by CS Hale
The man who stepped in front of me was the oldest person I’d yet seen here. Bald to his ears, the remaining dark blond and gray hair had been gathered into a braid which fell over his shoulder and hung nearly to his waist. He looked in my eyes then extended his hand toward my head. “May I?”
I nodded.
“It’s larger than it was this afternoon,” Valemar said as the man probed my bump.
His eyes fell to the crown on the table. He harrumphed. “You just had to marry her today.”
“I did,” Valemar said, his voice indignant. “Raislos will be here in the morning. It was marry her or turn her over.” The man hummed an acknowledgement. “Can you give her something?”
“And what about the feast?”
“She needs to be there. It needs to be public.”
The man made a noise of disapproval. “She should be in bed.” He threw Valemar a pointed look. “Sleeping.” Then he sighed. “But I suppose that’s not going to happen.”
“I don’t want any medicine,” I told him. The repbots had enough to do. I didn’t want them dealing with any more foreign substances than necessary. Not when even I was beginning to worry about my head injury. “The food’s all foreign as it is. I don’t want to increase the risk of allergic reaction.”
“You’ve got a smart one there,” the doctor said to Valemar. Then he sighed again. “Very well. Water — no wine. A little bland food. Try to keep activity to a minimum.” He stood and turned to go. “Or you may just be able to give Raislos a corpse in the morning.” The man dipped a small bow at the door. “My king.”
No sooner had the door closed behind him than one behind me clicked open. I turned my head and stifled a groan. The red-haired woman slipped in.
“Is it really that serious?” Valemar asked her.
She bent down and ran her hand along my face. Her fingers traced their way back through my hair and caressed the bump above my ear. She closed her eyes and muttered something, almost a chant. They went wide when she opened them, and she took my chin. Her gaze passed right through me.
“She has help, but it will take time.” A shiver ran down my spine. She blinked then glanced over her shoulder at Valemar. “Do what you need to do. She will survive.”
The woman gathered her shawl around her and melted out the door. Her words left me frozen to the spot. My eyes were wide as Valemar took my hands and raised me from my seat. Just what did he have planned?
A hot tear spilled down my cheek, something that never would have happened without the stupid head injury. Professional, studied Astrid slipped from my grasp. I had the inexorable feeling that I was falling. Had I even left the escape pod? Maybe this was a crazy dream.
But the hand that brushed the tear away was real. Valemar bent his head and whispered in my ear, his voice warm and gentle. “I shall shield you from cold and sun and harm.”
In the Cair, to me, they had been just words — a script to recite. But here, in this room, as Valemar spoke them again, they sounded like a promise.
Once seated at our place of honor, I managed to pull up and keep a smile pasted on my face. The banquet room was loud and hot and crowded but at least I didn’t need to stand. I sipped water, nibbled on some fruit and bread, and watched the people around me. Change the faces, change the clothes, and it could have been a party nearly anywhere in the galaxy.
After a while, I became aware of the death glares that a woman with strawberry blond hair kept shooting in my direction. At first, I’d thought they were aimed at Valemar. Then I noticed her eyes soften as she gazed at him, only to have the fire reignited when they flicked back to me.
If looks could kill…
I filed her away for further investigation. Looks can’t kill, but they can definitely hatch plots. Hence rule number four: Always know whom you’re dealing with. My money was on a spurned lover — I’d taken her place — which could make her dangerous and not just merely annoying. It could be that she hated seeing her king take an outsider as a wife (there were several in the crowd who showed a similar reluctance to the women who had been sent to dress me), but I couldn’t afford to be careless. My life depended on it.
I hadn’t been going to ask Valemar about her, but he caught my glances at her and leaned in. “Zhanet, my moon mate,” Valemar said. “They don’t often end up as wives, but …” His mouth moved up and down in a shrug.
Which answered one question but raised so many others. And added a new tempo to the rhythm pounding away in my head as my inner protocol specialist suffered culture shock and mentally kicked me for being unprepared.
Whether to comfort me or irritate her, Valemar’s hand came to rest on my back. His fingers traced some unseen pattern. The motion was so like that of my mother’s soothing touch when I was sick that I found myself leaning into his embrace. Zhanet colored and looked away.
I must have dozed for the next thing I was aware of was Valemar’s voice in my ear. “They’re ready for you.”
I opened my eyes. Women were rising from the tables, singing. I scanned the room, but Zhanet had vanished, which relieved me. I didn’t want her tucking me into my wedding bed. How many other of Valemar’s former lovers were among the women, I didn’t know. Would I be the last of his lovers or just one of many? How could I find out without causing any more ripples that I already had?
Down the corridors, up the stairs, the women drew me, singing. Torches flickered along the walls, making the shadows dance. The women excused two guards who stood outside a door and led me inside what turned out to be a fairly modest bedroom. I’d been in larger, grander bedrooms in hotels all over the galaxy. It was by no means spartan, but it was not what I’d expected of the bedroom of a king. There was an average sized bed covered in ordinary textiles. A small table with two chairs held a few bottles and glasses. There were two doors leading off to other spaces, but those the women left alone.
They unlaced the heavy red dress and stripped me bare before raising my arms and settling a sheer gown over me. Sleeveless and long, it covered my body but left nothing to the imagination. At least they hadn’t left me naked. Daria threw back the covers and, once I’d climbed in, tucked me into bed. She gave me a reassuring smile and filed out behind the others, still singing, before closing the door behind her.
I hugged my arms around my knees and waited. I was in no way a virgin, but other than a couple of times when I’d had way too much to drink, I’d never slept with a stranger. I didn’t know how women had done it throughout the ages — bed someone they’d barely met. At least I had the advantage of knowing what was coming. Or thought I did. Occasionally you got surprises. All life forms aren’t built the same way, as I found out on Betel Five when I took a Derthryn banker I’d worked with for years up on his offer to see the stars from the hotel roof.
I eyed the bottles on the table and scrambled back out of bed. The reason there are so many drunken one night stands is that alcohol turns off the thinking part of the brain. You’re left staring at someone hopefully attractive and your instinctual brain takes over with its messages to reproduce. That was what I needed now.
I poured myself a large glass from the bottle that looked like wine. I swigged back a sizeable gulp and then bent over, exhaling in shock, when it turned out to be much stronger. After fanning away the burn, I braced myself and downed the rest of the glass. I was just refilling it when a creak in the hallway alerted me that someone was there. The door opened and Valemar came in. An eyebrow rose and an amused smile lit his face.
“I thought Ferrick said no wine.”
“It’s not wine,” I said and picked up the cup. “It’s much stronger than that, and I’m going to need it if I’m going to do this.”
Valemar held back a smile and watched me drain it. His eyes traveled over me then he took the cup from my hands and placed it on the table. His hands came up and caressed my face. I closed my eyes, trying to hold back the tears that were rising. There was no love here. I was handing over my body in exchange for safety.
Sanctioned prostitution. Trading sex for something else. At least I knew what I was doing, what was coming. I couldn’t imagine the terror of all the brides who hadn’t known just what would be done to them.
Valemar slowly closed the distance between us. I could feel the heat of his body through the nothingness of my nightgown, smell the spicy scent from before. His every exhale was deep and husky. His fingers curled along my jaw, raising my face. His lips came down on mine, brushing me softly, and I could taste wine.
I decided I should do this properly and kissed him back. I ran my hands up his chest and found firm, chiseled muscles under his robe. There was a warrior’s body there. The instinct part of my brain kicked in, moving me closer against him.
Valemar’s hands traveled down my back, across the tops of my buttocks, and came to rest on my hips. His movements were slow, precise. And reminded me of something.
My conscious brain chased after the memory and found it. A camping trip in the Scottish Highlands when I was ten. My father and I had been eating apples by a stream when we heard movement through the bracken. A deer emerged and then stared at us. Its nose quivered as it took in the scent of the fruit. My father turned his hand flat and extended the apple. Slowly, impossibly slowly, he edged in the deer’s direction. The deer twitched her ears and flipped her tail, but she allowed my father to approach. She cautiously took the apple when he came close enough, chewing it up in loud crunches as my father stayed still.
I was the deer in this scenario. Valemar was moving slow, letting me get used to him. Letting me see that he meant me no harm. Seduction works for a reason.
I did my best to turn off the thinking part of my brain, allowed myself to get lost in the feeling his lips and hands were creating. The nightgown fell from my shoulders shortly before he picked me up. His lips stopped as he carried me to the bed but began again when he’d placed me on it, pausing only to shuck off his robe.
I shivered, all too conscious that we were both naked, and Valemar pulled the covers up over us. He stroked me from shoulder to hip while he kissed me, gradually easing himself on top of me and then between my legs. My body responded and was ready for him when he entered me.
There was a reverence to his lovemaking. I had been desired in the past. Even loved. But Valemar made love to me as if I were a miracle. He swept away the shame I’d been feeling. I began to think that this could actually work and lost myself in the pleasure, crying aloud as I climaxed.
A creak outside the door froze us both. Valemar’s hand snaked under the pillow next to me. We didn’t even breathe, just listened. The sound of footsteps faded down the hall.
I felt more violated at that moment than I did with Valemar inside me. I blinked. Tears slipped down my face, into my ears. Valemar brushed them away with his hand. His lips traced the tracks they’d taken then he began to move again. But the moment had been spoiled. This was a business arrangement, and someone had just made sure that I’d paid.
IT TOOK ME ages to fall asleep. Valemar curled around me and nuzzled my hair before he nodded off while I lay there, listening to his even breathing. In a stranger’s arms, in a stranger land, with no hope of return to anything I held dear, the loneliness was crushing.
I forced myself to assess the situation, starting with the person who’d been listening outside the door. Uninvited, apparently. Though expected enough for Valemar to have placed a weapon under his pillow. There is always intrigue, but it’s one thing to try to decipher the players and the details from the outside. It’s another when the intrigue involves you. I was a juicy fly caught in a spider web. Whether I was dinner or bait, I couldn’t tell.
I didn’t get much beyond that before the alcohol and the head injury finally combined to push me into the sleep the doctor had recommended. I awoke in the morning with Valemar gone. Whatever had been under his pillow was gone as well.
While I waited for someone to come and fetch me for the morning’s confrontation with the Cordair, I clambered out of bed and checked out the two doors that, as far as I knew, didn’t lead out of the room. Behind them were two separate dressing rooms with bathrooms. One meant for a man. One for a woman.
A long rack of dresses ran along one wall on the woman’s side, shoes tucked underneath them. The opposite wall had drawers and shelves. I pulled open one drawer and found underthings. The boxes on the shelves contained pieces of jewelry. My hands shook as I placed a box containing a brooch shaped like an insect back in its place. The bedroom might be modest but the gowns were extravagant. They were fit for a queen. So why were they already here?
I found the toilet, finished my business, and sorted through the dresses. They all laced up the back. There was no way I was getting into them without help.
I pulled on a green robe with swirling patterns that reminded me of paisley and crawled back into bed. My headache had subsided, but my brain felt damaged. The same thought kept playing over and over like a defective recording. I remained stuck in the loop until the floor squeaked. A short knock tapped against the door and Daria entered.
“I tried to get dressed myself but I couldn’t do the laces,” I apologized.
“That’s my job,” Daria said. “You’re not expected to get dressed on your own.”
I had wondered at the practice of ladies maids in centuries past. Why couldn’t a person just dress themselves? Because there weren’t any zippers. It was a maid or loose-fitting clothing.
I got out of bed and joined her in the dressing room. Daria took a gown that was almost the same blue as the robes Valemar had worn for the wedding from its hanger and threaded her arms through the neck. I dropped the robe and raised my arms so she could slip the dress over my head. As Daria began to thread the laces through the holes, I closed my eyes to block out of the vision of all those dresses behind me, and asked the easiest of my many questions. “Why the green and blue?”
Daria tugged on the strings. “The blue is for the Lian Isles and the Aelon Sea to the north.”
I looked over my shoulder when she paused. Her eyes and smile showed her thoughts to be somewhere else. She met my gaze and returned to her task, smile still in place. “The air is warm and scented with fruit. The waters are bright blues and vivid greens, though the green on our flag represents the green of the fields and forests of Bánalfar. The two lands have been joined for more than two thousand years — on the flag, on the crown. In our hearts.”
She tied off the laces and picked up a box. Inside sat a smaller version of the crown Valemar had been wearing when I met him, the interwoven leaves and waves. A queen’s crown.
I stared at it and swallowed. “Daria … why are there gowns already in here?” I bit off the possibilities so as not to give her the idea of an answer that I might find acceptable.
Surprise colored Daria’s face. Her eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. She set down the crown, picked up a brush, and came to stand behind me again.
“This is the queen’s chambers,” she said.
I gave her marks for her quick maneuvering then asked the question I didn’t really want to know the answer to. At least, my heart didn’t want to know, while my head said it was the lesser to two evils (though not the only option). “So Valemar has had other queens?”
Daria’s hands stilled. “No, my queen.”
My ribs relaxed and I inhaled, only then realizing that I’d been holding my breath. So that was one minefield I wouldn’t have to walk. Which would mean …
Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.
It had been drilled into my head by my family for as long as I could remember. Part of the reason I was so good at my job. I did my research and ran every scenario so I knew what the answers were likely to be before I asked the questions. The evidence was mounting for an answer I didn’t like. An answer that shook me to my core and frightened me in a way I’d never been frightened. Not when the mechanism had exploded and the plasma leaked and the crew slowly died. Not when the pod malfunctioned and I ended up cr
ash landing. Not even when separatists had broken into our negotiations and taken us hostage for ten hours on Regen Four. If my guess was right, I was in way over my head, and I didn’t want it confirmed until I felt like I could remain upright upon hearing it.
“Well, at least the wardrobe is proving useful,” I said, and pulled at the fabric of the sleeves skimming my wrists.
Daria put the brush down and lifted the crown onto my head. It looked awkward there. Not because I didn’t think it belonged, but on Valemar’s head the colors had shone. My dark hair covered them in shadow.
“The green stones bring out the green in your eyes,” Daria said. That was true, and I murmured my thanks, all the while thinking about how out of place it looked. “They’re waiting for you in the throne room,” Daria said, and I followed her out, steeling myself for the confrontation with the Cordair.
Daria took me in through a door behind the dais. Heads bent toward each other as hushed murmurs were exchanged between the thirty or forty people assembled there. Valemar’s eyes flicked toward me and he rose, coming forward to meet me.
“What do I need to do?” I asked him.
“Just stand beside me,” he said and took my hand. We walked over to the throne. Valemar sat, leaving me standing on his right. I wondered if there was a queen’s throne or if queens even got to sit in his presence. He nodded to the guards at the main doors. The other guards lining the walls stood a little straighter as the doors were opened. Outward, I noticed. Harder to break into. The remaining people stepped aside, forming an aisleway. A band of about twenty marched in, and my brain finally recognized what was wrong with the scene.
I grabbed at the arm of the throne. Valemar’s eyes flicked to me, and he assumed a lazy pose. I struggled to breathe, struggled to keep my face neutral and not break rule twenty. It was all I could do not to scream.
Awrakian armor. There were men before me clad in Awrakian armor.
“You’ve got something of mine, Valemar,” their leader, a grizzled man of late middle age, drawled.