Our Lady of the Snow Read online

  Marine shivered with a blend of awe and joy at the memory. “She appeared to my mother and to me. She said—”

  “She said,” Beck interrupted. “That is the crux of it, Marine. Not says, but said. Tell me this. How long is it since you have had any experience—your own, or through others” reports—of a manifestation of the Lady?”

  Oh, yes; oh, yes. Marine understood. Her pockmarked face lost what little color it had and took on an unhealthy greyish tint. Her lips became bloodless, and her eyes—her eyes looked like the eyes of a betrayed child.

  “I thought…” she began, in the tiniest of whispers.

  “Don’t think, Marine. Just listen. And be aware that you must never, on pain of your life, speak of this to anyone. Do I have your promise?”

  “Y…yes…”

  “Then hear me. Those of us in the highest religious office have struggled long and hard to ensure that not one rumor, not one hint of the truth should ever be suspected by the people of Vyskir. That struggle must be maintained at all costs, for the truth would threaten the very fabric of our society and stability. The truth is that, for twenty years past, the Lady has been silent. She answers no prayers. She sends no visions. The seasonal manifestations of her presence, such as the Corolla Lights in the northern sky, are no longer seen. Even the frost sprites, her servants, are absent; I know of no one who has seen such a being in all that time. The Lady is no longer with us, Marine. She has gone.”

  Marine was shaking. Her mouth quivered, and it took all the will she could muster, finally, to speak.

  “What have we done, Grand Mother? What have we done wrong, that she should turn her face from us?”

  You poor simpleton, Beck thought. She shook her head, quite gently.

  “No, Marine. We have done nothing wrong. We—those few among us who know of this—believe there is another reason.

  “We believe that the Lady has ceased to exist.”

  Chapter Five

  The gown was in place. Nanta stood before the wide, tall glass, staring at herself, but what she saw was not the reflection of anyone she knew. A stranger was looking back at her; a stranger who had taken her identity. The Nanta she had known all her life was gone forever.

  Perhaps, she thought, it was the drink they had given her that was having this effect. One of the servants had brought it just before the imperial dresser arrived to begin her work; a cup of red-brown liquid with a strong herbal taste, which the servant said would reverse the weariness brought on by lack of sleep. Nanta had not slept at all in the night. She had kept to her place on the floor of the Sanctum, kneeling while she could and then sitting when she became too numb to maintain that position, and had prayed until her mind lapsed into a dreamlike state in which reality lost its meaning. When Marine came for her an hour before dawn she had found her glassy-eyed and chilled through, and only a return to the warmth and bustle of the familiar apartments had brought her, eventually, out of the self-induced trance. Then came the drink and the dresser, and now—at least outwardly—Nanta was herself again.

  But inwardly… She suppressed a shudder of revulsion as her thoughts focused on the travail of the past hours. First, there had been the ritual of being bathed, her hair washed and dried and tied into the tight complexity of braids and knots that must be endured if her headdress was to keep its proper place throughout the ceremony. Then she had been put into the shift. The shift was of silk, and had been worn by every Bride Imperial for centuries past. It was the color of old bone, and time and the exigencies of rigorous preservation had given it a cold, slimy patina as repulsive as the feel of any ancient relic. Nanta’s skin had crawled to its touch as the ghosts of fifty predecessors seemed to step silently into her body and take their places with a strange, dead anticipation. The shift clung greasily to her torso and thighs as the dresser next brought the bodice; encrusted with so many gems that it was as rigid as armor, and laced at her back and under her armpits and crutch until she was a stiff, tiny-waisted doll. After the bodice came the cage of the farthingale; spikes like lances radiating stiffly out from her hips to make her remote, inaccessible, a creature inhabiting an alien and rarefied world and untouchable by common hands. The skirt that overlaid it was timeworn cloth-of-silver, and smelled of sweet herbs and the charnel-house. Ropes of pearl and diamond and moonstone and zircon and sapphire were twined among its folds and clipped into place, and they and the jeweled hem clinked as frostily as sleigh bells if she dared to make the smallest move.

  The sleeves were tied on to her arms. Vast, ballooning constructions of sapphire velvet and more cloth-of-silver, they flowed over her wrists like cataracts, hiding her silk-gloved hands and making her fingers all but useless. The dresser had clucked and fussed over the precise way in which they should trail, and only when she was satisfied was Nanta permitted, at last, to let her arms rest upon her farthingale and relieve their throbbing ache a little.

  Another servant had brought the shoes. They had been fashioned to fit Nanta’s feet with absolute precision, and the height of their blocks was also perfect, to ensure that the gown’s hem would graze the floor, but no more and no less, as she walked. Not that she could walk in any recognized sense. As a child she had once been taken to see a troupe of acrobats perform in the market square of her birth-town, and the antics of the stilt-man had made her laugh. She had no desire to laugh now. Oh, she had rehearsed this and rehearsed it until every movement was a catechism in her dreams. But this was not a rehearsal. This was real. She was no longer a woman, or a girl, or a person in her own right She was the Bride. In two more hours she would go to the sacred altar, and she must not fail in any way.

  In the mirror from which the stranger stared out at her, Nanta saw Marine. Marine had been peculiarly quiet all morning, and the few words she had spoken were brusque even by her standards. Nanta wondered what preoccupied her. She also wondered what would become of Marine when the solemnities were over; whether she would return to her own sanctum or stay on in the Metropolis, perhaps as Mother Beck’s assistant or possibly even with a role in the imperial household. Nanta hoped, privately, that Marine would stay. She was kin; the only contact with her family that she could hope to have in the future. And against the odds, Nanta had begun to trust and—almost—like her. To lose her would be to lose a lifeline.

  Marine was far too preoccupied to be aware of Nanta’s thoughts. Outwardly, she was performing her duty with the precise and unshakeable efficiency for which Mother Beck had so shrewdly chosen her; inwardly, though, she felt as if a part of her, the only part that had any relevance, had turned to dust

  In truth last night’s revelation had not come as an earthshaking shock, for, as Beck had suspected, the seeds of doubt and fear were already sown in Marine’s heart. But to hear it stated so flatly and calmly, almost as though it were a commonplace thing, had hit at the root of Marine’s confidence in the world and all it contained. The Lady, consort of the God, mediator and mentor and the rock on which the foundation of Marine’s entire life had been built Gone. Departed. Ceasing to exist. Dead. It went against all reason; it was impossible. Yet Beck and Father Urss and all the highest and wisest and most cognizant of the inner religious cabal believed it was so. Marine desperately did not want to share their belief. But the evidence was compelling.

  She had cried for two hours. Not in Mother Beck’s presence, for she knew what her senior’s reaction to that would have been, but later, alone, at the nadir of the night Then, when there were no more tears left, her own nature had come to her rescue and she had tried to think logically. Could a divinity die? No script or prayer or catechism suggested that it was possible; but catechisms were written by men, and even men like Father Urss were not omniscient. The lower beings of the God’s realm were known to have a natural lifespan—but the Lady was immortal. Surely she was immortal?

  Two more hours of desperate mental wrangling had brought neither relief nor solutions. The Lady answers no prayers. She sends no visions. The Lady is no longer with us
. Beck’s words were fixed in Marine’s memory like an acid etching, and she couldn’t deny them because she had experienced their validity for herself. That was the hardest part of it; to know on a deep, intuitive and irrefutable level that Beck was right Even Nanta, in her small way, had contributed to the certainty. Nanta’s fervent and frequent prayers, coupled with that air of bewilderment and an almost secretive refusal to share the joy that devotion should have brought her…there was no joy in Nanta’s devotion, Marine realized now, because the tide of it flowed only one way.

  Back in the night she had had to fight a seditious but powerful urge to return to the Sanctum chapel, rouse Nanta from her contemplation and tell her the truth. It was unthinkable, of course; even as the idea arose, years of conditioning had awoken and hauled hard on the reins, and now the thought was dead and buried as it must be. Beck knew her profession and she knew Marine, and the secret she had divulged was safe. It was a matter of necessity, prudence and security, and the penalty for treason did not need to be spelled out. Besides, Marine could not have found the words to speak to Nanta. This morning she had watched her gradual change from a vital personality to a cipher, and each stage of the transformation widened the gulf between them. There was more to come, far more than Nanta knew, and any chance Marine might have had to defy Beck and follow her conscience was lost now. She had her duty to perform. All she could do was think of that and play the part assigned to her.

  The dresser bustled into Marine’s field of vision then, saying something that did not register.

  “What?” Marine looked up, and the dresser recoiled slightly at her sharp tone.

  “The balance, High Sister. Unless it is absolutely right, the headdress can’t be guaranteed to stay in place throughout the ceremony.”

  “Then make sure the balance is right.” Marine felt an irrational flare of anger and quashed an urge to push the woman away from her.

  The dresser looked irritated. “That is why I have just asked you to help me, High Sister! It needs two of us to put the frame in place, and then—”

  The rest of her explanation was eclipsed, for at that moment the bells began.

  Marine physically jumped and her teeth clamped together with shock at the sheer volume of the sudden clashing din. Orders had been given that the wedding peals should begin precisely at noon, and by a piece of extraordinary serendipity the ringers posted throughout the Metropolis had judged the moment to perfection. The temple, the Sanctum, the Academy, law houses, moot squares, watchtowers; almost every belfry in the entire city joined the first exultant onslaught in a tidal wave of noise that flooded into the room. A few seconds later the single gigantic bell of the imperial palace added its magisterial boom to the tumult, and Marine clapped her hands over her ears, feeling as if her bones were being shaken out of their places. The dresser agitatedly mouthed something, but the idea of listening or replying was ridiculous; all anyone could do was stand still and wait until the bombardment ended.

  It went on for ten minutes, and the cessation was almost as well-timed as the start had been. Everything stopped on a crescendo that reverberated away in scrambling echoes punctuated by just a few lone, dissonant clangs. Then there was extraordinary, unbelievable silence. Marine found herself gaping like a stranded fish; the servants were shaking their heads, still hearing the ringing in their ears, and Nanta stood rigid before the mirror, her eyes tightly shut and her hands clenched into fists.

  The dresser broke the spell, as Marine could have predicted. “Already past noon!” Her voice was piercing in the quiet. “We are behind schedule, High Sister, and this will not do! Help me now, please—the headdress—”

  The bells would ring again at the next hour, and again at the next, and the fourth time they rang they would not stop until the ceremony was over. Half the city’s populace would be deaf by the end of this day, Marine thought.

  And none of them would know what she knew.

  She saw Nanta’s face in the mirror. She had opened her eyes again and was staring at herself. Her face was utterly expressionless.

  “High Sister—” the dresser began.

  “Yes, yes; the headdress. I’m coming.” Marine broke her gaze from the mirror and walked briskly across the room.

  ****

  The marriage ceremony of Os iv, Prince Imperial of Vyskir, and Nanta of the house of EsDorikye began with a jubilant fanfare that rang to the highest vaults of the Metropolis temple. The trumpets climbed to a dizzying top note, and as they held it, the massed voices of the Academy Choir joined them to create a vast, triumphant crescendo that drowned even the thunder of the bells in the great tower overhead.

  The two sets of massive bronze doors on opposite sides of the altar opened at precisely the same moment, and everyone in the congregation craned for the first glimpse of the twin processions. First came the heralds; Osiv’s in grey and gold imperial livery, Nanta’s in the blue and silver of the Lady. Then came the attendants, two men and two women who would stand beside the bridal pair and witness their marriage pledges. Osiv’s attendants were Kodor and (another shrewd political move on Father Urss’ part) Duke Arec of Sekol, both resplendent in bronze half-armor, crested coronets and gold-threaded cloaks that swept the floor behind them. As they appeared, the choir launched into the opening phrases of the Benediction Anthem and, seated high on gold and silver thrones borne on the shoulders of six powerful, proud-faced men apiece, the nuptial pair emerged.

  Marine, who sat with Grand Mother Beck in a cubicle to one side of the imperial box, felt dazed and vertiginous as she gazed through her veil at the scene unfolding below. It was a fantastical masque, and at its center the prince and his bride were not mortal beings but dolls, automata, created by strange alchemy and given a semblance of life that did not quite convince. Osiv was a glittering, dazzling figure of gold, his headdress, in the shape of a rayed sun, surrounding him like a huge and grotesque exaggeration of the head it framed. His face was all but invisible, covered but for mouth and eye slits by a golden mask without features, symbolizing that he was chosen by and beloved of the God. He sat very still, not even turning to look about him, but despite his docility Marine saw that both Prince Kodor and Duke Arec were watching him as hawks might watch a sparrow.

  And Nanta …Though Marine had helped with every detail of her preparation for this moment, she felt now, as Nanta had felt earlier in the day, that she was gazing at an absolute stranger. Smothered under the rigid planes of the gown, dwarfed by the towering headdress with its huge silver-filigree snowflake emblem and swaths of silver veiling, Nanta was being carried passively to her fate like a heifer to the autumn cull. As the two thrones reached the altar and began the slow, ponderous process of being turned and set side by side, Marine felt a terrible inward pang that for a moment she almost believed was a heart seizure. Beck, beside her, hissed sharply, “Marine? Are you unwell?” and Marine shook her head wordlessly, making a negating gesture. This wasn’t anything physical. It was simply the culmination of strain, shock and the misery that had been in her like a solid weight since last night. It would pass; and if it did not, then she would simply have to bear the burden.

  With timing as perfect as Father Urss both expected and demanded, the thrones were set in their places as the last note of the Benediction Anthem shimmered away. The sound of the bells came back, muffled by the weight of stone between the temple amphitheatre and the dome but still painfully reverberating like a vast, throbbing pulse. The throne-bearers were moving backwards like an ebbing tide, Father Urss was taking his place at the altar. He raised his arms, and to the echo of a second fanfare, the rite began.

  Nanta was frozen in a dream. She had rehearsed every moment of this until her performance was flawless, but now that the rehearsals had become reality, her conscious mind could no longer make any connection. She knew, on a subliminal level, that all was proceeding as it should. But it was if she observed it from a vast and impersonal distance, and with senses that barely functioned.

  The vei
l obscured her view of the temple and made it impossible to gain any worthwhile impression of Prince Osiv. He was just an unmoving figure on his throne, and even his responses to Father Urss’ promptings as the solemn declarations were made and the vows sworn were inaudible to her. She couldn’t even see his face. Was he fair or dark? Handsome or ugly, or merely unremarkable? She thought that he was quite small; taller than herself but slight, though well-formed. Pleasant? Cruel? Lively? Dull? There was no way of knowing. Nanta stared at him through her veil as Father Urss led her through the words of her own pledges; then, too confused and numbed to stare any more, she looked without interest at Osiv’s two attendants. The older man must be Duke Arec. The younger was Prince Kodor. Kodor was watching his brother very intently, and Nanta vaguely wondered why. Then she recalled that Kodor was himself to marry in a few days (two? Three? She couldn’t remember). So perhaps he was observing, to learn. Perhaps that was it. It wasn’t important.

  She turned what little attention she could muster to Osiv again, and saw a faint sparkle of wetness on his jaw. It looked suspiciously like a tear and it surprised her, for if he was crying it must be because he was greatly moved by the occasion. A sensitive man, then. Was that good? She thought so.

  Kodor, too, had seen the sparkle, and uttered a silent, fervent prayer to the God that no one else would notice it. It was usually a bad sign when Osiv started dribbling; more often than not it meant that he was building up to a tantrum. He had, in fact, done remarkably well so far, largely because Kodor had gone to great pains to convince him that today’s events were a new game which they would all play together and he was certain to enjoy. Osiv accepted his brother’s word more readily than anyone else’s and had been content enough, with the help of his physician’s drugs, throughout the preparations. He had not liked being strapped into his throne (a necessary precaution, or he would have lost interest in the proceedings and tried to wander off a long time ago), but by using the lure of the game again Kodor had managed to persuade him to submit. Now, though, he was bored, and threatening to become fretful. Kodor glanced covertly at the Bride, whose name he had forgotten again. Swathed as she was, and probably terrified half out of her wits into the bargain, there was little chance of her being alerted. The main body of the congregation was too far away for anyone to make out more than an overall picture, and the eyrie of the imperial box, where his father was sitting with those dignitaries who for reasons of protocol couldn’t be placed anywhere else, was also distant enough to be safe. Nonetheless, the sooner the ceremony was over and Osiv could be pacified with some new distraction, the happier Kodor would feel.