The Waltz of the Hollow Pods

Cecelia did not put away the safe-conduct. She kept the folded parchment between her fingers, feeling the roughness of the crushed wax seal pressed against the pad of her thumb, while the bells of Saint Eloy called the household to the common table with that cracked, old-iron tolling that bronzes take on when the cold bites hard.

Lucian pulled on his boots without haste. He did not look at the paper. He ran his fingers over the bridge of his nose, sighed with that short whistle of drunkards who refuse to admit their hangover, and pointed toward the corridor with a disheveled chin.

"We are summoned downstairs, Highness," he said, dragging the vowels as if the title were a dirty rag. "They have that imperial obsession with watching people chew to make sure they do not die out of turn."

"Your brother sold you," she blurted out.

"My brother despises me, which is cheaper. The one who sold you was your father, cara mia, for three carts of black grain and a signature at a river customs post."

Lucian adjusted his dying-velvet doublet and offered her his forearm. His cuff was stained with something dark that looked like hardened mutton grease. Cecelia did not take it immediately. Without realizing it, she rubbed the pale scar on her forearm, that old mark she got at ten against the edge of a copper skillet, when she believed hot things gave warning before they burned.

"Andiamo," he muttered, twisting his mouth. "Or they'll eat our soup cold."

The low gallery was a tunnel of damp slate where the frost left a milky film on the high stained-glass windows, distorting the moon into a greasy smudge. The ducal banners hung from the timberwork like rotting curtains, their vermilion devoured by the smoke of the brazier and the dampness creeping up from the sewers.

At the presidential table there were no fine table linens; only pegged oak planks where spiced wine served in tarnished pewter cups left dense, violaceous rings with an aftertaste of copper and stale nutmeg that clung to the palate from the very first sip. An old lackey in a frayed livery served pieces of boiled capon that smelled more of a damp rag than meat.

She is seven years old and in the kitchens of Varenne her mother is beating butter with sugar in a yellow clay pot. It is warm. The vapor smells of live yeast and freshly grated bitter orange peel, and nobody shouts, nobody looks toward the door with a hand hidden inside their bodice. The wooden spoon strikes against the clay with a clean, dry, steady rhythm. Tap, tap, tap.

There was nothing steady at this table.

Hunger.

No one felt it, but everyone pretended to swallow. Cecelia rested both hands on the edge of the plank so the trembling of her thumbs wouldn't show. The harsh rustle of her starched raw-silk petticoats grazed the salt-eaten marble flags every time she moved her feet beneath the bench, a sharp snapping sound, like dry leaves stepped on in a dark corner.

Lucian picked up a pewter cup with both hands, sniffed the turbid broth floating inside, and pushed it away with a grimace.

"They throw in too much clove when they want to hide that the barrel has turned to vinegar," he commented in an undertone, probing a crack in the wood with the blunt tip of a knife. "At the port of Genoa they did the same with rye beer. Disgusting."

"Do you always talk about food when they are about to kill you?" Cecelia asked without looking at him, her gaze fixed on the cold iron candelabra where the burned tallow wax gave off a dense, dizzying soot mixed with the stale lavender they had rubbed on the tapestries to mask the mold on the walls.

"I speak of what I know. Death is boring, Cecelia. It lacks pepper."

"My father offered you to the guards."

"Your father did the math. I don't judge him for knowing arithmetic; I judge him for selling a Valois so cheap. I'm worth at least four granaries and a flour mill."

Lucian broke a piece of black bread with his fingers and offered her the soft half. She didn't take it.

"They are watching us from the balustrade," Cecelia whispered.

"Let them look. No one dances with as much grace in this court as two condemned souls pretending the noose is a pearl necklace."

It was mockery, or not only mockery: it was that broken, brazen calm of men who have already lost the same game three times and have nothing left to wager except their shirts.

And it hurt, without warning.

It hurt because beneath Lucian's cheap cynicism there was a heavy, almost childish clumsiness, like that of a dog that knows it's going to be thrown a stone and yet still comes over to sniff the hand holding it. The dagger was still wedged against her ribs, its brass spike piercing the silk of her underskirt.

The din arrived before the shadow.

It was a blow of iron against stone. Not a step; dozens. The dry echo of military boots crushing the salt-littered marble shattered the dull psalmody of the banquet. The servants retreated, pressing against the wall hangings with pewter platters trembling in their arms; the dull, dry clink of dagger sheaths hidden beneath the velvet linings of the imperial doublets sounded in unison, like a flock of crows taking flight over a zinc roof.

Roland de Valois crossed the threshold of the galleries without removing his riding gloves.

His vermilion cloak was stained with splashes of dry mud at the hem, and his cheeks were flushed from brandy or the wind from the eastern tower. Behind him, four imperial guard halberdiers formed a rigid wedge, shoving the lesser courtiers against the walls.

"How touching," Roland said. His voice came out thick, but it had the edge of commands that admit no reply. "The bridal bed still retains the warmth of sacrilege and you're already coming down to empty my cellars."

Lucian did not rise immediately. He finished chewing a hard crumb, wiped his thumb on his thigh, and then pushed the bench back with a screech that scraped the flags.

"You're late for the blessing, brother. We already drank the vinegar."

"Shut your mouth, alcove bastard," Roland spat, advancing three steps until he was within breath's reach of the table. From the folds of his greatcoat, he pulled out a thick document, folded in four and sealed with black wax. "Armed uprising at the southern ford. Formal conspiracy against the crown of Aurelia and sacrilegious usurpation of primogeniture rights."

Roland fixed his bulging eyes on Cecelia.

"And you, bitch of Varenne. High treason. Your father swore my name on the parchment and you've spread your legs for the family scrap before midnight."

Cecelia instinctively brought her hand to the bone hilt hidden at her side, but Lucian moved first.

It was a swift movement, lacking fencing elegance, more like that of a tavern hand who jumps into the middle of a brawl over mugs. He interposed himself between Roland and the table, shielding Cecelia entirely with the breadth of his ragged shoulders. The velvet of his back brushed her face; he smelled of old smoke and the cold sweat of a vigil.

"Leave her out of this, Roland," Lucian said, and for the first time his voice neither trembled nor sought a jest. "Cecelia knew nothing. Not about the ford, nor the priest, nor the swapping of rings. The plot is mine. It was I who bribed the acolytes of Saint Eloy with ducal silver I stole from your own chest. She is nothing more than a dowry hostage, nothing more."

Roland let out a short laugh, a dry bark that didn't reach his eyes.

"Do you think yourself very noble, little brother? Do you think this is an heir's dispute over who sleeps in the sunny wing?"

Roland hurled the parchment onto the oak plank. The paper fell heavily, knocking over one of the pewter cups; the spiced wine formed a dark puddle that went swallowing the edges of the vellum.

"I have not come to arrest you for a trial," Roland said, pointing to the herald standing motionless behind the guard. "The herald does not bring an accusation from the court."

The paper unfolded under the weight of the wet seal.

Cecelia lowered her gaze over Lucian's shoulder. It wasn't a draft hastily drawn up over brandy in the eastern tower. It wasn't the tantrum of a spurned brother.

At the foot of the summary execution decree, perfectly clear beneath the trembling candlelight, stood the imperial lead seal and the angular, trembling yet undeniable signature of the Emperor himself.

It had been signed before vespers.

Lucian looked at the lead. He stood still, his hands hanging at his sides, like a cook who turns off the fire beneath a broken pot and watches the dirty broth spill helplessly across the dirt floor.