Its placement seemed to be the first and most important decision to be made, and everything else was arranged from that first priority. It was impossible to say whether the haunted portrait was assumed to be casting its blessing on its human child, or making sure that that child could never compete with its beauty; no one, afterwards, could remember where the initial idea of moving the portrait originated, although everyone vaguely, or hastily, guessed that it must have been upon the king's orders.
Because the curious thing was that it was not only Lissar who found the portrait's magnificence oppressive, or eerie, or ... no one was willing to pursue this thought because everyone insisted on grieving for the queen and loving her memory; but even the servants no longer went in the receiving-hall alone, when it was not in use, but always at least in pairs. No one ever remarked on this or made it difficult to accomplish; the feeling was too general. And so the beautiful queen stared down, glittering, and her people scuttled by her.
Lissar did not look forward to her birthday banquet and ball. There would be many foreign lords and princes there, as well as all the more local lords, and she knew she was now old enough to be auctioned off in marriage to the alliance best for her country. She knew because her waiting-women had kept her apprised of this, all through her seventeenth year, till the birthday at its climactic end began to look as dreadful as the thought of dancing, gracefully and gaily, before her mother's portrait was. When she heard, not that the portrait was to be moved, because she was rarely told anything directly, but of the moving of it, it was like the Iast blow of a long and tiring joust; this one knocked her out of the saddle at last, and she lay on the ground gasping for her lost breath. She did not look forward to her inevitable marriage, but she thought of it in terms of being sent away from her father, and this she found hopeful. In the meanwhile there was the ball to be got through.
Another very great lady, and one that brooked no nonsense about motherliness, attended to the production of Lissar's first real ball-gown. Everyone who might be expected to have the price of a ball- gown was invited to this royal birthday-party, and so the seamstresses and tailors had instantly been swamped; the very great lady, having been assigned this task a little late, merely plucked the seamstresses she wished to patronize from whatever other commitments they had (neither giving birth nor dying would have been sufficient excuse), as, perhaps, a farmwife might choose a chicken or two from the flock for the evening's supper. The chicken does not argue.
Lissar's gown was to have a vast skirt, and to be covered with so many tiny glinting stones as to be blinding to look upon. The grand lady thought privately that the princess was a washed-out little thing, and that to make her visible at all, drastic measures were required. The lady granted that there were points to work with; Lissar's hair had left off being mousy, and had darkened to black, except when the light struck it, when it gave off red sparks, just like her mother's. And she was tall and slender, as her mother had been, and could stand well, although she was still inclined to move awkwardly (the lady had only seen her in court situations), particularly if startled. Her tendency, indeed, to look like a trapped wild creature was the greatest difference between her and her mother; her mother had had all the poise and graciousness in the world. The very grand lady had the unexpected thought that perhaps this had been as much a part of her reputation as the anatomical facts of her beauty; for Lissar, upon close inspection, nhysically resembled her mother a great deal. If only she were less timid! Even her complexion was pale, and she looked at the grand lady as if the grand lady were a judge about to pronounce her sentence.
The grand lady was not much given to thought, and this one thought she had about the resemblance between the late queen and her daughter became so unsettling, as she began to follow it to its logical conclusion, that she banished thought altogether (as she had banished acknowledging her faint uneasiness about the rather overwhelming portrait that had been moved to the ballroom), and began treating Lissar with a kind of impatient briskness, as if Lissar herself were an obstacle to be got round.
Lissar bore this without protest; she had found that she did not want to think about her prospective marriage after all, because it would take away Rinnol and Viaka and her garden. It did not occur to her that she might request Viaka, at least, to go with her as her companion; but it did not occur to her either that any husband she might have could object to Ash.
On the day of the ball Lissar's hair was dressed very early, and then she was told to behave herself and not disturb any of the coils so delicately arranged, nor the golden filigree woven through it, to hold the fresh flowers that would be thrust among its tiny links at the very last moment that evening. Lissar felt as if she were carrying a castle on her head, and it made her scalp itch. Ash was put off by the perfumes of the hair oils, although nothing would keep Ash away from Lissar for long.
So Lissar took Viaka and went up the long stairs and down the long halls to visit Hurra, for Hurra liked to hear of grand doings at the palace, which would remind her of the grander doings in the queen's day, which would then be her opportunity, eagerly seized, to retell these at length. Lissar could sit at her usual place next to the (closed) window, and not get herself or her hair into any impetuous draughts.
Hurra told the story of the first ball that the old king had given to honor his son's new bride, and how lovely the bride had been; Hurra herself had been there, in one of the trains of one of the grand ladies. She lost herself in the telling, as she always did; but on some days her mad gaze softened and looked inward, and even Lissar could sit near her and be untroubled. When Hurra's voice fell into silence, Lissar stood up and came to stand behind Viaka's chair. Some shadow of her movement disturbed Hurra's reverie, and she looked up, blinking through tears, at Lissar's face.
A look of puzzlement passed over her face, and with it a look Lissar had not seen in two years: recognition. 'Why, Lissla Lissar, child, is that you? You're all grown up. How can I not have noticed? I almost didn't recognize you, you have such a look of your mother. My dear, how much you do look like your mother!'
Lissar's hands clamped down on the back of Viaka's chair. 'Thank you, Hurra,'
she said in a voice she could barely hear over the ringing in her ears, 'but you do me too much honor. It is the headdress merely.'
But Hurri shook her old head stubbornly, staring with bright, curiously fierce eyes at the young woman who had once been her charge. As Viaka stood up to join the princess in leave-taking, Hurri look a firmer grip on the young hands she held. 'She looks like the queen! She does. Can't you see it?' She gave Viaka's hands a shake.
'Look! Don't you see it?'
Viuku turned awkwardly, her hands still imprisoned, to look over her shoulder at the princess; what she saw was the princess, looking white and frightened. Because she was the princess's friend she said: 'I see Lissar in a splendid headdress for her first ball.'
Hurra dropped her hands, and the bright fierce look faded from her face, and she began to work her empty hands in her lap, and to rock, and murmur, 'The most beautiful woman in seven kingdums,'
Lissar, without another word, turned and fled, Ash, her ears flat with worry, crowding into her side. Viaka paused only long enough to pat the old woman's hand and say, with the distinctness she reserved for her own old and wits'-wandering relatives, 'Good-bye, Hurra, we'll tell you all about the ball when we
