Men, women, and children, lord and lady, servant and tradesman, the people of Qualinost filled the streets. They went laughing from bake shop to wine shop, from weaver to jeweler; they gathered around the high-wheeled carts of apple sellers and nutmen and farmers in from the fields with the best of their harvest. In the horse fair, where traditionally elves met to buy and sell the fine beasts the kingdom was known for, folk watched the auctions of wide-chested dray horses and pretty palfreys for an elderly lady’s evening ride. They observed the sale of sturdy mounts for long riding and little ponies that would delight a rich elf’s child.
For this one day, dogs loped in the gardens and children ran and shouted, their wrists and ankles adorned with bracelets of shining silver bells. Pipers played at every corner, bards declaimed their verses, and young girls sat in scented bowers of wisteria and roses, listening to minstrels sing them songs commissioned by their admirers. Songs of tenderest love, of deepest passion, songs of loss, of gain, of hope, these songs brought tears to the eyes of the maidens and sly smiles to the lips of those who passed by.
The city rang with harvest joy, and through Qualinost, upon a route that might seem winding to a stranger, the elf king made his royal progress. He went in a fine litter canopied in tasseled green silk and borne by four strong young elves. These litter bearers were the handsome sons and lovely daughters of minor branches of House Royal. Privilege and place gave them the right to this honor.
All his Senate went with Gilthas, the whole of the Thalas-Enthia surrounding. Shining in silks and satins, glittering in jewels, the lords and ladies of Qualinost rode upon either side of the king. By their colors they were known, pennons borne like lances and mounted beside saddles as though they were, indeed, weapons. Satins sailed the scented air, and ribbons of proper color fluttered in the manes of their tall mounts, bands of silk braided into hair brushed soft as a woman’s.
Only one rode before the king, and he was Rashas, resplendent in his purple robes, his rose-colored sash. The senator glittered in rubies and amethysts, and upon his silvered head he wore a wreath whose leaves were of beaten gold, each so thin, so delicately wrought that closest inspection would betray no sign of the hammer’s blow.
Gilthas half-closed his eyes to shield them from the sunlight leaping in glints and gleams from each delicate leaf. He sighed, not discreetly, and wished he’d given the senator something less glaring as a Winter Night gift last year. The sigh caught the attention of Lady Evantha of House Cleric.
“It’s a long route this year,” Gilthas said, affecting to hide a yawn with a ring-glittering hand. He was not bored; he was not wearied. He was, in truth, edgy and eager and wishing he could leave the swaying litter and leap astride a horse as tall and fine as the shining bay Rashas rode.
Around them, the city shone, the people laughed, and someone cried out from the garden of the Bough and Blossom tavern, “Look! There! It’s the king!”
Gilthas recognized a rustic accent, some farmer in from the provinces with his harvest, determined to celebrate the festival in grand style. Perhaps he had gone to the horse fair, perhaps he had sold a good dray there or purchased one. He’d probably bought his wife a new gown in the Street of Tailors, his daughter some toys in Wonders Lane. Doubtless, the family would talk about this week through the winter to come, revisiting golden Qualinost in memory before the warming fires.
Gilthas looked out from his litter, parting the hangings a little to see. A young elf stood with his hand on the shoulder of a very small girl who looked to be his daughter. He pointed when he saw the king’s hand on the silken hangings. The girl strained forward to see, and suddenly her father swung her high upon his shoulder.
“The king!” she cried, waving her hand. The belled bracelets on her wrist rang like silvery laughter on the air. “King! Hello, king! Happy harvests!”
People turned to smile at the child and her joyful, innocent greeting. Her father lifted her high over his head, and the little one squealed with laughter. Beside Gilthas, Lady Evantha sniffed and made a disdainful comment about how vulgar the folk had become in the provinces.
“Why, they are as uncouth as our own Kagonesti servants. No,” she said, shaking her head in mime of careful consideration. “No, I misspeak. I think those provincials are worse. I think they live too close into the forest, and they forget how to comport themselves in cities. Whereas…” She nodded now, approving her conclusion before she spoke it. Sunlight glinted on her golden earrings; a warm breath of air gently lifted the filmy sleeve of her russet gown. “Whereas, I do believe, Your Majesty, that our servants are, indeed, gaining a certain noticeable—oh, can we say?—a certain degree of, well, if not grace, certainly refinement.”
Gilthas nodded, and he pretended to consider her point as he watched the farmer and his daughter turn away, back to their family, back to their celebrations. How marvelous the city must seem to them! How sweet the child’s wonder and her impulsive, heartfelt greeting.
Happy harvests!
The greeting sat in his heart like wine sparkling as the procession wound through the streets. The esteemed leaders of the finest Houses of the Qualinesti riding in escort to their young king progressed through the city, past the fabled Tower of the Sun and Stars, out past homes humble and high, houses of the older style built among trees, magnificent houses of the newer fashion embracing the faces of the stone cliffs. The king and his court traveled at stately pace all through the winding avenues clogged with citizens of the city and elves come in from the provinces. Everywhere they went, people fell back to watch the king and his mighty senate, calling out greeting or blessing.
At the Mansion of the Moons, Gilthas bade the procession halt, for here were the quietest of all the gardens in the city. No one celebrated here; no one danced, sang, or laughed. The mansion, in truth a tall tower of gleaming white marble, stood starkly silent. Within, all knew, acolytes of vanished gods lived as though they were exiles, filling the days with prayer and the kind of hope only exiles have, long pared down to the thinnest edge, never given over. There was a time—in Gil’s own living memory—when three moons had sailed the skies of Krynn, white Solinari, red Lunitari, and black Nuitari. There was a time when gods had walked upon the face of the world, when god-inspired magic existed that bore little likeness to the untrustworthy enchantments found in ancient relics and talismans. These days, not a deity among all the Houses of Gods spoke to any mortal, and mages were forced to move about in shabby gear with shabby hopes.
At the king’s command, the procession rode on. Gilthas went in silence now. He didn’t look out at the city again until he heard Lady Elantha’s snort of disdain. Gilthas parted the silk hangings to see what had caught her attention. They had come to the library district, that place of gardens and groves where the dominating buildings were the Library of Qualinost, far-famed and respected even in these days when Beryl’s Knights kept most scholars out of the kingdom.
The king leaned a little forward to see a band of autumn dancers. Musicians, pipers and drummers shaped a wide circle in the garden, and within the circle dancers spun like leaves come down from autumn. His face softened, for among them he saw Kerian. They performed the Dance of the Year, a complex series of steps that took them round in spirals which closed tightly then grew wide again, intersecting so that those standing on the high balconies of the houses surrounding the library’s garden would see the dancers as though they were patterns in a kaleidoscope. Variations of this dance went on in gardens all over the city, in parks and even in private gardens. This was a dance for the harvest, and elves who wanted to participate began practicing the complicated steps in the spring in order to be ready to perform in autumn. Kerian was an amateur dancer, perhaps not necessarily a gifted one, yet what she lacked in precision or innate talent, she more than made up for in spark and spirit.