Lora of Two Worlds

Outside the walls, hiding the tree in the wood. Inside the walls, an iron hand in a velvet glove.

Lora, up at first light, was dressed layer upon layer by Lilac and the rest:

Over her underdress went a pine-pollen silk gown with a great sweeping train; a sky-washed blue silk scarf crossed at her breast; over all, a silver-vermilion gown of wide flowing sleeves, the petal-dots worked on it picking up the color of the scarf.

”Am I off to sweep the floors at Prince Jasper’s, or to call on a great-great-grandfather?”

Lora kicked at the train before her feet. Lucy crouched down and hooked the pointed shoe-tip out over the hem:

”I’ve set the front panel straight for you. Walk a shade slower, and you’ll not step on it.”

”It’s not New Year — what’s all the state for?” Lora muttered.

In the Eastern Capital she had liked her narrow-sleeved working clothes — anything a body wanted doing, they let her do it. But come to Augustburg, Mother said the present King had no liking for women in Levantine-cut narrow sleeves, and had issued a decree: the princesses themselves were to wear these great wide-sleeved gowns.

By the time Lilac had hung the pine-pollen stole over her arm, Lora felt the whole weight of silk and brocade pressing her into the ground.

And the worst of it — all those layers, and still no warmth in them, what with the neck and chest standing bare...

”A jeweled collar goes there — of course it shows. You dress easy at home; but come to the capital, going in and out of princes’ houses and palaces, you wear what the Augustburg ladies wear, one and all.”

Lora clapped her hand over the medallion at her neck: ”No jeweled collar for me. I’ll wear my own little pendant.”

Leon’s medallion, being a key at bottom, was not built like a man’s usual pendant — small and fine; on Leon’s own person it scarce showed, and hung at Lora’s neck it sat just like a little gem-drop.

No harm in that.

Lilac took the hibiscus bloom from Lucy’s hands. They had kept it in water overnight: last evening half-open, half-shut — this morning, open to the full.

”A bloom this big, and you want it pinned in my hair?”

Lucy laughed: ”Walk out like this, and who knows how many envious eyes you’ll draw? This season, everyone else wears velvet flowers and silk flowers — how many girls outside the palace wear fresh ones?”

”Fine. But no to that false one — give me the beaded flowers.” Lora pointed at the gauze jasmine in Lilac’s hand.

Dressed at last, Lora rose, swept her arms up, and turned a full circle, grinning: ”Do I look like an angel come down out of a painting?”

A voice laughed at the door: ”Let me see — who’s this with no shame?”

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Brendan had waited half the morning at Mother’s, and no sister coming, and his own feet itching to be off, had come over to hurry her — just in time to hear his sister crown herself an angel.

Lora was just stepping out; he looked up, and his own face went hot, and he stood like a stake:

Out there plucking flowers and snapping willows every day — and he had never marked that his own Lora had grown up to stop the fish and drop the geese, a fair three points lovelier than any princess or county lady he had ever set eyes on.

A face like that — carried into the palace, it would be a favored consort!

The Countess was well pleased with her daughter’s rig. This was how a young lady of the capital ought to look. In the General’s mansion at Lohenheim — there, she had been a monkey.

They went first to the Duke of Charwick’s mansion. Grandfather and Grandmother were waiting early in the great hall — this little granddaughter they had never yet set eyes on; they did not know what she liked to eat; all they had heard was that her father and mother made much of her, and that she was a handful and a half.

Outside the mansion gate they were met by the lawful son of the second uncle, Tobias, and Tobias led them toward the great hall:

”Grandfather and Grandmother are all waiting in the hall. They say the little cousin chases swans and teases dogs at home — but I look at her, so quiet and fine, every inch the young lady. Her father and mother must have made up the tales, loath to let their little cousin marry.”

Brendan smiled: ”She’s not acquainted with you yet. She’s putting on manners.”

Lora, walking behind her mother, could have kicked him.

The Duke of Charwick had the one lawful daughter — the Countess — and if the Countess never took to managing, that too was the duke and his wife’s own spoiling.

Now, before this granddaughter with seven parts her mother’s face, pretty and well-mannered, they could not look their fill.

Their respects paid to grandfather and grandmother, Tobias walked them on to the Princes’ Quarter — to Prince Jasper’s mansion. Lora’s heart drummed:

The Princes’ Quarter — if only she might run into him.

Prince Jasper was the youngest son of the old King’s grandsire; his princely title had come only from his eldest brother, on that brother’s succeeding. Of the old princes of that generation, he alone was left breathing.

Lora met him in the bedchamber of her great-great-grandfather on the distaff side. Before St. Agnes’ Eve, the Countess had hurried back, saying Prince Jasper was failing fast.

As he stood now, it was little more than hanging on.

Hearing that his great-great-granddaughter was come, Prince Jasper had his attendants prop him up on the daybed all the same:

”Lora von Odenheim. A pretty name, and a pretty face to match it. Your mother should have brought you to the capital sooner — found you a good husband...”

A maid was just readying his socks. Lora, looking at his feet, puzzled, asked:

”What ails Great-great-grandfather? And what medicine does he take?”

”Oh? Such a little one, and she reads sicknesses?” Prince Jasper chuckled:

”I’ve no illness at all — and that’s why the royal physician wrote me no prescription. He only told me none of this and none of that. My mouth’s gone so tasteless I’d as soon shut my eyes and have done with it.”

”Is it the honey-urine sickness?”

Prince Jasper had taken the little one for idle talk — and here she had gone and hit the name of his own sickness: ”That’s it. The one that takes no medicine.”

The honey-urine sickness was what the modern world called diabetes — and Valerius’s Golden Formulary had long since set out a settled course of treatment for it.

The heart of the thing was one line: ”Whoever does not know what food is right for him, his life he cannot keep whole.”

But Prince Jasper wanted none of the hearing. A man his age — grain, fruit, sugar, salt, all forbidden him, wine forbidden too — what was living for, then?

Lora had marked it just now: the skin of his feet had gone dry and black. That was what told her honey-urine sickness.

She smiled: ”No wonder my appetite runs so strong — everything I look at tastes grand. I took it after my great-great-grandfather.”

”Nonsense — greedy’s your own doing, and you blame your elders.” The Countess cut in fast.

Who’d have thought it: the old prince, three generations between, liked nothing so well as such saucy talk. He turned at once to the maids:

”No hurry with the shoes. I’ll not walk out of this room anyway. Go fetch my little pastries — let Lora taste them.”

And with never a qualm before granddaughters and great-granddaughters, he had all his hidden good things carried out and set before Lora.

Lora looked, and did not know whether to laugh or cry:

No holding to the diet, no taking of exercise — the one good thing was the easy heart. And easy-heartedness alone would never slow the sickness.

She turned to her mother:

”Mother — when I have time, I can come and rub Great-great-grandfather’s feet and soak them. The honey-urine sickness is a thing you nurse, mostly. I can cook up the foods that suit him and bring them over — keep the old man company.”

Prince Jasper nodded and nodded, laughing loud:

”Everyone scolds me for a bore, blames me for stealing my sweets — only little Lora says she’ll cook for me. Pearl, my girl — mind you send Lora over often!”

Out past the main hall, the Countess said, worried: ”Lora, you’re at your mischief again. In our own house, let it run loose — but this is the old forefather of the line. Stir up anything amiss here, and your grandfather would be the first never to forgive you.”

Brendan, hearing his mother, had half a mind to scold his sister too — a moment past he’d thought her brave; he’d never have dared say such things to the great-great-grandfather himself.

And before his words could get out, a litter set down in the front court.

The man was pale and fine-featured, and he was smiling from well off:

”Rowan comes to pay his duty to his aunt.”