The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 19: The City of Music, Part 7

 On the other side of the bridge they paused at a flower seller, where Carala purchased a bundle of lilies and carnations to lay at Hedrathua Macil's memorial. Denisius had provided her with a healthy amount of silvers and coppers for such small expenditures. She needed Ammas's assistance in not overspending, though she found the little girl peddling the blossoms so charming she happily would have paid double the price. 

"That's the idea," Ammas muttered as Carala waved cheerily to the little seller. "The florists in this city are as cutthroat as any merchants' guild." Carala laughed at him, raising the flowers to her nose, delighting in their scent, richer than she could ever remember.

The Isle of Tair impressed both of them, though she hailed from the Imperial capital and Ammas had spent the last five years prowling the richest wards of Munazyr as well as the poorest. The businesses here looked more like art galleries; nearly every house was a storied manse of exquisite design. The dozens of theatres covered every imaginable configuration, from great circular open air arenas to small, semi-private stages which could not have held an audience of more than fifty people. Grandest of all was the vast columned Imperial Opera House, the fountain in its courtyard sporting a white marble statue of Somilius Deyn III, looking both younger and slimmer than either Ammas or Carala could ever remember seeing him. At the Isle of Tair's center stood the elegant gold-tinged white arches and steeples of the Temple of the Graces, the somber music of the Sorrows washing over them as they stepped into the plaza that surrounded it.

When the tones of the chanted Sorrows echoed in his ears, Ammas felt a sudden stab of guilt. He remembered Lena, remembered that those same verses would have been chanted over her body, that by now her bones would be entombed in the Munazyri temple. Would he be speaking so carelessly to Carala of returning with him if Lena had been alive and waiting for him? He stole a sideways glance at Carala and saw something similar on her face. While he couldn't imagine she was thinking of Lena, he hadn't forgotten how she had insisted Othma refer to Lena as a Lioness girl rather than something less respectful. The memory brought the ghost of a smile to his lips.

"I saw him here in Vilais once, when I was very young," Carala said softly, still nosing at the blossoms in her hands. The Temple loomed above them, the crowd milling about the plaza unusually quiet. They paused before a shrine to Saint Unrell, a pious look on his face as he kissed the broken sceptre of the Munaz Emperors. A man lolled on a bench at the edge of the shrine, his eyes bloodshot and watery, a scruff of beard on his cheeks, his fine mourning clothes rumpled and dishevelled, as if he had been wearing them for days. A cloud of stale drink hung about him and he regarded Carala and Ammas with the total neutrality of a drunkard who's not entirely sure of where he is. "Before I came of age, even. I always hoped to come back here, and this time not with my -- " She glanced at Ammas, biting her lip, not wanting to mention her father. "Not surrounded by courtiers."

"For your honeymoon," Ammas said with a wry grin.

"Well, yes." She was blushing now. "I suppose such a thing is not very likely now."

"It is something you and Lord Marhollow will have to discuss, yes."

"If the match is even permitted. Erstan may not want his son to marry someone who suffered my condition."

Ammas laughed. "I will vouch for your health, once you're cured."

Carala shook her head, her eyes turning toward the temple portico, far airier and more lavishly sculpted than the one at the front of Ammas's temple. "I am not sure Erstan will be the problem, really." A sigh escaped her lips. "He was the handsomest man I ever saw, Hedrathua Macil. I do not imagine I was the only young girl to be smitten across the footlights. Some of it must have been stage makeup, of course -- "