“Indeed, he is, Your Highness,” the Seneschal said, as both the Rethwellan Ambassador and the Ambassador from Hardorn leaned closer in order to hear. “He and the Equitation Instructor have found it an invaluable substitute for melee and skirmish training. They say they have found that both the mounted and foot versions are equally valuable. And it is all the better for the fact that the Trainees want to do it, and several of them spend a great deal of their free time in practice at it. We are restricting the mounted version to the final-year students, however, given the level of expertise required, and the danger involved.”
“Better a broken bone or two now, than something worse in combat,” Selenay said, sobered by her recollection of another spring day—nearly this time last year—
Then she shook off her melancholy. This was supposed to be a day given over to relaxation and pleasure, and she was not going to spoil it. “Well, gentlemen, you can tell your friends and kin back in your homelands that we here in Valdemar know how to provide both novelty and entertainment for our guests,” she said lightly. “I do believe that was the first ever public game of mounted Hurlee.”
“And I hope you will convey my admiration to your Weaponsmaster for finding so clever a solution for a training dilemma,” the Prince said with a smile. “Though I will confess, if that is the level that he trains to, he is fully as expert as our own Weaponsmaster at home—though perhaps not quite to the exacting standard of Swordmistress Tarma shena Tale’sedrin, the famed Shin’a’in who trained my father and older brother.”
“But not you?” asked the Hardornan Ambassador, and Selenay had the oddest sensation that he knew something about Karath that he would like very much for Karath to reveal. Something unflattering. . . .
Though why he would wish for such a thing—
Ambassadors are always jockeying for favor. I suppose he thinks that if Karath appears less than perfect, I will lose interest in him. Absurd.
The Prince frowned, and for just a moment, a shadow passed over his face. But in the next moment, he was all smiles again, and Selenay wondered if she had even seen it. “Alas, no,” he replied smoothly. “The Swordmistress retired and closed her school before I was old enough in my mother’s eyes to be sent away to it. And at any rate, from all I have heard, the lady is extremely ascetic in her ways and strict in her discipline; some might say, she is overzealous in both regards. And I—well—” he shrugged. “I am not much like my brothers. While I feel that every man of breeding should be adept at the use of arms, I fail to see why he should undergo the same rigorous training as someone who intends to live by them. Personally, I am afraid that the Swordmistress and I would be doomed to perpetually clash, so perhaps it is just as well. It would be a terrible scandal for a Prince of the blood to be thrown out of a school for mercenaries as an abject failure, or worse, a discipline problem.”
The Rethwellan Ambassador laughed, politely, but it sounded strained. Selenay was baffled. If that was all the Hardornan Ambassador had been angling for, she failed to see what was so unflattering about it. Not even a Trainee who was unsuited to the martial arts was required to do more than learn how to defend him or herself. Why, look at Myste! Most of her training had been in the best ways of running away!
She decided to steer the subject away from the area that Karath was finding uncomfortable. “The Swordmistress—is that a Shin’a’in name?” Selenay asked, curiously, thinking wistfully of her earlier daydream of a wild Shin’a’in Clan Chief coming here to claim her hand. “I’ve never seen a Shin’a’in, though I believe some of our people in the south have traded with them.”
“It is, indeed, Majesty,” Karath replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, only that I had never heard of Shin’a’in living outside the Dhorisha Plains, and I often think I would like to meet one, someday,” she confessed. “I believe one came as far as Lord Ashkevron’s manor in my father’s day, to help the Lord with his horses, but it was before I was born.”
“It is true that they do not often venture off their traditional grounds,” the Rethwellan Ambassador said, after waiting for a few polite moments for all of them to nibble a little at their fruit and sip from their goblets of wine. “We see them from time to time selling horses, but as soon as the beasts are sold, they swiftly return to their homeland. The city of Kata’shin’a’in is the only spot off the Plains where you will see them regularly. The Swordmistress is somewhat of an anomaly; she lives—or lived, since she was quite old, when last I heard—with her blood-oath sister, who had a school of sorcery alongside the school for swordsmen. Perhaps one day I will be able to entertain you with some tales of their adventures. They are rather famous in Rethwellan.”
“I would enjoy that,” Selenay said, wondering to see that faint shadow pass over the Prince’s face again. “But today, it is incumbent upon me to entertain you, gentlemen, and I believe that it is time that we all went to supper.”
She rose, and they all, perforce, rose with her. “And high time, Majesty,” the Seneschal said lightly. “Watching the Hurlee game was nearly as exhausting as playing it, and just as stimulating to the appetite. These refreshments were welcome, but I swear, if you put butter on a brick, I would eat it at this point!”
“Pray, don’t say that,” she chided with a laugh. “Our guests will be afraid to try the pastries!”
She led the way down out of the viewing stands and into the gardens, with the rest of the Court trailing after. She wondered if she should ask the Prince about that Shin’a’in Swordmistress—perhaps there was some problem there that she should know about.
Well, perhaps not. Probably he was piqued that his older brother had the privilege of training under so famous a teacher, and he had not. She could understand that. As difficult as Alberich was, there was absolutely no doubt that he was the best Weaponsmaster that Valdemar and the Collegium had seen in a very long time. If she had a sibling who’d been able to train under Alberich, while she was not allowed to for whatever reason, she would be horribly jealous, too.
The meal was laid out along tables in the shade, protected from insects by tents of fly-gauze. Nothing was intended to be served hot. A guest had but to tell a page what he wanted, and go to find a good seat on the lawn, near the pavilion where the musicians were tuning up, and the page would bring him a laden plate and a cup of wine. It was all finger food of the sort that could be eaten with nothing but a little recourse to a napkin, and most of it was light and cool, meant to tease the palates of the diners with its subtlety. It wasn’t the sort of heavy feast they’d shared at the Court Feast of the Ice Festival. Selenay made her selections, and went to take her seat. She wished that she could sprawl on a carpet or cloth, as she had on these occasions when she was only the Heir, but she was Queen now, and such an undignified pose would not be proper for her. Instead, she followed her page to a rustic seating arrangement of a garden bench softened with cushions inside a bower facing the pavilion, with a semicircle of chairs placed around it for her particular guests.
She was pleased to see that Talamir was already there, waiting for her. He hadn’t attended the Hurlee game, pleading a need to see to something or other, but she had been a little concerned that the real reason was that he was feeling ill again. As the anniversary of her father’s death—and that of his first Companion, Taver—approached, he had been looking distinctly frail.
But he seemed well enough now, and very much in the moment. He conducted her to her seat with all the gallantry of which he was capable (which was a very great deal) and to Karath’s evident annoyance, took his traditional place at her left hand, leaving Karath to take the remaining chair at her right.
“I trust your business is taken care of?” she asked, as he made sure that she had all she needed before sending the page off for his own supper. She tried something sweet and spicy wrapped in a lettuce leaf; bits of spiced meat with crunchy little bits of vegetable in a light sauce, and decided that she would have that often this spring and summer. The cooks se
emed to have outdone themselves; she hadn’t recognized most of the dishes on the tables.
“More so than I expected, Majesty,” he replied, with a definite twinkle in his eye. “I would hesitate to say anything, except that you will hear about it from any one of a dozen gossips before the end of the day. Apparently our Weaponsmaster is not as invulnerable to the darts of emotion as he thought. But he is skilled enough in deception that even I thought that his meetings with the Chronicler were all business until today.”
Selenay wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement, trying to make out what Talamir was getting at. “Alberich? And—Myste—” and all at once it dawned on her. “Alberich? And Myste? Oh, my word!” She began to laugh delightedly, as the Prince and the two Ambassadors looked puzzled. “Oh, but how lovely! Talamir, you must pledge me on your word that you will not tease him about it! Above all things, I do not want the poor man frightened off, just when he’s taken the first steps into this venture.”
“Not I, nor any other Herald, Majesty,” Talamir promised. “We’re too pleased, to tell you the truth. And we would rather that the Trainees didn’t find out about it either—or at least, not until the relationship is so long established that they’ll be as terrified of saying anything about it as they are of offending him in any other way.”
Selenay turned to her guests, still smiling at the thought that somber Alberich, who seemed as destined to remain chaste as any sworn priest, should finally have found a lady who clearly found him fascinating. She and Myste were uncommonly well-acquainted, despite the differences in their age and backgrounds, and Myste had dropped more than one little remark after they had all returned from the Wars that had told Selenay that the Herald-Chronicler had definite leanings in the Weaponsmaster’s direction. He treated her as she wanted to be treated, with respect for her learning and as an equal in intelligence. If they occasionally exasperated one another, that was only to be expected with two such strong personalities. But she had thought Alberich impervious to anything but friendship.
Apparently not. “You are puzzled, gentlemen; it is only a little romance among our Heralds, but a rather unlikely one, or so I would have thought until now. The season seems to have affected our Weaponsmaster, whom we all thought to be a man of iron. And the great irony is that the lady in question is the only Herald he was never successful in teaching the martial arts to—the Chronicler, Herald Myste.”
The Prince smiled vacantly, clearly finding the subject of no particular interest, but the Hardornan Ambassador chuckled right along with Herald Talamir. “Well! So the spring has managed to melt the heart of stone after all! Good for Herald Alberich! And twice as many kudos to your Herald Myste; my guess would be that she was the one to do the stalking. These old warriors are as shy as partridge in hunting season when it comes to the matters of the heart.”
Talamir laughed. “That, sir, would be telling Heraldic secrets. I will leave it to your imagination.”
“And on that note, I beg that we listen to the music and enjoy our repast,” Selenay said firmly. “Or else we will start to sound like a gaggle of village gossips.”
The sun was just setting, making the gardens a wondrous place indeed. The day-blooming flowers wafted the last of their perfumes over the guests as they closed their blossoms for the night; the night bloomers were just beginning to open. As twilight closed over the garden, a soft breeze sprang up; the musicians kept to soft, lyrical melodies, and servants made their way about, lighting the torches unobtrusively. Selenay set her empty plate and cup aside, and suddenly felt a hand brushing hers, as if by accident.
Then it happened again; she glanced aside at the Prince, who caught her gaze for just a moment, touched the tips of her fingers with hers, and gave her a quick, conspiratorial wink.
She felt her heart give a leap, and an answering smile crossed her lips before she turned her attention back to the musicians.
But she sighed, and watched him covertly out of the corner of her eye. His apparent attention was on the musicians, too, but she had the feeling that she was being watched behind the screen of his long lashes and half-closed lids.
The breeze touched her cheeks, cooling the heat that had suddenly suffused them. She was glad for the shadows within the bower, so that her blushes would not betray her. Surely that wasn’t just the gesture of a gallant. . . .
She reached for her wine cup, and her fingers touched something else. Trying to appear as casual as she could, she managed to get both objects, and found that she was holding both her cup, and a red rosebud from which all of the thorns had been carefully removed. He turned his head slightly, lowered his gaze to the flower meaningfully, smiled, and looked back to the musicians.
Now her whole body seemed to vibrate with a thrill that she had never felt before. To cover it, and to moisten her mouth gone suddenly dry, she sipped at the wine. Then she put the cup back down—but kept the rose.
The half-planned masquerade took on a new importance and urgency in her mind. She would give him the setting. And she would see if he reacted to it.
And then—
Then things would fall as they fell.
14
Selenay stood very quietly in the exact middle of her dressing-room, while three maids fussed and fluttered around her, making sure that every detail of her costume was just so. In a few moments, she and her ladies would be going down into the gardens to perform the masque that would open the Midsummer Masquerade. In fact, there was music drifting through the open windows of her suite right now, making her both impatient and nervous at the same time.
She stared fixedly at herself in the mirror on the wall opposite her. Her costume was identical to the ones her ladies would be wearing; all of them would wear floating, ethereal dresses composed of many layers of pale green silk gauze, the topmost layer embroidered with tiny sprigs of leaves and flowers, fitted to the waist and flaring outward like the petals of a trumpet flower. It had a hint of a train, with long, trailing butterfly sleeves and a round neckline that showed just enough bosom to suggest, rather than reveal. With it, she wore soft, silk slippers dyed to match the gown. None of them would wear jewels, not even she, only a loose, trailing belt of ivy, and bracelets and anklets of flowers. All would be masked, the strange, featureless silver masks of the legendary Moon Maidens, ovals without even eye holes—a cunning layer of silver gauze where the eyes should be was perfectly easy for the dancers to see through, but gave no hint of the eyes behind the masks. Their hair, which otherwise would give their identities away, was covered with more silk gauze in the form of a wrapped coif with floor-sweeping veils crowned with chaplets of more flowers. And the only difference between Selenay and the rest of them was her secret; she wore a single rosebud tucked into the ivy at the waistband of her gown. She had not told the Prince this; he would have to discover it for himself. In fact, she had not told anyone this. And since no one was to unmask before midnight, she would be indistinguishable from any of her ladies except for that one detail.
Which meant, if she chose, she should be able to slip away from the rest without being missed and throwing everyone into a panic.
She surveyed herself in the mirror, and was satisfied with what she saw. In designing this costume, she and her seamstresses had taken every flattering aspect of every dress she had ever worn, and combined it into a single gown. In the past, as often as not, she had carefully selected her clothing to serve as armor. This gown, however, was meant to be a weapon. Now the only thing that remained to be seen was if the weapon would be used. She already knew, just from what she saw in the mirror, that it would be effective.
Was it so silly of her, to want to be wooed like an ordinary woman? To know that the man who asked for her hand wanted her as well as what she represented? She was sure, now, that Karath was here for the purpose of courting her, or else he would have gone home by this time. There had been several opportunities for him to leave, including when his own Ambassador was recalled because of an emergency in his family. He could have
gone back to Rethwellan then, with the man who had brought him here in the first place. He hadn’t. In fact, he had stayed even though the Rethwellan Embassy was virtually empty but for a few servants. Even though half of his guards had gone back to protect the Ambassador on his journey, and she had loaned him some of her own Guards until either the old Ambassador returned, or a new one with the rest of the entourage came to take his place.
She knew that most of her Councilors were devoutly praying for such a match. It would all but secure the southern Border, since Rethwellan would be obliged to help defend it if the Karsites somehow found the means to attack again. It would bring many, many trade advantages, since Valdemaran goods would probably be exempted from the onerous taxes on imported stuff. It would mean easy access to several great trade markets of the south. No one could or would object to a Rethwellan Prince on the grounds of either consanguinity or unequal rank.
But she didn’t want a trade alliance, or a military advantage. She wanted a Consort, a partner, a confidant. Someone she could talk to; someone who—
—well, someone she could love. Someone who would love her. Who would treasure Selenay as well as the Queen, as her father had treasured her mother.
She thought, if things worked out as she hoped, that she would be able to tell if that was true of Karath. She knew already that she was deliriously infatuated with him. How could she not be? Nearly every woman of the Court was half in love with his handsome face and charming manners. Every time he looked at her, she felt a shiver of delight; every time she thought about him, she went hot and cold all over. She had dreams of him at night that made her wake full of aching desire.
They had shared several conversations now, which were, if not completely private, certainly mostly private. He really did understand the terrible burden of the crown, of being unable to ever have much real privacy, of having to be everything to everyone. They had talked about all the times when, as children, they had lost entire holidays being on show for the people. They’d spoken of the difficulty of rinding real friends. She thought that he understood these things as not even a Herald could. If he wanted her, well, he had her. But only if he truly wanted her; she was not going to go into this now unless she had him just as truly.
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