Chapter 45: Vivianne – King Clément
‘My dear Vivianne! What good winds bring you here?’ Clément opened his arms when Vivianne appeared at the royal tent’s entrance.
She let the canvas fall closed and came in, looking hard at the king.
‘This is no manner to look at your king,’ said Clément, then kissed both sides of her face. ‘Come, sit down and try some of my special soup.’
‘Soupe,’ Vivianne followed the gestrure Clément made with his spoon to where a round table was set for one person. Coalim, the king’s servant, was sitting at the table, shrunken and stiff on the royal chair, with a bowl of soup in front of him. Clément held his spoon.
Coalim and Clément were both very pale. The king was white, with golden locks, smooth face and a small nose; the servant was red haired. All red-haired were fatherless in Franária. Most were abandoned by the mothers as well. The red-haired were children of the northern invasions.
‘Don’t be angry at me,’ the king said to Vivianne. ‘I hadn’t meant to separate you from your moulded old maps, though seeing the sun every now and again would be healty; you are so white that the moon should be jealous. I thought Marcus was in Lune. It is a pleasure to see you, believe me. Marcus has a way of speaking that is so... so... adult!’ The king turned on his heels and pointed the spoon at Coalim. ‘Don’t you dare stand up.’
The servant sat back down.
‘Clément, it is dangerous to stay here,’ said Vivianne. The Rock soldiers looked relieved when they saw Vivianne and the two hundred soldiers whe brought from Lune. ‘I’ll escort you back to the Rock now.’
‘Not before you try my new recipy.’
Vivianne looked right inside Clément’s brown eyes, who took a tiny step backward, though he was a head taller than her. Truth was she was happy to go to the Rock, but she also had a duty to make Clément understand he had pu this own life and the lives of those around him in danger. He was a grown man now, and a king.
She had already ordered ths men outside to break camp and she knew that forcing Clément to do what she wanted would take longer than having that soup. Besides, she was hungry.
‘What’s in it?’ she patted Coalim’s shoulder and spied his bowl of creamy green soup.
‘Try it and tell me what you taste,’ said Clément. He gave her a clean spoon and served her a bowl.
The scent filled Vivianne’s mouth with water. She tried several spoonfulls while Clément stood behind her chair and began to braid her hair. Vivianne’s hair was the color of sunset; Clément’s was the color of dawn.
‘Peas?’ she asled.
Clément covered his mouth in horror.
‘By all the deaths of Nakamura, Vivianne! Where did you see peans in my soup?’
‘It’s green and tasty,’ she said. ‘Peas are green and tasty.’
‘Zuchinni,’ said Coalim, ‘potatoes, onions and... peppermint?’
‘Ah,’ Clément smiled at his servant.
‘Peppermint?’ Vivianne moved the soup around her mouth. ‘I thought there was something funny.’
‘Funny?’ Clément pulled away her bowl. ‘You don’t deserve to taste it.’
She sat there blinking, spoon in hand.
‘You make me come all the way from Lune only to complain abuot my culinary knowledge?’ she said.
‘Lack of culinary knowledge, more like it. All right, all right, no need to make a face.’ He gave back her bowl.
Vivianne attacked it gladly. When she finished, she tuned her ears to the movement outside the tent, trying to calculate how long the soldiers would take to be ready for the journey. She decided there was still time and raised her bowl for morw.
‘Now,’ she said, sinking the spoon into the green cream, ‘explain yourself.’
‘What is there to explain?’ asked the king.
Vivianne made a face that had little effect when her mouth was full.
‘Vivianne, please straighten your back and don’t hold your spoon like a bear.’
‘Sorry. Is this better? It was the journey. A horse is wuite different from a desk. My back is destroyed. Anyhow, Clément, you have to stop doing this.’
‘Cooking?’
‘You need to stop putting yourself in danger.’
‘O, please!’ Clément made a gesture like he was dismissing a fly. ‘It’s been five years since Farheim and Inlang last attacked us. Thanks to you.
Vivianne thought of vultures and carion. She said:
‘Even if Farheim and Inlang weren’t a danger, there is the Civil War. You are too close to Baynard, Patire and the Mouth of War.’
‘The Mouth won’t bite me. Even if something happened, it would be more interesting than watching my mother fuss over me night and day. Like I was a little Qoniadrian canary and needed a special greenhouse.’
‘How did you get so far this time? Normally someone would have already warned the queen by now.’
‘This time I threatened my men with death if anyone betrayed my location. At first they believed me. In what times do we live, Vivianne, when soldiers believe someone like me would be able to kill anyone for telling my mother where I am?’
‘One Fulbert of Patire is enough for the world to fear royalty,’ said Vivianne. ‘Be it as it is, Clément, you shouldn’t make empty threats.’
‘You sound like your brother.’ Clément straightened his shoulders, raised his chin and imitated Marcus’ way ot speaking. ‘No warrior shall follow a weak man.’
Then Clément shrunk and asked with a trembling voice:
‘What if I’m not strong?’
‘Become strong,’ he shouted, hammering the air with his fist in a typical Marcus gesture. ‘A true leader needs the power and courage to take the step no one else will take.’
Vivianne found Clément’s charicature of her brother funny, but was uncomfortable with the mask he wore of himself, of a weak and shrunken man. Coalim shot him a reproachful glance.
‘Don’t do that, Clément,’ said Vivianne. ‘You’re not that weak.’
‘Not that weak, you say.’ Clément clapped his hands. ‘It means I am weak.’
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
‘Please, let’s not pretend that anybody here things I’m a decent king. I can’t even go against my mother.’
‘Not being able to do something doesn’t make you weak,’ said Coalim. He began to clean the table. ‘Maybe you are trying to fill a role that is not for you.’
Coalim only voiced his opinion in front of Vivianne and Clément. Others didn’t even know the sound of his voice.
‘I’d gladly give away my silly throne if I could,’ said Clément.
Vivianne held her chin, index finger over her lips, thinking. Coalim began to do the dishes and, for a while, the only sound inside the tent was the clinking dishes and water. Then, Vivianne said to Clément:
‘Maybe we should do as your mother says. Maybe you and I should marry.’
Clément let out a forced laugh.
‘You sound serious.’
‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘If we get married, the Rock and Lune will have to rule together. Marcus is the only person in Deran, maybe in all of Franária, who can handle your mother, especially with the Wraith backing him up. He could make her bring out the army from the Rock and make Deran the safest place in Franária.’
‘What about our happiness?’ Clément stood up and paced for a while, until he finally stopped behind Coalim’s empty chair and held it like it was the only thing keeping him from flying away into space. ‘What about marrying for love?’
Vivianne snorted. ‘Do you really think you have a chace at that?’
‘Maybe I don’t,’ said Clément, ‘but I’d like to keep my hopes if you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t and I wouldn’t after we were married. Personally, I think I’ll never find a man to like.’
Clément went around the chair and sat down.
‘You are serious.’
‘I’m against the idea, just like you, but at least we’re friends. We understand each other and we would respect each other’s space. What do you think?’ The last question was directed to Coalim.
‘It has logic,’ said Coalim, ‘but it is sad.’
‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Clément would leave me alone with my architecture, I would live him alone to live his life, and all that inconvenient politics would fall in the hands of Marcus and Adelaide. From my point of view, that could be our best chance at happiness.’
‘By the death of Nakamura,’ said Clément, ‘you are too skeptical for our age.’
Vivianne was just being practical, as usual. If she could, she’d marry the Rock or one of those Gorgathian castles she’d seen only in illustrations, but she couldn’t. Marrying a friend didn’t seem so bad.
‘Maybe you are too naïve,’ she said.
‘No on can be too naïve at nineteen. Don’t give up love, Vivianne. We’re too young for all that cynicism.’
This conversation was useless. Later, Vivianne would make a drawing of rainbows coming out of Clément’s blond locks.
‘If my calculations are correct,’ said Coalim, ‘Rimbaud’s Caravan should be here today.’
‘Let’s join them,’ said Clément. ‘Let’s run away from Franária.’
‘If I allow that, your mother will start a war against Lune,’ said Vivianne. ‘I’ll escort you to the Rock.’
The king gave her hand a friendly pet.
‘Don’t worry, my dear. You won’t have to go that far on my account. My soldiers believed me only for a day or two before they remembered I’m not Fulbert of Patire. For a while new a messenger has been sent to the Rock. Mother should be here soon.’
‘I’d actually like to see the Rock again,’ said Vivianne. ‘I finally got the original plans of the Rock. Do you know what lies inside the mountain?’ Vivianne was going to reveal her findings, a thousand words piled on the tip of her tongue, but she was looking inside Clément’s eyes and what she saw there was not the usual mirth of her childhood friend. She has always read maps better than people, but she knew Clément well enough to know that he wasn’t well. It ocurred to her that he had never threatened anyone, not even as a joke, and that, when hs spoke of his mother now, it wasn’t with his usual resignation. There was something dark in his voice when he spoke of his mother.
‘Clément, what is going on? Why did you run away this time?’
Clément moved his shoulders, unconfortable.
‘I have found something about my mother. It has to do with my father.’
Clément’s father died the year Clément was born. For a very long time Clément researched his father, but the former king’s death was shrouded in darkness. Vivianne thought he had given up the investigation years ago.
‘What did you find out?’ she asked.
‘I think he was murdered.’
Officially, the king had died in battle against Farheim and Inlang, just like Vivianne’s father, but Clément’s father’s death happened in a place too far away from any village that could be plundered. No one knew exactly where and how he had been killed. They never found his body.
‘If he was murdered,’ said Vivianne, ‘that would explain why your mother over protects you.’
Vivianne wanted to ask more questions, but the men outside began to shout and run; steel sang against sheath and someone shouted, ‘Run!’
Vivianne went to the tent’s entrance and held the canvas open. She stood there with her mouth open and her arm up, her eyes stuck to something red in the sky, ondulating closer and closer, larger and larger, until the red covered the sun and gigantic white wings wiped out the blue of the sky. The dragon landed on the camp, opened its mouth and vomited death.