Puritan King Arian of the Cormalen court would never have borne the horror of such excess. No wonder he never visited Sarneth but sent his ambassadors instead--he probably thought it the gateway to hell, with its golden cutlery and other luscious temptations.
Merius glanced over his own setting and fingered one of the forks, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” The queen entered with Toscar and Esme at that moment, and we both rose.
Poor King Rainier was, as usual, nowhere in evidence. Although most considered Toscar merely the queen’s loyal servant, I thought there was far more than mere loyalty between them. Their auras reached for each other whenever they were together, cold blue sparks filling the air whenever they brushed against each other. I shuddered. They were made for each other. Perhaps the king didn’t mind being cuckolded--perhaps he would rather be ignored by his queen than bossed by her.
Esme took the seat across from Merius, her brown doe eyes limpid by candlelight, and I prepared myself for indigestion, nerves, and just plain jealousy. The baby did a somersault inside. Merius, using the excuse of placing his napkin on his lap, caressed my leg under the table then, and I jumped, knocking over my water glass with my hand. A serving girl rushed over to mop up the mess.
Esme’s brows arched. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” I shot a look in Merius’s direction, but he was pretending to be absorbed with buttering his bread.
“My mother’s dowager cousin had a fit at table once and knocked over her water,” Esme said. “It turned out to be hysterical insanity--she couldn’t stop laughing after that, and they had to lock her away.”
“I hear that runs in families,” I said. Merius shifted in his chair and cleared his throat, forcing back a laugh.
“Yes.” Esme sighed. “We have several artists in our family line--artists are particularly prone to it. Too sensitive, I suppose. The sculptor my mother commissioned to carve her statue of the First Knight of Adolus was mad with sensitivity. He used to sit around in the afternoon and cry and cut himself on his arms with his dagger.” Her eyes ran over the ladder of fading scars on my arms, and I cursed myself for forgetting to unroll my sleeves after I had finished painting. I was so used to the scars that I barely noticed them now. Damn, Esme would notice. “We tried to stop him, but he said the dagger hurt less than leaving his homeland. My mother had to dismiss him . . .”
“Esme.” The queen’s voice held a note of warning. “How was your SerVerinese lesson today?”
The queen must have noticed my scars as well--otherwise she wouldn’t have known what Esme’s jibe meant. The scars were from fighting Arilea’s ghost at Landers Hall, but I couldn’t reveal that to Her Majesty and entourage. I hunkered down in my seat and wished I could hide my face. For the umpteenth time this evening, hot tears rose inside, and I bit my lip. My emotions overflowed at every provocation these days, and now I was on the verge of leaking again. The more the baby grew, the less room I had inside to store my fear, my anger, even my joy. I cried at everything--last night I had sobbed for a half hour after Merius and I made love. Poor Merius thought he’d done something horribly wrong.
The servants began to serve us the first course, a pale soup with green bits of some herb floating in it. Merius touched my foot with his, and I looked at him. He lifted a spoonful of the soup, then tipped his spoon and let the soup dribble back into the bowl. His brows did a quick arch, as expressive as a shrug, and he hissed “stew” low enough so only I heard it. He wanted my stew instead of this fancy creamy mess of weird herbs. I smiled and immediately felt improved in spirits. I was rarely certain of my cooking, but evidently he liked it or at least was willing to lie about liking it, and that was good enough for me.
“SerVerinese is impossible, mama,” Esme said, sulky. “I don’t understand why I have to learn it--I’m not marrying any heathen prince.”
“SerVerinese has entirely too many dialects, the language of an empire grown too bloated for its own good,” Merius said.
“We have a phrase for the SerVerin Empire in Sarneth,” Toscar said, “The lion that eats the most moves the slowest. Have you heard this?”
“I’ve heard it,” Merius replied, his voice veiled by that court tone I had learned to recognize, “but I would hardly call the SerVerin Empire a lion. A hippopotamus, perhaps--it has a big mouth, a tough hide, and lives in the slime and mud.”
Esme tittered, and the queen laughed. Toscar sank back in his chair, his eyes narrow. “You make jests often?”
“Laughter is good diplomacy, my lord.”
“It is also a good way to mask your true meaning.”
“Exactly.” Merius smiled and took a bite of bread.
“Do you know SerVerinese?” Esme demanded.
Merius swallowed the bread. “Shoi-cah.”
“He means a little,” Esme translated for me.
I was saved from rolling my eyes by Toscar. “I would have thought Mordric taught you more than a little SerVerinese.”
“I was a lax pupil, at least in that regard.” He lied so well to strangers--if I didn’t know him as I did, I would have believed everything he said to these people. Mordric had taught him at least three of the SerVerinese dialects, more than most SerVerin natives knew. But it wouldn’t do for Toscar or the queen to know that. Best to keep them as ignorant as possible of both our political sentiments and our capabilities.
“Safire, I complimented your ability before, but I haven’t asked you what you think about it. How are you enjoying painting?” Queen Jazmene asked.
I dabbed my mouth with my napkin before I answered. Should I be frank or cautious? I was enjoying painting, just not all the puppet strings that came with it. Finally, I settled on an answer between honesty and caution. “I love the colors--with paint, you can make so many shades and tints it defies reality. Who knew there could be so many blues, so many reds, so many yellows in the world? As a novice artist who used only charcoals until a month ago, I find myself lost in a fantasy of color every time I pick up the brush.”
“Good.” She sounded genuinely pleased, her manner smooth and sweet as warm honey, and for a moment, I liked her. As Korigann had hinted, she could be rather generous to her friends and those she considered her protégées. “Since everything is going so well,” she continued, “I’ve an offer for you and Merius.”
Instantly, I was back on my guard. She never had offers or suggestions--she had commands and negotiations. Negotiations in which one always lost something. Korigann, who had wisely been sitting silent and shoveling food in his mouth, glanced up, his eyes sharp. He looked from her to me, then resumed eating again, but not before I caught the warning in his gaze. Try to be diplomatic. I fisted my hands in my lap, the baby kicking me--not even born yet, and the little one already sensed tension.
“As you know,” Queen Jazmene continued, “many of our painters, like Korigann, either live at court or on the royal estates--it offers them the protection of the royal guard, freedom from rent, and a chance to work in peace. Usually, our chambers here are full, but there’s been an opening in the last week, and I thought perhaps you and Merius would like to take advantage of this rarity.”
I grabbed Merius’s leg under the table, my tongue between my teeth so I wouldn’t say anything without thinking first. He set down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin, apparently mulling over the queen’s offer.
“It’s a fine offer, Your Majesty,” he said finally, “more than Safire or I could ever have hoped for. However, I’m in the service of the Cormalen king’s guard. It wouldn’t be seemly for me to take residence at another court.”
“I see your concern. However, perhaps an exception could be granted in this case. Sarneth is Cormalen’s closest ally, and your presence at this court is hardly treasonous, especially since it’s your wife’s abilities we hope to promote. We have no interest in severing your loyalties to your own cou
rt.”
“I know my loyalties wouldn’t be compromised. It’s other people’s impressions of the situation that concern me.”
“There is no judging other people’s impressions,” Toscar said. “Some would see this dinner as an act of treason, while others would see your complete defection to this court as an act of bravery. It all depends on their politics. And yours, of course.” It was a broad hint, but Merius wasn’t about to take the bait. Toscar continued after a long pause. “You’ve been rather bold thus far in bucking public opinion--from what you’ve said and from what I’ve heard, you care little for the influence of others, even your own father. Why so cautiously diplomatic now?”
“I have Safire to think about now, her and our future children. Our marriage has inextricably tied her reputation to mine, and it’s sobered my outlook.”
Toscar smiled, a trifle wolfish. “Wise answer, Landers. Perhaps too wise.”
“Radik,” the queen purred, “leave him be. Now, Merius, surely your commander Herrod and Lord Rankin would be reasonable. Cormalen and Sarneth have familial as well as political ties.”
“Thank you for the handsome offer, Your Majesty,” Merius said, silver-tongued as a blade edge, “but it‘s out of the question for the reasons I already made clear. My duties as a king’s guard preclude me--or my wife--from living at a foreign court, no matter how convivial the atmosphere.”
“Now that we’ve heard from Merius,” Toscar said. “I want to hear what Safire thinks.”
I swallowed. “I agree with my husband. It’s a wonderful offer, but impossible to accept.”
“I understand, my dears. It is impossible to accept--under the current conditions. Of course, conditions can change. A young man of your talents, Merius, won‘t stay an embassy guard forever.” The queen’s smile was smooth--she’d not be thwarted by our petty objections for long.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The peach wine glowed in the candlelight, rich and golden, distilled summer in a bottle. Merius had brought two bottles with us from Cormalen, a last minute wedding gift from the cook Hester at Landers Hall. It was sweet and warm as liquid sunshine across the tongue. I took a sip of it, leaving charcoal fingerprints on the glass, and examined the sketch I had started of the furniture shadows. They moved with every flicker of the candle, Merius’s chair like a rearing horse across the floor, the table like a great bumbling bear. At first they fought, then they danced, and now, the air momentarily free from drafts, they sat staring at each other. Suddenly the horse leapt forward again as the bedchamber door creaked open.
“Sweetheart?” Merius’s hands slipped over my shoulders. “Aren’t you coming to bed?”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I was.”
“What woke you?” I leaned my cheek against his arm.
“I had a dream about the queen’s guards.” He yawned, scratched his jaw.
“Oh, dear heart.”
“They’d taken you.” He moved around the table and slid into his chair. “I killed a couple of them but then there were more and more--hundreds it seemed. All without faces.” He yawned again and ran his hands over his face, his hair sticking out in all directions. For an instant, I had a glimpse of him as he might have looked when he was nine or ten.
I glanced at the door that led to the hall. When the guards had first started keeping watch at night, we worried they could hear us. Finally, tired of speaking in whispers, Merius deliberately left earlier than me one morning. After the door had shut behind him, I put a rolled towel over the crack between it and the floor and then made a racket banging pots and plates while Merius lingered in the hall with the guards. He only heard a couple of muffled thumps, so we talked more freely after that, always careful to put the towel over the crack as soon as we shut the door on the world.
“What are you drawing?”
“The shadows--they make me think of animals when they move.”
“You couldn’t sleep?”
I shook my head, darkening the table bear’s back with quick, taut strokes of the charcoal. “Korigann knows. About the baby, I mean.”
“Oh hell.”
“It was bound to happen. I can’t very well tell him to quit growing.”
Merius peered at my middle. “It does seem in the last few days that you’ve suddenly become . . . round.”
I grinned. “You were going to say fat.”
“I was not.” He grinned back. “I’m enjoying this ripening process.”
“You make me sound like a pear.” I giggled. “And if you say next I do remind you of a pear, I’ll slap you silly.”
“A pear doesn’t have your other fine attributes. So Korigann knows, but no one else?”
“No. I suppose when I can’t reach the easel around my belly the queen will notice.”
“We won’t be here then,” he said quietly.
I glanced up at him, my fingers tightening on the charcoal. “But your oath of service to Rankin goes at least another nine months.”
“I’m going to break it.”
“Break your oath?! Merius, you can’t--you’ll be dishonored, cast out of the king’s guard. What will you do?”
“I can be a mercenary.”
“I’ll not allow you to dishonor yourself so.”
“What else are we to do, sweet? If Toscar and Her Majesty find out about the baby, we‘re in for it. You‘ve said yourself that it won‘t take them long to add up the months, and I‘m convinced now they‘ll use anything to put us--you--in their power.”
“We’re watched all the time--it would be impossible for us to leave suddenly anyway.”
He sighed, leaned back in his chair. “A sudden escape could be arranged . . . God, listen to me--a sudden escape--I make it sound like we’re in prison.”
“In essence, we are. Or I am, at any rate.”
“What are you saying?”
I set the charcoal down, not looking at him. “I’m saying you could leave--I think they’d let you. We could pretend to have a fight, and you could leave, and then maybe you could arrange something, some way of helping me from the outside . . .”
“Safire, that’s what they want. They want me gone, or at least Toscar does. If I leave now, we’ll never see each other again. There’ll be no helping you from the outside--they’ll lock you away tighter than the crown jewels.”
“Only let out on special occasions and perhaps aired once a year so I don‘t molder,” I added with bitter mirth. “They can’t do that--I won’t paint for them if they do.”
“You were thinking about that today, weren’t you?”
“About what?”
His eyes glittered. “About being difficult.”
“What makes you say that, my dear husband?” I demanded. “When have I ever been difficult?”
He grasped my hand across the table. "The irony would make me laugh if it wasn't so serious. We came here to escape my father and the Cormalen court, and we end up embroiled in the intrigue of this court.”
“It seems as impossible for a noble to become a commoner as it is for a commoner to become a noble.”
“At least we made the attempt, my lady.” He kissed my hand. “You know, when we sat down to dinner tonight, I realized how naïve we’ve been, thinking we could shed our birthrights so easily. I heard Father’s voice in my head throughout dinner--he‘s inescapable, the shrewd bastard.”
“What was he saying?”
“That Queen Jazmene is rather free with the court treasury, for one thing. I couldn’t believe all those hothouse flowers and the golden cutlery, just for a private dinner. I’m amazed the Sarneth nobles don’t revolt.”
“What about King Rainier?” I asked, voicing a curiosity I’d harbored for some time. “Where is he in all of this? Why doesn’t he revolt? I‘m beginning to think he doesn‘t exist.”
Merius leaned back in his chair, his hands braced behind his head. “Ah, sweet, you’ve asked one of the great philosophical questions of our time. Is there a God? If there i
s a God, does King Rainier pray to him? Where is King Rainier, anyway? Is there a King Rainier?"
I kicked his foot. “Merius, I’m serious. Is King Rainier an invalid or something? What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s not an invalid—I’ve seen him. Father’s seen him too. Several times, actually--they‘ve played chess together when Father‘s been at the Sarneth court. Rainier‘s brilliant at chess.”
I reached across the table and caressed Merius’s jaw. “You need to shave tomorrow, if you want to look respectable.” I dropped my hand to his shoulder, noticing a black charcoal mark on his chin where I’d touched him. “Oh no--look what I did now . . .”
“What?”
“Just stay still.” I tried to rub the black away, but all I succeeded in doing was making the mark bigger. He looked like he had a little black goatee--it was positively diabolical. Surely I couldn’t have had that much charcoal on my hands. Could I do nothing right? Of course not--even my talents, the things I did best, caused us trouble, not to mention my faults. On cue, telltale warmth rose behind my eyelids.
“Are you crying?” He half rose.
I shook my head and sniffed angrily, trying to swallow back my ridiculous tears, but all that did was make more. I held my palms to my eyes.
“Safire, what’s wrong?” He touched my back, massaged my shoulders. “You’re getting charcoal around your eyes, sweet. Here . . .” He wiped my face with his handkerchief, which only made me cry harder. “Now listen--we’ll find a way out of this mess. The queen can’t . . .”
“It’s no-not that.”
“What then?”
“Your face--I got charcoal all over it . . .” I sniffled into his handkerchief.
“What?” He glanced around. “What happened to that mirror, the one that Jazmene gave you last week?”
“I smashed it after you left the next morning. I didn’t like having it here. All it did is remind me that she considers us her pets. It may sound silly, but I felt as if she could watch us through it.” I shivered.
Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2) Page 14