Caissa could not admit to sharing a similar anticipation. Since the occasion was her sire’s, her attitude was unworthy.
“Tonight you sleep in the coelura, Lady Caissa,” Trin repeated. “Tomorrow no one will know it’s coelura unless you let ‘em.”
Tomorrow, reflected Caissa, everyone will know about coelura. And someone will think to inform the High Lady Cinna. The irony that she should possess coelura before her womb-mother was doubled by the fact that a person like Lady Cinna was the greatest danger to coelura. Her robe gently compressed about Caissa’s body, as if in sympathy as well as understanding.
Murell had said, Caissa reminded herself firmly, that coelura would be protected. He had emphasized that. She only hoped that he knew what he was talking about. Did he, could he, appreciate how dangerous Baythan could be so close to a long-awaited fulfillment?
The exhaustion of the day’s emotional stress overcame her. Despite her anxieties, or perhaps because she was enveloped in coelura, Caissa slept.
She woke, unexpectedly refreshed, her coelura a gentle green, a shade that illuminated her lovely complexion and complemented her black hair. Trin arrived with a tray of food and exclaimed with approval at her mistress’s subtly enhanced beauty.
“You’d better eat well my lady. It’s going to be a long day and with everything, you can’t risk coming over faint from lack of food.” Nourishment was an answer-all for Trin. “Coelura would give you away for certain if you aren’t feeling well.”
The food did quiet the roiling in her stomach and Caissa ate more than she intended. She did not like surrendering the gown even for bathing and it clung lovingly to her hand until she, following Murell’s example, told it to behave. She kept its dulled green length in sight as she submitted to Trin’s ministrations. She sighed with relief when she could settle the coelura back about her shoulders.
“Now set it in your colors, Lady Caissa.”
She did and Trin could find no fault in shade, shape or drape.
“You’ll never want for the perfect gown again, my lady,” said Trin. “It’s only just too bad as you aren’t the important contractee today in that robe. You’d have all eyes. No one would outshine you.”
“Outshining has never been my ambition, Trin, as well you know.”
“I know,” and Trin’s deep sigh bordered insolent regret, “but not for my want of trying. You shine now! I’ll watch it all.” She activated the wall screen and tuned it to the Great Hall, now a lucent white as befitted the occasion.
Trin’s excitement was nothing to the aura exuded by the invited and chosen as they moved towards the Great Hall in the slow grav stream, decorously, so as not to disarrange their finery. The entry ways from all grav channels were lined with mirrors to permit last minute adjustments before entering. Caissa’s robe remained in immaculate folds about her as she stepped onto the platform. She moved politely forward in the press and pretended to touch up her hair as she glanced at the throng pausing or passing her. Everyone was, as usual, far too occupied in their own appearance to notice anything unusual about hers. She waited in the anteroom as long as she could, hoping to locate Murell. He might have chosen to dress in lower caste neutrals to deliver her coelura yesterday but he did have an heir-tattoo. Surely he possessed rank enough to enter the Great Hall for the contracting of his Caverna.
The Great Hall was filling: the hour for the ceremony and the Triads’ announcement near. Already the upper tiers were occupied by the ranking Cavernii and their body-heirs. Ambassadors and ministers from other planetary systems occupied booths and tanks or the balcony for oxygen breathers. Caissa thought wryly that her sire was certainly going to achieve maximum dissemination of his new contract as well as his mission’s success.
Although she had no part in the ceremony, she was his body-heir and would stand the usual three steps behind him, to his right. She moved across the immense Hall to take her position on the lowest of the four steps leading up to the two ceremonial chairs, red and blue, set for the Triad Rulers. There was, she noticed, sufficient room for a third chair on that dais.
With slow dignity, she viewed the assembled and, though she had often been a witness to prestigious contracts, she had never seen the Hall so crowded. Black guardroids kept open an aisle down which her sire would lead his new contract partner.
The sonic call-to-order peeled melodiously, through the Hall to the subtly carved domed ceiling. Before the last echo had died, two notes summoned the Rulers of the Blue and Red Triad cities. There should be three, thought Caissa rebelliously. For surely the Yellow City would be reinstated and Demeathorn united in its original Triadic form.
She had always known that the two Rulers were old but suddenly she realized how old they must be for unmistakably both wore coelura robes. She knew Blue Ruler to be in his fifteenth decade and Red Ruler was older. Blue Ruler’s gown was vibrant, sparkling; Red Ruler’s blurred. She remembered the gossip that Red Ruler had not completely recovered from his recent illness. His robe, now that she had some grasp of the properties of coelura, gave the strength to that report. Red Ruler’s body-heir now took his place and his garment, rich though it was, was a poor imitation of what his sire wore. He would need a coelura robe to maintain the dignity and authority of his office. How much compromise had been extracted from the obdurate Oriolii who had withstood sanctions for so long? Had the need for a new Ruler’s robe been an advantage? And for whom?
Her robe began to shimmer and she hastily depressed her thoughts. The sonics trilled again, announcing the entrance of her sire and the Oriolis Caverna.
Simultaneously Caissa observed two things: her sire was wearing coelura that rippled in muddy colors, vibrating disappointment or suppressed anger. Secondly, his partner, as beautiful and graceful as a Caverna ought to be, was also in distress but she was maintaining the striped pattern of blue, red and yellow. Nothing in Baythan’s noble bearing, his firm stride courteously shortened to match the Caverna’s, would indicate that all was not as it should be. Then his clothing settled into a firmer pattern of his colors but Caissa knew that Baythan, Minister Plenipotential, was under stress. Sufficient for his heir to realize that Baythan was not having everything his own way. Sufficient, Caissa hoped, not to notice his heir’s costume was unusual.
Casual contracts or those between lower ranks were duly registered on the Memorax, but for persons of ministerial or cavernii status, documents were handscribed on a carefully treated paper which would instantly change color if tampered with after the final signing.
Baythan’s chief aide presented the large and beautifully detailed contract to the Blue Triadic Ruler who made a show of reading before passing it to Red Ruler. Red Ruler’s body-heir stepped forward and spoke to his sire. Red Ruler looked more closely at the document and rose to his feet, assisted by his heir.
“There is no mark,” the old man said in a clear but forceless voice, “or mention that this Contract has been approved by the Oriolis Cavernus.”
Baythan’s robe streaked with grey, flushed to the red of embarrassment though Baythan obviously controlled his private anger more quickly than he could his garment. The Caverna swayed, the blues and reds of her gown attacked by the yellow stripes, travelling from heart to hem.
“Gracious Rulers,” Baythan began, “the Cavernus Murell…”
“The Cavernus Murell is present!”
It was Caissa’s turn to sway, but joy and surprise merely deepened the pattern of her coelura to a pulsing brilliance noticeable to all close to her. Baythan had whirled at Murell’s carrying voice, instinctively supporting the Caverna with his left arm. Whether the girl had had any part in Murell’s crash, Caissa would never know and later doubted. The Caverna collected herself quickly as she turned towards the aisle.