Tiburé looked in the mirror in some disgust. It wasn’t that she objected to dresses in principle; it was the Kelvhan style that she didn’t like. This dress combined maximum display with minimum practicality. She didn’t care that the tight embroidered sleeves were not flattering to her muscled arms. She did care that she couldn’t raise her arms above her head. Not without hearing some stitching rip, at any rate; and this dress didn’t belong to her.
“You look quite lovely, my dear,” said Shildha with audible doubt.
Tiburé laughed as she turned round from the mirror to speak to her hostess.
“I’ve never looked lovely, Shildha! But at least I look presentable by your exacting Kelvhan standards. I’m certainly quite believable as your clod-hopping cousin from the country.”
“Not clod-hopping,” Shildha protested weakly. Tiburé patted her old friend on the shoulder.
“I’m fine with that description,” she assured her. “It explains my mutilation of the Kelvhan language too.”
Shildha sighed. Then she said, more hopefully, “I could lend you some pearls.”
“Lend them to Alburé instead. They’ll suit her better.” Tiburé pictured her daughter Alburé, currently downstairs with Shildha’s daughter, in her silver-threaded dress. Pearls would be appropriate on her. She would look very fine. Alburé had both style and stature, though perhaps a little too much swagger to look convincing as a Kelvhan lady. Tiburé had advised her daughter to tone down the self-confidence and to keep her mouth shut.
“I wish I could have persuaded you both to lighten your hair,” said Shildha with a mild, regretful pout.
Tiburé smiled. “That would not have made me into a swan, Shildha! I’ll always be a crow, even when I’m grey.”
“But Alburé…”
“Is so clearly not from Inner Kelvha that I doubt if it really matters.”
Shildha gave a small sigh of resignation. To achieve the Kelvhan ideal of female beauty was for her the pinnacle of ambition. She did not need to lighten her own fair hair, as did so many of the Kelvhan ladies with their dry, bleached golden locks. Men too. Tiburé didn’t care for the stiffly orange-haired look and was glad Alburé had rejected it outright.
This was her sixth visit to Inner Kelvha since that first winter she had spent as maid-in-waiting at the castle, thirty years ago. She had been one of three young women accompanying an envoy from Caervonn in the name of amity. Tiburé had volunteered for the adventure and had not regretted it. Shildha, the pretty, conciliatory girl she had befriended then, had remained her friend ever since. When Shildha married her nobleman, Tiburé had been one of her entourage of honour, and had continued to visit her at intervals.
Huldarion had encouraged her visits. Not that Tiburé attempted to be any sort of ambassador from Thield – that was impossible, with her being a woman – but her very femaleness made her visits useful in a different way. Nobody in Kelvha remembered who she was, or took her seriously. Her curiosity about the place they put down to naivety and ignorance.
Shildha’s husband, the High Lord Melegan, was a benign and indolent man who did very little actual work in his position as the Keeper of the Keys. Nevertheless he knew everything that was going on inside Kelvha Castle, and with a little naïve and ignorant questioning Tiburé was able to extract a good deal of information from him.
She had no qualms about this. Indeed, she was hoping to train Alburé to fulfil a similar function with Shildha’s daughter, who would doubtless also marry well, and probably soon – the girl was eighteen already. But Tiburé was also fond of Shildha for her own sake, so that she able to say now with real sincerity,
“You quite outshine me in beauty, my dear Shildha, and that is as it should be.”
By good fortune Melegan came in at that moment and overheard. He beamed with satisfaction.
“I married a fine-looking woman, did I not?”
Tiburé dropped him a curtsey before answering. “The finest, my lord. And your own magnificence is simply… breath-taking.”
Breath-taking it certainly was. Long plumes were involved as well as large bronze shoulder-buckles, an enamelled ornamental breastplate, and the usual acres of embroidery in red and silver thread.
Melegan beamed some more. “Shall we go? I need to take my place in good time before the Prince arrives.”
It would not do to be late for such an important event as the Prince’s crowning. Yet rather than walk the three hundred yards to the castle, they had to travel in the coach, with all the tedious business of handing in and arranging gowns. They joined a procession of similar coaches which crawled from the enclave of large villas to the massive outer gates of Kelvha Castle.
Within the gates, the courtyard had been cleared of its usual rabble of hurrying grooms and servants, and was instead lined with ranks of immobile and impassive soldiers. Tiburé counted the rows: three hundred men: and noted their standard. Fifth Company.
“Who is that impressive looking man at their head?” she whispered.
“Commander Jeveran. Not high-born but capable enough,” replied her host, somewhat condescendingly. Tiburé had heard him speak of Jeveran before. Now she filed the face alongside the information in her memory.
The coach came to a halt beside the inner gates. The four ladies were helped down by a phalanx of footmen, and escorted through the inner courtyard with its high towers into the vast and complex space of the castle proper. Kelvha Castle was not one single building but a gathering of many, of various ages and sizes, but all strongly built and loftily turreted, and held together by two miles of outer wall.
It was to the greatest of these buildings that they proceeded, past more soldiers – Eighth Company, noted Tiburé, perfectly disciplined as always – and mounted the massive steps, the ladies attending carefully to their long gowns, anxious not to catch their feet in the low hems. In the Hall of Light – despite its name, windowless but illuminated by a hundred oil lamps – they paused to be announced. Then when their turn came they processed, gowns rustling, into the Coronation Hall.
After the yellow lamp-light the high windows dazzled. Where there were no windows the long tapestries hanging down the walls were bright and richly patterned. Tiburé knew without looking what they depicted: coats of arms and noble genealogies. In the centre of the far wall hung the longest, most ornate tapestry, that of the royal line.
Melegan led them past the towering stone columns to their seats and then walked on alone with slow, ceremonial steps to take his place in the row of gilded chairs on one side of the royal throne. He almost strutted in his self-conscious pride. The ladies of his household were seated at the front of the audience, as befitted Melegan’s high rank: the lesser nobles and their families were relegated to a greater distance, near the door.
No commoners attended the investiture of the High Prince – not as audience, at least. Two rows of heralds flanked the furthest columns while a line of servants in gold-embroidered tunics stood rigidly against each wall. Woe betide any of them who smeared or snagged their uniform, thought Tiburé.
“It’s all so very grand,” she whispered. As they waited for the Prince and Regent to make their entrance, the great hall echoed with whispers which seemed to fly around it like trapped birds. “Who is that man in the elegant red gown?”
“That’s Arch-Lord Helb, the Keeper of the Scrolls and Archives.” Shildha whispered back. “Next to him is High Lord Brolgun, the Keeper of the Swords.”
“Is he head of the army, then?” asked Tiburé, although she knew that he was not.
“Oh, no. That’s Arch-Lord Marshal Shargun, with the little beard, on the left.”
Tiburé studied him intently. Another face to fit to a name she knew. Shargun was elderly, aloof, his pinched narrow face a closed book to her. He did not look especially soldierly in his ceremonial robes, but appearances could deceive – especially here in Kelvha.
And so it went on, Shildha happily describing every Lord in the two rows of gilded chairs while Tiburé memorised their relative positions. The closer to the throne, the higher their current standing. Despite his indolence Melegan evidently stood a little higher than she had thought.
The heralds raised their trumpets for a long, strident fanfare during which everybody stood and waited, trying not to cough. There was a long pause, which Tiburé appreciated, as a sign that those about to enter outranked the audience so greatly that they could keep them waiting all they liked.
At last, while the trumpeters again raised their instruments and redoubled their efforts, in strode the Regent, without any hurry: a robust and heavily-built man between fifty and sixty. He was followed by the young Prince Faldron, and then the Princess Idria with a troop of courtiers who arranged her in a lesser throne next to the Prince’s before melting away. The old Vizier came creeping in the rear, to be guided to the gilded chair on the Prince’s other side.
The Regent, Nerogun, had no chair. He remained on his feet throughout. Tiburé was interested to see that he took charge of the ceremony even though the whole point of it was that he would lose much of his existing power. For eleven years, since the death of the old King, Nerogun had ruled as Regent while waiting for the Prince to come of age.
And now Faldron was twenty. Today he would be invested as High Prince. For the next twelve months, Nerogun, as Post-Regent, would continue to advise him; effectively, they would rule together. A year from now the High Prince would be crowned High King and become sole sovereign of Kelvha.
Tiburé personally did not think that Faldron looked old enough to be either. He appeared almost unchanged since she had glimpsed him on her last visit five years previously: a bland, unformed young man, with a faintly startled look that she suspected might be permanent.
“How very handsome the Prince is!” she whispered to Shildha as the rustling crowd resumed their seats.
“And he is said to be very adept at swordplay, and a matchless rider,” Shildha whispered back.
That was something, Tiburé supposed. But not much for a man to rule with. A speech was mumbled, almost inaudibly, by the aged Vizier. Tiburé heard nothing in it worth reporting. Then a crown and sceptre were carried reverently in. Again Nerogun seemed to be in charge; it was he who handed the sceptre to the Vizier, for the old man to place somewhat shakily in the Prince’s hands. Faldron smiled and nodded. He looked remarkably at ease for one who was the centrepiece of such a ceremony.
“How old does he have to be to marry?” Alburé whispered on Shildha’s other side.
“Twenty-four. But his sister can marry now, and probably will soon.”
Tiburé pitied the princess. She looked frail and timid, young even for seventeen. The Prince was smiling up at some unheard remark made by the Regent.
“He looks all right,” said Alburé. “Young and fit. And he looks biddable enough.” Her voice was smiling. Had that actually been biddable she said, or beddable? Tiburé bent forward to give her a warning shush.
When she looked back, the Regent was frowning at their section of the audience. Tiburé let her mouth fall slightly open, like an over-awed country cousin.
The Regent turned and nodded to the heralds. Another long fanfare rang out; the crown was carried forward on a crimson cushion. Tiburé noted the sleek young man who bore it, but when she nudged Shildha to ask his name, the only answer was a shrug.
“Some equerry of Nerogun’s. Jaul, I think.”
“A fine crown indeed.”
“That’s only the High Crown,” murmured Shildha. “The Sovereign Crown the Prince will wear next year is much more impressive.”
Even the High Crown looked ridiculously cumbersome to Tiburé’s eyes, its golden spires aglitter with green jewels. The Regent took the crown in both his hands and held it up. Standing behind the throne, a solid and imposing figure, he addressed the hall. His forceful voice rang out to fill the space.
“By the powers invested in me as Regent to the throne of this our mighty Realm of Kelvha, I hereby crown the most august and royal Prince Faldron as High Prince of the Realm. I hope before long to have the exalted task of placing a still greater and more extraordinary crown upon his head.”
There was yet another fanfare. The prince smiled good-humouredly as the jewelled crown descended over his blond locks. He put up a hand to steady it. The audience rose and cheered in unison.
Tiburé copied them, miming the cheers. But she felt a strange and sudden frisson of anxiety. Something in the Regent’s voice, and in his face, as he looked down upon the placid prince, disturbed her.
And yet she could not work out what exactly caused that unexpected prickle of alarm, or why.