8
Shrouded in Violet

Tal was in mourning. As they had done for centuries when a royal passed into the Light, the Tallinese shrouded their city in violet; the colour reserved for death. As a sign of respect, shopkeepers draped violet over their doorways, most of the houses had pennants of violet hanging from their windows and people stitched a patch of the colour onto their garments. Little girls even put the fresh flowers in their hair. The city, indeed the Kingdom, would wear the violet for two moon cycles.

The palace itself had descended into a frigid silence. Only essential duties were carried out and the kitchen prepared traditional mourning fare: bland and meagre. The palace occupants would eat this basic diet until the Queen’s body was cremated.

For three days and nights she would lie in state, laid out on a cold bed of stone in the chapel where her subjects could bid their final farewells. Word of Nyria’s death had spread like fire and people descended in their hundreds on the capital. The King had released money to provide food for the many who had come from so far on so little to see their Queen for the last time.

And this was where Alyssa found herself, praying, watching, weeping with the Tallinese. She had tried to keep up the school hours but none of her pupils could concentrate. By the second morning she had given up, dismissed the two classes and sent the children back to their quarters. With Lorys shut up in his chambers, receiving no visitors, speaking to no one, she had nothing to do.

Gyl escaped the bleak days by volunteering to go into the hills with Herek and some of the King’s Guard for drills and training.

Saxon had left the city altogether. He had remained with her longer than he had wanted to and finally Alyssa had told him to be on his way. He could do nothing to help and she knew that the loss of Cloot cut him far deeper than the loss of a Queen. He had left yesterday and she had cried bitterly, wondering whether she would lose him too.

Only Sallementro remained close but he was so involved in preparing the music for her majesty’s funeral service that Alyssa could not count on his companionship right now. And so she sat alone in the shadows of the chapel and grieved, wondering what would happen to palace life now that it had lost its jewel.

She watched a young couple grieve at the sight of their dead Queen and she was reminded of the depth of grief she had felt at losing Tor. Alyssa had never thought she would fall in love again or feel the desire to hold her body close against a man and enjoy his touch. But Lorys had reawakened those feelings and she wept as she remembered, just a few moons ago, wishing the Queen did not exist and Lorys was hers.

And now the Queen was dead. That wish had been answered.

Alyssa hated herself.

She watched more and more people filing through the chapel, shocked and distraught. Many of them had seen their Queen in the flesh only a short time previous during the royal tour. Radiant and elegant as always, Nyria had touched their hearts and shown her joy at being amongst them. They had responded with love. And now her body lay cold before them.

It was faithful Herek who told Alyssa what had happened the day of the Queen’s death. As usual, he had taken the morning ride with his King and that particular day the Queen had decided to ride with them, as she often did. She had fainted during a gallop across the moors, had fallen from her fleet-footed horse, Freycin, and struck her head on a rock. A similar incident had occurred when Torkyn Gynt was under-physic at the palace, but that time Gynt had revitalised the Queen’s heart and saved her life. Whether the Queen’s heart had failed again, or whether it was the blow to her head which killed her, no one would ever know, but she was dead before Herek and the King had dismounted and rushed to her side.

Herek confided to Alyssa how the King had screamed Nyria’s name for an hour or more. The Prime had not dared to suggest they return to the palace until Lorys had found some level of composure.

‘He suddenly stopped,’ Herek had said. ‘He mounted his stallion, asked for the Queen to be placed in his arms and then allowed the horse to lead them back to the palace at its own pace. Fortunately, I saw a stableboy walking one of the horses. I told him to hurry back to the palace with my order for the bells of alarm to be sounded.’

That was all Alyssa knew. She had yet to speak with the King since that morning when it seemed she was the last at the palace to discover the tragedy. She had busied herself since in making arrangements for the public cremation. Tallinese tradition demanded that the body be cremated within three days of death; beyond the fourth night it was believed that the soul of the dead would be unable to find the Light and would be doomed to forever roam in darkness.

Lorys would never risk this for his Queen. Nyria would be cremated on the third day.