X. Summer & Fall 770
"My lady," said William Willd, "even injury does not exempt me from your service."
Vivian smiled, her eyes closed. "Mmm," was all she said.
Eventually she rose and washed herself in the soapy water in the basin. She slowly dried herself off, feasting her eyes on him. Sitting beside him on the bed, she leaned over and kissed him, her medallion lying on his bare shoulder. "I still don't believe it. You broke your ankle."
"My lady, it was not on purpose."
"And to think that you were actually back in Nikolad when we were on Bald Mountain. I figured you'd be rolling in Sigrith's arms by then."
"My lady!" he protested. "I was sorely injured on a mission to Hvanar, on your orders, and when I dragged myself back to Nikolad, broken and bruised, I found that your ladyship was off to risk your life without even giving me the chance to throw myself in front of the knife."
"Willd," said Vivian seriously, "that is why it's a good thing you weren't there. I could survive that blow. You couldn't."
Their blue eyes met and held for some time. He sat up, still looking at her. "My lady," he said, "are you going to tell me who it was?"
"No. For one thing, I don't know who it was."
"But you know something about him."
"Oh, Willd, of course I want to tell you everything, but--there is a whole category of Countess things that I can't reveal to anyone. Do you understand? Well, and then there's the fact that I really don't know what's going on."
He just kept looking her in the eyes, a small smile playing on his face. He got up, one-footed because of the cast on his ankle, and went about the task of washing his tube of goat bladder. They got dressed, pausing once every minute or so to kiss. Still, before afternoon had faded, they were ready to go out in public again, and Ellean hadn't interrupted them. They stopped at the door for another passionate kiss. Then they went out into the hallway and found Ellean standing guard at the door.
"Have you been waiting there long?" asked Vivian.
"I was doing some reading for pleasure," replied Ellean. "It's the diary of your ancestor Countess Tereza."
"I left that out, and you looked at it? But my dear Ellean, it might corrupt your purity and innocence!"
"I'll take that chance," said Ellean. "Going to see the mail? I'll go with you." The three walked down the hall to the stair and then down to Nikolad's rather intimate "great hall". The rain was beginning to come down steadily, and the light was waning, so there were maids lighting the candles and torches in the hall. It was turning into Vivian's office. The maids already called it the Throne Room: Vivian always took the chair with the highest seat. She took her place now, in the middle of the long table, and found before her three sealed rolls and a small pile of papers. Ellean sat on her left, Willd on her right; as evening fell, others joined them one or two at a time. Vivian, leaving the message rolls for last, shuffled through the papers, and looked up to see Maura d'Acali standing at an entrance to the hall. A smile from the Countess summoned the new treasurer to the table, where she sat down across from the high seat.
"Expenses," said Vivian, pushing the small pile toward her. "Money available?"
Maura put on her spectacles and glanced ruefully over the papers. She added numbers under her breath. "Two hundred and eighty-one and seven shillings, my lady," she said.
"That's what I got," said Vivian, "though I used a pencil. Almost three hundred florins. Can we pay them?"
"The Neil fund still has," said Maura, referring to a slim tome of figures, "I said two eighty one and seven, right? Six hundred eighty-two and five."
"It was very clever of you, the way you found cash just when we needed it. Do you know of any other hiding places of his around here? You can have whatever finder's fee you like."
"My lady, I only knew that he had money buried at Gorngold House. I would expect that all his other money is invested, or with him."
"But you knew it was under the manure pile."
"It seemed like his style," said Maura. "It should keep our heads above water this year. As long as the treasurer is honest, my lady."
"Stick around," said Vivian, "you can see what I'll do to the last one who cheated me. Do you want this stack of papers?"
"Yes, I'd better, my lady." Maura gathered up the stack, stuffed it into her account book and bustled off. Her place at the table, and with the Countess's attention, was taken by Sir Rogier and Lady Alice. Vivian was opening one of the message rolls.
"To her ladyship et cetera et cetera," she read aloud, "from Thane Robert de Radun, dated the twenty-eighth of May. What's today?"
"Sixth of June, my lady," said Sir Rogier.
"About five thousand Rugians near Radun, another three thousand hold Simkin and environs, he and his sons and grandsons lead about a thousand under arms that hold Radun, Acali has two hundred and many, I guess that's refugees. He says that they aren't besieging, just raiding his supply lines. He swears Radun will hold."
"No, it's not a siege," said Sir Rogier, "it's just that retreat is cut off and he has no supply lines. I'm glad the Thane is optimistic."
"Do you think that Radun will hold? Be honest."
"Well, it's the first major town that the Rugians have attacked. Its walls are pretty strong, and it certainly is well-defended." He duly considered for a moment, then put his palms down on the table and said, "No, I very much doubt it."
"Great," said Vivian, rolling her eyes. "Then what? If Radun falls, Acali can't be far behind. And then--Tarnhold?"
"Tarnhold's a different story. They have to get into the Tarn valley to disrupt supply lines. But the valley's quite defensible, and you've seen Tarnhold's walls."
"Look, didn't we just pull out of Simkin because the Rugians were certain to capture it, but we could fall back and still hold Radun?"
"Yes, all true. My lady, if the Rugians bring a thousand armies across the pass and each one is ten thousand strong, then they will conquer everything, even Nikolad."
"And do you have any guess how many armies they will actually ever field against us?"
"My sense is that it'll be less than a thousand armies."
"I suppose every line must end somewhere. Unfortunately, that would include my father's." She broke the seal on the next tube. "From--oh, I see. It's from John."
"John?" repeated Ellean.
"John," said Sir Rogier, as though she had pronounced it wrong. "Our hidden source in occupied Angren."
"Who is it?" asked Ellean.
"If I told you," replied Vivian, "it wouldn't be hidden." She scanned the page. "Well, John's all right still, that's something. But Lord Armand is dead. Beheaded. I thought something bad must've happened: his house was abandoned, and he had told me he was staying."
"That's hard," said Sir Rogier. "He can't have been doing anything subversive. They only killed him because he was loyal to you."
"If this is how to find out who my friends are," said Vivian, "then I'd rather not know. John says they tried to make Armand swear allegiance to the Viscount, and he wouldn't, so they cut his head off and put it on a pike in the square. It's a good thing for me they hadn't done it by the time we went through, or I might have gotten in even more trouble than I did."
"I wouldn't have lived an hour after they took me," said Sir Rogier.
"Yes, and you'd have been a pest for that whole hour," said Vivian. "John says that there are four thousand infantry in Angren, five thousand in and around Vonnis, and he's heard three to five thousand in Intror, but he's also heard that they've been redeployed back to Farlain. Well, the way I see it, this could be our big opening: Neil might be down to nine thousand, and we can probably muster at least two thousand."
"A golden opportunity," said Sir Rogier.
"And just in case anyone has forgotten," said the Countess, surveying the dozen or so people around the table, "Neil is mine."
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "you cannot be thinking of riding back to Vonnis again. I swear I will hide all the horses if I have to, and if you walk, I will throw myself down in front of you."
"I won't go back to Vonnis," said Vivian, "for a few months, at least. But Rogier, the ash trees! I used to climb them when I was a little girl. They're all gone."
"I sympathize, my lady," said Sir Rogier. "I really do. Vonnis was quite dear to me as well. What else does John have to say?"
"Hmm. Lots of rumors about the Avars, but evidently they were content with burning the city. I guess Neil has moved back into the citadel, but the Duke's heir Prince Salvar is in charge."
"Salvar? Didn't he want to marry you once?" asked Ellean.
"Oh, the idea was floated," Vivian answered. "Maybe when we didn't go for that, Duke Maladar decided to invade. You know, the night before, Lord Sperrin did ask me if I might yet consider a marriage alliance, so I wonder. I never met Salvar, I don't believe. Did you, Sir Rogier?"
"Once. You did too, but you've forgotten."
"Oh. Oh, at the Imperial Diet at Avigon, my first year. Oh, yes, I vaguely remember: very thin and pale, black moustache, kept quiet, seemed smart. It seems like twenty years ago."
"It was just over two," replied Sir Rogier. "The world can change fast, if it has a mind to. What's the other dispatch?"
"It's from Weaver."
"I'm here," said Angeline, sitting down next to Lady Alice.
"He's at Acali. The extrication went fine. He's concerned about Radun holding, but he says Thane Robert is determined to stay. That's the same thing Robert said. Francis also suggests that we authorize him to attack the Rugians before he pulls back to Tarnhold. I'm not going to, in case you wondered, Angeline. Hey, is Clark around?" The scribe was sent for. Vivian scanned down the page. "While we wait, let me summarize the last paragraph. Let's see, he sends his love to Angeline, his sweetheart, his whole, without whose love and company he is nothing, and he wishes he could be here to kiss away her tears--shall I go on?"
"Please don't," said Sir Rogier; Angeline muttered similar advice.
"I think it's sweet," said Lady Alice. "How far does he go on like that?"
"Half the dispatch is like that. Look, don't those look like tear stains?" She handed the document to Lady Alice, who smiled and nodded as she read it. Sir Rogier shook his head.
"This is not what I like to see in a military dispatch," he said. "What would Count Edmund have said if Lord Smeagle had sent him anything with hearts drawn in the margins?"
"Lord Smeagle would not have died any sooner," said Lady Alice, who did not usually get many words in edgewise.
"My lady," said Fergus Clark, walking in with paper and ink.
"Good morning, sir," she said. "I want you to draft orders for the Horse Marshal at Acali. He may attack units of the enemy if they number less than five hundred and are in the open."
"Five hundred, in the open."
"Don't expect that to happen anytime soon," said Sir Rogier.
"Otherwise," the Countess went on, "he returns to Tarnhold. He can operate from there."
"Give me five minutes, my lady," replied Fergus, sitting down to work.
"My lady," said Angeline, "do you have an errand-rider in mind for this trip?"
"Can you take Jack with you?"
"Oh, sure. I'll carry him on my back," said Angeline, "and still ride with the wind, if the message is that he should be careful."
So went most of the days of May and June in Nikolad, mornings and noons around the big table working, afternoons--well, afternoons with Willd, his cast removed, on the slope of Mount Nikolad, in the ravine of the Glass River, or just up in the bedroom on a rainy day. Then back to the table, the nights were the same as the mornings but with music and ale. Vivian was feeling stabilized, and also developing a taste for ale.
The master brewer, a forty-something redhead named Miranda, was of pure upland stock, but possessed an hauteur to rival that of many thanes. She treated Vivian with the respect that one lord gives to another whose title is slightly loftier. Vivian liked her well regardless. The brewer's laboratory had many small pieces of equipment that Vivian fancied--just the hundred variations on the glass flask were enough to entertain the Countess for hours.
"I play about with such things," she explained to Miranda, "as a sort of hobby. Do you mind if I sometimes borrow from you?"
"Freely, my lady," replied Miranda, "just so you tell me, and I'm not already using it, you may borrow anything I have here."
"Believe me, I will."
Vivian was trying to set up her own lab, but she really needed her own basement room, and she felt she was already imposing too much on the hospitality of the Lady Mirabel. Instead, she took to slipping into the brewery (when Miranda was out checking the quality of her product) to make relatively simple batches of things like the Powder for Prevention of Something Something or what she called the Other Crystals, those she used in wine to visit the Other Side. She also watched the brewers at work, and their care, their respect for their materials, and their compulsive sanitation began to rub off.
Using her crystals, she returned to the Other Side once each in May and June. The first was 15 May, the night after her return to Nikolad. Vivian had found anger to be an valuable weapon in her two face-to-face confrontations with the figure in the hood, and now she was mad enough, she thought, to do him some real damage on the Other Side. So she took a full dose of the Other Crystals and ventured forth with fire on her brow and smoke coming out of her ears.
But the fall through the wisps of evil cooled and congealed her rage, which she could feel as it froze into soft heavy lumps of dead emotion. She fell past the Arch and landed hard on the grass of the garden, and she had problems standing up straight. She looked around, but the paths of light were unpredictable, so she stumbled from chamber to chamber, from region to region, seeing little that made sense to her. Her intense anger made a depression in the fabric of the Other World, and all light was bent around the dense mass of her feelings.
Suddenly she stopped short. The sweat of her anger fully froze into hard grey droplets of fear. She felt something behind her, but she couldn't turn around to see. Instead, she stumbled about in circles, while the fear became more and more intense. At last she gave up and fled toward a sidelong glimpse of the Arch. It seemed so far away, even as she rushed headlong and careless toward it. When she concentrated harder on the goal of escape, she lost what sight she still had in the Other World. In the end, all she could do was fall forward toward the world of her birth.
She came to herself, sitting in the middle of the private library, and she was relieved to find no shadow figure before her. Her mind felt like mush, like muscles after lifting blocks of stone.
It was three weeks before she had the courage again--on the night of the sixth of June, she excused herself from dinner in company with her friends and ministers and, an hour before midnight, secured herself in the private library. The full moon shone in a strip of silver on the floor. She followed to the letter her father's directions on entering trance, and after drinking the crystal-treated wine and lighting the left candle with her mind, she floated wispily through the arch and settled like a leaf on the grass of the garden.
She got up and wandered. There was no shadow figure in sight, but she saw a new person, a young woman with sandy hair, dressed in a misty white, far away among the hedges and flowers. Vivian watched her for a while, and then found the lady from the realm of the fountain standing beside her. Vivian and the lady smiled upon this new figure: she was beautiful, and so was likely good and wise as well.
Then Vivian and the Lady walked until they came to the hedge-bounded square of garden that contained the fountain. The little girl was there, and she smiled gaily at Vivian. They all three sat down on a stone bench, with Vivian in the middle, and then they began to converse, more or less, though Vivian was sure that no actual words were exchanged, that there was silence in the land of the fountain. Her questions were many, and it was well that she did not have to utter them in a language. Still for hours they spoke in the little garden. At last she returned to the arch, guided by the woman and the girl, and thence returned to her world and her body.
Vivian sat on the floor for some minutes, taking it all in. She understood, a little. A few things had fallen into place. She couldn't say what they were, but she sensed the filling of gaps in her interior landscape. She also noticed all the remaining empty spaces. There was much to learn.
The next day, she opened up the diary of her grandfather, Count Theodred, and found the following passage at the top of the page before her.
I was requested by my lady Arith to be present after dinner, but, it being the full moon, I politely declined, having Other things to do. I repaired to my high room and spent a quite productive night There until well past the middle night.
She looked ahead and behind this entry and found that Count Theodred (whose wife was Arith, Vivian's grandmother; both were long dead when Vivian was born) always excused himself from other activities on the night of the full moon. He usually didn't bother to mention that he was excusing himself, but he always had those nights to himself. And this past evening, the night of 6 June 770, had happened to be a night of the full moon, while the previous, nearly disastrous sojourn There had been in the waning half moon. She recalled something her father had said about Theodred being very powerful. He had said that his father "had more luck than I," or something like that. She knew already that Theodred had learned many tricks. But then someone must have taught him. Did he meet with the woman by the fountain? Would she only speak on the night of the full moon? What? But finally Vivian felt like she was starting, just starting to get it.
Then she flipped a page of Count Robert's journal and saw the word "Arrenuim".
Vivian spent much of that summer studying the texts, interpreting the secret writing of her predecessors, cooking up substances, reading the histories, learning all she could about the Counts of Clane. It occurred to her that if her father had lived longer, or if he had been more powerful, that he would have taught her more--but when he died, caught up in his own mourning over Lady Anne's death, he'd never had the chance really to know Vivian as an adult; and Count Edmund, great war leader though he was, did certainly rank among the less gifted of the line when it came to these arcane peculiarities. Why did these things come and go from Count to Count? Was it inheritance, or chance, or did it appear every other generation, like some inborn disabilities?
Among the more powerful of the Counts was Tereza's grandfather Robert, called "the Wise" by his contemporaries, presumably because he, like Count Rodric and Countess Tereza after him, had achieved the degree of Doctor of the University of Avigon prior to taking on the Medallion. Vivian was examining his glyphic writings one night in mid-June--reading would be too strong a word--when she encountered a strangely familiar pictogram. She spent an hour searching before she found its match, in Tereza's journals, where she had seen it more than a year before, with Count Lenward's cryptic note--"Arrenuim". But what was it?
Meanwhile, she and Ellean and Jen hiked in the mountains, or down into the chasm of the Glass River, as often as they could, and twice, on hot days of summer, Vivian and Willd picnicked in the orchard-blanketed hills, and lay long in one another's arms in the grasses.
Vivian continued to practice her other mysterious talents. Once she started to pay attention to lunar phase, noting the data in her diary, she found that not all activities were at their best in the full moon. Her "bodiless eye" seemed well-suited to the new moon, for example: the brighter the moon, the more clouded her vision became. She had also the "Emperor-vision", but she hesitated to use it--it seemed too much like shining a light from the open roof of a tower.
The one time she tried it at Nikolad was at midnight on the night of the first half moon, 27 June; it was just as the moon was setting behind the high mountains. She was feeling as though it was just a matter of time before everything about the other side and all the "arcane peculiarities" of her clan were revealed to her. So she set the Emperor's Card down in the middle of the floor, lit the righthand candle with a hard glance, sipped the wine and began to enter trance. Shortly the lefthand candle was lit as well, and Vivian looked out upon the world.
She was far up in the hills, on the edge of the mountains, and the cold world receded from her to the east and north. There lay Westdubbik, and there lay the Rocky Valley, and there beyond it lay the mountains of Tarnver and Selac, and off to the east the Lavan River ran south to the sea. She leaned out toward where the Rocky joined the Lavan, and there was Vonnis, a burned-out city turned into a big fort.
She looked closer, and found that she could hear moans deep in the ground. The voice was familiar--she could remember that voice intoning the invocation at the beginning of council meetings. It was Trofim fitz-Trofim, crying out in his dark cell.
She wanted to reach in and take him, but all she could do was see and hear. All would be revealed if she asked for it, but there was nothing she could cause to happen. Closer yet she leaned, trying to reach into the dungeon and touch the beloved high priest, but as she pierced the stone of the citadel, her once home that now blocked her out, she felt something else, something that was surprised in its own studies, something that heard her as a noise upstairs and went to see what she was. Vivian did not wait for more information. She closed her eyes to the world and fell back into a dark trance, like a swimmer who dives deep in muddy water and so avoids the eyes of searchers. There she waited for some time in a clockless darkness, and when she came out of trance she was alone and safe. The Emperor's card had been turned face down.
Vivian returned to the Other Side for further instruction, on the nights of the full moon: the fourth of July and the first of August. Each time she spent hours (or days or years, for all she knew) in the company of the woman by the fountain. Each time they met at the arch, and walked about in the garden before sitting down on the stone bench. The little girl held Vivian's hand and sat next to her; and the "new woman", the young woman with sandy hair, was present as well. The shadow figure was not, or was not close by.
In the latter part of July, Vivian had not been feeling well. By the first of August, she was all right again, and it was with great eagerness that she sat down in the private library and drank the treated wine. Everything moved so slowly in the other world, but Vivian did not have any desire to hurry it along. Yet she wanted to know who the new woman was: perhaps she had given up on identifying the little girl, and she let it suffice that the woman of the fountain was her tutor, but why had this stranger appeared? And there, on this night, she was, standing just a little way behind Vivian's teacher and the little girl. They walked about the garden, conversing in their silent way, and the new woman walked silently beside Vivian. They were about the same height, as was the woman of the fountain, and in other ways she seemed quite familiar. The four of them all sat together by the fountain while Vivian's tutor instructed both Vivian and the stranger. Then all four went to the Arch to see Vivian off, and the other three waved goodbye and smiled. The last thing Vivian saw as she fell back through was the little girl, hand in hand with the new woman, walking away from the arch, her brown ponytails swinging as she walked.
It was an hour past midnight when Vivian came out of her trance. She returned to her room and found Ellean already asleep. Quietly Vivian took off her clothes and found her nightgown hanging on a hook. She slipped it on and slipped into bed.
Her dreams were completely different from any she'd ever remembered, although it seemed to her that the last few months' dreamscape had been subtly shifting. Now there was no Vivian to be seen: just the new woman, the stranger with the sandy hair. She was walking in the hills, then riding, and the sun of late winter reflected off the snow into her bright blue eyes. She was dressed in white or grey, bearing no weapon, sometimes with soldiers around her, sometimes alone, often with another young woman. Vivian saw her inside as well--inside the Counts' Library at Vonnis, with broad shafts of light crossing the floor from tall windows. Then Vivian saw the strange young woman sitting on her horse on a hilltop, overlooking a wide valley. There was a city in the plains below--and maybe also a battle. Vivian reeled with recognition--the city below was Avigon, Avigon the Dirty, the imperial capital now sunk into decay.
She woke in the first light on the second morning of August. Something was definitely wrong. She rolled over so her head was off the bed and reached underneath to pull out the commode. She threw up, neatly into the commode, gasped air and then threw up again. It took her a minute or two to do away completely with what was left in her stomach, and then she rolled over onto her back, panting. "Damn it, damn it, damn it," she gasped.
"Hmmmhh?" said Ellean, rolling toward her and sitting up. "What's going on?"
"Damn it," said Vivian. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!" She paused for breath. Ellean leaned closer and put an arm around her. "Damn it," said Vivian again. "I think I'm pregnant."
"You can't be," said Angeline. They were sitting around the Countess's room that afternoon having tea.
"I must be," said Vivian. "No. I'm sure. I already asked myself all those questions."
"She sure did throw up this morning," said Ellean. "It's not so bad. Just think, when you have your heir, Sir Rogier will let you go riding again."
"I'm kind of scared," said Vivian.
"It's not so bad," said Angeline, who was nursing Jack, "although I'd rather not do it again for a few years. Two big messy babies is enough. But Vivian--does this mean--I mean, that powder you gave me--?"
"Oh," said Vivian. "Oh. Well."
"That powder?" repeated Ellean. "Vivie, you were using it when--oh, great! Great."
"Whoa, wait," said Vivian. "Angeline, you gave it to--?"
"Yeah, why not?" said Angeline. "You told me it worked, and I figured, who wants a pregnant Ellean running around? And now--"
"Wait," said Ellean. "This can't be happening. Vivie, are you sure you were using it?"
"Well, actually," said Vivian, "we've been making love an awful lot, and I'm quite sure that we didn't always use the powder. I mean, Willd has his, um, goat-bladder thingy. Well, most of the time. And we may have worn it out, what with--"
Both of the Rain sisters breathed long sighs of relief. "Don't scare me like that," said Angeline. She nodded at Ellean and said, "Imagine--!"
"You don't have to sleep with her," replied Vivian.
"I don't care, say anything," said Ellean. "None of it bothers me, not after that scare."
Jen came in, bearing some rolls and more tea. "Jen, sit down," Angeline told her, "the Countess has something to say."
Jen sat down looking serious. Vivian looked her right in the eyes. "Jen, no gossip at all about this, all right?" She looked around at all three. "If I hear this coming back to me before I'm good and ready, I'll put the Nikolad gallows to good use."
"I would never speak your secrets, my lady," replied Jen.
"I know you wouldn't," said Vivian. "All right. I think I'm with child."
Jen's jaw dropped, but she picked it right back up, leapt from her chair and grabbed up her mistress in a hug. "Oh, my lady," she said, "that's great! Great! Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't--!"
"Hey," said Vivian, "I'm not that pregnant yet." She sat back down. "Anyway, I guess I can't say I'm completely sure. So," she said, looking around at them all, "forget the gallows, let's just see how well we can all keep a secret."
As the month of August passed, Vivian became more and more sure. There were the dreams, for one thing--the stranger, here in Nikolad as a girl, in Vonnis as a woman, riding in the woods and mountains, pushing through crowds, standing in a high place and viewing. Then one night at the end of August, Vivian saw herself along with the new woman: Vivian, wearing the medallion of the Countess, looked twenty or thirty years older.
Still Vivian told only one person else, and her confidantes were entirely discrete. The one more person she felt obligated to inform was William Willd. One afternoon, still in very early August, he was washing up after making love to her, and she took the goat's bladder out of his hand. She dipped it into the soapy water and pulled it out by its open end, so it hung down full. A stream of water trickled from several small holes at the end.
"Hmm," said Willd. "That's not supposed to happen." He smiled at her. "Time to make a new one. Well, I've never made love so many times in one year--no wonder it wore out. No harm, though, right? We usually use the powder of yours."
"Usually, but not always," said Vivian. "I'm pregnant, Willd."
"What?"
"You heard me. I really am. I'm sure of it." He turned pale and stared off into space. "And, by the way, I'm sure you're the father."
He said nothing, but his face betrayed the passage through his mind of hundreds of things he might say. He opened his mouth and one of them came out. "My lady," he said, "do you wish to, ah, marry?"
She smiled. "Oh, Willd, that's sweet. You're proposing."
"I suppose I am, my lady, though I don't know if it's quite proper."
"Well, I don't suppose the council will think so either, though in a way I don't care. Still, my marriage is something that they do have veto power over." She sat down on the bed. "I think," she said at last, "that we will not marry just yet." She rarely felt his emotions, but a wave of hurt hit her a second after she said it. She looked him full in the eyes. "Oh, Willd, you know how I feel about you." He gave her a look that said he wasn't sure. "Willd. Willd, Willd, Willd. Oh, you big dummy. I love you. For ever and ever."
"My lady," he said, and he sat down, still holding the goat bladder. "I--"
She took the thing away from him and threw it on the floor. "No need for that thing any more," she said, standing naked before him, hands on hips. "Now what were you saying? You what?"
"I love you, my lady," he mumbled.
"You what? You're mumbling."
He burst into tears. "I love you, my lady!" They fell into one another's arms on the bed, naked, crying and crying and mumbling about how much they loved one another, and for how many eternities they would go on loving one another. When Ellean walked in, an hour later, carrying a candle, she was cradled in his arms, sleeping.
"In the light of the Divine Sun," said Father Petrus Petre with great feeling. The Countess had already learned to tune him out, despite his dramatic delivery. It was early September, and Vivian believed she had been pregnant since late May.
"Vivian, seventeenth countess of Clane, presides," finished Sir Rogier.
"Thank you," said Vivian, and cleared a frog from her throat. "If there's no objection, I have two items that I'd like to interject into this meeting at the beginning."
"You preside," said Sir Rogier.
"All right. First of all, and I want to emphasize that this is something that is long overdue, I need the Council's acceptance of a change in the primogeniture law."
Sir Rogier rolled his eyes. "Let me guess," he said.
"If it's obvious what I'm going to say," Vivian replied, "that's because it's obvious that it needs to be done. As you know, as the law is presently written, any son has precedence in the succession over any daughter. I propose the following to be substituted for the current language, which we have left to us from the Empire." She lifted a sheet in her own writing, and read from it. "That upon the death of the Count of Clane, and after any exclusions due to unsuitability as established prior to the succession, that the next Count of Clane be the eldest child of the decedent Count, or to the heir of the eldest child, or, if there are no suitable children or heirs of children, then to the next eldest child, then to the heir to the next eldest child, and so on, and if there are no suitable descendants, then to the eldest surviving sibling of the decedent Count, or heir to eldest sibling, and so on."
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "your own succession came in spite of the impediment that you are attempting to correct. I defy you to name a case where a bad Count succeeded instead of a good elder sister."
"That's irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the current law is fair, and it's clearly not." He opened his mouth to speak, and she added, "If my brother had survived to adulthood, I would not be Countess, even though I was the eldest. Would that be fair?"
"Many things are not fair," said Sir Rogier, "but no, I would not prefer that."
"And in answer to your challenge, I would suggest that Count John the Bald, son of Countess Annelle, might have been less worthy than his elder sister, the Lady Unnwe. From the chronicles one gets the impression that Clane was blessed in John's only having three years to rule; Unnwe outlived him by another twenty years. I know, we can't say if she would have been better, but she evidently couldn't have been much worse. I've read the diary of Henry of Tria, who was John the Bald's Minister of State as well as Annelle's and Theodas's. He would've made a mediocre shopkeeper's assistant."
"But what about her own line?" asked Thane Horst. "She has descendants, does she not?"
"It's not that easy, being Countess," said Vivian. "Maybe they got a good deal. But--didn't someone just say that many things are not fair?"
"Still, you know what the Duke of Farlain will do--find an heir to Unnwe."
"Begging your pardon, Thane," said Francis Weaver, who had returned from Tarnhold for the meeting. "What will it matter? He has a Viscount, who already has no standing as an heir; this change in law would not be retroactive, so any heir to this Unnwe would still have no standing; what difference does it make?"
The Thane shrugged. "You're right, of course." He exchanged looks with Sir Rogier.
"Things sure have changed," said Sir Rogier. Vivian smiled.
"My lady," said Maura d'Acali, "I too think it's overdue. But let us be sure that there is no claim of the change being retroactive."
"Good point," said Sir Rogier. "We must add a clause stating so in no uncertain terms. Succession disputes have never disturbed Clane, and we don't need to start now."
"Let it be done so," said the Countess. "Fergus?"
"My lady," said Fergus Clark, "I will write it up as best I can, and submit it to the Council for their approval of the language by tomorrow."
"Then," said Sir Rogier, "it is enough that we vote now and sign off on the exact language later."
"Vote?" repeated Francis Weaver. "We vote?"
"On succession," said Vivian, "and on the marriage of the Countess, the Council votes, and no, I don't get more than one vote myself. Who does vote, by the way?"
"You," said Sir Rogier, "and I, and the Lord Consul, the Horse Marshal, the minister of the interior, the high priest and the treasurer, and in addition any thanes that may be here. According to precedent, of which the most recent was your father's marriage to Lady Anne of Wade, Thane Horst actually gets to vote twice, once as Lord Consul and once as Thane of Westdubbik. At that time, there were old Thane Anton of Intror, Karlan's uncle, the Lord Consul, and Thane Baruk of Skavin, Burley's dad, who was his predecessor as interior minister."
"But I only get one vote!" said Vivian.
"Appoint yourself Lord Consul, then," said Sir Rogier.
"If there is a dispute about it," said Thane Horst, "I will only vote once."
"No," said the Countess, "there is no dispute. You have two votes. And I want to make it clear to everyone that I will in no way punish those who vote against me."
"Is there any further discussion?" asked Sir Rogier. There was none. "Then all who are in favor of the change, that the eldest child of the Count should inherit, regardless of whether it be a girl or a boy, raise your hands."
All but Thane Horst did so.
"And all who are opposed?" Only Thane Horst was. "Then let it be recorded, that the proposal was passed in council by a vote of six to one."
"Two," said Thane Horst.
"Two," amended Sir Rogier.
"My lady," said Thane Horst, "I wish to say that it is not a great matter to me, and that you may be right, but--"
"But I depend on your counsel, Thane," said Vivian, "even if it fails to agree with my own. I'm glad that you can disagree with me to my face."
"Thank you, my lady, and may I remind you that you said that, if ever you are angry with me in the future?"
"Please do!" She looked around. "The second item, I would say, is not nearly as historic as the first. Yet it concerns the County, and so I must inform you of it."
"What is that?" asked Sir Rogier suspiciously.
"It's this," said Vivian. "I am with child."
"You certainly are," said Miranda the Brewer, after examining the Countess in private. The brewer was also the closest thing Nikolad had to a doctor. "I would say that you are four months along. The child will be due in February, or possibly March. Though I could be wrong."
"You could, huh? Can I close my legs now? It's getting cold."
"By all means," said Miranda. "We don't want the next Count to get a chill. As I was saying, I have miscalculated before. My son was born a month and a week later than I'd estimated. I couldn't conduct an effective examination--the position was impractical."
"I can imagine. Your son is...?"
"Henry is his name. He is a vintner's apprentice in Dubkarin. Rebellion against his mother, going into wine."
"And his father?"
Miranda smiled. "My countess," she said, "no man may claim that title with certainty."
"Ohhh. And that's why there is only one?"
"Not quite," said Miranda. "There is only one, because of something that my mother handed down to me. A family secret."
"Oh. I see. Is it so secret that even your countess cannot be trusted with it?"
"I am sorry, my lady, but that is the nature of family secrets. I do not even mention it to most people."
"I'm interested," said Vivian, "but I understand your problem. So let me see if I can guess the procedure." She then gave a general outline of Countess Tereza's recipe.
"My lady," said Miranda, "if you knew, then why are you--"
"Because I didn't quite think to use it every time. Because we had another method of, of preventing this from happening. Well, we thought we had another method. I learned my lesson."
"Well," said Miranda, "I suppose I can tell you that your recipe is my recipe, more or less. Though I do know a few shortcuts that obviously do not diminish its effectiveness. Since you know the essential secret, I have no qualm about sharing my tricks with you."
"Good! I'm going to learn a lot from you. Maybe I'll show you a thing or two as well."
The fall wore on, and two things happened to Vivian, at least. She grew; and she grew to think of Nikolad as her home. Vonnis remained in memory clear as glass, but there was still glass there--she could see it but not touch it. Now, in the fall, as she watched the maples turn orange and red and purple under flying wisps of cloud in clear blue skies, she remembered her lovely ash trees, tall and wide and shapely, their highest boughs shivering in the wind of October, their leaves gathering fathoms deep in the alleys and the dells.
And her belly grew, in spite of her recurrent nausea. She may have lost some of the dinners before breakfast, but the succeeding lunches more than replaced them. There was no doubt: a child was coming. She thought of her mother, as women are likely to do when they consider their own children: but for Vivian, it was a frightening thought, since her mother had died in childbirth. Even though Vivian was still in fine health, she lay awake at night picturing her mother's death in agony, producing--nothing of any permanence, a son that would quickly die.
Yet Vivian held in her heart, sitting alongside her desperate anxiety, a strange confidence. She could never explain the anxiety to someone, like me, who is not a mother; the confidence she could hardly explain to herself.
On the night of each full moon, she visited the fountain in the garden, and the new woman sat beside her while the lady of the fountain tutored her, and the little girl with the brown ponytails played quietly nearby. 29 August, 26 September, 24 October, 21 November: each month Vivian returned to the garden, and each time the three others were there, and each time they went to the fountain for Vivian's instruction. Even on the Other Side, Vivian knew she was with child, and the woman of the fountain seemed to treat her more affectionately; her aloof care turned into a huggy tenderness. The new woman grew clearer: soon Vivian could touch her hand.
There was some news from outside, but nothing either very comforting or very threatening. The Countess of Clane seemed to be temporarily out of the way of the great boots of history. The Rugians were still besetting, if not besieging, Radun, but Thane Robert still held it, and the thinking was that if he could survive the winter, they would tire of the affair. Acali was nervous, but not in immediate danger. Francis Weaver spent about three quarters of his time at Tarnhold, and Angeline spent about half of hers there. Meanwhile, the Duke of Farlain was apparently tiring of northern conquest: though he left eight or nine thousand soldiers in Vonnis, Angren and Intror, the bulk of his forces were now in the southwest hills of Farlain, disputing the border with Amari. The sheer size of the Farlain army was shocking to Vivian--Clane had never had more than five thousand in its best times, while the Duke mustered six times that. As for the Avars, distant rumor said that they were harrying the borders of Shadewind. Thane Burley of Skavin held out in his surrounded and self-sufficient enclave. His scout Garrik sometimes came to Tarnhold and then Nikolad with news, riding from Orlad by way of the mountain trails.
The fall came with its bounty and its faint whiff of regret, but it was the bounty that surprised Vivian, for she had been expecting the regret. Nikolad seemed a barren place at first, and its growing season was among the shortest of all the county's manors, but its high plains were covered by orchards and fields of barley and wheat, its hives were well-staffed with bees and produced gallon upon gallon of honey and its hillsides were grazed by sheep and goats and cattle that produced the wool that made the people's sweaters and their milk and fine cheese and their beef. All the other vegetables--potatoes, peppers, squash, string beans, lentils, peas, turnips, radishes, and all manner of greens--grew in the high fields, or in the river bottoms, or at least in the gardens of Nikolad's window boxes and rooftops. Mushrooms shared the cellars with the beer in its various stages, and hop vines clustered on the inner walls. Vivian had never seen these before, and her first instinct was to suggest they be replaced by grape vines, but by now she had developed a taste for Miranda the Brewer's red ale. Now, she could think of nothing about Nikolad that she really wanted to change.
She said so to Lady Mirabel, who replied that there was plenty she'd like to change. "For one thing," she said, "obviously we need more room. We could add another storey to the keep. I'd like to put in another tower as well--it would be yours, of course, Countess. And then knock out a wall to make a larger hall--we'd have to move the kitchen. And we couldn't embark on such a project without giving Miranda some more room, of course."
"I don't need a tower," said the Countess, "I have a perfectly good one in Vonnis. But the rest of your idea sounds wonderful. You plan it, and I'll see to it that some of our spare soldiers help you get it built."
"And you are to relax, my lady," said Mirabel, smiling indulgently as she looked down at Vivian's still slight bulge.
"I hate that," said Vivian. "Everyone thinks I can't tie my shoes anymore."
"Soon enough," said Angeline.
"My lady," said Jen, "we're just trying to take care of you."
"At least," said Vivian, "Jen isn't treating me differently. She's always treated me this way." They were sitting around Vivian's room on a cool night in late October. Angeline, Ellean and Jen all had half-finished pints of reddish ale in front of them, but Vivian's pint was full of milk. Jack lay fast asleep on the bed. Francis Weaver, again home on leave, was sleeping in Angeline's room down the hall.
"And how are you feeling, my lady?"
"Everyone wants to know how I'm feeling, too. No one asked me that before, like right after I was chased out of my home town by a treasonous rabble."
"A mite irritable, I'd say," said Ellean.
"That's normal," said Angeline.
"Oh, yeah," replied Ellean, "I remember how you were, five months along."
"No, I meant, normal for the Countess."
"Hey," said Vivian. "Am I not here anymore?"
"At least she's given up wine," said Angeline. "My Martha said that it's bad to drink when you're pregnant."
"What does she know?" retorted Vivian. "The reason I'm drinking milk is that my stomach isn't happy with more than one pint of ale in a day." She took a drink. "And it's certainly good milk. Is this from goats?"
"Sheep, my lady," said Jen. "Martha says that's what you're supposed to drink. Of course, that's not what my mom said."
"What did your mom say?"
"Well, my lady, my mom used to finish off the night with an ounce of brandy when she was heavy with child. She bore twelve, too. I can't imagine."
"Oh, me either, me either," said Vivian.
"Hey, what about Willd, you going to marry him?" asked Ellean. "So your kid has a father and all? Or is he too common?"
Vivian gave her a sour look, then shrugged and shook her head. "Oh, Ell," she said, "I don't know. He's the father, all right. Of course my daughter will have a father. But I don't think the council will be eager to let me marry him. Besides--!" She wiped a tear from her eye. "Oh, I don't know," she half-sobbed. Angeline, Ellean and Jen looked at one another. "I love him so much, I hate to change anything." She started crying uncontrollably, with more words coming out in between. "And here--I've done--gone and done--this! And will he--still--?"
"I'm sorry," said Ellean, standing up but still unsure of what to do.
Angeline knew. She handed Jack to Jen, then went over to Vivian's chair and pulled her to her feet in a hug. "Of course he will. He's completely in love with you." The other two women watched them, perhaps to see if they needed any help with the hugging and weeping. That was how Willd found them, five minutes later, when he arrived at Vivian's door with a rose in his hand.
"I'll be all right," said Vivian, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her dress. "Thanks for letting me have a good cry."
"It's what friends are for," said Angeline, and the two women went back to crying and hugging. Ellean rolled her eyes, and Jen began picking up.
"Should we leave you two alone?" said Ellean to Willd.
"Oh, no, that's not--"
"Perhaps we should," said Jen. She and Ellean toasted each other and downed their pints. "Would my Lady Rain like to join the Countess's humble servant in another pint?"
"Can I sleep on your floor tonight? Then sure."
"You can have my bed."
"Oh, no, I couldn't."
"Ladies," said Willd, "I'm sure it's not--"
"Willd," said Vivian. She threw herself into his arms, and, as he was hugging her, she gave the others a quick look.
"Well, good night," said Angeline. "I have to take my baby and go check on my other baby." With a few more goodbyes, the women and the baby left the Countess alone with her errand-rider.
Vivian separated herself, and looked Willd up and down. "It's almost midnight," she said.
"Yes?"
"Come," she said, and she led him to the window. She pushed it open--the frame was hinged to swing out like a door. Below them, the gulf of the Glass River opened, and a healthy song of waters came up from the blackness. Above, the sky was a tapestry of stars. She put her hand in his as they stood there, the cold air blowing over them.
She looked up at him, into his watery blue eyes. "I, Vivian, Seventeenth Countess of Clane, swear my love for you, William Willd, from this moment until the stars die out, and until the Sun fails to bless the day, and beyond that until eternity." He looked down at her, even more speechless than usual. "I, William Willd," she prompted.
"I, William Willd," he started in, to the surprise of both of them. She smiled wider, though tears were streaming from her eyes. "Faithful servant to the Countess, swear my love for you, Vivian, Countess of Clane, for ever and ever, until the Sun's fires die, and beyond that, for ever."
"Until eternity," she prompted, giggling but still crying.
"Until eternity," he replied, as though it were little to ask of him. They stared at each other, hand in hand, smiling, for a full minute. Then he took her into his arms, and they kissed, as Vivian pulled the window shut with her free hand.