Trouble with Kings (36 page)

We laughed, then Jewel began pulling the pins from her hair. “I told Jaim all about her on that long ride to Lathandra. And you know what he said?”

“What did he say?” I smiled at the memory of Jaim’s pungently expressed opinions.

“That a sharp tongue requires as much training as a sharp blade.”

“Huh! I never thought of that.” And, for the first time, I told her our childhood as she set her pins aside and began braiding her long, thick curls.

She glowered. “So is that why you permit her to grip your arm that way, whenever there’s an informal reception line? I’ve wondered why you don’t shake her off. I probably would. And she’d be nasty and make it into an incident!”

“I’ve been watching Lord Zarda. The way he smirks whenever she does that, and I think of all the trouble Maxl is having with those northern dukes about the Ghan Harbor plans. I don’t want to risk making things worse.”

Jewel finished braiding her hair, and flung it back over her shoulder. “Do you think her father loves her, then? Or is it just ambition?”

“How do you define love? Did your parents love you? I don’t think my mother cared much for us, except in the abstract—when we were all dressed up and behaving prettily, not acting like small children usually do.”

“What about Lord Zarda’s wife? Was there a grand passion, do you know?”

“My great-aunt told me he was set up from childhood to marry the wealthiest young lady in Narieth, a second child. Not an heir. The treaty was considered a real coup, she said. The Zardas were desperately poor, especially once they built their new palace. After they married and she came here to live, he not only derided her for being slow, he actually started a series of jokes beginning, ‘You know what’s even more stupid than my wife?’”

“That’s horrible!”

“And so it went on until he’d gambled away several years of revenue, all in one season. He tried to woo more money out of the Narieth family, but the heir turned him down flat, reputedly with a real ripper of a letter beginning, ‘You know there is nothing more stupid than a duke who cannot manage money.’ And he was forbidden the court of Narieth.”

Jewel got up. “Have you met the duchess?”

“Oh, just once. He won’t let her come to court any more. Or their son, who supposedly stays on their land to learn governance. I rather liked her. She was very quiet, very placid. Mainly interested in food, as far as I could tell.”

Jewel lounged against the couch. “Strange.”

I sat back. “What are you thinking?”

“That despite all Gilian’s little remarks about how tiresome it is to always have the tiniest waist in a room and how dreadful to be so dainty, none of the fellows ever seem to show much interest in tiny waists or frailty. It’s only her friend Elta and their followers who coo over her. And yet she goes on speaking as though she’s the center of fascination.”

“The fellows are too busy watching you cross a room. And Gilian knows it
.
”

She laughed, blushing, and bent to pick up her pins. “For a time this evening I considered fighting fire with fire—you know, making little comments about scrawny females who could be wearing a barrel or four kingdom’s worth of gemstones and never catch the eyes, but that seems a false road.”

I shuddered. “Very.”

“Not only would she probably have a nastier comment all ready to tongue, but what about all those silent young ladies hearing these things, who have large waists—or small—who, through no fault of their own, look this way or that? And for that matter, why is it always the females who seem to talk about looks? Why not the men? That is to say, they might, but we don’t hear it, just as the worst of our personal chatter is in private.”

“Maxl told me once that the fellows all had private nicknames for one another. And for some of us. Like they called Gilian Babyboots. It got out, too.”

Jewel wrinkled her nose. “You mean those awful things we all wore to steady us on our feet when we first walked? And you say it got out?”

“Oh yes. Everna Medzar, Corlis’s little sister, told her right out at her very first party, when Gilian had been especially nasty. Everyone laughed. I mean everyone. She was wild with anger. But she got her revenge, never against the fellows, only on any girl who said it, and eventually it stopped.”

Jewel said slowly, “That’s what I was missing until recently. She gets people to fall in with her out of fear. So she makes her view of things turn real.”

“Huh! That sounds right. Though I think she really does see herself in the center of the world.”

Jewel started toward the door. “I have an idea. If it works, it won’t change court, but maybe it’ll work as an antidote to that particular poison.”

On the sound of her laughter, she went out, and I headed wearily to bed, trying not to dread yet another long day of courtly festivities.

The next morning, Maxl was quiet, tense, and left practice early. So I wandered back alone, taking the long route through the garden.

As I crossed a little bridge toward the gazebo where my life had taken its sudden change, I paused, leaning on the rail, to wonder what might have happened had I refused to go with Jewel to that reading.

If I get through this alive you’ll regret the outcome
.

Everything else he had explained—but that.

I sighed, watching my breath cloud. I looked up. The sky was covered by a thick white blanket. I wished the snow would fall.

“Looking for the first flakes?”

I turned. Ersin of Three Kingdoms strolled up onto the bridge, smiling at me. His smile was easy and warm, his long golden hair lying unbound over his black cloak.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you for the rose. It’s up in my window.”

He leaned on the rail, his long brown hands dangling loosely. I glanced up, saw his profile, the clean line from brow to jaw, strong bones, features regular, countenance characterized by intelligence and good humor.

He glanced down at me, his brows quirking. “I wanted to speak with you alone.”

“Please do. How can I help you?”

“Will you marry me?” He said it simply. No extravagant gestures, no cynical smirk.

For a long moment the words opened up my life to a new path. I continued to stare at him, as though the future would be writ in his steady gaze.

He waited, patient and polite. Consideration followed after a long space, long enough to register as embarrassing. I felt my face go hot. “I’m sorry. That was unexpected.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” He gave me a wry smile. “And—unwelcome, I gather?”

“I don’t quite know how to answer that. Shall I be courtly?”

“Be true. Please.” He added disarmingly, “I will begin with the truth, if that makes it easier. It is my branch of the family’s turn to seek a spouse from outside the Three Kingdoms. A duty with which I did not find it hard to reconcile. I came to this kingdom to court a princess, my third such quest. Here I found one with whom I could share my life, if she found she could share hers with me.” He took my hand, bowed over it and kissed my fingertips. “You’re honest, smart, kind, and when one can get you to talk, interesting.”

“That really is a generous compliment. I wish I could respond with more grace—”

“But?” He made a courtly gesture, full of humor. “Is it ‘but’ or ‘yet’?”

“‘But’, I fear.” I thought of Maxl and shook my head. I could not leave now, not until he had established his kingship—and though my help might not be much, he needed everything he could get. But I did not want to say it out loud, lest it seem to disparage Maxl.

“Is it a lack in me? You know you would have perfect freedom. And though courts are courts, Three Kingdoms does have plenty of attributes.”

“I’m sure you do. There is no lack in you. It actually makes it easier that you are not in love with me—”

His smile was regretful.

“—or pretending to be. That would merely make it unbearable for us both. In truth, I suspect your heart lies elsewhere—”

“As does yours,” he interrupted, his voice gentle and tentative, his eyes, for once, completely serious. “It’s one of the reasons why I thought my proposal might meet with your approval.”

I gazed at him in stricken silence.

“Perhaps it takes a lover to recognize a lover. I don’t think anyone else has noticed. I have heard not one jot of gossip to that effect—and I delved for it, as discreetly as possible.”

My breath went out, freezing in a soft cloud.

“You are in love.” His voice was gentle, gaining in assurance. “But with no one here. And your old companions, possibly blinded by ambition or their own overriding concerns or by having known you from childhood, do not see it. But the fact remains that you are, and that it seems to be unsuccessful or you would not be here, alone. And so I thought that my proposal might suit you not only for the exigencies of good will between our kingdoms, but also for companionship. It would suit me quite well having you to smile with, to ride with, to watch the gardens with, to talk with on long summer evenings or short winter ones, when we were not presiding over the court at Three Kingdoms.”

My eyes stung. “That is the most generous speech anyone has made me yet. And I thank you especially for doing me the honor of being truthful.”

“It’s why we are here, with no witnesses.” He kissed my fingers again. How different from Garian’s mocking salutes! I had always wanted to scrub myself after his touch. Ersin’s touch gave me no inner spark, but no disgust, either: it was the warmth of human friendship.

Jason had touched me three times. Twice before that interrupted wedding at Drath, and not again until that very last day, also in Drath…

I shook my head, trying to banish memory. “It seems so unfair that kings—or queens—have less freedom of choice in so personal a matter than anyone else.”

“We choose very carefully in the Three Kingdoms. We have three royal families presiding. This alliance has kept us stable since our treaty. There is enough trace memory of the bad old days to make us reluctant to tamper with the form. And so I seek a princess, or a lady, who is intelligent, and kind, and interesting to talk with, and my own sense of honor requires me to seek one who is not in love with me.” He touched my hand lightly. “Only who, I feel constrained to add, could be so blind as to not see your worth?”

Pain constricted my heart. I turned away, wiping my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice husky and contrite. “I’m sorry, and not only for my own clumsiness.”

“No.” I pressed his hand, and let go. “It’s all right. We’ll go back and dance and smile, and I’ll wear your rose in my hair tonight, and before long you’ll find a princess who might suit you better than I.”

“I very much fear my search for such a person would take me round the world,” he said, and I laughed at his gallantry.

And together we walked back toward the palace as above the first snowflakes of winter began to drift down around us.

Chapter Thirty-One

Ersin stayed only until the day after Midyear, and then he rode south, accompanied partway by Maxl and Lord Yendrian Redesi.

Maxl returned before the evening bells, looking tired and dispirited. I followed him to the lair, ringing for hot chocolate. When he reemerged into public, he’d have to squash down Maxl and assume the outer demeanor of a king. I would help him find that balance if I could.

But he did not want to talk, only stood staring down into his fire, until the ting of the suite bell recalled him to the time.

“We’d better get ready for the Barons’ dinner,” I said. “And wear dancing clothes—apparently Jantian Weth returned from his journey south with the spring and summer dances from Sartor.”

Maxl commented, “It might be midsummer in Sartor, but here we’ve got the longest nights of the year!”

He wasn’t talking about our being in midwinter’s dark. I knew what he really meant, and I felt the same.

But the Barons’ dinner for the Guild Chiefs went quite well. The Weths had brought back not only ideas but things: there were scented candles placed before mirror-bright silver panels so that each candle flame was magnified five times, and the candles themselves brought a faint, fresh scent of some astringent herb into the room.

The foods, we were told, were the latest rage in Sartor. The older people who grew up knowing Sartor had lain under a century of enchantment were impressed. They were also cheered at this evidence of another defeat of Norsunder’s evil. The atmosphere was lighter than I remembered since before Papa died, the oldest talking about what their grandparents had said about Sartor before it was enchanted. Sartor’s court was now full of young people surrounding a young queen.

Jantian, pressed to talk about his interview with Queen Yustnesveas, last of the Landises—the oldest family in the world—said she had the characteristic Landis protruding eyes. She was tall, and kind, and had brown hair. He didn’t remember what her gown was like, which disappointed the girls.

He’d also brought back a singer-musician from Sartor, who’d been busy teaching our musicians (the ones who customarily played for balls and dances) the newest songs. I resolved to talk to Jantian later about getting them over to the music school, and then it was time for us all to assemble.

The promenade was old—everyone according to rank, moving round in a circle—but the music was new to us, cascades of exquisitely sung triplets under the melody, which was played by a combination of harps and silverflutes, the percussive counterpoint marked out by a whisk applied to a hollow wooden tube and shaken gourds with seeds in them. The songs were all in Sartoran, which none of us knew—but it has a lovely sound, and those triplets were a recognizable Sartoran flourish that had died out of fashion over the century Sartor was inaccessible.

Next was a complicated line dance, full of braidings, twirls, changes of partner, still in triple-beat time. Some had prevailed on Jantian for secret lessons, for they moved with assurance. Gilian was one. But she’d always done that. I don’t think she’d ever made a single misstep no matter how many new dances were introduced.

Jewel’s mistakes caused her to laugh, and she got the idea of kissing her partner’s hand in apology, a gesture which made Althan blush right up to his hairline. He promptly bowed and kissed her hand right back.