.
“Princess,” he said as she drew near, “you have come to me.”
She opened her mouth to answer. But instead of words, a scream filled her throat and poured out like rushing water. The sound filled her inside and out, a blinding, numbing, dreadful noise.
“Where are you?” His voice roared, dark beneath the white shriek of her scream. “Where are you? I’ve waited long enough!”
Una woke in a sweat. The ring on her hand pinched, and her fingers burned. Sitting up, she tore the coverlet away; it seemed to cling and suffocate her like a snake squeezing her in its coils. Shuddering breaths gasped out of her, and she rubbed her face with her burning hands.