The Trouble With Kings

by Sherwood Smith

  “More examples of love thwarted by political expectation,” I said.

  “What I was thinking.” Jewel tipped her head. “But you did make friends with Ersin. You will write to him, I trust?”

  And when I made a gesture of repudiation, Maxl said, “Flian doesn’t write letters. As I can attest, waiting and waiting to hear all last summer.” He grinned at me.

  Jewel looked from one of us to the other, and I said hastily, “I had a very bad experience once. When I was a young teen. And someone—she’s married now and living happily in the south—entrusted me with a secret. But my letter was intercepted. And the contents spread all over court.”

  Jewel looked askance. “I can imagine by whom, but how could you be so clumsy? You have a castle full of servants surely you can trust.”

  “I didn’t know how to arrange a private correspondence.” I flung out my hands. “It never would have occurred to Papa to tell me, and, well. I don’t write letters. But after he safely finds his princess, perhaps I’ll go visit Ersin. That would be fun—and diplomatic as can be.”

  I glanced at Maxl, and perceived that his mood had changed. He wanted to be alone. Moments before he had been restless, brooding. Now his brow was furrowed with intent as he impatiently tossed the letter opener onto the desk. “I think we will liven court a little. Let’s give a masquerade ball, shall we?”

  “We?” I asked.

  “Yes. You and I.” He spoke with decision. “Next month. Dreariest part of winter. People will have something to look forward to. So order your very finest gown. Begin selecting your music now.” His voice turned ironic. “I will see to the dangerous and terrible words of invitation.”

  I laughed. “Very well—and I wish you all the enjoyment of your having to write all those dangerous invitations over and over. But then you’ve got those four wheel-greasers with the good handwriting, eh? Good night.”

  Jewel accompanied me to my room, and cast herself on my couch, her expensive yellows skirts lustrous in the firelight. “I thought I would scream! He is so unhappy! Yet he does nothing while that horrid little monster ties her ribbons of spite and ambition around him.”

  “Gilian.” I made a sour face. “I’ll tell you this: if he marries her, I will leave Carnison.”

  “She would like nothing better,” Jewel stated. “She hates it when you speak once and dissolve a nasty moment, like you did tonight. She hates it and I love watching you do it.”

  “It works only because she respects rank. And I’m now the heir.”

  Jewel nodded, a glitter of unshed tears along her eyelids. “You also dissolved my own nasty moment.”

  I could not help a laugh. “It would have been funny. But wicked, too.”

  “Am I wicked?” Jewel asked, pressing her fingers against her brow. “I was so proud of deflecting the bovine comment—and I got them kissing hands—but then I got angry. I’m never sensible when I’m angry. I know it, I scold myself to remember.” She sniffed. “I try to be so good, but I wasn’t brought up good, so what terrible things might I do, if I get power? Maxl is right to avoid me. You saw he didn’t dance with me again. I know it’s because of that disastrous moo that I didn’t make, but everyone heard it anyway, in their minds.”

  I shook my head, thinking, he doesn’t trust himself. The subject being Maxl, one could not separate the man from the king. “I’m hoping Maxl can face down these Zarda alliances with his patience. They aren’t—can’t be—natural alliances. The Zardas lead through fear. And I suspect Lord Zarda’s current alliance is also based on promises he’s making among his cronies if she comes to power.”

  Jewel bit her lip. “But you’re suggesting it’s all political. It isn’t. I think she wants him.” She shivered. “How could he possibly want her?”

  “He doesn’t. She doesn’t see his distaste, but I do, even though he says nothing to me whatsoever.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “We still don’t talk about private matters.”

  “So it’s not only me you hold at a distance.” Her brows puckered, and again she looked hurt.

  “Jewel, I don’t talk because there’s nothing to talk about.”

  “I wish I knew why. You said once that everyone courts you only for your money, but that is not true of Althan. And one or two others.”

  “Althan is good and kind and funny, and we agreed there would never be a courtship years ago. And we have exactly nothing in common—he loathes music. I get bored hearing about horse races.”

  “All right, that’s Althan. But you turn them all away, with the same absent air, only you’re not content to be alone, I can feel it.” She grinned, and got up to pace restlessly around the floor. “I apologize if I trespass some boundary that is invisible to me. I can’t hide anything I think! But I do wish I could see you happy.”

  “And I wish the same for you.”

  She clapped her hands to her arms and hugged them, her head bowed. “I know what I want.” She stared down into the fire. “But what I want doesn’t seem to want me. Or wants me, but not as—”

  Not as queen?

  She flounced onto the sofa again. “So what you think is, Maxl might give in and marry Gilian because if she and her father are powerful enough to make a faction that can stand against him, he cannot afford to have them as enemies?”

  “That’s the only reasoning that makes sense.”

  Jewel put her chin on her hands. “I would never dare to speak to him about my own feelings, lest he think me another Gilian.”

  “Oh, he could never think that.”

  “Oh, couldn’t he,” she retorted. “I don’t interfere with the coast factions or the guild problems or any of the other monsters.” She faced me, her wide eyes reflecting the fire, the sheen of tears that had not fallen gleaming. “I could even flirt with the new Lord Dascalon, and Jantian Weth, and the north coast faction, and try to find out their secrets. But—strange as it may seem—I do have a sense of honor. I stay strictly with the social round. And if that cannot be recognized for what it is—if I am adjudged superficial because of it—”

  “True.” I rubbed my aching temples. “I tell you what, Jewel. If he does marry her, I will buy a house on the sea and begin a music school, and if you like you can come live with me there.”

  The tears fell. “I see what you’re doing. Whatever happens, you are offering me a home.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I deserved it,” she whispered, and went out, and closed the door.

  I stared into the fire, but then I felt that pull again, and I knew if I made that little bit of effort I would see Jason’s face among the flames.

  Trespass. Unwanted trespass.

  I doused the lights and turned my back on the fire so I couldn’t see anything at all.

  The next morning, I went to the music school for my weekly visit. As I rounded the corner I heard a fine tenor voice soaring up the scales in a warm up. Standing in one of the window alcoves to listen was a familiar figure: Corlis Medzar. I looked around quickly. No Gilian.

  To my surprise, Corlis stepped toward me.

  “Princess Flian,” she said, her nose elevated.

  I bowed. What could she possibly want here? Or to be more precise, what could benefit Gilian to send her here?

  She sidled glances both ways, then said something in a quick, low voice, too quick and too low for me to hear. All I made out was Mistress Olith.

  “You wish to see the mistress? For what? To hire the singers? Or do you have a candidate to be interviewed for the school?”

  Her fingers played with her fan, then up went the nose. “Yes.”

  “Well, all you need is to ask. You don’t need me.”

  I started to pass, then she whirled about. “It’s myself.”

  I stopped, staring.

  Her thin cheeks flushed, and the nose went higher than ever. When her expression was human—even embarrassed—instead of supercilious, she was rather pretty. Prettier, in fact, than Gilian, despite
the latter’s fondness for her own babyish contours.

  “I know what you think of my singing. I saw you at his grace’s reading, months ago—you and that Princess Jewel. So very refined!” She drawled the last word in an angry mockery.

  I turned away.

  “Wait. No, I apologize, I take it back. I-I got angry, because—look. I know I don’t sing well. That governess we had, she was a terrible teacher. I know I can sing. I know it. But how to learn to do it right?”

  I faced her, wondering what sort of plot lay behind this amazing conversation. “You can hire anyone to teach you.”

  Corlis flushed. “No I can’t. Mama says every coin goes to maintaining us here, and until one of us marries appropriately, there is not a tinklet to spare.”

  I was about to say that a tinklet—the slang for a copperpiece—would not buy her much beyond a pastry tart, but then I looked at those dark eyes, and I did not see derision or superiority or anything except stark fear.

  “You’re serious.” The words slipped out before I could think.

  Again she flushed, and her lips soured. “You think you are the only one who loves music? Sitting up there in your royal rooms with harp masters whenever you want to whistle one up?” Her thin hands wrung on her fan.

  “No. But I play for my own pleasure. It’s against custom to perform, unfortunately.”

  “I can tell you why,” Corlis said. “It’s because your great-great grandmother had no talent whatsoever, and so when she took the throne, she declared that it was bad form for aristocrats to entertain one another at court. She brought in master players and singers. All we could do was dance. She almost ruined that, too, because she was so bad at it, but she knew no one would come to court if dancing was forbidden. It’s in the records if you don’t believe me. Your own archive—right here in the palace.”

  “No, I believe you. My grandmother told me what happened, though not the reasons. I’ve never known how to change it.”

  “Because you already have everything you want.”

  “So it appears. But to keep coming back to me is to go round in circles. What exactly do you want? Lessons?”

  “Yes. No. If Mama knew, she’d—” She gripped her fan again. “I stand out here and listen sometimes, but I can’t always hear the mistress. And singing in my head doesn’t really teach me much. If I could stand at the back of the classes. Pretend I was there to listen—” She gestured in the air, and dropped her hands.

  “Come,” I said.

  She followed me inside Mistress Olith’s office. We found the tall, white-haired woman busy with one of the younger teachers, who was dismissed with a nod.

  “Your highness? Your ladyship?” The mistress curtseyed.

  “I came to discuss music for a masquerade ball my brother wants to host next month,” I said. “And I want to arrange lessons with the musician the Weths brought—or maybe we can hire her for as long as she is willing. I’ll get that set up.”

  Mistress Olith looked pleased. “That would be excellent for us.”

  “I would also like to request, if I may, that Lady Corlis be permitted to attend the singing classes. She thinks of hosting a school on the coast, you see.” To my considerable surprise the lie came to my lips as easily as, well, any of Eleandra’s court finesses.

  Corlis’s cheeks burned, but the tension in her eyes and lips eased to relief.

  “Ah.” The mistress glanced from one of us to the other, then back again. To Corlis: “If you will follow me, your ladyship, I will introduce you to Master Balan, who can outline the schedule, and what we teach…”

  While they were busy, I slipped out again, to spare Corlis and me any more awkwardness.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The sky was clear overhead on the day of Maxl’s masquerade ball, the air sharp and cold as I glided along on the ice. Laughter and whoops etched themselves in frosty clouds. Today’s impromptu skating party had been Jewel’s idea—and it was open to the whole court, whatever age. No exclusive party. I was there representing Maxl, who was away from Carnison, as he had been for a week.

  Younger brothers and sisters not yet officially presented were busy on the frozen pond, chasing, whirling, playing daisy chain. The rest of us skated about, most in couples, some swooping and gliding round the others with athletic grace.

  I proceeded slowly. The garden lay under its wintry blanket of white, its contours smoothed almost into unrecognizability.

  In the center of an admiring group, mostly of men, Jewel whirled about, one foot lifted with grace, an arm arced. She’d told me she had little else to do during those long winters in the mountains with Jaim. Vrozta and some of the others had made frequent parties up to one of the frozen lakes to skate and sled race with the mountain-village Drathians, who had no idea who they were.

  Several people looked on in envy. Gilian Zarda sat at the side with two friends, Elta at her post on one side and Harlis Spaquel, the duke’s cousin, on the other. Gilian’s hands were hidden in a blue-white yeath-fur muff, her blond curls artfully arranged to escape her bonnet in ringlets.

  Gilian pursed up her little mouth as she glared at Jewel skating so gracefully, making it look effortless.

  “You aren’t skating, child?” Lord Zarda addressed Gilian as he walked by, arm in arm with one of the coast dukes. Though he was a head and shoulders shorter than his companion, his manner, as always, caused him to dominate.

  “Alas, Papa. This sport is not designed for those cursed with refined tastes.”

  Two or three people nearby faltered. Unhearing, or unheeding, Jewel and those surrounding her skated on, swirling and swooping. I pushed grimly on, not wanting to hear whatever the Zardas were saying to one another behind me.

  Althan Rescadzi zoomed close, turned, his blades sending up ice shards as he came to an expert stop at my side. His nose was red, his curling dark hair dotted with ice-frost. “Flian.” He grinned, looking around to make certain we were not overhead, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “What’d you do to my cousin?”

  Corlis and Riana Dascalon skated with several of the coastal fellows on the other side of the pond. Her back was firmly turned Gilian’s way.

  “Me?” I asked. “I haven’t done anything to Corlis.”

  Althan shook his head. “She’s changed of late. Couldn’t account for it. Thought she had a hankering for someone or other, the way she’s begun standing up to my monster of an aunt in favor of Everna and Jantian.”

  I picked out Jantian Weth’s thin form amid the cluster.

  “They want to marry, is that it?”

  He snorted. “They’ve wanted to marry since they were sprats. He was supposed to forget her and bring back a rich Sartoran bride, but instead he wisely brought back all the very latest fashions.”

  “Ah.” I laughed, understanding now. The Weths, despite their lack of fortune and their being a cadet branch, always had to be in fashion. My grandmother had once told me in her day they’d been exactly the same.

  “And there is no chance of a fortune unless Ghan Harbor gets widened—and even then who’s to say Baron Weth will hold Ghandri-on-Sea?”

  One of the northern harbors was to be widened for great trade-ships. The debate was over who would be appointed to govern. Lord Zarda was campaigning to make certain that would be he or one of his allies.

  “So what did you do to Corlis? It can’t be Everna’s return to court that makes her so different.”

  “It has nothing to do with me,” I said.

  Althan’s bushy brows went up. “Something does. When Babyboots made one of her customary charming remarks about you at the Zarda card party last night, Corlis gave her a flat denial. It was worth being in that stuffy room yawning over cards all night, just to see Gilian jump like she’d been stung by a wasp.”

  I snickered. “My compliments to Corlis. But in truth, there’s nothing.”

  “There is something, and what’s more, you’re protecting her,” Althan contradicted, grinning. “You getting
into intrigue at last?”

  “No.” I smiled. “That’s why I know nothing.”

  Althan laughed. “Well, continue doing nothing, and see if you can win the monster-mother over to the Weths. Jantian’s as good a fellow as he ever was, and a staunch supporter of your brother, whatever he decides in the harbor matter. But old Auntie Medzar is seeking money first and power last, and won’t let Everna out of her sight until Jentian is married to someone else.”

  He saluted and with a few strong running steps whooshed along the frozen stream out of sight beyond a clump of winter-bare yew. I followed more slowly, soon passing by Gilian and her entourage again.

  “Oh, do be careful, Flian,” Gilian called, waving with one hand crimped in its tight mitten. “You look so…so unsteady.”

  “As unsteady as I feel,” I replied cheerily. “Well, I’ll not spoil your view. See you tonight at the masquerade.”

  “If your brother returns.” She rose and shook out her skirts. Elta half-rose, but Gilian patted her hand, and she sat down again. Elta and Harlis watched Gilian follow me.

  “Oh, he’ll be back. After all, this masquerade was really his own idea.”

  She walked on the side of the stream, kicking her way through the snow as I skated. We were, for once, eye to eye. It was strange looking straight into her face—and from the way she looked back, she appeared to find it strange as well.

  “I don’t suppose you know where he went.” She dimpled at me. “Oh, I’m sure it’s great state business. But—” She made one of her dainty little gestures. “Business waits here on his return.”

  “Border inspection, he said.”

  “That couldn’t wait?”

  Did she actually think I was stupid enough to give her a real answer?

  She turned her attention back toward the iced-over stream. “They all seem to like Princess Jewel’s charming idea.” She waved at the stream and the pond beyond.

  “It was a good idea, wasn’t it?”

  “If you like this sort of thing. So how much longer are we to be delighted with this visitor from Ralanor Veleth? Many wonder if your brother is contemplating some sort of…alliance with that great warlike kingdom,” she went on. “It is not a comforting prospect.”