Lora of Two Worlds

She looked over the little courtyard the chief steward had set by for her — not far from the old Lady’s own. A room, by the look of it, once kept for some underage daughter. Old-fashioned in its furnishing, and very fine with it; there was even a swing hanging under the tree. No wonder Mother was forever pitying her a child ”who’d never known a soft day.” Lora had paid her respects to the old Lady once before; this time she sent Lucy out to the carriage for a few of her washing kits, to make a present of. Prince and Lady of a royal mansion might be free of the sponge-stick’s troubles — but flower-scented pancreas soap? No woman alive says no to that. Prince Jasper’s princess-consort had gone, some years since. Only this Lady Zinnia was left beside him. ”It’s been a long time since a child came to this house for any stay. If your great-great-grandfather enjoys you — why, when your mother tires of the sight of you, come over and live a while.” The Lady had kept this house for decades. Her own true-born great-granddaughter, and Prince Jasper had never once consented to the girl’s coming in to lodge. Now that Lora had come, it gave her a handle to put to the prince — that Lettice might come and keep her company too. Her present made to the Lady, her farewell taken of Great-great-grandfather — the mansion was vast, and by the time she was up in the carriage for home, full dark had come. Out of the Princes’ Quarter, not far down the road, Lora felt the carriage-body sink the least little bit. Quick as a cat the door opened, and a figure in night-black slipped in. He pulled the mask off his face. In the soft sheen of those eighteen luminous pearls, out of the dark came a face of straight keen brows and eyes like stars: ”Lora!” ”You — how did you get here?” Surprise and joy together, and worry hard on their heels: ”Is it safe, doing this? If anyone caught you, you’d be taken for a housebreaker, a— mm—” The words never got further. Leon’s kiss was too impatient to wait on the end of them. The carriage ran on quiet; through the panels they could still hear the brass bells at the horses’ necks. ”This morning I heard you’d come — and Prince Jasper didn’t keep me to dinner, so I left. I couldn’t very well go ’paying a call’ just to get one look at you. And then this afternoon you came again, alone. Have you some way of treating the old prince?” Lora didn’t answer. She only tilted her face up and grinned at him like a fool. ”Little silly — don’t you go blaming me for not coming to you. I’m a prince once smelled of rebellion. A few short months isn’t half long enough for them to forget it. I can’t go carrying on like the Eighth does, as if the world were his.” ”Little dunce — I wasn’t blaming you. I only think you’re awfully good-looking.” Lora cupped her own cheeks in her hands and tipped her head to one side. Leon laughed in spite of himself, and flicked her lightly on the forehead with one finger. ”You won’t say it — you think I’ll never find it out?” ”This afternoon I did truly go to treat my great-great-grandfather. But his sickness — even in the modern world there’s no curing it. Only good nursing, to make him easier in himself.” Leon thought it over, and then said it out plain: ”Your great-great-grandfather, in the life before, didn’t live past next spring. It was losing the old prince’s shelter that undid the Odenheims — Voss had his trap laid for the house, and your father and your brothers, not one of them escaped it. Keeping the old prince alive is keeping his whole line alive.” ”I wasn’t—” ”I know you weren’t doing it for yourself. You’re the sort that sees anyone sick and must needs try their hand at curing them... my divine physician.” Watching her go pink about the ears, he laughed again, and looked up at the pearls hanging in the hood: ”Why did I never think of this before? Night driving, and the cabin black as a well — a lamp out of the question — and every time I could only sit with my eyes shut, resting my spirits.” ”Are you all right? Last night at the palace — was it very bad?” She thought of the food box. Of the legs. Leon drew her hand over and held it in his own palm, rubbing the warmth slowly back into it. His face had gone down into shadow: ”There are worse-off men than me — Gawain, for one. The palace performer finished a turn of the Hymn of Long Life, and the King had Uncle Gawain up to sing it straight back at him. Because the tune was first used at my father’s Birth-Feast, the King insisted the man must know it. And the legs he sent me — that was Voss putting it in his head, like cures like. Only his choice of fowl — chicken, duck, and goose — was to say I’m not fit to sit at table.” ”The King goes too far...” Leon lifted his head and smiled: ”Who’s to say him nay — he’s the King. Enough of him. That rose in your hair sits beautifully — worth the whole trip into the palace. Tomorrow at the Birth-Feast, have the maids cut you a few buds that haven’t opened; take them home, and wear them at your leisure.” ”And every noble lady in the place copying you — by the time we’ve gone, the palace gardens will be picked clean to the stump?” Lora nestled against his chest and giggled. ”My mansion has no hot spring. Prince Jasper’s rear court has one channeled in. Look about the place some day — see if any warm ground could be found for growing flowers.” ”If I could grow things there I’d grow cotton. Flowers you pick to pin in your hair — wilted by the end of the day. Pure waste.” Lora’s fingers went walking in his palm. He caught the hand and kissed it, helplessly. The two of them lolled and nuzzled in the slow-rolling carriage — and all the same, the Odenheim house arrived. ”I’m off. Tomorrow — at the palace.” ”Mm. At the palace.” Channing brought the carriage to a stand in the tree-shadow on purpose, and Leon was gone into the dark in a blink. The night walker did not go home. He went to the Longlife Quarter, hard by the West Market — to a shop facing the back lane of the East-Capital Vault, an establishment called the Warbler Lodge. A wine house, newly opened. Not in the roaring West Market itself — but the Longlife Quarter housed many a lone foreigner, and the wine houses of that street did a lively trade of their own. Lyle went up and knocked. The back door opened; the man at it was a Black Eagle, Caspar Horn, one of Chester Horn’s men: ”The master has kept you waiting this good while. This way, both of you.” Through a side room of the rear court — and then, under the daybed, down a hidden passage — and when they came up out of it, they were standing in the warehouse of the East-Capital Vault, with the shop at their backs. At his push of the door every man in the room got to his feet. Felix laughed outright: ”If Linn hadn’t walked me in, I’d never have believed this place was yours.” Leon swept his robe aside and sat down, laughing too: ”It’s my first time in it as well. It was Chester Horn’s notion. His father’s hostelry, he says, was built the same way — that secret room he walked us into that day had another way out of it. He only never showed us that.” On the table sat a great chafing dish, its pan parted into four, a round well left open in the middle — that was for standing the wine bottle in, to keep it warm. Roland lifted the lid: four wells of broth, each laid with its own seasoning. He dropped the meat in as he talked, laughing: ”That little glutton at my house — if she knew we were over the chafing dish behind her back, she’d cry herself sick in the blankets, three days and three nights.” Corin was brought in as well. Norton made haste to add a taboret at the lower end, grinning: ”My master says — you did great service this time, and you’ve taken a new post. Up to the table with you, and eat.” Corin, seeing Chester Horn seated at the lower end too, stood on no ceremony, and settled in beside him. Then Leon asked: ”How stand things at the Eastern Inn?” ”To answer my lord: our men have held their eyes on it the whole while — nothing stirring. And the city gates are shut for the night. Tomorrow, when the coin crates come out of the vault, is the hour. Gower’s trade warrant is in his hands — the name changed over — and he’ll pass every checkpoint on the road to Yorvik without a hitch.” A trade warrant is a temporary paper of identity out of the government’s own hand. A merchant, a scholar riding up at the university, carries his warrant past the checkpoints one after another — and eats and lodges cheap at the posting houses with it into the bargain. Corin had gone to take out Gower’s warrant because Roland had made the man over into a new identity. The capital is strictly governed; the Odenheim house couldn’t go on sheltering so many guards. The capital shire holds two counties under it: Augustburg in the west of the city, Wardenne in the east. The county offices, the Left and Right City Watch, and the Justiciary’s patrol inspectors — three hands together hold the capital’s peace. The other two are easy enough to staff. The patrol inspectors are the hard one. Because the young lords of the official houses are themselves one of the standing threats to the peace — and it is the Justiciary’s task to ride herd on exactly those young lords. A thankless, enmity-breeding post. It had stood empty a full month. And the reason: a month past, the Master of Works’ youngest son, in drink and raving, stabbed a circuit judge to death — and the whole of it was smoothed away with ”the poor boy suffers fits.” With no man willing to take the post up, Roland’s recommendation had come exactly in season. And Corin, after all, had been captain of a brigade in the Odenheim household troops — if anything, the appointment was a step beneath him. The Justiciary, for fear he’d repent of the bargain, moved fast with his warrant of office; this very day, Corin and his handful of men had reported at the Justiciary for duty. So Corin sat as circuit judge of the Justiciary, and Nansen took a patrol aide’s post — rankless, below the official stream, both of them. But it was, in the capital at last, a lawful errand in hand: the working dress on their backs, the sword at their belts, the rounds to walk.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.