“Eheu!
Rex morte est. Inquam, O Mercuri. Astra declive!” Celatrix Verna’s voice
trembled, building as she timed her ‘declive’ to coincide with the chanters’.
Holding her hands to either side of the podium, she raised them with the palms directed
at Kaiser Rudolpho Imler’s wounded face as he lay in his lidless coffin. While
slowly turning her upper body toward Archel, Celatrix Verna continued, “Ecce!
Rex nasci est. Inquam, O Iphigenia. Sol oriens!” Her impeccable timing once
again apparent as her words blended into the chanted ‘Sol oriens!’
From
the front row, Colonel Thompson and General Michaels bowed their heads,
listening to the foreign words. Michaels leaned over and whispered, “you know
what she’s talking about?”
