Ethelred cleared his throat, and everyone turned toward him. “Must we really speak of the past tonight?”
“I am also hesitant to speak of such matters, your majesty,” said Caedmon. “I give my advice only when requested, never my unsolicited opinions. But as Lady Daryna has raised the subject, I would like to voice my agreement. Queen Merewyn is a model of feminine grace and resilience.”
Merewyn felt her own hope return. Caedmon had never defied Ethelred in her presence. Maybe Daryna’s breach of protocol had given him a spine at last. Perhaps this Daryna Olekovna did not want Merewyn dead after all. Hillichmagnars were strange and unknowable. They lived for two thousand years and they had the power of the Light of Earstien. They had relationships that spanned centuries. Their dreams and ambitions must be far different from those of ordinary mortals.
And yet, Daryna was a woman, and Merewyn doubted any woman, even one a few hundred years old, was immune to flattery. But should she flatter the hillichmagnar’s person or her deeds? Daryna was unquestionably a lovely woman—flawless skin and huge blue eyes. Her lips were full and red, and if Merewyn were inclined toward Thessalian predilections, she would desire to kiss them. But a woman as lovely as Daryna Olekovna surely heard her physical form praised often.
“I thank you both for your kind words,” said Merewyn, “but Ethelred is correct. I can think of few topics quite so dull as my life these last seventeen years.” She batted her eyelashes. “Now, Daryna Olekovna, we have all heard of your exploits at Terminium. Would you indulge us with a story?”
Daryna sighed and grimaced slightly. Merewyn worried that she had missed the mark. People said no one loved telling war stories quite as much as the Loshadnarodskis, and yet Daryna seemed reluctant to share her tale with the assembly.
“I should begin,” said Daryna softly, “by admitting that I did far more healing than fighting on that campaign, but healing makes for far less interesting tales.” Everyone leaned in a bit, even Caedmon. “When we arrived, the Twenty-fifth Legion held the walls. The gates of Terminium were manned by the best cohorts in the city and had been reinforced with iron and stone.”
“A shame they couldn’t have reinforced the temples while they were at it.”
Where Faustinus had come from, Merewyn could not say, but here he stood at Daryna Olekovna’s shoulder. Instead of looking abashed at having interrupted an honored guest speaking to the king, he had an expression of boyish mischief.
“I did not think history of that sort would be appropriate, Faustinus,” Daryna Olekovna replied with a crooked grin. “Which is why I also had no intention of bringing up Paradelphia.”
“Inappropriate? You wound me.” With a wide smile, he addressed them all casually, as though they were at some lazy garden party instead of a formal royal feast. “Daryna and I are old friends, you see. And what can I say? We do so enjoy prodding each other a bit. I hope I haven’t offended anyone too terribly.”
Merewyn had never met anyone who seemed less concerned about causing offense. This nonchalant, charming man, if the stories were true, had performed feats that made Daryna Olekovna blowing down the gates of Terminium look no more impressive than a child stomping an anthill. Terminium had merely been sacked; Paradelphia had been utterly destroyed.
Last night, Merewyn had started rereading the military classic Strategos, by Kallias—one of the books that Caedmon had brought for her two days ago—and she now recalled the new historical introduction written by some Immani scholar. Kallias had written Strategos to show his fellow Thessalians how to avoid being absorbed by the Empire. But then Faustinus had arrived at the gates of Paradelphia with the Imperial Army, and he had proven himself to be the ideal General of the title. Kallias had said a general must be merciless and swift; Faustinus had provided the example. In the morning the sun had risen on Paradelphia, mighty towers and temples high and dark against the horizon. In the evening, the sun set on a flat, smoking plain. Stone had turned to sand, and sand had turned to glass, all thanks to Faustinus.
Merewyn found it nearly impossible to reconcile that kind of power and ruthlessness with the slim, charming man who had tucked a flower behind her ear. Or with this man who now stood before her, sharing a nostalgic grin with Daryna Olekovna, like two old school chums reminiscing about a football match.
“If there is anything that does not need to happen tonight, it is the two of you rehashing the past,” said Caedmon in a low grumble.
“My, but this is something to be recorded,” Edgar plowed in, while Faustinus and Daryna exchanged glances. “Three hillichmagnars gracing the great hall of the Bocburg. I am very much looking forward to the presentation you have planned. Surely nothing of the kind has happened since Edmund Dryhten’s day.”
“Those certainly were fascinating times,” reminisced Faustinus. “You, of course,” he addressed Daryna, “are too young to have been there, but Caedmon and I could tell stories all night about our days with Edmund Dryhten. It’s amazing to watch a man grow into a leader.”
“Yes, it is,” Daryna Olekovna shot back. “That is my current charge with Prince Vadik.” She placed a possessive hand on Vadik’s shoulder. “There is much for a young prince to learn. Perhaps I have consulted the wrong sources, Faustinus, but it is my impression that all you taught Edmund Dryhten was the location of the best taverns and whorehouses in Myrcia. If he learned leadership, then he must surely have learned it from Caedmon.”
Everyone laughed—Faustinus most of all—and even Caedmon rubbed his lips with his hand as if trying to erase a smile.
“A prince,” Daryna went on, “should learn how to treat his own people, as well as how to treat his enemies.”
Daryna might have been referring to Faustinus when she said “enemies.” But Merewyn sat just behind Faustinus’s shoulder, and she could see Daryna’s eyes flick to her.
Merewyn had been right from the beginning—Daryna Olekovna and Vadik intended her ill—intended to kill her, surely, since what worse could they do than keeping her locked in her tower? What was stopping the hillichmagnar from killing her right now, in fact? Surely someone who could blow down a city gate could kill a woman easily enough, even in front of others. Maybe she was teaching Vadik how to get close to his enemies so he could slide the dagger between their ribs more easily. Perhaps that was why Daryna hadn’t killed her yet—she wanted Vadik to do it as a learning experience.
“The training of princes is a noble cause, I am sure,” Caedmon said. “If I may, others are waiting to be presented—”
“If I may be next?” asked the Sahasran man in the orange with the braided hair she had seen earlier. He bowed gracefully for a man of such bulk, his arms and neck as thick with muscle as Merewyn’s thighs. “Lord Harish Govinda, of the Sahasran court sorcerers, here in Myrcia touring your remarkable libraries.”
The reactions of the three hillichmagnars were so emphatic in their own unique ways Merewyn could not help but note them—Daryna looked pleasantly intrigued, Caedmon scowled as darkly as Merewyn had ever seen, and Faustinus laughed outright.
“Now, Caedmon,” he said, “even you must admit that is a more tedious topic than my past with Daryna.”
Chapter 26
SOLDIERS CARRIED UP a gilded camp stool and set it out so that Queen Nina could sit beside Queen Merewyn. Vadik took up a spot by his mother’s shoulder, and Daryna stood next to him. It was an odd sort of ceremony, this formal introduction. Almost everyone present had met each other before. The Loshadnarodski party had been in town for five days, after all. The person who was actually being introduced—or reintroduced—was Merewyn. And she looked distinctly uncomfortable, as if she would just as soon have avoided this business. She barely seemed to notice the nobles who approached her throne. Instead, she kept throwing nervous glances at Vadik and Daryna. She was completely ignoring Nina, too, despite Nina’s unflagging attempts to engage her in conversation. Daryna wondered why she was so worried.
For a few minutes, Daryna had no one to talk to.
Vadik was helping his mother, dutifully jumping in to supply Myrcian terms that she didn’t know, so Daryna couldn’t talk to him.
She had half expected Faustinus to linger, but he vanished as suddenly as he had arrived. Possibly so as to avoid that pompous windbag, Harish Govinda. But maybe there was more to it than that. Daryna wondered if he wanted her to follow him. A detection spell would locate him instantly, and then the two of them could find an empty room somewhere. She bit her lip and twitched slightly at the thought of it.
Before she could try it, though, Anik Kaur sidled up to her. “Are you feeling well, my lady?”
“What? Oh. Yes...yes, I am. Why do you ask?”
“You seem a bit pale,” he observed.
She noticed that he had a glass of deep red wine in each hand. He was holding one of them out, angled slightly in her direction—not quite presuming to offer, but simply making it available if she needed it.
“I’ve always been pale. Don’t worry about me.” Then, taking the wine, she quickly added, “How are you enjoying the party?”
“Quite well, thank you,” he said, with a small bow. “However, there is one small matter. I do hate to bring it up, but I couldn’t help noticing that her majesty neglected to mention our silver mines when she was introduced to Queen Merewyn. Perhaps you could remind her to do so at the earliest opportunity.”
That was an implied criticism of Daryna, herself, as well. She hadn’t thought to mention the mines any more than Nina had. The topic had been right on the tip of her tongue, and then Faustinus had appeared and...well, it was difficult to think straight whenever he was around. It was like some special magysk power that he had.
“I’ll speak with the queen,” Daryna assured him. Not that she could do so at the moment, however. Nina was still desperately attempting to make conversation with Merewyn, virtually ignoring the stately parade of nobles who shuffled forward, rank on rank, to be introduced to them.
By this point, it seemed they had finished with the dukes and duchesses, and they were now working their way through the earls and countesses. “Earstien, how much longer is this going to last?” she grumbled under her breath. Maybe it was time to slip away and try to find Faustinus.
A commotion ran through the crowd—someone cutting forward through the line. Pompous old peers and haughty dowagers turned with outraged gasps to see who would dare flout the rules of precedence. Then, red-faced, they bowed as they found the interloper was Crown Prince Maxen, hurrying up belatedly to take his place by his parents.
“Sorry, everyone,” he said, bowing to his parents and Queen Nina each in turn.
Queen Merewyn’s expression—wide-eyed and tight-lipped—was more than just motherly concern. She looked as if she had never expected to see him again. King Ethelred gave his son an indulgent smile and motioned for him to stand with Edgar and Caedmon.
Maxen had no sooner taken his place, however, than Vadik left Nina’s side and crossed behind the thrones to join him. Lady Hildred’s face blanched when she saw where Vadik had gone, and Merewyn shuddered like she had tasted vinegar. This was probably some kind of breach of protocol, but Ethelred didn’t seem to care. He waved at Duke Brandon, and the presentation of the nobles continued.
The two young princes completely and ostentatiously ignored the ceremony, talking and laughing in low voices, despite the fact that Caedmon and Edgar were both glaring at them. After a minute, Bishop Robertson, the head of the Myrcian church, came sidling up. Daryna watched, nodding in approval. If the organized clergy was good for one thing, it was offering reproof to the young for their bad manners. To her surprise, however, Robertson did not scold them, but in fact joined in their conversation, smiling and joking like he, too, was a thoughtless young man.
Queen Merewyn passed a hand over her eyes and slumped, trembling, against the arm of her throne. Daryna could understand that the queen would be embarrassed by her son’s behavior, but this seemed like a drastic overreaction. Or was there something more going on here than met the eye?
Caedmon left his spot at the king’s side and walked behind the thrones in Daryna’s direction. She worried that he would scowl and tell her to corral young Vadik. But instead, he smiled and said, “I do not think anyone will miss us if we step away for a minute.”
They left the great hall through the door behind the thrones and entered a smaller parlor. As soon as the door was shut, she finished the remainder of her wine in one long gulp and said, “Thank you. I hadn’t anticipated how long this would take. Of course, I can’t really complain, because if we were in Loshadnarod, we’d have to listen to twenty hymns, and then I’d have to give a good, long prayer, and so would the chief patriarchs and matriarchs of the church.”
“I was thinking,” said Caedmon, “that we should discuss our entertainment for the feast.”
“Oh, that,” said Daryna with a sigh. “We’re just doing some illusion spells, aren’t we?”
There was a throb in her jaw, and she turned to see Faustinus seated languidly in front of the window, with a glass of golden whiskey in one hand and his feet up on a chair. He hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Ah, there you are,” said Caedmon. “I was wondering where you had gotten to.”
“Do we really need to practice this?” Faustinus said, swirling his drink in its glass. “We’re doing the horses and stream illusion, aren’t we? The one we did for the peace conference in Rawdon.”
Caedmon sniffed. “I assured Lady Hildred we would perform flawlessly, and given the work she has put into this feast, I believe it is the least we can do to repay her. In order to ensure we do our best, we must practice, as some of us may have forgotten the intricacies of the show in the sixteen decades since Rawdon. We had some trouble working out the timing of the horses’ jumps even then, if I recall correctly.”
Daryna felt a blush creeping over her cheeks. She had almost forgotten those long-ago rehearsals. Caedmon was right—they had taken forever to work out the timing. She and Faustinus had just been starting their affair, and they could hardly keep their hands off each other, even around Caedmon. Faustinus had found it amusing to use pressure spells to manipulate certain very private parts of her body, and once she figured out the spell, she had started doing something similar to him, in return.
Poor Caedmon had just stood there, rubbing his jaw and frowning, no doubt wondering what they were doing with all these extra spells, and getting annoyed that they couldn’t coordinate their illusions properly with his.
She wondered if Faustinus was thinking the same thing she was. She fully expected he would do it again, and she shivered with anticipation, waiting for that first, throbbing pulse down there. But when she finally dared to raise her eyes to meet his, he was looking at Caedmon, instead.
“Do you know, I had the oddest encounter a few minutes ago,” Faustinus said.
“Did you?” Caedmon sighed, but with the familiarity of one old friend indulgently listening to the silliness of another. “Whom did you meet?”
“The captain general, Sir Broderick,” said Faustinus. “I surprised him in what might have been a tender moment with Queen Merewyn’s lady-in-waiting. He showed remarkable coolness, I must say, and while the young lady escaped, he started quizzing me about mining.”
“Of course,” said Caedmon darkly. “How very typical.”
Faustinus tilted his head and regarded Caedmon critically for a few seconds. “You don’t care for him, do you?”
“I must admit I have never been a favorite of his.”
“I can’t say I think much of him, either,” said Daryna. “What did he want to know about mines?”
Faustinus took a sip of his whiskey. “Well, he seemed to be fishing around a bit, trying to see if I might be interested in helping the Myrcian army engineers,” a nod at Daryna, “with the Loshadnarodski mines.”
“Really?” Daryna gritted her teeth. “That’s rather presumptuous of him to be issuing invitations to my country.”
“That’s
what I thought, too. You know I never go where I’m not wanted.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say you’re not wanted.” A childish giggle escaped Daryna’s lips. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat. “Would you really consider coming to Loshadnarod and helping us?”
Faustinus stared at his drink, appearing to give the idea serious thought. A little too much thought, in Daryna’s opinion. If they were lovers again, didn’t he want to come to Loshadnarod, where they could be together whenever they liked? But were they lovers now at all? What were they, precisely? They hadn’t spoken yet about their encounter yesterday. What did it actually mean to him?
“Come to think of it,” Daryna said to herself, “what does it mean to me?” Did she really want him around all the time? How would that possibly work? The Loshadnarodski people, like Nina and Anik and Grigory, could be willfully blind where their Blessed Matushka was concerned. But even the most devout believer would notice if the Mother of Her People suddenly had a consort following her around everywhere.
Faustinus looked up, smiling. “I have every intention of doing everything I can to help.”
“‘Every intention’? Oh, dear,” Caedmon said softly, staring at the ceiling.
“Thank you,” said Daryna warily. Faustinus hadn’t said yes or no, and she could well remember how tricky he could be to pin down. When he smiled like that, you felt as if he agreed with you, like he was perfectly in sympathy with your feelings. But that smile could be deceptive. “If you’re not busy tomorrow, we could all speak to Sir Broderick and his engineers, and—"
“Perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves,” said Caedmon, raising his voice. “We still need to practice our spells for the entertainment.”
Faustinus jumped to his feet. “Yes, let’s practice, shall we?” A wave of sparkling blue light poured out of his hands as he raised them. “Mind if I start?”
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