Our Lady of the Snow Read online

“Ah, yes; of course. As Co-Regent, the demands on her time—”

  Kodor interrupted, swinging round to face him full on. “Yes, Father Urss, and that is what I wish to discuss with you.” He stalked across the room to his desk, and indicated the stacks of

  papers and ledgers that cluttered its surface. “You see all this? Demands, as you observe, on my time and on my wife’s. But I am still awaiting word—any word—of the date set for the regency to be announced!”

  It was exactly what Urss had hoped to hear, and he felt an inner glow of triumph. This was the turning point, the chance he had been waiting for to judge the real truth about Kodor’s loyalty—and his ambition.

  Kodor was watching him, challenging him to give an answer that would amount to more than a platitude. Before Urss could speak, though, the servant returned with the wine. In a chill, stiff atmosphere they waited until two glasses were carefully poured, then as the man went soft-footedly out Kodor said, “Well?”

  “Your Highness.” Urss had not sat down as invited; now he held the glass and played his fingers gently over the delicate stem. “I appreciate your concern—”

  “You may put it a great deal more strongly than that, Father!”

  “Indeed. I ask your pardon.” A slight, courteous bow. “However, you above all others will appreciate that a matter like this must be handled with the greatest delicacy. To announce a regency when the populace has no reason to suspect that the new Imperator cannot rule as normal, has considerable complications. Not to mention risks.”

  Kodor was unmoved. “You’ve known that from the start. I would have thought that you of all people would have found a way to resolve it by now.”

  Urss coughed delicately. “Yes, Your Highness. But one complication that we did not anticipate was the return of the Corolla Lights.”

  “Ah,” said Kodor. “That. I see.”

  Urss was aware that he didn’t need to go over the full reasoning, but he did so, largely to make quite sure that Kodor understood. The omen for Osiv’s reign. The effect on Vyskiri citizens, who would naturally feel a greater respect and love for their new Imperator as a result of this apparent benediction from the God and the Lady. He noted that Kodor listened very intently to the argument, and when it was finished the prince nodded slowly and thoughtfully.

  “You have a point, Father Urss, and I confess that I hadn’t fully considered the implications. However,” he set his glass down and paced back to the fireplace, “the nature and meaning of omens are not set in stone, are they?”

  “No, sir, of course not.”

  “They are open to interpretation.”

  “Indeed.” Urss’ pulse was quickening.

  “Then it does not necessarily follow that this sign is a benediction. Am I correct?”

  Urss paused just long enough to appear slightly reluctant. “Yes, Your Highness. You are quite correct.”

  Kodor said nothing more for a while. He was looking into the fire again, thinking, weighing. Urss sipped and appreciated his wine, patient as a hunter waiting for the quarry to gain confidence and show itself without fear. After two or perhaps three minutes his patience was rewarded.

  “My brother,” Kodor said “is an infernal nuisance.”

  The quarry was in the open. Urss gazed into his glass and£ replied judiciously, “Indeed, Your Highness…”

  “Indeed, indeed”—it seems to be the favorite word of the diplomat! Yes, Urss, Osiv is a nuisance! It would have saved Vyskir a great deal of trouble if I had been born before he was.” Kodor paused. “Or if he had not been born at all.”

  Silence held for a few taut seconds. Then Urss said, “When he was very young, Your Highness, it was recommended in some quarters that…” He hesitated, feigning reluctance to go any further, and Kodor looked at him keenly.

  “You mean, the suggestion that an end should be made to his life? I know the details, so there’s no need to be genteel about it. They say that Father might have been persuaded but Mother would not hear of it.”

  Urss made a helpless gesture. “The previous Imperatrix was very fond of him, Your Highness. One can understand her unwillingness; even in the greater interests of the kingdom.”

  Kodor’s eyes were like steel now. “And do you believe it would have been in the greater interests of the kingdom, Father Urss?”

  “With great reluctance, sir,” said Urss in a low voice, “I do.”

  Kodor turned away again and placed both fists on the mantel. His face was hidden but his voice was steady as he said, “It is strange, is it not, that after years of disagreement, you and I have finally found a subject on which we are of the same mind.”

  Urss’ tone was perfectly bland as he ventured. “Your Highness…?”

  “Stop pretending. You know as well as I do that Osiv’s reign is going to be fraught with difficulty. On the broadest level, and to be absolutely blunt about it, he is a threat to Vyskir’s long-term future.”

  Urss looked down again, in case Kodor was surreptitiously watching him. “For the duration of his life, sir, I have to acknowledge that there’s truth in what you say. But once the regency is properly and officially in place, the Imperator will be only a figurehead. You and the Princess Imperial will hold the real power.”

  “In Osiv’s name.”

  “Well, yes; that is true. But of course the new Imperator will have no issue.”

  Kodor looked round sharply. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Certain, Your Highness.” Urss smiled faintly. “He will have no issue, so you are his legal heir, and in the fullness of time you will become Imperator in your own right. He is older than you, and—”

  “By a mere few years. And his physical health is robust. He might live as long as I do. Or longer.”

  “That is something no one can predict, of course,” said Urss. “But even if he should—forgive me, sir, but even if he should outlive you, the eldest son of your own marriage will be Vyskir’s next Imperator.”

  There was another long silence then, while Kodor considered again. Eventually he walked away from the hearth, back to the desk, where he had left his untouched glass. Father Urss watched as he picked up the glass and drained half its contents in one swallow. Then he looked directly at the priest, a look of startling candor.

  “I don’t think,” Kodor said, “that Duke Arec of Sekol will wish to wait that long to secure his investment.”

  The trap was sprung, and Kodor had given himself away. Urss felt a sense of achievement that was almost intoxicating; the vindication of the view he had long held about Prince Kodor’s true nature. Kodor had a politician’s instinct, and it had been honed over many years by a politician’s education and training. Urss himself had seen to that; and at last the carefully tended tree of his labors was bearing fruit.

  “On his deathbed,” he said, very quietly, “the old Imperator, your father, charged you to take care of your brother.”

  “Yes.” Kodor’s expression did not change.

  Urss cleared his throat with practiced nicety. “The last wish of a dying man is not one to be taken lightly, Prince Kodor.”

  “I agree. However, such wishes can often be open to interpretation. You were witness to my father’s final words. Would you say that he clearly wanted me to act in Osiv’s best interests—and Vyskir’s?”

  “Yes,” said Urss. “Oh, yes. Most certainly.”

  “Then, as he is no longer here to guide me, I must come to my own conclusion as to what those best interests are.”

  Kodor, Urss thought, was indeed a politician. He smiled slightly; “I believe I understand, Your Highness.”

  “I believe you do, Father.” Kodor did not match the smile. “Osiv can have no life worth speaking of. He is not even a person as you and I understand the concept. But he could be a threat to the future security of our country.”

  Urss nodded. He had just one more question to ask; one that would set the final seal on it.

  “Prince Kodor,” he said, very quietly, “do you lo
ve your brother?”

  Kodor gazed steadily back at him. “While my father lived, I did the duty he required of me. He wanted me to love Osiv, as he did. But the term “love” is also open to wide interpretation. It is not easy—perhaps not even possible—to love a creature like my brother in the normal way. A more accurate term for it would be pity, as one might pity a crippled animal. And the best interests of a crippled animal are not necessarily served by prolonging its life.” A long pause. “Does that answer your question, Exalted Father Urss?”

  Urss returned the gaze with equal frankness. “Yes, Your Imperial Highness. It does.”

  “Then I think,” said Kodor, “that we should both sit down. I believe we have a great deal to discuss.”

  ****

  “So.” Kodor knelt on the thick carpet of Osiv’s playroom, rearranging the scatter of bricks and little painted pewter soldiers into a new formation. “It’s to be poison, is it? No blood and little noise, and easy, if the right substance is chosen, to make it look like a natural death.”

  Osiv did not hear him. He was on the other side of the room, pulling books out of the shelves in a search for one whose pictures he liked the best. Even if he had heard, Kodor reflected, he would have made nothing of the comment. The idea of poison, or any other form of death, was utterly outside his sphere of thinking; he was too gentle and too innocent for his mind to have any room for such concepts.

  Three more days, Kodor thought. It was little enough time to arrange everything he needed to arrange, but he believed he could do it. Would have to do it, anyway; any delay would be too risky and might arouse Urss’ suspicion. Wonderful how necessity concentrated the mind; and very useful, too, for the framework of a plan was already taking shape. He needed help, but he was confident that the people he had in mind were trustworthy. Or if there was doubt, it wouldn’t be too difficult to deal with that problem at a later stage.

  He was becoming as ruthless as Urss, he thought, and smiled humorlessly to himself. That was the one thing the priest hadn’t bargained for: the fact that when it came to strategy and cold-blooded calculation he had met his match. Probably Urss’ arrogance wouldn’t even allow him to consider the possibility, which from Kodor’s standpoint was well and good.

  Osiv had found the book he wanted and now returned, crawling on hands and knees because it was less bother than standing up only to sit down again within a few moments. He dropped the volume—painfully; it was heavy—on Kodor’s foot and said, “Want the bears one!”

  “The bears one? Very well, then.” Indulgently Kodor opened the book and riffled through its pages until he found the tale of the long battle of wits between the hunter and the arctic bear. It was one of Osiv’s favorites and Kodor must have read it to him a hundred times. The mystical significance of it was beyond Osiv, of course, but at this moment it seemed a singularly appropriate choice.

  Kodor spread the book on the floor, where Osiv could see the illustrations, and began to read aloud. He knew the text virtually by heart now, so as he read, his inner thoughts were able to keep track of the problem at hand. Though he was not a physician, he had learned enough about anatomy and chemistry to know the nature of the poison Urss intended to use. This particular substance killed fast and relatively painlessly, and left a spectacular signature in that it bloated and blackened the faces of its victims, making their features all but unrecognizable. By a useful coincidence, there was a disease that produced a very similar effect. It was thought that the disease had first been brought to Vyskir centuries ago, by a band of religious ascetics making pilgrimage to the Metropolis from some distant southern country. Dubbed the Pilgrims” Plague, it showed few if any symptoms until the final stage: a rapid and inevitably fatal seizure that killed the sufferer within minutes. It had been a feared scourge for two centuries; but stricter controls and quarantines imposed upon southerners attempting to visit the kingdom had finally taken effect, and for the past seventy years the scourge had been unheard-of except for an occasional and isolated case.

  Recently, of course, the Metropolis had had an unusually high influx of visitors. With two imperial weddings and one funeral taking place within such a short time, it would not have been possible to apply stringent safeguards; the resources simply hadn’t been available. One incubating case was all that was needed, and it could arise from anywhere. Disease was no respecter of rank, and no one need be blamed. Simply a terrible, unforeseeable tragedy. And the Imperator Osiv had been vulnerable; his health undermined by grief at his father’s death. Impossible to have predicted that such a thing could happen. We must only give thanks to the God and the Lady that, though the Imperatrix is not with child, the Imperator has a brother, who must now bear his heartbreak for the sake of duty, and take the throne in his predecessor’s stead…

  Kodor paused then in his reading as a foul, dark cloud of fury gathered in his mind. He stared at the book’s gaudy illustration—the hunter with his bow and magic talisman, the giant bear rearing against a storm-racked sky—and resisted a huge impulse to rip the volume in two and throw the halves into the fire.

  “Kodi! More!”

  Osiv’s protest at the sudden silence broke through the miasma, and Kodor looked up to see his brother pouting at him. “More!” Osiv repeated with greater emphasis. “Now!”

  “All right,” Kodor promised him. “In a moment.” He needed that moment to regain his composure; the fuse inside him was still dangerously short. To distract them both he asked, “Where’s Nanti?”

  “Nandi busy. They won’t let her play; she said.”

  So that part of it had already begun; keeping Nanta away from Osiv to ensure that she would suspect nothing. It was probably just as well. Kodor longed to be able to tell her the truth, but he dared not; as much for her sake as for his own. Father Urss believed that his plan could be accomplished without arousing Nanta’s suspicion; he also believed that Nanta would be glad to be rid of her husband. It was vital that he did not find out how wrong he was, for one careless and probably unwitting hint during their discussion had warned Kodor of what would happen then. If Nanta guessed nothing, she could look forward to a secure if stultifying future as Imperatrix Dowager, kept in closeted luxury, treated with the respect and kindness that was her due, but otherwise forgotten. If, however, she did suspect the truth, the remedy would be quick and ruthless: she would follow Osiv to the grave. Far too dangerous, then, to confide in her. If he did, one inadvertent word in the wrong quarter would sign her death warrant.

  He forced himself back to the story book, and Osiv settled down as he continued to read aloud. Kodor only hoped that the frost sprites would not reveal the truth to Nanta. If he could warn them…but the chances of that were too remote to pin hope on. He had an intuitive feeling that the sprites would not communicate directly with him again. They had sent the promised dream last night, and its meaning had been unequivocal. But that was all they would do.

  His mind conjured the image of Nanta as she had stood on the tower top, making her plea to the Lady, and he wondered if on waking she had had any conscious knowledge of what she had done. It seemed unlikely, and he could not ask her without giving his own involvement away. Last night the dream sent by the sprites had been followed by another: the old nightmare again, in which he was beset by a terrible threat, and the face and voice that offered his only hope of salvation were Nanta’s. It was, or so it seemed to him, another skein in a tapestry depicting a story that he could not begin to understand, and the thought brought a strange, chill feeling, part awe and part fear and part—perhaps the greatest part—helpless fascination. The dream, the frost sprites, the return of the Corolla Lights…Somehow they were all tangled together in a web of mystery. Kodor ached to solve that mystery. It was a driving need, a fixation; the most important thing, or so he felt, that he could or would ever do. When these next few dangerous days were over—

  “More, Kodi, more! Not stop, no!” The flat of Osiv’s hand thumped hard and petulantly down on the open book, an
d it snapped Kodor back to the immediate moment. He blinked rapidly, clearing the disarray of his thoughts, and said, “I’m sorry, brother. Here; look at this pretty picture for a moment or two, and then I shall continue.”

  “No!” repeated Osiv mulishly. “More, now!”

  With an inward sigh Kodor resumed the story’s slow progress. There was no point in attempting to distract Osiv from what he wanted; it would only lead to a tantrum. Besides, his hopes of seeing Nanta were so small that there was no point pursuing them. He didn’t even know (briefly he glanced at the connecting door that led to the other parts of the imperial suite) if she was here. Dorca had been evasive, telling him only that her mistress had no time to receive visitors today and, no, with respect and regret she could not say when that situation would change. Leave it, Kodor told himself. You have more immediate worries, and arrangements to make. Let well alone.

  “Kodiii!”

  It was an angry wail, presaging trouble. Kodor forced his thoughts of Nanta away, and continued to read.

  ****

  While Kodor entertained his brother, Nanta was in the imperial family’s private sanctum.

  Since waking from what seemed to have been a restless and troubled night, though with no memory of anything more than vague dreams, she had been haunted by gnawing worry that was far worse than usual. She couldn’t concentrate; she had snapped at her ladies at the least excuse, and finally she had pushed aside the documents set ready for her attention (for the past few days there had been so many of them) and told Dorca that she wished to pray and would brook no interruption for any reason whatever. Then she had sent a lesser servant hurrying with a message for Marine.

  Marine arrived at the sanctum a short time later. This was their third meeting since Nanta had asked for her help, but so far Marine had discovered nothing that lent any weight to the frost sprite’s warning. If there was danger, its source and its nature eluded her. Her only crumb of comfort was that Mother Beck had made fewer calls on her time during the past few days, allowing her to devote her energy to Nanta’s wishes. But without results, energy was of little use. Marine felt she had let Nanta down.