Chapter 2
THE BIER WAS the size of a dinner platter.
Two Eagle Knights carried it across the shoreline to the water, walking slowly so that they didn’t slip on the algae-covered boulders. Both men were splendid in their formal outfits, with their red tunics, shorthair cloaks and the ornate hilts on their daggers. Their solemn faces belied the splendour and colour of the display.
The tiny body that lay on the foam cushion on the bier was too grey, too fragile, dressed in the smallest clothes to be found, which still resembled giant sacks on the tiny figure. The eyes were barely formed, the fingers ended in nailless stumps and the skin was shiny, almost transparent.
Isandor waited on the ocean’s edge for the two Knights to carry their load his way. He could easily pick up the entire floating platform with the foam cushion and the body in his arms. He lifted it from the bier and, making sure that his wooden leg was secure in a crevice before continuing, carefully turned around on the slippery rocks until he faced the ocean.
A breeze blew hair across his face, and he shook the long locks aside.
He lowered the platform to the water.
The waves washed over the oyster-encrusted rocks, driving foam into crevices, tugging at the floating platform.
Isandor stopped the lapping waves from claiming their prize with one hand. With the other, he gently stroked the little head, not even the size of his palm. The skin was already as cold as the water.
Behind him, Jevaithi sniffed. She was seated in a chair that the Knights had put higher on the shoreline, where the ground was more even. She looked fragile, a pale face protruding from her white furs. A tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, but a new tear came.
The next wave came in, and Isandor let go of the cushion. The waves carried the platform and its load back and forth a few times before pulling it out to sea.
Isandor clambered back up the rocks. He stood next to Jevaithi, with his hand on her shoulder, watching how the waves pulled the tiny body on its final journey, away from the shore. It floated past the rocks overgrown with seaweed, past the little island before the coast whose rocks were stained with seagull droppings. Then it went out the bay, where the Legless Lions frolicked in the water, until it vanished from sight.
They watched, flanked by silent, motionless Knights.
“Let’s go home,” Jevaithi said after a long silence.
She rose from the chair, wiping tears from her cheeks with her one hand. Isandor steadied her and a Knight rushed over to take her other arm, where, these days, she wore a white-painted wooden pole with a hook, now that neither of them needed to hide that they were Imperfect.
“It never gets easier.” Her voice was hoarse.
Isandor shook his head. It only got harder. Every time they hoped that this was the time that the palace would see a healthy child, and every time the cramps started early, or Jevaithi suddenly lost blood and the child would come. Sometimes already lifeless, sometimes, like this morning, it would fight for a bit before slowly sliding into death.
“Better next time,” Jevaithi said. She held her chin up, challenging him.
Isandor wanted to say, There won’t be a next time, but they’d had so many arguments about this already, and having another during the funeral procession in front of the guards and courtiers was hardly appropriate.
He was tired of seeing his sister suffer. The midwife had told him that each time another child was torn prematurely from her womb, there was a greater chance that she would bleed to death. Using different men, eating strict diets and restricting her movement to within the palace made no difference.
Two courtiers had come from the coach that waited on the road and lifted the chair that Jevaithi had vacated, putting it back into the cabin. Isandor lifted Jevaithi up the stairs and climbed in next to her, holding her hand. She felt so frail and weak. Her hands were so cold, even though the weather was mild. He was losing her already, in more ways than one.
The two Eagle Knights who had accompanied them mounted their birds, magnificent animals with white heads, tan feathers and fierce orange eyes. One of them, Isandor’s friend Supreme Rider Barton, met Isandor’s eyes in an understanding look. He understood about the royal heir, a girl borne by the queen, he understood about stubborn family members, having dealt with a frail mother too stubborn to accept the help she so clearly needed.
Isandor gestured to his advisor to join him for a drink later.
Rider Barton nodded to him and both birds took off, carrying their riders back towards the eyrie in the City of Glass on the other side of the bay. The courtiers got on their horses, tall white- and brown-spotted steeds.
Right now, Isandor wished that he was still an Eagle Knight and could take off and forget about all this difficult stuff while flying over the countryside, with the wind in his hair.
The coach driver climbed into the front seat, flicked the reins and set the white bears into motion. The coach jolted, the bells on the harness tinkled, but the sound brought no joy today.
The sad procession made its way back over the bumpy farming track along the shoreline. The grass was green underfoot and the hills displayed a patchwork of farm fields dotted with the last flowers of the year. Here and there dirty patches of snow had survived the summer, soon to be covered again with fresh snow.
The road was quiet.
Sometimes a farmer with a cart, or a herder with sheep, would come the other way. That person would stop, take the animals or the cart off the road and wait for the royal procession to pass. Sometimes they passed farmhouses; children and their grandparents and aunties who were not working in the fields would come out to the doorstep to look. Workers in the cabbage fields would down their tools and stand still, solemnly looking at the ground.
Isandor acknowledged the people with a wave of his hand. They were good people, who had helped build the southern land of Peria into what it was today: happy, prosperous and thriving. He should be happy about all the things they had achieved, but the question of the royal heir hung over him like a bucket about to spill over. They needed to do something. Jevaithi was, like himself, thirty-six, and somehow needed to be made to agree to a different solution. There were a few options, but getting her to agree to any of them seemed impossible.
She was the queen and the heir needed to be her daughter. She flatly refused to discuss any other option.
He could remind her that so many women in the City of Glass could not bear children. He could remind her that it was especially bad in the Thilleian house.
But she would just say that he couldn’t possibly understand, having grown up in the Outer City instead of in the palace, without being constantly reminded that it was her task to serve the people.
Isandor felt like pulling out his hair, like banging his head against the wall.
The procession joined the busier main road that led into the outer reaches of the city. From the road he could see the new Harbour District, opened seven years ago, when the ice floes receded far enough for ships from eastern Chevakia and even from Arania to come in with their goods. Today, in the golden sunlight, it was a riot of colour, abundance and many different people.
The City of Glass had transformed into a vibrant community since the Heart that radiated icefire and that kept the land in eternal winter had been destroyed twenty years ago.
The palace lay in its oasis-like garden sanctuary, sheltered from the city noise by the surrounding wall. The coach turned into the gates and up the driveway, lined with little trees clipped to look like green balls on sticks.
The building itself was almost entirely made of glass: clear glass, coloured glass, black glass, cloudy glass, mirrored glass, thick sheets cut into squares, rectangles or triangles and welded together. It looked as if they had been randomly thrown in a heap, but the position of each piece was calculated so that it caught the light and reflected it into the building as much as possible.
A servant held open the main door for the porters who came into the coach and carried Jevaithi in her chair inside the atrium, a huge hall where the walls leaned inwards to join each other at the very top. The many planes and angles of the glass played with the low light, scattering dots of reflected light throughout the space.
Jevaithi held up her hand. “Stop. Let me out. I can walk.”
The servant protested. “But Your Highness, the midwife said—”
“She said not to overdo it, but didn’t say not to do anything at all. I feel like walking. It’s not far.”
The porters set the chair down.
Jevaithi got out. Isandor came to take her arm, but he had to do his best not to snap at her—because snapping at the queen in public would never do. He had heard the midwife give the same warning that the servant had heard. Why did Jevaithi always twist things to reflect the things she wanted to hear?
The lift doors opened.
Isandor led Jevaithi in. A servant got in with them and operated the control panel. They rode to the top floor in tense silence.
Upstairs, Isandor took Jevaithi to the luxurious bedroom that overlooked the shore. The maids had been in to change the bed and clean the room after the morning’s disaster, but the floor was still wet where Jevaithi had stood, crying and clutching her belly, with blood running down her legs.
Jevaithi took a few steps into the room, and turned to him. “We should try Rider Carro again. Or maybe there is a man of standing we haven’t yet tried—”
“Jevaithi, please.”
“He must be in the Knighthood, because I don’t want any of those lazy nobles who are just pushing to get their blood on the throne—”
“Jevaithi, stop.”
“We should also go back to trying it in the natural way. All this business with putting men’s seed in bottles is strange to me—”
“Jevaithi, are you going to listen to me?”
She gave him her best I-am-the-queen-why-should-I-listen-to-anyone face, but said nothing, because he was her twin brother and she was sure to know he wouldn’t take that treatment.
Isandor took a deep breath and continued in a low voice, “I’ve had enough.” And oh, by the skylights, he’d had enough, more than enough. He could not deal with this anymore on top of all the other frustrations of late, and especially the glacial pace of the last phase of rebuilding the country: to produce robust laws. He was no lawyer; it was BORING in capital letters.
Jevaithi stared at him, outrage on her face. “You’ve had enough? What about me? Don’t you think I haven’t had enough? You think that I do all of this for fun?”
“No, but I’ve still had enough.”
“There is no enough. I either have a child and stay queen or give control of the throne to others. Do you think we have any other options?”
“Yes, we do, and—”
“We need an heir. There needs to be a little princess on the throne. She needs to be my daughter.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“How can you say that? There is so much we haven’t yet tried. So many different men we can still try.”
“What difference do you think it will make?”
“Why are you saying there is something wrong with me?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Yes, you are.” Her eyes blazed.
“Jevaithi, please stop it.” He hated it when she went like this. He took a deep breath and continued in a lower, more controlled, voice, “Maybe we should give it a rest. Maybe we should look for another option.”
“No. I’ll do it. We’ll try again. I’ll do it. I won’t fail my country.”