Chapter 14: The Lamp

Hortense moved first.

She didn't glance at me.

She put her hand on the small of Blythe's back and propelled her gently toward the ship's lantern that stood on a velvet cushion by the dais.

"Darling," she said, loud enough to be heard. "Go on. The heir's wife."

Blythe stepped forward.

She lifted the lamp in both hands, a brass thing with green glass panes and a candle in it, as heavy as a sleeping child.

She took three steps toward the Captain.

"Stop," said the oldest queen.

She did not raise her voice.

She rose, with the cane.

The whole row of old queens at the Queen's table rose with her, a line of women in gowns older than the girl holding the lamp.

The room went still.

"The lamp is carried by the heir's wife," the oldest queen said. "Not the heir's woman."

"She is carrying his child," Hortense said.

"She is carrying a child. That's a different office."

"Mother Queen," Maurice began.

"I am not your mother, Maurice."

"I am the first living queen of Thalassa and I decide who may touch the lamp."

"Put it down, child."

Blythe looked at Hortense.

Hortense's jaw was rigid.

One by one, the old queens turned their masked faces toward Blythe, and not one of them moved.

"Put it down, dear," one of them said, not unkindly. "It isn't yours."

Blythe set the lantern back on its cushion.

Her hands were trembling so hard the glass chimed.

The color went out of her cheeks and she stepped back beside Auguste, who stared at the floor.

"Who, then?" Maurice said, with a bright, hard laugh. "We have no heir's wife?"

"We have," said the oldest queen. "She is married to him still. By the law of this state and by the rule of this krewe."

She turned her mask toward the Queen's table.

"Clementine."

I stood up.

Behind me, Gaspard's hand touched my back and left it.

I walked to the dais, and six hundred masks followed me.

The lamp was heavy, and the brass was warm from the candle, and it smelled of oil and old smoke.

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