Rider of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “It’s meant to convey a feeling rather than represent something,” Bixhenta said. “The viewer’s response reveals his or her character. What do you feel when you look at this piece?”

  Imogen studied it again. “Confusion,” she admitted.

  “Then an interpreter of Veriboldan art would say you have an open and honest mind, and do not fear change.”

  “And are you an interpreter of Veriboldan art?”

  “No, but I feel confusion when I look at it, too, and that’s what I was told that response means.” They laughed together. “Will you sit? This shouldn’t take long.”

  Imogen took the seat she’d used before, and Bixhenta lowered himself into his chair and steepled his fingers. “The matrian and I have come to an arrangement,” he said. “She asked me to give you the terms of our treaty, to help you in your dealings with Veribold. I will have a copy for you before you leave.”

  “Thank you,” Imogen said. Surely he hadn’t called her here just to tell her that.

  “I believe I told you not to take any assertions made by me or King Jeffrey at face value,” he continued. “Did you investigate?”

  “I did,” Imogen said. The way he looked at her made her nervous, as if she were a two-year-old filly and he was sizing her up for purchase.

  “So you have learned Tremontane is poised to invade Veribold.”

  She hesitated. What was appropriate to say, here? “I do not believe so,” she said carefully, watching his face to see which way to step next.

  “Impossible. What proof do you have?”

  So that was the trap. “I don’t think I should give you that information. I’m sure you have your own sources.”

  “My sources tell me nothing. Are we not allies? Come, girl, this information could save two countries a great deal of bloodshed.”

  “Bixhenta, I apologize for being blunt, but my sources are confidential and I don’t believe it’s my responsibility to do the work your people have failed to do.”

  His ancient face turned a delicate pink, possibly the closest he could come to displaying anger. “I insist you tell me how you gained this information.”

  Imogen rose. “I think this conversation is over. If you’d bring me my copy of the treaty, I’ll leave. I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, but I’m sure if our positions were reversed, you’d do the same.”

  Bixhenta stood in that same slow unbending of joints. “You are fortunate we have already signed the treaty,” he snarled. “I did not think the Kirkellan would be so ungrateful.”

  Imogen said nothing. Bixhenta glared at her once more, then shoved the swinging door open hard; it struck something, and Imogen heard a cry of pain that swiftly cut off. She stood facing the windows, clasping her hands together to control their trembling. Bixhenta had wanted her to spy for him. So much for all that noble talk about learning for herself. That could mean Veribold was planning to invade. She ought to tell Jeffrey—no, she couldn’t, she had to remain impartial. And his intelligence sources were far better than hers. If Veribold were planning to invade, he would know.

  A woman dressed in silk robe and tunic came through the swinging door bearing a sheaf of paper. She handed it to Imogen and was gone almost before Imogen could take hold of it. No valise this time; apparently Kirkellan who disappointed the Proxy didn’t rate that high. She tucked it under her arm and carried it that way back to the embassy.

  It didn’t contain anything new, she discovered, and squared the papers together and put them in her dresser drawer. There ought to be somewhere more secure to put them. Simon would know. He was due back tomorrow, and they’d be safe in the drawer until then. It wasn’t as if there was anything particularly sensitive in the treaty. Even so…she worked out a message to take to the palace telecoder. It was probably a good thing for Mother to know Bixhenta had tried to make her spy for him.

  Diana left for the front two days after the Spring Ball, relieving Imogen’s fears that their mutual hostility would increase to the point that violence would erupt. Imogen spent her days riding and her evenings attending dances and concerts and even an art display at the Veriboldan assembly. Apparently Bixhenta’s anger and disappointment hadn’t lasted, or maybe he just didn’t want to appear to be at odds with the ambassador from the Kirkellan. She was surprised at how much she enjoyed the show despite not understanding anything about Veriboldan art. The presenter, a short, fat woman with long black hair, spoke with great eloquence, her translator spoke with considerably less, and Imogen sat back and let the words wash incomprehensibly over her. She stared at the pictures, feeling surprise and anger and regret, and wondered what those reactions said about her.

  The invitations, as Jeffrey had predicted, continued to pour in. Imogen tried to be impartial and asked Elspeth’s help in reading and winnowing them. She refrained from asking Elspeth what her brother thought of her “swains,” as Elspeth called them. She could hardly remain impartial if she hung on Elspeth’s every mention of him. Her tiermatha provided help of a different sort.

  “I didn’t like the look of him. His hair was too blond,” Dorenna said the morning after Imogen had gone to dinner with one of her swains.

  “Nothing wrong with blond. Or brunet or red-headed,” Kallum purred.

  “I mean it looked like he’d done something to it. If he isn’t confident about what heaven gave him, I’m not sure I’d trust him.”

  “He was very pleasant,” Imogen protested.

  “Pleasant? You might as well say he’s got a nice personality, for all the praise that is.”

  “He’s got that too.”

  Dorenna rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Don’t you want someone more exciting? Someone who makes your toes tingle when he kisses you?”

  “I didn’t let him kiss me, so I don’t know if they do.” And I already had someone whose kisses made me want to melt.

  “I think she’s taking the safe choices because her heart’s already given elsewhere,” Kallum said, his eyes twinkling. “To someone tall, dark, and unattainably gorgeous, at least to me.”

  “I’ve already said the King and I are not courting. It would be improper.”

  “Doesn’t mean you’re not still thinking of him,” Dorenna said.

  “I’m not. I’m thinking of the concert tonight and wishing I hadn’t accepted an invitation from Larkin Argyll. He seems nice, but it’s really hard to look at him and not think Ears!”

  She saw Jeffrey twice during this time, once from behind at the concert where she sat next to Larkin Argyll and passed the time twiddling her thumbs and wondering if the performer was going to saw at his instrument so hard it would break in half, and once at dinner in the east wing with Elspeth and Owen. He behaved naturally, holding her chair as usual and asking after her tiermatha and Victory, and she thought they were doing well until she caught Elspeth’s suspicious eye cast her way. It’s our eyes, she thought as she drew figure eights in the leftover sauce with her fork, our eyes give us away, and I don’t know what to do about that. She smiled sweetly and unselfconsciously at Elspeth, and didn’t look at Jeffrey through the rest of the meal. When dessert was over and Jeffrey had gone back to work, Elspeth said, “Let me walk you to the door, Imogen, I want to talk to you.”

  They hadn’t gone very far before Elspeth said in Kirkellish, “What’s going on between you and my brother?”

  Imogen, unprepared, gaped, and said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the way you managed to say more with your eyes than you did with your mouths. Then you stopped looking at him altogether and he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. If you were courting, you’d tell me, yes?” She sounded hurt and a little angry.

  “We’re not courting, Elspeth, I promise.”

  “But I can tell you want to.”

  “Well, we’re not. And we’re not going to.” She could have explained it all to Elspeth, but she knew her friend too well; Elspeth wouldn’t be able to stop herself from telling Imogen how unfair it all was, and wouldn’
t it be nice when the year was over, and building up their relationship until she had Imogen and Jeffrey safely married with a child on the way. Imogen would have enough trouble staying impartial without Elspeth’s “help.”

  “Everyone’s going to believe otherwise, you know.”

  “Then you’ll have to convince them of the truth.”

  “I believe otherwise.” Elspeth pouted.

  “Pouting is unattractive, Elspeth.”

  “I would really like it if you were courting, Imogen.”

  “Elspeth, I promise if that ever happens, you will be the first person I tell. Now, how are things with you and Owen?”

  Having safely deflected Elspeth, she returned home to find Dorenna, Saevonna, and Areli in the left-hand parlor. They stopped talking when she entered, Dorenna trying to conceal a smirk, Areli looking composed and Saevonna looking guilty. “What are you three talking about?” she asked.

  “Birth control,” Dorenna said, her smirk no longer concealed. “Turns out Saevonna may have a need for it.”

  “Has it gotten that far?” Imogen exclaimed, sinking onto a nearby sofa.

  Saevonna was crimson. “Very far,” she said. “I thought these Tremontanans had rules about sex…but I’ve had to stop him twice, now, because I wasn’t prepared, and now I’m worried if we sleep together he’ll regret it afterward. And suppose he’s a virgin? I’ve never been with a virgin before. It’s intimidating.”

  “Suppose he thinks you’re a virgin?” Dorenna said. “You plan to tell him otherwise?”

  “Thanks, Dorenna, now I have something else to worry about. How under heaven do you propose I tell him that? I can barely say I love you.”

  They all went silent. “Do you?” Imogen asked.

  Saevonna nodded. “I know it’s insane. I’m insane. But I have never felt so…I don’t know. So content as I do when I’m with him.”

  More silence, broken by Areli saying, “I knew Kionnal was the one for me after three days. Sometimes it happens like that. And we’ve been together for over three years now and I’ve never felt a moment’s doubt. Of course, it took him over a year to realize the truth, so I don’t know what the moral of the story is.”

  “You’re making me feel like an unromantic old maid,” Dorenna complained. “I think it would take me a hell of a lot longer to learn to trust someone that completely.”

  “I think we’re abnormal,” Areli said. “So don’t worry.”

  “Oh, you’re abnormal, all right. What about you, Imo? You and that King of yours?”

  “We’re not courting,” Imogen said, trying not to let her blush give her the lie.

  “Oh, I forgot.” Dorenna winked broadly at the other two, who grinned.

  “I told you, there isn’t anything between us because that would be inappropriate for me as the ambassador.”

  “I think the ambassador had better tell that to her rosy red embarrassed cheeks,” Dorenna said.

  “Stop teasing, Dorenna, Imogen’s made her choice and there’s no sense bringing it up again,” Areli said, but her expression as she looked at Imogen was curious, as if she were trying to solve a complicated puzzle. “Anyway, Saevonna, Tremontanan birth control is more sophisticated than ours, but it works on the same principle. I’ll give you the name of my supplier; he’s very friendly and he speaks Kirkellish, so you don’t have to worry about mix-ups.”

  Imogen sat silent for a while, waiting for her blush to subside. First Elspeth, now her tiermatha; it seemed the only person who believed there was nothing between her and Jeffrey was herself, and she didn’t think herself was very convinced either.

  She went to Prince Serjian Ghentali’s birthday party two days later with Darin Weatherby, a young man who’d passed Elspeth’s rigorous screening process as well as the scrutiny of the tiermatha. He was a solid, pleasant man who enjoyed hearing Imogen’s stories of the Kirkellan and diffidently shared his own stories of his work in the assessor’s office, “which is as boring as it sounds,” he told her on the ride to the Eskandelic embassy. “Really, I’d rather hear about your tiermatha. Is it true you join one and then never leave it until death?”

  “That is only part true,” Imogen said with a smile. “It is more true you are part of tiermatha until you change your life. That means, get married or do a trade skill, or sometimes it does mean die. Though not as much now we have peace with Ruskald.”

  “And then if someone leaves, you take on a new person? How long have these members been in your tiermatha?”

  Imogen counted on her fingers. “Some of them are new just from a year ago, before I go to Hrovald’s house, because of war deaths. I know—knew Saevonna and Revalan since five years ago, and Dorenna and Areli and Kionnal nearly as long. Kallum three years. The others are all much newer and I do not know them as well, but I trust all of them with my life.”

  The carriage came to a halt. “I don’t know even one person I’d trust my life to, let alone twelve,” Weatherby said. He was well-informed enough not to offer her his hand to assist her out of the carriage, which should have pleased her, but instead left her comparing him unfavorably to Jeffrey. She smiled brightly, pushing Jeffrey’s image to one side. She was at a party with a pleasant young man and she was going to enjoy herself.

  The Eskandelic embassy was in an older part of Aurilien, where single-story buildings presented a blank front to the street. A brass plaque affixed to the wall next to the gate announced this was the Eskandelic embassy, or at least Imogen guessed that was what it said. The door stood wide open, watched over by four men wearing traditional Eskandelic garb, long skirts with two deep pleats and full-sleeved jackets open over bare chests. Imogen passed them to enter the foyer, which was small and cramped. She hoped the rest of the building wasn’t similarly proportioned.

  A woman in traditional clothing, down to the jacket over her bare chest, took Imogen’s wrap and Weatherby’s greatcoat. Another woman gestured for them to exit the room through the door opposite. They emerged, not into the salon Imogen expected, but into a garden lit brightly by white globes that hovered about a foot above Imogen’s head. Low yew hedges defined alcoves containing black ironwork tables, above which hovered miniature versions of the globes overhead, and matching chairs. A path picked out with smooth, disc-shaped tiles and star-like tesserae wove around the hedges and out of sight beyond taller walls of evergreen. Men and women sat and conversed at the tables, or spoke to one another over the hedges, while others strolled along the path and disappeared around the corner.

  “Shall we sit?” Weatherby said.

  “I want to see where they go,” Imogen said, pointing. She took his arm and drew him along after her, not waiting for his assent.

  They found themselves in a maze, quite alone, with the voices of other guests fading into the distance. Even more curious, Imogen continued to follow the path, towing Weatherby with her, taking turn after turn without seeing anyone. The globes were fewer here, and the ones remaining painted strange shadows across the living walls. It was unsettling, and Imogen had almost decided to turn around and go back to the party when she entered a clearing where several paths met. A statue of a nude woman, her back arched painfully so her breasts and hips were thrust forward, stood at the center of the clearing, and Serjian Ghentali sat on an iron bench beside it. Other wanderers admired the statue, or emerged from their paths to greet Ghentali, and Imogen decided to do the same.

  “Madam ambassador, I greet many time your face!” Ghentali exclaimed, rising and coming to meet her. “I birthday is have much…parthy? Party! Who is this?” Imogen introduced Weatherby, who bowed. “Many better is people, yes? Good that you come, here, you I give now.” Ghentali took her hand and pressed into it something small with many hard edges. “Birthday is I give to all, yes?” He took a breath, and said, slowly, “Welcome to my parthy. Party!”

  “Thank you very much, Ghentali,” Imogen said, bowing. “I hope it is enjoyable for you as it is for me to be at your party.”

  “Thirty-s
ix!” he exclaimed proudly. “Go, eat, drink. Great fun I have!”

  Someone else approached the ambassador, and Imogen retreated. “He’s an odd fellow, isn’t he?” Weatherby said. “Friendly, though. What’s that he gave you?”

  “I do not know.” At the mouth of the path they’d entered by—at least she hoped it was the same path—she stopped under a light globe and looked at what Ghentali had given her. It was a faceted stone the size of her thumbnail, clear and colorless in the harsh white light of the globe, set in a silver or white-gold bezel and hanging from a long silvery chain. As she shifted her hand, it twinkled at her with rainbow flashes.

  “Good heaven, Imogen, I think that’s a diamond,” Weatherby gasped. “May I?” He took the chain from her and held it up so the stone dangled free. It caught the light of the globe, which transformed it into twinkles of color. “Almost certainly.”

  “It is not diamond, Ghentali not give out diamond even if it is his birthday. It must be….” She didn’t know the Tremontanese word for “crystal,” but she tapped it with her forefinger and watched it spin, and marveled at how beautiful it was.

  “You really shouldn’t accept this,” Weatherby said, handing it back to her.

  “It is rude to give back a gift,” Imogen said, “and on his birthday as well. And it is not diamond. You will see.” She fastened the chain around her neck and admired how pretty the crystal was, dangling between her breasts and continuing to catch the light.

  They returned to the alcoves and found food and drink being served. Weatherby fetched her a plate full of tiny sandwiches and a glass of champagne, and they retired to a table where they could watch the other guests. The harem was present, acting as hostesses, and Imogen reminded herself to speak with them before she left. She nodded and smiled at people she knew, spoke to a few, but mostly sat silently observing. It was a pity Jeffrey wasn’t here. They could exchange comments on the other guests, and he would wander from group to group, listening to complaints or discoursing on the territorial acquisition with equal ease. She did like watching him work. She hoped someday to be as comfortable a diplomat as he was. Damn. She hadn’t even gone a full half-hour without thinking of him. And at a party with another man, no less.