“I thank you, in the name of my father,” Alassa said.
Emily listened as they exchanged ritual pleasantries, wondering just how long she was supposed to stay on one knee. No doubt anyone born to this world would be able to stay there as long as necessary, but Emily felt her body going stiff. To distract herself, she looked around as best as she could without moving her head too much, catching sight of a tall handsome youth who was eying Alassa with an unreadable expression. The Crown Prince, Emily decided. He wouldn’t be able to marry Alassa. Beside him, his brother looked faintly bored by the whole affair.
One man, wearing long black robes with golden stars, was staring at her. Emily looked back at him, sensing magic spinning around his form; he had to be the Court Wizard. He would have heard of her and, like so many others, wondered just what she’d done to defeat Shadye without embracing necromancy herself. She felt his magic field touching hers lightly and stiffened, unsure of quite what he was trying to do. Read her mind? She tightened her defenses anyway, deliberately looking back at the King. After a moment, the intrusion faded away and disappeared.
“And so you are welcome,” King Jorlem concluded. He glanced briefly at Emily, a flash of curiosity in his eyes. “You may rise.”
Emily stood up.
“We shall now proceed to the Great Hall for the welcome feast,” the king added. His face twisted into a grin. “We shall show you proper hospitality.”
He stood up and took Alassa’s hand, as if he were her true father. Emily watched as he led her towards another set of doors, then started to follow them. The rest of the court followed in their wake.
Chapter Nine
THE PROTOCOL OFFICERS DIDN’T SEEM TO know what to make of Emily. On one hand, the official story explaining her origins placed her firmly in the servant class, suggesting that she should be eating with the other servants in the kitchen, at least until she was a qualified sorcerer. On the other hand, the widely-held belief that she was Void’s bastard daughter meant they risked offending an extremely powerful sorcerer by giving her less than full honors. And she was not only Alassa’s close personal friend–and quite wealthy in her own right - but she was also the student who had defeated a necromancer in a duel. Who knew what she would be capable of when she grew up?
In the end, they’d put her at the high table, sitting next to the Crown Prince. Lady Barb and Nightingale had been given seats at a lower table; Lady Barb didn’t seem to mind, but Nightingale looked furious. He’d been effectively demoted by King Jorlem, Emily realized, after some thought. Seating was based on social class and the mere presence of a handful of guests upset all of the arrangements. It struck Emily as rather silly, although she had a feeling that it served a useful purpose. She just didn’t know what it could be.
“I often thought that I would like to go to Whitehall,” Crown Prince Dater said. He seemed less inclined to take protocol seriously than the junior aristocrats; besides, he could talk to Emily without committing himself to anything. “But I had to stay home and learn how to rule.”
Emily found herself liking the Crown Prince, even though she had the feeling that he was a skilled dissembler. The Allied Lands had quite a few cases of young heirs deciding that it was time to take the throne by assassinating their fathers–and, for that matter, fathers killing sons because they feared their ambitions. All of them were partly covered up in the official records, although the History Monks had recorded the truth. No wonder their books were banned in most of the kingdoms.
“It was Hedrick who had the magical inclination,” Dater added, a moment later. “And he is courting your princess.”
Emily glanced over at where Alassa was sitting, between King Jorlem and Prince Hedrick. Hedrick was handsome enough, in a bland sort of way, but the bored expression on his face didn’t bode well for any future romance. He could at least pretend to be interested in Alassa. His father, on the other hand, was bombarding her with questions, some of them clearly about Emily. Alassa didn’t seem to be uncomfortable talking about her friend. It probably served as a distraction from having to talk about herself.
Hedrick had magic? Emily hadn’t sensed anything from him, but then he might not be powerful enough for it to register–or powerful and disciplined enough to conceal his power. He didn’t seem to be carrying a wand, a sure sign of poorly-developed talent, but he was wearing a sword…though that might have been protocol. Apart from King Jorlem and his children, none of the aristocrats carried weapons. The king could have ordered them all cut down in a moment.
She glanced at some of the aristocrats, noting that some of them were staring at her, probably wondering just what made her so special. How many of them had magic? Some noble bloodlines worked hard to develop their magical talents, even to the point of inviting commoners like Imaiqah–and Emily herself, she acknowledged with an internal scowl–to contribute genes. Others were horrified at the mere thought of sullying their bloodlines with commoner blood. Absently, she wondered just how many of those unions bore the required fruit. Nothing she’d read in the library had suggested much understanding of genetics; there had certainly been no mention of anything resembling DNA.
“Hedrick talked about becoming my Court Wizard, but father wants him to marry someone outside the kingdom,” Dater continued. He sounded almost wistful. “Hedrick himself doesn’t seem to care very much.”
He glanced at his father, who was still chatting to Alassa, and then back at Emily. “So…what really happened at Whitehall?”
Emily flushed. “I beat Shadye,” she said, simply. “And it isn’t something I can talk about.”
“I am a Crown Prince,” Dater said. “You can tell me.”
“I can’t,” Emily said, shaking her head. “We have to keep the necromancers guessing.”
Dater gave her a sharp look. He’d grown up in a shark tank, to all intents and purposes, and had to learn how to play the great game of intrigue–as Alassa had called it–very young. If something was being kept a secret, it implied that there was a strong motive to keep it a secret–and the mere act of deciding what had to be kept secret often implied the motive. It would be easy for someone to draw the conclusion that Emily was ashamed of what she had done, or knew that it would be an instant death sentence if word got out. And that suggested necromancy.
No one seemed to believe that necromancers could conceal their true nature for very long. The mere act of sucking so much mana and life energy through their brains and into their wards unhinged them. A necromancer could easily vaporize someone who looked at him the wrong way, secure in the conviction that the act wouldn’t give him away. His warped mind wouldn’t see anything wrong with that at all. By that standard, Emily had shown no signs of necromancy.
But people would always wonder…
“Maybe the grandmaster came up with something,” Dater prodded. “Or maybe he did something careless and died because of it.”
“Maybe,” Emily agreed.
She looked up as the servants brought in the first part of the meal. Hundreds of rabbits had been killed and cooked by the kitchen staff, before being carried upstairs and placed in front of the diners. Emily had known, intellectually, that meat didn’t come out of nowhere, but she’d never truly grasped it until she’d seen the sergeants cooking animals they’d caught to feed their students. Now, it was almost commonplace to see whole animals. But they were rabbits…
And there are people who eat snails, she reminded herself, tartly. And cats, and dogs, and insects.
“This is just the beginning,” Dater warned her, as the servants placed a slice of meat on her plate. “There will be much more to come.”
Emily worked a charm Sergeant Miles had taught her to make sure that the food was actually safe to eat. She’d had several bouts of queasiness after eating the food at Whitehall, even though most of it was cooked properly. And then there had been the dinner Cat had cooked for them in Martial Magic, which had left the entire team throwing up. The sergeants had laughed at them after
wards. They’d been warned to make sure that the meat was cooked properly. Thankfully, the charm revealed that the food was safe.
Dater chatted to her about nothing in particular as the servants brought course after course, almost all roasted or stewed meat. There were only a handful of vegetable dishes and slices of bread to go with the meat, as well as large flagons of wine and mead. Emily took a sniff of a drink Dater called Golden Mead–apparently imported from another continent at great expense–and decided that it probably wasn’t safe to drink. The last thing she wanted to do was get drunk and babble all of her secrets to listening ears.
“I had to calm down the Counting Guild after the new numbers reached the kingdom,” Dater said. “They were insisting that they be completely banned. My father trusted me to come to an arrangement with them. And then the abacus made it impossible. We ended up having to disband the guild.”
Emily felt a shock running through her chest. The new numbers had been her fault, one of the simplest innovations she’d suggested to Imaiqah’s father. Arabic numerals were so much easier to use than symbols that made Latin numerals look simple and easy. And then there had been double-entry bookkeeping, which made it much easier for shopkeepers to do their own accounts, and the abacus. The Accounting Guild of Zangaria had been crippled, then ruined, by the innovations. They’d exploited too many people to survive the crash when they’d lost their monopoly.
Dater’s face was unreadable. Did he know that Emily had been the one who had ‘invented’ the new numbers? Alassa had deduced it, but Alassa had access to some inside knowledge, knowledge that Dater might well have missed. Not, in the end, that it mattered. The first abacuses had been very basic, designed from Emily’s memories. Now, there was a sixth generation design out there and hundreds of craftsmen were competing to come up with the seventh.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, sincerely. She’d theorized that there would be more work for accountants than ever–and there probably would be, once the first true corporations were established on this world. But the guild in Zangaria had made too many enemies to survive in its current form. She assumed that was true of the other guilds too. “But they could get work on the printing presses.”
Dater’s face flickered, unpleasantly. The first printing press hadn’t worked too well–it had been laughable compared to one Emily recalled from school, let alone a laser printer–but the craftsmen had picked up on the idea and run with it. Now, there was a very basic system for producing paper, which would eventually lead to the mass production of books. Previously, the only way to copy a text had been to do it by hand. Now, hundreds of copies could be produced very quickly. It would be a long time before the process was mature–the craftsmen were still making improvements–but it had already started to have an impact on society.
It would continue to snowball, Emily knew. The Empire’s script, which looked like a cross between Arabic and Chinese, was almost impossible to learn properly unless one started very young. Even the basic script needed years of training to master; Imaiqah had been lucky that her father had been able to afford a tutor for her. And Alassa had never been a very good student, at least before she’d met Emily. But English letters were so much easier to learn and master that they were spreading like wildfire. The Scribes Guild had not been amused.
“You’re supposed to be a Child of Destiny,” Dater pointed out. “Do you know where this is taking us?”
Emily hesitated, then decided to be blunt. “I think it will make you stronger, in the long run,” she said. “What good is a newborn baby?”
Dater’s lips twitched. “I have yet to marry myself,” he admitted. “My father is still in the process of selecting a bride for me.”
“Oh,” Emily said. She’d focused on girls being pushed–or forced–into marriage, but it should have occurred to her that boys would face the same pressure to marry. But then, boys had more social freedom than girls, unless the girls happened to be sorceresses. “Do you have any say in it at all?”
“My father said that I could lie with her until she had a couple of boy-children, then give her a tower somewhere if she didn’t please me,” Dater said. “But I hope it is someone I will be able to talk to. It’s hard to talk to anyone when you’re the Crown Prince. Even Hedrick doesn’t really understand.”
Emily nodded. “People keep telling you what they think you want to hear,” she said, remembering Alassa’s cronies. “Or they tell you what they want you to hear.”
“That is indeed the problem,” Dater said. “Do you know that, as Crown Prince, I am called upon to investigate murders in the city? The last time, I was inundated with suspects even before I looked at the corpse.”
“You investigate murders?” Emily asked, in disbelief. Somehow, she couldn’t quite imagine the sober crown prince walking around in a deerstalker and carrying a magnifying glass. “Why you?”
“The only person senior to me is my father,” Dater reminded her. “No one can refuse to talk to me.”
It made a certain kind of sense, Emily decided, reluctantly. A nobleman would hardly agree to talk to a common-born investigator, or even a fellow nobleman. But the Crown Prince, the acknowledged heir, could ask questions without forcing the nobleman to lose face in front of anyone else. And besides, it was probably good publicity for the royal family, particularly if nobles were involved in the crime.
Or maybe not. “What happens if the murderer comes from a noble family?”
Dater had the grace to look embarrassed. “That depends on who he murdered,” he admitted. “If it was a common-born”–he made a show of glancing around to see who might be listening–“lady of negotiable affection…”
A trumpet blared before he could finish. King Jorlem stood up, waited for silence and then spoke out loud. “My son, Prince Hedrick, Duke of Harmonious Repose, Lord of the Middle Realm, will be accompanying the Princess Alassa on her journey back to Zangaria, where he will make his suit in front of her family,” he said. “Should he succeed in winning her hand, we will enjoy a close alliance with a northern land, an alliance that is in both of our interests. I call on you all to praise the gods and ask them to shine their light upon the couple.”
There was a brief outbreak of cheering. Alassa’s face was unreadable, but Emily could see the tension in the way she held herself. King Jorlem had talked as though it was already a done deal, as if all that had to be done was the mere formality of asking her parents to bless the match. Had Alassa given him that impression, or was he merely trying to push her into accepting Prince Hedrick as a partner?
Maybe I should send a message back to Whitehall and ask for the prince’s records, Emily thought. The grandmaster might think carefully on the political implications before sending them, but Lady Aylia wouldn’t hesitate, if Emily phased the request carefully. She believed that information wanted to be free. See just what he got in his exams before he graduated.
He was at least five years older than Alassa–more likely six, Emily realized–but that wouldn’t seem to be a problem to their eyes. Age wasn’t such an issue when dealing with princes; it only seemed to matter seriously when princesses were concerned. It made sense–a princess who had passed the menopause simply couldn’t have any more children–but it still made Emily shudder in disgust. Did they view every princess as a brood cow? Or, for that matter, princes as stud bulls?
But he looked…bored.
Was he homosexual? Emily wondered. Admittedly, Alassa wasn’t wearing one of the dresses that exposed most of her breasts to public view, but she would have expected a young man to show more interest in the beautiful princess. Or maybe he was simply very good at concealing his true feelings, just like his brother. And if he was homosexual…? James of Scotland–later James I of the United Kingdom–had been homosexual and it hadn’t stopped him from siring three children. That said, his kingdom might have regretted his second son taking the throne as Charles I.
“As the princess must continue her journey to her kingdom tomorro
w, we shall celebrate her arrival tonight,” the king continued. “Let the revels begin!”
The noblemen stood up as a flock of servants arrived and started pulling the tables aside, while a set of minstrels started to play in the far corner. Prince Hedrick stood up, after his father had shot him a sharp glance, and held out a hand to Alassa. Emily had to smile inwardly as Alassa stood up, took the prince’s hand and allowed him to lead her down to the dance floor. Unlike in Whitehall, she realized, there was an order to the dances that allowed the various unmarried noblemen to switch between potential wives. Hedrick, on the other hand, seemed to be stuck with Alassa.
A surprising number of noblewomen seemed to surround the king as soon as he stepped down from the high table. Dater leaned over and explained that ever since their mother had died, the king had been taking solace by dancing with as many noblewomen as possible. If it had gone further than dancing…no one seemed to know. Or care; a brief period as the King’s mistress could set a woman up for life, or even bring honor to her family. Emily rolled her eyes and sat back, watching the dancing.
The first dance finished, allowing a balladeer to start singing a ballad. Emily winced inwardly, wondering if she could get away with making herself invisible or simply running out the door, as she recognized the song as one of the ballads about her. At least it wasn’t one of the truly crude ones. She’d promised herself that if she ever got her hands on the person who had written a raunchy song implying that she’d used forbidden sex magic to beat Shadye, she’d do a great deal worse than turning him into a slug.
“He doesn’t sing very well,” Emily muttered, when the ballad had finally finished. “Why do you keep him?”
“Father likes his old war songs,” Dater admitted. He held out a hand and stood up. “Would you care to join me on the dance floor?”
The honest answer to that was no, but there was a desperation in his eyes that made Emily relent. Of course; if he danced with someone, courtly whispers would have them engaged by the end of the day. And if he happened to compromise himself in any way, it might prove disastrous to the monarchy. At least he had real power to console himself for having to adhere to protocol as closely as possible.
Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) Page 9