“She guards her privacy. You have to understand that everyone wants time with the empress.”
“I guess she gets around using secret passages?”
“Secret passages?” Amilia chuckled at the imagination of this girl. “No, she doesn’t use secret passages.”
“But I heard this palace is very old and filled with hidden stairs and corridors that lead to all kinds of secret places. Is that true?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Amilia replied. “What got this into your head?”
The maid immediately put a hand over her mouth in embarrassment. Her eyes dropped to the floor in submission. “Forgive me, milady. I didn’t mean to be so bold. I’ll get back to my work now.”
“That’s all right,” Amilia replied as the maid dunked her brush again. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Ella, milady,” the maid replied softly without pausing or looking up.
“Well, Ella, if you have problems or other questions, you have permission to speak to me.”
“Thank you, milady. That is very kind of you.”
Amilia returned to her own work and left the maid to hers. In a short time, the servant finished and gathered her things to leave.
“Goodbye, Ella,” Amilia offered.
The maid smiled at the mention of her name and nodded appreciatively. As she walked out, Amilia glanced at her hands, which gripped the bucket handle and the mop, and was surprised to see long fingernails on them. Ella noticed her glance, shifted her grip to cover her nails, and promptly left the chamber.
Amilia stared after her awhile, wondering how a working girl could manage to grow nails as nice as hers. She put the thought out of her mind and returned to her letters.
“You realize they’re going to get wise,” Amilia said after the seamstress had finished taking Modina’s measurements and left the chamber.
The chief secretary moved around the empress’s bedroom, straightening up. Modina sat beneath the narrow window, in the only patch of sunshine entering the room. This was where Amilia found her most often. She would sit there for hours, just staring outside, watching clouds and birds. It broke Amilia’s heart a little each time she saw her longing for a world barred to her.
The empress showed no response to Amilia’s comment. Her lucidity from the day before had vanished. The empress heard her, though. She was quite certain of that now.
“They aren’t stupid,” she went on as she fluffed a pillow. “After your speech and that incident with the clerk yesterday, I think it’s only a matter of time. You would have been wiser to stay in your room and let me handle it.”
“He wasn’t going to listen to you.” The empress spoke.
Amilia dropped the pillow.
Turning as casually as she could, she stole a glance over her shoulder to see Modina still looking out the window with her traditional vague and distant expression. Amilia slowly picked up the pillow and resumed her straightening. Then she ventured, “It might have taken a little time, but I’m certain I could have persuaded him to provide us with the material.”
Amilia waited, holding her breath, listening.
Silence.
Just when she was certain it had been only one of her rare outbursts of coherency, Modina spoke again. “He never would have given in to you. You’re scared of him, and he knows that.”
“And you aren’t?”
Again silence. Amilia waited.
“I’m not afraid of anything anymore,” the empress finally replied, her voice distant and thin.
“Maybe not afraid, but it would bother you if they took the window away.”
“Yes,” Modina said simply.
Amilia watched as the empress closed her eyes and turned her face full into the light of the sun.
“If Saldur discovers your masquerade—if he thinks you’ve been just acting insane and misleading the regents for over a year—it might frighten him into locking you up where you can’t do any harm. They could put you in a dark hole somewhere and leave you there.”
“I know,” Modina said, her eyes still closed and head tilted upward. Immersed in the daylight, she appeared almost to glow. “But I won’t let them hurt you.”
The words took a moment to register with Amilia. She had heard them clearly enough, but their meaning came so unexpectedly that she sat on the bed without realizing it. As she thought back, it should have been obvious, but not until that moment did she realize what Modina had done. The empress’s speech had been for Amilia’s benefit—to ensure that Ethelred and Saldur could not have her removed or killed. Few people had ever gone out of their way for Amilia. The concept that Modina—the crazy empress—had risked herself in this way was unimaginable. Such an event was as likely as the wind changing direction to suit her, or the sun asking her permission to shine.
“Thank you,” was all she could think to say. For the first time she felt awkward in Modina’s presence. “I’m going to go now.”
She headed for the door. As her hand touched the latch, Modina spoke again.
“It isn’t completely an act, you know.”
Waiting inside the regent’s office, Amilia realized she had not heard a word in her meeting with the ladies or during the dedication later that morning. Dumbfounded by her conversation with Modina—by the mere fact that she had actually had a conversation with Modina—she registered little else. Her distraction, however, vanished the instant Saldur arrived.
The regent appeared imposing, as always, in his elegant robe and cape of purple and black. His white hair and lined face lent him a grandfatherly appearance, but his eyes held no warmth.
“Afternoon, Amilia,” he said, walking past her and taking a seat at his desk. The regent’s office was dramatically opulent. Ten times larger than hers, it featured an elegant decor. A fine patterned rug covered the polished hardwood, and numerous end tables flanked couches and armchairs. On one table sat an elaborately carved chess set. The fireplace was an impressively wide hearth of finely chiseled marble. There were decanters of spirits on the shelves, along with thick books. Religious-themed paintings lined the spaces between the bookcases and windows. One illustrated the familiar scene of Maribor anointing Novron. The immense desk, behind which Saldur sat, was a dark mahogany polished to a fine luster and adorned with a bouquet of fresh flowers. The entire office was perfumed with the heady scent of incense, the kind Amilia had smelled only once before, when visiting a cathedral.
“Your Grace,” Amilia replied respectfully.
“Sit down, my dear,” Saldur said.
Amilia found a chair and mechanically sat. Every muscle in her body was tense. She wished Modina had not spoken to her that morning—then she could honestly plead ignorance. Amilia was no good at lying and had no idea how she should respond to Saldur’s interrogation in order to bring the least amount of punishment to her and the empress. She was still debating what she might say when Saldur spoke.
“I’ve some news for you,” he said, folding his hands on the surface of the desk and leaning forward. “It won’t be public for several weeks, but you need to know now so you can begin preparations. I want you to keep this to yourself until I announce it, do you understand?”
Amilia nodded as if she understood.
“In almost four months, during the Wintertide celebrations, Modina will marry Regent Ethelred. I don’t think I need to impress upon you the importance of this occasion. The Patriarch himself is personally coming to perform the ceremony. All eyes will be on this palace … and on the empress.”
Amilia said nothing and barely managed another shallow nod.
“It’s your charge to ensure that nothing embarrassing occurs. I’ve been very pleased with your work to date, and as a result I’m giving you an opportunity to excel further. I’m putting you in charge of arranging the ceremony. It’ll be your responsibility to develop a guest list and prepare invitations. Go to the lord chamberlain for help with that. You’ll also need to coordinate with the palace cooks for meals. I und
erstand you have a good relationship with the head cook?”
Once more she nodded.
“Wonderful. There should be decorations, entertainment—music certainly, and perhaps a magician or a troupe of acrobats. The ceremony will take place here, in the great hall. That should make things a bit easier for you. You’ll also need to have a wedding dress made—one worthy of the empress.” Seeing the tension on her face, Saldur added, “Relax, Amilia, this time you only need to get her to say two words … I do.”
CHAPTER 6
THE EMERALD STORM
As the ship lurched once more, Hadrian stumbled and nearly hit his head on the overhead beam. It would have been his third time that day. The lower decks of the Emerald Storm provided meager headroom and precious little light. An obstacle course of sea chests, ditty bags, crude wooden benches, tables that swung from ropes, and close to one hundred thirty men was crammed into the berth deck. Hadrian made his way aft, dodging the majority of the starboard watch, most of whom were asleep, swaying in hammocks strung from the same thick wooden crossbeams on which Hadrian had nearly cracked his skull. The clutter and the shifting of the ship were not the only things making Hadrian stagger. He had been feeling nauseated since sunset.
The Emerald Storm had been at sea for nearly fifteen hours, and the enigma of life aboard ship was slowly revealing itself. Hadrian had spent many years in the company of professional soldiers and recognized that each branch of the military held its own jargon, traditions, and idiosyncrasies, but he had never set foot on a ship. He knew he could be certain of only two things: he had a lot of learning to do, and he had little time to do it.
He had already picked up several important pieces of information, such as where to relieve himself, which, to his surprise, was at the head of the ship. A precarious experience, as he had to hang out over the sea at the base of the bowsprit. This might be second nature to sailors, and easy for Royce, but it gave Hadrian pause.
Another highly useful discovery was a cursory understanding about the chain of command. Hadrian determined that the officers—noblemen mostly—were skilled tradesmen and held a higher rank than the general seamen, but he could also tell there were substrata within these broad classes. There were different ranks of officers and even more subtle levels of seniority, influence, and jurisdiction. He could not expect to penetrate such a complex hierarchy on his first day, but he had managed to determine that the boatswain and his mates were the ones charged with making sure the seamen did their jobs. They were quite persuasive with their short rope whips and kept a keen eye on the crew at all times. Because of this, they were the ones he watched.
The ship’s crew divided into two watches. While one worked the ship, the other rested, slept, or ate. Lieutenant Bishop had placed Royce on the starboard watch assigned to the maintop. His job was to work the rigging on the center mast. This put him under Boatswain Bristol Bennet and his three mates. Hadrian had seen their like before. Drunks, vagrants, and thugs, they would never have amounted to much on land, but aboard ship they held power and status. The chance to repay others for any mistreatment they had experienced made them cruel and quick to punish. Hadrian still waited to discover his watch assignment, but he hoped it would be the same as Royce’s.
He had been lucky so far. This being the first day out, preparing meals had been little more than placing out fresh foods from the recent stay at port. Fruit, fresh bread, and salted meats were merely handed out with no cooking required. Consequently, Hadrian’s talents remained untested, but time was running out. He knew how to cook, of course. He had prepared meals for years using little more than a campfire, but that had mainly been for him and Royce. He didn’t know how to cook for an entire ship’s crew. Needing to find out exactly what they expected drove him to wander in hopes of finding Wyatt.
“The Princess of Melengar rules there now,” Hadrian heard a young lad say.
He didn’t look to be much more than sixteen. He was a waif of a boy with thin whiskers, freckles darkened by days in the sun, and curly hair cut in a bowl-like fashion except for a short ponytail he tied with a black cord. He sat with Wyatt, Grady, and a few other men around a swaying table illuminated by a candle melted to the center of a copper plate. They were playing cards and the giant shadows they cast only made Hadrian’s approach more disorienting.
“She doesn’t rule Ratibor. She’s the mayor,” Wyatt said, correcting the boy as he laid a card on the pile before him.
“What’s the difference?”
“She was appointed, lad.”
“What’s that mean?” the boy asked as he tried to decide which card to play, holding his hand so tight to his chest he could barely see the cards himself.
“It means she didn’t just take over. The people of the city asked her to run things.”
“But she can still execute people, right?”
“I suppose.”
“Sounds like a ruler to me.” With a wide grin, the boy laid a card indicating that he thought it was a surprisingly good play.
“Sounds like them people of Ratibor are dumb as dirt,” Grady said gruffly. His expression betrayed his irritation at the boy’s discard. “They finally get the yoke off their backs and right away they ask for a new one.”
“Grady!” said a man with a white kerchief on his head. “I’m from Ratibor, you oaf!”
“Exactly! Thanks for proving me point, Bernie,” Grady replied, slamming his play on the table so hard several surrounding seamen groaned in their hammocks. Grady laughed at his own joke and the rest at the table chuckled good-naturedly, except Bernie from Ratibor.
“Hadrian!” Wyatt greeted him warmly as the new cook staggered up to them like a drunk. “We were just talking about land affairs. Most of these poor sods haven’t been ashore in over a year and we were filling them in on the news about the war.”
“Which has been bloody cracking, seeing as how we didn’t even know there was one,” Grady said, feigning indignation.
“We were just in dock, though,” Hadrian said. “I would have thought—”
“That don’t mean nuttin’,” one of the other men said. With next to no hair and few teeth, he appeared to be the oldest at the table, and possibly the entire ship. He had a silver earring that glinted with the candlelight and a tattoo of a mermaid that wrapped around his forearm. He too wore a white kerchief on his head. “Most of this here crew is pressed. The captain would be barmy to let them touch solid ground in a port. He and Mr. Bishop would be the only ones left to rig her!”
This brought a round of laughter and garnered irritated growls from those trying to sleep.
“You don’t look so good,” Wyatt mentioned to Hadrian.
He shook his head miserably. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a ship. Does the Storm always rock so much?”
“Hmm?” Wyatt glanced at him, then laughed. “This? This here is nothing. You won’t even notice it in a day or so.” He watched the next man at the table play his card. “We’re still in the sound. Wait until we hit the open sea. You might want to sit. You’re sweating.”
Hadrian touched his face and felt the moisture. “Funny, I feel chilled, if anything.”
“Have a seat,” Wyatt said. “Poe, give him your spot.”
“Why me?” the young boy asked, insulted.
“Because I said so.” Poe’s expression showed that was not enough for him to give up one of the limited places. “And because I’m a quartermaster and you’re a seaman, but even more importantly, because Mr. Bishop appointed you cook’s mate.”
“He did?” Poe asked, and blinked, a smile crossing his face.
“Congratulations,” Wyatt said. “Now, you might want to make a good impression on your new boss and move your infernal arse!”
The boy promptly stood and pretended to clean the bench with an invisible duster. “After you, sir!” he said with an exaggerated bow.
“Does he know anything about cooking?” Hadrian asked dubiously, taking the seat.
&nb
sp; “Sure, sure!” Poe declared exuberantly. “I know plenty. You just wait. I’ll show ya.”
“Good, I don’t feel up to working with food yet.” Hadrian let his head drop into his hands. The old man next to Wyatt tossed down his card and the whole group groaned in agony.
“You bloody bastard, Drew!” Grady barked at him, tossing what remained of his cards onto the pile. The others did the same.
Drew grinned, showing his few yellowed teeth, and collected the tiny pile of silver tenents. “That’s it for me, boys. Good night.”
“Night, Drew, ya lousy Lanksteer!” Grady said, shooing him away as if he were a bug. “We can talk at breakfast, eh?”
“Sure, Grady,” Drew said. “Oh, that reminds me. I heard something right funny tonight when I was reefing the tops’l. We’re going to be taking on a passenger to help find the horn. How stupid are these landlubbers? It’s only the most well-known point on the Sharon! Anyway, remind me at breakfast and I’ll tell ya about it. It’s a real hoot, it is. Night now.”
Most of the rest of the men headed off, leaving just Wyatt, Grady, Poe, and Hadrian.
“You should turn in as well,” Wyatt told Poe.
“I’m not tired,” he protested.
“I didn’t ask if you were tired, did I?”
“I want to stay up and celebrate my promotion.”
“Off with ya before I report you for disobeying a superior.”
Poe scowled and stomped off, looking for his hammock.
“You too, Grady,” Wyatt told him.
The old seaman looked at Wyatt suspiciously, then leaned over and quietly asked, “Why you trying to get rid of me, Deminthal?”
“Because I’m tired of looking at that ugly scowl of yours, that’s why.”
“Codswallop!” he hissed. “You wanna be alone to talk about the you-know-what, don’t ya? Both of you are in on it. I can tell, and that Royce fellow, he’s in too. How many more you got, Wyatt? Room for another? I’m pretty good in a fight.”
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