Trouble with Kings (41 page)

“Interesting,” I said. “And, I hope, prospective good news.”

“As good as I’ve had since I took the throne.” Maxl closed his eyes for a moment, face up, as if tasting a rare and exquisite wine. “Whatever transpires, I shall always cherish the memory of Gilian’s attempts to glamour Jason. His rocklike blindness has been…masterly.”

I grinned. “Oh, but she will never see her efforts as a failed attempt. She sees what she wants to see. I will wager anything you wish that she believes he’s secretly attracted to her. And will continue to believe it, and talk about it, long after we’ve gone.”

Maxl opened his eyes. “Only Gilian could think herself the superior choice to Eleandra of Dantherei. I don’t know how that gossip got started—that Jason had turned Eleandra down—but even that has redounded to our benefit.”

I strongly suspect that Jewel had been behind that particular rumor, from her distant vantage, but I said nothing. Some sort of rumor had been inevitable. Eleandra was too famous for it not to have been noted, even if the motives behind her journey to Ralanor Veleth were completely misconstrued.

Here was another discovery. I was used to going about unnoticed, protected by my reputation for being boring. But the safety of being unnoticed and uninteresting was lost as soon as someone interesting paid attention.

Jason was interesting. Ralanor Veleth’s history of violence added to the reputation he’d made early in his rule. Most of the rumors about those early years were true, I discovered over our nights of private talk, though his motivations were completely misunderstood.

“When you come from violent people,” Jason said to me one night, “you have to strike fast, and hard. Be relentless. Afterward compromise is perceived as mercy, and not as weakness. To begin with attempts to compromise is to be perceived as weak, and an open invitation to a lifetime of trouble.” He added somewhat wryly, “I told your brother this insight. Though I expect he’s already learned it.”

Maxl brought my focus back to the present. “I really believe Zarda thinks that I can whistle up Jason’s army if I want to. He can’t see an alliance based on economic need. He sees everything in terms of power, or force.”

“I hope you won’t disabuse him of it,” I said.

“I’ve learned my lesson. I used to believe that if I tried to explain my own motives—proving that they were to everyone’s best interest—others would in turn give of their best. Not true. They translate it into their own terms and act accordingly.” Maxl grinned at me, a hard grin. “A sizable detachment of Jason’s most restless hotheads coming over here to participate in some sort of spring training exercise will underscore that impression. As well as be good for our militia in the long run, though I foresee some bruised pride as the immediate consequence.”

“Jason’s people are good at all that.” I swung my arm in a block and riposte. “Though he maintains they aren’t the best, that their training is generations outmoded. He wants Jaim to go to some other country down south, where they have this war school, and bring back new ideas.”

Maxl’s brows drew together. “Marloven Hess?”

“That’s the one.” I added, seeing Maxl’s concern, “I know that place has a terrible reputation, but Jason says their present king is trying to make that country over into something that doesn’t need to look to war to exist. Readiness, defense, patrolling against pirates and the like, is how Jason explained it to me. He’s been writing letters for the past five or six years to other monarchs with problems like Ralanor Veleth’s.”

Maxl thumped a fist on the rail. “I knew about the letters, from a brief reference.”

“You have to ask. He doesn’t mind answering,” I said. “I have learned that it isn’t in his nature to offer information. He’s so used to action, and survival made him good at hiding reaction.”

“Ah.” Maxl gave a nod. “In that sense all three of us are alike, are we not?”

I smiled and shook my head. “I didn’t talk because I couldn’t trust words.”

“You spoke in music. But only I listened. I guessed at the cause. And I must say I come quite well out of a gesture I had meant only for your good.”

I said, greatly daring, “I know you did, and I can only wish you the equivalent of my own happiness.”

Maxl’s smile disappeared. “I do not know if that’s possible. The two of you are much alike, and I can see that it’s a real match, not merely the heat of attraction. For me—” He shrugged.

“For you what? Please don’t tell me you are going to have to marry Gilian.”

Maxl grimaced in distaste. “No. Not that. I have come to see that this sacrifice, made for the best of motives, would have been the worst of mistakes, for she would never be my ally. A crown would mean she would exert herself to the utmost to rule through me. Every day a battle. What a life! And I came so close.”

The coldness of fear trickled through my veins.

“Why did you not speak?” I asked.

Head bent, Maxl spoke to the snow. “Because I knew what you’d say, and I also knew you would not understand my reasons. But since that time I have come to see that my own reasoning was at fault.”

Maxl sighed, and his breath froze and fell.

“No. Gilian will never rule, and I might see a way to curtail her attempts to ruin Lygiera. Assuming that I am stuck with her presence at court for the rest of my life, as Papa was stuck with her father. How did she get that much influence over me, despite my straining against it?”

I said, “Fear. And her conviction she’s the center of the world. People went along because it was easier, but I don’t think anyone believes her. I don’t think even Elta believes her, but Elta is desperate to marry, and she’s courting Gilian’s brother through sister and father.”

“Zarda will never let his son marry Elta. I realized when I was about twenty that he can’t stand the sight of her, but he tolerates her because she pays for Gilian’s good will.”

It was the first time he had talked so straightly to me.

So I said, “What about Jewel?”

Maxl turned away, but not in anger. He kicked at snow piled between the carved supports of the stone rail, and shook his head. “She’s good-hearted, but as volatile as fire. She never bores me, ever. And every time I look at her I want to lock us up together for a week.” He grinned, and I was grinning as well. “Yes, you know that spark. What is it between the Elandersi family and the Szinzars? But—well, try to imagine you had the spark for Jaim.”

“But I could never—” I stopped as my perspective shifted. “Oh. I see what you mean.”

“Good-hearted, volatile, and not the least given to a single love for a lifetime, that sums up them both, does it not? Yet I—like you, and Jason, apparently—we seem to be impervious to everyone but one.”

“But Jaim is loyal in his own way to Vrozta. I think, as much as one can predict, that he will always come back to her. She’s first in his heart.”

Maxl nodded. “I could live with that if I was first to Jewel, and not my crown, because then she might take on the occasional flirt, but they would not be forced on me as favorites, which would create endless political strife. But I am not sure. And I don’t think she’s sure.”

Suddenly Jewel’s own comments came into perspective.

“No,” I said. “She’s not, and she hates herself for it.”

Maxl looked pained. “You see my dilemma. It’s too much akin to what Papa went through with Mama, and I won’t deliberately put myself into that kind of nightmare.”

“But unlike Mama seems to have been, Jewel is honest. And you yourself said it has been a mistake not to talk. Jewel likes to talk things out. Her silence of late, I suspect, is not just because she’s waiting—hoping—that I send Jason back home, but because she’s trying to very hard to live by what she thinks are your own rules. And mine.”

Maxl pursed his lips. “You think so?”

“I’m sure of it. She does have a very strong sense of honor. And she understands the workings of a court.”

“Understands?” Maxl laughed softly, making a cloud of white crystals. “More than I can say for myself at times. I comprehend the blend of tradition and habit that makes kingship work. How court serves the double purpose of keeping those who serve as my eyes and ears bound here so that I can watch them—and they can watch me—and also serves to transform ordinary humans into mythic figures. A yellow-haired fellow of medium height and no particular brains or ability could come to a conflict and hand out orders, and both sides would turn on him. But I come—not Maxl, but King Maxl Elandersi—and I hand out orders, and everyone scrambles to obey. It is the gilded custom of court that imbues me with that power. Me, a mythic figure.”

His brown eyes were quirked in irony.

“You’re a good ruler,” I said.

“No. I am trying to be a good ruler. Maybe I will become one—if I survive the learning process. The first lesson has been the hardest, to compromise my own standards. I had believed until very recently that if I had to be first in the kingdom, then I must be first in virtue, in wisdom and in brains. The first I can manage, but the rest?” He shrugged.

“But you’ve picked good help.”

“Yes. And I have to learn how to deal with the ones who aren’t good, the ones I have inherited. Because maybe they are good from someone else’s perspective. That at best is the balance of power, when you strip out personality. But we can’t strip out personality, can we?”

“No,” I said. “So you talk to your allies.”

“And know how far you can trust them, Jason told me.” Maxl flicked out a hand and dashed more snow from the railing. “His advice has been an enormous help.”

We watched it fall into the garden below. I thought about this conversation with my brother, the first time he had been so straightforward. It couldn’t be because I would be leaving soon.

No, it was because I would soon be a queen. A king talking to a queen, brother and sister; once again we were completely equals, and could share one another’s burdens. When I had come home so unhappy after Papa’s death, he had done his best to hide his burdens from me, and to resolve mine. The actions of a king.

“I wish I could find out how Jason managed to make Markham Glenereth into a liegeman,” Maxl mused after a short pause. “I expect it might shed some insight. But he doesn’t talk about it.”

“I asked him last night what is Markham’s story, and he told me that that rightly belongs to Markham. All I know is that he has a young child, a son, stashed somewhere. He’s polite and loyal, but so very intimidating!”

Maxl grinned. “He is, isn’t he? Jason said he’d send him as his commander this spring, and I very much look forward to watching Zarda attempt to intimidate Markham.” He whistled softly, his breath clouding. “The little I know is that Glenereth was the biggest holding on their eastern border, and I only know that from old records. Same as I found out from reading some of Father’s early dispatches that Glenereth was the leader of the faction out to destroy the Szinzars—but this was some years ago, and the mention was of a female. Nothing since. Whatever Jason did when he took over isn’t in any records that I’ve seen.”

A distant bell chimed. Maxl smacked more snow off the railing. “Curse it! Already our time is lost.”

Jason came through the parlor door just then. He sent an inquiring look from Maxl to me, and my brother said, “It’s time to plan the engagement.” He whirled a forefinger in imitation of dueling, making of the word
engagement
a pun.

Jason smiled. “Gesture of solidarity?”

“Precisely.” Maxl rubbed his hands. “We can make the official announcement at Interview tomorrow. Be prepared for the resultant storm. And related to that, which do you prefer, a big, elaborate betrothal, or a big, elaborate wedding?”

Jason looked to me, and I spread my hands. Jason said, “My preference would be to marry at home.”

“I like that idea,” I said.

Jason’s eyes showed his reaction, not that there was much of one, but I was beginning to be able to read him. His pleasure suffused me in turn with my own pleasure—much more than the prospect of Maxl’s big, elaborate affair.

“Betrothal it is.” Maxl pointed the Royal Finger.

“I have only one request,” Jason murmured.

“Which is?” I asked.

“That you invite Garian Herlester.”

Maxl grinned. The two exchanged a look I could not interpret, unless it was to define it as anticipation and comprehension, but even that doesn’t quite encompass it. Something male? Probably.

“Wouldn’t think of leaving him out.” Maxl smacked his hands together again and rubbed them even more vigorously. “Leave it all to me.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Meanwhile, Jewel was still gone.

She had been, it seemed, invited to visit the ancestral home of Riana Dascalon.

I found it interesting that Jewel had formed friendships with Lygierans who had no connection with me. I wanted it to mean that she was going to become Maxl’s queen, but I knew—even in the midst of my own happiness—that real life seldom works out so neatly.

It troubled me most that she had gone with no word to me.

But the word did get to her, as was inevitable, after the shock of the announcement of Jason’s and my betrothal.

What’s to say about the announcement? Courtiers are courtiers. Maxl made the announcement at morning court. The congratulations were all fulsome, some heartfelt and others false; quite suddenly I stepped from the background into the foreground, and many did not know what to make of it. By this prospective alliance, Jason’s interesting aura now extended outside me. I found myself the recipient of more speculative glances than I’d had in all my life, for Jason had made it plain to the more discerning that it was no mere match of political expedience. Not that he said anything, or behaved with courtly effusion, for that was not his way, and he seemed to be incapable of false fronts. From that day on, whenever there was dancing he simply refused to dance with anyone but me.

The days passed quickly. My time was divided between the courtly rounds and with choosing or discarding the accumulations of my life so far, and packing for the move east, a task that gave me pleasure. I offered Debrec the choice of going to Ralanor Veleth or a pension, and I was not surprised when she accepted the second choice. Having overseen the last of my things on their journey east, she bade me fare well, and we parted.