Royal Airs

by Sharon Shinn

  Josetta quickly scanned the crowd; yes, there was Alys, angling through the throng to where Corene was laughing with Nelson’s sons. Like Corene, like Nelson, they were red-haired, headstrong, and sweela. Ever since Zoe had brought the Ardelays back into favor five years ago, Kurtis and Rhan had been popular at court, and Corene in particular had an affinity for them, despite the fact that they were twice her age.

  “Alys will be furious if you stop her from talking to Corene.”

  “Well, it doesn’t bother me to make a scene in public,” Nelson said cheerfully. “I think that’s why Darien asked me to be watchdog. I would purely love to drag that woman out of the room, cursing and shrieking.”

  It didn’t come to that, though there was certainly a stir when Nelson intercepted Alys and she realized why. Corene realized it, too, Josetta could tell. The girl stood silently with Kurtis and Rhan, observing the low-voiced argument that ended with Alys stalking from the room. Rhan excused himself and went after her; he had always been the Ardelay who had the easiest relationship with Alys. He was the youngest of the brothers, just over thirty, with a reckless charm that made him the perfect man to soothe the feelings of the enraged queen.

  Corene watched both of them until they disappeared out the main door. Her face was so fierce Josetta was sure she was fighting back tears. She pushed her way politely through the crowd to Corene’s side, arriving just as Zoe did. They knew better than to try to offer comfort or commiseration, and so did Kurtis. So instead they engaged in only slightly awkward banter until life came back into Corene’s expression.

  “I suppose you’ve heard the news,” Kurtis said after a few minutes. “The crown prince of Berringey will be here sooner than anyone thought. Bringing, it seems, a sizable entourage.”

  “How soon?” Zoe asked. “I was hoping to go up to my grandmother’s house after changeday.”

  “Well, since I think he’s arriving for changeday, you’d better not.”

  Zoe groaned and Kurtis laughed. “Taro was pleased. He hates to travel into Chialto, and he wasn’t looking forward to doing it twice in a short stretch of time. Now he says he’ll stay long enough to greet the man, and then go back to his farms for the next quintile.”

  “Why can Taro get away with that sort of behavior and I can’t?” Zoe demanded.

  Kurtis tapped his chin. “Why would that be, I wonder? Because—I don’t know—you’re married to the regent? And you have to pretend you know how to behave in society, even if you don’t?”

  “I think it sounds like fun,” Corene finally spoke up. “A prince! I’m so tired of princesses. Is he young and handsome?”

  Kurtis looked amused. “He might be. I know he’s unmarried.”

  “Then I agree with Corene,” Josetta said. “It does sound like fun.”

  • • •

  The reception was followed by the real business of the evening, when the primes joined Elidon and Darien and Romelle for a conference in a private room of the royal wing. Everyone else mingled a while longer before setting off for home.

  Before Zoe joined the others, she found a chance to speak to Josetta. “Stay until we’re done. Tell your mother we’ll bring you home.”

  “If you want,” Josetta said, a question in her voice.

  Zoe glanced at Corene. “Keep her company. Make sure she’s all right. I think we’ll be done in an hour. Or two.”

  “Did you get a chance to hold Odelia?” Josetta asked in a low voice.

  “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Thank you,” Zoe said, and hurried off.

  Corene was sitting on an ornate, embroidered divan at the far end of the reception room, and Josetta dropped down beside her. The servants moved quietly around them, picking up plates and dropped silverware.

  “I’m fine,” Corene said in a distinct voice. “Don’t be worried about me.”

  Corene had never been the type to respond well to sympathy. That wasn’t how you let her know you cared about her. It had taken Josetta forever to figure that out. “I’m not,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I had an idea! Maybe we could see if Natalie and Odelia are still awake. They’re our sisters, after all, so, of course, we’d want to visit them. And then we’d still be with them when Zoe’s done and she can come find us, and then—”

  Corene’s eyes sparkled and she practically bounced to her feet. “Oh, yes, let’s go!” she exclaimed.

  The royal wing was vast and multistoried, so it took a little wandering through gorgeously appointed hallways to find the suite of rooms where Romelle and her daughters were staying. Two guards at the closed door advertised the presence of high-ranking visitors, and commotion within indicated that the children were still awake. Josetta could hear the sound of Odelia wailing and Natalie announcing, “I am the princess and I do not have to go to bed when you tell me.”

  Corene grinned at the soldiers. “Oh, good. We’ll get a chance to see them before they fall asleep,” she said, heading right in, Josetta at her heels. Neither guard moved to stop them.

  They followed the sounds of distress through the kierten to the nursery. The two nursemaids on hand appeared young, overworked, and overmatched.

  “Oh, aren’t you having a time of it!” Josetta exclaimed. “I’m Josetta and that’s Corene. We came to say hello to our sisters—you don’t mind, do you? Maybe we can calm them down for you.”

  It was clear the maids would have liked to refuse, but they didn’t have any clue how to gainsay royalty. Within a few minutes, Josetta and Corene had taken charge. Corene dropped to the floor, heedless of her beaded tunic, and put her face close to Natalie’s ill-tempered one.

  “Do you think that’s how a princess behaves?” Corene demanded. “Let me tell you how you’re supposed to act when you’re in the palace.”

  Josetta had taken Odelia—or Mally—from the nursemaid’s arms and settled the little girl on her hip. The sheer novelty of the experience caused the child to stop crying as she stared at Josetta out of huge, tear-filled brown eyes.

  “I don’t know you,” the child said in an accusing voice.

  “We’re stepsisters,” Josetta said.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means that we’re not really related but we can pretend we are. We’re in the same family. It means we have to stick together, especially here at the palace.”

  The little girl scowled. She had dark ringlets, just now damp with the exertion of screaming, and a child’s flawless skin. “I don’t like it here,” she said.

  Josetta started strolling around the room with her, swaying a little as she moved. “No? I lived here when I was your age, and I didn’t like it, either! Too many people and too many rooms.”

  “And my stomach hurts,” the little girl said ominously.

  Josetta hastily looked around for some kind of receptacle. “Do you think you’re going to throw up?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you want me to set you down?”

  “No. I like you.”

  Josetta kissed the top of her head. “And I like you.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Josetta. What’s your name?”

  For a long time, the little girl just stared back at her out of those huge eyes.

  “Do you know your name?” Josetta asked softly.

  The little girl finally nodded. “I’m Odelia.”

  Josetta couldn’t tell if it was true.

  • • •

  Their plan worked. Zoe found them in Romelle’s rooms a little more than an hour later. “You are here!” she exclaimed. “I had to ask five people if they’d seen either of you. Of course, Foley was the one who actually knew where you’d gone.”

  By this time, Josetta was perched in a rocking chair; on her lap was the drowsy child, sucking a thumb and fighting off sleep. “People used to keep far closer track of us
when we lived here,” she observed.

  Natalie and Corene were in another corner of the room, where they had been practicing correct manners for a princess—how to bow, how to offer a hand, how to communicate disdain with a single glance. No surprise that both Corene and Natalie had been especially enthusiastic about that last one, which was not an element of deportment Josetta had ever encountered before.

  “Zoe’s a prime,” Corene whispered to Natalie. “Show me how you would greet her.”

  Natalie scrambled to her feet, still game despite the lateness of the hour. “She’s not as important as a queen but still very important,” she rattled off, offering an impressively deep bow. “So I must be very nice to her.”

  Zoe responded with an even lower bow, acknowledging a near heir to the throne. “I hope you are nice to everyone, princess,” she said.

  “I am nice to people if I like them,” Natalie retorted. “And if they aren’t always telling me what to do and what not to do.”

  “Sometimes if you pretend you like them, you can trick them into letting you do what you want,” Corene informed her. “You like to pretend, don’t you?”

  Josetta and Zoe traded a look, half amused, half appalled. Josetta wondered what other kind of disastrous advice Corene had offered the young princess while she had been too busy to pay attention. “All done for the night?” Josetta asked Zoe. “The whole kingdom straightened out?”

  Zoe sighed. “We have to come back tomorrow, though Kayle is even less happy about it than Taro.”

  Josetta pushed herself to her feet, a delicate maneuver with the child in her arms. “If you have to come back tomorrow, we should probably get going,” she said, keeping her voice casual. “Would you like to say good night to the princess?”

  Zoe came close enough to make another deep bow, then extended her hand. The girl watched her with some suspicion, keeping her thumb in her mouth, but offered her other hand to be kissed. “Sweet dreams, majesty,” Zoe said.

  There was a swirl at the door, then Romelle was inside. “Goodness, you’re all here? I thought you’d left hours ago. Natalie, darling, why aren’t you in bed? Odelia—get your fingers out of your mouth! How many times—where are the nursemaids? Lanni! Jilla! Come get these girls to bed!”

  Five minutes of chaos later, the nursemaids had regained control of the nursery, while Romelle had ushered her visitors to a sitting room that opened off the little kierten.

  “I don’t mean to sound rude, but I have to send you all home. I’m so exhausted, and then there’s tomorrow and the day after,” Romelle said, sounding almost as petulant as her daughters.

  “I know. We’re all tired,” Zoe said sympathetically. “But, Romelle. I need to ask you something. Is there any reason you brought Mally with you this time instead of Odelia?”

  Josetta froze to the floor and saw Corene do the same. They both watched the queen intently. Fleeting emotions crossed Romelle’s face—astonishment, then fear—then a sort of brazen defiance. She lifted her chin and said, “I don’t know what you mean. That’s Odelia.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Zoe said quietly. “You know all I have to do is lay my hand on hers and I can tell she’s not your daughter.”

  “I ought to know my own child! And that’s Odelia!”

  Zoe regarded her for a long, steady moment, but Romelle maintained the look of indignant certainty. Zoe shrugged. “All right. I’ll see if Mirti or Nelson or Kayle can visit her tomorrow. Let’s see what the other primes say.”

  Now fear showed again on Romelle’s face, but she hid it quickly by putting her hands to her forehead. “This is a ridiculous conversation. Zoe, please just go away. I have such a headache, and everything you say makes it worse.”

  “I’ll go,” Zoe said, still in a gentle voice. “But the questions will only start again tomorrow.”

  Romelle didn’t answer. The three of them stepped into the corridor, past the guards, down the hallways, and toward the main kierten of the palace.

  “Zoe!” Corene hissed as soon as they were out of earshot of other servants, guests, or soldiers. “What did all that mean?”

  Zoe shook her head. “I don’t know, but we have to find Darien. And Taro. And any of the other primes who haven’t left yet.”

  They were in luck, because they located Darien in the great entrance hall, talking with Nelson Ardelay and the hunti prime, Mirti Serlast. It was late enough that the gaslight had been turned low, and the immense space was filled with shadows and echoes. A few of those shadows were royal guards, keeping the midnight watch. One was Foley, standing near the main doors, waiting with his usual patience. Josetta flicked him a brief wave as she and her sisters hurried up to the others. She thought that, at this late hour, even their soft-soled shoes sounded loud on the marble floor.

  “There you are,” Darien said, greeting them with a smile. “I thought maybe you’d bribed one of the palace grooms to take you home.”

  “Darien, we need to talk,” Zoe said without preamble. “Mirti—Nelson—you, too. Are either of the other primes still here?”

  “Taro must be on the premises somewhere, since he’s staying here,” Mirti observed. She was a thin, stringy woman with gray hair and an obvious disdain for fashion. She was Darien’s aunt and usually his staunchest supporter, but like anyone with hunti heritage, she could be unyielding. Once she made up her mind, it was like asking an oak to turn into a rosebush to get her to change it.

  “What’s wrong?” Darien asked. He glanced at Josetta and Corene. “And should we discuss it somewhere else?”

  “We already know,” Corene informed him with a smirk.

  “Send someone to get Taro,” Zoe said, “and let’s find a private place to talk.”

  A few minutes later they were in one of the small meeting rooms that clustered along the first story of the palace. Zoe didn’t bother sitting in one of the comfortable chairs or leaning against one of the scattered tables.

  “We were just upstairs saying good night to Romelle and her daughters,” she began. “I had an opportunity to hold the youngest princess—long enough to realize it’s Mally who’s come here this time, not Odelia.”

  “Mally frequently substitutes for Odelia,” Mirti said. “That is the point of having a false heir on hand.”

  Zoe nodded. “When I asked her why she had brought Mally instead, Romelle became very affronted and told me it wasn’t Mally.”

  Mirti frowned. “That makes no sense. She must realize you would know.” Her gesture included Nelson. “Any of us would know.”

  “Exactly,” Zoe said. “So why bother to lie? Why pretend the impostor is the genuine child?”

  “I assume you asked her that,” Darien said.

  “Of course. And she told me to leave because she had a headache.”

  Although Josetta generally kept silent when she was privileged to overhear serious conversations among the primes, Corene piped up at this point. “I don’t think she’s brought Odelia here for at least a year,” she said.

  That got everyone’s attention. “Why do you think that?” Darien demanded.

  “Because of the way she acts with Mally. Like she’s mad at her all the time. That’s how she’s acted the last few times she came to court.”

  Nelson spoke up. “I know it was Mally the last time Romelle was here,” he said, his voice slow, as if he was remembering. “Kurtis had brought his twins to court, and they wanted to meet the princess, so Romelle sent her to our table. I knew instantly that she was the decoy, but I didn’t tell the twins that, of course.”

  “When was that? The beginning of Quinncoru?” Mirti asked. When they all murmured assent, she said, “And the time before that, she also brought Mally. I remember, because it was during the regatta, and we spent some long, dull hours in the pavilion waiting for the boats to cross the finish line. I helped Romelle feed the princess, and I could tell who
she was.”

  “So when did we see Odelia last?” Darien demanded.

  No one could answer for sure, and they all glanced from one to the other, their faces concerned. It was as Mirti had said. It didn’t make sense.

  There was a knock at the door and then Taro Frothen shouldered his way inside. He was a big man, brown all over, even less fashionable than Mirti, but full-bodied and comfortable and reassuringly serene. He was the one person Josetta knew whom no one despised. People might mock him, in a friendly way, for his rumpled clothing and slow manner of speech, but they couldn’t help liking him anyway.

  “You all look pretty earnest for such a late-night conversation,” he observed in his rumbling voice. “One of the guards said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Yes, you have to clear something up for us,” Mirti said in her impatient way. “We all know that the little girl upstairs is Mally, not Odelia, but Romelle is claiming otherwise. Furthermore, between us we think we’ve figured out that Odelia hasn’t been here for at least a few quintiles. And we’d like to know why—and why Romelle would lie about it.”

  “Ahhhh,” Taro said, dropping his big body into one of the plush chairs that everyone else had ignored. “There’s a tale.”

  “Then tell it, please,” Darien said, taking the chair beside the torz prime. The others followed suit, though no one else relaxed into the furniture the way Taro did.

  “Odelia was last here—let me think about it—in Quinncoru of last year,” Taro said.

  “Quinncoru! But that’s more than a year ago!” Mirti exclaimed. “That’s unacceptable! The heir to the throne must come to Chialto with some frequency! There is so much to learn—”

  “She’s still young,” Taro interrupted gently. “Plenty of time.”

  “Yes, but Mirti’s right,” Darien said. “When Romelle announced she wanted to raise Odelia in the country, the primes and I agreed with great reluctance. It’s essential that a child be familiar with court life from a very early age, because it is a complex society that is not easy for strangers to navigate.”