Midwinter

The Royal Palace borders the Seelie Grove to the east and south; opposite the palace the Boulevard Laurwelana runs the length of the grove's wall, its sidewalks glowing with high silver witchlights. Rising above the Boulevard are the town homes of Fae lords and the Aldermen of the prominent guilds, their wide windows overlooking the Seelie Grove and the palace beyond. It is the most exclusive street in the most exclusive city in all the known world.

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During Midwinter, it is customary for the Forthel, the Guild of the Magi, to decorate Laurwelana with streamers of illusory fire and spiraling glamoured hawks that circle overhead and sing, in harmony, praises to Her Majesty Regina Titania. The Lady Anne watched them idly from her window three stories up, waiting for the mail. It was her daily ritual; she curled in the window seat of the parlor, watching the snow fall and waiting. She longed for the gaily-decorated invitations that no longer came, the letters from her friends at court that slowed to a trickle when Mauritane was arrested and stopped completely when he was sentenced to life at Crete Sulace. It was as though she had vanished; it was as though she'd become a ghost haunting her own home, invisible to the outside world.

Though no one came to call on her, she was dressed and glamoured for visitors, her hair delicately balanced in a fashionable scooped bun, her makeup and jewelry perfect. Though there was no one but her to drink it, she had the servants prepare tea in the kitchen every afternoon at teatime. The furniture in the parlor was dusted and polished to a shine, the pillows plumped and fluffed, the flowers arranged artfully in crystal vases throughout the room. When night fell, the servants would pour the tea down the drain, drape the tote-a-tete in its silk cover, and throw the flowers in the trash. It had become almost normal, happening as it had every day for the past two years, without exception. Almost.

The postman appeared on the street walking from the south as he always did, his bag stuffed with tiny parcels and brightly colored envelopes, his cloak pulled tight against the cold. He entered the first building on the block, number fourteen, and disappeared from her sight.

She sighed and thought of her husband. If the postman brought a letter, it would no doubt be one of his. They were all the same, written in his tightly scripted hand on cheap paper borrowed from the prison office, filled with awkward, distant affirmations of love and hope. She had stopped reading them months ago; they only depressed her. When maid brought them to her on her silver tray, she simply picked them up between gloved thumb and forefinger and dropped them in the fire, watching them burn with a dim satisfaction.

The postman reappeared at the door of number fourteen, his bag only slightly less full. Despite herself, she eyed the bright envelopes he carried and felt a pang of desire that one of them might be hers. He checked his inventory, skipped number twelve altogether, and went for number ten instead.

How had things gone so wrong?

When her father had insisted that she marry a man whose only rank was military, she'd balked. Mauritane came to Nyfaesa to court her and she'd run away from home in the middle of the night, not knowing where she was going, only away. Mauritane had ridden after her on his white stallion, finding her at dawn at the edge of a stream, her feet in the water. It was a warm summer morning and it felt good standing there with him watching over her. She'd realized with a start that he was handsome, that he was not crude or base, and that he truly desired her company. In those days there had been a gentleness in his eyes, a smile that he carried with him wherever he went. She'd fallen in love with him then. After a fashion.

It was his marriage to her that catapulted him to the captaincy of the Royal Guard. Well liked and well regarded by the Queen's cabinet, he'd lacked only noble blood to bring him so high, and he'd found it in her. For a short time, things were happy for them. They'd moved here to Laurwelana, and Mauritane had presented her with the gift of a great mahogany fourposter bed. He'd carved it himself at his father's home in distant Nest Ce'Ana. They'd made love on the bed that night; it was the last time she remembered being happy.

When the Beleriand uprisings began, Mauritane was called away more and more often to lead peacekeeping forays into the Western Valley. Mauritane called them "buggane hunts," scowling every time the Seelie Army asked him to provide troops and weapons to assist in the fighting.

"These people have done nothing wrong," he said, again and again. "They wish only to be left alone."