The guards outside the palace itself were no problem. They invited me to sleep in the guard room, but I told them I wouldn’t leave Melody. Said I wanted firewood brought out to the graveled walk, and half a dozen blankets. They’d have gotten in trouble if they’d woke up any household help, so while one of them led Socks around to the palace stable, two others brought out wood and kindling, and another came out half buried with army blankets. I laid a fire, lit it with a pass of my hand, wrapped myself in blankets with my feet toward the flames, and went to sleep on the ground.
I woke up stiff, with frost on my eyebrows. The sun had just come up and was shining in my face. The door guards had kept the fire fed, and when the household help was up and about, they’d told them where I was, and why. So almost as quick as I stood up, the steward came out and asked what I wanted done with “Colonel Melody’s mortal remains,” volunteering a small building used for holding bodies. Somehow I didn’t want to leave it though, and asked him just to let the king and queen know. And to have something brought out that Blue Wing and I could eat. Blue Wing was awake ahead of me, and sat on the roof of the buggy with his feathers fluffed out against the cold.
The food arrived a few minutes ahead of Wollerda. When he came out, it occurred to me that I looked pretty strange—a little crazy, you get right down to it—sitting in the buggy wrapped in blankets, sharing heated-up leftovers of last night’s supper roast with a great raven the size of a turkey buzzard. With the frozen body of my wife on the back seat, and the remains of my fire black and gray on his front walk. So when he urged me to come in—the guards would watch the gig, he said—I went inside with him.
Minutes later he was giving orders for a big ceremonial pyre to be built on the parade ground in eight days. That gave him time to have people sent for—officers from the march north, and especially the rebel army—and time for them to get there. I asked what if the weather turned warm, but Liiset said not to worry. Which brought to mind Kittul Kenderson putting a spell on the dead dwarves so they wouldn’t spoil. The weather had been a lot warmer then.
I borrowed a saddle horse and rode north myself to tell Jeremid. It didn’t seem right to send someone else. I got there in time for supper, and right away he sent a rider to let Loro know, and Jesper and Tarlok. After we’d eaten, he poured himself wine, while I drank sassafras.
“I don’t know what to say, Macurdy,” he told me. “I expected you two to grow old together. I’d decided early on that the best I could hope for was, she might marry me if you got your Varia back. But as long as she had a chance with you, she’d never settle for anyone else.”
Grow old together. That was one thing we couldn’t have done, unless Varia’d pulled off a miracle with her; I’d figured that when the time came, she’d get old and I’d take care of her. Old age wouldn’t have been a problem, I didn’t think, though it might have been tough for a while when she found out she was aging and I wasn’t.
Jeremid hadn’t gotten married. Instead, he had himself three concubines. For different moods, he said. I don’t think I could be happy that way, but his aura told me he was. Content, anyway.
I hadn’t planned to spend the night there, but I did. When it got late, he offered me the company of one of his concubines for the night. I told him I wasn’t ready for something like that yet.
The day of the fire was mild and bright and still. There were probably a couple thousand veterans of the invasion, a lot of them ex‑rebels down from the hills, plus palace staff and thousands of townfolk. The pyre was a big one, and it was me lit it off, of course. It took off quick—a small fortune in lamp oil had been poured on it—and the smoke rose straight up. Folks stood there till the whole pile burnt down; took a while. It’s sort of a rule that you don’t walk off early from a funeral fire. And way up high—about as high as birds fly, I guess—I could see Blue Wing soaring in big circles.