Her mind paused, and grasped that thought, like a Chalice grasping her goblet. And what if a Chalice can see disaster coming, and there is nothing, nothing she can do to stop it?
For an event that was to tear their world apart, it took astonishingly little time.
Horuld’s voice was high and brittle when he spoke—dispassionately she observed that while he might have learnt his role he did not fill it. “I declare by this misdeed that you are no true Master, nor fit for the great and solemn responsibility of this demesne and its folk; and I challenge you to the single combat of faenorn, which will so demonstrate that I am not merely the rightful Heir but that it is my duty to seize rule now, ere some greater calamity come about.”
The Overlord’s voice, by contrast, was strong and sonorous. “I accept the terrible truth of what you say, and declare, as is my right and duty, that the combat of faenorn shall be held this day sennight, and may the demesne itself know what has befallen it, and drink the blood of the loser to its support and nourishment in this direful time.”
Faenorn? Her memory scrambled for a meaning. There were ritual duels occasionally fought among members of a Circle but she remembered nothing about a challenge an Heir might give to a Master to take Mastership—drink the blood of the loser—a Master was Master. He could not be deposed, set aside. The only way the Mastership passed was by the death of the Master. The Overlord, she thought—even had the Master made the offer to cede that he had spoken of to her—would not have accepted it. It was blood that was binding—for good and ill.
Did the Master know the right form? Why should he know it? She wanted him not to know it, not to have been thinking about anything like it—about losing or ceding the demesne to the Heir. Did he respond, did he accept, because he had to?
What if a Master saw a disaster coming, and there was nothing he could do to stop it?
“I mourn the circumstances of this day to the full depth of the bloodright of Mastership I bear, and I mourn the turmoil and destruction that any resolution must have upon the demesne. I desire with all my strength that the meeting of faenorn in a sennight will produce a clear and swift completion of the business, and that no havoc be loosed upon this land and its people, which are innocent of the matter.”
The Overlord bowed once, as magnificent as any emperor; the Heir bowed too—like an apprentice who had not done it often enough and was uncertain of his skill. The Overlord then turned on his heel—putting his back to the Master. Even in the midst of the first horror of the new situation, Mirasol was shocked at such deliberate discourtesy, and discovered that she was clutching her goblet so intensely that both her shoulders and her finger joints ached. The Overlord snapped out orders to his servants. Dazed as she was, it still seemed to Mirasol that the Overlord’s carriages could not have come so quickly unless they had been held in readiness for this moment. It was the Master’s carriages that should have been close at hand, to carry the party to the chosen points of the Circle.
Even the Overlord would not plot quite so cruelly, Mirasol told herself—tried to tell herself. It is only that I have not noticed how time is passing. But she raised her aching eyes to look at the Overlord as he was handed into his carriage, and far from appearing saddened or distressed by the catastrophe he had declared for a sennight hence for one of the demesnes under his vassalage, he looked elated. She thought he looked as if he was trying to be stern, but could not stop his mouth from smiling.
The demesne seemed to be heaving under Mirasol’s feet—no, the earthlines were splintering, like walking on frost. With every stamp of the Overlord’s feet, every crackle of the gravel under his horses’ hooves, more of her land shattered into irretrievable fragments; Mirasol shifted her grip on her cup, which seemed to have grown very heavy, increasingly heavy, as if it contained every broken earthline, every earthline as it broke.
For the first time in months Mirasol heard the earthlines weeping.
The Overlord had turned away first, and the Chalice did not need to take note of the Heir—not yet; not while he was still only Heir—and while it would have been gracious of her to do so, she was beyond grace. She turned away too, and laboriously hauled herself back the last few steps to the bottom of the House stairs. She struggled to hold on to the goblet, the weight of which seemed to be dragging her shoulders out of their sockets. She could no longer hold it round the stem with her hands, but awkwardly shifted it till she clutched the bowl of it with her arms, the fingers of her clasped hands sweaty with effort. And how could the sound the earthlines were making seem to darken her eyes? The lamentations seemed sung, like part-songs, the half-comprehended melody like a draught, and her vision like a candle flame.
She could go no farther; this would have to do. She struggled to raise the goblet above her head, her arms trembling with the strain; she had to brace it against her shoulder before the last ragged heave. There were probably ritual words for this moment, but she did not know them, and she guessed she might not choose to say them even if she knew.
“I declare this demesne sound and whole, by all the strength that is in the long bloodright of Chalice, and by that strength I bind this demesne together.” She shouted the words into the heavy dead air, and felt, or thought she felt, something—some unknown thing, some hidden and invisible thing—turn toward her. Then she tried to tip the goblet to pour its contents on the stairs to the front of the House…and as she tried, she fainted.
She came to herself again in the formal entrance hall. She opened her eyes a little and registered the great table that stood at its centre, still loaded with food; slowly she recognised the roughness against her cheek as probably brocade. Her mind began to fit the small immediate pieces together, so she could finish waking up without thinking about what she was waking up from, or into. She understood that she was lying on one of the ornamental settees; she recognised its shape, graceful to the eye but uncomfortable to the body. It had perhaps been pulled hastily away from the wall for this purpose, since she seemed to be too close to the table. Then she registered that there was a humming in her ears, but she heard someone say “drink this,” which distracted her from both thinking and humming.
She opened her mouth, and tasted wine with honey. She might have laughed if she could; it was the wrong wine with the wrong honey. But it did steady her. She opened her eyes the rest of the way and saw, to her astonishment, the Grand Seneschal sitting beside her, holding a small ordinary cup. As she saw him she scrambled to sit up. The Seneschal’s expression changed from grim to sardonic.
“Lie quietly,” he said. “I am not sorry to sit quietly myself, and tend the Chalice.” He looked up. “It is true that in other circumstances I might have asked someone else to do it but there is a slight problem about bees.”
Then she understood the humming noise. She thought, How curious, that there should be bees in the front hall of the House; but it was undoubtedly a bee hum. Now that she thought about it, there was a bee creeping down from her hair and walking across her forehead. She brushed it gently away, and saw the Seneschal wince. She looked up.
The ceiling was black with bees. She could see nothing of the fresco of the founding of the demesnes, which was all golds and greens and pinks and blues; and the huge chandelier, taller than a man, was equally invisible: it hung seething like a monstrous swarm in the middle of the hall.
“Oh,” she said inadequately. “Oh dear.”