The Lioness

The king leaned a little forward to see a band of autumn dancers. Musicians, pipers and drummers shaped a wide circle in the garden, and within the circle dancers spun like leaves come down from autumn. His face softened, for among them he saw Kerian. They performed the Dance of the Year, a complex series of steps that took them round in spirals which closed tightly then grew wide again, intersecting so that those standing on the high balconies of the houses surrounding the library’s garden would see the dancers as though they were patterns in a kaleidoscope. Variations of this dance went on in gardens all over the city, in parks and even in private gardens. This was a dance for the harvest, and elves who wanted to participate began practicing the complicated steps in the spring in order to be ready to perform in autumn. Kerian was an amateur dancer, perhaps not necessarily a gifted one, yet, what she lacked in precision or innate talent, she more than made up for in spark and spirit.

The music soared, the notes of pipes like a flight of birds. It came back to earth again, caught and held by the subtle drum beat that guided the steps of the dancers. Kerian sailed among them, lovely in her festival garb. She had abandoned the colors of Rashas’s service in favor of harvest colors. She’d unbraided her hair and caught it loosely back in a shimmering scarf the color of corn silk. Her wide skirt swirled, golden as the oaks of autumn. Upon her wrists and the slim ankles of her brown naked feet, silvery bells rang. Sunlight warmed the day; she wore a thin silk blouse dyed the exact shade of the blue asters in the fields, the scalloped sleeves so short as to merely cover her lavishly tattooed shoulders.

Winding, Kerian’s tattoos were like shadows upon her sun-burnished skin. Gil knew where each began and where each ended. He knew how they intersected and exactly where. Some of the Kagonesti covered their tattoos, either because a master decreed them uncouth or because they themselves had learned to feel ashamed of this unmistakable signing of the Wilder Elf heritage. Others covered the markings because they felt the tattoos were not for the casual observance of others. Kerian never covered her twining vines. She didn’t care who noted the tattoos or how they felt about them.

“Ah, well,” Lady Elantha murmured, watching Kerian dance. “I suppose not all the servants have learned grace.”

“Indeed,” said the king, smiling, because he must be seen to agree. He made a purposeful hesitation. “Yet she moves like shadows on the ground. Look, her feet barely touch the earth. That is a kind of grace, don’t you think, my lady?”

Lady Elantha sniffed. “She is vulgar and half-clad, at that.”

Not quite, Gilthas thought who knew this dancer clad and unclad, yet it was true that the silk of her blouse was so thin that she wore a camisole for modesty, and that was not of significantly more substance than the aster-blue blouse. The king saw the shadow of his lover’s breasts as she danced, and Lady Elantha saw his hand move, a small restlessness he couldn’t help. Gilthas then folded his hands as though casually, but he did not take his eyes from the dancers.

Shining, swinging from hand to hand in steps so complicated they looked like madness, Kerian flung back her head, honey hair tumbling in rippling waves from her kerchief.

The silk scarf caught a breeze and drifted toward a young man who stood watching the dance. He reached and caught the kerchief, holding it out to Kerian and teasing it back. Gilthas couldn’t hear what was said, but he understood the man’s gestures. He’d return the scarf for the fee of a kiss. Kerian’s laughter rang like bells. Never missing a step, she took back her kerchief and lightly paid the fee as she passed round in the circle dance.

“Move on,” the king commanded, his voice curt. He did not part the hangings again to look out until he discerned, by the receding sound of music and voices, that they’d come to a more utilitarian part of the city. They were in the Knights’ quarter now. Not far from here, Gilthas knew, Lord Eamutt Thagol sat in his ugly barracks building, the Skull Knight issuing orders to his minions. This day, at the request of Rashas who was the Senate’s liaison between the kingdom and the Knights, Thagol had agreed to keep his dark-armored patrols discreetly in the background of the festivities.

Gilthas folded his lips grimly as they neared the eastern bridge the way out of the city. The king parted the litter’s hangings again, gazing eastward, feeling an aching and an emptiness. The bridge’s silvery span lifted high above king and lords, high above the city itself. Connected to the other three bridges by a series of towers, no more than guard houses for the watch, there had been a time when this bridge was no different from the other three.

Recently, that had changed.