“I am sure he will be glad to hear the news when he returns, my king.”
“Undoubtedly,” Emory said, and his gaze landed softly on Ama. “And better still will be to share with him that I have found my damsel.” Emory’s hand, a warm weight, settled on Ama’s. “All of this is sweeter, my love, with you at my side.”
Ama’s fingers spread to allow Emory’s to interlace. It was a comfort, in a way, the weight and presence of his hand.
“Such a lovely couple.” It was the prior who had spoken the ceremonial words at Emory’s coronation, a man spiderlike in the length of his limbs, his white hair a web atop his head. He had shed his formal crimson robes from the rite and was dressed now in a rich, black cassock that fell in a straight line from chin to toes.
He had not, Ama noticed, set aside his jewelry; the sharp-tipped triangular pendant still hung on its polished silver chain around his neck, and an assortment of seven rings still bejeweled the four fingers of his right hand and all but the pointer finger of his left.
As he spoke with Emory about the coronation—the size of the crowd, the good fortune of heavy rain staying away from the day—Ama found she could not look away from the rings. On the prior’s left hand were a yellow stone, a green stone, and a purple stone; on the right were a blue stone, a red stone, an indigo stone, and an orange stone.
“Have you considered wearing the purple stone on the right hand, and the blue stone on the left?” Ama blurted at last, when she could stand it no longer.
Emory’s lip curled slightly, as if he had smelled something unfortunate.
“What is that, girl?” asked the prior, leaning in to hear.
She had interrupted him midsentence, Ama realized now, and her face flushed with shame.
“Forgive me,” she said, and cast down her eyes.
The men turned back toward each other to continue their conversation.
“It’s only,” Ama said, her voice louder than she intended, “you see, if you were to trade the blue-stoned ring for the purple—and you could, couldn’t you, each is on a middle finger—if you were to switch them, Prior, then the colors of the stones on your right hand could all be made by combining the colors from the stones on your left hand.”
“She is new to our ways, Prior,” said the king, smoothly interjecting. “You must forgive her impertinence.”
“I shall do better than that,” said the prior with a quick smile. “I shall humor it.” And he slipped off the blue ring and the purple, rearranging them in the way Ama had suggested. “Better?” he asked.
“Much,” Ama answered, and she bobbed her head in thanks. “Don’t they please the eye this way?”
Now, Ama noticed, quite a crowd of people was listening to their conversation and watching as the prior regarded his hands.
“’Tis not for my station to pay heed to such things,” said the prior at last, “but, yes, your highness, I suppose they do please the eye this way, as well as the other.”
Emory cleared his throat. “I must thank you, Prior, for your fine speech at the coronation.”
“Oh, my king,” the prior said, swishing his skirt as he bowed, “what a pleasure it was to officiate. It is not every prior who has the great honor of coronating two kings. You cut a figure in that crown that nearly twinned that of your father, only taller. You know,” he said, turning to Ama, “I will also have the pleasure of wedding two queens to their kings.”
“Is that so?” Ama said.
“Indeed, it is,” the prior said. He turned to Emory with a wink. “But the bedding, my king, is entirely your duty.”
The two men laughed, and Ama felt herself blush, wished she could turn herself inside out, or disappear. She felt a jolt of shame, for what she did not know. She longed to be anywhere, anywhere but here, and her eyes cast about the table as if for escape.
There, in the table’s center, was a fat-bottomed violet glass bowl, half full of water, in which several candles floated, their tiny flames steady and bright, reflecting up from the water and off the sides of the bowl. It was lovely to Ama. This must be one of the glassblower’s creations, she thought, and thinking of the glassblower turned her mind to the Eyes in the wall, Eyes that watched and Eyes that judged, Eyes that perhaps granted wishes, if one dared to ask. It was loud and crowded in the great hall, too loud and too crowded, by far, but Ama sat very still and let her own eyes blur as she watched the flicker of light on water and glass.
Isolda’s Jesses
The next morning was still cold, colder, perhaps, than the day before, but the sky outside of Ama’s window was a clear bright blue. In the sky hung a cold, distant sun, flat and painful to look at, though Ama’s eyes returned to it again and again, as if drawn there by some magnetism.
Her heart hurt, a dull ache, when she gazed at the sun, and there was a sharp pain behind her eyes, as well. But she found it difficult to look away. A word came to her—“homesick”—and Ama blinked, rubbed her eyes, turned back to her room and her fire.
Now, as if the sun had been printed on her eyes, everywhere she looked Ama saw its shadow, small black circles floating in her field of vision. She played with this effect, closing one eye and then the other, regarding her room, her fire, and her lynx through the specter of ghost suns that she alone could see, until they faded, and faded, and disappeared, and her room was ordinary once more.
Nothing, though, was ordinary about her lynx. Ama regarded her with a mother’s pride, the way she stretched long in front of the fire, her tawny coat, her black-tipped ears, her oversize paws front and back, her funny bobbed tail.
“You have been indoors too long, I think,” Ama told the kit. “We both have.”
So, when Tillie returned to the room for another session of gown fitting, this time for the wedding dress that would take weeks to create, Ama said to her, “We shall do that another time. Now, I require my cloak and Sorrow’s leash. She and I are going out of doors.”
Tillie bowed her head and did as she was asked, helping Ama step into leather overshoes and covering Ama’s shoulders with the fur-trimmed cloak. Ama fastened its broach, pulled on the gloves Tillie gave to her, and took up Sorrow’s leash.
“Would you like company, lady?” Tillie asked.
“I am never alone when I have my Sorrow,” Ama answered. “Perhaps you could take some time for yourself while I am out of doors.”
Tillie regarded her blankly, unblinking in a way that made Ama blush. It was untoward of her to suggest such a thing, she saw at once. But nevertheless, she forged ahead. “You are welcome to stay here, if you would like, and enjoy the fire and breakfast tray.”
Then, before Tillie could answer, Ama turned for the door, Sorrow’s claws clicking on the hard floor beside her.
But once on the staircase, Ama allowed fear to seep in. She had no idea where she was going or how she could find her way back to her own room.
“Never mind all that,” she told Sorrow, though Sorrow did not look as if she had been fretting. “We shall figure that out later. For now, let us find the gardens.”
It was several staircases and many misturns later that Ama found a door that led her outside. She had ignored the curious looks from the servants she encountered and found herself hoping that she would not run into Emory on her way out of the castle.
Perhaps he would not let her go outside, Ama thought, which made her feel queasy.