Windowmirror Chapter 2 ~ Lazuline & Lencel

Lazuline Pelem was eleven years old the day of her sister Zettee’s wedding.  She walked after Zettee, towing her other sister, eight-year-old Tilmona, with her.  She sprinkled tiny spring flowers and petals in Zettee’s wake as the bride walked alone down the steps of her father’s house.  Tilmona was not sprinkling her flowers; she did not want to part with them, and kept her basket clutched close to her heart.  But it didn’t matter; all eyes were on Zettee.  Everyone’s eyes had always been on Zettee.

The groom, Tavano Oran, was the eldest son of the King’s General.  People said that Tavano was crazy to choose Zettee when he could wait a few years and marry Princess Philoan when she came of age.  King Eliron Meliri had no sons, only twin daughters, Philoan and Parlian, and it was almost certain that whoever got Philoan got the throne as well.

Zettee’s father, Mizaroth Pelem, was the cousin of King Eliron; his mother the sister of the King’s mother.  Mizaroth was a Scribe of the highest order, the National Historian.  In his lifetime the Pelem House had become more than their ancestral mansion; it was the Library of Kel-Kannath, where Mizaroth kept books on every subject, and scrolls dating back to antiquity.  On that day in spring it was also the hall where the wedding took place.  While Mizaroth was a respected man and cousin to the King, still the gossips said that Zettee was no rival for the Crown Princess, save for her looks alone.  They said that Zettee’s dark young beauty had blinded Tavano and sidetracked him from the better match.

Lazuline stood on the steps behind Zettee, and wondered.  Zettee was beautiful, she thought, more beautiful than anyone else in Elsariat.  But Tavano had not seemed blinded or love struck.  He had barely courted Zettee over the past year, thus annoying Mizaroth, who had mentioned to his wife that he knew of at least ten young men who would be more grateful to receive Zettee’s hand.  Tavano, Lazuline thought, was not very young.  He was a full twenty-seven years, and Captain of the Royal Guard.  He had always seemed cold to her, never relaxing from a posture of attention and a look of pride and overwrought dignity.

Zettee turned and glanced up at Lazuline from the dark shadows of her eyes, obscured by the white of her veil.  Lazuline started, realizing she had forgotten to throw the last flower, a large red rose.  She took her from her basket and tossed it, watching it arch over Zettee’s head, frosted with petals like snow, and land on the floor.  Tavano bent down and picked it up, and presented it to Zettee.  The ritual was symbolic: Lazuline represented Zettee’s younger, child self, tossing her maidenhood to the groom, who gave it to the woman as his heart.  Lazuline watched Zettee receive the rose and wondered if Tavano was giving his heart and if her sister wanted it.  She had heard her sister’s tears at night.  But Zettee was too proud to complain to her parents or plead with her father — it was a good match for her and she knew it.

The ceremony proceeded with more ritual, more symbolism, ancient words spoken and rites performed.  Lazuline’s task was done, all that was left for her was to watch and hold Tilmona’s hand.  Her gaze wandered away from the bride and groom, over the crowd of guests, and landed in a corner where Lencel Oran stood.

Lencel was the youngest son of Shadmar Oran.  At fifteen he was tall; the kind of bony, awkward tall of a boy growing one way too fast.  He was painfully thin, and pale, with hair that was dark and limp.  It stuck to the clamminess of his forehead, swiped to the right where he would drag the back of his hand across his skin.  He’d always had a weak stomach, as long as Lazuline could remember, and had to take medicines in order to keep his food down and his health up.  He always smelled vaguely of medicine, and ink.  He watched the proceedings under heavy brows, forearms crossed and ink stained hands nervously pinching his sleeves.

Lencel studied the documents of history with Mizaroth Pelem, spending many hours and days at the Pelem House.  He helped transcribe things, or make copies for those who asked.  He was a good worker, Mizaroth said, a boy with a quick mind and the patience for long hours hunched over a decaying scroll.  When Mizaroth passed on, it would be Lencel who carried the torch of information.  Lazuline knew him, not well, but as well as any other, for she also helped with her father’s scribing.  She would sharpen quill pens and refill ink pots, sprinkle sand on finished pages, and generally keep things orderly for her father, Lencel, or other librarians and scribes who haunted the shelves and storage rooms of Pelem House.  The quiet helper, they called her, except for Lencel, who said she was too chatty and disturbed his work more than helped.

Lazuline did not get many replies from Lencel, but she knew him, because she saw the things he wrote in secret (or so he thought) when he was supposed to be copying a book or transcribing a document.  Poems of love, with glimpses of dark hair and eyes, and sometimes the name — Zettee.  She saw how he lifted his head and watched intently when Zettee came near, and how often he happened to get up to stretch his legs when Zettee was in the garden.  Perhaps he thought no one knew.  Lazuline knew, but she said nothing.

Syamor Oran stood next to his younger brother, his half-brother.  Tavano and Syamor were brothers full, but Lencel, the youngest, was the son of a different mother.  Syamor was only twenty-three, and Lazuline noticed how Philoan Meliri, whose eyes had ever always been fixed on the Captain before, now regarded him from across the hall.  Like Tavano, Syamor was tall and fit, with golden hair and brown eyes, raised to be strong by a strong father.  Now that Tavano had chosen Zettee, everyone expected the second son of the General to be a good match for Philoan and successor to Eliron Meliri.  Philoan looked pleased, but Lazuline saw that Syamor did not notice his new admirer.  He was watching Lencel’s eyes.  He knew what Lazuline knew.

After the ceremony in the hall, the celebration in the garden began.  There was dancing, food, and drink.  Flowers were hung and strewn everywhere, scenting the spring evening with their death, sacrificed to make the party as beautiful as the bride.  Lazuline tapped her foot to the rhythm of the dance music, and her eyes swept across the garden, taking in all of the guests.  She was only eleven; too young join in with the adults dancing on the patio, too old to play at dancing with the children by the bushes.  She saw Tilmona dancing with her twin brother, Gilaraman, who did not look happy to be dragged away from eating.  Lazuline wished to be eight again, so she could play in the bushes, and wished to be thirteen, so she could dance on the patio.

She spotted Lencel sitting alone, and wandered over to him, not scared by his dark gaze as he watched the bride and groom.  She settled on the bench next to him and asked, “Isn’t the night beautiful?

He sighed and replied in a mutter, “Aren’t there any kids you can play with?”

“I’m beyond the playing age now, unfortunately,” she told him, ignoring the sigh, and his refusal to look at her.  “I’m at the age when there’s nothing to do but sit quietly and watch.”

“You’re never quiet,” Lencel rolled his eyes, and swiped at his forehead.  “But why don’t you go do nothing with kids your age?”

“Well, I’m used to you, you know I’m always helping my father and the rest of you,” she shrugged.

“You chatter and annoy me when I’m trying to work, if that’s what you mean by ‘helping.’”

“You’re not working, now.”

He shifted on the bench, leaning forward as if he would stand.  He grimaced.  “I’d like to be alone.”

She leaned with him.  “Are you all right?  Did you forget to take your medicine?”

“Is a little silence too much to ask for?”

Lazuline folded her hands in her lap, and looked down.  She knew that she could do nothing; a small shapeless girl with hands smudged in ink and hair like the corners of a fraying towel could not distract Lencel.  But neither could she convince any of the young women his age to pay him any attention.  Zettee had been the only one who really even endured his company; that had been a mistake.

“Wouldn’t you rather dance than sit?” Lazuline asked.

“No.”

“I’d like to dance.”

“You’re too young to dance.  You’re not thirteen yet.”

“I know.  But do you think anyone would notice, if I were dancing with someone who is old enough?” Lazuline ask casually, watching the stars appear.

“I don’t know.  I don’t care.  I thought I asked you to leave me alone.”

“You asked me to be silent, and I was.”

“For all of ten seconds.”  He stared at the floor, his eyes lost to view in the shadows.

“Will you dance with me?”

“No!  For God’s sakes, girl,” he finally looked at her, skewering her with exasperation, “do you ever listen?  Or do you just like the sound of your own voice.”  He stood up, unfolding his long limbs.  His eyes smoldered briefly towards the bride and groom, before he looked down at Lazuline.  “Go pester someone else.”  Lencel turned abruptly and walked away, with his too large hands in fists at his sides.  He was heading toward the library, where he would write poems of anger and despair, then rip them up.

Lazuline shook her head.  At least he was gone from the party, no longer the dark cloud glowering at everyone.  Her sister’s wedding should not be overcast.

Years marched by in Elsariat, by the sea.  Some people changed, and others changed without changing.  On her thirteenth birthday Lazuline Pelem again asked Lencel Oran to dance with her, and he did, with the cold expression of one not doing with his mind or heart what he did with his body.  His eyes strayed to Zettee, always to Zettee, who was there with her husband, his brother.  They had no children, and their eyes were colder than Lencel’s.

Then came the twin princesses’ fifteenth birthday, that same year.  Philoan and Parlian were more beautiful than ever, each with auburn hair and green-blue eyes; sea eyes and wet sand hair.  Lazuline still thought their fair maritime beauty was nothing to the dark night beauty of her sister, though the stars in Zettee’s eyes had gone out.  Lencel must have thought the same, for he stared past the princesses, whose night it was, to Zettee, whose night had gone.  He danced with Lazuline, but only looked at her when she spoke, and sometimes not even then.

The princesses attached themselves to Syamor, one on each arm, though it was clear to anyone who knew them that he belonged to Philoan, and Parlian wanted no one.  Syamor paid equal deference to both of them, though he would have to be blind to not see how Philoan claimed him.  As blind as Lencel was to the world beyond Zettee.

At seventeen, Lencel was still tall and gangly, though he had begun to fill out.  He still smelled of ink and medicine, with unkempt hair and inky black eyes that never smiled.  At thirteen, Lazuline felt like the gray twilight before her older sister’s dark night, almost beautiful but never quite.  Still not enough to turn Lencel’s brooding face away from what he couldn’t have.

She wanted nothing more than to see the smile return to Zettee’s face, the freeze to leave her heart, and the clouds of black to clear from Lencel’s mind.  But there seemed nothing she could do.  Perhaps when she was older; perhaps when she was woman, not a pesky child, she could make Lencel stop feeling sorry for himself.  Perhaps she would find something of herself in his “secret” writings.  Perhaps.  But she had no idea how Zettee could be helped.

Lencel drew her aside before the night was out and gave her a letter, sealed, and told her to give it to her sister.  When he had left, Lazuline opened the seal and opened the letter, reading the eloquent expressions of love inside.  He wanted Zettee to meet him in a part of the Palace that night; he begged it of her, saying he had watched her suffer with his heartless brother two years too long.  Lazuline took the letter away from the Palace, home with her to Pelem House, and burned it in the night.  When her sister Tilmona, ten now, asked her what she was burning she said nothing, nothing. . . .  Nothing at all.