Free Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen Page A

Moons’ magic. Believe me, I have told no one.
    You have told me.
    You will not let it go further. You dare not, if you have learned our customs well.
    What did the priestess say?
    “A child of Lands shall lead the way,” was what she said.
    The aisle princes oohed at this revelation. I kept silent and looked at Gray. Her head was bowed but her face was composed.
    “And is this the child?” asked the Queen. One may ask a single question more of prophesy.
    The priestess turned and grasped the rood where the two sticks cross, two fingers on either side of the upright stand and her thumb across the middle.
    “She shall be betrayed but she shall remain true.”
    The Queen dismissed them. It is said that the prophesies of Moons are always accurate but that one never understands them until long afterward.
    “So you shall remain true to me,” the Queen said to Gray, choosing to ignore the rest of the augury. “That is, if you are really the child of Lands of whom we have been told. Come, show me you are indeed that child.”
    “And how may I do that, my lady?” Gray asked, looking directly at the Queen.
    “By composing another threnody now, while I watch. How do I know you did not simply borrow your poems from the promptings of your elders?”
    Gray looked down at D’oremos and he stirred uneasily as if sensing what was to come.
    “But I have no one to grieve for, my Queen,” Gray said.
    The Queen smiled. “Nor have I,” she said. “But time delivers us all to grief. Let us eat now and talk no more of dying.” Her hand signaled the servants and the Hall was turned at once into a feast place. I got to play dances instead of dirges and the resultant melodies made even Gray smile.
    It was past the peak of night when we were dismissed at last from the Queen’s Public Room and Gray was beyond exhaustion. The flowers twined in her hair had long since wilted. Her gray gown was wrinkled and stained past—I would guess—even Mar-keshan’s abilities to reclaim it. There were faint red lines traveling like rivulets to the golden centers of her eyes. Of course I, used to court nights, was not as tired, but I faked weariness and sent her along to her bed.
    Before disappearing, she turned in the doorway. “For all that you have done…” she began.
    I turned away quickly. I did not want thanks or pity or whatever else I read in those tired eyes. In fact, I was no longer sure what I wanted of her.
    She took the dismissal as her due. Lands girls are always so sentimental. I listened as her footsteps faded away.
    Then I hung the plecta on the wall and the last resonances of its strings died away as well. That sigh of the instrument on the wall always moves me enormously. I blinked back a tear and turned.
    There was a messenger bowed down on the rug by my outer door.
    “Prince B’oremos,” he whispered.
    I knew from his rainbow loincloth that he came from the Queen.
    “Speak.”
    “She summons you.”
    I guess I was not entirely surprised, but still I could feel my stomach tighten, my organs engorge with a rush of blood. It was the first call I had had…. I looked quickly down the lean line of my body.
    “I am ready,” I said and followed him out through the halls.
    We did not go along the main public way but along the Pleasure Path to the Queen’s secret back door. The walls were muraled with scenes of tumbling, of naked male with naked male or female, though of course there was no picture of a naked Queen.
    The servant did not enter the Pleasure Door, but I knew it at once. How often had we whispered about that famous portal, with the words of the Principle carved into the lintel: Burn the fierce light of pleasure before the dark cave. And I wondered, as generations of princes before me, how it would feel to sow the Queen, to have her long, slim legs around me and to run my fingers through the dark ropes of her hair. Surely it would be different from the sweaty couplings with plump Lands girls or with an occasional