Ursula raised her head, surprised at the position Orlando took in all this. As long as she'd known him, and for years before that, he'd worked, usually outside the law, attempting to force her father to pay Queen Verity the ransoms she demanded for the release of the prisoners.
When King Jonathan continued to ignore the situation with the prisoners, Orlando and his rebels tried to raise the ransom money themselves, as well as doing whatever they could to get Jonathan off the throne.
That latter goal had been achieved, and now, here they were, on the cusp of getting the men home, and he was balking at the price. Political marriages had been made on even less tasteful grounds. Were she any other Princess from any other kingdom, he would probably be sending for the Elemental priests himself.
"What are you talking about?" Gideon glared at Orlando. "No one is talking about selling anyone."
"What do you call it? The King of Heyton wants to buy himself a young bride and an alliance with a Chaos Sensitive for the price of several hundred men who should have been sent home years ago?"
Gideon struggled to his feet. "Several hundred men who wouldn't be filling up our prisons and wasting our resources if King Jonathan had admitted he was defeated instead of using his magic to destroy an entire village and render the Port of Clearlea nearly unusable for the last five years."
"Unusable?" Orlando put his hands flat on the table and leaned toward Gideon. "So, you're looking me in the eye and telling me Heyton isn't getting shipments of spices and silks from the Southern Isles? I thought we were just talking about those yesterday."
"I said nearly..."
The Queen stood and slammed her hand on the table. "Would everyone please calm down?"
The two men stared at her.
"Sit." The look on the Queen's face brooked no argument.
The men sat.
"Maybe someone would like to know what I think?" Ursula's voice was soft but no one missed it. "I mean, it is my life we're talking about, isn't it?" She looked around the table.
Mariana sat and nodded. "Of course. Please go ahead."
Princess Ursula took a deep breath. "We need to get the prisoners home." She turned to face Prince Gideon. "I would like some time to think about your uncle's offer."
"Of course," he said, "This isn't something you should rush into."
"Are you seriously considering this?" Orlando asked his sister-in-law.
"Orlando, there are hundreds of families who need their fathers and husbands home. Perhaps it's something I can do for Valborough."
"She's right." Finally, Traren spoke up. "This is what we were fighting for long before Mariana took the throne, Lando. We're so close now."
"Mariana?" Orlando scowled at his wife. "You're the Queen. Say something."
She took a deep breath. "It is possibly something worth considering, but we're not going to make a final decision right now. I'm tired, the babies are kicking, and we need some time to think through the possibilities and alternatives."
Struggling to her feet, she said, "Thank you all."
Chapter 8
The duck pond was a place Ursula could find serenity when the chaos of palace life grew too stifling for her. Even though propriety demanded that as the presumed heir to the throne, at least until Mariana had her babies, Ursula had to have two chaperones and a handful of guards with her whenever she left the palace proper, here she could feel separated from the rest of the world.
The half dozen ducks floated over the surface of the water, as though they had no cares in the world, and she willed the tumult in her mind to a similar quiet.
After a few moments of watching the mother duck leading her chicks around the pond, Ursula noticed something odd. The ripples that followed the birds showed their swimming wasn't as random as she'd imagined. The ducks were moving in the shape of a heart over and over until the ripples formed that shape in front of her.
Ursula stood up and searched the gardens surrounding the pond. Her movements attracted the attention of her attendants, but she gestured for them to remain where they were.
Movement in the thicket of brush to one side of the pond caught her eye, and George Evan, Margrave of Selwyn, stepped out into the clearing, looking at her and beaming.
A year ago, before Ursula's father had been forced off the throne by Mariana at the Sensitivity Challenge, George Evan had asked the King for Ursula's hand in marriage. Because they had been on opposite sides of that conflict, for several months after Mariana's coronation, they had not seen one another or communicated in any way.
Three months ago, when she began planning the school for the prisoners' children, the Margrave had come to her asking if he could help. He had little wealth to offer as her father had confiscated most of what he would have inherited from his parents, but he had a little gold of his own and he'd used that to buy the land the school now occupied.
In the time they'd worked together, their relationship had grown stronger, although Ursula didn't know if it ever would develop into the kind of love and devotion she saw in her sister's marriage.
For the past month, George Evan had been away from the palace, looking for land on the other side of the mountains that could be used for another school.
When Ursula saw him now, she cried out with joy and ran to him. He enveloped her in his arms.
Feeling herself nestled against his strong, firm chest, she knew all her worries and stress about King Killian's offer were for naught. She and George Evan were meant, by the Elements, to be together, and nothing could change that. After all, hadn't they found each other again after the pain and loss of the Challenge?
"I didn't know you were coming back today," she said, stepping out of his arms and looking at his face. He was more handsome than she remembered, with the face of an angel and kind eyes the color of cognac.
"I wasn't sure when I could come back," he said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and leading her back to the bench where she'd been sitting before. "Things went well in Baxin Mere. You'll be pleased. The prisoners' families in that region are eager for a school."
His mention of the prisoners brought everything back to her. Her insides went cold, and she sat down on the bench.
"We have a visitor," she said. "That is, Mariana has a visitor, a Prince from Heyton."
"A Prince?" George Evan's eyes lit up. "That's wonderful. Are the prisoners coming home? Orlando must be so relieved."
Ursula took a deep breath. "That is one of the things we've, I mean, they've been talking about." She didn't want to discuss her part in the meetings. Right now, she just wanted to pretend it had nothing to do with her.
"You don't seem happy about this." George Evan took her chin in his fingers and turned her head so she was looking at him. "What's wrong, my Princess?"
A single tear ran down her cheek, but she smiled. "Nothing, now that you're back." She snuggled against him. "Let's not talk about prisoners. Let's just sit here together."
Gideon saw Princess Ursula leaving the palace with her entourage of chaperones and guards. He wanted to go to her and...
And what? he asked himself. Apologize? Tell her it was all a mistake and his uncle didn't want to exchange her for the prisoners? Explain that Killian's offer was a sincere one, made out of true affection and not out of a selfish desire for a son?
He doubted she'd believe any of those things, and they weren't true in any case. Besides, this wasn't his problem. He was there to bring her to his uncle, then he could leave the palace drama and go back to the university.
With a sigh, he turned from the window and found himself face to face with the Queen. She was alone, which meant she had intended to find him without other people around.
"I'm going into the Gray Drawing Room at the end of the hall." She pointed in the proper direction. "If someone wanted to talk to me without an official scribe or handfuls of witnesses, that's where they could find me."
Before Gideon could respond, she walked down the hall as though they had not s
poken. Her head was held high, even though her advanced pregnancy made her movements awkward.
He watched her for a moment, his mind stuck on her use of the singular personal pronoun. She was requesting a private meeting with him, as Ursula's sister, not as the Queen.
Uncle Killian had been King for five months, but rarely had Gideon heard him speak of himself in the singular since the moment the crown was placed on his head. King Lucius and Queen Verity, Gideon's grandparents, had been the same way.
Only once had Gideon ever heard his grandmother talk to him as though she were not Queen. She'd taken him aside and told him while she wouldn't forbid him from attending the university, she didn't believe a man in his position had need of higher education. After all, she would make sure he had a place in the court of one of their allies as soon as something fitting his abilities became available.
Naturally, that offer didn't interest him and when he told his parents about it, they'd encouraged him to do what he thought best, and within three months, he was out of the palace and living in an apartment near campus, with Dashiell as his only servant.
Curious as to what the Queen wanted, he followed her. She had to want to talk to him about Uncle Killian's offer, and he dreaded the outcome of that conversation. If she told him there was no way Valborough would agree to a marriage between Princess Ursula and Killian, he would be the one to face his uncle's anger.
On the other hand, if Valborough did agree to the terms, he would have to stand in for Uncle Killian at the wedding ritual, and escort the Princess on the three day trip back home. That wasn't something he was looking forward to either.
"Please, close the door," Queen Mariana said when he entered the Gray Drawing Room. She had seated herself on a comfortable-looking gray chaise with her feet resting on a cushion on the end.
He did as she requested and sat in a chair near her that was upholstered in the same fabric.
"Would you like to rest your leg?" the Queen asked. "I can ring for someone to bring in a footstool."
"I appreciate that, Your Majesty, but I would rather know what you wanted to talk to me about."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Your Highness." She raised her eyebrows and considered the flames licking the pile of logs in the fireplace. "I came in here to rest and find some quiet. You followed me."
"Forgive me." He stood, grimacing at the twinge in his leg. Had he been gone from the Sapphire Palace so long that he misread her cues? "I wouldn't want to disturb her Majesty."
"My mother, that is Grand Sahdess Alexandria, hated this room when she was Queen." Mariana looked around. "I never understood why. I think it's a soothing space."
He had taken two steps toward the door but stopped, slipping into the same kind of complicated, layered banter that was the standard form of conversation in Heyton. It came as no surprise that the palace here engaged in the same form of communication. "A place one could come if one had much on his or her mind."
"For example," the Queen said, "if one had to decide between the good of one person and the good of the whole kingdom, or at least a major portion of it."
Gideon moved back to the chair and sat. "Conventional wisdom would say the needs of the kingdom should come ahead of the needs of any one individual, should those needs conflict."
Queen Mariana sighed. "The problem is, I'm not certain if the needs do conflict. But even so, I understand how it feels to have someone make the decision of who I should wed without my consent."
A maid entered and set a tray of cookies and a pot of tea on a small table near the Queen. Without anything being said about it, the maid then carried a small well-padded footstool to where Gideon sat. Clearly, when the Queen decided to come here, she'd known he would be joining her.
When the young girl left, Mariana said, "Will you pour?"
Gideon agreed, and when he handed her a cup, she took it with a nod of thanks. "Princess Ursula would like nothing more than to see the prisoners returned."
The answer to all this didn't seem complicated to him. Political alliances were made all the time, in situations just like this one. In fact, growing up, Gideon knew being a male descendant of King Lucius made his value in the diplomatic world quite high, even given his physical limitations.
Before he left for the University, several young women of royal or noble birth from all over the Bashnar Landmass had come to the palace, hoping to catch his eye and negotiate some kind of advantageous arrangement.
After a few years of listening to vapid girls gossip about people he either didn't know or care about or listening to them express only opinions he'd expressed first, he stopped even pretending to make an effort to play the game.
Fortunately for him, Josiah and Damien garnered enough female attention, and the right sort, that his grandmother and uncle were content to let him spend less time at balls and soirées and more time with his books.
Still, even though it was a fact of palace life that Princes and Princesses were valuable commodities that could be traded for alliances with other kingdoms, they were also sisters and brothers, daughters and sons. Those in authority were generally also those who loved them and were most reluctant to see them sent into unhappy situations if that could be avoided.
"But should she marry a man old enough to be her father to do so?" he said now, leaning back in his chair. He took a sip of the tea, watching the Queen.
She sighed. "I am her sister. I would never demand she do this. Understand this, Prince Gideon." She sat up and leaned toward him. "The decision lies solely with her. However, I need to know if we should even consider your uncle's offer at all."
"What do you need from me, Your Majesty?"
"You can tell me, truthfully, what kind of man your uncle is." She met his eyes directly.
He stared at her for a moment, wondering how to answer.
"I've caught you off-guard," she said with a nod. "How do you answer? Do you speak in the way of a diplomat, to make the King look as, shall we say, Elementally Chosen as possible? Do you answer as a nephew who, most likely, has been excluded from hunting parties and probably other physical contests?"
He wanted to argue that he knew exactly how to respond to her question, but he saw understanding in her eyes.
Sighing, he shook his head. "The rumors of Your Majesty's wisdom and insight were not exaggerated."
The Queen laughed. "The results of the Chaos Sensitivity, I'm afraid. I could feel your confusion, and it wasn't hard to figure out your leg injury would keep a young boy out of normal squire and knight training."
"What is it you want to know, exactly, Your Majesty? I'm sure you don't need me to tell you things a diplomat would say about his or her sovereign, regardless of the kingdom."
He pulled himself up taller and used the kind of voice one of his professors in the university used in lecturing.
"King Killian is a wise leader and a strong warrior. His knights follow his orders without question, and consequently, his leadership in battle is without equal. The people of Heyton are prospering under his rule."
She shook her head, smiling in amusement. "You would make an excellent ambassador, Prince Gideon."
He spread his hands in front of him as though displaying himself. "As you can see, my uncle must agree."
She considered him, her eyes narrowed. "And yet, I sense this is not how you wish to be spending your life."
"That is certainly true, Your Majesty. However, I don't think this is the time for that discussion."
"Perhaps you're right. I hope we will have a chance to talk more personally later. Now, though, I want to know what kind of man is asking to marry my sister."
He took a deep breath. "Of course, I can't speak to what kind of husband my uncle is."
"What is he like as an uncle?"
After a moment's hesitation, he said, "I grew up knowing he would be King one day. We, that is, my parents, my twin sister and myself lived in the palace my whole life. I don't know what Uncle Killian would be like if he were
n't royal, so it's hard to separate the man from his position."
"I understand that, but will he be good to my sister? Will he treat her well, ensure she is honored as his Queen?"
Now, finally, he was able to smile and have it feel natural. "I've never seen my uncle mistreat anyone. Heyton, as you know, is a male-led monarchy. Sons are more highly valued than daughters, and unfortunately, my late Aunt Charlotte gave him four daughters and two sons. The boys and one of the girls died as infants. Another girl, Rhea, drowned when she was fourteen. He doesn't spend a lot of time with the two girls that lived, but he doesn't ignore them completely."
He frowned, choosing his next words carefully. "The Princesses, Killian's daughters, have nannies or governesses. They are all younger than I am, but they don't receive the same education as any of the nephews, myself included."
"He wants a male heir."
"He wants a son, Your Majesty. In truth, he has an heir. The crown would pass to the next male descended from my grandfather, King Lucius."
"And who would that be?"
"Prince Josiah, my Aunt Veronica's elder son."
"I see, but what would be Ursula's place in this well-established family order?"
He hesitated before responding. Did she need to know the drama and ill will that permeated Killian's court and household?
"All families have their issues," the Queen said. "It would be hard for any family to accept a new member, especially through an arranged marriage. I'm sure there will be those who will welcome whoever Killian chose to marry and those who won't. Will Princess Ursula find herself in an intolerable situation if she agrees to marry your uncle?"
"Queen Mariana, you have my word as a Prince of Heyton that I would do all in my power to see she is never mistreated or ostracized in any way were she to agree to become Heyton's Queen."
Queen Mariana tilted her head and met his eyes. "I do believe she already has a champion in Killian's court. I couldn't ask for better reassurance."
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