“Hollow knights with no heads,” remarked Stephano. “How fitting.”
“Do keep your voice down,” said Rodrigo.
Three young ladies of the court, dressed in colorful satin gowns, with the hems pinned up to reveal their decorated petticoats; long, pointed bodices and dropped shoulders entered the gallery from one of the staircases. At the sight of Rodrigo and Stephano, the young women raised their fans and drew together, laughing and whispering to each other.
Rodrigo “made a leg” as the saying went, placing one foot before the other and giving a graceful bow. The young women curtsied. Rodrigo offered to introduce them to his friend, “Lord Captain Stephano de Guichen.” The young women curtsied again, clearly in admiration of the handsome captain. Stephano removed his hat and gave a stiff bow and then stood fuming with impatience while Rodrigo exchanged flirtatious banter.
“I have an appointment,” said Stephano abruptly, interrupting one of the women. “If you will excuse me-”
He bowed again, turned on his heel and walked off. Behind him, he could hear Rodrigo apologizing and the low voices of the women talking behind their fluttering fans.
“That was the wife of the Count of Galiar you just insulted,” said Rodrigo, catching up with his friend. “I smoothed things over. Told her you were perishing of a broken heart. I fancy from the way she looked at you that she would like to help you mend it.”
“She seems much more your type,” said Stephano.
“I was in love with her once,” said Rodrigo in the sorrowful tones he always used when speaking of his past amours. “I was on the verge of proposing, but then she married the count.”
Rodrigo was always falling in love and always on the verge of marrying, but the women with whom he was always falling in love always ended up marrying counts or barons or dukes or earls-anyone besides Rodrigo. He maintained that he was unlucky at love. Stephano wondered, not for the first time, if his friend was unlucky or remarkably adroit.
The Countess de Marjolaine had a suite of rooms in one wing of the palace. Although she was no longer the king’s mistress, the countess remained King Alaric’s most trusted adviser and confidante. She wielded great power and was respected and flattered, hated and feared.
The countess’ suite was furnished with exquisite taste and every luxury, all paid for by herself. She was one of the wealthiest landowners in the kingdom and made it a point of pride to never accept money from His Majesty or anyone else. Stephano and Rodrigo were admitted to the countess’ antechamber by a footman wearing a royal blue velvet coat, lace, satin, and silk stockings. Petitioners and favor-seekers sat on curved divans and chairs, decorated with the countess’ bumblebee, waiting their turn to be ushered into her presence. Two noblemen, whom Stephano did not recognize, lounged in a corner, exchanging idle gossip. They stopped their talk long enough to stare in a haughty, challenging manner at Stephano, who stared back at them just as haughtily.
Stephano gave his name and presented the countess’ note to the footman, who bowed and took it to a young man seated at a desk before the door to the countess’ audience room. The young man-the countess’ secretary-looked at the note, looked at Stephano, and said crisply, “Lord Captain de Guichen, please be seated. I will let you know when the countess is at liberty to receive you.”
With a gesture, the young man indicated one of the divans. Stephano noticed that, at the sound of his name, the two lordlings in the corner inclined their heads together and started whispering. Stephano guessed that the countess’ bastard son was the subject of their conversation, and his face burned. He put his hand on the hilt of his rapier and took a step toward them. Rodrigo plucked his sleeve.
“They’re nobodies, my friend,” he said. “Hoping for a favorable glance from your mother, which they won’t get, no matter how many hours they wait here. Don’t waste your time.”
Stephano was annoyed. “I will not wait here with my mother’s flunkies and ass-lickers for hours until she deigns to receive me. She stated our appointment was for nine. It is now nine. I’m going inside.”
“If you try to barge through the door, the secretary will summon the footmen, who will throw you out. You see that one footman-the big brute with the shoulders whose velvet coat is starting to split at the seams? He was once a professional bear-wrestler. We can’t afford to make your mother angry by starting a row in her chambers.”
“Then I won’t stay-”
“Yes, you will. Leave it to Rigo. I deal with the secretary. You slip inside.”
Rodrigo walked up to the secretary’s desk and perched his rump familiarly on one corner. The secretary had been writing down numbers in a ledger. Shocked at such rude behavior, he looked up.
“Do you want something, sir?” the secretary said in a frozen tone.
“I have a wager I’m hoping you can settle, sir,” said Rodrigo in loud and affable tones.
He had by now attracted the attention of everyone in the room, footmen included. Stephano sidled closer to the door and rested his hand, covered by the lace on his sleeves, on the door handle and jiggled it. The handle gave slightly. The door was not locked.
“I have wagered that you are a fourth son,” Rodrigo went on. He shook his head. “Not even a church appointment for you, eh? Not worth the family spending the money on, I suppose. The most you can hope for is to do menial work for a great lord or lady.”
The young man flushed and rose irately to his feet.
“I will have you know I am the son of Viscount Telorind-”
“Fourth son?”
“Well, yes,” the young man admitted.
“And you’re new to court?”
“I have been here a month-”
“Ah!” said Rodrigo with a knowing look. “That explains a lot. You think you were sent here to learn the ways of court. In truth, you are here as a guarantee for your father’s good behavior, so that His Majesty can keep his eye on him.”
Rodrigo leaned forward, as if in confidence. “I’ll make another wager. All your correspondence to and from home is being intercepted and read-”
The young man gasped and began to sputter. Everyone in the antechamber was chuckling. No one was paying attention to Stephano, who pressed on the handle, opened the door, and slid inside. He shut the door on the rising voices behind him and advanced into his mother’s audience room, which was like her: quiet, refined, cool, and elegant.
A woman sat behind a desk containing a number of leather-bound ledgers and other papers. She was holding a lorgnette in front of her eyes to peruse one of the papers, a slight frown creasing her forehead. Opposite her, on the other side of the desk, Dargent sat, taking notes in a small book. The countess must have heard the door, but she did not look up. Dargent glanced around and, seeing Stephano, said something to her in a low voice.
The countess continued to read a moment longer, then she lowered the paper and the lorgnette and, without a glance at Stephano, proceeded to give instructions to Dargent, who noted them down in his book. Unlike many women in her position, who gave over control of their wealth to male relatives or trusted advisers, the countess managed her estate and business concerns. The instructions she was giving Dargent had something to do with the felling and sale of timber on her land. Stephano was angry and embarrassed at being ignored and he had difficulty hearing what she said through the blood pounding in his ears.
At last, her business concluded, the countess handed Dargent the paper and nodded her head in dismissal. Dargent rose to his feet, bowed to the countess and inclined his head to Stephano, then exited the room through another doorway. The countess turned her gaze upon Stephano.
“You were not summoned,” she said in mild reproof. “What have you done to my secretary? Sliced him into bits?”
The door flew open and the flustered young man burst inside. “Madame, I am sorry! I did not see the captain enter. Here, you, sir-”
The secretary reached out his hand to grab hold of the interloper and drag him out. Stephano st
opped the man with a look.
The countess glanced past the secretary’s shoulder and saw Rodrigo smiling from the antechamber. He placed his hand on his heart, bowed low. The countess gave a deep sigh.
“Thank you, Emil,” she said to her secretary. “Remind me to teach you how not to be an idiot. That will be all.”
Blushing, the young man cast a furious glance at Stephano, then withdrew. Rodrigo gave a wave to Stephano and mouthed the words, “Pays well!” Emil shut the door and Stephano and his mother were alone.
Stephano gave a mocking, servile bow. “I am here, Madame, your indentured servant, come to work off my debt.”
“Don’t be more of an ass than you can help, my son,” said the countess. “I find it so tiresome.”
She made a commanding gesture. “Fetch my scarf. We are going to take a turn about the garden.”
“Fetch your own damn scarf. I am not your lady’s maid,” said Stephano angrily. “And we will talk about this here and now-”
The countess fixed her lustrous blue-gray eyes upon her son. “I said we will take a turn in the garden. Now hand me my scarf.”
Stephano swallowed his wrath. He snatched up the lace scarf-made of lamb’s wool, delicate as cobweb-and flung it over his mother’s shoulders.
“If I refuse to undertake this job, will you really send me to debtor’s prison, Mother?”
The countess raised a delicate eyebrow, gave a delicate shrug, and said coolly, “Don’t ask stupid questions, my son.”
Chapter Three
The king is the absolute authority in the land, but he requires the support of the great families and they require him. They feed off each other. He sees to it that they are constantly vying for his favor. Alliances and ties between the Peers of the Realm run together like the notes in a symphony. The person conducting the orchestra is not the king, but the Countess de Marjolaine.
Only the noble and ancient Dragon families of Rosia remain aloof from the politics of the royal court. Since the disbanding of the Dragon Brigade, the offended dragons have shunned court altogether. His Majesty does not appear much bothered by their absence. Perhaps because he no longer requires the dragons in his new, modern navy.
- Musings on Rosian Politics by Rodrigo de Villeneuve
COUNTESS CECILE RAPHAEL DE MARJOLAINE was fifty years old and the poets of the age still wrote songs to her beauty. They spoke of luxuriant silver hair, with curls falling on alabaster shoulders. Her blue eyes were likened to sapphires, her cheeks to the damask rose. Her figure was superb. Tall and slender, she moved with a languorous grace that suited her height.
Her complexion remained smooth, perhaps because no strong emotion was ever allowed to touch her. She had never been heard to laugh. No lines of joy creased her lips or crinkled the corners of her eyes. No lines of worry or care marred her forehead. The only two flaws on her lovely face were a single deep furrow slanting between her brows that deepened when she was absorbed in thought and a small, white scar on the right corner of her lip. The only sign of her age was the skin on the back of her hands. Once white and delicate, the skin was now stretched taut and crisscrossed beneath with blue veins.
The countess did not follow fashion. She set fashion. Her gown was simply and elegantly made of sky-blue satin, the skirt falling in sumptuous folds from a pointed bodice, the sleeves tight to the elbow, then flowing and lined with lace. She wore a necklace of blue sapphires and several very fine jewels on her fingers. Among these rings, lost and unremarked amidst the rubies and diamonds and sapphires, was a plain golden band, which she never took off. When she was preoccupied, she would often absentmindedly twist this little golden ring.
The countess led Stephano from her study into a library filled with books, whose leather bindings gave off a pleasant scent. The books were not merely decorative, as were books in the homes of much of the nobility, many of whom were practically illiterate. The countess had always been fond of reading and whereas the other fashionable women of the time invited the rich and the powerful to their salons, the countess preferred to invite poets and artists, philosophers, musicians, and scientists.
She and Stephano passed through the library and entered a small and cozy sitting room. Glass-paned doors opened out onto a charming patio enclosed by a waist-high stone wall. Trees of all varieties, many of them rare species imported from other countries, had been planted in tubs made of wood and stone. The trees formed a miniature forest that effectively screened the garden from view of prying eyes peering out nearby windows.
Looking through the trees in one direction, the observer could see blue sky and the deeper blue-purple of the mountains, green woods, and the sun shining off the crystalline surface of a distant lake. In the other direction rose the spires of a magnificent cathedral, surrounded by a large complex of buildings, all protected by a wall, all stuck far below on solid ground. The bottom level of the floating palace were about even with the cathedral’s bell tower.
How the grand bishop must hate that, thought Stephano, amused.
“Shut the doors,” said the countess.
Stephano complied. The countess rearranged her scarf around her shoulders, then walked over to the wall and gazed out into the cloudless blue sky. She began, unconsciously, to twist the small golden ring.
Stephano remained near the door, silent, waiting for her to speak. He had never been in her garden and he was entranced by the beauty of the view. He was also, truth be told, always a little awed and uncomfortable in the presence of his mother, though he would have knocked out the teeth of any man who said so.
“What do you know of the Royal Armory?” the countess asked abruptly, turning to face her son.
Stephano was accustomed to his mother’s manner of doing business; no pleasant niceties or idle talk. She went immediately to the heart of matter at hand. This was the last subject he would have expected his mother to bring up and he had to take a moment to think.
“The Royal Armory makes the weapons and armor for the king and the Royal Regiment, the king’s guards. When I was Commander of the Dragon Brigade”-his voice took on a tinge of bitterness-“the Royal Armory outfitted me and my company with magically enhanced riding armor and our muskets. The Royal Armory made some of the finest armor and weapons I’ve ever owned.”
“The Armory also looks for ways to improve those weapons and armor,” said the countess.
“That’s a given,” said Stephano.
The countess eyed him. The small furrow dug into her brow. “Don’t stand there hovering by the door as though you are ready to bolt any moment. Come closer, so that I don’t have to shout.”
She was hardly shouting, and Stephano realized suddenly that there was a reason she had brought him to this garden, when usually their business was conducted in her audience chamber. Here, amid the thick foliage and trailing vines with nothing except blue sky above and the ground far below, was privacy-as much privacy as one could have in a palace populated by many hundreds of people.
Stephano felt a prickling at the back of his neck. This job was starting to sound more interesting. He joined his mother at the wall, where she stood gazing down upon the cathedral and the large, squat, towered structures that clustered around it.
“The Bishop’s Palace,” said the countess in reflective tones, her thoughts echoing her son’s. “Fixed firmly on the ground. His Grace moved his office, you know, to the other end of the building, so that he wouldn’t have to look out his window to see His Majesty floating above him.”
First the Armory, now the Grand Bishop Montagne-King Alaric’s longtime friend, longer time enemy. Where was this conversation leading? Stephano kept quiet and waited to find out.
The countess turned to Stephano; as she did so, a shaft of sunlight, filtering through the green leaves of a flowering crab tree, illuminated the scar on her lip. He had never really noticed the scar before now. The scar appeared to be an old one and he wondered how she had come by it. Some childhood accident, perhaps? Oddly, the scar made
her seem more human. Perhaps that was why she always tried to conceal it by touching her lips with carnelian, the only cosmetic she deigned to wear.
“By law, the Church of the Breath of God oversees all development of technology involving magical constructs, even at the Royal Armory,” said the countess. “Any research into new uses of magic must be approved by the grand bishop. The law has stood for centuries.”
“I suppose such a law makes sense,” said Stephano. “Scripture says ‘from the Breath of God comes His voice and the quiet whispers of his words’ and that is magic.”
His gaze shifted from the cathedral to the Breath as it lapped at the Rim of the bay. “The truth is, magical energy flows in the Breath. We harness the Breath with constructs and use it to lift our airships. The Breath powers our technology and augments our machines. The Breath is magic and magic is power.”
Stephano turned to his mother. “And power without the divine teachings of the church for guidance is an ‘open door for the darkness that lies in wait for the heathen.’ ”
“Your tutor taught you well,” said the countess dryly.
“Actually, it was Rodrigo,” said Stephano.
“In fact, your friend, Monsieur de Villeneuve, is one of the reasons I thought of asking you to undertake this job.”
“If it involves the seduction of women, you’ll find Rodrigo outstanding,” said Stephano, grinning.
“Actually I was thinking more of his outstanding skills as a crafter. At least, I am told he has such skills,” said the countess.
“And, as usual, your spies are correct, Mother. But what have crafters and Rodrigo to do with the bishop and the Breath of God and the Royal Armory-By Heaven!” Stephano answered his own question. “His Majesty has been conducting research into new weapons technology involving magic. And he has not shared it with the bishop.”
“You always were a smart boy,” the countess murmured.
“What would happen if the bishop were to discover this little indiscretion?”
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