“Later,” she said, as the vision of Amber grew before us.
One thing I always liked about Fiona: she didn’t believe in hiding her feelings.
I reached up and switched off the dome light as Amber came on all around us.
CHAPTER 8
I guess that my thoughts at funerals are typical. Like Bloom in Ulysses, I think the most mundane things about the deceased and the current goings-on. The rest of the time my mind wanders.
On the wide strand of shoreline at the southern foot of Kolvir there is a small chapel dedicated to the Unicorn, one of several such throughout the realm at places where she had been sighted. This one seemed most appropriate for Caine’s service in that-like Gerard-he had once expressed a desire to be laid to rest in one of the sea caves at the mountain’s foot, facing the waters he had sailed so long, so often. One such had been prepared for him, and there would be a procession after the service to inter him there. It was a windy, misty, sea-cool morning with only a few sails in sight, moving to or- from the port over half a league westward of us.
Technically, I suppose Random should have officiated, since his kingship automatically made him high priest, but aside from reading an opening and closing passage on the Passing of Princes from the Book of the Unicorn, he turned the service over to Gerard to perform in his stead, as Caine had gotten along with Gerard better than with anyone else in the family. So Gerard’s booming voice filled the small stone building, reading long sections involving the sea and mutability. It was said that Dworkin himself had penned the Book in his saner days, and that long passages had come direct from the Unicorn. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. It is also said that we are descended of Dworkin and the Unicorn, which gives rise to some unusual mental images. Origins of anything tend to fade off into myth, though. Who knows? I wasn’t around then.
“. . . And all things return to the sea,” Gerard was saying. I looked about me. Besides the family, there were perhaps forty or fifty people present, mostly nobility from the town, a few merchants with whom Caine had been friendly, representatives of realms in several adjacent shadows where Caine had spent time on both official and personal business, and of course Vinta Bayle. Bill had expressed a desire to be present, and he stood to my left. Martin was at my right. Neither Fiona nor Bleys was present. Bleys had pleaded his injury and excused himself from the service. Fiona had simply vanished. Random had been unable to locate her this morning. Julian departed partway through the service, to check on the guard he had posted along the strand, someone having pointed out that a would-be assassin could rack up a high score with that many of us together in one small space. Consequently, Julian’s foresters, with short sword, dagger, and longbow or lance, were spotted strategically all over the place-and every now and then we’d hear the baying of one of his hellhounds, to be answered almost immediately by several others, a mournful, unnerving thing, counter-pointing waves, wind, and reflections upon mortality. Where had she gotten off to? I wondered. Fiona? Fear of a trap? Or something to do with last night? And Benedict . . . he had sent regrets and regards, mentioning sudden business that precluded his making it back in time. Llewella simply hadn’t shown, and could not be reached by Trump. Flora stood ahead and to the left of me, knowing she looked lovely in dark colors, too. Perhaps I do her an injustice. I don’t know. But she seemed more fidgety than contemplative.
At the conclusion of the service we filed out, four seamen bearing Caine’s casket, and we formed up into a procession that would lead to the cave and his sarcophagus. A number of Julian’s troops came up to pace us as an armed escort.
As we walked along, Bill nudged me and gestured upward with his head, toward Kolvir. I looked in that direction and beheld a black-cloaked and cowled figure standing upon a ledge in the shadow of a rocky projection. Bill leaned close so that I could hear him above the sound of the pipes and strings that were now playing.