Ally of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “Thank you, Mitxel,” Sebastian said. There had been no mention of “translator” in that list of Mitxel’s duties, Fiona noticed, and she wondered if they knew Sebastian spoke no Veriboldan. If they thought it was a slight, that Tremontane had sent an envoy who didn’t speak their language, they didn’t show it. Sebastian hadn’t been at all uncomfortable at the idea when Fiona had brought it up two days before, saying only, “Then you’ll have to translate for me,” and Fiona had let it drop. She didn’t mind translating, but it was one more reminder that she had no idea what the Veriboldans expected of her.

  Fiona examined her surroundings as they followed Mitxel into the vast chamber. If the parquet floor had a pattern, it was invisible from this angle, appearing only to be a variegated mass of browns and golds. The lights that burned high overhead had to be Devices, as they didn’t increase the warmth of the room, just glowed with a soft white light that cast faint shadows across the floor. Fiona gripped Sebastian’s sleeve more firmly and reminded herself she was here by invitation.

  Sebastian seemed to have been right about the Veriboldans’ desire for everyone to dress in their national costume. Most of the men and women in the room were Veriboldans dressed much as Mitxel was, in brightly colored and embroidered knee-length robes over linen shirts and trousers in either black or white, and all were barefoot. Fiona was certain the colors meant something—she knew enough of Veriboldan nobility to know their society was highly stratified with complex rules—but the meaning wasn’t obvious at a glance.

  The little knot of people they approached, however, stood out from the gaudily dressed Veriboldans, though two of them were as brightly garbed as their hosts. Those two wore floor-length divided skirts of jade-green silk, embroidered thickly with gold and silver thread in a rich floral pattern, and matching cropped long-sleeved jackets open at the front over bare skin. The curves of the woman’s breasts were barely visible in the gap. Fiona wondered if the jacket chafed her, or if she worried about it flying open and exposing her to the world. Only the scions of an Eskandelic principality would dress that way.

  The second couple were clearly Ruskalder, their fair hair and wintry blue eyes pale enough to look bleached. Ruskalder national costume for men apparently consisted of a fur-trimmed suede shirt and trousers dyed a deep blue, tucked into knee-high boots of shiny leather that looked never worn. The woman’s shirt was similar to the man’s, but she wore a calf-length skirt with at least two petticoats, bright blue to match her companion’s trousers, embroidered with tiny white flowers all around the hem. Both their fair complexions were pink, and beads of sweat clustered at the man’s temples. Fiona found herself grateful for the thin silk of her gown.

  But it was the last person in the little group that kept Fiona’s attention. He was tall, easily six and a half feet, with long honey-blond hair pulled back from his face in a braid that fell halfway down his back and blue eyes like a summer sky. Where Holt was gaunt, this man was well-built, his sleeveless leather jerkin displaying the muscles of his arms and his tightly-fitting leather pants showing off a well-rounded posterior. Fiona realized she was staring and quickly turned her attention back to Mitxel.

  “My lords and ladies,” Mitxel said, switching to Veriboldan, “may I present the envoy from Tremontane, Prince Sebastian North, and his lady wife, Fiona North. Your Highness, Dekerian Nikani and Dekerian Salena of Eskandel, Morten of the Ruskalder and his wife Venelda, and Stannin of the Kirkellan.” He accompanied his introductions with delicate hand gestures as if to connect the names to their faces.

  “Fiona?” Sebastian said. Fiona flushed. She’d already forgotten herself. Blame it on the gorgeous Kirkellan warrior.

  “My…husband speaks no Veriboldan,” she said quickly, “and begs your pardon for the need for a translator.” To Sebastian, she said, “Did you catch all the names?”

  “Dekerian Nikani, Dekerian Salena, Morten, Venelda, and Stannin,” Sebastian repeated promptly, bowing to each in turn. Well, he’d probably been trained from birth to remember people. “Do any of you speak Tremontanese?”

  “Most children of principalities speak Tremontanese and Veriboldan as well as Eskandelic,” Dekerian Nikani said smoothly. His accent was even better than Mitxel’s. “You are a child of Willow North.”

  “She was my great-grandmother.”

  “Eskandel remembers the Queen fondly. We honor you in her memory.” Nikani made a bow that Sebastian returned without a hint of self-consciousness. Fiona, uncertain whether she’d been included in that bow, stayed still. Dekerian Salena gave her a pleasant smile, which she did return. At least some people at the Election were friendly.

  “Tremontane is disrespectful to send an envoy who doesn’t speak the language,” Morten said in Veriboldan. His voice was somehow gruff and whiny at the same time. “I have practiced many years to show respect to our hosts.” Next to him, Venelda closed her eyes briefly as if in pain, an expression Fiona was familiar with. She’d worn it herself many times when Roderick had said or done something embarrassing.

  “Prince Sebastian North is the Queen of Tremontane’s own son, and a fitting envoy,” she said, putting steel into her words. “And I speak Veriboldan for both of us.”

  Morten scowled and opened his mouth to say something else, but Nikani cut across his words with, “A prince of the royal house of North is certainly worthy of attending the Election, whatever language he speaks.”

  “He not speak?” said the giant Stannin. He clapped Sebastian on the shoulder. Sebastian staggered, but managed to remain upright. “I not speak well! Is hard, Veriboldan, it tangles tongue.” He then said something Fiona couldn’t understand, a long string of gutturals that made Morten scowl harder and Venelda cover her mouth to hide a smile. Stannin ended his sentence with a booming laugh and a smile for Fiona. She laughed too, though she had no idea at what. Hopefully Stannin hadn’t just made a joke about Morten’s mother that would earn Fiona Morten’s enmity.

  “I’m starting to question the wisdom of sending me as envoy,” Sebastian murmured.

  “Nothing to fear,” Nikani said. “We are all of us outsiders in Veribold. Even speaking their language is not enough to make us one of them.”

  A deep ringing tone echoed through the chamber. Instantly, every Veriboldan turned to face one of the terraces. Fiona looked in that direction, but saw only the fluttering drapes filtering the cool evening air. The sound rang out again. The Veriboldans began walking in the direction of the terrace, silent, the only sounds the hissing of linen rubbing against linen and the faintest noise of bare feet on wood. Fiona hesitated, unsure what the protocol was.

  Morten took a step as if to follow them, and Mitxel put a hand on his arm briefly, withdrawing it when Morten turned angrily on him as if he’d punched Morten instead. “We will wait,” Mitxel said, then repeated himself in Tremontanese.

  They waited, watching the colorful Veriboldans pass through the drapes onto the terrace and disappear from sight. Fiona resisted the urge to scratch under her arm. The room wasn’t warm enough to make her sweat, but nerves were doing what the heat couldn’t. Morten tapped his foot impatiently. Stannin looked about him as eagerly as a puppy exploring the world outside his basket for the first time. He really was painfully good-looking.

  Fiona glanced at Sebastian, who had his attention on the distant terrace, and her anxieties eased slightly. Out of place, unable to speak the language, and he still wore that air of easy competence that made her heart turn over in her chest. Next to him, Stannin looked like a glorious piece of art—beautiful, but nothing you could make a life with.

  “It is time,” Mitxel said, gesturing for his little flock to follow him. Sebastian quickly followed, putting himself and Fiona directly behind Mitxel as if he had understood the man’s words. Fiona could hear the sharp taps of the Eskandelics’ shoes on the parquet floor and knew they were immediately behind her, but didn’t dare turn to see how the others had ranged themselves. Would the Veriboldans see their order as denoting rank?
In any case, it couldn’t hurt to be first through the door.

  28

  Mitxel stopped at the gauzy drapes and pulled one to the side, leaving a gap. “You will see where you are to go,” he whispered to Sebastian. “Walk to your place and stand there. The rest will follow.”

  Sebastian nodded and drew Fiona with him through the doorway. The gauzy fabric brushed Fiona’s head lightly, like butterfly wings, and then they were on the terrace. Though she had seen dozens of Veriboldans pass through the door, she had pictured a tidy little patio, possibly in a garden. She was not prepared for a space paved in white marble, nearly the size of the chamber they’d just left, semi-circular and surrounded by pillars of black stone with capitals and plinths carved to look like seashells.

  Beyond the terrace, a lushly overgrown garden formed living walls around it, with ivy circling the pillars and latticed pergolas dripping with golden flowers making tunnels leading deeper into the garden. Above, the twilight sky shaded from pink to gold to azure like a silken curtain. It should have been gaudy, but Fiona was awed by its beauty.

  All around the perimeter, affixed to the pillars, were round shields painted with stylized animals. The Veriboldans had gathered beneath them in little groups. Fiona stopped, trying to work out what they meant, but Sebastian tugged on her arm. “Keep walking,” he said.

  “Walk where?”

  He didn’t answer, just led her off to the left. It took her a moment to realize that the shield he was headed for bore the North sign and shield, a silver panther on a North blue background rearing up as if challenging all comers. Fiona relaxed. Sebastian might not speak the language, but he understood the rules.

  A circular depression perhaps half an inch in depth lay directly beneath the North sign and shield, about three feet in diameter. It was large enough for the two of them to stand comfortably next to each other. Fiona turned to put the pillar at her back and watched the other envoys find their places. Nikani and Salena were on their right, beneath a fox head in brilliant green on gold.

  Directly across from them, Stannin stood alone, still looking about him with bright-eyed eagerness. The Ruskalder were on his left, Morten still scowling, Venelda looking placid. The shield above them was the only one not painted with an animal; the symbol looked like a seven-fingered hand, painted red as blood. Fiona averted her gaze. Tremontane hadn’t been at war with Ruskald in forever, but it was hard to look at Morten’s battle emblem and not picture it raised above a host of warriors bent on shedding Tremontanan blood.

  Silence fell once the envoys had taken their places. Fiona shifted her weight and hoped it didn’t look like fidgeting. Somewhere in the garden, a bird cried, a low, mournful sound some other bird took up and echoed. Snooty Veriboldan birds, singing in three-quarter time, Fiona recalled Sebastian saying, and stifled a grin.

  At the far end of the terrace from the doorway, beneath a stylized pattern of dots and curves, stood a gong bigger than Fiona’s outstretched arms. A woman clad in the Veriboldan costume, but entirely in gold, trousers and all, swung a mallet whose head was as big as her own to strike the gong. The same deep ringing tone pealed out across the terrace. No one moved. Gradually, the sound faded, leaving Fiona’s ears ringing. She realized she was clutching Sebastian’s arm rather tightly and relaxed her grip, though not letting go of him entirely.

  Movement at the doorway drew her attention. Two more attendants in gold drew the curtains fully aside, and a woman appeared. Her robe, shirt, and trousers were entirely black, but appeared to be of silk rather than linen. Against her dark skin, it made her look like a statue carved of ebony. Her black hair hung loose around her shoulders, and the only color about her was her long nails, lacquered a stunning rose.

  Every Veriboldan on the terrace immediately sank to their knees, bowing their heads low to the ground. Fiona looked to Sebastian for guidance. He bowed at the waist, deeply enough to show respect but not deeply enough to be servile, and Fiona saw Salena and Nikani do the same just before she copied him. This had to be Ibarhe, reigning Queen of Veribold.

  From that position, she was able to see Ibarhe walk slowly down the center of the terrace and take a position in front of the gong. “Rise,” she said in Veriboldan, and Fiona straightened as the Veriboldans stood, their hands clasped before them as if in prayer to ungoverned heaven. “Let them enter,” she added. Her tone of voice, so somber, made Fiona feel as if she were witnessing the return of the lost gods. Now, finally, she and Sebastian would see their enemy.

  The gauzy curtains parted again, wider this time, and two men and two women appeared, standing in a row in the doorway. All four wore black shirts and trousers, but their robes were pale yellow and unadorned. Their simplicity reminded Fiona of the Irantzen Temple garb, though none of the newcomers bore the serenity that had characterized the priestesses. They did look as haughty as Sela, though. In fact, the man on the left, with his straight nose and narrow eyes, resembled her strongly.

  The four held their position in the doorway for several seconds, as if posing for a portrait. Then they came slowly onto the terrace, pacing each other exactly. Fiona examined them closely. These were the candidates for Election, which meant one of them was Gizane. All four had the dark skin characteristic of the Veriboldan ruling class, though in different shades of darkness, and all four had black hair cropped short to brush their jawlines. But there, the resemblance ended.

  The other man was stocky, like a wrestler, with a powerfully jutting jaw and muscular arms he held somewhat away from his body, as if preparing to grapple the Queen. His face, though, was impassive, and Fiona felt it would be a mistake to underestimate him just because he looked unintelligent.

  The woman on the far left was the tallest of the four, not as tall as Stannin, but at least a head taller than any of her companions. She was thin, too, angular the way Sebastian’s sister-in-law Veronica was, but where Veronica had moved jerkily, like someone whose body wasn’t under her control, this woman moved like a snake, her hips and shoulders describing smooth arcs as her legs and arms moved. Her sharp-featured face looked cunning, and Fiona suspected she was Gizane.

  The other woman was, by contrast, the shortest of the lot, and beautiful, her eyes large and bright green, a startling contrast to her skin. She strode confidently, and Fiona could see her reining in her stride to match her companions’. The man next to her, the one who looked like Sela, took a short hopping step to keep up, and Fiona saw the woman smile. It was not a nice smile. Fiona reminded herself that anyone qualified as a candidate to rule Veribold was cunning, clever, and almost certainly not nice, however beautiful they might be.

  The four passed Fiona and Sebastian and came to a stop ten feet from where the Queen stood. She surveyed them coldly for a long, painful moment in which Fiona shifted her weight again, then held out a hand. Immediately one of the gold-clad attendants approached, bearing a shallow box. She knelt beside the Queen and held it so it was waist-high to the woman.

  “We are one in the service of My Lady Veribold,” the Queen said. “One in knowledge. One in wisdom. One in cunning. One in charisma. One in faith.”

  “We are one,” the watching Veriboldans, all but the four candidates, repeated. The effect was unsettling, like hearing stones speak. Fiona suppressed a shudder. She wanted to translate for Sebastian, but she was afraid to break the spell with foreign words.

  “You who would be One among Many, step forward,” the Queen said. The four candidates simultaneously took a single step forward. It would have been funny if everyone around them hadn’t been stone cold serious. Sebastian put his free hand atop hers where it rested on his sleeve and squeezed lightly. He had no idea what they were saying, and he was reassuring her? Fiona was seized with a desire to kiss him, right there in the middle of the ceremony.

  “Bixhor of the Triminon, approach your Queen,” the Queen said. The wrestler advanced and dropped to his knees before her. The Queen reached into the box and took out a palm-sized green disk the same color as his robe
, attached to a woven brown cord that dangled free. She shook out the cord and looped it around Bixhor’s neck. Fiona recognized it as a meditation medallion, a toan jade, from the Irantzen Temple just before it was hidden by Bixhor’s bulk. Bixhor bowed low, pressing his forehead to the Queen’s feet and making the toan jade clink against the marble paving stones, then stood somewhat awkwardly and backed away to his original position.

  “Gizane of the Araton, approach your Queen,” the Queen said. Fiona gripped Sebastian’s arm tightly. To her surprise, the small, beautiful woman strode forward, as confidently as before, and received her medallion and made her bow with an air of complete self-assuredness. That was Gizane? That tiny thing? Fiona felt her assumptions rearrange themselves in a dizzying manner. She should know better than to let appearances guide her. Well, now they knew the face of their enemy. And although she hadn’t looked their way at all, Fiona was sure she knew their faces as well. She moved like someone who always tried to be two steps ahead of her opponent.

  The Queen called up the other man, whose name was Luken of the Azergn, and the tall woman, Alazne of the Otsoan, and gave each of them their medallions and received their bows. Then she gestured, and the four turned and walked back through the doorway, once more in lockstep.

  Fiona watched the Queen rather than their retreating backs. The Queen’s expression was placid, but one of her hands flexed and closed restlessly, suggesting she wasn’t as calm as all that. What did the Queen have to worry about? In a week, maybe less, she would lay down her crown and step into the cushy retirement Roderick had once told Fiona was the destiny of all former rulers of Veribold. Her job was almost over. Yet she didn’t have the air of someone with her whole life ahead of her.

  Behind the Queen, women garbed in white wraparound shirts and white trousers streamed onto the terrace from the garden. They looked like Irantzen Temple priestesses. They fell in behind the Queen as she began walking toward the door. Fiona realized her shoulders hurt from standing stiffly too long and tried to relax them, letting her head sag. Rolling them out was probably frowned on, too informal for this setting and ceremony.