Aria and Haratta were in the bedchamber unpacking silken dresses and shawls from one of the larger trunks, Haratta enlarging upon the merits and defects of each garment, when one of the doe-eyed maids rustled in and fell to her knees before them.
'Mistress, mistress! The Torunnan King is here.'
'What?' Haratta snapped. 'Without a word of warning? You are mistaken.'
'No! It is he, all alone but for a tattooed soldier who waits down the passage. He wishes to talk with the Princess!'
Haratta threw down the costly silk she had been examining. 'Barbarians! Send him away! No, no, we cannot do that. My sweet, you must receive him - he is a king after all, though now I believe those stories about his peasant upbringing. Unheard of - to force himself upon us unheralded, catching us unawares. Veil yourself, girl! I will speak to him and set him to rights.' Haratta rose and, twitching her own veil about her pouting mouth, stalked from the chamber in a shimmer of billowing raiment.
In the main antechamber a man of medium height stood warming his hands at the glowing charcoal of a brazier. He was dressed in black and his close-fitting tunic sat on him as trimly as on the torso of a youth. But when he turned Haratta saw that his hair was three parts grey and his eyes were sunken, though they gleamed brightly in the lamplight. He wore a simple silver circlet about his temples and no other ornament or decoration of any kind. King or no, Haratta had intended to upbraid him politely but icily for his presumption, but something about his eyes stopped her cold. She curtseyed in the Ramusian way.
'You speak Normannic?' the man asked.
'A small piece, mine lord. Not very goods.'
'Haratta your name is, I am told.'
'Yes, lord.'
'I am Corfe. I am here to see the lady Aria. I apologise for my absence at your arrival, but I was detained by matters of state.' He paused, and seeing the look of alarm and incomprehension crossing her face his eyes softened. In Merduk he said:
‘I wish only to speak with your mistress for a moment. I will wait, if that is necessary.'
Her face cleared. 'I will ask her to come at once.' There was something in this man's gaze, something which even at first meeting made one eager to obey him.
When Aria entered the room a few moments later she was swathed in yards of midnight silk, the finest she possessed, and kohl had been applied to her eyelids, the lashes drawn out at the corners of her eyes with black stibium. Haratta followed her and took an unobtrusive seat in a shadowed corner as her mistress walked steadily towards her future husband, a man old enough to be her father.
The Torunnan King bowed deeply and she inclined her head in answer. He did not look as old as she had feared, and had in fact the bearing of a much younger man. He was not ill-looking either, and the first, absurd, girlish fears she had harboured faded. She was not to share a bed with some potbellied bald-headed libertine after all.
They exchanged inconsequential courtesies, all the while taking in every detail of the other. His Merduk was adequate, but not fluent, as though it had lately been studied in a hurry. They switched to Normannic at her request, for she was at home in both, thanks to her mother. He had a stern cast to his face, but when she made him smile she saw a much younger man beneath the Royal solemnity, a glimpse of someone else. She found herself liking his gravity, the sudden, unexpected smile which lifted it. His eyes were almost the same shade as her own.
He asked about her mother, turning away to poke at the brazier with a fire iron as he did so. She was very well, Aria told him lightly. She sent her greetings to her future son-in-law. This last thing she had invented as an empty courtesy, no more, but as she said it the fire iron went still, and remained poised in the burning red heart of the coals. The King went silent and she wondered what she had said to offend him. At last he turned back to her and she could see sweat glittering on his brow. His eyes seemed to have sunk back into his head and the firelight raised no gleam from them.
'May I see your face?' he asked.
She was taken aback, and had no idea how to deal with such a bold request. She glanced at Haratta in the shadows and almost called the older woman over, then thought better of it. Why not? He was to marry her, after all. She twitched aside her veil and drew back her silken hood without speaking.
She heard Haratta gasp with outrage behind her, but had eyes only for the King's face. The colour had fled from it. He looked shocked, but mastered himself quickly. His hand came up as if he were about to caress her cheek, then fell away without touching her.
'You are the very image of your mother,' he said hoarsely.
'So I have been told, my lord.' Their eyes locked and something indefinable went between them. There was a great, empty hunger in him, a grieved yearning which touched her to the quick. She took his hard-planed fingers in her own, and felt him tremble at her touch.
Haratta had reached them. 'My lord King, this is no way to be behaving. I am here as chaperone for the Princess, and I say that you overstep the mark. Aria, what are you thinking? Cover yourself, girl. A man does not see his bride's face until their wedding night. For shame!'
Corfe's eyes did not leave Aria's for a second. 'Things are done differently here in Torunna,' he said quietly. 'And besides, we are to be married in the morning.'
Aria felt her heart flip. 'So soon? But I—'
‘I have communicated with your father. He has agreed. Your dowry will be sent on with your brother Nasir and the reinforcements he is leading here.'
Haratta seemed to choke. She dabbed at her eyes. 'Oh my little girl, oh my poor maid. Are you ashamed of her, my lord, that you rush through this thing like - like a thief in the night?'
Corfe's cold stare shut her mouth. 'We are at war, woman, and this kingdom buried its Queen this morning. My wife. It is not how any of us would have wished, but circumstance dictates our actions. I must leave for the war myself very soon. Forgive me, Aria. No disrespect is intended. Your own father recognises this.'
Aria bowed her head. 'I understand.' She still held his fingers in her own and she felt the pressure as he squeezed them, then released her.
'A covered carriage will be waiting for you in the morning, and will convey you to the cathedral where we are to be married. You may bring Haratta and one other maid, but that is all. Are there any questions?' He seemed to think he was briefing a group of soldiers. His voice had become hard and impersonal; the tone of command. Aria and Haratta shook their heads silently.
'Very good. I will see you in the morning then.' He raised Aria's hand to his lips and kissed her knuckle, a dry feather touch. 'Good night, ladies.' Then he turned on his heel and strode away. When the door had closed behind him Aria covered her face with her hands and fought the sudden sobs which threatened to burst free.
The bells woke her. There had been a late spring snowfall a few days before, probably the last of the year, and Aurunga-bar's usual clatter and clamour had been muffled by the white tenderness of the snow. But now all over the city this morning the bells of every surviving Ramusian church were tolling, and chief among them the mournful sonorous pealing of Carcasson's great bronze titans. Heria threw aside the piled coverlets, and shrugging a fur pelisse about her shoulders she darted to the window and tugged aside the ornate shutters.
The cold air made her gasp and the whiteness was blinding after the gloom of the room. The sun was still rising and was nothing more than a saffron burning glimpsed through thick ribands of grey cloud. Some kind of emergency? But the people trudging through the streets seemed unafraid. The wains heading to market in great clouds of oxenbreath trundled obliviously, their drovers yawning, muffled figures unpanicked by any news of war or fire or invasion.