Meanwhile, the kitchen (where my little pot boy had been promoted to second cook's apprentice and bathed at least once a month) was like a vision out of Father Ansel's description of Hell, full of smoke and flame and bustling devils waving knives and spoons, the air so thick with the mingled smells of grease and roasting meat and marzipan it was nearly strong enough to stand by itself.
And as for me, the hysteria around me wasn't merely incredible, it was downright dizzying. Even with all my psychic defenses in place, the flood of emotions managed to spill through the cracks, as it were. By the day Estmere's bride was due to arrive, I simply couldn't carry the weight of everyone else's nervous excitement on top of my own. For the sake of my mental well-being, I up and fled to the peace of my tower rooms where, for a time, I was bothered only by the chirpings of two nesting sparrows outside a window.
But of course even that sanctuary was invaded. The servants were uneasy about intruding in what I knew they'd dubbed "the magician's roost," but they were also determined to see that Prince Aidan was suitably garbed. They were so quickly efficient about it that before I could protest—before I even realized what was happening!—they had clad me in russet and blue velvet (which looked handsome enough, I had to admit), including a hot and heavy cloak, ridiculous in this warm weather. They placed on my newly combed hair the thin but amazingly heavy gold circlet I usually refused to wear, and hurried me almost by force back down through the torrents of excitement to my brother's side at the head of the castle steps.
"Where were you?" he hissed.
"Hiding!" I whispered back.
"This isn't any time for jokes!"
"Who's joking?"
"Shh!"
I glanced at him. Och, but Estmere was splendid! Carrying the weight of the ceremonial crown—that gem-encrusted monster—and of his richly embroidered white and gold robes of state with apparent ease, he looked the very image of royalty and romance. I wondered wryly how he managed not to perspire under all that, and thought with a surge of affection that no one who saw him could have guessed at his nervousness. And nervous he most certainly was.
He wasn't the only one. It was just now striking home to me that this was it, this was the moment when I would learn if Estmere would be happy and, indirectly, I with him. My heart was pounding almost as though I was the one to be wed!
Clarissa's pretty green and yellow coach, the three white roses painted on its door, entered the courtyard with a rattling of wheels and stopped at the foot of the stairway. Elegant footmen in green and yellow livery opened the coach door and respectfully handed out a small figure wrapped in a glamorous white cloak. Estmere, too courteous to let her make that long climb alone (or too tense to wait a moment more) disregarded tradition and went down to meet her, courtiers scurrying in his wake. Formal introductions were made, a formal kiss was exchanged. Then, together, they started back up the stairway to where I waited, rigid with suspense.
And so I came face to face with Estmere's bride. The Duchess Clarissa was young, very young, with thick, ashy blond plaits and great blue eyes in a fine-boned face almost as pale as her cloak: a small, lovely, fragile lady delicate as an aristocratic flower.
I wish I could say I was instantly charmed by her. But as our gazes met as we were introduced, I was horrified to feel a little prickle of distaste steal through me, the sort of quick, irrational reaction sages say means you had a reason in some former life to hate the person you only think you're meeting for the first time. Who knows?
At any rate, the distaste was clearly shared by Clarissa. The warmth faded from those soft blue eyes, leaving them pale and gray as ice.
"Prince Aidan." She inclined her head a formal fraction.
"Duchess Clarissa." My bow was just as formal. "May I add my welcome to those you have already received?"
She acknowledged that coolly, then added, "I have heard strange rumors about you, Prince Aidan."
"Rumors?"
"I've been told you are . . . somewhat of a magician." She made it sound as unsuitable for one of even my diluted royal blood as pig farming.
"Somewhat," I agreed drily.
"Indeed. How interesting."
With that, she . . . simply dismissed me, leaving me to sternly curb my rising anger.
She's young, I reminded myself. She's only very young, and weary, and a stranger here, come to marry a stranger.
Besides, for all I knew, her women had been terrifying her with tales of the king's sorcerous brother. Maybe rudeness was hiding fear.
Estmere hadn't noticed any rudeness. Estmere wouldn't have noticed if she'd slapped me. All but radiating his delight and relief, he was blatantly smitten by our pretty cousin.
Now that I thought of it, Clarissa hadn't seemed at all displeased by her first sight of Estmere, either. Maybe things wouldn't work out so badly at that. It didn't matter how I felt about it, as long as they were happy together.
After all, I didn't have to marry her!
How did I manage in the royal chapel? This wasn't my faith, after all; I could hardly actively participate. But since no one save Estmere knew my true religion, I could hardly not be there, either.
The answer is a simple one: soon after my acceptance at Estmere's court, when I realized that as the king's brother I would be expected to attend chapel at least once a week, if not once a day like many folk, I had worked out a milder variation on my invisibility illusion—a clever thing, too, if I may praise myself. It simply confused people's minds to the point where they knew they had seen me there, but couldn't quite remember what I had actually been doing—or not doing.
Tactful, Estmere and I agreed, and useful. Particularly now, when I had no intention of missing my brother's wedding!
That wedding was a lovely thing, what with the bride and groom looking so young, so beautiful, as they knelt at the altar side by side, the massed candles casting a soft golden glow over their golden hair and shining faces. Even their splendid white wedding robes and long cloaks of crimson velvet and snowy ermine gleamed with gold.
Estmere had arranged for Father Ansel to marry them, which, I thought, was kind of my brother; as king, he could have, after all, called on some high officer of their church to do the honors. The priest's face was radiant with joy as he blessed the new union, and I almost wept when a choir of boys raised their sweet, clear, almost inhumanly pure young voices in songs of rejoicing.
Her heavy wedding robe, stiff as it was with metallic embroidery and glittering gems, almost undid the bride; delicate Clarissa needect her ladies' help and her new husband's arm to get her to her feet once more. It was close within the royal chapel, crowded with everyone with any pretension to nobility, and the air hung heavy with the smell of incense and candle wax and too many people in too small a space. I wasn't at all surprised to see Clarissa falter, her face gone deathly pale. I started forward in alarm, healer's instincts aroused, but of course Estmere was there at her side, supporting her. In the next moment she had recovered, and was smiling up at her husband, assuring him it was nothing. Even so, Estmere hurried her out into the open air as soon as it was politely possible.
There, of course, amid a wild, joyous pealing of bells, they faced a new ordeal, that of greeting the solid mass of humanity that was the commons, who had been allowed to crowd onto the palace grounds this once to help celebrate the occasion.
Nor did the new couple escape once they were back within the palace. No, now came the seemingly interminable wedding feast, with its dizzying procession of course after course, red meat and fowl and fish of every sort, pastries and pies and those bizarre desserts known as subtleties (why, I have no idea, since there's nothing subde about them) without which no feast in Estmere's lands is considered complete. Some of those subtleties were spectacular enough to seem almost magical: a golden swan swimming upon a sea of blue-green marzipan; a hound-sized, red-scaled dragon that breathed steam from his gaping mouth; a marzipan replica of the royal palace in perfect miniature. Laughing, I ate a piece of "m
y" tower, and told myself that now it truly belonged to me!
All about me, the great hall rang with music and song and a confusing babble of voices. The babble grew more confusing with each sip of the mead that Estmere (kindly remembering my preference) had ordered I be served in place of that detestable wine.
But of course no magician dares drink enough to lose control. When I realized I was starting to let an illusion of green vines twine about the arms of my chair and start up onto the table, I put the goblet firmly aside, and let the happy confusion sweep on without me.
As the day wore on and night closed in, the joviality began to take a ribald turn, nothing to embarrass anyone from Cymra, used as we are to frank speaking, but certain to redden the cheeks of more delicate folk.
Such as the fair Clarissa. She had managed to ignore me throughout the whole affair (no easy thing, since we were sitting side by side), which bothered me a little but surprised me not at all. I watched her out of the comer of my eye, a bit concerned about the state of her health after that moment when she'd nearly fainted in the chapel. How could such a fragile lady be enduring this endless day so well? Y Duwies knew I was growing weary.
But through all the pomp and glory and loud rejoicing, the king and his new queen did seem to be holding up amazingly well, regal and apparently quite at ease. Training, of course. But I saw the glances they stole at each other, shy, appraising, very human glances, and I thought in a sudden fierce surge of renewed hope, It may be well between them. Please, please let all be well between them!
CHAPTER XIV
CLARISSA
At first all did seem to be well. Clarissa settled into palace life with remarkable ease. Of course, as a high-born orphan (yes, her parents were dead; how else could she, so young, have inherited her title?) she already had a good deal of experience in handling a regal household. But even so, she seemed to be taking to her new status with both dignity and delight.
It wasn't mere self-interest, either. I had no doubt that Clarissa cared for Estmere and loved the very idea of being in love. Given time and any chance at all, I thought, that idea might become reality. And Estmere was as enchanted as ever a young man was with a pretty bride. Watching them together in those early days was a bit like eating a surfeit of sweets.
"I'll be home soon," I told Ailanna during one of our meetings-by-trance. "Y Duwies willing, love, I'll be home soon!"
But she, more skeptical of humanity than I, refused to say more than, "Wait. Aidan, wait."
"Wait for what?" I forced a laugh. "Look you, I agree this is hardly the sort of thing I imagined when I first set out to meet Estmere; I don't exactly have a heroic role to play. But that doesn't matter! What does is that they love each other, all will be well, and I'll come home to—"
"No!" The mind that brushed mine blazed with a sudden frustrated rage.
"What's this?" I tried to tease. "Don't you want to see me again?"
"Curse you, Aidan, don't mock me!"
"I didn't mean—"
"Don't you think I ache to hold you in my arms? Don't you think I hate the vow that keeps you from me? But this isn't the end of it! I know it, I feel it in my heart though the thought sickens me!"
With that, she pulled free of the trance and left me dazed and alone.
And alas, she was right. Ailanna's skepticism proved more honest than all my foolish, wild hopings. Too soon, I saw the bright edge leave the new couple's happiness. It wasn't all that noticeable, certainly not for anyone without the Power to see clearly, nothing more than the slightest of hesitations before a smile, the nearly imperceptible shadow in a glance or hint of gray uncertainty in an aura. But it was there. It was real.
It's the season, I tried to tell myself. They had been wed in the blind optimism of late summer, when no one will admit the warm, green time is nearly past. They were still joyous together in those wild, crisp days of autumn, with the air like wine and the spirits of human and beast alike foil of cheer. But now it was full winter. And didn't nearly all of humankind feel moody and unhappy when the darkness reigned and daylight came so briefly? That's all that's wrong, surely.
Yet the year swung about past the Midwinter Solstice towards the spring again, and the shadow between Estmere and Clarissa failed to lift. Indeed, with every day, it deepened. I ached for them, thinking of Ailanna, of the sure, bright knowledge we had of belonging, one to the other. We loved each other, of course, but we liked and trusted each other as well.
Trust. There it was. Clarissa might love her husband, but she still didn't quite trust him, or his court—
Or me.
The little palace cloister was rich with birdsong and new spring flowers. I'd been soaking up the sunlight out here, idly amusing myself with luring a pert little sparrow to my hand, when suddenly the bird gave a sharp chirp of alarm and took wing.
"Hello, Estmere," I said without turning.
There was a moment's silence. Then, "How do you do that?"
"Now, what manner of magician would I be if I couldn't recognize my brother's aura?" But when I turned to see the discomfort in his eyes, I couldn't continue the pretense of light good humor. "Estmere? What's wrong?"
"Do I need an excuse to see you?"
"Hardly."
But I was disconcerted to see him hastily drop his gaze in the way I'd taught him were he ever in need of hiding his thoughts from a magician.
From me? "Come, Estmere, what would you?"
"I . . . we've seen very little of you lately."
"Deliberately. Och, don't frown! I haven't been off sulking in some corner. I'm not a little boy jealous of his brother's wife."
Actually, even if I had been foolish enough to sulk, there hadn't been the time. Predictably, the winter ice and snow had brought about a fair number of wrenched limbs and broken bones for courtier, commoner and beast alike. Those increasingly hostile court physicians notwithstanding, the magician-prince had usually been the healer of choice, even when I hadn't needed to use the smallest of spells. When I'd had a chance to catch my breath, I had welcomed the chance to be alone, to study and experiment up in my tower and, when the weather permitted it, out in the fields outside Lundinia: magic, like any other craft, demands practice.
Estmere couldn't know that. "Then why—"
"Brawd, please. You two have small enough privacy at court as it is. I hardly thought it would help a young marriage to have me hanging about your necks as well." I paused. "And now that we have that out of the way, maybe you can tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing."
"Of course. You merely abandoned your royal duties because you felt like watching me tame sparrows."
"Pray don't push me, Aidan."
"Fy brawd, annwyl brawd, my dear, touchy brother, you seek me out, you stand there radiating confusion and despair, you refuse to look me squarely in the eye—and then you pretend that nothing bothers you."
He stirred restlessly. "I don't know how to word this."
"It's about Clarissa, isn't it?"
"I . . . yes," he began awkwardly, and got no further.
I sighed. "You don't have to worry about sparing my feelings. I know how she feels about me."
"What do you mean?"
"Och fi, I'm not blind! Even without magic, I'd see how uncomfortable you've become in my presence. And I certainly can't not be aware of your wife's hostility."
"You're exaggerating."
"Am I? Look you, I don't know if the woman is trying to exorcise me or just embarrass me, but you can't tell me you haven't noticed she's had more holy signs and symbols placed about the royal chambers—about the whole palace—than I've seen in the hut of the most superstitious—"
"Enough!" The word was sharp as the crack of a whip. "Remember of whom you speak."
"The queen. Your wife." I shook my head impatiently. "You know I mean no insult. I've been trying my fiercest to stay out of the way. But—why does she hate me?"
"She doesn't hate you."
"You lie badly, brawd."
"She doesn't hate you! She . . . simply isn't used to the world you inhabit."
"You managed to accept it easily enough."
"But she's not me. She's . . . delicate."
Och, I was weary of that word! "As she never fails to remind you!" I snapped. "Yes, Clarissa is delicate, and I wish she'd let me concoct some strengthening potions for her. But she won't let me near her! And I swear she uses that delicacy as a weapon against me! Gattu!" I exploded. "What does she want of me? That I give up my Duwies-given Power and—"
"Aidan. Please."
Estmere's eyes met mine. And they were radiating an anguished pleading no king could ever have voiced aloud:
Please, please, have patience. She'll come to trust you, to love you as I do. Oh please, I would not see either of you hurt!
Well. That took the sting out of my anger, as you can imagine. I watched Estmere leave, his face a mask, and sighed ruefully admitting to myself I was too proud to tell Ailanna she was right and I'd been wrong. The only solution I could see to this mess was to ignore my own feelings on the matter and try to win Clarissa's trust—or at least to convince the silly woman I meant her no harm.
Easily decided. Not so easily carried out.
I first tried to meet with her and Estmere. But Estmere never did seem to have a moment free. It was perpetually a case of: "Sorry, Aidan, I can't talk now" and "Later, Aidan, please." He wasn't making false excuses, either; even a newly married king can't escape affairs of state forever.
So be it, I told myself. It probably hadn't been a good idea to get him involved in this at any rate. I would meet with Clarissa and her ladies instead.
Clarissa had other ideas. Each time I tried to speak with her, I was met by an apologetic servant telling me the queen was otherwise occupied with this task or that. Some of those excuses were fairly transparent. But what could I do? Call the queen a liar? Use magic to barge boldly in, terrifying her and ruining any hope of peace between us?
King's Son, Magic's Son Page 11
