Leda

Chapter Fifty-Eight: An Empire of Equals

"Hal, hurry can't you? We'll be late!" Meracad paced the floor of what had once been Marc Remigius' master bedroom, gnawing on her lower lip with impatience.

"I'm doing by best." Clothes muffled Hal's voice as she struggled to dress herself behind a screen. "It's not easy with one good arm."

"I'll help," Meracad said through gritted teeth, aware of the minutes ticking by.

"No! It's meant to be a surprise. Anyway, I'm nearly done..." A few more growls of frustration followed and then Hal snuck out from behind the screen with uncharacteristic shyness. "And?" she asked nervously.

Meracad sucked in her breath, at a brief loss for words. "It's...striking," she said at last.

Hal's tunic stretched to her thighs; an almost seamless swathe of scarlet silk into which a thousand tiny eagles had been stitched in gold thread. Wide, fan-shaped sleeves disguised her broken arm, now strapped into a sling. The tunic was belted at the waist, and a fine ornamental rapier hung at her side. Beneath it all, she wore trousers and boots of black leather, and she'd had her hair cropped to frame the sharp angles of her face, the scar on her cheek now stitched and healing.

"Astounding," Meracad breathed.

"Astounding...in a good sense or a bad one?"

"Oh it's good, it's good. I'm just not used to seeing you so...colourful."

Hal grinned with relief. "Well it's not every day your daughter becomes empress." She planted a ferocious kiss on Meracad's lips. "And you look ravishing. In the worst sense."

"Stop it!" Meracad laughed, pushing her away. She glanced down at her own gown of pleated blue satin, its skirts slashed and trimmed to reveal an under-dress of sunny gold. "We've no time. Here, take my arm. We have to go."

As they descended the staircase, Hal grew mournful. "Marc would have loved this, you know. It would have been his day as much as Leda's."

Meracad nodded, not quite knowing how to respond. Of course Marc would have wanted to see his 'niece' enthroned and feted as empress; the young woman he'd tutored in politics and rhetoric, in strategy and economy, now employing that knowledge to govern an empire. And he'd have loved, too, the pomp and ceremony of a coronation feast: the opportunity to lord it over the court as Leda's chief advisor. But it was a fate that had been denied him. And Meracad could only hope that somehow Marc's spirit might settle amongst Leda's guests, and fill the room with levity.

Dust sheets still covered most of the furniture in his old townhouse, giving the place an eerie, almost haunted appearance, and she was now glad to be leaving it. Marc's house held too many memories.

"You took your bleedin' time!" Jools' sharp city accent fired up at them from the hallway, and then she whistled. "Blimey, Hannac. Look at you!" Jools dug an elbow into Kris' ribs. "She scrubs up quite well."

Kris set down the golden, votive statue she'd been fondling with a furtive look. "Who'd have thought, eh?" she whispered, kissing Meracad's cheek.

"There's no need to look so guilty, Kris." Hal unclasped a key from her belt. "This is all yours now. Although Marc would be spinning in his grave if he knew the pair of you were to live in his house."

"Less of your snobbery," Jools said, snatching the key from Hal's fingers. "Some of us appreciate fine taste when we see it."

"Don't think," Hal said, "that owning a house like this will ever make the pair of you respectable. That would take a miracle."

"A miracle we expect Leda to work, Hal," Kris replied. She enveloped herself in a huge, fur coat and jerked back the door. Icy air stabbed at the warmth, and Meracad helped Hal into another set of furs before shrugging on her own.