The Weird Tales of Tanith Lee by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Lee, Tanith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Tanith Lee, Weird Tales, Short Story Collection, Fantasy
Publisher: Immanion Press
Published: 2017-05-22T21:00:00+00:00

An Iron Bride

Mirabeau said: ‘War is the national industry of Prussia.’ In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Prussia asked her rich citizens to give up their gold and jewels to support a war, and rendered in their place, replicas of the ornaments in iron. These replicas were apparently so exquisite, that other countries tried to copy the method - inadequately. None was as good, it seems, as war-mongering Prussia.

This stern stony city in the snow, who would think that it could ever be summer here? But once it was. The lime trees had opened their parasols of aching green, birds flew about the red roofs, and in the gardens there were coloured lamps at dusk, and soft music, and laughter. Along the boulevards the carriages rattled. The sky was flowered with stars.

It was at the end of this lovely summer that they were to be married, Marten and Klovia. They had had to wait a year, as was customary. But they had not minded so very much. Though young, both were possessed of a curious maturity. Meeting each other, they knew, each of them, that they would be together for the rest of their days, and perhaps, beyond life. It was a love match, strange for their social position and era. They had been very lucky. Good luck always says, Now I am with you, to the ending of the world. And is believed.

Both were remarkable, he handsome and fair, she beautiful and very dark of hair and eyes. In this way, then, descending to some ballroom, he golden in his black clothes, and she crowned by night in her white dress and skin. They were the talk of the city, these two. No one wished them any ill. Sometimes perfection awakens in human things an innate nobility and spiritual height. Marten and Klovia were like a talisman, like clear weather or a winter festival. Like a promise to everyone, of what might be. And then there blew through the lavish corridor of summer the coarse trumpet note of war. Some had looked for it, and others, caught up in their own lives, not. The lovers raised their heads and saw, on the horizon, the march of men, banners and cannon, and the black smoke that follows like a raven. He held her in his arms. He said, “I’ll soon be home. It will have to be an autumn wedding after all.”

She said, “Kiss me.”

In the dark he went away, late in the night, but when the sun rose next day, it did not rise for her. The light was gone.

Klovia’s aunt came to the house of her mother. In the salon they drank tea, and beyond the doors, the charming garden stretched. Klovia did not eat the little cakes, and no one pressed her.

“It’s been asked,” said the aunt, who had once been beautiful, and now was only cruel.

“But surely...” said the mother.

“No. How can it be wrong to make a sacrifice for one’s country?”

Klovia looked at her aunt stilly.

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