The Trouble With Kings

by Sherwood Smith

  I went out, met Jewel, and together we passed down the hall of guest rooms to the great suite across the front. In the first chamber, we found some of Siana’s staff busy arranging things under the direction of one of Eleandra’s servants. The princess’s steward escorted us to a pleasing little room where the princess sat quite alone.

  The door shut. “Chocolate?” Eleandra offered, pointing to a silver service.

  “Yes!” Jewel reached for the pot, pouring for three.

  I took a sip of mine, enjoying a taste I remembered from childhood, and thinking that it might be time for a winter fashion when we got back home. Jewel would be pleased.

  “How is Jason?” Eleandra asked.

  “Yum! Excellent chocolate.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jewel’s brows quirked, then she said with admirable diplomacy, “As for Jason, he is unchanged.”

  “So I surmised.” The princess sounded wry. She transferred her gaze to me. Those eyes were so beautiful in shape and coloring, and so lacking in expression. “How comes it you are with Jewel?”

  I had anticipated that question. “A long story,” I said, in my most bland voice, and sure enough, she did not request it. “The end of which is that Jewel and I became friends. The idea of traveling together appealed to us.”

  “The ring.” Eleandra glanced at Jewel’s hand and Jewel began to twist the ring off. “No.” Eleandra leaned forward. “Too many people might recognize it. Keep it for now. What I wish for is not the ring itself, but the message that must be with it, and I wish to hear it without other witnesses.” She finished on a sardonic note.

  I reported in as even as voice as I could, “He said, ‘Either she returns with it, or keeps it.’”

  “And?”

  “And that was all.”

  “He did not discuss his plans for afterward?”

  My insides lurched. The dilemma I’d hoped would neatly resolve itself was here at last.

  Jason had promised nine years ago to marry her and send an army to remove her sister. Those words had had no real meaning for me when I heard them. Now, having met Tamara, and having seen a portion of her prosperous, well-governed kingdom, and practiced with her guard, the impact of that dispassionate statement was like a dousing of cold water over my soul.

  “No.” Jewel ran her finger round the gilding on her cup. “That was what he said. Either you return with it, or keep it. Isn’t that right, Flian?”

  “Yes.” I watched her finger. Round and round and round.

  Eleandra tapped her nails on the table. I blinked. Then noted that Eleandra’s chocolate had not been drunk.

  Jason’s voice came to mind, when I was sitting beside the fire in Spaquel’s house. He was saying something about making the effort to find out what I knew.

  Kinthus.

  That was how most people obtained truth in criminal cases these days, for the herb, when drunk, removed whatever boundaries the mind made against talking freely. It was used not just in criminal cases but in royal courts, it seemed. Where lying and lawlessness were practiced with style.

  I set my cup down. Maybe I was wrong—but still, I’d lost the desire for chocolate.

  Jewel poured out a second cup. She did not seem the least bit sleepy; on the contrary, her eyes widened. “There isn’t much I can say for your court, but you people do know how to eat and drink well.” She chuckled.

  Eleandra smiled. “Tell me about Jason. Tell me everything.”

  “What is there to tell?” Jewel asked, making a large gesture. The sapphires on the pledge ring flashed. “I haven’t seen him but for the day before we left for Dantherei, since Jaim and I ran away years ago.”

  “Ah. One day?”

  Jewel wrinkled her nose. “Yes. His fools forced me back from Carnison, where I-I—” She blinked, her brow wrinkled, then she said, “Where I was almost coming to an understanding with Maxl. Dear Maxl. Lovely Maxl. He is everything Jason is not, but I believe he thinks I am just like my brother.”

  I tried not to gasp. She had never said anything about Maxl to me, though I had begun to suspect that she had some feeling for him. Was I in fact right about the kinthus?

  “Maxl is a dear,” Eleandra said in a smooth, soothing voice. “But we can discuss him later.” She turned her gaze my way. “Flian. You do not drink.”

  I almost said, You don’t either. The words formed themselves, but I bit my lip, hard, and said instead, “I do not care for chocolate.”

  “I shall order you some steeped leaf, then. Would you prefer it?”

  “If you are having the good Sartoran brew, I will be happy to join you.”

  Her perfect brows arched, but she was still smiling as she rose, rustled to the door, ordered Sartoran leaf from someone standing outside, sat down again, her attention on Jewel. “So you favor Maxl,” she said in that calm voice. “I like him well myself. Do you think you will make a match of it?”

  “I would like that more than anything I have ever wanted.” Jewel had plumped her chin on her hands, her wide, unblinking gaze on the pearls in Eleandra’s hair. “More than anything.” Her low voice carried all the fervency of vow.

  “And so he sent his sister along when you returned home? That sounds like a promising gesture.” Eleandra smiled invitingly.

  Jewel blinked, opened her mouth—

  I said, “Maxl often talks about his visit here—and about your kindness to him.”

  Eleandra’s gaze turned my way. I kept my face bland, from long practice. Jewel blinked, looking confused, then her expression smoothed into dreaminess.

  “Does he?” Her tone was kind, even coaxing. “Yet I have received no messages, much less embassies of suit, for at least a year, if not longer.”

  “Oh, I think he knows he hasn’t a hope of winning your hand.”

  “Mmmm.” The princess lifted her brows.

  “Maxl’s eyes are so beautiful.” Jewel sighed the words on an outward breath. Then chuckled. “How often I wanted to kiss them! Especially when he was being cold. But he has much to bear, warding bad news from the old king, who sits and talks endlessly about the old days to his few remaining cronies, and to those sycophants who will listen to anything if they scent a reward.”

  “But that encompasses any court, yes?” Eleandra said.

  “Not Ralanor Veleth. No court. Nothing but war games, and tribunals, and talk of land reform and raising money and then more war games. Horrid life, horridhorridhorrid.”

  “What can you tell me about Jason’s war plans?” Eleandra asked.

  “I don’t know any. Ran away with Jaim…so long ago…” Jewel’s eyes drifted down, then she jerked awake and smiled sweetly. “I am so tired. I want to take a nap.”

  “I will walk you back.” I rose and took her arm. A nod of the head to Eleandra. “If you will excuse us?”

  Jewel yawned.

  Eleandra said nothing, only nodded back, politeness for politeness, but I felt her gaze on us as we left.

  Jewel yawned several times as we proceeded back along the guest hall to her chamber. There we surprised Lita in the act of packing away her riding clothes from morning.

  Jewel dropped onto the bed and curled up, her cheek on her hand, her eyes closing.

  I beckoned to Lita and she followed me to my room. “The princess put kinthus in the chocolate. I am sure of it.”

  Lita’s gaze did not waver. “May I ask what she found out, your highness?”

  “She only found out Jewel’s impressions of our court. She wanted to know Jason’s plans if she returns with us to Ralanor Veleth. Not that either of us knows what those are.”

  Her expression did not change. “Thank you for telling me, your highness. I will inform Markham. If it is your wish, we will see to it that your food and drink henceforth pass through our hands.”

  “Please,” I said, and she departed.

  I sank down into a chair by the window, gazing out at the gray sheets of rain. Why not tell Eleandra everything I knew? I sensed that s
he was no ally of mine—but then neither was Jason.

  Wherein lay the blame? Those two appeared to share evil intent. I could only consider an invasion of Dantherei as an evil act. Tamara was not a tyrant and her people obviously did not suffer under her rule. Everywhere I looked I saw prosperity—fine roads where in Ralanor Veleth there had been mud, except on the military routes. Those were better roads than ours, even, though we had been working on that. The cities clean and busy with trade, the people moving about freely. How could Eleandra or Jason better that?

  Yet I was not without fault, for I’d blithely agreed to come here and perform this service, just so I could then go home. I could say that I’d merely agreed to court a princess, but the truth was that Jason had told me what had been agreed on their betrothal. I was, therefore, not innocent—only selfish and shortsighted. I had, in fact, consented to be drawn into politics, which was another word for betrayal, for war and strife and desolation—all to get an easy trip home.

  Now I had to face the truth. If Jason married this princess who talked of plans and not of love, and kept his promise to make war on Dantherei, lives would be lost and I would share the blame.

  What was it Papa had said to Maxl? You young people are playing dangerous games, too dangerous for an old man…

  I put my head down on my arms and wept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The two barons departed, and only Siana and her sister continued with us.

  On the surface our party was merry enough. I tried to do my part, smiling and pretending to be amused, but my inner turmoil continued. Jewel appeared to have woken without remembering the conversation, and I did not remind her. If she would not share her heart’s desire by choice, I would not betray the fact that she had under the influence of herbs.

  Eleandra did not seek any more interviews. During that long, distressing night at the baroness’s castle I debated whether or not to tell the princess what had happened to me—to illustrate exactly what it meant to be drawn unwillingly into intrigues that had nothing to do with ethics or anyone’s greater good. But even if I’d thought she might be sympathetic to my words, she gave me little chance for private discourse. With smiling, benign ease she avoided Jewel and me, except for the most general politenesses.

  On our last night, at an inn, she stopped me outside my room.

  “You knew about Jason’s plans,” she said.

  Ice burned along my nerves. I so badly wanted to lie, to say something to end the threat of war. Yet I knew if she wanted war, she would find it.

  And I also remembered that, whatever else I thought of his actions and motivations, Jason had never lied. “He told me what you promised one another on your betrothal nine years ago.”

  “But he said nothing about crossing the border to meet me?”

  “No. Just what Jewel told you. Either go to Lathandra with the ring, or stay and keep it.”

  She gave a soft laugh. “Quite a game of risk he plays.”

  I wanted to say, And you aren’t? But I kept my mouth shut.

  “Yet you two are still with me.” Her fan twitched like the tip of a cat’s tail. Not a gross movement, but tiny, no more than a shimmer of the bright-painted silk. “A risky game. Good night.” And she moved away.

  I stared after, wondering if I should tell her that we intended to keep going west and then south to my home after we saw her argan trees, then decided not to. She had not asked our plans—and didn’t need to know them.

  So I retired for the night.

  On the fourth day we descended into a gorgeous river valley—which meant we had ridden far more west than south. In the distance directly southward, sure enough, rose the northernmost of the great peaks that formed the border with Ralanor Veleth on the east and Lygiera on the west. The peaks that belonged to Drath.

  There, to everyone’s surprise, the princess bade her people raise the tent-pavilions.

  Those had been brought against our being trapped on our ride by a sudden squall, but everyone had assumed we would be staying in some dwelling, even if only a posting inn.

  As Siana stared about in unhidden astonishment, Eleandra said, “Is this not a profoundly beautiful place?”

  “It is.” Siana sounded more polite than convinced as she cast a puzzled, slightly weary look around.

  Despite the court ladies’ attitudes, the place really was beautiful. The campsite lay on raised ground above a fork in the river. All around us grew smooth, white-boled trees whose leaves were a brilliant variety of colors—crimson, amber, gold, pumpkin. And here and there the silver-leafed argan trees, rare in Lygiera’s coastal air. Before their leaves fell, they seemed to take on a metallic glow that made them look like enchanted things, especially in the pearlescent light of dawn and in the slanting golden glow of sunset.

  It was apparent that Eleandra had everything mapped out in her mind, for she did not trust her servants to the placement of the tents. She paced over the long emerald grasses, pointing here and there. It was not until the tents were actually set up that we saw a space near her own.

  Eleandra expected someone.

  Jason.

  Some went inside the tents to change out of riding clothes. I wandered out on a palisade overlooking a waterfall just above the river fork. The two sisters had forgotten that tent walls block sight, but not sound.

  “Who is coming?” That was Siana.

  Eneflar drawled, “Whoever it is must be male, which would explain why she sent Galaki off in a huff. I don’t know why you and I are here, unless those little princesses bore her as much as they do me. She’s only happy when surrounded by men.”

  “She’s not the only one.” For once Siana sounded heartfelt.

  “I wish she would tell me what she wants from me,” Eneflar went on. “Then I could say yes or no, and go home.”

  “Where are you, Siana?” Eleandra called from across the camp, and the sisters fell silent.

  As Siana emerged, I drifted around the back of their tent and made my way beyond wild berry shrubs so no one would see me and possibly be embarrassed. Though I suspected the only one who’d feel embarrassed would be I.

  The horses and servants were all housed in plainer tents beyond the trees, well out of our view, along the riverbank. I could see the horses, some drinking, others grazing the sweet grass. Once I glimpsed Markham moving purposefully about, and I felt the urge to ask him how Jason would know to meet us here at this isolated riverside.

  I squashed the impulse. Just because I didn’t know about them didn’t mean secret plans had not been made. So? I couldn’t stop either of those two, Jason or Eleandra. My part was done. I had delivered the message, and I waited only to go home.

  I turned away and wandered back to the tent that Jewel and I were to share. When I reached it, I found Jewel lying stretched out on one of the bedrolls. Lita was not there.

  Jewel turned her head and studied me. “I wish I understood you.”

  No smile accompanied that statement, only a wide, appraising blue gaze that again called her brothers to mind.

  I dropped down near her, murmuring, “I thought you did.”

  “I don’t think anyone does,” she retorted, her voice much softer. A hint of a smile warmed her eyes. “I will always be grateful to you for pretending nothing happened the other day—except whom were you going to tell? Maxl?”

  So I’d been wrong, then. She did remember. I looked away, feeling a strong surge of sympathy. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t talk about affairs of the heart. Not since his return from Dantherei, and he raved for weeks about Eleandra, and how he must have her. He didn’t talk to me so much as talk at me. Then, when the years went on and she sent all these diplomatic messages but never actually came to visit, or invited him to visit her, he stopped talking about her at all. At least to me. What went on between Maxl and Papa, I don’t know.”

  “So you two are as secretive as we Szinzars, for all your affect of sibling devotion.”<
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  “I do love my brother,” I said in a low whisper. “I do. But he is private. And I guess I am as well, though there has been nothing in my life so far that required any exertion to keep private. Most people think me as boring as my interests.”

  “It’s true,” she conceded. “Some do. The ones with no discernment.” She sighed, her eyes closing. “I love Maxl. I think I love Maxl. I am in lust with Maxl. Who isn’t? He’s handsome, smart and charming.”

  “Smart I believe, charming I don’t know about—but handsome?” I smothered a laugh. “We’re plain people, we Elandersis.”

  “Well, maybe attractive is the better term. It’s his manner, the way he smiles with his eyes before his mouth does, the slight tip of his head when he’s trying not to laugh. The way he’ll rub at that cornsilk hair and mess it up when he’s thinking.” She paused, her expressive brow constricting. “Oh, I know some of his friends are better looking, like Yendrian. In fact I’ve met plenty of men who are handsomer, smarter, and a lot more charming. But Maxl is also in a position of power. Is it actually from that my supposed love stems? I can’t say. I’ve never been in love before. I hope it’s not the motivating inspiration, but I think he believes it is. I resisted it and resisted it, but now I wonder about myself.”

  “You are too hard on yourself.”

  “No one is hard on himself, or herself. Except maybe you two Elandersis. The problem is that you and your brother are good persons. Maxl has learned to live with power, but he very plainly regards it as his duty. Left to himself, he would sit in his lair among those old dusty books and that shabby furniture and read about history. And you have even less ambition than he does. We Szinzars aren’t good. We all like power, and we’re adept at finding ways to get it.”

  I shook my head. “Wasn’t it you who said it’s impossible to be all evil? I don’t think it’s possible to be all good either. We’re a mix.”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m lying here trying to figure out. I feel very sure that Eleandra’s motivation for her supposed love for Jason is his position of power. That’s why she’s here, isn’t she? I mean, even I know that the Drath mountains are south of us now, and I remember what he said about going to Drath. The thing is, he didn’t actually say he was going to come over and conquer Dantherei, did he?”