The Pyramids of London

EPILOGUE

A single tiny leaf, surrounded by an outline of itself, and another, and another: one for every day since Maatkare Hatshepsu had returned to Egypt. It was a drawing exercise Eluned had set herself, and the only thing she would allow herself to work on, until she had completely filled the page. Not long now, and then she would have to decide what she was ready to move on to.

But she was doing it. The cliff had been climbed, and she was marching steadily onward.

“Boring, boring, boring, boring.”

Griff tossed prospectus after prospectus back onto the pile. Aunt Arianne had given them until the end of the day to make a final decision on their school, and they were fed up trying to find one that they all found acceptable. Part of the problem was they’d left it so late. There were plenty of close schools, but few that met Eleri’s standards for scientific classes, or treated art with any degree of depth. Enrolment at these few involved applying well ahead, or sitting on a waiting list and hoping. None had room for all three Tennings.

Travel by bus across London each morning had been ruled out, and so they had been vetting boarding schools, despite not wanting to be away from Forest House and Hurlstone. No-one was enthused by the shortlist of schools with places available.

“Try this, Ned.”

At least the new arm would be done in time for the trip to France. Eleri was still making fine adjustments, but it was already functional. For the third time that morning Eluned shrugged into the jacket that could be worn over or under her clothes, and had been designed to make putting the arm on and taking it off as easy as possible. But the biggest difference was the control design: rather than pre-set functions, Eleri had had the idea of ‘mirror movement’, and so the jacket came with both a right arm and a wire-threaded left sleeve that extended all the way down to a glove that left only Eluned’s fingertips exposed. If she switched mirror-mode on, everything her left arm did, her right arm would copy: precisely, exactly.

“It’s marvellous, Elli,” Eluned said, after she’d obediently run through the function tests. She hugged her sister, delighting in the way both arms went around Eleri’s back and met without any need for concentration at all.

“Don’t call me Elli,” Eleri said, but didn’t break away, and even relaxed against Eluned for a moment. She was still too thin, far worse than her usual state of neglect during a project, but she had begun to improve, and no longer watched the mail for the invitation to the palace that they had had no true justification to expect.

In fact, other than a scrawled note from Dem Makepeace confirming that the verdict on their parents’ deaths would be overturned, Forest House had had nothing further to do with palaces or princesses or the fate of Prytennia, except the inevitable flood of reporters and curious strangers mixed in with the grove’s normal visitors. The Tennings had taken to staying upstairs, and Aunt Arianne, after making a very brief statement, had occupied herself once again with the avoidance of sunlight, only going out to visit Dama Blair, and Hurlstone.

Eluned did not know what to do about Aunt Arianne, who had had several bad things happen to her all at once, and was slow recovering. She spend most of her time practicing fencing steps, but at least seemed glad to talk to them over breakfast and dinner.

Racing footsteps heralded welcome distraction, and Melly, followed closely by Nabah, burst up the attic stair, waving a newspaper.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Griff asked, abandoning prospectuses.

The newspapers had definitely been interesting the last few weeks, full of fulgite’s true nature and Rome’s perfidy, and the sudden dilemma these revelations presented. War had not yet been declared, but was considered an inevitability, while the question of whether Egypt would demand all fulgite returned to it had not yet been answered. The highlight for Eluned had most definitely been a picture of Egypt’s Pharaoh, re-ascending her throne. The automaton built by Eiliff and Aedric Tenning, on the front page of every newspaper in the world.

But the afternoon edition Melly was waving had a picture of Aunt Arianne, and a familiar massive whorl which the black and white of newsprint somehow managed to convey was gold. The headline read: “A GIFT OF THE FOREST”.

“So that’s what Aunt did with the amasen horns,” Griff said, after snagging the newspaper from Melly.

Eluned peered over his shoulder, and read that Arianne Seaforth, Keeper of the Deep Grove, had donated one of the largest amasen horns ever seen to the Museum of Prytennia, and arranged for a dozen smaller horns to be auctioned. The proceeds would be used to establish “The Lamhythe Scholarship”, a fund administered by the Lamhythe Warden. Five students each year would receive a contribution toward their tuition.

“Think you’ll get it?” Eleri asked, shooing Griff away and reading the story over.

“Given how much Dama Chelwith had been bothering me about leaving school, and how pleased she is about me going to Tangleways, I think the chances are good.” Melly bounced excitedly, today’s collection of tiny, bell-tipped braids jingling. “This will make so much difference! I’d managed one term’s fees, but it required a lot of balancing. Is your aunt in the house? I must go thank her.”

“Far end of grove,” Eleri said.

“Ah, then I’ll wait until a better time. You don’t leave until the day after tomorrow, right? Have you picked your school yet?”

“I don’t think we ever will,” Eluned said. “Maybe we should throw them all in the air and go with whatever lands on top. What about you, Nabah? Still undecided?”

“No.” Nabah spoke proudly. “I am going to Karnata, to help establish the first Daughters Hospital in the Empire. Even though it means I will go in my time to a different Otherworld than my sisters who are staying, and there is sure to be adjustments and difficulties, I want to serve Lakshmi in truth, to honour more than Her name.” She wrinkled her nose, and added forthrightly: “I felt a coward compared to you and Keeper Seaforth, serving Cernunnos without fear or falter.”

“You can only say that ’cause you didn’t see the expression on Ned’s face when we were running away from that thing made of hands,” Griff said, returning to the pile of prospectuses he’d left by the window.

“Doing something despite being afraid’s the definition of bravery,” Melly said, equably. “Has Keeper Seaforth really been teaching you to shoot?”

“Yes, though we’re not allowed to aim at the ravens,” Griff said, picking up the prospectuses and holding them above his head. “And she keeps her guns locked away between lessons.” He dropped the stack of paper, picked up the one that had landed top-most, then dropped it again. “Boring.”

“Let’s get the Aunt to pick one,” Eleri said.

“Boring,” Griff repeated, then added casually: “The Queen’s in the back yard.”

It was one of the most effective dramatic pronouncements he’d ever achieved, but he barely watched their reaction, craning out the window instead.

“You probably shouldn’t call a sacred grove ‘the back yard’, Griff,” Eluned said, peering avidly. There was indeed a tall thin woman with short blond hair in the grove, but she was facing the wrong way, walking down the path with Dama Seleny, and she wasn’t exactly wearing a crown or torc. “Are you sure it’s the Queen?”

The question was answered when the two women stopped, and Dama Seleny started back to Forest House. If that wasn’t the Queen, it was someone who had her profile. And when she reached the currently closed gate, she unlocked it, and went right on through.

“Keeper opening gates every twenty-five years doesn’t look all that necessary,” Eleri said.

“I guess it’s symbolic,” Eluned replied. “And I guess I’m feeling hungry, and need to go down to the kitchen to get something to eat. Anyone else?”

Griff made it first down the stairs. But it was a close race.

Did aging vampires seek the sun because the pain made them feel alive, or did it keep at bay the ever-swelling host of dead friends and hidden wounds?

Rian was finding her lingering sun sensitivity useful. At the moment her calm centre was beyond her reach, but small hurts like sunlight and aching muscles were wonderfully distracting. Fencing practice in Hurlstone handily combined the two, while giving her hope that the cool balm of the boundless forest would eventually restore her.

Not today, however. She lay at the feet of a vampire older than Makepeace, staring at a vivid blue sky, yet again failing to reconstruct any semblance of internal balance.

Today had brought the news that attempts to excavate Lyle Blair’s body had been abandoned. There was no way to be certain if he had even been buried, given that one of the theories claimed the Sea of Lies transported victims to a punishment Otherworld. Since Rome had taken the only possible attitude—to deny any knowledge of fulgite’s true source, and lay all blame on the Mendacii—they had not been helpful in establishing the truth. Either way, Lyle was gone, and very likely had been as honest and giving as he’d always appeared, a victim of this Wrack creature.

During her second visit with Lynsey, when it had been clear that the injured woman was not merely grieving, but withdrawn, uncommunicative, Rian had told her just a little of the masked woman Eluned and Eleri had encountered. Rian hadn’t been able to explain the whole situation—a ban she had not enjoyed discovering—but she’d been able to say enough to ease the Alban woman’s confusion, and Evelyn, though he had only the barest idea of what was going on, was clearly determined to help her through her recovery. They had agreed that the three of them would meet in winter, to dance in the snow. Perhaps by then Rian would be able to tell them more.

So far as Rian could tell, the truth of Wrack’s involvement was not going to be released for public consumption. The papers, at least, only mentioned the name as an alias of Dane Dayson. Rian expected she would be told any new details eventually, once her minor exile had run its course.

A double exile, in fact. Makepeace, after their experience in the receiving room, had not come near her, which was in truth the response Rian preferred, though she hoped he would overcome his disinclination before her blood rebelled. And it had not surprised her in the least to be frozen out of the Night Council. It was an easy, non-direct way for Princess Aerinndís to indicate that Rian should not forget her place in future. No doubt, if this foreseeing ran its course, Rian would encounter the Sulevia Sceadu again, and she would be on her best behaviour, and the matter would be forgotten.

All this would pass.

That was the logical, mature response Rian was completely failing to achieve. She had endless nightmares about being dragged underground, followed by very odd dreams about biting. And she thought constantly about the Sulevia Sceadu, analysing every moment of that embrace, marking the fact that the Crown Princess’ heart had been racing as fast as her own, gauging the exact intonation of a single exhalation, and measuring the weight of the lightest touch.

All that was stupid in Rian wanted to take that extremely restrained response, add Rian’s ability to sense emotions, and declare that, whatever else, Princess Aerinndís had shown herself not unattracted. Rian had been so sure. But the Sulevia Sceadu would have a very strong resistence to Rian’s minor abilities, and any feelings in that moment were entirely beside the point given what followed.

The only response to clear rejection should be graceful acceptance. Princess Aerinndís had certainly made clear the rejection, and Rian would achieve the acceptance once she’d found her balance again, and would move on from this obsession with someone out of her reach. It was important to concentrate on the positive things. The children had survived, with no more than a cut on Eluned’s chin. She’d received a note from Felix, assuring her he had safely returned to Rome. The trip to Lutèce would be a balm, guaranteed to buoy her spirits, especially since she no longer had to count every coin. Rian would be properly grateful for the enormity of these gifts, and put aside foolish self-deception.

An approaching river brought her back to the present. She looked from the stone vampire at her head to the blond woman at her feet, and sat up.

“Your Majesty.”

“Dama Seaforth. No, no need to stand. Hurlstone is such a restful place, isn’t it?”

Tanwen Gwyn Lynn was a greyhound lean woman, loose-limbed and direct of gaze. She settled on one of the ruined walls, completely at ease.

“I apologise for not calling on you earlier, Dama,” the Queen said. “The windstorms made the dragons very restless.”

The Sulevia Seolfor’s connection to Prytennia’s three dragons meant that a sizeable portion of her year had to be given over to ‘walking their spines’, an act of honour and reassurance that involved long treks over the countryside.

“Hurlstone is a good place to recover from an ordeal,” the Queen continued, after Rian had politely assured the Sulevia Seolfor that she had nothing to apologise for. “Despite its ruined state, it is greatly loved by the forest. That warm regard is wonderfully beneficial.”

‘Warm regard’ was a good term for the way Queen Tanwen seemed to view Rian. Rian found herself sitting straighter in response.

“Why is it loved by the forest?” she asked.

“The people who built it were…tree children. Similar to the folies. It was so long ago that even in the Great Forest the town has fallen to ruin. A time before humans.” Queen Tanwen lifted her eyes to consider the statue at Rian’s back. “It is so old, this world. Ancient, and full of mysteries.”

Rian turned and gazed up at the features of a girl preserved in stone, and asked a question she had chosen not to ask Makepeace.

“This is Neferure, isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

“There are so few of the Amon-Re line that it seemed the only possibility.” Daughter of Hatshepsu and the reason for vampirism: her mother had begged Amon-Re to heal Neferure, and he had Answered. “I couldn’t understand why she was here.”

“After Hatshepsu went to stone, Neferure travelled through a number of Otherworlds, including the Great Forest, seeking guidance for the choice she would soon be making. To journey to the Field of Reeds, or strive for the heavens. She wanted to better understand the nature of godhood, and even whether the Field of Reeds would have been altered by the changes to Kemet—Egypt—made by the Shu line. It was desert when she ascended, you know, not the tapestry of rivers we know today. And before the desert, the whole of that region had been green and fertile. Neferure’s travels showed her that her long lifetime was an eye blink compared to the world’s. And the gods themselves are young when counted among the stars. And that even stars fade.”

The Queen gazed up at the sun, which was not quite the same sun as the one she served.

“I don’t know what decision Neferure made before she went to rept. I’m not even certain why she raised Heriath before her end. It seems to have been a boon she granted Cernunnos. His service has benefited Prytennia immeasurably, and you have already proven yourself a worthy successor. I came to welcome you, and give you my thanks.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Rian said. It was perhaps foolish to feel so complimented, but Rian found herself close to blushing with pleasure. She paused, working to regain some level of perspective, then added: “You’re the first person outside Lord Msrah that I’ve heard call him Heriath.”

“In the Great Forest, it is safer to name things as they are. And at times I need to remind myself.” The Queen’s pale blue eyes crinkled with laughter. “My family, we grow up with an extra member, one who is snappish, and rude, and oh so very tired, and we think him a Ma’at vampire who knows when we lie, so we return his dismissal with confidences, tell him the things we won’t tell others, because he behaves as if he has seen everything, and finds us dull. We learn his true name when we ascend, and though we already knew he was old it makes us keenly aware of the long line of Suleviae stretching out into the past, for he has served every one of them.”

“You conjure a very effective vision of the years reeling out before me, Your Majesty,” Rian said.

The Queen smiled at her. “We all still march through them one at a time.” She rose, and held out her hand. “Come, you must introduce me to your nieces and nephew. I owe them my thanks as well.”

Conscious of her rather sweat-stained state, Rian allowed herself to be drawn to her feet, and thought Tanwen Gwyn Lynn quietly amused at her embarrassment. Then, on the way out of the grove, the Queen added a titbit of information that made Rian’s eyes widen rather, but she managed to suppress further reaction as Queen Tanwen was more ambushed than introduced to various Tennings and other representatives of Lamhythe.

“I liked her,” Griff declared, once the impromptu royal visit was over, and Nabah and Melly had excitedly departed to tell their families they had shaken hands with the Queen herself.

“I did too,” Rian said, smiling.

“When did you donate those amasen horns, Aunt Arianne?” Eluned asked. “Melly was going to thank you, but we all got distracted.”

“Oh, weeks ago. So they’ve finished shuffling paperwork and announced it, have they? It seemed a better use for the things than clogging up the basement. And now, before I go up to my bath, tell me which school you’ve decided on.”

“None of them,” Griff said flatly. He looked thoughtful, then added: “Could we hire tutors?”

“No,” Eleri said firmly. “You pick, Aunt. Then we can’t blame each other.”

“Just me?” Rian said, highly entertained. “Very well, then it will be Tangleways. Don’t pull that face, Griff. Remember there were tunnels. I expect I can prevail on Lord Fennington to exempt you from actually touching animals. And if the sports really are so terribly onerous, Eleri, feel free to develop migraines.”

Eluned, who was trying not to look openly delighted, said: “The workshop was very good, after all. And we never did get to look around the house properly.”

“Settled then?” Rian asked, and received one pleased nod, and two more reluctant assents. But no real annoyance, or angry rejection. The sense that she had no right to make decisions for them had gone, for they were family, not strangers in a grudging alliance. A blessing as great as Cernunnos’, an allegiance with just as much claim on her soul.

“Excellent,” she said, trying to stop the curling corners of her mouth giving too much away. “I’ll send the forms off right away. I gather I’ll need to get them in soon, before the rush.”

“What rush?” Eluned asked, while Griff eyed her suspiciously.

“Ah, well. Queen Tanwen mentioned that she and Princess Leodhild are going to send Celestine, Luc, Iona and Tethané to Tangleways. Once news of that gets out, there won’t be an open place there for years.”

A glow to rival the sun. It kept Rian smiling as she dutifully added forms to envelope and gave it to one very impatient niece, waiting to run it up to the Ktais’ before the last post.

But once released to take her bath, Rian acknowledged that her mood had improved well before the question of schools had been raised. And it had not been that interesting but relatively unremarkable conversation with the Queen that had made her feel infinitely better. Instead, a touch that brought warm amusement. The Sulevia Seolfor, equally as powerful as the Sulevia Sceadu, and Rian had for an instant been able to sense her emotions.

And suddenly tomorrow seemed bearable.

Rian soaked for a long time, thinking about being sensible, and moving on, and all the lessons she had learned about who she could be. About the inner calm that had allowed her to continue instead of crumbling. She had thought this a balance achieved through experience, but instead, perhaps, she had only been cutting away hope.

Why else would the merest possibility that she had not been wrong make the world seem new?

After dinner, Rian went to her room, and looked through the trunk Tante Sabet had sent, the one with all the oldest things. There it was, the last gift of her father, who had been so distressed when she had walked away from trying. A ridiculously extravagant leather-bound block of fine, heavy paper. All blank: she’d never touched it.

Methodically, Rian prepared her desk—pencils, inks—and locked her door, because this was a conversation she was having with herself. Then, after several warm-up sketches of hares, she settled down to her first serious work in nearly twenty years. A three-tailed mare, and rider.

Even if it did turn out to be a one-sided passion, Rian was damn well going to do it properly.