Lennox, Mary - Heart of Fire.txt

by Heart of Fire. txt (lit)

  the people who are closest to the king. You can use me, sir.”

  “I am interested in a girl,” said the voice. “A new arrival.

  Do you know of her?”

  “Aye! Aye, I do, sir. Sera, she’s called. Worked in the stables,

  ’til the king took a liking to her.” He thought of the thrashing,

  the humiliation, and his anger overrode his fear.

  “Now I hear she’s to settle in the palace. Nicholas, he wants

  to ride her. She’s a pretty enough piece, and eager to spread her

  legs for him.”

  “Sera,” said the voice. “Seraphina, perhaps.”

  “If you want her, sir, I could find her fer you. I’m probably

  the only one here who knows what she looks like, eh? And I’ll

  do it, not fer a reward, but fer the pleasure of seeing that little

  whore brought low. Would you like fer me to bring her, sir?”

  The hand holding the sword hesitated and dropped.

  Dawson shuddered in relief. The sweat poured down his back,

  and he prayed that his cramping bowels wouldn’t give way.

  The specter motioned, and three men stepped forward.

  “These men will accompany you. They will stick closer

  to you than your own skin. If you have not produced the girl by

  the month’s end, they will kill you. Do you understand?”

  Dawson nodded madly. “Aye, sir. You needn’t worry,

  sir. I’ll bring her back before the new moon.”

  Seven

  “Sera!”

  As she stared in devastation after Nicholas galloping toward

  the park, Sera heard Katherine’s voice. Katherine ran down the

  stairway, her face flushed and wreathed with smiles. Reaching

  Wind Rider’s side, she scratched his chin and looked up at Sera.

  “I am so glad to see you. Nicholas sent a messenger to me

  immediately after he found you. I was so relieved.” Katherine

  reached up a hand and squeezed Sera’s as it gripped the reins.

  “You mustn’t try to run away from us again. So many terrible

  things could have happened to you, and then how I would have

  suffered for you!”

  A groom helped her down and bowed low. Reluctantly, she

  realized there was nothing else to do but walk into the palace’s

  front entrance beside Katherine. She had never come this way

  before. Her ignominious visits had been in the dark of night,

  through the back stairways for yet another royal scolding. Now

  she climbed wide marble stairs and walked through a tall set of

  double doors intricately carved in bronze. Another imposing

  marble staircase led into an enormous hallway beneath a high,

  high dome.

  It was an odd sort of palace. For all its glittering ormolu

  vases, its overly fussy inlaid furniture and its magnificent statues,

  it was beautiful in the way that a harmonious natural setting

  was beautiful. If Sera didn’t consider it a prison, she would

  have felt almost comfortable in it.

  “My grandfather had it built,” said Katherine. “I’ve always

  loved it—the airiness and the sense that a family, not a monarch,

  lives here.”

  “Come,” she said, as Sera lingered before a statue of Apollo

  with his lyre, thinking of home. “You must be fitted for gowns.

  Tomorrow, if you’re not too weary from your journey, I’ll show

  you the town.”

  Katherine stopped before a door on the second story and

  opened it.

  Sera stepped inside and stared. “You use these chambers

  merely for sleeping?” she asked, shocked at the space around

  her.

  “Of course. Nicholas insisted that this one be made ready

  for you. It was my grandmother’s. Do you like the wallpaper? I

  used to count the species of birds when I was a little girl, but I

  never could count that high.”

  “This is not a room for someone like me,” said Sera, looking

  at the bright colors on the wall, the pink silk curtains hanging

  from the high tester above the wide bed, the blue Aubusson

  carpet that covered the entire floor.

  “Oh, but my lady, it is perfect for you. With your golden

  coloring, your delicate bone structure.” A tall, slender modiste

  with graying curls bustled in, followed by three assistants, buried

  beneath the large bolts of cloth they carried. She bowed to

  Katherine as the princess walked toward the door.

  “I’ll see you later today,” said Katherine, and shut the door

  behind her.

  The modiste looked her up and down. “His majesty chose

  well—a charming setting for his beautiful jewel.”

  His beautiful jewel? “I am no one’s beautiful anything,”

  said Sera with a frown.

  The modiste prattled on as though she had not even heard

  Sera. “Now, we have little time to lose. You must have the first

  gown ready to wear by this evening, and also a sleeping gown,

  one that will enhance your lovely bosom and those soft

  shoulders. I have chosen a sky blue for you tonight. It only

  needs the measuring to complete it, and we will make more

  each day. If you will shed that. . .” Staring at Sera’s travel stained

  gown, the modiste sniffed and hurried her behind a screen set

  up at the end of the chamber.

  Deftly, she unhooked the gown, leaving Sera only in her

  chemise. She stood behind the screen, hot with embarrassment,

  while the woman wielded a tape measure across her breasts,

  her hips, and down her legs, clucking in admiration all the time.

  Sera had stripped to a short tunic many times on the exercise

  field, but never in her life had she experienced anything so

  invasive.

  “You are quite special, you know. The king has never gone

  so far as to house one like you in his palace.”

  Sera froze. “And just what do you mean by ‘one like me’,

  Madame?”

  “An irresistibly beautiful young woman who has captured

  the imagination of the commoners and the passion of a king.”

  The modiste nodded her head once in satisfaction. “Yes, that is

  exactly how I shall put it to Monsieur Carlsohnn when I order

  the rest of your fabric.”

  “You will not discuss me with anyone, Madame, else I shall

  not wear one of your gowns, and if I am asked why not, I shall

  say it is because you are a foolish gossip.” Sera controlled the

  urge to shake the woman.

  The modiste seemed not the least bit fazed by her outburst.

  “I assure you, Lady Sera,” she said cheerfully, “the courtiers

  gossip already. Now that I’ve seen you, I shall certainly express

  my own admiration of your beauty to all of them.”

  Sera heaved an exasperated sigh and simply gave up the

  battle. The woman chatted on about how careful Sera must be

  to dispose her favors upon only the most powerful and the richest

  of the nobles, for she would, of course, wish to influence the

  king in their favor only when liberally rewarded. “Take jewels,

  that’s my advice. Coin is so déclassé,” said the modiste as she

  pinned and tucked the dreadful silk nightgown that revealed far

  too much of Sera’s breasts.

  Sera felt her stomach lurch. One such as she. The king’s<
br />
  mistress—that is what this woman meant, and everyone knew

  it.

  The modiste finally quitted the room, taking Sera’s only

  gown. She heard a sound at the door and skittered behind the

  screen again. As it opened, she peeked out. Servants entered

  with a hip bath that they placed before the fire and filled with

  hot, steaming water. They laid towels and a robe upon a wooden

  chest and left silently.

  She scrubbed her body hard in the bath, trying to wash away

  more than the dust of the road. Her mind went round and round

  on the best way to escape Montanyard, but there were guards,

  and walls, and a king who could find her as easily as a mage

  could find the Hills in a hill cloak. She bowed her head, her hair

  trailing in the cooling water, feeling like a bird caught in a snare.

  She shivered, reached for a towel and dried her body.

  Wrapping the robe about her, she walked to the tall windows

  and looked out at the park, longing for freedom and home. Her

  hand rested on the wall, with its brilliant paintings of birds and

  flowers. Idly, she traced the outline of a beautiful bright green

  bird in flight, stroking the spread wings, the rose colored throat,

  the jewled eye. Her fingers paused. Her eyes widened.

  “A nikos,” she whispered, startled and amazed. “How? Who

  knew of this?”

  A nikos, precious and symbolic—found in only one place

  in the world.

  Arkadia.

  Sera pressed her forehead against the cool pane of the

  window and quiet filled her soul. Surely, this was a sign that

  somehow, someday, she would go home again.

  The next morning, she left the beautiful cage that was her

  chamber to meet Katherine in the palace’s entry hall. The

  princess, dressed in her pelisse and muff, peered out the high

  window and frowned. “I don’t know whether we can go today,”

  she said. “Just look at those clouds. You can hear the wind. It’s

  going to rain at any minute, and I’m not allowed to go out when

  the weather looks so threatening.”

  Sera looked up at the sky and over at Katherine’s gloomy

  face. In some ways, the princess was as much a slave to her

  position as Sera had been in Hadar’s palace.

  She looked up at the sky again and wondered. If I truly had

  the Gift in all its power, would it be so bad to use it for Katherine?

  To give her a happy day, would it be wrong to ask the sun to

  come out and the clouds to disperse? What harm could it do?

  “Come on sun,” she whispered inside her heart, inwardly

  chuckling at her own foolishness. “Shine for Katherine.”

  The sky lightened. The clouds thinned. Wisps of blue

  showed through the gray, and then, like a triumphant conqueror,

  the sun burst through, warming the earth. Even the brisk wind

  quieted to a pleasant breeze.

  Katherine turned to her laughing in delight. “Did you see

  that? It was almost as if the sun felt sorry for me. Hurry! If we

  get out of here now, nobody can call us back.”

  Katherine’s face was aglow with more than crisp air and

  bright morning sunlight. “I want to thank you,” she said in a

  confiding voice.

  “For what?” Sera asked in guilty surprise. Could Katherine

  have guessed? For that matter, had she actually brought about

  the change in weather, or had she simply wished when the

  weather decided to change of its own accord? Fear gripped her.

  How could she learn what to control and what to set free when

  she had no one to ask?

  “To thank you for so many things,” Katherine said, bringing

  her back from her frightening thoughts. “Your friendship. The

  chance to talk to you about matters closest to my heart. For the

  courage you gave me to finally reveal myself to…to…”

  “You didn’t! Did you truly, Katherine?”

  Katherine blushed, this time a rosy, feminine color that

  complemented her glowing dark eyes. “I did! I lured Andre into

  the garden last night, and I told him of my feelings for him, and

  he, well, he returns them, Sera. Really, to hear him, his ardor,

  his voice! He took my hand, and he kissed it. He knelt before

  me—can you believe it? Me!”

  “Of course I believe it, goose. Anyone looking at him could

  see it in his eyes. That is wonderful news. I wish you happy,

  Katherine, with all my heart.”

  Katherine stared at her as though she had lost her wits. “But

  we cannot wed, you know that. Still, it’s good to know one is

  loved in so delightfully thorough a manner.”

  “You should wed! When this war is over, everything will

  change for the best. Perhaps the Russians will defeat Bonaparte,

  and Nicholas will find and defeat the Brotherhood. It is possible,

  you know.”

  “Oh, my dear,” said Katherine, and her beautiful, expressive

  eyes looked upon her with such compassion. “You are a dreamer,

  and I’m, well, I’m a Rostov. My future doesn’t hold happiness,

  but duty.”

  Then, her lips curved in a mischievous grin. “So, let us be

  realists, Sera, and indulge ourselves where we may, in a

  shopping spree.”

  “A shopping what?”

  “A spree. Where you don’t care about economy—you just

  buy whatever you like and hang the cost.” At Sera’s blank stare,

  Katherine laughed.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never done anything without

  considering the cost?”

  “One thing,” Sera said quietly. And that was why she was

  in this strange world.

  But it was difficult to hold even a wisp of resentment with

  Katherine. The townspeople bowed and smiled at them as they

  walked toward the town, followed at a discreet distance by a

  palace footman. The princess insisted upon buying her an

  intricately embroidered blue shawl from Kashmir, a pair of pink

  satin dancing slippers that were so pretty she did not even object,

  and a pair of white leather gloves that were soft as butter.

  The drapers, silversmiths, cobblers, and confectioners Sera

  met that day made her feel more at home than the pinched-

  nosed courtiers she had passed on her way to Katherine’s room.

  They welcomed her with the same familiar fondness they

  showed their princess. At Carlsohnn’s, the fine fabric shop, Sera

  spied some lace in the back corner of the shop window. It would

  be perfect for Katherine. Sera bade her move ahead to the next

  shop, planning to buy some of it for her as a surprise.

  “Aye, Lady Sera,” said the draper unrolling the lace and

  cutting several yards of it, “it’s convent made. Feel it, now. Ain’t

  it lovely?”

  Sera allowed that it was, indeed.

  “Our boy, Billy Carlsohnn, was the ensign for his majesty,

  all the time you were in Selonia. And our cousin, Carrie, her

  youngster was the little girl you found at the orphanage for her.

  Oh! You’re all they can talk about. We’re that grateful, my lady.”

  The draper handed her a brown parcel wrapped with a length

  of string. “And if I might be so bold as to
congratulate you, my

  lady, I believe I speak for all of us.”

  Sera ran to catch up with Katherine, who stood beside the

  heavily burdened footman in front of a small teashop with a

  blue and white sign above the door.

  Katherine eyed the menu posted upon the window. “Oh,

  lovely! They have those little poppy seed cakes that you must

  try, and the cream filled tarts.”

  “Katherine,” she said, holding her back with a hand on her

  arm. “Monsieur Carlsohnn wished to congratulate me on

  something. What was he talking about? Have you any idea?”

  “About the new title and lands you own.” Katherine

  wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t Nikki explain it to you? You’re the

  Countess Fremons now.”

  Sera shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since we returned

  from Selonia.” That was only yesterday. Why did she feel as

  though eons had passed since she’d been with him?

  “What is this Countess Fremons nonsense?” she asked after

  Katherine led the way into the teashop and ordered for them.

  “Oh, Nikki thought that you ought to have a title and land

  of your own. Fremons has been in our family for generations.

  It’s a rich province, and you’ll love the old castle. It was built

  several centuries ago, but just last year, Nikki had it renovated.”

  “Katherine, I cannot accept a gift like that.”

  Katherine’s nose wrinkled in puzzlement. “Why not?”

  Because your controlling brother didn’t even bother to

  tell me himself, she thought. The waitress smiled and bobbed a

  curtsey as she set out the cakes and tea.

  Sera tried to put the matter calmly for Katherine’s sake.

  “Well, it’s rather a… bribe, isn’t it? For staying, I mean. I expect

  to go just as soon as I may.” She looked carefully at Katherine.

  “You do realize that, don’t you?”

  Katherine shrugged and smiled. “Oh, I know that you wish

  to leave soon, but you wished to leave last week, and the week

  before that, and you’re still here.” She squeezed Sera’s hand.

  “It’s only fitting that you receive a title and land after all you

  have done for us.”

  “I have done nothing,” said Sera, and the teacup rattled

  against the saucer when she put it down.

  “Montanyard and Selonia do not agree. Nor do I. Now, try

  one of the gateaux—the one with the pink marzipan flower.”