Chapter 205 The Reversible Verse

The Dowager Lady Elena passed the drafts over, smiling: "Your Majesty — they were writing verses to honor your birthday. We hadn't yet picked our winner, and here you are."

The King glanced at the title, and was pleased: "An Ode to Bright-Virtue Abbey. And which young ladies wrote me these two?"

Jocelyn advanced and curtsied, all state and grace.

The King looked at her — a face half-familiar. He smiled and asked: "Jocelyn... and what are you to the Lord Mayor Jarman?" Among all the capital's greater officials, one Lord Mayor, and one only, answered to the name of Jarman.

Got in a single guess. Jocelyn flushed to the ears with the thrill of being remembered.

"Indeed, Your Majesty — he is this girl's grandfather."

He took the other draft from the Dowager Lady Theodora's hand, turned it over, front and back — one regulated poem, and no more. "Hmm? Wasn't the wager two apiece? How comes this one unfinished?"

Jocelyn made haste: "Just so, Your Majesty — two was the bargain. And when she set her brush down, she'd written the one."

Everyone else held to their place; only Jocelyn and Lora stood out before the two Dowager Ladies — so whose the unfinished poem was, no one needed told. Ambrose had already got the draft into his hand, ran his eye over it, and burst out in loud praise:

"A good poem! One, and worth more than the other two put together. Your Majesty — you can't be judging by the count."

The King thought the poem good too. But the Dowager Lady Theodora pointed at Lora and smiled:

"The wager was one poem to begin with. It was this young Countess herself who insisted on two, for fear of off-days. For my part — rules are rules, and fair is fair."

The King's gaze came down on Lora. A pretty face — though the figure was girlish yet, not his sort; a kind-looking creature, but whose house was she of?

At his puzzlement, Ambrose smiled:

"Royal brother — let me make the introductions. This is my cousin-aunt's youngest, Lora von Odenheim, Roland's Lora. My aunt has only just brought her up from Lohenheim — I met her for the first time myself, yesterday at Prince Jasper's."

The royal kin runs wide; one sentence from Ambrose, and Lora's standing in it was drawn to the line.

"Oh — then she's my little cousin. I've heard the General got no more than the one daughter, and the house makes a pet of her past all sense. When the General came back from putting down the rebellion in triumph, the late King wished to reward him — asked what he would have. And he said: a posting back to Lohenheim — that I might see more of my daughter."

Lora had never once heard this. The King saying it — thinking of her father — her eyes went wet, and she stood there lost in it, and clean forgot to explain her single poem.

Ambrose taking Lora's part, the King recalling the General's love for her — Jocelyn muttered: "That's no grounds to call her the winner."

Over on the other side, Augustus von Klein had already passed Lora's draft to Leon. Leon saw it — one poem, and only one — and he could not believe Lora would ever lose that way. He read it through, and through again, and at last the smile came:

"Is this not two poems? Read front to back — one poem. Read back to front — another." And he recited it, from the last line to the first, whole:

Light gulls, a few — a thousand peaks of snow;

The water joins the cloud's edge — the four-gaze distance far.

A sunlit day, the dawn clouds — red upon red;

A late sky, the river trees — green upon green.

Clear waves, the stone's eye — the spring come up to the rail;

The small path, the pine gate — the abbey over against the bridge.

The bright moon, the angling boat — the fishing shore far;

The snow hills lean and spill — the dark swell trails the tide.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

At the sound of it the whole hall was dumb, and then it wasn't. Reversible verse is an old, old form — but the Empire's poets had long dropped it. Read backward, such pieces mostly went to pieces with them: no sense left, no rhyme, nothing. And here was the sixth lord reciting it — and where was the "reading backward" in it? Say nothing of reversible verse; as a plain poem it stood upright on its own feet.

"A true reversible verse? That's a marvel past marvels."

Prince Ian had gone through Jocelyn's two already, laughing inwardly: copied off an abbey wall, and you call them yours? Hearing Leon read this one out, the laugh went out of him and the wonder came in.

The King took the draft back and confirmed it with his own eyes, and laughed loud and long:

"Von Klein — carry it outside. Have them put one together to match it — same subject, Bright-Virtue Abbey. Whoever matches it, to the royal banquet with him."

Lora stole one look at Leon, laughing in her heart:

That poem was the old kingdom's most famous reversible canon, I'll have you know — the very crown of the form in my old world's schoolbooks. And that you could see it — that means you set your mind on me.

To think the girl had some talent in her after all. The King beckoned Lora over: "Come — walk with me to the ball grounds and watch them play polo."

Lora curtsied to the Dowager Ladies and came to the King's side, and walked out with him. And as they went, the King asked: "Do you play polo?"

"No."

"Then what do you do with yourself in Lohenheim?"

"Chase swans. Tease dogs."

"This... you like dogs?"

Ambrose, trailing behind, was burning like a haystack: Bad — very bad. Royal brother was asking after her pleasures now. Could it be he'd taken a fancy to her too? No good — I must get in first. Once she's truly in the palace, the Book flies clean out of reach.

Leon, outwardly calm as still water, felt a certain unease walking in his chest. The life before had been knocked off its course by the two of them together; now he was back in that whirlpool again — and who, in a whirlpool, comes through untouched? But Lora sacrificed — that he would never allow.

Each of them full of his own thoughts, they came to the great hall's doors — and there, up the steps, came rushing a palace maid, blind to a whole crowd's worth of company, near enough to slam head-on into Augustus von Klein.

Von Klein barked: "Where are your eyes! Reckless girl — want to die?"

The little maid went white to the lips and dropped to her knees: "I'm of the Queen Mother's palace, come up with her today — I tend Truffle. Truffle's gone into her labor all of a sudden, and the pup is stuck — it won't come — and the vets can do nothing... I was running to make my report to the Queen Mother..."

Truffle was the little lapdog Hugh Horn had given the Queen Mother — one fluffy ball of a thing, and sweet past bearing. The Queen Mother loved it without measure, had it at her side wherever she went, and kept its basket hard by her own couch. A while back the King had hunted long and hard before he found one male lapdog small enough to please her eye, and had Truffle mated — and the whelping was due within these few days. The Queen Mother couldn't bear to lose sight of her, and had had her brought along to the Palace of the Holy Crown this very day.

A dog in hard labor too? Well, that was a new one on anybody.

And the pinch of it: this was the King's Birth-Feast — no room in it for a sight of blood.

If dog and pups came through safe, well and good — new life and new luck, joy upon joy. But if Truffle died on the whelping, that was the child undoing the mother — and an omen of that cut straight against the King.

Within, the Queen Mother had the news and was already out of the hall. "Quick — lead the way; I must go see for myself."

"Mother — have someone carry it quietly out of the palace, and there an end. Why go watch a thing that will only wring you?" The King, no lover of dogs, thought of nothing but getting the beast out of doors before it died on him.

"The vet said she had days yet. When I went to my litter this morning, she would keep blocking my way. I thought she wanted to come along — I never knew she was begging help of me..."

The Queen Mother had ever been a soft-hearted, soft-eared soul. If she hadn't been, Hugh Horn would never have talked her through two little tales of a shared hometown and had her weeping floods, till everyone in the palace took him for her own brother and no question.

The King would have argued yet, but the Queen Mother was already down the steps — and Lora, unremarked, went quietly down after her.

"Voss — have the Left Silvergate standing ready." The King, seeing his mother set on it, could only pray nothing came of it. The Left Silvergate was not far from the Supreme Hall, and opened on the eastern preserve; and if the worst came — well, out with it, and one spade of earth made an end.

Only Leon marked it when Lora went. And now, bound for the ball grounds, the King marked his little cousin's absence too:

"Eh? Where's my little cousin gone?"

A maid at hand answered: "The young Countess went after the Queen Mother."

"To be sure — she said she liked dogs. But what's to see in a whelping? Come — to the ball grounds." The King gave the word, and the whole train moved off toward the grounds.

Leon let out a long breath in private:

She'd gone to see whether the dog might be saved — and past that, to slip out from under the royal brother's eye... and from the look of it, the King had not set his heart on her.

Truly a mercy.