The Trouble With Kings

by Sherwood Smith

  “Althan,” I exclaimed. Another of Maxl’s old friends.

  He grinned. “If I promise not to propose to you, will you dance with me?”

  I laughed. “You, at least, have not mentioned my fortune once since we were sixteen.”

  “But my mother still does.” He held out his hand. “Will you hurry up and spend it?”

  We danced, our conversation mostly jokes, but he did ask an oblique question or two about Jewel, to which I firmly replied, “You must ask her.” I did not blame him. His mother was notorious for seeking ways to expand the Rescadzi fortune.

  And so the evening wore on, and I was in the balcony near the musicians, dreaming a new melodic line that I’d like to try weaving in with the old familiar tunes, when a rustle and a fan-snap broke my reverie. I looked up and there was Jewel.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked, as no one was near.

  Her blue eyes widened, reflecting the light of the chandeliers. “Oh. I cannot tell you how much. But I have some questions. First, is it so terrible to be fat, and second, am I fat?”

  “Being fat is terrible only if whoever leads fashion isn’t fat. Same as being thin. Look at the tapestries down the great hall, and you can tell something about who led style. Right now, well, we don’t have any real lead in style, but there are those who want to lead…”

  “You’re not saying her name, but I think I know who you mean.” Jewel frowned, not in anger, but in concentration. “I’m not familiar with females. How they think. How they act among themselves. My maid at home was a good person and she told me a lot of things, but I was young and stupid and dismissed most of what she said because she was only a maid. Then there are Jaim’s girls, but all they talk about is fighting and riding, and though they do talk about flirting, well, I always stayed away. Thinking of my rank. Now I see I was a fool…” She fought a yawn. “I must get used to these late evenings! I’ve never had late evenings before. Anyway, Gilian came to me, and it was like having thousands of fragrant flowers dropped on me, her compliments. At first I couldn’t see why you don’t like her—I can tell, you don’t—but after a time, oh, all those comments about how she regretted how tiny and fragile she is, how small and dainty, how difficult it is to be so very, very delicate, yet always in contrast to you, or the others, always women, never the men, though they are much bigger and louder, if not more clumsy. Did you know you are clumsy?”

  I spread my hands. “Clumsy and boring and awkward and gangling. I’ve heard it all my life. So maybe it’s true. She certainly thinks it is.”

  “Maybe—from a teeny-tiny perspective. Except you aren’t clumsy. But you are tall and quiet, and probably don’t lead. Am I right?”

  “You are.”

  She nodded. “I think I see. So when she says that our court needs fashion and style, it’s not just aimed at you for not leading, she’s saying she should lead. Yes?”

  “You have to realize that Maxl can choose his wife, unlike most princes. We are at peace and Papa promised us from very early on.”

  She observed Maxl in the middle of the pale peach marble ballroom floor, dancing with Corlis. “But he’ll do his duty. Won’t he.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. We don’t talk about such things, truth to tell.”

  Jewel put her elbow on the carved balcony rail and her chin in her hand. “Truth—and lies. Gilian didn’t lie. She really is tiny. Those little eyes, but set well apart in her face. Tiny nose. Tiny bud of a mouth. Tiny ears, tiny feet, tiny hands, smallest waist in the room—and do you know she actually pointed that out, without saying it directly? Does it matter, how small a waist is? Jaim never talked about waists, but what sticks out, when he commented on girls’ figures.” She grinned.

  “I think, from what I’ve read, that what girls like in other girls is not always what the men like, questions of attraction aside.”

  Jewel snapped her fan open. “So under all those flowers of compliments, the truth is that she wants to be queen, is that it?”

  I spread my hands.

  “My very dear Princess.”

  We whirled around—both being princesses—to find Ignaz Spaquel, Duke of Osterog, right behind us, having come up as silently as a cat.

  Jewel sent me a look behind her fan—how much had he heard?—before he bowed elaborately.

  “I was delighted to discover that our charming visitor has a penchant for the art of the spoken word.” He smiled and bowed again, but the corners of his mouth, the faint quirk under his long-lashed eyes, reminded me of Garian. I stiffened. Yes, he really was like Garian, the words so friendly, the tone so smug, the attitude of the body watchful and wary.

  I turned to Jewel, trying to regain my inner balance. “You like poetry?”

  She made a helpless little gesture. She’d uttered polite nothings while dancing, and now it seemed he was taking them seriously.

  “I am come—I trust I do not intrude?—to invite you personally to our poetry reading the morning after tomorrow.”

  How could she gracefully refuse so direct an invitation? Some had the wit and skill, but Jewel was far too new to courtly talk, and so she said in a faint, rather wistful voice, “I would be delighted.”

  Spaquel’s group of pretentious poets was long familiar to me, and I’d avoided them for years, and he knew it, but now he turned to me. “Surely, your highness, if your friend graces our gathering, you would not deny us a single visit? Your discerning musical ear—our efforts to please—I trust, I do trust, you will be surprised.”

  He smiled.

  I felt uneasy, then, mentally shook myself. This was Garian’s cousin, not Garian, and though they had a few traits in common, Spaquel’s smarmy flattery was hardly the same as slapping someone and laughing when she trips over a hassock and falls on her face.

  And if I refused so direct an invitation, I would be rude. “Thank you for the compliment. And the invitation.”

  He bowed, Jewel curtseyed, I curtseyed.

  He sauntered away and Jewel let out her breath. “Poetry,” she muttered. “Well, how bad can it be?”

  Chapter Nine

  That morning Jewel came to my room. “What shall I expect?”

  Pretension. But it did not seem right to say that. “I don’t like what they do with words,” I said slowly. “And even if I did, the way they read…” I shook my head. “Perhaps they are wonderful, perhaps there is a style in these things. But they sound like courtiers—the words saying one thing, the way they watch each other, and smirk—the meaning and the manner don’t match up. I guess I trust music more. Words seem like ice in the springtime, leaving one uncertain where one can step.”

  Jewel gave me that narrow, assessing look, chin in hand. “That’s it,” she exclaimed. “I have it at last. You’re so polite. So shuttered, you and your brother. I still don’t know where his true self is, but yours is in your music. I saw you smile the other day when I found you playing that harp. A real smile. In fact, you tell your emotions through your music.”

  “I do?”

  “Of course. Because you’re inside it, in effect.” She rose and shook out her skirts. “Most don’t listen, so they don’t hear it. It’s time to go.”

  I made a sour face as I reached for my cup.

  She crossed her arms, head tipped. “Oh, Flian, surely a morning of silly poems cannot be as bad as a morning spent in the company of Garian and Jason!”

  “True! It’s that I had a terrible thought. You’re in a fair way to becoming a fashion, and if you make those readings fashionable, Spaquel will hold them even more frequently.”

  Jewel laughed. “He does have pretty eyes!” Her grin was mischievous. “If he’s the worst thing I’ll find here, I could stay forever. I am so glad we’ve heard nothing from the two villains.”

  “Jaim and Jason?”

  “No!” Her brows drew together. “Jason and Garian. I confess I’m relieved I haven’t heard from Jaim, much as I adore him. I’m afraid he wouldn’t want me to stay for some pig-headed rea
son.”

  “He’d better not show up.” I glared at the window. “Two abductions is enough. Even if one was a rescue.”

  Jewel tapped her fingers on the side of her cup. “You know, an idea occurs. Why should we wait for him? Or any of them? Why shouldn’t we plan an abduction?”

  I choked on a sip of steeped leaf.

  She laughed. “Yes. We’ll abduct Garian. Or Jason.”

  “And—?”

  “And dump them into the ocean. Nobody would ever pay a ransom for them.”

  “Too much work,” I said. “And no reward.”

  She waved her hands. “You’re lazy. I shall have to consider this plan.”

  I set down my cup and rose, shaking out the delicate skirts of my new walking dress. “Oh, let’s go and get this thing over.”

  “He said last night that the reading will be held in the gazebo in the rose garden since the weather is so fine. Where were you, by the bye?”

  “Listening to the children’s choir—” I was going to explain, saw her eying my gown rather than listening to my words, and suppressed a smile.

  She said, “Oh, that is lovely. How I wish I could wear that shade!”

  “It’s one of the few that don’t make me look as washed out as shorn wool.” I smoothed the fine layers of midnight blue. An elaborate lace collar was the only added color. On impulse, to bolster my spirits for the boredom ahead, I’d also put on a diamond-and-sapphire necklace that Maxl had given me when I first appeared at court, and added diamond drops to my ears.

  I glanced out the window. “Rain clouds! Perhaps we are saved.”

  “They’re too far away. No rain before afternoon. You like my new walking gown? The rose garden is a perfect setting for it to be seen, if only by Spaquel.” Jewel’s gown was dusky rose with cream lace and gold embroidery. The sleeve ribbons were gold and rose as well. Obviously this was her favorite color—I had seen at least two rose gowns so far.

  On our way out she brandished a rolled piece of paper. “Besides, I went to all the trouble of writing my very first poem, and I don’t want to waste the chance of making you laugh. But I wonder if I ought to turn it into a song.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “I really have considered flirting with dear Spaquel, if only to get him to let some of his secrets slip.”

  I laughed. “Mangle words all you like, but if you mangle music then I run away.”

  We were still joking when we crossed the little bridge to the rose garden, which was some distance from the palace. Spaquel was inordinately fond of “proper settings” for those readings, but most of them had been in the castle hitherto.

  We entered the gazebo and found three older court ladies who had long claimed to be noble poets, one of Gilian Zarda’s friends, and old Count Luestor, who looked like an tall, thin owl. Spaquel presided. As soon as he saw us, he swept forward, giving us an unctuous smile as he bowed most elaborately.

  “Your highnesses,” he drawled. And again there was something in his manner, a sense of hidden irony, of secret knowledge, that contradicted his gracious tone and low bow. The tone was too gracious, the bow too low.

  I was being mocked, yet there was nothing I could think of to say except a bland politeness. As usual. “I have come to hear my friend’s essay into poesy, your grace. And to delight in the works of everyone present.”

  They bowed. I bowed.

  Spaquel peered out. “I believe we will begin. Latecomers will have to miss the pleasures in store. Lady Belissa?”

  Lady Belissa rose with deliberate dignity and fussed with her paper, which a scribe had written out in exquisite handwriting for her. When she’d given us each a stern look to make certain we were attentive, her ladyship sonorously intoned, with quivering rhyme at the end of each line, a twenty-two-verse lament to her lapdog—which (it was rumored) had been overfed with candies by her ladyship, poor little creature.

  My jaws creaked as I gritted my teeth against a yawn. Jewel, who’d stayed up even later than I had the night before, obviously fought yawn after yawn; the sheen of tears in her eyes made Lady Belissa smirk and flutter.

  After polite clapping, Count Luestor rose, his knees popping, and muttered his way through something totally unintelligible.

  Third was Corlis Medzar, one of Gillian’s friends. She batted her eyelashes at Spaquel, lifted her fine nose, and launched into a loud, dramatic ballad dedicated to a lover. Judging from the astonishing list of his superlative qualities, a very imaginary lover. It was difficult to tell if she actually had a good singing voice because she added so many flourishes and trills that she sounded like a bag of demented parakeets.

  Next was Spaquel’s turn. He drew himself up. Jewel leaned forward, her gaze limpid.

  Spaquel warbled:

  I rise at dawn to watch the sun

  Don the colors of the day.

  Its sumptuous plumage melting into brightness…

  I sigh in melancholy hope

  That the colors will shine,

  Reflected in her eyes,

  Already the color of the sky,

  Gazing humbly otherwhere

  Like doves cooing on a rooftop

  And flying, flocking to the sun

  Like arrows

  They rise to my face.

  Oh yes! Oh yes! My heart cries

  As dawn fills the skies of my mind.

  Jewel fluttered her eyelashes at that reference to sky-colored eyes and simpered at Spaquel. He smirked as the polite applause ushered him back to his seat. Then he looked out of the gazebo. I wondered who else he could be expecting. Anyone wise had surely taken a detour and was on the other side of the gardens. I longed to be back inside and practicing my harp again. After my month away, my fingers had lost some of their flexibility, and I had two or three new songs forming in my head.

  The second of the older ladies rose to sing a love song. The melody was a familiar one to which she’d adapted a popular witty, dashing old poem, and she’d gotten the cadence and the rhymes to fit. Jewel and I were enthusiastic in our clapping this time. But the third countess made up for the lapse into talent by unloading a forty-eight-verse epic dedicated to the summer song of her dove.

  Then it was Jewel’s turn.

  Her voice sweetly intoned:

  Elegant are the peacocks

  In plumage glitt’ry and bright

  Loudly the bantams strut about

  Displaying raffish might.

  Oh, the peacocks’ display

  The bantams gray

  The sight, I say,

  Display and gray,

  A glorious bold parade

  But making up this admirous flock

  Are lesser and greater kind.

  Some peacocks then, some plainly stout

  Or plumed, mismatched dull you’ll find

  Oh, lovely as snow

  Or distressingly low

  Their numbers grow

  The snow, the low,

  All make a sumptuous show.

  And with a melting glance Spaquel’s way, she launched into her third verse:

  The bantams too own fine and flat—

  That’s as far as she got, because the four arched doorways went dark.

  Silent men in Maxl’s new blue battle tunics blocked the exits, swords drawn. But I had never seen any of these fellows before and they did not act like our guards, unobtrusive and distant.

  “No one move,” said one of them. His gaze swept us all, stopping when it reached Jewel. He nodded and two more came in, passing their fellows in silence, and moved to her side.

  “Stop it,” Jewel exclaimed. And then, in utter disgust, “Oh, I don’t believe it. I don’t!”

  The leader ignored her, frowning at each of the young women, his gaze turning my way—

  And Spaquel gasped, waving a hand at me as though shooing away insects. “Oh, not her highness! Princess Flian, you must flee at once!”

  I’d already gotten to my feet, but there was nowhere to go. The leader stared at me, motioning to two huge
fellows. “That’s t’other one, then. Right.”

  Moments later a thin dagger flashed near my neck. Over it I met Lady Belissa’s terrified gaze. The countess with the dove had fainted. Poor old Count Luestor was wrestling with the dress rapier at his side, but the two strong young men had pulled me—struggling mightily—from the gazebo before he managed to get it free of its scabbard.

  Down one of the paths to the shrubbery-hidden stream. I managed one glimpse of Jewel, who wept in sheer rage as she stalked between two big fellows in ill-fitting blue tunics.

  I resisted as best I could, but it made absolutely no difference. I berated myself for refusing Maxl’s offers to share his lessons in sword fighting because it cut into my music time.

  All right then, if you can’t fight, scream. I drew in my breath but one of the fellows in the blue tunics said in an embarrassed half-command, half-apology, “If you yell, we have to gag you.”

  I still couldn’t believe it was really happening. The familiar garden, the nodding roses, the smell of jasmine, made the crunching martial footsteps, the subdued clink of chain mail absurd.

  My thoughts raced around inside my head like frightened mice, squeaking: Not again! Not again! Not again!

  And then we stopped.

  Jewel gasped.

  There, leaning against an oak tree, sword point resting on the ground, was Jason Szinzar.

  Chapter Ten

  “Clean job, boys,” he said to the fellows in blue. And to Jewel, “It’s been a long time, little sister.”

  Jewel stomped around in a circle. “How dare you! Oh, how I loathe you! Curse you! Norsunder take you!”

  Several of the guards looked away, their expressions wooden. The biggest one blushed to the tips of his ears as he caught hold of Jewel again.

  Jason gave her one sardonic glance, then saluted me with his sword. “We meet again.” Was he trying not to laugh?

  Since I couldn’t think of an insult vast enough to express my irritation, I glared.

  “You notice,” Jewel snarled over her shoulder to me, while doing her best to wrench free, “the rotten coward slunk about here and didn’t even have to listen to the poems.”