Chapter 3
As Dum drew closer to the slightly larger Dee a new excitement grew. When the two moons at last appeared to touch, clan heads in the city of Newest Delhi initiated the biannual festival of Dumandee.
For the past week, it had seemed that nobody would speak to Mathias. Sala was busy arranging the festivities and Idi was still angry over Mathias's wandering off on his own in the deus house; on the few formal occasions when he had been with Greta they had barely exchanged a word. As Dumandee grew closer it became clear that the Kissing Moons would exert little influence on Greta Beckett.
Mathias had never believed in the superstition, anyway. In reality, the moons' orbits were tens of thousands of kilometres apart and Dum was actually quite markedly smaller than Dee, despite the common perception. The Kiss was an illusion.
The festival of Dumandee always culminated in the grand Primal Ball, on the night when the moons became, briefly, one. Mathias didn't want to go. Instead he sat in his room, trying to filter out the sounds of the revellers arriving at August Hall in the east wing of the Primal Manse, knowing that he should be there, cursing his indecision.
Eventually, his self-discipline won. He rose from his bed and dressed himself with the aid of a masked servant. His leggings were new, his padded jacket old but refurbished with pure golden threads and white sand-pearls from the island of Clermont.
He dismissed the servant and stood for a moment on his balcony, looking up at the single white disc formed by Dum and Dee. 'Exert your influence,' he said to the moons. 'Just this once.' Then he turned back into his room and headed for August Hall.
Already, the music was playing and the Hall was packed with finely dressed clan officials and sheet dancers, costumed servants and a host of representatives from the affiliated valleys. The octet were playing something percussive and new that Mathias didn't like, although it fitted his mood without a seam. The atmosphere was seductive though, free and energetic, smells of heavily spiced food and drinks almost overpowering in their intensity.
Mathias breathed deeply as he strolled around the edge of the dance floor. Edward was there, of course, and then Mathias spotted Greta standing nearby. Her gown was fine and loose, her hair woven high and away from her face. She was laughing and looking all around. Mathias wondered how long her high spirits would last.
Edward had an arm around a solemn, black-maned girl—that kind of intimacy was more accepted on an occasion such as this—but he was looking longingly at Greta. She had always been one of the obstacles between Mathias and his half-brother, another spur to Edward's envy.
Mathias stepped into Edward's line of vision and then moved towards Greta, hoping that things would be all right.
She saw him, she smiled, she held her hands towards him. It was as if there had never been a rift. She kissed the air in greeting and held out a glass for him. He took it and drank, noticing nothing but Greta. 'I'm late,' he said, but she shrugged. Tonight was no night for apology, tonight was the night of Dumandee, tonight was the night of the ball.
The music began to swell and fall away, swell and fall away, and, feeling supremely confident, Mathias gathered Greta into his arms and guided her on to the dance floor. Her body was small and brittle against his own. She smelt of fresh honeysuckle. Mathias had never held her so close for so long, their chaperone had always coughed discreetly and then not so discreetly. In the crowd of dancers they had more privacy than they had ever had alone.
The music changed and still they danced, moving faster, closer. Over Greta's golden head, Mathias saw Edward slipping away with the long-faced girl.
They danced faster, closer, pressing urgently together. Mathias bent to whisper in Greta's tiny ear. 'Greta, shall we—' But she was whispering in his, and her words stopped him in mid-sentence.
'The Prime spoke to me today,' she said. 'He asked how my father would react if Edward became heir to—'
'He what?' People nearby stopped dancing to look.
'He didn't mean... It was only if you...' Greta looked around at the staring faces and then dropped her head and tried to move back into Mathias's arms. 'Matti, not here. I'm sorry.'
But she had said too much already. Mathias barged his way across the dance floor. His father was standing with Lucilla Ngota, just inside the balcony that overlooked the Playa Cruzo.
Mathias grabbed the Prime's shoulder and pulled him round. 'What do you mean...? Then he remembered who he was mishandling and stopped, stunned by the force of his rage.
The Prime had gone pale, but his control was total. Mathias stepped back, then turned and ran through the shocked gathering. As he ran out of the hail the music faltered back into the silence and then a few voices came back too. In the corridor he saw Edward grinning cruelly, his companion nowhere in sight. Then he saw no more, everything a blur as he ran along the empty corridors and out into the night.
~
The streets of Newest Delhi were alive with partying crowds and a strange, new tension was caught up in the air.
March was trying, clumsily, to get at him through Greta—that much was obvious once Mathias was alone and more calm, walking through the darkened back streets. He was using the threat of naming Edward his heir to try to force Mathias to conform. But, instead, it had brought the old impetuosity back to the surface.
He stopped thinking and tried to become a part of the darkness. It was a game he had played as a child: ignore the thoughts that keep jumping into your head and try to melt into the night, or the sea, or the cliffs, try to feel yourself a part of the world.
It worked for a time: his mind forgot itself as his body grew calm and tranquil.
He was feeling sedate when partying noises broke through his barriers and reminded him of himself. He was on the Lincolnstrasse, in the poorer part of the city, where serfs lived alongside lowly engineers. The buildings here were low and in need of repair, the streets uneven and unpaved. Bonfire smoke clung to the air.
There was a sudden shout in the street ahead and, with a chilling clarity, Mathias realised that the sounds were not those of an ordinary Dumandee party. A sudden scream confirmed his intuition.
He stopped in the shadows, peered ahead.
Figures moved quickly at the next junction, throwing things on to a huge fire—no ordinary street bonfire—and yelling hoarsely at each other. The smell of smoke was now bitter on the night air as Mathias crouched behind a trader's stall, upturned in the disturbance. A nearby shop had been broken into, its double wooden doors smashed through, its contents looted and vandalised. For the second time he was aware of how little he knew of the real workings of the city.
He let himself give in to an almighty shudder and then he looked all around.
His head was clear now and he looked back along the street. He had to get clear. Quickly, he retraced his steps, cautiously at first and then more boldly, heading for the shore. He needed somewhere to think.
~
The waves barely made a sound as they half-heartedly crept a metre or so up the beach and then sagged back. He thought of the disturbances on the Lincolnstrasse, but that was too fresh, too confusing. Instead, he tossed pebbles into the water and thought of Greta, of holding her as close as he had at the ball. That had felt better than he had ever dreamed it would. It was less than a year—fourteen months, he counted—until their wedding. Things would be calmer then. He would have had time to settle into his role, if March ever forgave him for his behaviour this evening.
He moved up the beach and followed the cliff path out along Gorra Point, towards the Pinnacles. Small creatures scuttled in the darkness. Burrowers. He had listed them all when he was younger. The native furworms and gnaws and footies, the terran voles and gophers and jerboas. Each to its own niche, his list had grown long and complex in its details of breeding and possible evolutionary connection. But the list had gone out with his books, locked in some dark cupboard or maybe even dumped in a bio-converter in one of the valley farms.
The Pinnacles loomed against the night sky, brightened by the stars and the almost-set moons. He sat with his back against the rocks.
He stayed like that for a long time, staring out to sea, spotting the occasional night-sighted cutterette and, after a time, the skipping forms of a school of terran porpoises. He smiled, then, and rose and headed back along the cliff path towards Newest Delhi.
He followed the deserted ramparts of West Wall around to near the Manse, cautious in case the disturbances had spread. Up on the Wall he could still hear the sounds of the Dumandee Ball, quiet but persistent.
To get to his suite he would have to pass through the corridors by August Hall. Despite—or maybe because of—his calmness of spirit, he did not want to face that; he wanted to preserve his inner peace.
When he was younger he had often left the Manse without permission. March would never have let him out to play with the common folk, not with Mica Akhra, daughter of a lowly engineer, not even with Idi and Rabindranath Mondata, sons of the finest fish merchant in all Newest Delhi. When March grew wise to his son and posted servants to watch over the doors of his suite, Mathias had simply refined his route. It was a number of years now since he had climbed the pillars outside his balcony and he doubted if he could still manage. But there was only one way to satisfy his curiosity and, all of a sudden, he was filled with the adventurous spirit of a child.
The handholds he remembered were too close together for an adult, but there were others in the ancient masonry that were just as good. The two-storey climb made him breathe harder than he had expected, the life of an heir had been too soft on him. His hand caught the top of the balcony wall and he pulled himself up until his other hand joined it. With a heave his elbows were there and his feet found purchase on the outside of the balcony.
Then he looked up and saw the people in his room. 'What—?'
Vice-like hands seized his arms and pulled him over the balcony wall. He hit the floor hard. Winded, he struggled to turn, but the hands were still gripping him, holding him down.
Pulled to his feet, he looked into the face of an officer of the Primal Guard. The man's name was Agrozo; Mathias had never spoken to him before.
'Sneaking in, eh?' said Agrozo. 'Didn't fancy the stairs, eh? Eh?' He prodded Mathias in the ribs.
'You can't treat me like this,' said Mathias, straightening in the grip of two more guards.
'Orders says we can.'
'Orders?' Pernicious thoughts about his father were creeping into Mathias's mind. All he had done was argue, he had committed no crime! 'The Prime would not order you to treat his son in this manner,' he said, trying to sound in control, trying to sound like March. 'Let me speak with him.'
Agrozo exchanged glances with another of the guards. 'You can save that for the Court, sir. Now you can come with us.'
'Court? What are you saying? Just let me speak with the Prime, OK?'
Agrozo set his face and turned from Mathias. 'The Prime is dead, sir. Murdered. My orders are to arrest you, that's all.' The man shrugged. 'Now will you just come along? Or the boys'll have to help you.'
Mathias went. He didn't know what else to do. The Prime dead? Dead?