Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "Come," the Chancellor stepped forward picking up the young woman's slack arm. "I have matters to attend to and can deliver her to Karelle's hands."

  Alistair smiled, and patted Eamon on the shoulder for stepping up. This got him close to Linaya who whipped her hand out faster than a snake's strike to grab up his fingers. Lifting her striking blue eyes at him she curtsied again and smiled, "It was a pleasure meeting you. I pray we can become well acquainted with time."

  "Ah, um..." the King wilted in her soft grasp, a blush charring up his cheeks. The move was so bold everyone else in the room awkwardly shifted in their seat. Judging by the petrified glances out of the sides of their eyes it either rarely happened that women were so obvious with him or occurred so often they grew tired of it. This was what you signed up for, Reiss. It was either standing in a warm, gilded room watching two people awkwardly flirt, or stamping through the wet, frozen streets chasing after a mugger about to break your nose. At this point it was a toss up for her.

  Eamon tugged on the woman, pulling her towards the door. Regretfully, she released her hold on the King - who, once freed, staggered away and stared at his hand - and slipped away with the Chancellor. The only one remaining in his wake was Teagan, the man Reiss threatened a day ago. She felt his eyes wander over to her as he took in the room. Trying to bite down on a tremor crawling up her spine, Reiss shifted her stance and stared at the ceiling waiting for the Arl to call for her head.

  "Well, that was a thing that happened," the King interrupted the Arl's scrutiny of her.

  Blinking, Teagan turned to the King and smiled, "She seems very certain of her position."

  "What is it they say, subtlety only counts in farriery?"

  "Ah, close enough, Sire," Teagan said shaking his head at the King's runaway metaphor. "It has been awhile since we had an official mage in the palace."

  "All of 'em stomping off to war kinda did that in," Alistair loudly whispered to his uncle whose eyes were once again tripping over Reiss. He knew, he had to know who she was. Maker, there was only one chance she could try and fix this...

  "Forgive me for interrupting," she spoke, taking one step forward.

  "Okay, no problem," the King chuckled, "you weren't interrupting much."

  "I would, need to apologize to the Arl," she lifted her head and took in his face. Most said that the Arl of Redcliffe was a kind man, beloved by his people to a degree that seemed almost fanatical for his contributions during the blight. He bore the lines that hinted at more smiling than frowning and she prayed that the rumors were true.

  "To..." the King jabbed a thumb at the Arl, "to Teagan? Whatever for?"

  "During the troubles yesterday, I failed to recognize him when he came to collect the children and may have inadvertently," don't say threatened. You cannot admit you threatened an Arl's life, "ah, held him at knife point."

  She didn't risk looking up, doing her best to appear completely heartbroken by her actions, until the King let out a braying laugh and slapped Teagen on the shoulder. "Did she really have you at sword point?"

  "Yes, your Majesty," Teagan sighed, seeming to be unimpressed with the joy the King found in this.

  "For how long? Did she make you prove you were the Arl of Redcliffe? Have him recite a code or maybe show off a royal birthmark?"

  Reiss had no idea how to answer him, her cheeks burning as the King twisted her mistake into something monumental. It was Teagan who spoke up, "Nothing so...amusing. Marn was recognized by the princess and--"

  "Oh, right, no one can say no to Marn. At least none who'd live to tell the tale."

  "Please," Reiss leapt in before it grew even more awkward, "forgive me, my Lord."

  Teagan looked over at her, his eyes falling back to her ears before he sighed, "There is nothing to apologize for."

  "You were doing your job, and doing it spectacularly from the way it sounds. Protecting my children, even if it was from their mean ol' uncle who sometimes makes Spud eat all her vegetables," the King spoke the last sentence in a funny voice at Teagan who rolled his eyes.

  "She does act more and more like her father with each passing day. I fear what a decade shall turn her into." The Arl took in Reiss and a soft smile lifted his lips, "You are to be the King's bodyguard, then?"

  "Yes, your lordship," she answered, still feeling the need to apologize to him.

  Teagan leaned closer to her and in a staged whisper spoke, "You have my condolences."

  "Why's everyone keep saying that?" the King asked spreading his arms wide and knocking over an ink bottle. Black oozed across the desk, pooling in what had been Roger's day long work. "Ah, sorry, sorry, um..." he snatched up the drapery and, yanking it to the edge of their coils, dabbed at the ink with probably hundred year old curtains.

  Teagan groaned, "I shall fetch someone to clean this up. Make certain he doesn't accidentally kill himself."

  "Yes, Ser," she said, saluting. As the Arl slipped out, Reiss glanced over to find the King with papers stuck to his hand and shirt, black ink pooling across it all. With a shrug, a bright smile beamed across his face and she couldn't help but laugh before trying to help free him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  New Normal

  While Reiss rather enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the study, the throne room set her teeth on edge as it seemed to do to the King as well who, despite everyone eying up the chair the room was named after, couldn't stop pacing before it. They'd invited all the nobles who'd panicked during the assassination attempt to, as the King put it, "tell them that I'm not dead yet and to cancel their redecorating civil wars." For the first hour Reiss was on high alert watching every hand and belt for hidden blades or worse, but despite the clumps of nobles the only cutting they did was with their eyes and tongues. Either they all knew getting anywhere near the King in this state while armed was a certain death sentence or Cade and the rest of the guards were thorough, almost so thorough it was a wonder the original assassins got through at all.

  "Daddy," little hands yanked on the King's tunic, drawing him away from an Arlessa. He glanced down at his daughter who was wandering around under the watchful gaze of their nanny or perhaps nursemaid. Reiss wasn't entirely certain of her role but she remembered the woman during the attack; at her staggering proportions she was impossible to forget.

  "What is it, Spudkins?" the King asked, trying to tug his daughter closer to hear her words.

  "I..." her eyes widened as she gazed around at the hordes of people milling about. The bellowing voice of a child dropped to a squeak and she struggled to rise up to his ear.

  "Didn't get that, what'd you say?" he asked again. The princess tried to tug his arm down but that was currently full of the prince whose name everyone had been cheering and toasting once someone thought to pull in a cask of wine. Alistair groaned, but bent over. Grabbing onto his face, the princess whispered right in his ear. "Ah," he smiled. "She's hungry. Do we have any of those little cakes around or...?"

  The nanny clucked her tongue and folded her arms across her chest, "She's had more than her fair share. It's the lady's proper dinner time. I shall escort her to the kitchens and..."

  Crying erupted out of the King's arms, which cut off her offer as the prince roused from his nap. The King tried to shift the baby, rocking him back and forth but it was having no effect. It was rather impressive that he was even trying. For Reiss' few times dealing with nobility, they seemed to view children as a necessary curse like suffering the smell off a latrine.

  "Looks like Spud's not the only hungry one," he sighed, seeming to regret handing the wailing infant over for dinner. "How about I take you down to the kitchens?" he said to his daughter. She squealed in delight, grabbing both hands around her father's, when Eamon stepped into view.

  "Your Highness, it is best if you remain. You don't want your guests to feel slighted given the precarious nature of certain deals."

  Despite standing behind and to the left of him, Reiss could see the King roll his eyes in such an
exaggerated fashion it was surprising they didn't fall out. "Come on, Eamon, it'll be five, ten minutes at the most. Would anyone truly notice if I'm gone, much less care?"

  "Oh, your Majesty," the voice of Linaya carried across the floor above the din of small talk, almost as if she amplified it by magic. Somehow in the interim she'd shrugged off her more modest robes for something that cut perhaps an inch above her nipples. The acres of cream colored flesh kept snagging the attention of everyone but the one she honed in on. Alistair was too busy tangling with his daughter to look up into the never ending cleavage of the mage.

  "Lady Linaya," Teagan said brightly, "you've settled in well."

  "Arl Teagan," she gathered up her robes and curtsied deep, nearly causing her barely strapped in self to spill free. The Arl's eyes were drawn downward from the movement and he froze almost horrified for looking. It was impressive how quickly he rallied back, showing almost no strain as Linaya rose up. Beside Reiss, she heard the nanny tut her tongue once before having to slip the Prince to her other nipple. Royalty ate well.

  "And this must be the princess," Linaya squealed, eyeing the girl up as if for a snack. The princess dug into her father's leg, a thumb popping into her mouth. "Such a beautiful lady."

  "Ah, yes, she's not usually this shy but hunger does the strangest things to us," the King explained, his head tipped down to watch his daughter ramming her shoulder into his knee. She wasn't in the mood to put up with any of it.

  "Quite," Linaya smiled, all her focus on the King. "If I am not careful to eat I can succumb to fainting while casting."

  He nodded then laughed, "I once ate an entire cheese wheel on my own, only to find out later that I was supposed to take the rind off first."

  "I, uh, that's so interesting," she bounced back instantly from his non sequitur, her hands smoothing down her stomach.

  Hands tugged harder on the King's tunic causing it to dig into his throat. "I'm hungry," the princess whined before popping her thumb back in.

  "Right, right. I, uh..."

  Stepping forward, Reiss spoke up, "Ser? Perhaps I could head down to the kitchens and round up something for the princess to eat."

  "Thank you," he smiled wide and tried to dig her hand off of him to hand over. "Spud, you're going to head down with Reiss. You like her, remember?"

  "No!" she fussed. No amount of convincing her that she liked someone she barely knew was going to work. Alistair continued to try to pry her fingers off, but once he'd get one hand free, she'd pop out her thumb and grab on with the other hand.

  "It's all right," Reiss said. "I'll go and gather a few options to bring back. She can remain here with you." At that the princess' eyes darted up to Reiss but she didn't smile, the two year old clearly calculating what she could get away with.

  "That's a good idea. The cook, she'll know what Spud loves. Ah, do you know where the kitchens are?"

  "Follow the smell of fire and food?" Reiss shrugged.

  That earned her a belly laugh from the King, "Hopefully not food on fire, but if it's been a long day and the wine's low..." He moved closer to Reiss to whisper that but Linaya inserted herself.

  "How delightfully funny, Sire," she chuckled. "What are some of your favorite Ferelden dishes?" He blinked slowly in response while Reiss slipped into the crowds. In truth, she knew how to find the kitchens not by following her nose but the elves in attendance.

  It didn't take her long to find them in the lower sections of the castle as a herd of servants stood watch along the way, most of them grumbling under their breath about Lords and Ladies whose preferred method of cleaning up involved throwing unwanted food on the floor and digging it in with a heel. They flitted in and out, barely casting a glance at someone in a guard uniform. It wasn't surprising, most guards took free food as a perk of the job and spent half their time lurking in the kitchens to guard it from any low life rats.

  No one was working the blazing ovens, letting the flames fade down out of the hellscape they normally were. Reiss struggled against the heat, sweat already dripping down her back and heading towards creating a swamp in her greaves. Through a doorframe, she heard a deep guffaw followed by the sound of liquid gurgling into a mug.

  "...Now that one, Maker, she ain't subtle." A woman sat with her leg stretched upon the table. She leaned back in her creaking chair, a sack of rice burrowed into the small of her back, no doubt to help with the problems of standing in one place on stone for too long. Perhaps fifty, if that, she was missing a leg below the knee which she kept elevated upon a melon.

  "Did you see the dress she waltzed in in?" A boy sat beside her. Though, perhaps boy wasn't accurate. With his mounds of floppy brunette hair, and smooth face that looked as if it couldn't produce a whisker on a bet he looked at most sixteen for a human, but something in his eyes and the way they darted with a cynicism told Reiss he was older than he looked.

  The woman snorted, causing wine to spritz out of her nose, "See? Damn near every Arl and Bann and other snoot nosed lord saw. Be beating it to that tonight, for certain. Ah...shite, we've got guests. Whatcha need, dearie? Thought all the guards were on orders to stand at attention 'til the rest of 'em cleared out?"

  "I'm not under Commander Cade, I think," Reiss said. "I'm the King's new personal bodyguard."

  "Oh, it's her," the boy spoke, jabbing a finger at her as if she wasn't in the room. "The one I told ya about."

  "An elf, eh? Takes all sorts, I suppose. What's his Highness want?"

  Reiss tried to not take any offense at the surprise of her being an elf. In truth, sometimes she was still pinching herself to make certain this wasn't the fade. "It's the princess actually, she's hungry and the King said you'd know what she likes."

  "Ah, course, course," the woman moved to slide her leg off the melon, when Reiss raised her hand up.

  "You need not get up on my account. I can gather the food if you point me in the direction."

  Cautious eyes slipped over her no doubt breaking the hierarchy code, but the cook shrugged, "Fine by me. Name's Renata by the by. You'll want to get a plate of cheese, down in the larder, second shelf."

  Nodding, Reiss yanked open the door and slid inside. She called out to the others, "I'm Reiss." She spotted the cheese mounds in various colors and shapes, some cut into stars. That had to be for the princess. Snatching up a basket on the side, Reiss began to fill it.

  "Ser Reiss is how I heard it," the boy said.

  "Ah, so the King decreed," Reiss said. She wasn't certain if that was legal without her having any connection to an army, and as there'd been no official ceremony she wasn't pinning her dreams upon it.

  "Princess loves fruit. We got some old jams in the back, plum in particular. Oh, and crackers'll do her up good too. Adores 'em."

  Reiss followed her orders, arranging it all in the basket as best she could before slipping out of the larder and closing the door. "Is there anything else you think she'd like to eat?"

  Smiling wider, the cook Renata beamed, "Still got that new job tremble in ya, eh? It's all right, I know how that goes. Here..." She dug into her pocket and placed a slip of something clear as glass but bright red into the basket. "That'll get you on her good side. Trust me." Reiss nodded and smiled in eternal gratitude.

  "Reen, is that really the one you should be buttering up to?" the boy interrupted.

  Rolling her eyes, Renata rubbed a hand through the boy's long hair, "This rascal's Philipe. Orlesian born but don't go holding that against him."

  "Me mum's from Ferelden, so it still counts!" he insisted, jabbing a hand on his belt.

  "Aye, it counts. Pain in my side, but damn fine at working the bellows, if ya make sure he don't get too into it and take out yer eyebrows."

  "That only happened once," Philipe struck back. He rolled a potato back and forth across the table, watching it with focused eyes. "Soooo, does the new bodyguard want to get in on the bet?"

  "Bet?" Reiss asked. She should be returning to the princess as fast as possible, but getting
to know the people of the castle was important as well.

  "Don't go wagging your tongue, we don't know if it'll even start," Renata clipped him around the ears, but Philipe dodged it and sighed.

  "Yes it will. It does every time. I say two weeks."

  "That fast?"

  "With bosoms big enough to smother a dragon in its sleep?" Philipe held his hands out a good foot from his chest and rolled them over. "You could balance a ship on those things, maybe two the way she had 'em propped up."

  "I'll give ya that one, but I dunno. Two weeks seems too fast. I'd say four, maybe five if we're being careful."

  "And if she breaks her leg walking down the stairs cause she can't see her feet over those gigantic breasts," Philipe chuckled in the way only a man who'd never had breasts could.

  "Ah, sorry," Reiss butted into the conversation as Renata sucked down another glass of wine, "What is this bet about precisely?"

  Philipe stopped laughing and his eyes broke into pity, "Oh, that's right, you'll have to suffer the worst of it. Sorry, condolences and what not." She wanted to laugh, but he looked genuine.

  Renata wiped her mouth off and sighed, "'s the King. We're taking bets on how long it'll be 'til he takes that newest little arcane advisor to his bed. How long did the last one take?"

  "Two months, but she was..."

  Renata shuddered, "Aye, I remember. Don't go reminding me."

  "The King and..." Reiss swallowed deep, her basket feeling heavy, "oh."

  "He's got a real thing for robes," Renata explained.

  "Especially when they're filled out to bursting," Philipe exercised his bushy eyebrows with his barely innuendo.

  Of course, she knew that it was bound to happen. Sex was a part of life, and her job was to guard that life no matter the cost to her own. It may be awkward to have to listen to the moaning and watching Linaya stagger out of his room in the morning, but any amount of displeasure was worth it for a hundred sovereigns a month. "I see," Reiss said diplomatically.