Sister (Mimir's Story - Part II)

Part I 

[Author's note: In the end, I had to split it up into three parts instead of two... 😭 After the finale next month, I'll be going back to the Lights and Clockwork universe now that I've had a good break from it!]

Anneth could feel her heart beating thinly in her throat as she and Casserah rushed to make Mimir presentable for Lord Tristram and his audience. Junoth had gone off to make the suggestion to his lordship—though he’d scratched his head and muttered something about not wanting to be decapitated for his insolence—and Casserah, her meal preparations done, had ushered her sister and the fortune-teller into her room: the two of them were scrambling to find an outfit for Mimir that didn’t look like it had been run through a cattery. Mimir placidly allowed them to dress her in one of Anneth’s old mourning gowns, purchased for the funeral of a bygone relative: it was a somber, plain affair that became dramatic and mysterious once Casserah added a deep purple overskirt she filched from one of the maids. Then she tied off the ensemble with an enormous necklace made of fine, jet-black beads and chips of opaque pearl.

At first glance, the amulet looked like a piece of costume jewelry, so large and ostentatious that it seemed to belong only on a performer like Mimir.

Then Anneth did a double-take and gasped. “Casserah! That’s not—”

Her sister pursed her lips, tilting her head back and narrowing her eyes in the challenging, snake-like stare that she was known for. “Oh, don’t moralize, Annie! Lady Cythera has forfeited all of her worldly possessions—she’s a nun now, and nuns have no need of their jewelry!” Then she turned back to fastening the clasp of the necklace and smoothing it against Mimir’s thin neck. “Besides, these are the pieces that she always hid away, on account of hating them—she’s never worn any of them, so no one will ever know, especially not Lord Tristram. And Rosalie”—that was Lady Cythera’s former maid, who worked in the kitchens now that her mistress was gone from the house—“Rosalie said that the lady would never even remember she had these pieces, even if she were ever to come back to the estate. Which she won’t.”

Anneth could only stare at her older sister, agog. “You’ve taken multiple?” was all she could think to say.

Casserah made an impatient clicking sound with her tongue as she reached for Mimir’s veil; the fortune-teller made a soft, hurt sound when she drew it away from her face, though, so after a moment’s pause, Casserah put it back. “Just a few,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on Mimir’s sleeve as she tugged critically on its hem. “Once Junoth began talking about us leaving, I thought we could do with a little insurance, in case we couldn’t find new work! What with the three of us, and Hiro andCypran and Nawat…” She trailed off meaningfully, then added, “You still haven’t told me why he thinks it so urgent to leave, you know.”

Anneth sighed and glanced at Mimir, who stood in yielding, listless silence, seemingly so deep in thought that she was oblivious to whatever was going on around her. For a moment, she focused on daubing the Seer’s pale cheeks with a little crushed amaranth powder before saying softly, carefully: “When he was young… he lived in the house of a great lord, one even more powerful than Lord Tristram. One night, Inquisitors came to their manor, asking for some favor from the Autarch. The lord refused, and the Inquisitors burned their house to the ground in response. Junoth and his little brothers barely escaped with their lives. His three older brothers were killed.”

Casserah had stopped fussing with Mimir’s sleeve; she stood there for a moment, eyes wide and shocked, all the color seeming to drain from her sharp, striking face. “I never knew that,” she said faintly. Then she shook her head and said, “He always seems so happy, I never imagined—”

Anneth smiled a little to herself. “That’s how he is, of course; he doesn’t dwell on sad things, and he always had to focus on looking after his brothers. But it’s given him a strong sense of caution towards things like this.”

Casserah’s voice dropped even further. “So he thinks the Inquisitors will come? Because of what Lord Tristram’s been up to?”

“He thinks somethinglike that—but, oh, Cass, what is he up to? Or is Junoth’s past only making him paranoid? Is Lord Tristram up to something?”

“I don’t know, love. He’s been acting strangely ever since his enthronement ceremony, but that could be the loss of his sister. But without Lady Cythera around to moderate him—maybe it is a prudent time for us to leave.” Then, glancing again at Mimir, she bent forward towards Anneth and added in a murmur, “Maybe even later tonight. Feast or not, I don’t fancy being the target of the lord’s ire after the other guests have gone home, especially if he’ll still be in a high temper after…”

And she tilted her head meaningfully at the Seer.

“Not tonight,” Mimir broke in then, a little more sharply than normal. Both of the sisters jumped, as if they’d forgotten she could speak.

“God in heaven,” Casserah hissed. “What are you talking about now?”

Mimir turned her head to spear the cook with her ghostly, silver-shaded eyes. “Not tonight,” she repeated. “Do not leave tonight. There will be danger on the road. Anneth’s horse will throw a shoe, and…” She trailed off for a moment. “Do not leave tonight.”

Casserah and Anneth exchanged looks with each other. But before either of them could press Mimir for more information, the door opened, and the rosy, sweating face of one of Casserah’s kitchen maids peered into the room.

“It’s nearly time to begin serving, miss,” she said in a strained voice. “And Lord Helvar’s agreed to the entertainment. She’ll have her little table for private sessions during the appetizers, and then she’ll go on between the third and fourth course.”

Casserah straightened like a soldier called to battle. “Thank you, Samhaina. We’ll be right down.”

Samhaina shot Mimir a frightened look before disappearing back into the hallway. Casserah turned around to find Anneth anxiously rearranging Mimir’s veil; the red-haired young woman leaned in to whisper: “Are you sure about this?”

Inwardly she was thinking, Lord Tristam will have asked how this new entertainer was procured, and by whom. Junoth wouldn’t have told him, but someone else—Hanson, someone—would have. If she bores him—or, heaven forbid, offends him—it will be on my head as well as hers.

Then she thought: But she’s a prophetess—she can see the future. She wouldn’t have volunteered for this if she didn’t already know it would go well.

Mimir intoned, “I’m as sure about it as I am about anything.”

“Have you done anything like this before?” Casserah asked.

Mimir nodded slowly. “I have,” she said. “Or I’m about to.”

“That’s a comfort.” Casserah sighed, rearranged the necklace so that it lay demurely against the Seer’s stark collarbones, and shook her head. “Well, it’s too late now. No way out but forward.”

For some reason, that made Mimir smile.

#

For the first part of the feast, the fortune-teller did admirably well. Anneth hovered in the shadows of the Portrait Gallery—where Casserah’s staff would be serving the canapes and appetizers to the mingling guests before moving to the Grand Dining Room—and watched as Mimir sat at the little white-clothed card table someone had set up for her, and guest after guest tentatively approached her in twos and threes. At first, they only observed her from afar, speculating amongst each other like skittish horses unnerved by the presence of an intruder in their usual field; however, something about Mimir’s utterly calm and passive mien must have set them at ease, for their curiosity eventually got the better of them, and gradually the bolder trendsetters began to make conversation with her. What Mimir said in response to them, Anneth couldn’t hear, but they left her table looking happy or intrigued enough. Lord Tristram was what the high-handed staff of other nobles called “a country lord,” so the majority of his guests were only other minor aristocrats and even an exceptionally wealthy merchant family or two. Most of the ones who visited Mimir were young and bored, eager to break the monotony of their bucolic life, even if it meant flirting with scandal by being witnessed as interacting with a Diminished person.

“But after all,” Anneth heard one young lady remark to her suitor behind a fluttering fan, “Lord Helvar was the one who invited her, so it must be all right!”

“I’m not sure if Helvar is the yardstick by which we should measure propriety,” returned the suitor, “but it is very diverting.”

Presenting Mimir, Anneth came to realize, had inadvertently been a very clever political move among Lord Tristram’s crowd. Whatever scandal had occurred with his sister at his enthronement had compounded the lord’s somewhat dangerous reputation: he was only a few months into his reign, and already he was known as someone to watch carefully, a maverick or even a rebel who seemed to flout the conventional aristocracy’s rules, even before he officially assumed his mantle. Sending his sister away to the convent might have been taken as the proper (and unexciting) avenue of shame, self-abasement, and atonement that ought to follow such an imbroglio: a signal to the hawk-eyed nobles that Tristram was maturing and taking his duties as lord seriously. But hiring Mimir as entertainment, rather than the usual boring old acting troupe, was yet another twist to the story. Was Tristram leaning into his reputation for unconventionality, taking some power back by embracing unorthodoxy publicly after all? Was it a statement of defiance after having time to regret the loss of his sister? No one knew, but the air felt alive and electric with interest in Tristram’s plans and motives in a way that it hadn’t been before.

Anneth watched as shy merchants’ daughters and svelte, languid-eyed country princes tripped forward to sit at Mimir’s table, exchanged a few murmured words with her, and then drew away. Initially, Casserah had insisted on “dressing up” Mimir’s fortune-telling with a little more theater, decorating her table with dark flower petals and her little pouches full of dice and animal bones. But in the end, Mimir only looked at the person in question—sometimes for a moment or two, sometimes for a full minute—before delivering her predictions. Anneth wondered what the nobles could possibly be asking her. Love matches, probably. Everything else about their futures seemed so sure.

At some point in the night, Junoth sidled up to her, as hidden as she was in the shadows of the colonnade. Normally at parties such as this, he could slip away from guard duty to snatch a kiss from her in some closet or unused parlor. Now, however, he looked tense and worried.

Anneth looked at him. “Where is Lord Tristram?” she asked softly. As host of the event, the lord wouldn’t be making use of Mimir’s services, leaving that freedom for his regular guests: it would be at dinner that she would perform for him and his high table of honored friends. The last time she’d seen him, he’d disappeared into the gardens with a cadre of like-minded allies, ostensibly to admire his new hedge maze: weasel-faced Lord Tolland, corpulent Lord Corovann, and coldly-appraising Lady Charmae had been among his companions.

Junoth was shaking his head. “Still talking to his sick… his sicko… what was that word that you called them?”

Anneth smiled. “Sycophants.”

He reached out absently to caress her cheek. “Yes, that. I don’t understand what they’re talking about, scarlet.”

“Perhaps it’s not for us to know, fox,” she answered gently, using her secret nickname for him.

His frown deepened; he never listened when someone told him he shouldn’t do a thing. “They’re talking about Cythera,” he said slowly, “wanting Tristram to write a letter to her at the convent, to prepare. He keeps insisting that she ought to be left out of it until the last minute, because she can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut. But prepare for what?”

“I don’t know. Did they say anything else?”

“Only that she’s very popular at that convent: she’s expected to become prioress in a year. And that people from the surrounding towns come all the time to hear her talk.” He shrugged. “It’s funny. Here, everyone knew she was madder than a hornet in a hat. But send her off to a change of scenery, somewhere they don’t know her, and suddenly she’s the new Hierophant.”

Then he glanced over to Mimir and smiled a little. “Speaking of hanging off a madwoman’s every word…”

Anneth frowned at him, more softly chiding than angry. “I don’t know why you and Casserah treat her as mad. You do believe magic exists, don’t you? Do you call every Mage you encounter mad?”

Junoth laughed warmly at that, putting his arm around her shoulder and drawing her close against his side. “It’s not her magic that’s the problem, Annie, it’s the way she conducts herself. You have to admit that her bird’s nest is lacking an egg or two.”

She was trying not to smile, maintaining the virtuous furrow in her brow. “So she’s absent-minded,” she said, “but her powers…”

“If they’re even powers at all. You do know she could be making up whatever she wants, don’t you, and we would never know the difference? All this about babies and marriages… by the time anyone proves her wrong, she’ll be long gone from here.” He tweaked her nose when her frown deepened. “Not that I begrudge her, of course. So long as Lord Tristram’s entertained, I don’t care a wit if she’s genuine or not.”

“But she is,” Anneth insisted, earnest again. “She knew your name, Junoth, and the color of your hair.”

“Maybe she saw me before she came here: I was in town the day before last.”

“She knew about the theater troupe.”

“Perhaps she encountered them on her travels before reaching Helvar. Who knows where she’s been? Maybe she was even at the court of some other noble and heard the gossip long before it would have come to us. I don’t know.”

“I’m surprised at you,” Anneth said then. “You’re normally so optimistic.” His brother Nawat called him an idealist; Casserah called him gullible.

“And I’m surprised at you,” Junoth returned good-naturedly. “You’re usually the skeptical one. What makes you so inclined to believe her?”

Anneth turned to look back at the party again, mulling it over for a long moment. Some lady with ribbons in her hair was giggling helplessly at the aghast look on her friend’s face as she was given her fortune; Mimir watched them both, impassive. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “It’s strange. When I first saw her, I simply thought she was pitiable. But somewhere along the way, I started feeling as if—as if we were meant to meet. As if this was all happening for a reason.”

A light, tinkling bell on the far side of the room silenced her then: it was the summons for the guests to move into the Grand Dining Room. Junoth kissed her swiftly and slipped back into position—he was intended to stand guard in a row of three behind Tristram while he dined—and Anneth hurried to take the place of one of the serving maids, as Casserah had arranged. Somehow they had all taken to thinking that Anneth’s presence would serve as a kind of inoculation for Mimir; if she was on-hand to supervise discretely, perhaps the encounter with Lord Tristram would go without a hitch.

She took up a position against the far wall as the guests streamed into the vast dining room lined with banquet tables: the center of each table was heaped high with a glistening mound of food, glazed pastries and fruit spilling down in an artful tumble, roast hens steaming and crackling with fat. Casserah had absolutely outdone herself tonight. After everyone had been seated, Lord Tristram strode in and took his chair at the high table, surrounded by his usual nucleus of confidantes. The lord himself was not such an imposing figure: lean, hook-nosed, and with auburn hair cut unfashionably long, he would have looked to any commoner like a normal wealthy man in his thirties. It was only the hardness and severity of his expression—the premature lines around his mouth, the cold assessment of his gaze, and the twist of displeasure to the way he sat—that belied the truth that his servants and companions were both familiar with. He was a cruel, ambitious man, proud, easily affronted, and prone to fits of icy fury and violent discipline that had cowed even his headstrong twin sister. He was not a man to be crossed.

Anneth tried not to think too deeply on what mood her lord was currently in, as Casserah must have been doing from the kitchen, but it proved to be an impossible task. It was often so difficult to tell, with him: he tended to maintain his composure in front of guests, reserving any displeasures for the aftermath of the public event. But he seemed at ease enough; he sipped wine and listened courteously to old Lord Corovann’s vain stories, nodding with a tight smile when a coquettish lady stopped at his table to deliver her compliments. Standing in an unobtrusive corner and gliding forward only when she needed to refill a wine-glass, Anneth was so absorbed in monitoring his state of mind that she forgot to admire more of Casserah’s handiwork as it was borne out of the kitchen on mirror-like silver platters. She even forgot to meet Junoth’s eye more than once; but when he stood at attention behind Lord Tristram, he could rarely ever do anything except wink.

The first part of the meal flew by in a blur. Soon enough, another tinkling bell was being rung, and all of the diners placed down their napkins and forks in anticipation as candles throughout the room were blown out, leaving only a few eerie, flickering lights. (Another touch of Casserah’s, Anneth supposed; she thought of everything.) The harpist in the corner—who had been playing a sweet tune to accompany the first few courses—now struck up a plunking, otherworldly tone, and in glided Mimir, her veil trailing behind her like a cloak of mist. Someone in the audience actually gasped in delight.

Mimir came to a halt in front of the high table, and from her position, Anneth saw how her pale eyes moved from face to face, almost as if trying to discern who was who. She hasn’t forgotten who Lord Tristram is, has she? she thought with a sudden lance of fear; but she was saved from having to worry further when Lord Tristram said, mildly enough, “Welcome. I’m told you are called Mimir, Sister of the Silver Eye.”

“Yes,” Mimir answered plainly. Anneth thought she saw Junoth wince; she didn’t bow or curtsy, but Tristram—looking vaguely amused—didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps he thought it was all part of the show.

“And is it true that you can read the future, Mimir of the Silver Eye?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Lord Tristram inclined his head. “Do so, then.”

Mimir’s gaze traveled from face to face again; the entire room seemed to be suspended in breathless anticipation. Anneth’s pulse throbbed madly in her ears.

Finally the Seer said in her soft voice: “So many futures. So many phantoms. It would be easier if you asked me a question rather than trying to pick any one image out.”

Lady Charmae snapped open her fan and tittered; her husband looked cruelly amused, as if he were a cat watching a mouse struggle under its paw. But Lord Corovann said indulgently, “Fine, then. What will be the name and gender of my first grandchild?”

Mimir thought about it for a moment. “In the futures where you have grandchildren,” she said, “your first will be a girl named Kthenia, born to your second-oldest daughter.”

Lord Corovann frowned. “My second-oldest daughter is not married.”

Mimir shrugged. “She will be.”

A little melting murmur of appreciation and awe went up from the onlookers at that. Lady Charmae’s husband scoffed and said, “Mere guesswork: I could have told you that, Corovann.” He turned to Mimir and said, “Attend me, witch. I am being courted by two trading houses to invest in this winter. Which one should I choose?”

Mimir barely glanced at him. “Your wife will choose the one with the red star,” she answered indifferently, “regardless of your opinion; that much is set in stone.” Then she shrugged again. “It will be the right choice. The other one, the one with the leopard as its seal—that one would have ruined you.”

Lady Charmae’s husband went absolutely still as more exclamations and laughter bubbled up from the audience, including from Charmae herself: apparently this was an answer that rang true. But even when Mimir tread dangerously close to causing offense, more and more of the nobles called out questions for her—evidently, they were too intrigued by her abilities to worry about punishing her for any perceived insolence. She answered the questions of each of the nobles at the high table in turn—all save Lord Tristram, who sat silent—until ermine Tolland said with a laugh, “You might have stumbled across the most dangerous weapon on the Continent, Helvar, if the witch’s words are indeed true. Why hire her as mere entertainment when you should be using her as a full consultant? Imagine! A prophetess as a court advisor!”

“Perhaps I would consider it if she were to remark on my own future,” Lord Tristram answered in a cool, silky tone. He glanced at Mimir, who stared back, unmoved; Anneth felt her heartbeat picking up again. Apparently Lord Tristram had to ask her a specific question, just like all the rest.

After a moment, he conceded, asking with just the hint of a playful smile: “Who will be my future bride?”

Mimir stared stonily at him. “No one. You won’t marry.”

A kind of stillness fell over the room; the corners of Tristram’s mouth instantly hardened. He said, his tone still light: “At what age will I die?”

“What age are you now?” Mimir returned. The ripple of a gasp passed through the room; a few heads turned to their neighbors, as if to ask if they heard correctly.

Tristram’s eyes were as hard as chips of granite now. “Is this a jest?”

“No,” Mimir said. “I see your future the most clearly out of anybody’s: it’s already in motion, with only one possible path ahead of you.”

“And what is it that you see?” Lord Tristram asked, very softly.

“That you have no future,” replied Mimir. “You intend to start a rebellion against the Autarch: it won’t work. You want to use your sister as a religious icon, a figurehead for people to rally around. She denounced the Autarch at your coronation and said that the Autarch consorting with the Shepherds was unnatural and unholy and wicked, and that her sons are unnatural and unholy and wicked, and that she could hear the voice of the One-God speaking to her and saying she should be the one on the throne, that only she can save the people and lead them towards the light once more, that the One-God wants her to be Autarch and it’s her duty to lead a crusade against the old one so she can cleanse the Continent as it deserves to be cleansed. You thought she was mad, so you sent her away, but then you discovered that there were some people who agreed with her—some people who actually believe her, and it nursed an idea that you’ve always had, that you and your fiefdoms in the West should separate from the Autarchy and form your own kingdom again, as it was in the old days, and perhaps if people gather under your sister’s banner and you and your allies raise an army, then perhaps you can grow your power in secret until one day you’re strong enough to challenge the Autarch herself, or at least secede from her rule with your sister on your new throne, a puppet-queen with a small country’s worth of followers to support you, but in your heart you still believe she’s mad, so it will never work, you will be discovered, the others might survive but the eyes of the Sun Court are everywhere and you, Tristram Agrane, you are already a dead man walking, but you don’t know it yet, and all of the lights of your future have already been snuffed out except the one, the one that’s sitting there, not knowing what’s about to happen to him.” She fell silent. “Except now he does.”

Anneth felt as if she was suspended in some slow-moving, awful nightmare. She watched in speechless horror as a kind of livid radiance, a glacial rage, slowly lit Lord Tristram’s face from within. Everyone in the room had gone completely silent. Junoth’s expression behind Tristram’s was one of unadulterated dread. They all watched in numb, stupid disbelief as Tristram slowly set aside his napkin, half-turned to address his guard, and said in a low voice that still carried all the way across the hall:

“It’s clear that someone has invited a charlatan into my home as some kind of political scheme to discredit me. I am lucky to have so many friends to witness the unmasking of this ruse, but I still consider it to be treason. Arrest the person who brought her here, as well as the deceiver.” He lifted his cold blue eyes to Anneth’s as he said this. “They will both be whipped to death at dawn.”