The dog leapt on Hune’s desk and knocked over a basket of blotting paper. Hune feigned annoyance. “He’s only just started doing that,” he said, and asked Kansten to help him straighten up. Behind her back, the prince scratched Trite’s ears and mouthed, “Good boy.”
Hune was lackadaisical in cleaning the dog’s mess. He needed Kansten to do the bulk of the work; she tossed paper back in the basket as she continued their conversation, watching Hune instead of her hands.
“The columns outside, they’ll be magnificent. I convinced Dagner to angle the theater’s façade, so each row will have one fewer column than the next one over. I couldn’t believe he took my suggestion, I….”
Kansten fell quiet. She opened her hand, looked at her palm, and then gasped. She had scooped up a diamond ring with one of the sheets of paper.
“Kansten,” Hune asked, “will you marry me?”
Her lip trembled. Her complexion paled, which made her freckles more pronounced. Hune adored her freckles….
“Yes,” she told him. “Yes, again and again.”
The paper she held fell to the floor, and he took the ring from her, to slip it on her finger. He kissed her and said, “I’ve spoken with your parents. We’ve their blessing, so we’ll have to plan two weddings, the first for Traigland. The real one, as far as we’re concerned. You can’t get married without your mother there.”
Kansten threw her arms around him, held him close. He led her back to the settee, and she rested her head on his shoulder as they sat. He continued, “We’ll need another wedding here, of course. And it can’t be small. Valkin can’t risk offending nobles by neglecting to invite them.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “Please don’t worry. One day of hoopla; we’ll get through it.”
Hune kissed her again, and then rose to open the door to his bedroom, where his family waited. Valkin was occupied, but Gracia, Neslan, Melinda, Vane, they all spilled out, the princess first, while Kansten shrank back in her seat, surprised. Melinda tugged on Hune’s arm. “Well?”
“She said yes.”
While Melinda let out a decidedly unregal squeal, Vane walked up to Kansten. He helped her to her feet and gave her a brotherly bear hug. She mouthed her thanks when he offered his congratulations. Neslan shook her hand and said, “Hune could have chosen someone less controversial, but I can imagine no one better for him, and could wish him with no one else. I’ll be honored to call you my sister.”
Melinda squealed again. “A sister!” She gave Kansten’s hand a squeeze. “I’ve always wished I had a sister. Every girl should have one. Kansten, you’ll be mine?”
Finding her voice, Kansten told the girl, “With great pleasure,” and bent to hug her. Hune’s fiancée straightened when the queen placed a hand on her shoulder.
If Hune’s mother was happy—and he liked to think she was happy for her son, if nothing else—she kept her joy subdued. She said, “You realize, dear, what this means not only for you, but for Herezoth? For the king’s brother to wed the daughter of a sorceress?”
Kansten’s expression grew more serious. “I do, Your Highness.”
“You must make a good impression. You must allow me to teach you certain things, as I did August: how to stand; how to sit; what to say, and when, and to whom before others. Various points of etiquette. My husband would have been overjoyed to welcome you as a daughter, and in his name, dear, I ask you to accept my guidance on such matters.”
“Your Highness, I’d be honored to learn from you, more than I can say.” Kansten curtsied, a curtsy far superior to her first few a year ago.
The queen kissed Kansten’s cheek. “Call me Gracia.”
Such gentleness on his mother’s part was a pleasant surprise for Hune. Though Gracia had chosen to support her son and had spoken no word against Kansten, not ever, each time Hune brought up Kora Porteg’s daughter he got the impression his mother would much have preferred he give his heart to a count’s daughter or earl’s sister. The queen, it seemed, had kept her reservations to herself in favor of adopting the stance her late husband would have wished of her.
Before too long, Vane herded Hune’s family away to give the prince and Kansten some time alone. Trite had grown exhausted running around in the midst of so many people; the dog was resting on his blanket in the corner, and Hune sat to pet him while the bride-to-be—his bride-to-be—studied the diamond ring on her shaking hand.
“Good boy,” the prince told Trite.
Kansten joined Hune near the dog. When the prince looked at her, he saw she was overwhelmed—the good kind of overwhelmed—and he kissed her, a long, slow kiss that made Kansten’s eyes leak tears. Finally, Kansten wrapped both her arms around one of Hune’s, and said, “You trained Trite to knock that basket over, didn’t you?”
“I did. And he was perfect.” Hune smiled. “You’re perfect,” he told her.
“Good heavens, far from it! Our wedding will be, though. The Traigland one. Hune, my sisters, they’ll hate me the rest of my life they’ll be so jealous. And they should be, I suppose. It’s really not fair I’ll be the princess and not one of them. I don’t know that I’m princess material. Tressa and Laskenay, they’re more elegant than me already. Even their names are more elegant.”
“You’ll make as fine a princess as my sister,” Hune insisted. “A better one. I love Melinda, but she’s frivolous. Of course, she’s barely twelve.”
“She’s a beautiful child,” said Kansten.
“So were you. It’s odd to think we met when I was eight, isn’t it?”
“Well, I was nine. And I paid more attention to Valkin than to you, if I remember. Hune, we owe him. He needn’t support us like he’s done. He could easily….”
“I know. We can thank him by marrying according to his timetable. He mentioned next autumn.”
Kansten nodded her assent, and gripped Hune’s arm tighter. She laid a head on his shoulder, as she had before he rose to admit his family. “Do you think people will assume we married for politics? Your brother’s politics, and Vane’s? They’ve made such a platform of advancing magic. Standardizing it. People might think they chose this for us.”
Her weight against Hune’s side felt like a ballast. She gave him balance, stability, and he said, “I don’t care what people think, as long as thinking’s as far as it goes. Let them mold whatever half-crazed conspiracies they wish. It’s amusing to see how they delude themselves.”
Kansten grinned. “Oh, thank the Giver! Thank the Giver, I thought that was just me. We’d do better to laugh about being despised than grow angry.”
Her reaction gave the prince pause. “You’ll have a bodyguard,” Hune told her. Her face grew serious. “Before we announce anything, you’ll have a bodyguard. Anything he tells you to do, or Vane, or either of my brothers….”
“Hune, you don’t think I’d be threatened?”
“I’ve no explicit cause to believe so. But I won’t take chances. Do you think my grandfather expected what Vane’s uncle did?”
“Surely not.”
Kansten looked troubled, and Hune’s throat constricted. “The engagement’s not an hour old,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you told me you wanted some time to reconsider things.”
Hune’s pulse calmed when Kansten snuggled closer against him. “Never,” she said. “Never, do you hear? If I won’t let learning etiquette chase me away, you think I’d flee over possible assassination?”
Hune laughed in spite of himself. She reminded him, “You said you don’t foresee open danger. And even if you did, I’d be proud to join my life with yours. You know, Herezoth has no right to a prince like you.”
“It’s no right to have you either, but it’s got you, whether it wants you or not. We’ll make Herezoth better just by being together and withstanding the mockery. I’d never be able to live with myself if I gave up on this place. My father sacrificed too much for it. So has your mother, come to that.”
Then Hune fell quiet. To th
ink of his father still pained him. Rexson would have loved Kansten, and Hune would have liked, so much, to see his father jump up when the prince burst into his office to announce, “She said yes!” Hune would be the first of Rexson’s children to marry. It seemed horribly unfair the man would miss every one of their weddings, the birth of every grandchild.
Kansten must have guessed where Hune’s thoughts were headed, because she directed his gaze into hers as she said, “He was proud of you, and he still is. He wouldn’t want you dwelling on sad things today.”
“I know he wouldn’t,” said the prince. “I miss him, that’s all. I figure there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Not a thing.” Kansten kissed his cheek. “Not a thing.”
“As for your sisters being jealous,” Hune began, and Kansten asked:
“What about them?”
“Let them. They have the magic you’ve always wanted. Why shouldn’t you get the palace?”
“Huh,” said Kansten. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re absolutely right. You know, if the girls are kind enough to me, I might even them visit.”
Hune laughed. “You’d never prevent them from seeing this place. How many times have you told me they read nothing but fairy tales? Besides,” he said, “they’re around Melinda’s age, aren’t they? The three might become friends. That would do Melly good, to have such companions.”
Kansten laughed. “Wouldn’t that be something? The princess hanging around with a blacksmith’s daughters?”
“Just about as strange as the prince marrying a fisherwoman.”
“That’s amateur fisherwoman. I’m an architect by trade, thank you very much.”
The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 39