"But a goat?" Aurelie said aloud.
Her father had come up behind her. "I thought she would like it," he said softly. "Your mother never tried to hide her birth."
Again, Aurelie remembered those long-ago summers at Grandmere's farm, where Queen Basia had delighted in setting aside the court's protocol and had taught her daughter to make flower garlands and milk Boss Nanny. After a day spent running wild in the woods
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with her friends, Aurelie would come home and curl against her mother's side, listening sleepily as Madame Brebisse entertained the household with stories of the Fae. Or Aurelie and her mother would play together, two wooden flutes trading one melody between them.
An ache spread through her body. She wished she hadn't left her flute with Elise.
In a rare caress, her father rested his hand on Aurelie's shoulder. "A year already, and it hurts as much as ever. Doesn't seem fair, does it?"
"No." With a sense of relief, Aurelie turned her face into his coat and let out the anguish clawing at her throat.
Nothing was fairl How could it be, when her dearest friend walked in darkness and her mother slept in the ground? Then the stupid war had divided her from the only boy who'd ever seen her, not her crown.
"I know," her father said. "Courage, my dear. A princess thinks first of her people."
"Yes, Papa." Aurelie was tempted to confide in him. But little girls grew into young women with private lives of their own. As another girl might hide her flirtations, Aurelie kept her fears close. If her father knew how she worried about failing in her diplomatic mission to Dorisen, he might go in her place. Or send someone whose loyalties weren't compromised by friendship with a Skoeran. Or worst of all, explain that Aurelie was only a figurehead, that Count Sicard would complete the actual negotiations. The Heir's job was to smile at the other dignitaries and sign where they told her. Unless she offended one of the Skoeran council members, Aurelie wasn't likely to affect the outcome of the talks. Her heart might be missing, but she still had her
14
pride. Aurelie decided she'd rather act as though she had power and be mistaken than know for certain that nothing she did mattered.
But before she left Lumielle for Dorisen, she had to preside over afternoon galettes and hot chocolate at Saint Somasca's Home for Orphaned Children. And attend the banquet for the hospital nurses, giving a short speech to thank them for devotion to their patients. Then, before the evening tide, she must step onto the deck of the ship that would carry her to the capital of the Skoeran isles.
Garin's country. Deep down, under grief and worry, hope burned like a banked coal. Of her three closest friends, Netta refused to come to Lumielle, and Aurelie had no idea where Loic might be. If anyone knew how to make her feel herself again, Garin would. Working together, couldn't they achieve peace?
Aurelie knelt next to her father and touched the grave marker. She traced the goat's head and wiped her eyes dry with the shawl. Then she stood tall, and lied. "I'm ready, Papa."
"That's my brave girl."
If she hadn't looked over her left shoulder, Aurelie wouldn't have seen the Fee Verte glide out from behind a tree and sweep her green mantle over the grave, spangling the ground nearby with the tiny white blossoms that mountain folk called Fairy's Tears.
The rest of that day, Lumielle's residents marveled at the unexpected fragrance wafting through their streets like the last gift of summer. Though she hadn't acknowledged the Fae, Aurelie, too, breathed the scent hungrily until the salt breeze filled her ship's sails and pushed her far from Jocondagne's shore.
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Chapter 3 Aurelie
Five days later, installed in a guesthouse in Skoe's capital city, Aurelie contemplated the mirror. The setting sun filled the room with golden light and illuminated her reflection all too clearly. "This is your best work?"
The question set her maid and the two local dressmakers to twittering. "Perhaps Princess Aurelie would prefer the jeweled net, a la Leyoness?"
"Oh, no--jeweled net would clash with this soft gray silk. We'd better keep the pearls."
"The present effect is quite handsome. Your Highness will set a new fashion for simplicity, refinement, and--"
Aurelie gestured them to silence. After a full night and day ashore in Dorisen, her fever had dropped and the world had stopped swaying, but pain still throbbed behind her temples. Her stomach felt queasy again; she'd never keep down her food. Not that she expected
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to eat much. If the inn's menu represented the islanders' general liking for mouth-burning spices, she'd be lucky to find one dish she could sample without weeping tears of pain.
Captain Inglis, the chief of Skoe's governing council, had invited the Jocondagnan representatives to her home for an informal supper. In moments, Aurelie was supposed to meet Count Sicard in the courtyard, and she looked hideous.
Well. Not hideous, exactly. That was unfair to the efforts of the hovering servants, none of whom would meet her eyes in the mirror. Her maid Elise was especially shy around the two local women hired to assist with the refurbishment of Aurelie's wardrobe, which had suffered since Skoeran ships had stopped supplying Lumielle with fine fabrics and other luxuries.
She owed the ghostly pallor of her face to seasickness. A storm had delayed their arrival and kept her shut inside a tiny cabin with an equally ill Elise. Her maid had tried to hide the traces of illness by scrubbing Aurelie's skin, then slathering it with rice powder. Aurelie couldn't find fault with her hair and gown; both had been neatly arranged. After rejecting half a dozen styles as too gaudy, she hardly dared complain when they combed her hair back and laced her into a severe gray gown, although one of her frilly nightgowns could better pass for evening dress than this plain thing! At least the pearl coronet added a touch of elegance.
Aurelie sighed. After studying documents all afternoon, her tired eyes burned. In truth, she looked like the figure on a tomb in the royal chapel. All she needed to complete the resemblance was a stone dog at her feet. Or the big gray cat curled on the window seat. Having withstood Elise's attempts to chase him from the bedchamber earlier,
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the sleeping animal gave every impression of being carved in stone. Aurelie wished she could borrow his assurance, if only for the evening. "Leave me," she told the servants.
Elise lingered, frowning at the cat and adjusting a ribbon that didn't need fixing, "Don't worry, Your Highness," she whispered. "Ill and all, it's grown-up you look. And tidy. Skoerans are the very demon for neatness. Ship-shape, they say; you'll impress him for certain."
Dabbing orange water on her wrists, Aurelie stiffened. Was Elise insinuating that Aurelie favored one Skoeran in particular? The maid didn't know Garin; he'd left Jocondagne when he was fifteen years old, before Elise had started work at the palace. And Aurelie hadn't spoken of him to anyone in her party, although the ties of trade, a common language and customs meant that many Jocondagnans and Skoerans were acquainted. She breathed shallowly, hoping that would dear her vision. It helped, a little. "Who do you mean?"
"Why, Captain Inglis's son. Hui, his name is. Ever so handsome, the cook told me this morning, and a First of his own ship, though he's not five and twenty."
Her secret was safe. Aurelie's lips curved in amusement that she'd rather be accused of dressing to please a man she'd never met than one who'd once been closer than a brother. And with a maid for a matchmaker, who needed diplomats? Elise sounded quite prepared to secure the peace by marrying off her employer to a Skoeran ship's officer. Aurelie understood enough about statecraft to realize there was more than one reason she'd been included with Count Sicard in this select mission of two. She didn't like being a pawn in court politics, but that wasn't Elise's fault. Or maybe her maid had imagined a star-crossed love between warring kingdoms, that staple of theatrical
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romances. Skoerans didn't have kings and nobles. Captain was their highest rank, and making First was no small accomplishm
ent.
Aurelie got up and steadied herself against the doorframe, taking slow, careful steps in her new shoes. Gray, to match the dress, with jet buckles. They pinched. "I'm here on diplomatic business, Elise. Not to flirt."
"Yes, Your Highness." The maid curtsied, but the expression on her freckled face said "Why not both?" as plain as speech.
And maybe flirting was a kind of diplomacy, Aurelie thought as she settled onto the bench of one of the odd conveyances, like a tall box with poles fixed to either side, which substituted for carriages in Dorisen. As instructed, she rapped the roof. Two porters, one behind and one in front, picked up the poles and carried her from the guesthouse courtyard.
She peered out the window slot, wishing Netta had accompanied her, though they wouldn't have both fit in this box-chair. According to the letters her friend's mother sent from Cantrez, Netta was well. Bored, Aurelie thought, reading between the conventional lines. How Netta would have enjoyed the smells, sounds, and tastes of this foreign city! Dorisen's narrow stone step-ways couldn't be more different from Lumielle's tree-lined boulevards and riverside promenades.
From a distance, the chain of islands that made up Skoe resembled a handful of rough stones cast in a child's game. As her ship approached them, Aurelie had seen that the steep hillsides couldn't be cultivated like Jocondagne's fertile river valleys. Skoerans farmed on terraces cut into the hills, and they built their cities the same way, layer upon layer. Since their real wealth came from the sea, from fishing and trade, the Skoeran capital wasn't located on the largest island, but the
19
one with the most protected anchorage. It nestled inside the hollow crater of a long-dead volcano. After the mountain's fire had died, the sea had breached the island's steep sides in two places, creating inlets into an otherwise perfectly round harbor that kept Skoe's merchant fleet safe through the wildest winter gales. Inside the bowl, water lapped quietly at the docks; outside, the ocean beat against the island's rocky shell, creating a low, angry rumble that had disturbed Aurelie's sleep.
As she traveled upward, Aurelie found the sound less ominous. Listening to its rough music, she studied Dorisen's vertical layout with interest. All-important commerce dominated the first and widest terrace at sea level, with wooden docks and stone warehouses, inns, banks, ships' agents, and chandleries. Schools, hospitals, theaters, and other municipal buildings occupied the city's next tier. Like cliff-swallows' nests, residences had been carved into the heights above the rest. Flights of steps connected buildings to one another, and to the roads that spiraled from level to level, crowded with slow-moving ox-carts. The shadows lengthened as they climbed. Aurelie was surprised not to see a single horse. Most people, it appeared, walked to their destinations. The elderly, infirm, and visitors hired box-chairs.
"No shame for you to be carried along the step-ways, Your Highness," one of the Skoeran dressmakers had assured her. "We make allowances for foreigners."
She hadn't said "weak foreigners," but Aurelie had heard the politely omitted word. After spending just a day among the Skoerans, she thought they must be the fittest people she had ever met.
Descending from the chair into a torch-lit courtyard confirmed Aurelie's opinion. She was by far the youngest person to arrive in a box-chair. Most of the captain's dinner guests strolled up to the stone
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gates on their own two feet, chatting easily, as if a dozen flights of steps shouldn't cause a person to pant for breath. Aurelie also noticed that the mode for tight-fitting trousers on men and shorter skirts on women showed off their elegant calves. Fashionable Skoerans might consider Aurelie's gray gown dowdy, but it did cover her skinny ankles.
And her pearls were fine, the equal of any of the Skoerans' jewels. At least she thought so until Count Sicard led her into the entry hall. They joined the queue of guests surrendering their invitations to the servant who would announce them.
Too mannerly to whistle out loud, the count hissed between his teeth.
Aurelie fingered her invitation. Had they misread? Captain Inglis's "informal supper" had the air of a fancy-dress ball. Her guests were resplendent in gilded brocade and silver tissue, metallic lace and vibrant silks. The men glittered as opulently as the women, their costumes a blend of styles and materials that Skoeran ships must have brought from the far corners of the world. To Aurelie's dazzled eyes, the other guests looked like they'd been rummaging in chests of pirate treasure. What else could have supplied the swags of golden chains ornamented with coins and charms, the ropes of diamonds and pearls, jeweled earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings?
The tall Skoeran seamstress had said Aurelie would set a fashion for "simplicity and refinement." Had she intended mockery or warning? So recently enemies, it was difficult to know what emotions lay under the Skoerans' courteous veneer. But Aurelie knew she wasn't imagining the amused, almost pitying looks people were giving her now. She glanced down in chagrin at the severe gray gown.
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"Eyes up, Your Highness." Count Sicard squeezed Aurelie's arm, his bluff heartiness unaffected. One of her father's most trusted advisers, the count usually resembled a gentleman farmer, his coat rumpled and hat askew. Tonight he was impeccably dressed in midnight blue. A large sapphire twinkled on his left hand. "Skoerans value wealth that is portable," he whispered. "They flaunt it on formal occasions. By misleading us as to the nature of this gathering, Captain Inglis evidently means for us to be discomfited and begin tomorrow's working sessions at a disadvantage."
Aurelie straightened her shoulders, trying not to mind that only the servants were dressed as drably as she and her escort. "Then we won't give her the satisfaction."
Count Sicard's dry chuckle rewarded her. "Indeed we won't."
They arrived at a blue-draped doorway and tendered their invitations. Like the door curtains, the room's ceilings, walls, tables, and chairs were swathed in aquamarine satin. Hundreds of candles twinkling from mother-of-pearl sconces on the billowing blue made Aurelie feel as if the walls were undulating before her like waves. Mats of woven sea grass perfumed the air, and tapestries pictured mermaids in coral palaces, combing their hair or riding dolphin-back through tranquil oceans. She pushed down the knot of unease in her stomach and aimed her gaze high as she waited to be announced. Netta would be interested in every detail of the colorful scene; Aurelie mustn't let shyness prevent her from observing it all.
The chamberlain thumped his staff on the floor. "Count Sicard, the Jocondagnan emissary, and Her Royal Highness Princess Aurelie of the House Pygargue,Jocondagne's Heirl"
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Chapter 4 Aurelie
"Welcome, Your Highness." Their hostess crossed the room with a rolling gait, as if she traversed a ship's deck rather than the salon's parquetry floor.
Captain Inglis wore a crimson gown trimmed with knots of gold ribbon and clusters of cherry-sized rubies. Ruby clips held her pale hair away from a weathered face. Light eyes swept over Aurelie from coronet to shoe buckle, as if calculating what price the princess's modest ensemble might bring on the Skoeran market. The rapid inventory completed, the woman bowed first to Aurelie, then to her escort. Her gaze lingered on his jeweled ring. "And Count Sicard. Enchantee." Booming, her voice: pitched to carry over the roar of the waves, rather than the clink of silver and china.
Aurelie curtsied, trying to ignore her pounding head. The woman didn't look like a Skoeran. She was much blonder than the other
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people present, whose hair tended to nut shades, filbert and walnut. Had she come to Dorisen from Alsinha, or even Jocondagne's northeastern forests? It wasn't important, really, but odd. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Inglis."
"Met before, haven't we?" the woman snapped.
Had they? Aurelie bit her lip. Was she supposed to remember the dignitaries she'd been presented to as a child? It had been two years at least since a Skoeran had visited Lumielle's court.
All amiability, Count Sicard
bowed. "At a reception several years ago, I believe. We're so pleased to be visiting your beautiful city, and thank you for your hospitality."
"Sail on, sail on," Captain Inglis said. "Come meet the rest of our little party."
Islanders were given to understatement, Aurelie decided. The captain's "little party" at her "informal supper" numbered over fifty superbly dressed guests. Aurelie quickly lost hope of retaining a fraction of their names or titles, since none were Garin Deschutes.
Strangely, there seemed to be no assigned places for the meal. Sitting at a small table with an older couple intent on demolishing a halibut, Aurelie poked at her squid and drained a third goblet of water. She wished the chef had been less generous with the spices. The fiery sauces couldn't disguise the fact that the wide array of dishes, presented in expensive tureens and platters, contained fish, fish, and more fish.
If Aurelie were Skoeran, she'd have been ready to make peace withjocondagne long since, just for the basket of fresh fruits and vegetables a handful of coppers would buy in the Cantrez market. The
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thought of mountain strawberries made her mouth water, although they were a spring taste. In the fall came purple grapes and wedges of sharp cheese, sizzling bacon and galettes off the griddle, slathered with apple butter and dusted with powdered sugar.
"Glad to see you enjoying the devil squid, Your Highness." A bold voice interrupted her reverie. "Most outlanders don't appreciate such delicacies."
"Mm," Aurelie said, as a good-looking young man dropped into the empty seat beside her. Another pair of light eyes, bright as glass chips, regarded her from a tanned face. Dark-haired, tall, he wore a black coat with dull gold piping and plain black trousers.
Aurelie: A Faerie Tale Page 2