The Trouble With Kings

by Sherwood Smith

  “No need.” Maxl laughed. “What worries me most is what Garian, Jason, or even Jaim will do next, when the rumor reaches them in turn that Flian is back here—and can tell us the truth. Begging your pardon, but the Szinzars have a long history of taking whatever they want—”

  “The rulers only.” Jewel crossed her arms. “Jaim has a sense of honor. He was driven to become an outlaw.”

  I held my breath, but Maxl was ahead of me. He did not argue, and Jewel relaxed again, seeing that he was not going to attack her beloved brother.

  “What I need to find out is what your older brother wants,” Maxl said.

  “Power, of course,” Jewel retorted. “That’s an easy one. Conquer for the sake of conquering.”

  “Then why didn’t he take Drath? Despite all Garian’s wily games, or maybe motivating them, must be the knowledge that Jason could point his sword and send his army against Drath any time he wanted, poorly equipped or not. All those years of war games in your central plains make for a formidable foe even if the command is poor—and I don’t get any hints that Jason would be a poor commander.”

  “No,” Jewel grumped, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands. “Even Jaim says that.”

  “So what does he want? And what’s behind the rumor of restlessness in Dantherei and Drath and Ralanor Veleth and Narieth—summer maneuvers and field exercises and couriers riding hither and thither? I can believe Garian would play games for the sake of the sport, but not Jason.”

  Jewel shook her head. “You don’t know him.”

  “Maybe you don’t,” Maxl retorted, but with humor.

  Jewel’s lips parted, then she rubbed her chin. “Have you met him?”

  “Yes. Once. Eight or nine years ago. Right before he took the reins of government from your mother.” Maxl looked over at me. “You were spending the summer at Great-Aunt Delila’s, learning from that old harpist from Sartor. Jason was on a tour. He was full grown, and I was only a short, yapping pup of fifteen or so, and I thought rather highly of him. He was quiet, but not contemptuous, even when I followed him around.”

  “Jaim did that as well,” Jewel said. “Until he started to hate Jason.”

  “He was only here a couple weeks, but that was long enough for me to form a good impression. Next I heard was the news of the takeover, which surprised no one, since by then I’d comprehended how badly governed Ralanor Veleth had been. After that we heard about reforms. Real ones. The edict banning torture in capital crimes, and instituting the use of the truth-herb kinthus to get true testimony, was the first, and several centuries overdue. But he also granted civilians the right to civilian trials by peer, and the next thing we heard was that those warlord dukes were rising against him for cutting into their ancient rights.”

  “I vaguely remember those days,” Jewel said. “That’s when he turned so nasty.”

  “Next we heard he was preparing for war. And nothing has contradicted that since.” Maxl shook his head.

  I said, “All that will probably matter some day, but what I want to know right now is, what shall we do about Spaquel? I’ve sworn all kinds of revenge since that first week in Drath.”

  “The Duke of Osterog,” Maxl reminded me gently. “Remember he has inherited. Everyone else in court remembers. He sees to it. As for what to do? Nothing,” he finished with obvious regret.

  “What?”

  “The only good spy is a known spy. You are not going to tell any bad stories on Garian, either, only that you two did not suit, and we will continue to be unaware of Spaquel’s true loyalty to his Drath kin. Until I can find out more, we will be very, very nice to him.”

  “You will be,” Jewel huffed. “I am only nice to people I like, and I already hate him almost as much as I hate Jason.”

  Maxl studied her, then turned to me. “As well you are back. There’ve been changes in the music gallery, and Master Drestian has been fretting about making decisions without your approval.”

  “But that was why we hired him, because he’s the best we could find.”

  “You’ll have to deal with it all tomorrow.”

  “I will. How is Papa?”

  “As well as can be expected. He’s taken the notion that he’s going to die soon. He wants to make one last Progress and then abdicate. He keeps saying that we young people are playing dangerous games, too dangerous for an old man, but we must learn to control power before it controls us.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, clasping my hands tightly.

  “I wish I knew. No, I wish I knew who’s been saying things to upset him—or if, once again, he’s seeing more than I assume he is.” Maxl got to his feet. “Right now we have to get dressed and nip down to the dining room.”

  “Come, Jewel. I’ll find something of mine to fit you and we’ll have the seamstresses up here tomorrow.”

  “A wardrobe fit for a princess,” Maxl said, turning around.

  Jewel drew in a deep breath, her eyes wide with pleasure.

  “So she’s not going to be a mystery woman?”

  “No. She’s who she is—you met in Drath—because not only will it scatter the rumor about Jaim and you, it will be, oh, a message of rare ambivalence for our friends to the east.” He smiled, a gentle smile, but his eyes, which were usually so good humored, were now rather sardonic.

  “Ah.” Jewel laughed. “I’m either a gesture of friendship—a visiting Szinzar—or I’m a hostage. Right?”

  “That’s it.” Maxl’s smile deepened. “You do not object?”

  “Contrary.” She snickered. “I adore it. Hostage! For once I can at least pretend to have some importance to somebody. What a change!”

  Maxl laughed. “But you must be nice to the new Duke of Osterog, though in private we may continue to call him Spaquel. You must be ever so polite, and people will notice you being ever so polite, because a hostage is interesting, and interesting people are very popular.”

  Jewel sighed, but with an expression of delight. Maxl had managed to find exactly the right thing to say.

  Chapter Eight

  Though Jewel professed to have spent most of her life mewed up in a castle that was more of a garrison than a home, someone had seen to it that she was trained in courtly manners. I had only to explain some of our own usages and teach her the dances. Maxl served as a willing partner after she and I had traversed the steps enough to give her confidence.

  Debrec efficiently took care of Jewel’s wardrobe requirements, and found her a maidservant. Soon the clothes began to arrive: morning gowns, dinner gowns and a splendid ball dress. Every arrival delighted Jewel, but the one that rendered her speechless with ecstasy was the ball gown of lace over layers of gossamer, in white and gold and the same shade of violet-blue as her eyes.

  Meanwhile the busybodies had of course been busy.

  “Oh Princess Flian,” Gilian said the day after our arrival, dimpling up at me. “Was that…unfortunate-looking female really Princess Jewel of Szinzar? Of course we only had that one glimpse…most unfortunate, to put it delicately, but…why is she hiding?”

  “She’s in bed with a cold, Gilian. As soon as she recovers, I promise, you will be the first to receive an invitation to her welcoming ball.”

  “Oh, how diplomatic of your dear brother! But we all know he is so very, very kind to even the most… Well! I must see about ordering a gown suitable for so…unique a visitor.”

  And not long after, Corlis, one of Gilian’s friends, stopped me on my way to the music school, sidling looks right and left before she asked, “Why did that princess ride in dressed like a dairy maid?”

  Gilian should have had the wit to coach you to use another term if she doesn’t want me to know she put you up to this. Out loud I said, “A wager.”

  Corlis shrugged, her thin shoulders rising abruptly. And to my surprise stalked right on to the music school as if she’d meant to go there, instead of scurrying directly back to Gilian.

  Jewel’s first appearance was not at a ball, but
at an evening’s concert, impromptu, that I arranged so I could hear a new quartet our music master thought of hiring as teachers. Maxl, who usually ignored such things, quietly invited a few people who were polite, reliable, and had at least nominal interest in music.

  Jewel wore one of her new gowns. I thought her mood one of anticipation until I saw her draw a deep breath and grip Maxl’s arm before we entered the long drawing room. My observant brother had perceived what I had missed, that the courageous, outspoken Jewel was in fact afraid.

  But the guests’ calm politeness caused her to relax. I also observed that she had less interest in music than she had in people. I could not resent that as my own brother was the same.

  She enjoyed herself so much that she ventured out with me on a walk the next day. Before we’d reached the lakeside we were surrounded by a crowd. The questions soon began, but Maxl had told her, Least said, less to defend, and so she only laughed with a mixture of mirth and hauteur that most of the fellows, and several of the females, found fascinating. That and her being one of those sinister Velethi added to her air of mystery.

  On her fourth night, Maxl gave an informal dance. The fellows instantly took to her, for she was funny and pretty, and the new gown suited her lovely figure. I was relieved when my most determined suitors deserted me for her side; if they began fishing for information about her inheritance, she seemed capable of handling them better than I ever had.

  And she was happy.

  One night I was alone with Debrec, and while rain thrummed against the windows, I said, “May I ask a question?”

  She paused in the act of rolling ribbons into the neat spools that kept them wrinkle-free.

  “Your highness?”

  “What I mean is, you do not have to answer if you do not like.”

  She merely paused, folding her hands, her dark eyes patient.

  “What made you choose to be a lady’s maid?”

  “My mother served your grandmother, and her mother before that, your highness.”

  I was disappointed. “You never considered anything else?”

  A brief flicker of humor quirked the corners of her mouth. “Not to any advantage, your highness. I grew up knowing the work. I like living in a palace. Your family has been, if you’ll pardon my speaking freely, easy.”

  “I asked for free speaking.”

  “It can be asked, but the answers can be costly,” she answered in a low voice.

  So I had trespassed, then. “I spent the week after I, ah, left Drath as a lady’s maid. One of the oldest proverbs our tutor gave us when I was learning to write was The good king spends a year in his street-sweeper’s shoes. I’d always thought it hyperbole.”

  Debrec said nothing.

  “Now, I’ll never be a king, or even a queen, for my brother is healthy and I trust and hope he will live long and serenely, but now I see the wisdom in it. At least, it has made me reflect on things that hereto were such an unquestioned part of my life they were invisible.”

  Debrec bowed, looking somewhat nonplussed.

  I said, “You did not want to go to Drath and I heeded your wishes not. It was very bad after you left—I won’t go into it, but suffice it to say that my stay was nasty. I wish you’d felt the freedom to warn me.”

  Debrec looked from me to the window and then back. “Your pardon, highness, but in truth I knew only that I dislike travel and foreign places. The quarters are usually unpleasant, and there’s the home servants and their quirks to deal with.”

  “So you didn’t know that Garian is a thorough-going villain?”

  “One hears things,” she murmured. “But I fear my thoughts were confined to my own comfort, your highness.”

  “Thank you for talking to me, Debrec.”

  She curtseyed, picked up all my sleeve ribbons and took them out. She was going to roll them somewhere else.

  Had I made her job impossible? No, for she would pretend nothing had happened. And either she was as good a dissembler as the best courtier, or she was not, in fact, omniscient about politics and personalities.

  Two more days passed, with rain framing the grand ball we hosted. Jewel never got tired of wandering about the palace, pausing to observe the light through the high windows, or to exclaim over the carving and the shape of an old chair or table. She had learned, from somewhere, the names of the old styles, and she appreciated things that were so familiar to me I had ceased to notice them at all.

  I saw our palace anew through her eyes: pleasing, airy, and unable to be defended, for the castellations had been gradually removed over the last couple of centuries, walls knocked down to broaden the gardens, other walls pushed out to make for the winter conservatory and the summer terrace, windows widened to let in light and air. She adored the gardens, the drawing rooms and especially the ballroom. The only room she showed little interest in was the library. She liked people, not books—apparently their “barracks of a castle” in Lathandra possessed a good library, which was no credit in her eyes.

  Every morning she scrupulously came to sit and listen to me do my daily exercises on my harp and my lute, until I caught her fighting yawns. I chased her out and bade her go riding or walking.

  She also loved the food. Lygiera being a coast state, fish is often served, along with rice and the vegetables of the season. She spoke with loathing of dishes that mostly featured potato in limited guises. Army food, she declared.

  Maxl seemed to find her as diverting as she found life at court, for I’d not seen him at social events so frequently in the past year as I did in that week. The two bantered back and forth, and she often made my serious, overworked brother laugh. As Maxl had predicted, she was increasingly popular. Particularly with the men.

  And so came the night of her true introduction to Carnison’s court, at the grand ball my brother hosted. Because she was the guest, she walked in on his arm, and though they were behind Papa—who escorted me—they were the focus of the room.

  To my surprise, Gilian was one of the first to rush up to her, yellow ribbons fluttering. “Another handsome gown,” she fluted. Then turned to me, her diminutive lace-edged fan flickering in butterfly mode—meaning breathless delight. “Oh, Princess Flian, are we to have a leader in fashion at last?”

  Maxl smiled, as did most of the fellows, but almost all the women glanced covertly at me, because the insult was aimed my way.

  Jewel said, “Do you like it? I’m so glad. Princess Flian picked the design. I think she was quite right.”

  Gilian pursed her pretty bud lips in an “O” of surprise. “Why, what wonderful taste! I hope this is a promise for a splendid season this year…” Blond ringlets bouncing, she tiptoed between Jewel and Maxl, shook her ringlets back, and turned her smile up to Maxl. “Do promise us.” She wrinkled her little nose and pouted out her lower lip in the exact same way that had gotten all the adults laughing fondly and petting and cooing over her when we were all children.

  “But it takes more than one person to make a splendid season,” Maxl said, and signaled with a nod to the herald, who rapped his staff and announced the promenade. He added pleasantly, “I invite you to make your best effort as well.”

  Gilian curtseyed, Maxl bowed to Jewel—Papa bowed to me—and Gilian turned with a helpless flutter of her fan to Lord Yendrian, Maxl’s best friend.

  Of course he bowed. And, with her gentle guidance—I could see her small hand on his wrist—they took precedence of all the young heirs, behind the older courtiers.

  Jewel’s second dance was with Spaquel, the youngest duke. I saw her dash off with him, smiling and determinedly polite. At least he was a very good dancer, I thought. Then a hand touched my shoulder, and I looked up into familiar dark eyes, cleft chin, delightful lopsided smile.

  “Yendrian!”

  “Dance?” he asked.

  “Of course!”

  Yendrian had been my very first practice partner after I dared venture from the safety of practicing with Maxl, when we were in our middle teen
s. In fact, I strongly suspect Maxl had put Yendrian up to it—not that it would take much. He was always kind.

  “How are your horses?” I asked.

  Yendrian’s eyes crinkled. “Is that a real question or a court question?”

  I smothered a laugh. “I haven’t blundered out with that question for years.”

  “It might be awkward, but it’s true. At least, it seems to pop into my head more and more as the years swing by. But I don’t say it aloud. Except to Maxl. Or you.” He chuckled. “As for your question, get ready: there’s a lot of news.”

  Yendrian’s passion was horses and he raised the best. His family’s lands lying next to Papa’s summer home, which came to us through my grandmother, he’d been a part of our lives from early days, when he and Maxl used to build enormous mud cities on the side of the lake. Yendrian told a couple of anecdotes about his more eccentric animals as I watched idly; Jewel was smiling and I saw Maxl, observant as always, smiling to see her smile.

  After that dance, I found myself dropping into my usual habit, prowling the perimeter near the musicians to listen for new talents, and avoiding my fortune hunters—who all seemed to have shifted allegiance without a backward glance. So much for my vaunted attractions.

  Presently Jewel was surrounded by an eye-pleasing bouquet of lace-draped skirts. To my surprise, I recognized the diminutive figure in yellow next to her, walking arm and arm and pointing her fan hither and yon as they made a circuit of the room. Gilian’s friends followed, all talking and laughing, some with partners, others not. Jewel really was becoming popular. I have to admit that envy constricted my heart for a moment, flinging me back into childhood memory when I’d tried wrinkling my nose the way Gilian did, but the adults didn’t coo, they looked away, or I was asked briskly if I had my handkerchief.

  If Jewel becomes a fashion leader, then everyone will enjoy court life. This cheering thought made envy vanish like fog in the sun.

  “Come, Flian, you cannot escape.” The newcomer was tall, his smiling brown face framed by curling dark hair.