From there, attracting just the right eye was a matter of luck and timing . . . and Ishi’s grace.
Ishi was with her. She met young Lenguin, their heir to the coronet of Alshar, in the palace gardens at Midsummer. He invited her to a swimming party at one of his many local estates (a fashion at court at the time, embraced for its dual pleasure of the opportunity for illicit embrace and inciting the ire of the conservative clergy, who saw the practice as an invitation to licentiousness) and the two spent an intoxicating few days together in rustic leisure.
For Amandice, that “leisure” included demonstrations of devotion and adoration that, sadly, the future Duke was already all too familiar with. Yet her beauty, wit and charms were sufficient to entice him for weeks and earn his genuine affections before he departed to Relan Cor, for instruction in the arts of warfare over the winter months. It was a magical time for her, the absolute prime of her womanhood. She was a beautiful widow bedding a youthful heir who was, she was delighted to find, not completely boorish by his position and obligations.
She genuinely loved Lenguin, despite his faults. He was handsome enough, but his title and his wealth made him entitled and shallow. He also had predilections for certain intimacies most noblewomen of refinement were reluctant to consider. He acted arrogantly and even contemptuously of his seniors, enjoying the fruits of his position without yet shouldering its obligations.
There was a spirit of rebellion in Lenguin, she saw, a feeling of resistance to the path that had been laid for him by his birth. He treated her both kindly and rudely, depending on his mood and which of his gentlemen were in attendance. And Amandice, for all of her wiles, could not keep Lenguin’s exclusive attention, she discovered. While she accompanied him to a number of functions, twice she encountered other ladies of the court being quietly escorted from his chambers as she arrived.
Still, Amandice was not about to let such an opportunity slip away because of mere personal tastes. She set about his seduction with patience and tenacity. Persuading the awkward young heir to steal a kiss or two at first was simplicity itself. Progressing from gentle amusement to more lusty adventures was elementary for the talented ingénue.
She readily surrendered her virtue – what was left of it – to the heir for weeks at his discretion. She haunted his quarters at the palace, met him at the stables when he hunted, chased away her rivals for his affection with especial fervor, lavished him with simple gifts, invited him to stop by her hall in the middle of the night, and did everything she could think of to befriend the Duchess while bedding her son at every opportunity.
She was all too aware of her narrow chance. Lenguin was to embark on his military training, as befit the heir to the throne. The pressure for him to wed was growing, as his sire sought to consolidate power for his family through alliance. Yet she knew that a lord in Lenguin’s position had at least some say in his future bride. If she could snare his heart before he left Vorone, she reasoned, and enflame it sufficiently, then perhaps she could convince him to advocate for her as a potential bride.
So Amandice did her womanly best to enchant the Duke with her charms and gave him the promise of much more passionate times when he returned the next summer. She spared no effort in her quest, and exhausted the store of favor she’d accumulated at court as she conspired to monopolize Lenguin’s time in Vorone. Whenever the subject of his eventual marriage came up, Amandice did her best to advance herself as a candidate despite her lack of power, wealth, position, affiliation, or anything save her devotion, loyalty, beauty, and title. Dukes had married for love and beauty in the past, not riches and political alliance, she knew. There were stories about it. And wars fought over it.
But those stories were concerned with the girls who had successfully changed their fates with their beauty. Those wars were fought when a powerful man found his passions outweighed political necessity. They did not tell the tales of those girls who failed to turn a passionate affair into a commitment and a coronet.
The long winter that followed that glorious summer was full of hope and expectation to Amandice. Spring came and lifted her heart with promise. She, along with the rest of the town, prepared for the annual return of the court. When the news came that the Duke and his family were returning to Vorone – including the dashing young heir – Amandice spared no expense preparing her freshly-painted house for her noble lover. She even pawned some of her lesser jewelry to pay for an entire new wardrobe for the season, designed to dazzle and impress.
But then the other news followed a few days later, carried by a swift rider. News that left Amandice stricken. The Duke of Alshar had arranged a marriage for Lenguin with the niece of the Duke of Remere, to be realized at Midwinter.
Amandice’s hopes were crushed . . . but not destroyed. When one opportunity ends, Ishi provides others, she knew. A duke’s mistress holds almost as much authority and power, position and title as a duchess, she reasoned. If she could not have his hand in marriage, she could settle for his heart and . . . other parts. Imagining a dumpy, doughty Remeran noblewoman in her lover’s bed, she predicted just how quickly Lenguin would tire of such congress and seek relief and repose in the arms of another woman. She conspired to make herself the mistress to the heir.
She put her plan into action using every resource at her disposal. She was at the welcome reception and the ceremonial Opening of the Palace after the Wildflower festival, dressed in a stunning new gown and stylish hat. Her maids had taken hours applying cosmetics and styling her hair, and she was certainly noticed by the court. Two days later she attended the opening joust of the season with two dear (slightly less-attractive) friends and their maids, and contrived to place herself in view of her lover.
She quickly caught Lenguin’s eye, she saw. It was only a moment, as she crossed in front of his reviewing stand, but when she dropped her fan and beamed at him, she saw his smile. There was no doubt in her mind. He remembered her!
It took a week to arrange to actually meet with the heir at a function. She managed to secure another invitation to hawking with Lenguin at his estates. He recognized the purpose of her presence at once, and to her delight he indicated his desire to renew their intimacies. Amandice did not hesitate. While they were passing through wood and field, Lenguin found a way for them to be separated from his gentlemen for a time. Enough time.
He took her in the middle of the beautiful field, passionately and roughly, and she reveled in her success at the seduction. She was bedding the heir of the entire duchy, betrothed not a month! Though she would wear no coronet, she bore the honor proudly, and did her best to entertain and delight Lenguin with every skill at her disposal that brilliant afternoon.
They walked back to the rest of the party slowly, hand in hand, Lenguin promising to continue seeking her acquaintance whenever he could. That was as much success as a proposal of marriage, from such a powerful man. He had not even seen his new bride, he complained, and he could not imagine married life to be anything but dull. He far preferred Amandice’s company, he told her sincerely. That was all the opportunity Amandice needed.
For three weeks she did all she could to be in Lenguin’s presence. She haunted his steps and made herself available to him at every opportunity. She delighted his senses and flattered his ego. She did her best to live up to his ideal of a graceful mistress. Her seduction worked magnificently.
Lenguin left games of dice to steal away with her for a few moments of passion. He spent many evenings toasting her loveliness with Cormeeran wine while they both sat naked in the famous hot pools of the House of Steam. He took her hunting with him, and then took her in the stables afterwards until they emerged with straw in their hair to the laughter of his gentlemen. He gave her a parrot from the jungles of Farise, after that, a bird who became a beloved pet. She named it Vanity, and taught it to speak.
She was not the only maid in court, nor even the only one vying for Lenguin’s affections and favor, but the beginning of summer saw her and the young heir in l
ove, to her mind. Twice he visited her in her own home for unforgettable nights of passion – but that saw him leave at the dawn, eager to escape notice or scandal. Amandice spurned her other lovers cruelly, in the face of her success, and she wasted no pity or mercy on her rivals for Lenguin’s eye at court.
But then Lenguin was called to accompany his father for a week on a tour to inspect Tudry and attend a tournament in the northwest. He would not return until Huin’s Day at Midsummer. As a military operation, she was not invited to go with Lenguin. Instead she spent the time until his return preparing even more grand entertainments for her beloved, even as she openly bore the envy and scorn of her rivals, and those at court who disapproved of the young man’s dalliances. She loved Lenguin, and would serve him in any capacity. She could easily bear the whispers against the Heir’s mistress with her head held high. Once he came back to Vorone things would be different.
She had especial news for him, too. Their love had borne fruit over the beatific summer months. She was blessed with a baby in her belly, the heir’s first child. All seemed perfect, as Huin’s Day approached with the promised arrival of her noble lover.
But he had scarcely enjoyed one night’s passionate reunion with her when he broke his own news first: his bride had arrived at port in Enultramar three weeks early, to avoid the storm season and the Farisian pirates. He would be departing the next day to greet her, before he escorted her to the great abbey where they would be wed at Yule.
Amandice was devastated. She pledged to follow him south and be his mistress after he wed, but he refused. He would be too busy for such dalliances for awhile, he assured her, especially with his father in poor health. And he claimed it would not be fair to his new wife. A portrait of her had arrived at the palace while he was in the north, revealing his wife to be was a beautiful Remeran lass. Lenguin pledged his love to Amandice and gave her gifts, but he also firmly insisted that she stay in Vorone until his eventual return. She had not the heart to reveal her pregnancy to him, then, for fear of appearing desperate.
Besides, he mentioned, her name was not well-liked by his mother or his conniving sister, now that the apparent truth of her designs was obvious. Though the one was busy planning his wedding and the other safely married off in Castal, Lenguin still feared their disapproval and their power. Amandice did not know why, but when he told her that he and all of his heirs would likely be assassinated by his wretched sister, Grendine, she resolved to conceal her pregnancy from him and the court.
The next morning Lenguin was gone. He’d left a healthy purse and other fine treasures for her, which she gratefully took. She nearly hung herself in despair, but prayed to Ishi for answers. A few days after Lenguin departed, she took lodging in a distant abbey to conceal her swelling belly from the gossip of court. The next spring, three days after Duin’s Day, she gave birth to the first son of Lenguin II, future Duke of Alshar. She called him Gydion, after Lenguin’s favorite hunting hound. But she did not see the healthy little boy’s father for years afterward.
When Amandice returned to Vorone she told the boy off as the son of her maid to the public while she anxiously awaited his father’s return, so that she could present him with his son in secret. In vain, she waited. For two long years Lenguin and his wife stayed in Enultramar, far from Vorone, while Amandice raised the boy and waited. He sent no word. He did not answer her letters. When the duke’s new bride gave birth to Anguin, Lenguin’s heir, Amandice even sent a simple gift and a note of loyal affection to the future Duke. He answered her with a short, vague note thanking her in a general way. It was signed by a clerk, not in Lenguin’s distinctive hand.
Holding back her despair, she planned on revealing the existence of his first born to him when he arrived the next summer. But before the Ducal party could leave Falas and set off to Vorone, the old duke took ill and perished in a fever, despite the best efforts of the court physicians. Lenguin, newly wed and newly a father, was suddenly the monarch of a mighty land. He had little time for lovers in general, and no time for an aging mistress from his youth.
Amandice kept few lovers in those years she looked after her child and waited. She was careful with such affairs: just enough to amuse her, and occasionally to re-supply her coffers, but never to raise a rumor among the courtiers. She oversaw her son’s raising and education, instead, in preparation for meeting his father. Gydion was strong and hearty, like his sire, and she encouraged his efforts in secret, in memory of the passion she had born for his absent father. But for year after year, the duchy’s business and the duke’s life conspired to keep them apart. Gydion grew.
Then the day came one spring when word finally arrived that the new Duke and Duchess would at last return to the summer capital with their children. The Wilderlords would be able to pay homage and swear fealty in person to the vibrant young duke for the first time. The entire town cheered to see its purpose fulfilled, and spared no effort to make the sovereign welcome. Amandice herself made great preparations for the return, remembering the promise Lenguin had made to her before he’d departed.
But the man she saw arrive at the Opening of the Palace after the Wildflower festival that year was not the same smiling, carefree youth she recalled. Instead he was older and more worn, surrounded by ministers and monks with parchments, not young gentlemen with swords and hunting spears. He looked worried, serious, and deep in thought as he conducted the official rite that transferred ducal power to Vorone. He was no longer near as handsome as he had once been.
Worse, as he made his entrance through the thronging crowds, his eyes lit long upon Amandice . . . and he didn’t recognize her.
That hurt Amandice’s heart more than anything. He walked right past her, though she was bellowing his name as loudly as her lungs would let her. She was trying to get his attention as wildly as any peasant, in a gown that could have purchased a village of them, but when their eyes locked for an eternal heartbeat, it sealed her fate. If Lenguin remembered her, his eyes showed no sign of it. Burning with embarrassment, she returned to the Flower Bed and redoubled her efforts. Baroness Amandice was not to be so lightly forgotten!
For days she conspired to get an invitation to the palace’s many announced functions, but she found herself spurned at every turn. Old and dear friends at court suddenly stopped paying calls upon her, or even returning her correspondence. Her attempts to secure a place at even minor functions where the Duke might be present were challenging. Twice she attended luncheons in the hopes that he would appear . . . but rumor said that he sat in chambers with his staff, day and night, working on the governance of his lands. He barely took his meals, let alone go hunting and jousting as he did in his carefree youth.
Politics was to blame. There was pressure building on the young monarch to try a campaign to retake fair Gilmora, the lands lost by Alshar to Castal a generation before, she found out later. Lenguin was trying to assess the Wilderlords’ military strength for such a campaign.
But Amandice did not know that. All she knew was that where once she was welcome, now she was disdained. The Duke barely attended the functions he sponsored in his own palace, and the new Duchess had very Remeran ideas about social propriety, as an acquaintance of hers from court (sent to her by special appointment, Amandice later realized) explained to her.
“No woman wants the mother of her husband’s bastard at her table,” Lady Peshta informed her at tea one afternoon that summer. “Really, Amandice, everyone knows that the Duke favored you in his youth. You were a pretty widow, he was a handsome heir. But we all knew what was going on – he bragged about it to his gentlemen oft enough. Not many women would present themselves for that kind of humiliation, I suppose, but you managed it well, I’ll give you that. If it hadn’t been so sweet and romantic, it might have been scandalous. And despite your pretenses, everyone knows who the parents of that handsome boy are,” she added, smugly, her eyes full of superiority and judgment.
Those concerned Amandice not at all. She was concerned for her
lover. “Does Lenguin . . .?”
“No,” Peshta said, sharply. That’s when Amandice knew that her acquaintance had been dispatched with a message that was just shy of official. “The Duke is not aware of his bastard. Nor does his wife wish him to know. Her Grace has mentioned, quietly, that she would find that distracting.”
“But, Lenguin—”
“She is aware of your position in his old life, but now that His Grace is married she will brook no affairs to complicate her life and bring scandal to her court. Lenguin has grown into his legacy, now, and no longer has time for such . . . foolishness.”
“Perhaps if I met with her,” Amandice proposed, “spoke with her face to face—“
The laughter that interrupted her was painful and mocking. “You still do not understand, you stupid little bird. You are not welcome at the palace any more. Nor does the Duchess feel you have any right to be at court with her. Not with the reputation you now enjoy. Not with the threat to her marriage that you pose. Surely you can understand that, my dear?” she asked, coldly.
Soon after that dreadful meeting, before she could act on the impulse to find a way to meet with her lover, Duke Lenguin was called away south to mediate a private war between two vassals, pledging to join the Duchess in Falas after the season.
Amandice lost all hope. She was exiled from court, denied her lover, and left with a brat to raise by herself on her diminishing savings while the Duchess had a palace and servants and plenty of money. As bitterness set in, so did resentment. But Amandice was not helpless. When Gydion was seven years of age, she called upon an old favor and had him sent to southern Castal as the page to a tournament knight, along with enough to purchase horse and armor, when he was knighted. Then she returned to her dashed dreams and vowed to knit them together.
As the years went by, she continued to scheme and plot. She continued to take lovers of wealth, title, and reputation, though there were fewer of them each year. She continued to attend what palace events there were available to her, and cultivated a circle of other ladies similarly unwelcome at court. Regardless of what they did, however, the unofficial ban stood. Amandice was not welcome in court, as the mistress of the Duke or in any other capacity. Her bearing of a bastard was known to all but Lenguin, and the topic of conversation during dull moments for years.
Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series Page 4
