by Lara Blunte
He was left behind as she resolutely marched up to her chambers, and he stood wondering whether he should warn Tameas, whether it would be treason if he didn't. "It might provoke a bad bellyache!" he cried after the princess, as she climbed the stairs without him.
That afternoon Agnetta sent out an invitation to both the king and queen to have drinks and cakes in her room and they both attended, each not knowing that the other would be there.
When Isobel, who had arrived first, saw Tameas enter she looked down, frowning. They had not really spoken since the day when he had forced her to exchange her royal crown for Harry's, three weeks before. He composed his features into a neutral expression as he sat down with her and Agnetta.
It was a beautiful afternoon, and the sky was already beginning to get tinged with pink and purple. The balmy air coming into the terrace stirred their hair where they sat, and they observed the flight of Agnetta's birds, in and out of her room.
Agnetta saw how beautiful Isobel looked in the soft light: her blue dress made her eyes seem violet, and her hair gleamed more than the golden band around her her head. And Tameas also looked even more handsome than usual, though there was a bruise on his face and a cut on his lip, which she would ask him about some other time.
Now she was very nervous about her bit of sorcery. She motioned towards the cakes and gracefully lifted a carafe of liqueur, which she served into the glasses where she had already put a good deal of potion for each.
"What is that?" her brother asked.
"Plum liqueur, made by the sisters at St Anne's. It is very, very delicious!"
"I don't like liqueur," Tameas protested, "It's a drink for old women!"
Agnetta frowned at him, "It's not too sweet, and that is why I offer it to you. I hope you won't be rude!"
Tameas smiled fondly at his sister, as she placed aniseed cake on their plates. He had had to play at cake parties with her often, when she had been small. He picked up his glass and drank, to humor her. Agnetta saw that Isobel was also drinking, and her heart began to beat so fast that she thought she might faint.
Tameas was making a face. "You are right. It's not sweet, it's bitter!'
Isobel was more polite than her brother, though she was also grimacing.
"Drink, drink!" Agnetta said. "It gets better!"
The king looked at her with a glimmer of suspicion, but found only a smiling face looking back at him, and kept sipping. "It does get a bit better," he conceded.
Isobel nodded, "Yes, it is quite nice now."
Agnetta stood up abruptly, "I forgot something, I must go and shall return in a moment."
She ran out very quickly, looking down and almost covering her face. What if they look at me, she thought. They need to look at each other!
Closing the door after leaving them inside alone, she shooed everyone who was in the corridor away, so that she could bend to look through the large keyhole.
"How have you been, Your Grace?" Tameas was asking.
"I have been well. You, Sire?"
"Well."
There was a silence and Isobel said, "Busy, I can imagine."
"Yes, busy," Tameas said.
They weren't much looking at each other. Heavens, what if it were true and Tameas should fall in love with the sky, at which he was staring, and Isobel with her shoes, as she looked down?
"Look at each other," Agnetta muttered between gritted teeth.
"So busy that you don't even sleep in your bed," Isobel was saying, in a voice that suddenly trembled with anger.
The two of them looked at each other then, but there was nothing like love in their eyes.
"What is it to you, where I sleep?" he asked. "Should you not rather waste your time thinking about where another man lays his head?"
Agnetta gasped. Had the witch given her a truth serum, of a hate potion instead? She started feeling, with dread, that Mistress Fira had been right, and that she should not have played with any forces at all. What if she had made them hate each other even more?
"You cannot accuse me of anything but thoughts, which no one can help!" Isobel was saying. "But I could accuse you of the grossest deeds, of an insult..."
"An insult!" he cried.
"A thousand insults!" she almost shouted in her strong voice.
"Well, madam, then I must apologize, as a king and as a man."
Isobel's body moved back against the chair, as if she thought he might, at last, be prepared to behave better, but her lips had not lost their line of disapproval.
Tameas, however, stood up, "And tomorrow I shall apologize again, and the day after, and the day after, because I am afraid this discourtesy I do to you cannot be helped, any more than you can help your thoughts."
He turned away from her and started walking towards the door, without seeing the despair on his queen's beautiful face. Agnetta had no time for anything but to run down the corridor, hoping that her brother would not find her there.
THE OLD RAMPARTS
"Close your left flank, left, left, left!"
Donnet was going at Tameas without mercy, as Sir Eldon had instructed, and the master-at-arms stood watching, shouting, and correcting the king.
"Good!" he bellowed when Tameas avoided a thrust by stepping sideways, and started to beat Donnet back.
There were only the three of them on the field, with three squires and two pages, all instructed not to speak of what the king had been doing for several hours every morning for the last six weeks.
During the first training session Tameas had thought he might die. He hadn't been completely idle for ten years, as he liked to walk and was an excellent rider, but nothing could compare to the grueling pace of training for battle.
It was a difficult pace for hardened knights or soldiers, but for someone beginning anew it was a constant physical torture; especially if the training master were Sir Eldon.
But was that not why Tameas had summoned him, and not another? Not only was he the best teacher, but he would pay no attention if the king seemed tired, or pouted, or asked to pause. If Tameas had invented any excuse, or sent a page to tell Sir Eldon that he couldn't train that morning, the man would have been capable of marching into the council and grabbing him by the ear to take him outside.
There was no mercy in Sir Eldon, and Tameas needed his mercilessness. He needed Donnet, too, the only sparring partner who would not be easy on him.
It was like Tameas that he should have stubbornly decided never to touch a sword again when, at fifteen, his father had told him he would never go to war, and could never joust. He had already been a man, and had had to see his companions and friends go off to fight while he sat in the castle with all the women and the old beards.
He might have kept training with blunt weapons, but had preferred to never touch a sword again, substituting all the war instruments by a lute which, he had known, had shamed his father and amused everyone. In time the lazy and sardonic side he had developed had eclipsed the boy that had been there before.
I loved you too well, his father had said.
Perhaps that confession, together with Sir Harry's defiance, had freed him from the vow never to touch a sword, one of many stubborn vows he had made to himself.
Such as the vow never to touch Isobel.
Sir Eldon had had no mercy. Both he and Donnet had been putting him through such hard training that he had hardly been able to walk, or lie down, or lift his arm, though he had smiled through the pain as he sat in council, at dinners and at ceremonies.
He had been black and blue for the first two weeks, and he could still smell the salves that had been constantly applied on him by the squire.
Then his body started regaining the memory of its former self. It had all been there, sleeping, but not gone. He had started to recover his speed when running, his balance. His strength, especially when tested against Donnet's, had taken longer to assert itself.
But he still had good instincts and this, Sir Eldon told him, was what made all th
e difference; it was what could turn a man into a great fighter. Tameas might meet a Goliath on the field, but if he could, at a glance, see his weaknesses, if he could avoid his straight blow and land a clever one, then he would win.
Tameas had that natural talent, and few people had it. Sir Eldon was getting it back for him through discipline and almost superhuman effort.
At first he was relieved every time a training session ended, for often he felt that his sinews would not bear him up anymore, and that his arm could no longer hold his sword or shield. He sometimes felt that he might fall to his knees ─ but he didn't show exhaustion or weakness. He found that by being pushed he acquired a greater strength every day, until one morning the signal was given that they were done and he felt that he might have continued.
His body had changed as well, during these weeks. He had always been slim, even with all the wine he had drunk, and his legs had been good and strong, but he had not had much discernible muscle anywhere, as Sir Eldon had pointed out.
Now he ate like a wolf, hungry after training, and though his body was still lean, his muscles were coiled and hard. He had to have new doublets made, as the old ones no longer fit him across the chest or shoulders.
The only person who could remark on it was Alyon, who saw him naked and never stopped running her hands over his body now. She also liked the little scars and nicks he got from the exercises.
"The more manly I get, the more like a girl I feel," he told her, laughing. "I am certain it's men who should look at women the way you look at me lately; you even forget to make love for staring!"
"If I ever meet Sir Eldon in the street I shall have to stop him and kiss him, for gladdening my eyes," she replied.
Tameas smiled, "I should like to see his face, if you ever do!"
In the fields the training was over for the day, so Tameas and Donnet got on their horses and rode away, but they didn't go towards the castle. It was Sunday and there was no council, no affairs to attend to immediately, and they could still make the noon mass, so they rode towards the waterfall. Throwing their clothes off as they ran, they dived in and sat under the fall, letting the cold water fall on their heads and shoulders.
Afterwards, they put on their breeches and boots and rode bare-chested, the sun on their skin, to the ruins of the old castle. They lay on the broken stone in the sun, munching on apples and not speaking much, until Tameas said, "If only it were always like this..."
"That would be too easy," Donnet said sleepily.
"It's like all the images of paradise." Tameas leaned on one elbow and looked at the rolling green hills before him, the trees, the white sheep in the distance, the blue sky.
"Well, not all lands are like this one and, in any case, we have to earn paradise," Donnet said.
"It seems a waste, if we already have it here. All we would have to do is enjoy it. A swim, some food, lovemaking, deep sleep...Why can't it be like that?"
"Human emotions," Donnet said, thinking of the old witch.
"What do you mean?"
"We have emotions about everything, we think the sky is blue, but not blue enough, the ground is too hard, we get tired of apples, we covet all women..."
"True," Tameas said with a sigh. "We are a trying creature." He lay down again, his head on his arm.
"Our seven deadly sins..."
Tameas scoffed, " I suspect there are many more than seven. And some of them feel so good."
"Such as lust?"
Tameas reflected, "I think my worst one might be pride... As if lust weren't yours, or any man's."
"And quite a few ladies' too, bless them." There was a silence and then Donnet added, "And yet you have the world's most beautiful woman at your command, and you won't touch her with the tip of your finger."
Tameas growled, "You know that it isn't only beauty that provokes desire, there has to be something else..."
It was Donnet's turn to scoff. "All I know is that when I see the queen going by, my thoughts are so sinful I ought to be thrown into the tower for treason."
"Ha! But you aren't on the receiving end of the accusing eye..."
Donnet sat up so that he could look at his friend, "Have you not found that the eyes have softened a little? I think that in the months since she has arrived, she has become more womanly and less... northern."
Tameas raised an eyebrow, "How much have you have been watching my wife?"
"Every man has. Except you."
The king sighed. "Perhaps it's my stubbornness, I don't know. To be thrown together like that, and then have to mate..."
"But you were a prince, princes can't choose whom they love – and kings even less."
"I didn't want to be a prince, any more than I want to be king, for that matter. There is no glory in it, I am just meant to administer lands like a steward, look out for enemies, mediate between men and soothe their quarrels, and prance around a castle hearing lies and flattery."
"Terrible," Donnet said, with no real sympathy
Tameas kicked him. "If you are not careful I shall make you as miserable as I am. I shall make you a lord of something, and you'll do nothing else but solve problems and hear complaints all day, like I do."
"Poor, poor Tom!" Donnet said, kicking him back.
"Be quiet!" Tameas laughed.
"You would be a lot happier if, after these sessions of complaints, you made love to your beautiful wife."
"Would I?"
"I suspect there is something in her..."
"God's Teeth, Don, stop talking about her in this way!"
"Ah, so you care!"
Tameas frowned, "She is the queen..."
"At least think this, my friend, she may have seemed all rough and sulky, but she is from a hard land. She had to give up her home, her father, her brothers, Sir Harry. Has it ever occurred to you that she was trying to be strong because it was expected of her, while inside, all the time, she might have felt alone and frightened?"
"Frightened! She is like Cerberus at the doors of hell!” Tameas protested.
"But she has changed since, only you won't see it," Donnet insisted. "There is only Agnetta showing her any affection. She is a girl, Tom, and so you ought to have pity, and be generous. Instead, you run to Alyon, because she loves you. You run to get comfort and leave none to your wife."
“You forget she is probably assuaging her loneliness with thoughts of the wonderful Sir Harry,” Tameas said curtly. “You forget that she was happy that he was trying to humiliate her husband out of love for her. How clever was that, I wonder?”
“Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be clever,” Donnet said. “Perhaps it really came from their heart, as you told me yourself that day.”
Tameas sat up as well, putting on his shirt. "Well, if it came from their heart, what business do I have trying to enamor her away from him?”
“The business of trying to be happy!” Donnet exclaimed, while realizing that he suddenly sounded like Agnetta.
He knew he had earned the mocking smile from Tameas, even as he discerned something else in his eyes, something that might have been regret that things were not different.
“Happy?” Tameas asked. “I do not think I have ever even seen her laugh.”
“Try harder,” Donnet insisted. “You can be very charming when you have a mind to it.”
Tameas was shaking his head, “You aren't in love with her, are you?" he asked casually.
"No. I feel sorry for her. I can see what you can't, that when you look at her, she puts on a front, because she is proud. I can see her when you are not looking, and she seems lost and alone. You ought to have mercy, Tameas. It's a good quality in a king."
"Is it?" Tameas wondered.
"You ought to do what is difficult," Donnet said. "You ought to give up Alyon."
"I do nothing but what is difficult, or tedious," Tameas muttered mutinously, though Donnet was the one person besides his sister who could make him reconsider the things he did. They were the two people who truly loved hi
m, and who could shame him.
He stood up, knowing that he was going to think about what Donnet had said, and in the meantime, he looked at the ramparts of the abandoned castle. "Do you remember?" he asked, pointing up.
Donnet was standing as well. He smiled.
Tameas had begun to run towards the door in the tower, and Donnet followed. They climbed the stairs quickly until they stood on the ramparts. They started to run on the edge of the stone as they used to as children. It had been their secret game, since Tibold would have punished both for their recklessness.
But boys liked nothing better than to defy death, and they did it now. They ran in spite of a long fall that might kill them to their left, and finally they stood at the highest point in the old walls. Tameas put his arm around his friend's shoulder, and they looked down at all that belonged to the king, the fields, the river, the city, the hills and beyond - all that was his, if no one came to steal it.
SPYING
When the king's friend told him something, the king listened ─ even if he did not like what he heard.
Donnet had upbraided him, and that made Tameas observe the queen more closely, though still discreetly. He understood that pride would never allow her to show any weakness if she knew herself to be the object of his scrutiny.
The architecture of the castle lent itself admirably to his spying, and he knew well the many balconies, galleries and windows where he could stand unseen as Isobel walked with her ladies-in-waiting. She almost always had a serious or sad expression on her face, which was a contrast to the gaiety of the women with her. They talked, gossiped, laughed ─while she looked as though she might have wanted to run away and be alone.
She feels as I feel, he thought, when all these people come and chatter needlessly in my ear; but I can tell them to go away, and she cannot. I can, as Don said, find intimacy with Alyon, and she cannot have Harry.
Donnet had appealed to his chivalry when he had said that he was being unjust to a girl who had left everything behind, and Tameas remembered his first intentions, before he had ever looked into Isobel's censorious eyes and found her to be an unimaginative little battle-axe. He had thought then that it was important to repress the cockatrice before she started believing that she could reign over him.