She had the sudden thought that these last two years of her life had been pointless, that she had learned nothing that was of any use to her, if she still could not escape that look in her father's eyes. It was all she could do not to snatch her hand away again, and the palm felt damp against the hot blue velvet.
The crowd parted as the king led the princess down the length of the huge hall; at the far end hung the painting of the dead queen. Lissar felt that she watched them come, but she dared not look into the queen's blazing face for fear of what she would find there: not treachery but understanding of treachery, and from that understanding; hatred. She kept her eyes fixed on the bottom of the frame, upon the small plaque, too small to read at a distance, that stated the queen's name and the artist's. 'How beautiful she is!' Lissar heard, and her first thought was that they spoke of the queen.
'How beautiful she has grown!'
'How handsome he is!'
'What a beautiful couple they make!'
No, no! Lissar wanted to cry out; we do not make a beautiful Couple! He is my father!
'It is almost like seeing the king and queen when he first brought her home! She looks so like her mother! And see how proud he is of her! He is young again in his pride; he might not he a day over twenty himself, with the queen at his side!'
There was a wide clear space in front of the painting of the queen, for this was where the dancing was to be held. To one side the musicians sat, and she felt their eyes piercing her; their gaze felt like nails, and she felt dizzy, as if from loss of blood.
Her father swept her around, to face back the way they had come; her full white skirts whirled as she turned, and twinkled in the light. She raised her chin to look out steadily over the heads of her father's people, and she heard a collective sigh as they stared at her. Then she felt her father's big heavy hand clamp down over the fingers that rested so gingerly on his sleeve, and she felt as if his hand were a gaoler's bracelet of iron, and as she caught her breath in a gasp she heard, like a chorus with an echo, 'How like her mother she is!'
'She is the perfect image of her mother!'
She found herself trembling, and her father's hand weighed on her more and more till she thought she would go mad, and there before all the people staring at her, try to gnaw her hand off at the wrist, like an animal in a trap. Her mouth fell open a little and she panted, like a trapped animal. Her headdress was as heavy as a mountain, and she could not keep her chin up; it was pushing her down, down to the floor, through it to the cold implacable earth, and she could feel her father's body heat, standing next to him, standing too close to him.
'She is just as her mother was!'
'How proud he must be!'
'How proud he is! You can see it in his eyes!'
'I give you,' said the king, and at his side the princess trembled, 'the princess Lissla Lissar, my daughter, who is seventeen years old today!'
The applause and cheers filled the room like thunder. She took the occasion to snatch her hand free, to bury both hands in her flooding skirts, and curtsey low to the people who hailed her. They loved this, and the cheers grew as enthusiastic as courtiers, well aware of their own dignity, ever permit themselves to become. The king raised his hands for silence, and the princess rose gracefully, tipping her chin up again in just the way her mother had, the white flowers in her headdress framing her young regal face. The king gestured to the musicians and caught the princess around the waist.
Perhaps a few of the onlookers noticed how stiffly the princess responded, how awkward she seemed to find it, held so in her father's arms. But the occasion was grand and dizzying, and she was known to be a modest girl. The light flickered as if the air itself were the breeze-ruffled surface of some great bright lake. There were thousands of candles hung in the great chandeliers of silver and gold, and thousands of clear drops and icicles of crystal that reflected each candleflame thousands upon thousands of times. The saner, more sober oil lamps that stood at all times at intervals around the huge room were lit, and, as always, polished till they were almost as bright as the crystals on the chandeliers, and the light they reflected was golden.
But for grand occasions there were also heavy gem-studded rings hung round their throats, and these on this night flashed and sparkled as well.
The costumes the courtiers wore were the grandest thing of all, grander even than the tapestries that hung on the walls, that were worth the fortunes of many generations of kings. All the colors and fabrics that were the finest and richest shone and gleamed upon arms and shoulders, backs and breasts. Local seamstresses and tailors had outdone themselves, and when even this surpassing splendor was not enough, messengers had been sent far away for strange rare decorations heretofore unseen in this country; for Lissar's father's courtiers were very conscious that they were the richest of the seven kingdoms and must not be outshone by any visitors, however lofty and important. All the jewellery that present wealth could buy or past victories bestow upon its heirs was on display.
It is unlikely that anyone there was entirely undazzled, entirely themselves, or much inclined to see anything that they had not already decided beforehand that they would see. Almost everyone decided that the young princess looked just like her mother, and looked no further. Only two sets of eyes saw anything different: Viaka watched anxiously, but from such a distance, as she was not an important person, that she could not say for sure that the princess's frozen look was anything but the grandness of the occasion and the gorgeous dishonesty of thousands of candles reflected in thousands of gems and crystal drops. And the queen's eyes knew the truth, and hated it, but she was only paint on canvas, and could do nothing but watch.
And within her costume, her magnificence, her heritage, Lissar moved, invisible to the crowd. The music howled in her ears; it sounded no different to her, no more like music, than had the cheers of the crowd earlier. She went as her father guided her, and had no need to listen to the music, for this was the easiest thing she did that whole long desperate night, moving as quickly as possible away from her father's lightest touch, that he might not touch her any more firmly. As the king was an excellent dancer, Lissar stepped here and there as if she were an accomplished dancer herself, as if the music itself moved her feet.
And so the royal couple passed, magnificent, as dazzling as any chandelier, with the shining medals and golden chains upon the king's breast, and the gleaming tiny colored stones sewn upon Lissar's white
