by R. J. Price
“The pyre is traditionally in the training yard,” Telm said. “You know the spot?”
“Everyone knows the spot,” Ave muttered.
“You may have three men to help you build it. I would suggest the stable master as one. He’s built many pyres in the past and knows how to build them properly. He’ll ensure a quick, thorough fire.”
“Good to know,” Av said.
“Telm, your position could be in danger,” he said quietly. “You may not mesh with Aren the way she wants the head of house to mesh with her.”
“I realize that,” Telm said.
The only reason the one who sat the throne needed for dismissing any of the masters was the fact that she didn’t like them. While Jer was fairly certain Aren would keep Telm on, he had to be certain she knew that her services had been appreciated.
“If you are dismissed, I want to reassure you that Av and I will do anything in our power to ensure you have a pension, or a new piece of land, if you want it,” Jer said.
“And if the one who sits the throne says differently?” Telm asked.
“Then the coin will come from our incomes and not from the treasury,” Av said.
Telm nodded once and took her leave. He made eye contact with Av and the brothers sighed out as one.
“We’re in so much trouble,” Av groaned.
“Could be worse,” Jer said, then added, “Aren could have been mobile before we got our feet under us.”
Chapter Four
Aren dragged her eyes open, groaning at the feeling behind them. As if her head were stuffed and overflowing with cotton. She sat up, looked down at the rumpled training clothing she was wearing, and then glared at Telm, sitting beside the bed in a chair.
“We met in much the same way,” Telm said, smiling at Aren.
The smile was unlike Telm, at least the Telm that Aren knew. Sliding to the edge of the bed, Aren bent over as the world swirled. Nothing below her neck registered as existing. Rubbing her hands over the trousers, Aren could feel the fabric under her fingers. Something felt different and her body was instinctively telling her that different was wrong.
“What happened?” Aren asked, whimpering at the sound of her own voice.
“The throne took you,” Telm said as she stood slowly. “Most queens I’ve lived through take the throne, not the other way around. Av’s mother was the last the throne took and I felt terrible, knowing I had done it to her. But you, the throne made you, girlie, just for it. Your parents never would have mated without its interference. Who knows how long it has been manipulating the bloodlines to arrive at you.”
“I don’t like that,” Aren said.
“It doesn’t need you to.” Telm sat on the bed beside Aren. “That doesn’t change the fact you are a queen, that you now sit the throne. Em is dead, by Lord Jer’s hand.”
“The witch is dead?” Aren asked.
Telm smiled. “Most in the palace would use a different word. The servants are behind you, Lady Aren. The healers support you, the guards agree with you sitting the throne. It would seem the only ones not happy with your ascension are the lords and ladies.”
“The court is upset with the idea?” Aren asked.
“Don’t be a fool,” Telm chided. “A court cannot survive on lords and ladies alone. A court could survive without them. They are only one part, the part most seen. The serving staff, the guards, the merchants, the healers—these are the people that make up the foundation, and a majority, of the court.”
“How long was I unconscious?” Aren asked.
“Since last night,” Telm said, offering Aren a hand up. “Not long, really. You need a wash. And a dress, which is on the way, to attend court. You need to keep or dismiss the masters and heads. Preferably assign new heads and masters as needed.”
Aren took the hand and leaned on Telm as she stood. The pain sharpened suddenly, throbbing at her temples and behind her eyes. She groaned and lowered her head.
Telm stood by Aren’s side, silent as the pain passed.
“That and the flickering lights is new,” Telm murmured. “I’ve never seen one the throne wanted to sit the throne, sit it. For too long it has simply made do with available bodies. It took Av's mother, but she was not the one it wanted. These oddities may be normal, or this could be you being a stupid snot bag.”
“Second time someone’s called me that,” Aren grumbled, shuffling towards the bathing room.
The lights went out. In the dark, Aren straightened. For a moment the ache eased, pain subsided, and Aren almost felt normal. Then the lights began flickering and the pain returned tenfold. Aren gasped and placed her hands on her temples.
“Relax your control,” Telm said. “Think about the lights being on.”
“Lights on,” Aren gasped out. “How do we know this isn’t beyond my reach? I might be over-straining myself.”
“Not as stupid as I thought,” Telm muttered, taking Aren by the arm and steering her into the bathing room as the lights continued to flicker. “If this was beyond you the lights might flicker, but only at the edges, not in the heart of the palace. The lights are flickering all over, the water is coming out purple. Try explaining that to the serving staff. No one understands that magic runs the water. They think if I say as much, I’m being sly.”
“Purple?” Aren asked, going straight for the sink. She turned on the tap and watched purple water flow out as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Turning the knob, she rounded on Telm and gave the head of house a questioning look.
Telm pointed up. “The lights settled when you did that. My dear, this is your old set of rooms.” She motioned around the pair of them. “You wouldn’t have made it to the master’s cottage. Mar’s rooms are to be kept as is for the moment, leaving these rooms for you while the queen’s rooms are cleaned and sorted out.”
“Water doesn’t run this far from the inner palace,” Aren said.
“Not in several hundred years, by my reckoning,” Telm responded. “It has to be lugged out here by the servants, from the main spring under the heart of the palace. That is a long walk for such a heavy load. Try the tub. Near as I can tell the purple is just a colour, nothing else wrong with the water.”
Aren moved to the tub, which she had used so often in the past, and turned the water on. Each time in the past she had arrived to find the tub filled, though cold. At the end of a bath all one needed to do was pull the plug and the dirty water drained away. That much, at least worked, it was only getting water into the tub and hot that was difficult.
Fresh, clean, normal water flowed from the tap. Warm, almost hot, the water was just the way Aren liked it. Without thinking, she stripped off her training clothing and climbed into the tub, sinking gratefully into the hot water.
“Once we leave this room,” Telm started, drawing a growl from Aren. “Once we leave this room, Lady Aren, you are no longer a ward, you are not a young woman, nor even a lady of this court. You are a queen. You are the one who sits the throne. Act. Like it. Not like Em, but as one of our rank should.”
“I see no reason why I should abide by the wishes and gossip of those who supported Em's madness,” Aren snapped. “And you would do well to recall that I certainly did not want the throne!”
“That changes nothing,” Telm countered. “You sit it. Now, the length of your reign is the length of your life. Tell me, Aren, do you wish to have a long reign, or a short one? Because while Av may protect you, Jer is done with mad queens. He will take your life and put Mar on the throne, if need be, to find a stability for all the lands.”
Aren considered the words, chilled by the reminder that the position she had been forced into was for life. There was no running from the throne, no escaping her duties as the one who sat it. All of her hopes and dreams were gone. She might never be able to leave palace grounds again.
“The one who sits the throne cannot afford to appear weak,” Telm continued as she brought Aren soap and a cloth to wash with. “Your head will bo
ther you, but I will do my best to help you with this until we find you a handmaid who can be trusted. Another like ourselves, perhaps, who has some training as a servant. There are many across the lands who have had no time to visit the palace and have only lived in their villages. They would know hard work and the necessity to keep things private.”
“Let me wash in quiet,” Aren said, barely above a whisper.
She accepted the soap and the cloth, wetting both as she went about washing the sweat from her body.
Telm withdrew, standing by the door, as Aren went about washing herself. Scrubbing at her skin until it was red, Aren made absolutely certain she was clean before she washed her hair twice, just to be sure. She had never been before the court, not in the throne room.
She had attended court, the thing Em called the day-to-day gossiping which happened across the palace, but she had never been in the throne room before the court. This would be her first impression and, because she now sat the throne, it would be the only one that mattered.
Clean, Aren stepped out of the tub and directly into the outstretched towel Telm held. Aren hadn’t even heard Telm approach the tub.
“Have you had training as a servant?” Aren asked Telm, wrapping the towel tightly around herself.
“I have,” Telm said, blue eyes flickering over Aren’s face. “I asked the healer to come by, should be here shortly. Do you have a problem being seen to by a male healer?”
“No, why would I have a problem?” Aren responded.
“Some women do, especially queens, especially those on the throne,” Telm said, motioning to the outer rooms. “For myself, I find it disconcerting, knowing that he can see every intimate part of me. That is why the throne employs mainly female healers. This one’s speciality is bruising. He’s a bit of a vanity healer, but we need his services.”
“His services?” Aren asked, pulling to a sudden stop.
“The bruising on your face,” Telm said with a motion to her own face.
A hand went up instinctively. Aren thought, for a moment, that she had hurt herself during the events of the night before. She recalled how the bruising on her face had actually occurred. First by running straight into the wall of a cave, then when Av had struck her across the face for striking him first.
“Lord Av wouldn’t be happy to see the one on my cheek gone,” Aren said.
Telm smiled just slightly. “Allow me to worry about Av. I would suggest you call him such in court. Simply Av. No title. Technically speaking Av and Jer own no lands and therefore have no title. Their father owns a piece of land, but only enough to be a landholder, not enough to take title.”
“Then why have they always been Lord Av and Lord Jer?” Aren asked.
“Em insisted that Jer be Lord Jer, to show due respect to the mate of the throne. Once others learned that Av was his brother, the title was attached to his name as well. It suited well, the master being referred to as ‘lord,’ since he refused the title of master,” Telm said, making a motion to Aren.
Aren approached Telm slowly. Across the back of a chair Aren’s court dress was draped. Dark blue, a shade which dye masters had long forgotten how to create, the court dress was long out of fashion but conservative. The skirt did not poof out like other ladies had taken to wearing. Down the front of the dress was an ivory colour, accenting the blue. Both colours came from different dresses, cut down and re-purposed.
After patting her body dry, Aren dried her hair as best she could before pulling on the court dress.
Telm stepped up to pull in the lacing. The older woman gasped and stepped back, spinning Aren around too quickly.
“What did you do? How did you do that?”
“It’s just a trick I taught myself,” Aren said, rubbing at her temples. “Pulling lacing tight is simple, much easier than finding a servant to do it for me. Please don’t turn me that quickly. It hurts something terrible.”
There was a knock at the door and then a man entered without waiting to be invited. Aren scowled at him. He stopped just short of her.
“I hadn’t realized that I would be serving the new queen,” he said, sounding surprised and delighted before he bowed far too deeply. “Your Highness.”
“What is a, ‘highness,’ and how dare you call me that!” Aren said, barely keeping back the snarl that wanted to escape.
The man glanced up, unsure what he had done to insult her. He hesitated a moment longer before he said, “Lady Em insisted I call her that when I visited her rather than Lady.”
“I am no higher than any other,” Aren said. She motioned to her face. “However, I cannot go to court with this. I need the bruising gone and that is all. Though why you are the best for bruising is beyond me.”
The man straightened, glancing at Telm for guidance. “I am very discreet. Fresh bruise? No worries, I can see to that immediately. Most healers need the bleeding to have stopped before they can help you. May I? I will see to your face and be on my way. You have a busy day ahead of you, no doubt.”
“You may, and I do,” Aren said.
He stepped up to her and set a hand on her cheek. There was a moment of heat, as if Aren had placed her face too close to a fire, before the healer stepped away, eyes roving over her face.
“Fantastic results,” the healer said before he bowed yet again. “Your flesh responds well. I might be able to remove those small blemishes from your skin, or bring out your cheekbones, if you'd like. With such responsive flesh you could be a beauty of the court. There hasn't been one of those in some twenty years.”
“You are excused,” Aren said, watching the smile on the man falter just slightly as he bowed again.
She remained silent as she watched the man flee. Turning to Telm, Aren scowled at the head of house. Telm chuckled in response to the scowl.
“I thought it better to introduce the pair of you, rather than attempting to explain the problem. Did you catch the problem, Aren?”
“He’s discreet,” Aren grumbled. “Why does a healer need to be discreet?”
Her mother had warned her about vanity healers. They could only work their special sort of healing on one whose flesh responded eagerly to magic, allowing it to be reshaped. More often than not, however, that type of magic left the client monstrous. The changes made could not hold up over time and sagged, sometimes falling off entirely.
“Since when does a healer not tell everyone they know when a lady comes to them with bruises?” Telm asked in response. “You will find that Lady Em created mated pairs which were not in the best interests of the pair. Without a complaint filed, what can either of us do about this?”
“Stab someone,” Aren said, then thought better of the idea. “Get Av to stab someone. It’s his duty, after all, to ensure the safety of all at court.”
“It’s called gentle leading, and it is the most proven way of altering the course of history,” Telm said. “You could stomp your feet and hold your breath, could enter by force and demand answers, but it is easier for all involved if you simply alter the flow and allow things to happen.”
“I don’t know how to... What did you call it?”
“Lead gently?” Telm asked. “Few in your position do. It’s something you only learn under one who knows how to do it herself. Typically the one who sits the throne knows and teaches others, inadvertently teaching her successor who chooses to use the knowledge, and so on and so forth.”
“You obviously know how to do this,” Aren said.
“Yes, and I will teach you. Stabbing people is not always the answer.”
Chapter Five
Av stood to the side as Aren entered the throne room. The young woman was washed, hair pulled back in a quick braid and the bruising on her face gone. For a moment he felt anger over the removal of what had been a punishment, but he pushed the anger aside. Aren’s position at court had changed, so of course it was the logical choice to heal her looks.
Showing up with bruising would beg the question of who had caused the damage.
Once word spread that Av had been the cause, the court would demand the pair of them be separated. Now was not the time for anyone to have a legal reason to put a wedge between him and Aren.
Lords and ladies watched Aren enter and went deathly silent. They had all seen Aren before without actually seeing the lady. What they recognized was the dress. Ladies had bickered over the dress for all the time Aren attended court. If it hadn’t been for that specific shade of blue, Av never would have remembered Aren. He and Jer never would have been able to find her when she had taken ill.
Of those standing in the throne room only a handful had known Aren had rank. Av, Jer, Telm, and the stable master—those were the only ones to know. At least, they were the only ones Av knew with certainty had seen the rank.
Aren walked down the length of the throne room, back straight, head held high as she took the steps up to the throne.
Three steps and then the platform the throne—and the chair for the mate—stood on. Behind the throne the raven’s head banner had been renewed. Hidden away during Em’s reign, the black-on-red banner had been pulled from storage and hung overnight. Av wondered how many at court recalled the emblem, how many remembered that the palace had once had a name?
Taking the seat, Aren relaxed only slightly.
“Court is in order,” the steward called.
Lords on one side of the room. Ladies on the other. They faced each other, but turned their heads towards the throne. It made long sessions highly uncomfortable. Av suspected the uncomfortable position had been planned, as so many other aspects of court life.
Aren waited quietly as the lords and ladies watched her. When she was absolutely certain all eyes were on her, she stood, clasped her hands before her.
“As this is my first court, I invite my supporters into the throne room,” Aren said, raising her voice just slightly when she realized how far it would carry.
Av had barely heard Aren raise her voice before, in those moments she had been angry, he had been emotional. He hadn't been paying attention to the sound of the woman's voice then, only the anger and frustration. Aren’s voice was typically low, quiet. She made others lean in to hear her. Listening in on Aren’s conversations would be nearly impossible, thanks to her speaking habits.