The Movement of Crowns

by Nadine C. Keels

  ~~~

  An unseasonably warm winter in the kingdom of Diachona was poised to bow out in seamless surrender to spring, and a current of felicity was flowing through the early morning atmosphere in the capital city of Topaz. The sprightly greetings and bright expressions heard and seen were genuine, by no means intending to belie a collective, niggling unease over the prospect of war or a censored strain of doubt concerning an alleged, longtime confinement, of sorts, of a monarchical figure. It seemed that no one found much sense in dwelling on any downbeat likelihoods today: a day marked to celebrate the nation’s promise, when an adored Daughter would be receiving a rite of passage into royal junior standing. There would be festivals throughout the country and a gala at the palace in Topaz, and as a small number of dignitaries from other nations had come to town to attend the gala, it was a highly suitable time for the city to put its choicest face forward.

  It was on this morning that a markedly robust Diachonian man stood still in a crowd of people, staring. Perhaps his azure, disbelieving eyes had yet to wholly awaken with the rest of him, at this hour.

  The marketplace south of the capital’s main thoroughfare was decorated for celebration and was already busy with patrons. The bustling and noise around the vendors with merchandise out in the open may’ve been addling the man’s mind. He gave himself the benefit of a few hard, purposeful blinks, wanting to be sure that his imagination wasn’t putting one over on him.

  One more flicker of his eyelids, however, and he knew he was not mistaken. It was likely that the others within his proximity in the marketplace were too engrossed in hailing familiar faces and rushing to inspect handmade items the vendors had been working on during the winter to take much notice of the unspeaking young woman with bronze hair flowing from beneath a red head scarf who was quickly and carefully winding her way through the crowd to snatch up and pay for goods to put in her woven basket. It was also likely that she was aware of the other patrons’ oblivion, using the market’s busyness to her advantage, as although it would not be strange if any member of the community here who’d pause to look at her wouldn’t recognize her anyway, someone still might.

  After a final and unnecessary blink, accompanied by a shake of his sable head, Staid Alexander decided to go ahead and allow his curiosity to have free course, hoping that he’d somehow manage to proceed catching as little notice as she seemed to be. It did not take Staid long to spot the two, plainly dressed guards hovering inconspicuously nearby, and Staid acknowledged them both with a look, ensuring that the men had identified him and silently returned his acknowledgment before he approached the young woman, who was now taking whiffs through bags of incense in front of a garrulous vendor who was too keen on showing forth the praises of his superbly mixed plants and spices to realize that the customer before him was not listening.

  “A good morning to you,” Staid greeted the woman, loudly enough for her to hear before he lowered his voice so that she would be the only one not to miss his reverently adding, “my lady.”

  The woman took her time to select a bag of incense to place in her basket before she turned to look up at Staid, her mild brown eyes meeting his amused blue ones. Her stare rapidly flitted over his unassuming shirt and trousers before she returned his greeting. “And a good one to you, Alexander. A surprise to see you here in the market, this morning.”

  A grin broke out across Staid’s clean-shaven face. “My aunt is recovering from illness. I’m letting her rest before the festivities tonight, since she insists upon making an appearance. Unfortunately, I’ll be late arriving, since I must tie up some loose ends of pertinent business, so I’m sending a driver to get her there in time for the Sally of Ladies. Hopefully she’ll sit down after that. She’s not had time to sew a new dress, but I thought I might find a beaded necklace for her here, to help her feel extravagant. What brings you down here?”

  The young woman dug a coin out of the small purse tucked in her basket, paying the vendor for the incense she’d taken and allowing his spiel to move indiscriminately on to the next patron as she answered Staid. “No special reason. I’ve told you I enjoy going about to purchase goods on my own from time to time. The household has gotten used to it. But no one speaks to me much, whenever I come here. I can’t tell if I’m altogether hiding when I do this, or if I’m simply not fitting in.”

  It was Staid’s turn to look over her clothing, seeing the dress which matched her head scarf in color, with tiny yellow flowers printed all over it, and the long, starch white apron covering the front of its skirt. “I too would question whether you’re hiding,” he told her, “or if you’ve had a heartfelt but nevertheless failed attempt at appearing—oh, how can I say it respectfully?—appearing to be someone who actually has a need for aprons.”

  The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “What could you mean? You would do well to know that I make good use of my aprons, thank you.” She crouched clear down to the ground, smoothly running a hand over the dirt at her feet before standing upright again and running her palm over the waist of her apron in one motion, leaving a blatant smudge against its whiteness. “Why, I soiled this apron here just this very morning. Not long ago at all.”

  Staid knew he should have expected as much of a dryly humorous reaction from her. He had to swallow a guffaw. “You don’t say? Pardon my ignorance, then, and consider me now well enlightened on the matter.” He gave a slight bow before going on to add, “But you haven’t much more time for soiling aprons and such today, have you? I’m sure there are lofty preparations to be made. What’s next after you leave the market?”

  A shadow passed over the young woman’s face as she threw a cautious glance around, as if in sudden apprehension about being overheard. “Um, I’m going to visit my mother.”

  “Oh.” Staid took a perfunctory glance about them as well, giving a cough to clear his throat. “Then she’ll be glad to see you. I know she always must be, in her own way. Please send her my greetings.” The woman graced him with the fleetest smile of thanks, and he promptly shifted subjects. “Are you excited?”

  The woman gave a slow nod, taking grateful advantage of Staid’s tact. “You could say I’m working my way there. Although, frankly, I’m not certain of all the significance it will hold for me on a personal level, I’m nervous about the ceremony this afternoon. It sounds like it will be a severe affair. But I am looking forward to the gala.”

  “As you should be. It’ll be a splendid night for the tipping of hands, as men—and, probably, nations—may give evidence of their plans to find ways to persuade you into a deeper alliance.”

  A corner of the woman’s mouth edged upward. “If you are speaking of romance, Commander, be informed that I’m currently unable to feel, when it comes to sentiments of the kind. I’m more concerned about what I’m going to do with my people, marital alliances or no.”

  The hint of a smile that Staid now offered held no mirth but plenty of understanding. “Hey. No fear about that. It’ll come to you. In time, what you need will come to you. Permit me to give a word of advice, before I take my leave?”

  “You’re permitted.”

  Staid’s smile deepened, though still in all seriousness. “You only reach this milestone once in life, and you are ready for it. This day and tomorrow are yours. Don’t allow anything to stop you from enjoying what you are meant to enjoy.”

  After surveying Staid’s eyes, the woman briefly dipped her head in acceptance. “Thank you. I shall do my best to relish it.”

  Staid vacillated then. There was more pressing on him that he wished to say to her, something he’d been containing for a long time, but he figured that if he’d been waiting to speak on it for four years, waiting a little longer wouldn’t hurt. He took a step backwards, his full grin returning. “Thank you, for this moment of your valuable time. I’ll not take any more of it now, and let you carry on. Good day to you, my lady.”

  “And to you.” As Staid bowed to her again and turned to be off, the woman stood there staring
at his departing back, broad as it was, as she knew she’d formed a habit of doing over the past year or so. Staid Alexander was only four years her senior and was already the head of the kingdom’s army, having been (surprisingly, to some) bequeathed the position by the former commander who’d died from a collision with a boulder after being thrown from a spooked horse. The military bequest had had to stand the approval of the king, and while more than one voice had expressed doubts about granting that high position to a man who had not yet reached the qualifying age of thirty years to sit on the National Council, the king had deferred to the previous commander’s trusted judgment concerning the young man’s aptitude, vigor, and readiness to lead. Alexander had been named the new head of the army, and by default, he was given a seat on the Council, which was made up of the patriarchal elders, the prominent landowning chieftains, other key military leaders, and King Matthias.

  The young woman sighed as Staid disappeared into the throng of marketplace patrons. Protocol oftentimes had a way of demanding a particular brand of partition and aloofness, but if she had any real peers, Staid was the one of them she regarded as her closest friend. She’d known him all her life, some of her early memories of him consisting of games they’d played and races they’d had outdoors with other children of Council members, military men, and courtiers. Staid, with his age and size, had always been a faster runner than she was, but she’d liked him because he would let her win every now and then. They had reached the first of many true meetings of their minds in conversation when she was twelve, and her current sigh was a wordless query, a wondering to herself if she had just been inadvertently dishonest in her conveyance to him on the topic of sentiments. She could not deny to herself that she’d been thinking more of Staid lately, in ways she had barely thought of him while she’d been growing up.

  Perhaps, over the years, she had been spending too much time in her family library, and in the State Library, and in the World Annals, reading everything that she could get her avid fingers on. Perhaps she had been too occupied with her desire to see more of the lands and peoples she was reading about, and while other girls her age in her circle were experimenting with new fashions and lavish hairstyles and talking of beaus, she had been traveling near, far, and a bit farther, sometimes with her father and his company, and other times with only a smaller company of her own. Not to say that she had any dearth of style or fashion, as the frame of mind she usually returned from her travels with influenced her fashion to degrees that she knew made her attendants tense, on occasion. Yet, she was also aware that what most unsettled those she knew was the changed gaze and the weighty, fervent hush she frequently came back with. She’d have an almost eerily meditative aura about her, and she would take her time before speaking to anyone about what she had seen, the individuals she’d met, insights that she’d gained. Her father, who astonished many by allowing his daughter to make so many journeys before she had officially entered womanhood, was commonly one of the first she spoke to of any trip he hadn’t been present with her on. Staid was the other first, whether it was in person or by letter, if he was away.

  Whatever the case or distraction may have been, she’d given little of her time to the aforementioned kind of sentiments, and she’d recently started to suspect that because of her years of neglecting them, such sentiments may have begun rising in revolt, storming around her pulse to make it jump whenever Staid approached her these days, regardless of whether he was bringing his habitually jaunty air with him or if he was more subdued. It wasn’t an implausible idea that her sigh may’ve also been somewhat due to the notion that, though she’d been thinking more of him, she had no evidence that he’d been having any more than his normal sum of thoughts about her.

  She’d yet to figure out why he wasn’t married to anyone by now.

  Oh, goodness.

  “Percy,” she abruptly said, as if in a desperate attempt to call herself out of her own reverie by speaking someone else’s name. Her guard Percival was at her side before she turned around, and Henri was not far behind him. The two men accompanied her out of the marketplace and on her walk home, and a white-haired woman met her upon her arrival, inquiring after her morning excursion. “It was wonderful, Merry, thank you. I saw Staid while I was there. Please have my basket taken to my chambers. I am washing my hands and going up to see Mama. Have I an hour? Be sure to come for me, as I might lose track of time.”

  Not many minutes later, the young woman had climbed a carpeted staircase up to secluded quarters of her home, stopping to knock at a door standing ajar. “Mama?” she called, poking her head through the door.

  “Constance,” she heard her name in response, and she entered a sitting room, looking across it to see her mother in a plush chair facing a floor-to-ceiling window. Constance moved toward her mother from behind, glad to find the older woman in a morning dress instead of a nightgown. Constance leaned to place a kiss on her mother’s soft cheek, and her mother smiled faintly, not looking away from the window.

  “I’ve just come from the market,” Constance announced as she lowered herself to a settee not far from her mother, facing her without obstructing her view of the outdoors. “I found handkerchiefs with little roses stitched on the corners and the most delightful smelling incense. I’ll have some brought to you later. I saw Staid while I was there. He sends his greetings. And he is partially responsible for my apron being dirty,” Constance added with a little laugh.

  The smile remained on her mother’s face. She did not look away from the window.

  “He asked if I’m excited about today,” Constance went on. “I am, but I confess that I’ll be glad when the ceremony at the cathedral is over. I’ve rehearsed and have been told what to expect, of course, but I still don’t know what to expect. And I don’t think it will have such a great impact on me, formally becoming a royal junior. You know that much of what royal juniors do, as far as more rigorous study and increased travel to other nations, I’ve been doing before I was even twelve. But I understand that the rite is still important to the kingdom, for what it symbolizes. And all uncertainties and unanswered questions aside, our people need this time to celebrate the future. To hope. For that, I can endure a rigid ceremony. Maybe it will turn out to be a brighter event than I think. There is still time for you to let me know if you would like to attend. I had two gowns made for you, in case...”

  Constance’s voice drifted. After only watching her silent, inert, smiling mother for a moment, Constance rose from her seat, crossing over to kneel on the floor beside the older woman, taking one of her hands and reaching up to place a palm alongside her face. “Grace,” Constance murmured.

  She had never been sure if her father would approve, if he found out that Constance would, at rare times, secretly address her mother by her given name. But Constance had learned, a few years ago, that this had become the only way should could get her mother to look at her.

  The smile left her mother’s lips, but a glow was in her eyes as she turned her head, gazing down at her daughter.

  “Mama, it’s my birthday,” Constance stated, undecided as to whether she was providing a reminder or an explanation. “It’s my twentieth birthday. I’m being recognized as an adult today. You may come to the cathedral if you like. All you have to do is say so. Or, if you’d still rather not leave home, you can come to the gala for a while tonight, right down in the ballroom. You wouldn’t be obligated to speak. You could just wear your new finery I got for you and sit there next to Papa and listen to the orchestra and watch the dancing. Everyone would be so overjoyed to see you there. Mama?”

  Constance’s hand left her mother’s face as the two women stared at each other, Constance’s expression full of searching while her mother’s was glowing, loving, present, and faraway.

  To this day, Constance wasn’t clear on precisely how much the nation knew about this in accurate detail, apart from rumors, but the once active and effervescent Queen Grace of Diachona had done little more than sit in her se
parate quarters of the palace for the last five years. Barely a word was heard from her anymore. She would mostly stare around or through people. She would allow her attendants to walk her about the palace grounds for exertion, but if she was brought anywhere else where she was expected to stay for more than a few minutes, she would hazily wander off and head back to her quarters. She no longer went to the family wing of the palace or to her husband Matthias’s chambers.

  Matthias didn’t speak much to his daughter about the effect the altered state of his wife had on him, but Constance had once peeked around the door of her mother’s quarters while Matthias had sat in there in a chair, holding Grace in his lap while she napped. Constance had not been able to see her father’s face, as he had buried it in her mother’s chestnut hair, but seeing the heaving of his shoulders in soundless weeping, Constance had backed out of the room, resolving that looking in on her parents unannounced was a deed she would not repeat.

  Matthias had told Constance more than once, however, that he did not lament having the queen he’d chosen. It had taken a decade of marriage before their persevering love had produced offspring. Even when the kingdom esteemed Grace for her charity, intelligence, and the prudent legislative influence she had with the Council, through her husband, in matters of civil law and rights, still, doctors and advisors had warned Matthias that he would be left with no blood heir to his throne if he did not put away his apparently barren wife for another. Yet, Matthias’s only retort had been to continue favoring his wife, and Grace had eventually stunned everyone when she conceived.

  Nonetheless, while the queen had gained even more of the nation’s respect when Constance was born, the people were looking for her to give the king at least one son, a true Junior: the title given to the first male in line to succeed to the throne. All sons and daughters in the royal line were given junior standing and were commissioned to start their diplomatic travel when they came of age, but no daughters were given the honor of the distinct Junior title, that title of “the king’s everlasting confidence,” since daughters naturally married into other families within or without the country, taking on different family names. Further, the implicit conclusion was that daughters had no real need for the title; in all the generations of Diachona’s history, no king had failed to produce a male heir to the throne, even if it took passing through a number of wives or concubines to do so or naming a son of one of his brothers as the heir. However, the past four generations of Diachonian kings had each taken only one wife while virtually spurning the tradition of concubines, mentioning pecuniary strains caused by the disposable cost of harems. Matthias’s father and grandfather had had just one son each, Matthias being the only child born to his parents whatsoever. Therefore, the nation looked to Matthias to add more males into the royal line.

  And he had one daughter. One child to stop any foreign kings from assuming headship over Diachona. When Matthias passed on, his daughter would be queen, but Diachona would, for the first time in its history, be a kingdom without a king. If anything ever happened to Constance before she brought forth an heir, the elders on the National Council would have the authority to select a councilman to be king, but for many years running, the Council had been notorious for unpredictably reaching untimely stalemates over the most momentous decisions. A longstanding joke among Diachonian citizens was that the kingdom might be taken over by an outside empire, with a new flag, a new anthem, and a new capital imposed upon them, and the Council would still be in their assembly hall, deliberating and quarrelling about which man to promote to a throne that had already been usurped. The nation was thought to be better off not having to leave the supremely crucial choice of a king up to the Council, and so the people looked to the current royal heir for hope. Surely Constance wouldn’t allow the original line and national sovereignty to be lost through a merger with a foreign monarch in marriage. Constance would do best by marrying someone who would not disrupt the line of succession, birthing as many sons as she could by him, so that the nation would have to endure no more than one generation in a kingless situation. Thus, from the day of Constance’s birth, her people stood anticipating the time when she would marry and commence having children.

  Then, when Constance was fifteen years old, unexpected news went flashing its way through the kingdom. Queen Grace had conceived again. In truth, the difficult delivery she went through nearly finished her, and it left her quite unwell afterwards, but the jubilation throughout the country was overwhelming at the birth of King Matthias’s son. Indeed, the initial rejoicing over the birth had not thoroughly ceased before the subsequent, mournful disclosure came that after two months of frailly fighting for his life, the baby boy had died.

  Constance, during her adolescence, had grown into an understanding of the pressure her mother had been under, and she had admired the poise her mother maintained for years whilst continually facing a nation of people who resoundingly admired her, even while they quietly regretted her. Yet, the death of her son had psychologically routed her, and as the queen’s body recovered as much as it could, it became clear that she had definitely borne her last child.

  The kingdom’s future was at stake, asserted the primary doctor who had been treating the queen, and he deemed it the safe and sensible thing to guarantee that Diachona’s young successor to the throne was fit and fertile. In a confidential meeting with the king, the doctor had proposed a series of critical tests that should consequently be performed on the king’s daughter as soon as possible, to confirm that her female capabilities were in order.

  The details of the doctor’s proposal were never made public. All the same, on the day of the meeting, Constance received a report from Percival that palace guards on duty had heard a crashing sound and had burst into the meeting to find an enraged Matthias holding the doctor up against a wall, the doctor, with a bloodied face, caught in a frantic struggle while Matthias was violently choking the breath out of him.

  Matthias had relented at the urging of the guards, but he banished the doctor to spend the remainder of his life in prison, and the rest of the condemned man’s medical colleagues assigned to the palace were soon replaced, as a precaution.

  Constance had not wasted time in seeing her father in their family parlor, the day after the incident with the doctor had occurred. “It is most unfortunate,” Matthias had told her, setting aside a cup of tea that he’d been drinking, “but I’m not ready to discuss all of it with you yet, Apple.”

  “But, Papa, I think I deserve to know what was said,” Constance had insisted, not sitting when her father motioned for her to join him on the couch. “You very nearly killed someone yesterday.”

  “Nearly. And if I’d come more than near doing so, it wouldn’t have been the first time.”

  “Oh, well, yes, I know that back when you were in the military, combat required you to—”

  “I’m talking nothing about my time in the military.” Seeing the shock threatening to pervade his daughter’s eyes, Matthias went on to stop it before it appeared. “Oh, destiny. Don’t be so quick to forget what you’ve been taught, Constance. I’ve told you of the importance of mercy and compassion in the throne, but have I not also told you that there’s no place for cowardice in kingship? Inauspicious episodes do come up. Our place is sometimes a dangerous one. I’ll admit that I did lose my temper yesterday, what with your baby brother’s passing and your mother weighing on my mind of late, but do not believe for an instant that I would not expire anyone aiming to bring harm to the kingdom I’m accountable for, let alone to my own family. I don’t know what got into him, but if that most miserable of fools was audacious enough to propose what he did, right to my face, then, yes, he is beyond lucky that he was taken out of my capital with his contemptible head still on.”

  Constance had looked down at her hands, her voice small but steady. “But what will happen if I do turn out to be barren, for some reason?” She brought her eyes back up to her father. “I’ve wondered before how the Council might react
if I ever proposed adopting a Diachonian infant, maybe an orphaned one, and raising him in the family name, if I had to.” Matthias began to shake his head, so Constance was swift to say, “It’s merely a thought, Papa. I don’t think it’s going to come to that. But is it wrong to consider possible options ahead of time? I’m sure that you were forced to consider other options back when it seemed like Mama would never have a child. You effectively chose to risk the future of Diachona for the love you had for Mama, correct? But it could have gone another way.”

  Matthias had scratched at his peppery beard. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with thinking things through. My ‘options’ were put up to me a number of times, by different ones. Of course various ideas crossed my mind. But if you imagine that I must’ve sat down and thought to myself, ‘Let me consider giving up on Grace,’ you’re mistaken. I didn’t see myself to be risking Diachona for the love of my wife, as I did not believe that my devotion to her and my expectation for the kingdom’s continuance were incongruent. This nation was given to me by the one Who removes and sets up kings. And I carefully chose the wife who would be best for me, and the best queen over this people. It did appear for a while that she would not have any children, but it pleases Providence to use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the weak things to confound the strong. I believed that exactly what my people were in need of would come through me and my wife.”

  “And...do you still believe it?” Constance had asked. Seeing the line of puzzlement between Matthias’s eyebrows, she’d pressed him with, “You don’t think the country would fare better by your leaving them a son? Do you ever wish that I might have been the one you could have named your Junior?”

  Matthias had stared up at her for a time, the line lingering on his forehead as he sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees while he ran the fingers of one hand over the fist of the other. Then he’d risen from the couch and went to gently take Constance’s face in both of his hands, asking, “Why would I ever have need of calling you Junior, when I already have the singular privilege of calling you Daughter?”

  Constance had stared back at him before readily walking into the embrace he drew her into. “I wouldn’t trade you for anyone, Apple,” Matthias had earnestly added, resting his chin atop her head. “I would never trade you.”

  Wrapping her arms around her father’s middle, Constance had appreciated the fierce, familiar love she felt from him, even as she wasn’t settled on how she felt about Matthias’s eloquent question.

  And, today, Constance was kneeling on the floor beside Grace’s chair in her sitting room, looking up into her face. Constance was aware of the rumors that Diachona’s queen had gone mad after the demise of her son those five years ago, and although Constance wouldn’t say that she agreed with that assessment entirely, she could not say that she wasn’t often at a loss on how to deal with her mother’s condition. She felt that she was coaxing Grace about her birthday events in vain, but she had to do it. She was convinced that this woman, who could either hear her but wasn’t listening or who was listening but couldn’t really hear her, would know, in her soul, if her daughter ever gave up on trying to draw her back into life.

  Constance squeezed at her mother’s hand, refusing to sigh. The queen would not come, she knew, but Constance would make sure that attendants brought up the queen’s ornamental diadem and had her new gowns and a robe ready and waiting in her dressing room. Constance stayed there on the floor, talking to her mother until Merry came to retrieve her for ceremony preparations.

  That afternoon, amid the dynamic resonance of a grand pipe organ, the huge sanctuary doors of Topaz’s foremost cathedral were opened to welcome the entry of Princess Constance, dressed in a modest and traditional white and light blue frock with a short train, its colors signifying purity and faithfulness, and with her long bronze tresses bound in a single braid laced through with white and blue ribbon, resting over her shoulder. She wore no jewelry but held in both her hands a small, shining headdress with blue stones: her first coronet, which had been waiting for her on a cushioned stand in the cathedral’s vestibule, minded by two sanctuary servants. Constance walked solemnly down the sanctuary’s aisle, knowing that the faces of everyone watching her were Diachonian, except for those of two foreign princes, sent from two of Diachona’s allying nations to witness the occasion. She was conscious of Staid’s being in the room, along with the other members of the Council, but she dared not look for him in the crowd. Her father, in resplendent ritual robes and a coronal on his head, was standing up at the altar near the officiating bishop, and Constance came to kneel at the steps of the altar, as she had rehearsed, while still holding her crown.

  As the music ended and the ceremony progressed, Constance found that she had been wrong to assume that the rite would not have much of a personal impact on her. A variety of emotions surged and receded within her during the bishop’s admonitions and blessings to her and the kingdom’s other citizens there, and by the time her father took her coronet from her outstretched hands and placed it on her head, and she stood and turned to face her people, she knew that the prospect of the ceremony’s severity was not what had been unnerving her beforehand. It was more than probable that many of the country’s citizens, even some of them here, had wished, at and after her birth, that she had not been female. And while, from now on, it would be this adored Daughter’s recognized duty to purposely buoy the hopes of the nation, she was cognizant of the impression that the people were not looking forward to her reign so much as they were looking forward to the masculine one that should positively succeed it, if she adequately performed that essential aspect of her duty. Constance thought, not for the first time, that perhaps the undoing of her mother had had a little less to do with the death of her baby alone, and a little more to do with the nation’s indubitable disappointment in their queen. Constance had no intention of turning in the kingdom’s sovereignty through a marital merge of international powers, but she could not help the passing idea that, if she was otherwise unable to give the people what they truly wanted from her, then she, like her mother, might one day prove not to stand above being undone.

  Pipe organ tones were again swelling majestically through the room, and Constance did not know how long she might have stood there in musing, staring expressionlessly at those in front of her, if she had not felt her father’s hand pat softly at her back. After glancing up toward the sanctuary’s east balcony, where her mother would have been sitting if she’d come, Constance swept both of her hands up to her heart and deeply curtsied, not removing her hands from her heart as she slowly made her way back down the sanctuary’s aisle. As soon as her feet hit the vestibule, attendants swarmed around her, and the organ ceased in favor of the ringing of bells in the cathedral’s tower, soon to be echoed by church bells throughout the capital. It was time for the festivals to begin.

  Constance made a visit to one of them, in the marketplace she had patronized that morning. As she was showered with lively attention and was given baskets of food when her carriage brought her into the midst of singing and dancing city residents, she laughed aloud at the thought that she’d gone mostly unnoticed through these same streets, hours earlier.

  That evening found Constance back at the palace, making an entrance into the palace’s brightly lit ballroom on the arm of her father, who was clad in white and black full military dress bearing medals from his past service, with a silver councilman’s sash over his shoulder, affixed near his waist with a medallion bearing his family’s royal emblem. Constance almost physically felt the emphasis of the gazes turned in her direction as the gala’s mass of guests halted to behold the tangible picture of fervor this young woman was tonight, her countenance unsmiling but not uninviting, her luminous eyes taking everyone in, looking for Staid until she remembered that he would be coming late.

  Constance had contentedly and appropriately complied with tradition in her attire for the royal junior ceremony at the cathedral, but she h
ad chosen to take a different course for the gala. Instead of any intricate, upswept coils or plaits, she’d opted to have her hair loosely curled and falling freely down beneath a filigreed circlet adorning her head. Daughters in the royal line customarily wore blue to their twentieth birthday celebrations, but Constance had donned a rich ruby gown, off the shoulder with a glittering bodice and no lack of flowing skirts. Around her neck was a ruby choker from Matthias, and her lips were meticulously enhanced with crimson.

  Constance’s attendants had been doubtful, in their typical way, over her order to have a red dress made. What if her blatantly vivid departure from traditional twentieth birthday array for royal junior women reinforced what a number of people had been whispering for years: that this girl, who made relentless trips out to the State Library and the World Annals like a fiend before it was required of her and who’d been traveling practically as much as an adult ever since her childhood, was allowed too much freedom by her father? Constance had answered her attendants by saying she was choosing red as an act of family honor. She had not gone on to explain about her years of being affectionately called love’s fruit, a young lady firm and sweet, since her place as “Papa’s Apple” was none of her attendants’ concern. She’d felt no qualms when, after her stop at the festival, she’d come back to stand for the painter assigned to capture her twentieth birthday likeness, arrayed in red, and she believed that her guests at the gala would have a marvelous time, regardless of whatever gown she wore.

  Yet, knowing that the surprising moment of her entrance should be tempered for her guests’ sake, Constance allowed for a public display of familial fondness, tipping her head against Matthias’s shoulder. Her father chuckled warmly at her gesture, planting a kiss on the top of her hair, and a sigh seemed to go through the ballroom as the people were apparently put at ease enough to applaud the royal junior’s awaited arrival.

  Instantly inspired by the music streaming from the ballroom’s elevated orchestral chamber, Constance was ready to join the dancers who were moving to the floor, but as she and Matthias first had to go to the room’s dais for dignitary reception, Constance was quickly reminded that not everything floating through Diachona’s air was strictly celebratory.

  The string of notables from the allying nations present, including the two princes who’d also been at the cathedral that afternoon, were principal visitors, given that even now, Diachona was facing a heightening disagreement over national territory with a country called Munda. Constance had studied about the country, but the fact that she’d actually chosen to make a friendly visit to it a couple of years earlier had drawn horrified reactions from more than a few Diachonians. Munda had been on virulent campaigns to expand its wealth and borders for about the past decade, and while the country had recently grown quieter, Munda’s King Aud had expressed his interest in lush lands in Diachona’s southeastern region. He asked if he could send Mundayne people into the land to farm it, asserting that Diachona was letting it go to waste by not making the utmost use of the territory. Matthias had respectfully denied Aud’s request, stating that Diachona would decide what to do with its own land, and with the kingdom’s rate of growth, there was no telling of the great use they could soon make of all of their territory. Aud had then asked what Diachona thought would stop him from simply coming into the land and taking it over, if Matthias would not willingly share it.

  Aud, Matthias, and an untold number of other leaders in a range of nations knew that Munda was a daunting military power, boasting one of the largest armies in the world. Diachona had a sum of smaller allies to petition for assistance in defense, but even with combined forces, they would still fail to be a match for Munda and its colonies, in numerical terms. And the timing for the threat of war could hardly be more inconvenient, since the nation of Rêeh, Diachona’s ally across the Eubeltic Sea, was trying to cope with its own unforeseen trouble, as a vicious earthquake had racked an ample portion of their country, destroying a number of towns. Accordingly forlorn, panicked citizens of theirs were beginning to run wild, and escalating plundering and violence was becoming a near overwhelming problem for its soldiers to handle. Relief donations coming in from different countries weren’t putting a halt to the unrest. Notwithstanding rumors of displaced rodents and such leading to declining sanitary conditions in the area, Diachona had pledged to send some of its own troops to help restore peace and order, whenever Rêeh sent the word for outside military support. As that word could come at any time now, Aud’s using this opportunity to breathe down Diachona’s neck was a grating scourge on Matthias’s and his people’s throats.

  “I feel for the populace of Rêeh,” a chieftain by the name of Greenly, the newest addition to the National Council, had stood in the latest Council assembly to say, as reported to Constance by Commander Alexander afterward. “I truly do. They have a beautiful country, and I hear the efforts to rebuild broken towns there are progressing too slowly. But Munda is our main concern now, and our focus should be to take care of home. We need our military here.”

  “I understand, Chieftain,” King Matthias had replied, “but it is better to make no vow than to make one and break it. We’d already pledged our support to Rêeh before this business with Munda suddenly came up. And, honestly, we would in fact need Rêeh’s help to stand before Munda. It is in both ours and our ally’s best interest that that country comes back to order. On the other hand, whether we send help to Rêeh or not, Munda still has us outnumbered. We could do our best to protect our territory with what we have, but no matter how little or much our power, if Providence doesn’t keep our territory, we watch but in vain. What substantial benefit would it be to anyone for us to withhold the support we’ve pledged to our friends? No, if Rêeh calls for our help, we will give it, as we said we would.”

  Chieftain Greenly had nodded, and had taken his seat.

  Now, the eldest son of Rêeh’s king was one of the princes Constance was obliged to greet before she could go dance. As he intently conveyed his pleasure at their meeting, kissing her white-gloved fingers, his eyes lingering on hers, it was clear that here was one of the tipping of hands Staid had spoken of. Never mind that this particular tipping came as no shock. Constance gave the prince a nod to send him off the dais.

  As the prince was leaving, Matthias inclined toward his daughter, and Constance opened and lifted the fan she held to shield their exchange as Matthias told her, “He has requested a private audience with you tomorrow, after the presentations of your gifts at court.”

  Constance fluttered her fan. “Oh, that should be remarkable. I look forward to it.”

  Matthias amusedly raised an eyebrow at her and then straightened back up to receive the next dignitary in line.

  After they had completed the necessary receptions, Matthias took his daughter out to the floor for her first dance as a junior, to more applause from their guests. Afterward came the collective Sally of Ladies, a dance that Constance had always participated in on the girls and younger women’s side of the formation but now danced on the side of the women who were of age. When the dance was finished, Constance went straight over to Staid’s aunt, embracing her with personal thanks for attending the gala and calling for a plush chair to be brought near the dance floor for the woman to rest in.

  Constance went back up to the dais to take a seat beside her father, but she hadn’t long to sit there, as she spied Chieftain Greenly coming across the room, dressed in a slick black suit and his councilman’s sash, making his way over to the base of the dais. “Your Majesty,” he bowed in greeting to Matthias, receiving the king’s consenting wave to come on up.

  Constance evenly met the chieftain’s gaze as he came toward her. This tall man with the smart mustache wasn’t a stranger to her, as she’d conversed with him on different occasions over the past couple of years. She knew him to be the proprietor of lands in three cities, and despite his having no wife or children of his own, he was recognized as a reliable mediator and advocate for the distinguishe
d Greenly clan. Constance liked him well enough, but when she would have dialogue with him, she often got the feeling that he was challenging her in some way. She’d never detected any definite contempt or mockery in his attitude toward her, though, and she’d therefore grown relatively sure that this man must just find stimulation in having a challenge. While she did not always return the stares she felt from him when they were in the same place, Constance could usually tell when Greenly had his eyes on her, whether or not the two of them spoke to each other.

  Snapping her fan closed with one hand, Constance extended her other to Greenly. “A good evening to you, Chieftain.”

  “Your Highness,” Greenly acknowledged her, kissing her hand and not letting go of it. “My congratulations, and my best wishes to you on your birthday. My gratitude would know no bounds if you would honor me with this next dance, and, if I may be so bold to request it, if you would also reserve your final one of the night for me, as well.”

  Constance’s head tipped slightly to one side. “How will you know when I’m going to have my final dance, sir? I could take my leave of the gala at any time.”

  “You could. But I have determined to keep an eye on you, and it will not be difficult to tell when you are preparing to go. I can approach you then. What’s more, I’ve had a number of servants here alerted of my objective to have the last dance with you, so word of your impending departure can be sent to me speedily before it takes place.”

  Constance’s mouth opened, but she did not speak, taken aback. She found the chieftain’s actions to be somewhat intrusive, but sensing the humor emanating from her father at her side, she knew that Matthias had been informed of Greenly’s objective before she had.

  Greenly pressed lightly at her fingers. “My lady? Will you so honor me?”

  Constance said nothing, her eyes washing placidly over Greenly’s self-assured visage as she rose from her seat, allowing the chieftain to lead her off of the dais.

  As was his way, Greenly was not shy about initiating conversation with Constance while they danced. “So,” he began, “Her Highness has major plans to embark upon, following her birthday.”

  “What plans are you referring to?”

  “I hear tell that you mean to seek a place on the Council.”

  Constance was again rather surprised at the chieftain, but she summarily reckoned that she had no reason to be. She’d known that this matter she’d brought up to her father a while back would be mentioned to the Council at some point. She gave a nod. “You’ve heard correctly.”

  Greenly’s smile stopped just short of teasing. “Do you truly believe that would be possible?”

  Constance’s shoulder moved in a shrug. “As possible as you gentlemen will allow it to be.”

  Shaking his head with a laugh, Greenly told her, “You are definitely a conundrum, my lady.”

  “I will regard that as a compliment.”

  “Please do.”

  Constance received her fill on the floor with many partners who entreated her that night, including each of the visiting princes. Though the manner of the first was in no way ungracious or even uninterested toward her, Constance could tell that his being here was simply an ambassadorial responsibility he was fulfilling for his country, with no other designs attached. The prince from Rêeh, however, was keenness itself while he deftly whisked Constance around the floor, telling her that he had heard so much about her over the years, that he had once seen a portrait of her and had been impatient to observe her in person ever since. He asked her to grant him a second dance, to stretch his time in her company, and she indulged him.

  Eventually, Constance took a breather from dancing for some refreshment. She was talking with other young women in a cluster, having just finished off a little bowl of fruit she held when she heard the deliberate “A-hem” of a familiar voice behind her.

  Her pulse jumped. Constance hesitated and then turned to find Staid standing there, his white-gloved hand smoothing down the silver sash across his stalwart chest. He was in his full, medaled commander’s dress, the midnight blue hue of it only a hint lighter than his thick black hair. Constance stood waiting for a grin to break out over his face, but no grin came. Instead, as his gaze swept down the length of her and back up to her face, a low, zestful murmur issued from his serious lips. “My goodness, Princess.”

  Constance’s heart leapt clear up to her throat. She stood there, frozen beneath the heady pressure of a look she hadn’t thought to prepare to receive from Staid. This wasn’t an ordinary night, but neither was it the first time he’d seen an aesthetic representation of hers of herself. Yet, enduring the nature of this scrutiny from him was a novel experience for Constance, and she felt her empty bowl being eased from her fingers by one of the young women with her.

  Oblivious to the enlivened whispers starting around the cluster of women, Staid took both of Constance’s unoccupied hands, guiding her out to the floor. The speechless pair had been engaged in dancing for a minute or two before remembrance flashed into Staid’s eyes, widening them. “Oh! Please forgive me, my lady. I didn’t even ask.”

  Constance involuntarily released an airy, girlish giggle, her grip tightening on Staid’s arm when she felt him slowing down. “Oh, no, no—don’t stop. It’s quite all right. I wasn’t thinking either. That is, I was, but...yes.”

  Staid laughed as well. His pace picked back up, and he grinned at last. “Happy birthday to you.”

  “Thank you, Commander. I’ve been enjoying it, like you told me to.”

  “Glad to hear it. I have a gift for you, you know, but there’s something of a predicament in relation to it. In the first place, I won’t be able to present it to you at court tomorrow with your other gifts. And in the second place, I’m anxious that you might think it to be a ridiculous scheme, at such a time.”

  Constance was anticipating the normalizing of her pulse’s rate, but it wasn’t happening yet. “Can you tell me what it is?”

  “Certainly. I had to tie a good part of it up today. You know they’ve finished building the new hospital in Nonpareil, a boon for that city’s civilians and the military men who’ll pass through. I’m going to represent the Council at the hospital’s grand opening next week, and I’ve arranged for you to come on the trip. I figured that we’ve both been about frequently, since we’ve been friends, but we’ve never been about together, outside of the capital.”

  Constance’s eyes were the ones to widen then, momentarily. “What? Alexander, that’s wonderful. I would love to be there for the hospital’s opening. Why would I think that to be a ridiculous scheme?”

  Staid’s smile turned sheepish. “Because of Rêeh. I know Nonpareil isn’t that far from Topaz, and the trip would only be a week long, plus the time to get there and back. But if Rêeh were to call, I’d have to head out immediately, cutting our time short. Wouldn’t that ruin the gift?”

  “No. You’re an important man, sir, and it’s no unusual thing for you to be called to duty, with or without warning. No sense in letting that fact deprive me of having at least a part of an excellent birthday present.”

  “Ah,” Staid laughed, an extra spring animating his step. “She has spoken. It’s settled, then. Nonpareil it is.”

  Constance remained on the floor with Staid for three consecutive dances. She would have been willing to remain for more, but at length, Staid declared, “This isn’t altogether proper. It’s your party, and I’m hogging you. There must be others who still need a turn with you, and I should be on my way from here.”

  “On your way? Already?” Constance asked, trying to keep any displeasure from showing in her posture while Staid led her to the dais. “I was hoping we’d have a chance to go out to the terrace, to talk.”

  “I’m sorry. I would love to do that. But I must fetch my aunt and get her home. She would never complain of discomfort to me, but her body might complain to her in the morning.”

  With a conceding nod, Constance stepped up onto the dais. Staid did not relin
quish her hand, so she turned to face him, seeing the gravity that had returned to his look. “Please be so kind as to pardon my tardiness and my early departure on your night,” he appealed to her. “And, again, forgive me for my previous blunder. I was overeager but meant no disrespect.”

  Constance’s head turned somewhat, as if she meant to shake it but stopped. “I know,” she told Staid, her eyebrows drawing closer together. All of the apologies over a dance didn’t seem necessary, coming from him.

  Staid bowed, bestowing a parting kiss on her hand. “Your Highness,” he said.

  “Commander,” she replied, and he let her hand go, reversing a few steps and turning to leave. Constance stood watching his formidable back as he walked off, and she threw open her fan, fluttering it vaguely. She’d been doing so well to relish the day as she’d promised to, but she could not ignore the disproportionate sinking of disappointment within her as Staid went to retrieve his aunt and withdrew from the gala, and though he’d been right in mentioning that others here might still want a turn with her, she no longer felt much up to it. Neither did she want to go sit with her father behind her, who was now absorbed in conversation with friends of his who’d joined him on the dais.

  It did not take incredibly long for Constance to spot Chieftain Greenly, who was staring at her from way across the ballroom. She did not smile or signal to him but stared back at him, continuing to flutter her fan as he made his way over to her. She would have her last dance, she would bid her father goodnight, and she would quit the gala. It was sufficiently past midnight anyway, she was sure, and she would need good rest prior to her forenoon appearance at court.

  She understood that the pomp of the event would pale in contrast to court presentations she would prevail over as queen in the future, but Constance did find the continuance of her birthday celebration at court the next day to be gratifying, as Diachonians and foreign dignitaries processed in and out of the palace to offer her gifts. Her father was on his throne up on the platform behind the seat of honor that had been brought in for her, her coronet was on her head, and her nods and words of approval and thanks to the presenters were genuine.

  What she did not take quite as much delight in was her subsequent meeting with the prince of Rêeh. Their conference was in private: as private as it was going to get, in a less formal reception room with two of her attendants standing over on a wall, Percival standing behind her, and an attendant of the prince waiting right outside of the doorway with Henri. There were but three chairs in the room, being the king’s, the queen’s, and Constance’s in the middle of them, and there she sat erect in a silken cerulean gown with her hands folded in her lap while the prince had out with his piece.

  A pity it was, he deemed, that in all of her travels, she had not yet visited Rêeh. If she could only envision with him how Rêeh possessed some of the loveliest landscapes and most dazzling sunsets one could find anywhere in the world. His nation and hers had been on affable terms for generations, as she well knew, and trade between the two had been abundant. And he had seen that portrait of her, as he’d told her, but he’d found at the cathedral the afternoon before that the fine likeness he’d seen in advance had been unable to manifest the exquisite energy her actual presence brought when she stepped into a room. And the sight of her at the gala had been an unforgettable one, he was persuaded, and dancing and talking with her had been for him an encounter with bliss that had been over far too soon. Now, she would please bear in mind, he was no dimwit. With the dire circumstances his country was facing, due to the damage caused by the terrible earthquake, he would not be able to propose marriage, just yet—Constance’s eyebrows rose sharply—but it would please him greatly if she would keep in correspondence with him, if she would consider inviting him to see her in Diachona again, and furthermore, if she would allow him the divinity of now gracing her with a farewell salute, since he would be leaving for his land on the morrow.

  Constance sat there, blinking. She would have given in to unbelieving laughter, but in no way was this prince jesting with her. Besides, even if his oratory struck her as over the top, he did not make an inane picture, standing there before her. The astuteness in his countenance was unmistakable, and if a man could radiate a craving for a woman he’d known for less than a day, this man was doing so. Careful thought had gone into the jewelry he’d presented to her at court; Rêeh was not in a position to send anything ostentatious, but the pieces the prince had gifted her with were refined and delicate, crafted with precision, meant to move her. The prince and his country were serious about this.

  Constance’s look was unreadable. “I honestly do not know how to thank you, good Prince,” she admitted, unfolding her hands and extending one to him to receive his salute. “I trust that the promising esteem between our nations will continue for years to come. I wish you a safe journey back home, with my best to Rêeh’s noble king and queen, of course, and to the rest of your family and your people. God be with you.”

  The prince wavered for a second in reflection and stepped forward, lowering himself into a bow and taking Constance’s hand, his eyes holding hers as he quietly told her, “It would be thanks enough for now, sweet Princess, if you might lend me your charming cheek, as I was hoping.”

  Constance felt her insides tighten. She swallowed the urge to issue an incredulous chortle and gave a single nod, thinking that on behalf of diplomacy, it would be acceptable, especially with Percival there. The prince moved further forward, his lips coming to brush a smooth sigh against Constance’s cheek, and it was all she could do not to be frowning when he backed away from her after what seemed too lengthy a pause.

  “Yes, I’m fine, Percy, thank you,” she answered her inquiring guard after the prince had gone. Constance reached up to reassure her charming cheek with a speedy pat or two, resolving that she’d think twice before lending anything to the next prince or other in a private audience. She had the impulsive desire to relay this episode to Staid, to see what he would say about it, but she would have to wait until their trip to Nonpareil to talk to him in person.

  And wait she did, although when the time came, she was too thrilled about the trip for the episode with the prince of Rêeh to matter as much. She and her company left the palace in two full coaches with her guards riding along on horses, and they met up with Commander Alexander’s small band to head out of the capital together. Constance did not get to greet Staid personally until they all made it to Nonpareil, when Staid insisted on being the one to help Constance, in her modish traveling suit and feathered hat, out of her coach.

  “Your Highness! Welcome to your birthday gift.”

  “My thanks, Commander.” Constance returned the smile that Staid gave her, taking hold of his offered forearm for their walk over to the committee of citizens delegated to hail their arrival into the city. “My word, this is by far the longest birthday I’ve ever had in my life.”

  Staid leaned his head toward her to let her know, “I wish it to be the best, my lady. I felt bad having to miss so much of your monumental celebration in Topaz. I want this to make it up to you.”

  “You don’t have to make anything up to me,” Constance replied before Nonpareil’s delegates came forward to receive her and the commander.

  The city’s largest inn had been emptied of patrons in order to accommodate its illustrious guests from Topaz. Supper in the inn’s dining room that night was a spirited, jovial affair, with the maids bringing in plates of Constance’s favorite fruit tartlets for dessert, “For Your Highness’s birthday” and “For Her Highness’s birthday” serving as explanations as they set the pastries down on the tables. Constance looked over to a beaming Staid, knowing that this was his doing.

  The spirit at the opening program outside of the hospital the next morning was more subdued. Staid, his demeanor stately and sober, was in uniform along with two of his army men accompanying him as he fulfilled his governmental task of addressing the hospital staff with words of sanction and goodwill from the
National Council. Constance looked on, soaking in this rare chance to watch the commander in this aspect of his work, in front of a listening crowd of Nonpareil’s residents. After he finished, the staff gave their guests from Topaz a complete look around inside of the new hospital facility.

  The remainder of Constance’s trip was spent mostly in recreation and tours of the city hosted by citizens overjoyed to meet the princess and the commander over their nation’s army. Constance passed a couple of mornings about Nonpareil with only her attendants and guards, while Staid was off involving himself in exercise, shooting, and swordplay with his soldiers, but during the time he spent with her, Constance was more than conscious of Staid’s goal to make the week memorable for her.

  She was roused before dawn by one of her attendants one morning. “Please pardon me, Your Highness,” the young woman whispered. “You might want to dress. Commander Alexander has asked if you would like to come out and sit in the inn’s garden to watch the sunrise with him.”

  Constance, immediately wide awake, sat up and flew out of bed. She made ready and went out to the garden to meet Staid, where he was waiting with a lamp and a sprig of laurel. “I don’t think they’ll mind that I snipped a bit of this,” he said after bidding Constance a good morning, gingerly slipping the laurel leaves into her hair above her ear. He led her over to a short bench, where they sat to share in hushed, unhurried conversation, and as the morning sky began to illumine with color, Staid blew out the lamp.

  One evening, Staid took Constance out to Nonpareil’s commons for a night of alfresco folk dancing. Constance was unfamiliar with a corporate dance or two, but the city people were happy to demonstrate for her and to lengthen the dances until she caught on. Such a night didn’t require the same kind of ballroom protocol, so Constance was by no means reluctant about accepting Staid as her partner each of the several times he asked her.

  On an afternoon when Constance arrived at the inn from a tour she’d taken while Staid had been out with his soldiers, one of the attendants who’d remained at the inn told Constance that the commander had sent a request for her to change into one of her “work cottons, and no apron.” With the trace of a smirk, Constance rolled her eyes at Staid’s assumption that she’d brought any such cottons, but nevertheless, she changed into one, letting her hair down and tying a scarf over it.

  “What’s happening here?” Constance questioned when their party pulled up at an open, grassy field where children were busy in play.

  “We, my lady,” a plainly clad Staid announced as he helped Constance out of her coach, “are going to teach these tykes some of the games we invented when we were young.”

  “When we were? We are young still.”

  “You know what I mean,” Staid enthused as he maintained his hold on Constance’s hand, quickening his step as he pulled her toward the action on the field. “I had my men search for a place where children could be found after dismissal from school. So now Her Highness will be able to get her dress all nice and authentically soiled.”

  Constance let out an unreserved laugh. She and Staid spent the afternoon frolicking around with the children who heartily welcomed this addition of playmates into their group, albeit the newcomers were grownups, and important ones at that. The youngsters even stood as judges at the starting and finish lines of a race in which the commander may’ve (if so, not overtly so) allowed the princess to outrun him.

  “Whatever am I going to do with you?” Constance blithely blurted to Staid while she caught her breath.

  “Whatever makes you ask?” was his innocent response, and he gave Constance a wink over the chatty children’s heads.

  On the evening before their scheduled departure from Nonpareil, with guards at a pleasantly unassuming distance away, Staid and Constance sat alone near a pond at twilight, Staid stretched out on his back in the grass, and Constance sitting up against the trunk of a tree, with a book in her lap. She’d been reading while the light had allowed and then had closed the book to watch the sky over the trees. She was sure that the sunset couldn’t be much more beautiful than this anywhere else. Not even in Rêeh.

  Constance deeply took in and released a comfortable breath, and she looked over at Staid, who was also watching the sky, but with eyes that were only partially open. “I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen you so relaxed,” Constance told him.

  Staid’s eyes slid over to glance at her. “Have you ever?” he asked with a short chuckle.

  “I know that I have. At some point while we were young.”

  Staid sat up with another low laugh, running a hand through his hair to remove blades of grass from it. “Well. I suppose you’ve been able to tell that I wanted to make this a relaxing trip for you, after we got the official business out of the way. I know how much you enjoy meeting people, simply having some time to be a part of their lives. Not at all a bad thing, taking your position into account. I can tell the people here have enjoyed you, especially the children. If we were in a different city, I might have opted for jaunts to the opera or to the theater, for you.”

  “No, no.” Constance drew her palm over a patch of grass. “Do you have any idea how grateful I am to you? This has been perfect, just like this. My favorite birthday gift this year. Well, this, and the rubies my father gave to me, which are just delicious.”

  “Oh?” Staid laughed yet again. “His Majesty made me promise to shield you with my life and flesh, when I asked him if I could bring you here with me.” He shrugged. “As if I wasn’t going to do it anyway, but, hey. That’s how fathers are, as they should be.”

  Constance gazed out across the tranquil pond, her hands idly turning her book over in her lap. “I can’t help thinking that you’ve done all this not only for my relaxation, but for my reassurance.” Staid didn’t say anything to that, so Constance went on with, “Alexander? You think we’re sitting in a calm before a storm, don’t you?”

  Staid’s eyes were out toward the pond as well. “I know I will have to go to Rêeh. Soon. And King Aud—he certainly has a mind and a purpose all his own. Given how he’s chosen to expand his kingdom over the past decade, brutally taking over other nations’ territories, we know that his looming threats about stealing land aren’t empty ones, even if they’re coming after what’s been something of a period of silence, for him. So I’m just glad I was able to give you this week, before whatever else happens.” He sighed, willing himself not to turn around and look at Constance. If he looked at her just now, his resolution about ensuring that his timing would be correct might unravel. His hand went up and through his hair a second time, rubbing at the back of his neck as he brought his voice down. “Please keep this with you, long after it’s over. My lady.”

  Having almost missed Staid’s ending words, which seemed to be left hanging, in a way, over the edge of an intangible crest, Constance peered over at Staid, perusing the outline of his meditative profile in the fading light. Was it her imagination that something thick was creeping into the space between them? She thought then of telling Staid about her episode with the prince of Rêeh, in an attempt to lighten the air, perhaps, but she decided not to. This moment, as it was, didn’t call for any more discussion.

  That night, Constance lay in her bed, staring blindly at a wall. She was having trouble falling asleep amid her fighting against dreamlike images of Staid and his soldiers being shipwrecked on their way across the Eubeltic, and Staid aggressively running like savage fire on a battlefield, skillfully swinging and thrusting his sword through many men before a Mundayne soldier comes up behind him, stabbing him soundly in the back. In his broad, mortal back.

  Providence, Constance silently pleaded, turning over. She forced her mind toward reflections of Staid trotting along at her side through the years, working up artificial huffs and puffs, and Staid in Topaz’s marketplace, on a caring mission to procure a beaded necklace, and Staid laughingly inviting her to join him in a folksy jig under the stars in Nonpareil’s commons. And, then, Constance went to sl
eep.

  The day after she arrived back at home in Topaz, Constance’s father bid her to come out riding with him in the meadows a short ways north of the palace. Constance was content to accompany him, since when it was only the two of them, Matthias didn’t care whether she rode sidesaddle or straddled her horse, as long as she kept up and wasn’t afraid to jump.

  While their horses were at a leisurely pace, Matthias inquired after Constance’s trip to Nonpareil and their people there, and she conveyed an affirmative report, mentioning at the end, “Now Staid says he knows he will have to go on to Rêeh soon.”

  Matthias nodded. “Yes. That assignment is imminent.” He rode on for a second before looking over at his daughter, his eyes narrowing as he teasingly smiled. “You know, you never told me what the prince of Rêeh wanted in his audience with you, Apple dear.”

  Constance tilted her head dryly toward her father. “You know exactly what His Highness wanted, Papa darling.” Matthias chucked his head back in laughter, and Constance waited for him to quiet before she went on. “In all honesty, though, I don’t know why you’re letting me go through these motions. We both know I have no plans to marry outside of Diachona.”

  “You have said so. But it can often be easy to say beforehand what you will never do when you haven’t ever been asked to do it. I don’t think hearing what other nations may have to offer you will hurt you. Then when you do make your final decision, you won’t only be making it according to fancy, but it will be according to knowledge, and experience.”

  Constance’s forehead furrowed. “But what if I hear an offer that entices me?”

  Matthias shrugged. “What if you do?”

  “I could elect to take the kingdom in another direction because of it. Wouldn’t you disapprove of that? Or would Your Majesty formally forbid me to do it?”

  Matthias reached down to pat at his horse’s neck. “I’ve taught you so much, Constance. I hope I’ve instilled in you what you will need in order to take Diachona forward. Not that I believe I have no more to teach you, but at some point, a predecessor has to trust the instruction—and more so, the spirit of the instruction—he’s imparted to his successor, without resorting to coming down with a heavy hand that could wind up causing more damage than it prevents. I believe, when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice, for you and for our people.”

  Constance smiled. “No thoughts on what you think that right choice might be?”

  Matthias met her smile halfway. “There’s no point in my telling you anything about it now that you already know. But, as I’ve said, when it’s time, you’ll do what’s right.” The two of them fell into silent riding, but then Matthias asked, “Constance? Are you absolutely sure you would like a place on the Council? Now?”

  Constance met her father’s eyes square on. “I’m positive, Papa.”

  “Yes? But you may run into some difficulties you aren’t anticipating. Several of the councilmen don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Ah. Chieftain Greenly?” Constance laconically asked.

  Matthias shook his head. “Now, now. Don’t be hard on Greenly. He’s a bright mind and a worthy asset to the Council. And he thinks very highly of you.” Constance had no time to dwell on the flicker of interest Matthias’s last comment incited in her as he carried on. “I said ‘several’ of the councilmen. Greenly isn’t the only one who’ll wonder what I’m thinking if I let you in with me, and at twenty years to boot.”

  “Twenty years to my credit. Acceptable years, I hope. But you know as I do, the general age restriction doesn’t apply literally to a royal junior. If something happens to the king, the junior heir takes his place on the Council, whether the heir is thirty yet or not.”

  “It’s the idea, Constance. The idea that a person, even an adult, needs time to mature. Sometimes a junior must be thrown up into an exalted position early, necessity caused by tragedy, but we don’t like it to be so. And there’s a reason why seniors and juniors don’t sit on the Council simultaneously.”

  “I know, because there’s only one throne, and we need not run the risk of giving the venerated Father and celebrated Son too great an opportunity to clash on momentous matters while the nation is watching.”

  More vehemence had entered Constance’s voice than she’d intended, and Matthias stared at her. Constance reined herself in and gently asked her father, “While trusting the spirit of your instruction, my lord, do you really fear my seat clashing with your throne?”

  Matthias merely stared at her a while longer before replying. “You wouldn’t have a seat yet, so to speak. Just a place, until we figure out precisely what your seat would be. The next assembly is this coming week...”

  “A place is all I would need for now. A place where I could be of help, as I truly believe I can. Especially in light of the business with Munda, which I know the Council is worried about. I told Staid that at any time now, I should be receiving news from some of the residents and imperial servants I’ve been keeping in contact with since my visit there, so long as the post between our nations doesn’t get cut off to accommodate hostilities too soon. And what I’ve learned about that country will benefit the Council.”

  Matthias examined his daughter’s fervid look, his jaw stirring contemplatively, and then he turned his gaze out across the grasses before them. “We begin to see what our children will be, from the time when they’re still toddling. But as time passes, at intervals, we find ourselves virtually having to relearn our children, all over again.”

  Constance’s lips haltingly parted, but she did not speak, and Matthias soon looked back at her with a refreshed smile. “Well. Enough of this plodding about. These handsome beasts of ours are getting bored. Let’s go, shall we?”

  Relieved for the respite being offered, Constance reciprocated her father’s smile. “I declare we shall.” The two of them clicked to their horses and took off into what became an outright race through the meadows.

  The day of the National Council’s next assembly approached with its own grade of haste, but directly before that came the night of Constance’s goodbye to Staid. Rêeh had finally called. Personal meetings had happened before in which Constance had to bid her friend farewell as he went off for an indefinite time of military duty outside of the country, but it was now happening for the first time since something within Constance concerning Staid had started to change. Or, maybe the change wasn’t merely starting but had already taken place, in effect.

  In any case, no such meeting had ever happened after an incredible gift of a trip to Nonpareil. That was for certain.

  Constance ordered for the palace ballroom to be partly lit in the evening, so that she and Staid could talk outside together on the ballroom terrace, as they hadn’t had the chance to do on the night of her gala. Constance chose to have her hair curled and hanging freely about her shoulders once more, as Staid had seemed to like it that way on her birthday, and she picked a golden dress that had a rounded neckline, to feature her ruby choker. Then, at the last minute, she took the choker off, leaving her neck bare.

  She wondered if she was making too much of a fuss over this. Staid’s leaving her now might not be, to him, so different than the other times he’d gone.

  Constance was full of nerves as she made her way through the ballroom to head to the terrace, where Staid had been sent out to wait for her, but when he, dressed in a fine gray suit, turned and looked through the open ballroom doors, spotting her coming toward him, and a grin spread over his face, Constance’s tenseness eased. At least, one form of her tenseness did so. This was the same Staid Alexander she’d known all her life.

  What turned out to be the most pivotal farewell meeting they’d ever had left Constance dazed and battling for sleep when she retired afterward, much as she had on that last night in Nonpareil. But rest was so essential tonight, given that the coming day would be her inaugural one in Topaz’s assembly hall with the National Council. By sheer will and a prayer, Constance coaxed herself to sle
ep.

  When she arose in the morning, a delivery in a polished wooden box bearing Matthias’s seal was waiting for her on the message table outside of her sitting room. Opening the box, she saw that her father had sent a medallion with their family’s royal emblem on it. He’d clearly had one taken out of the capital’s vault for her. Constance lightly fingered the medallion, marveling at her father’s gesture, swallowing past an affected tightening in her throat.

  After determining how she would wear the medallion, Constance selected a red dress with one long wing and a regal drape hanging from its open back. She swept the wing up to rest over one shoulder, with the medallion affixed to her other like a corsage, and she had an attendant gather all of her hair into a simple twist behind her head. She wanted her face to appear open and undaunted before the Council.

  After making an excursion to the palace’s south balcony, where she could step outside and take in her favorite, far-reaching view of the capital and some of the Diachonian land lying beyond it, Constance had her driver take her down to the assembly hall early, as she would be making no grand entrance into the hall with her father. Instead, she wanted to be there and settled before the councilmen showed up. She did not have a seat at any of their tables aligned from the center of the floor, but she took a place up in one of the empty audience stalls as close to the floor as possible, all the while mentally rehearsing the assembly protocol she was learned in but had never had the opportunity to use. The councilmen started trickling in, each one promptly looking about the room, apparently to find the princess, and she could see the awkward expressions that came over some of their faces when they spotted her.

  “Your Highness,” Constance was greeted with bows from the councilmen before they went over to their designated seats. She wondered if it was only her imagination or if Chieftain Greenly truly put a bit more of a flourish into his bow than this occasion called for.

  King Matthias, wearing an august cape over his right side and his medallion fastened on the front of his embroidered tunic, was the last to arrive in the assembly hall, at which time everyone else stood to their feet and bowed, or curtsied, in Constance’s case. “Your Majesty.”

  Matthias took his seat at the head of his table, allowing the others to sit back down, and the assembly commenced. Constance sat listening to the proceedings for over two hours, observing the range of the councilmen’s interactions with each other, from heated to humorous. She noticed that her father wasn’t doing much talking, sitting back at times with his elbow on an arm of his chair, his temple propped up against two of his fingers. Constance was struck with the impression that much of the information and opinions that were brought forth about Munda weren’t anything new, but rather, previous material was being reiterated.

  She’d talked about the upcoming assembly with Staid the night before, and he’d briefed her on how everything might unfold. Then he’d retracted some of his conclusions, saying that he wasn’t exactly sure how the dynamic would change with Constance’s being there. As her mind now began to wander over the rest of that meeting on the terrace with Staid, Constance knew she could afford only a moment of preoccupation, if that. She reached up and ran an absent fingertip over the medallion at her shoulder...

  “Please don’t take offense, Princess, but you’re a lot more intelligent than they wish you to be.”

  “What? Is it because I’m a woman? I don’t understand why our distinguished Council should be intimidated by the intelligence of a lady.”

  Staid smiled at that. “Intimidated? Nah. Maybe I shouldn’t say it’s your intelligence. It’s more about your involvement, in general. The councilmen would justifiably grow nervous when one of the nation’s ladies has to trouble herself so much over perilous matters of state, let alone matters of war. If you, the adored Daughter, have to worry to more than a fair extent about these issues, then our Council may not be showing themselves to be the admirable defenders they are called to be.”

  “I must admit, I have a contrary line of reasoning, Commander. The Council has made civil adjustments on behalf of the wellbeing of the women of this country, under King Matthias.”

  “On account of his beloved wife, in part, I’m sure.”

  “Quite sure. And after all of the progress they’ve made, they should be heartened by the fact that a woman who is not of supreme rank has the courage to not only think privately but to speak out publicly concerning such matters.”

  “Could be.” Staid leaned to rest his forearms down on the terrace railing, looking out over the palace grounds. “Or it could be that she’s not only a woman, but she’s the radiant symbol of all that is still hopeful and pure about this land. Some part of us that we wish to keep intact, sheltered from alien forces and influences. Not only is she our beacon of hope and purity, on the verge of becoming soiled by the grime and blood of war, but she is coming precariously close to tipping the scales and altering the political paradigm that we’ve trusted in for generations. If her voice ever rings too wisely, if she ever proves to be too correct, then of course we’ll have to question why such a voice shouldn’t be given a seat on the Council before her elevation into royal senior standing. And this one seat to this one woman would force us to look at our complete, eternal paradigm and wonder what else is in danger of seeing the discomfort and inconvenience of change.

  “Queen Grace, with all of her influence on civil law, was a change. I was a change, being appointed as commander and given a Council seat before thirty. And now, you too? It isn’t your womanhood itself that’s the problem. It’s the change that you would be bringing with you, and the indication that the way we’ve been doing things for so long isn’t good enough.”

  Constance stood staring at Staid, mulling over this key angle that hadn’t crossed her mind before. “Well,” she said slowly, “I don’t see why it should be such a bad thing if I helped us along. Isn’t that what my sex was made for, to be of help to a species that could really use it?”

  Staid remained at ease on the railing, but he turned his head to peer at Constance, something about his look causing her to lower her eyes. “If…” she started to go on, after a pause, studying the immaculate shrubbery immediately outside of the railing, “if members like Chieftain Greenly and his close compatriots would only see that I might be of more help than harm, they might open up somewhat.”

  “Yes. Chieftain Greenly. Recognized to be one of the best of Diachonian men. Trust me, my lady, he sees a great many things about you, and about what you might be. His principal problem with the prospect of your voice on the Council has much more to do with the fact that he is besotted with the woman who will one day be his queen.”

  Constance’s eyes shot up to meet Staid’s.

  “That is,” Staid continued, “the senior sovereign over him, over the Council, his family, his holdings. Surely, even if he finds you to be the most wonderful aspect of the entire continent, he mustn’t allow you to rule over him to too great an extent before your time. But, maybe I’ve become something of a talebearer for even mentioning it.”

  “Hm. A talebearer, Alexander?”

  “Yes, though I hope not. I just think it’s important for you to be aware of exactly what it is that you’re dealing with, when you face the Council. You’re what this government has needed, ever since…” Staid’s voice trailed off for a second, his eyes narrowing. “You’re not surprised.”

  “Surprised? About Chieftain Greenly? No.”

  “But you’ve said you’re not able to tell anything when it comes to sentiments like those.”

  “No, I said that I’m not able to feel about them, currently. That’s not the same thing.”

  Staid went mute for a moment. How such a still look from him could be so moving, Constance did not know, but something inside of her quavered on account of it. Staid’s next words shielded themselves in quietness, apparently seeking for safety in a whisper. “Totally devoid of feeling, then?”

  “What?” Constance tentatively moistened her lips.
“Well, not devoid of feeling. Not all feeling. It just depends. That is to say, I mean, if I were to—”

  “Constance.”

  Staid swiftly stood up straight and turned to her fully, capturing the hand of hers that had come out then in astonishment, though her hand hadn’t known precisely where it was headed.

  That first exposure of such familiarity uttered from him was to Constance’s senses, in that instant, the most intimate thing they could have experienced. She felt the pressure of Staid’s fingers around hers as he hoarsely said, “God help me, I believe I’m about to overstep a multitude of my bounds here, my lady, unless you favor me.” Constance’s mouth opened to speak, but Staid pushed on. “You’ve been my friend for so long, I’ve never considered it unfortunate to be with you. But you don’t know what it’s been like, the past four years, to have to wait until we’d both come of age, to be safe. I’ve had it in my mind that I would find a way to make my move on your twentieth, and I would have made myself plain on our last evening in Nonpareil. Yet with the talk of Rêeh and Munda coming up between us, it seemed like it still might not be the right time. But all I’ve been able to think about for weeks—well, not all in every way, but all in vital ways—is that I’m going overseas, likely right on the cusp of war, and it is possible that I may not again be honored with the exceptional gift of your company.”

  Whatever it was that had rasped Staid’s voice seemed to find its way into Constance’s throat. “What do you mean? That’s not possible. Of course things are bound to be different if we have to go to war, but when it’s all over, there will be time. More than adequate opportunity to—”

  “I’m not speaking of time. We both know, at individual degrees, the hazards and the cost of battle. I don’t make it my business to be afraid of it. I love what I am and what I do. But there is still always the chance that I may not come back.”

  “No.” Constance felt her jaw stiffen, a sudden and unwanted dampness threatening to invade her eyes as the horrible images she’d thought up on her last night in Nonpareil came back to her. “There’s no need for that. You’re of much better service to our people alive. Heaven knows it. You’ll be fine in Rêeh, and if war with Munda comes, it will not finish you.”

  “No, war won’t finish me. No war could. Providence alone has the final say on when I’m finished, and we don’t know when that will be.”

  “It will not be soon.” A shudder went through Constance’s jaw, forcing it to soften. “Please, Commander, refrain from speaking this way.”

  “Forgive me, love. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you—oh, don’t do this…”

  “I’m not,” Constance contended, blinking back the moisture in her eyes, refusing to let any of it spill over. “Oh, goodness, Alexander, God forbid it.”

  “Forgive me,” Staid repeated, moving nearer to her, his free hand stealing around her waist, his forehead coming down to rest on hers.

  Constance rubbed gently at her medallion. She dared not think of how the Council here might regard the knowledge, if they’d had it, that their princess had had such a meeting with the leader of their army the night before. Constance wasn’t ashamed of it. She didn’t regret it. But she was still strangely, sadly glad that Staid was now preparing to head overseas and therefore could not be present at this assembly. She still could not quite fathom how she had been able to endure such a blatant and disarming embrace out on the terrace, much less to return it. She’d stood there unmoving at first, staggered by the definite illumination that Staid did in fact share what she’d been feeling for some time, that he’d actually felt this way much longer than she had. And then, she’d tugged her hand out of Staid’s in order to reach up along the back of his neck, her fingers sliding into the thickness of his hair. He’d pulled her closer, and her other hand finally received the long-desired chance to explore the evident, masculine strength of a soldier in his back while his arms tightened around her. Yet, even in the firmness of his hold, something in it had thoughtfully left her room to ask voiceless questions, to gradually get a feel for and to requite the affection of this man whom she did not want to accept the odds of not seeing again.

  Constance bit her lip now, looking across the assembly hall to a speaking Chieftain Greenly, who was addressing the Council about the Mundaynes. One of the best of Diachonian men, a bright mind and a worthy asset, besotted with the future queen, was he? Would it one day become her duty to consider him? To allow him, and however many other men and princes, to have a say with her? How much more would she be willing to hear from anyone who would fail in such a way, who would awfully, thoroughly fail to be Alexander?

  Staid simply had to make it through whatever was on the horizon, coming their way.

  It couldn’t have made much sense that Constance remembered no more of what Staid had said before he’d dismissed her last night. He’d spoken devoted words near her ear that had clearly been poised at the border of his mind for some time, but in essence, the words bypassed Constance’s hearing on the way into her soul. She was reasonably persuaded that whatever he’d said hadn’t been wrapped in eloquence, no more than her replying words had been. By that time, there must not have been space left for anything but simplicity, and while relaying Staid’s exact words to anyone would have been beyond Constance for the time being, she knew all that presently needed to be known by her concerning that young man.

  Constance hadn’t been as ready as she would’ve liked to be for such an exchange, and in retrospect, she couldn’t help wondering to what level her response to his affection had pleased him. Yet, his heart had been in his voice, particularly right after he’d cupped her face with one hand, and, with more ardor than the prince of Rêeh had been capable of mustering in a day, Staid had impeccably pressed his warm lips to either of Constance’s cheeks for as long as he dared to stop time, resisting the allure of her trembling mouth as he’d eased her away from him at last. “Leave me, please, my lady. Now.”

  Constance hadn’t taken a second to think but had left Staid at once, her whole being ablaze with a mixture of desire, rapture, and dejection. Why on earth did she have to care so for this military man, of all the men in the country, at such an inopportune, trying national time?

  Still, looking out at the assembly before her, Constance knew this was not the time to bemoan inopportunity. Critical judgments about life and death were waiting to be made. A force stood menacingly without their land, taunting their nation, and this woman, this royal junior, had something to say about it.

  Constance rose from her seat in the audience stall, waiting to be recognized.

  A full minute or two passed before her father glanced over at her, but she knew that he’d noticed the moment she’d risen. The king then held up a hand to pause the standing Greenly, along with the other chieftains, elders, and the handful of soldiers whose voices were colliding in the middle of the Mundayne deliberations. Matthias sat there with his hand up as the assembly hall grew silent, and while he looked steadily at Constance in a way she could not interpret, she imagined that he was going to shake his head at her, and order her to sit back down.

  He did not order her to do that, however, instead acknowledging her as she’d never thought she would be acknowledged by him in her life.

  “Junior?” Matthias said.

  Constance stared at him. The stillness in the hall became palpable as the councilmen, each of them frozen, also stared at Matthias, and then their eyes and heads gradually turned to the princess, over in her humble stall.

  Junior.

  Constance took a step forward, coming to the edge of her stall. “Permission to address the Council, my king.”

  If any trace of pride had aspired to a reflection in Matthias’s gaze, he hid it well, his hand moving down and outward toward his table. “Given.”

  Constance looked to the councilmen, clearing her throat. “It sounds to me like you all are putting your most excellent knowledge of war tactics and strategies to work here. The Mundaynes are a ruthless race,
and there is no question that their military outnumbers ours now in an amount we are reluctant to say is astounding. Nevertheless, I submit to you the argument that while it is important to regard the Mundaynes militarily, in terms of their power and devices, it is just as important to regard them as a nation—one rooted deeply in culture and tradition. I have studied the history of Munda and have read a number of their legends. On the trip I took there two years ago, I saw their capital, spoke with their citizens, and even attended a couple of their sacred ceremonies.”

  “The Mundayne church?” an elder by the name of Cobalt spoke up and stood, appalled. The shock, or whatever the councilmen had been held under for the last minute, was officially broken. “With its foreign practices? You involved yourself in their religious services?”

  Constance smiled slightly. “Well, there actually is no Mundayne ‘church,’ Elder Cobalt. And, no, I did not involve myself in their ceremonies. I went only to observe in a town square, and they kindly offered me a seat on the edge of the square to watch them perform their rituals. According to all that I have learned about the Mundaynes as a people, I have found them to be decidedly superstitious.”

  “Any religion’s practices are prone to look superstitious to an outsider,” Chieftain Greenly asserted.

  “I’m not only referring to their religious practices, Chieftain. I said I’ve noted their superstition according to all I have learned about them, from their history and folklore, and in interacting with their people. King Aud himself, as approved and invincible as he believes himself to be, doesn’t risk missing monthly sacred ceremonies, nor does he risk taking a drink of wine at supper without first tapping his goblet with his little finger, a gesture they say keeps a drinker from choking in the event that the grapes may’ve come from a cursed vineyard. In light of what I’ve gleaned, I believe that we should not be lured into an immediate battle against the Mundaynes. Confrontation is imminent, perhaps, but we should do our utmost to delay it until after the first six days of autumn.”

  “Wait for autumn?” Greenly was incredulous. “Princess, our military is disadvantaged here as it is. Being the avid studier of history that you are, you should know that our armies commonly fare better in warmer climes.”

  “Ah.” Constance thought to smirk but just as soon chose not to. “Not so much that I profess to be an avid studier of history, sir. I’ve read many of the national histories in our State Library solely for their gentlewomanly maudlin love stories.”

  A few chuckles floated around the tables, and one side of Greenly’s mouth turned upward. “I stand corrected, my lady. But, in all seriousness, think of the fact that we’ve just come out of one of the warmest winters that any of us can remember. Our next winter could be quite the opposite. The best thing we could do would be to gain whatever advantage that we can in the warmer months ahead, which would help us to brace for winter warfare, if it comes to that.”

  “If we were discussing war with a country other than Munda, Chieftain, then I might agree with you. But as I’m sure many of us are aware, the Mundaynes will enter their year of Donpoerh next month, a year that comes every one hundred and twenty-four years. Munda’s traditional autumn begins six days after ours, and it marks the beginning of their rainy season. If Munda has entered autumn, but there is no rain from their gods to bless the first day of battle, the Mundaynes will not fight.”

  Exclamations of surprise and disbelief rose around the tables of men, and Matthias waited to pick up snatches of their arguments before lifting his hand. “Council,” he quieted them, and Cobalt and Greenly lowered themselves into their seats. Matthias then turned back to Constance, his brow creased. “How do you gather, Princess?”

  Constance was not encouraged by the looks on several of the men’s faces, but since she’d already started, she opted to sink her heels in. “Donpoerh translates, ‘The Great Siring.’ A year that differs from the others in Munda’s cycle of years, and not every generation sees it, but it’s a special celebration of life and fertility, a prime year for marriages and childbearing, to give the country a burst of growth. The gods of heaven were said to have rained their seed down to the goddesses of the underheaven, bringing about the birth of what we call Earth.”

  “Just so,” Chieftain Greenly spoke up again, “and I’m sure a number of the inquisitive and active minds here, including myself, found ourselves very intrigued when we learned of Donpoerh as adolescents, imagining a land that takes a special year out of so many to procreate with the most extreme vigor conceivable.”

  A few guffaws broke out at that statement, but Constance pressed on. “Yes, yes, many are so intrigued by sensational details that they don’t give any thought about less colorful ones or the possibility that there may be more. On my trip, while listening in a cluster of worshippers after a ceremony in the town square, I learned one important fact. Once autumn has begun during Donpoerh, the Mundaynes will make no major national decisions or hold any major events until after the first rainfall, the sign of seed and life from the gods, lest the gods should be angered and curse the land, thinking that the people have forgotten where the life of Earth came from.”

  “I’ve never heard of that,” Elder Cobalt remarked. “In all the years I’ve known of Munda and what I’ve gathered about Dunpee—Donpoo… In all that I’ve ever heard about their special year, I’ve never heard of that.”

  “I never heard of it either, not until I went there and listened to their talk,” Constance pointed out, swallowing a giggle before it could emerge. “When I came back home to study on it further, I couldn’t find that specific detail in the history books. And, really, the rains usually come rather quickly once the Mundayne rainy season has started, so outside nations might not be able to tell if Munda has held back from making any national moves to wait for the rain, or if they annulled any major plans because the rains did not come soon enough to bless the endeavors.”

  “So then,” Chieftain Greenly said, “you haven’t read of Munda forfeiting any autumn wars because they didn’t have the rain to bless them.”

  “No. I haven’t. What I did find was an account about the head of a rich Mundayne family, long ago. His relatives spent weeks or months preparing to have a celebration for him in his native city, but somehow the celebration never took place, although everything had been made ready for it. The story didn’t say in which season of the year that it was to happen, but it was during the year of Donpoerh. In another account of centuries ago—I’m sure you’ve heard of this one, Chieftain—Munda’s king had promised to give his daughter to wed a prince from overseas. The wedding never occurred, and it drew the ire of the prince’s nation. Our historians have seemed to assume that it was due to the political suspicions of the time, and the account doesn’t say that it was Donpoerh when the royal wedding was cancelled. However, an agricultural record from that same year does say that Munda experienced an unusually dry autumn, that season.”

  Constance took in the looks of growing interest and speculation from the men before her as she proceeded. “Council, I believe that familial celebration and that royal wedding did not happen because the autumn rains of Donpoerh did not come in time. The Mundaynes judged that the gods did not approve of the events, and they cancelled them so that they wouldn’t bring on a curse. I believe that the same can happen in the face of war. King Aud holds true to Mundayne superstitions and sacred practices, and as he’s seen such a string of prosperous years during his rule, he wouldn’t dare do anything to anger the gods and ruin it all.”

  The assembly was engrossed in thought for a while, until Greenly was again the one to speak. “Very well, Princess. So let’s say that your suppositions are accurate. King Aud wouldn’t dare irritate his gods during Donpoerh. But how would we delay a war until the exact moment we would like to have it, when we are the nation in greater danger and when Aud would know that his war may have to be cancelled if he doesn’t get it started soon enough?”

  Constance’s eyes couldn’t help their shine of lo
oming laughter then. “Now, Chieftain, we know how to talk here, don’t we? This Council can talk and re-talk and over-talk about some of the largest public and private matters, pulling out every side and angle of an issue until the issue itself moans in exhaustion.” Constance noticed the smiles that passed over some of the soldiers’ faces, and she thought she saw her father’s head lower in noiseless laughter, but she didn’t look directly at him as she continued. “We have some of the cleverest wits about us, here. We can devise a ruse, false negotiations, any kind of language that will defer combat but that will simultaneously arrest King Aud’s mind. We know of his arrogance. A man of lowly beginnings who worked his way out of obscurity and onto the throne, against all odds. He has five sons. His reign thus far has been magnificent. The gods have blessed his family and his every decision. If he wants to war in autumn, surely it will rain on time, as he is so favored and unstoppable.”

  “And,” King Matthias began then, speaking softly but gaining the attention of the assembly, “we may have to fight either way, whether immediately or further on in the year, as Munda could see rain as soon as the first day of their season. Moreover, our timing would have to be both meticulous and flawless to schedule a war so precisely. But, if we could do that, and if it would just so happen that the gods, for whatever reason, do not approve of Aud’s war, and if there may be a chance that we could altogether avoid fighting what would, in all likelihood, be a losing battle for us…”

  “If,” Constance said, turning to look at her father full on, making sure that she had his eyes, “something foolish in the world might be used to confound the wise, or if something weak might be used to confound the strong…”

  The two of them scrutinized each other, the rest of the assembly holding their peace. Constance chanced the smallest smile at her father, knowing that he wouldn’t smile back but that he would receive it, nonetheless.

  Matthias did not move his eyes away from Constance yet. “Council. Besides what we have been studying already, we are going to call for every remaining piece of history and folklore that we can find about the Mundaynes, in the State Library and in the World Annals, with the help of the princess.” He turned to face the tables then, and Constance took her seat as the king rose from his. “We the Council, our scribes, and our superior scholars will read all that we can, as quickly as we can. We want to see the accounts Princess Constance has shared about, plus any others that she may not have seen. Our military will still be made as ready as possible, our strategy laid out for war that may break out at any time. Chieftain Greenly and his men will be in charge of devising negotiations finer and more fascinating than Aud has ever heard of or imagined.” Matthias started moving away from his table. “And as always, going forward, we will trust Providence. Adjourned.”

  A rumble of motion and conversation took over the assembly hall as Matthias left the room, and Constance let out a breath longer than she’d known her lungs to be capable of retaining and releasing. She looked downward, folding her hands in her lap, not reaching toward her shoulder again but now being even more mindful of the weighty symbol of identity, affixed there.

  Junior.

  ~~~

  Times of Trial