He could even fancy he felt the chill.
“Ha-Lah—” he started on a sigh.
“I prepare for bed,” she said coldly, moving toward their bathing chamber off which there were two dressing chambers.
One for him.
One for her.
He had now shared quarters with his wife for weeks, and outside seeing her in her sleeping garments, which were (in the current climate) frustratingly brief, he hadn’t seen any more of what made his wife.
“I think it’s time we talk,” he said to her back.
She turned casually toward him, and when he had her front, he saw her brows were lifted.
“You do?” she asked.
“Obviously, I do,” he asserted, attempting to keep hold on his temper at her manner. “You’ve said perhaps ten words to me since we arrived at the palace.”
“Yes. I believe they were, ‘Please, allow me to leave these rooms or I’ll go mad.’”
That was eleven words, but he wasn’t going to note that.
“There are reasons, and I told you those reasons.”
“Ah yes,” she nodded once, “how incredibly unsafe I am in a land where we were met with flower petals and scatterings of coins. I understand the force of your concerns, my king. For if I left these rooms, I might be murdered by adulation.”
He really did not like to note his wife could be clever and amusing when she was also being aggravating.
“Ha-Lah—” he bit.
But he stopped himself from speaking when she uncharacteristically lost her temper, leaned toward him and spat, “Spare me.”
On that, she turned on her foot and fumed toward their bathing room.
Aramus drew a long breath into his nose.
Another.
Then he gazed about the room, with its large, posted bed on a podium, the posts draped in purple and red sheer silks. There were large rugs of bear hides on the floor on either side of the bed, these swathing down the steps to the podium. There were also chests and ornate lamps and gilded, tufted stools. A door to the left, behind which was where Ha-Lah’s lady’s maid slept.
And an opening with no doorway to the right, so you could see the rectangular, recessed bath tiled in blacks and purples with dense cushions on the sides. A bath that was always filled with clear waters that seemed magically heated to the perfect temperature.
His gaze swung from the bath, which he had used without his wife, to the bed, which he had used with his wife but not in all the ways he would wish.
He then walked to the door to the hall, flung it open, scowled at Xi and Cat, who stood at each side guarding it. He looked down the hall to the boy servant who was one of two always available should a guest in the east wing have some need.
“Rum,” he ordered. “Adesso.”
Now.
The boy dashed down the hall toward the stairs.
Both Xi and Cat were avoiding his eyes and obviously fighting smiles when he ducked back into his chamber and slammed the door.
Storming to it, he threw himself on a divan in the corner, falling sideways toward the roll at the top, and setting his eyes to the bathing chamber.
It didn’t take long before Ha-Lah wandered out in a satin shift the color of aqua that fell just below her arse, had thin straps, and that was it.
She had lovely legs.
He clenched his teeth.
His wife walked right in front of him, straight to bed.
There was a knock on the door and, bent over the bed to throw the silks back, she glanced that way as if she had the most minimal of curiosity for what was behind it as Aramus shouted, “Enter!”
The boy came in, found Aramus, walked swiftly to him and set the gilded tray he was carrying on a small table by the divan.
He hesitated a second, awaiting further instructions, and when he did not get them, he dashed out, closing the door behind him.
Aramus uncorked the bottle of rum on the tray, poured a healthy dose into the glass provided, set the bottle aside and took up the glass.
He swallowed all of it.
He had another glass filled in his hand moments later.
But his wife was under the silks and the lamp by her side of the mattress had been blown out.
“I’m your husband,” he announced to the bed. “It’s my duty at all times to see to your protection.”
She did not reply.
He threw back the rum and poured himself another.
Holding it in his hand, he spoke again.
“It’s also my duty to decide what the threats are, what they aren’t, when a situation is uncertain, and precisely how you’ll be protected from the former and latter.”
Ha-Lah didn’t move or make a noise.
Aramus tossed back the rum, set the glass aside and stood.
“It’s for your own bloody sirens-damned good,” he told her.
His wife made no response.
He glowered at the bed.
She didn’t so much as twitch.
Aramus prowled toward the bathing chamber.
He stopped short when he heard, “Have you ever been locked in a room unwillingly with naught to say about it?”
When he looked back to the bed, he saw she still hadn’t moved even if she had spoken.
“You’re hardly in a dungeon,” he retorted.
“That doesn’t matter.” She rose up to a hand in the bed and aimed her gaze at him. “Not even free to wander the palace, Aramus? Not even visiting with the women? Not even with a guard?”
Aramus stood, frozen in place, staring at her beautiful face that wore not an expression of mutiny or frustration, but hurt, and he had the sudden realization of something that made him excruciatingly uncomfortable.
He knew nothing about her.
She had mermaid magic.
She was beautiful.
She was stubborn.
She was strong in her beliefs.
She was appropriate in behavior when she stood beside him as his queen when they were in company.
She had been scouted when it was time for him to wed, found in a small, remote fishing village on the northeast coast of Mar-el, and brought to him to be his bride.
And he liked the gowns she wore, so she had good taste.
Other than that, he knew nothing.
And this nothing included how she would feel about having her liberty taken away and what she might need to do to occupy her time to make it the least enjoyable for her when she did.
Not to mention, being taken from her village and forced to wed the king in the first place.
Most women of Mar-el would find that the highest honor.
But he was finding his wife was decidedly not most women.
He turned back to the bathing chamber, moved to his dressing room, and changed into his short pants for sleep.
He then moved back into the bedchamber, shifting about it himself to extinguish the lamps, the last one at his side of the bed.
He lay on his back under the silks and stared at the dark ceiling.
He did this deciding how to go about doing what he should have started doing over seven sirens-damned months ago.
And what he decided was to tell her the truth, even if it frightened her, about why he was being so cautious.
“I know a raider of the Northlands, his name is Frey Drakkar,” he said softly.
He sensed his wife tense at his side across the wide expanse of bed.
“He’s a very powerful man, a good seaman. The best I’ve ever met who is not Mar-el. I grew to respect him very quickly.”
Ha-Lah said nothing.
“He is a raider, but he is high born. Married to a princess,” Aramus went on.
His wife made no move or noise.
“Tales were told wide about Drakkar and his Ice Bride. Many of them. They reached far. Their love, it is said, is unsurpassed. But not long after they were wed, in an intrigue that was not entirely out of his control, his wife barely escaped dying a violent death after she s
et aside a glass of wine she had not sipped that was poisoned.”
He felt Ha-Lah’s body tighten.
“Another woman mistakenly picked it up,” he shared. “Her journey to death was not long, but it was violent, as she coughed up blood the entirety of it.”
“Aramus,” Ha-Lah whispered.
He turned to his side toward her.
“I do not know these women in this palace,” he said. “I do not know the machinations of this land. You could take up a cup of tea but rooms away from me and be dead by the time I ran down the corridor to see to you.”
His wife rolled to face him.
“But to lock me in a room?” she asked quietly.
“Everything you put in your mouth is tested by a servant boy before it’s brought to you.”
Her tone was sharper on this, “Aramus!”
“The men are at your door. We are on the second floor, but they also prowl under our window.”
“Husband,” she whispered, her tone on that much changed.
“I would have you safe, Ha-Lah. In his past, before they were wed, Drakkar had bedded the servant who attempted to murder his wife. He did not think she had that scheming in her. But she did. It was not his hand who poisoned his princess, but I can guarantee you, when he discovered whose hand it was, he felt as if he’d tipped the vial himself.”
“You’re close with Cassius,” she said in reply. “It appears you respect Mars. Also Prince True. And Cassius clearly holds deep regard for you. How do you think Cassius would act if an attack on you, any attack, my king, was instigated?”
“I would not like to find out, not only because Cassius’s sword would be mine in vengeance, and it would put him at risk, but because that might mean I had lost you.”
He felt the silk rustle, he waited for her to reach out to him, but she settled before she did.
“How do you know him?” she asked softly.
Aramus wasn’t certain, but that might be the most personal question she’d asked him throughout their marriage.
Or, perhaps, the only one.
And he gave her an answer without delay.
“Many years ago, when I was still prince, and very young, we were in a port city on the eastern coast of Airen. We were in a pub. We were at the rum. Cassius and his men were there, and they were at the whiskey. A game of tuble ensued. I beat him soundly and respected his and his men’s manner when I did. None of us were near sober, it could easily have slipped out of hand, but his good-natured loss struck me. We decided to take our…revelry elsewhere—”
“With a visit to doxies,” she murmured through the dark, fortunately sounding amused.
“Yes,” he agreed through a grin.
“And as men in manly endeavors, bonds were formed amongst drink, gambling and prostitutes,” she surmised, still sounding amused.
“Something like that,” he muttered, and carried on, “He knew not I was prince, I knew not he was. As men do when a good time was had by all, we made vague plans to meet again a year after in the same place for the same festivities. I honestly didn’t intend to go. And then I did, something drawing me to again spending time with him and his men. I did it thinking that he would not be there. But he was.”
Aramus paused a minute before he finished.
“It took four such reunions before he admitted he was a crown prince. I was…affected by him sharing this about himself. It was something I well knew could put him in danger. But he trusted me with it. So I gave the same in return. And in our years of knowing one another, neither of us have given the other cause to regret it.”
“He seems a good man to me,” she remarked.
“He is.”
“He is close with Mars,” she noted.
Aramus nodded on the pillow until he realized his wife couldn’t see him and he stopped.
“They are like brothers. Cassius came as a young man to train with Ares’s armies. He is two years older than Mars. He stayed from age twelve to fifteen. After he left, Mars came to Airen to train with their soldiers. He was in Airen for two years. The bond was formed through that, but they already knew each other and played together as children when their fathers met for business between the realms.”
“They look so much alike, you could think they were brothers. But they act like blood, so I suppose they just are,” she said.
“They just are,” he agreed.
“He has much the same with you, if not looking alike,” she said, sounding like she was smiling.
“We do not have the history, but…” he hesitated before sharing, “he lost his wife, and when the babe she gave him as her last gift was old enough to sail, he came to Mar-el. He stayed some time. He could not be around things that reminded him of her. But I did not feel he shirked much grief when he was with us.”
“That is sad,” she whispered.
“It was,” he replied.
“Mars greeted you as a brother,” Ha-Lah noted.
Ah.
His beautiful, crafty wife.
“This he did,” Aramus confirmed. “And I know where you’re aiming with this, wife, but they are but two players on a board filled with many. There are those who are friends, and you’re correct, those two are friends. But there are also those who are arrogant, those who are devious, those who are covetous, those who are cunning, those who are naïve, those who are imprudent. I walk that board, knowing who I can trust, and all the others I cannot. You do not walk that board, Ha-Lah. You do not walk it at all.”
“I understand this, Aramus. Truly I do. But I cannot bear being locked in this room the entire time we’re in Firenze. Or even consider how you wish to hide me away for my protection in the coming months as we travel Triton.”
He heard her hand slide over silk his way, but it stopped before she touched him.
“And you cannot know this, but I’m a good judge of character,” she said.
“How would you like me to put that to the test, Ha-Lah?” he inquired.
“Trusting me,” she whispered.
Aramus fell silent.
Ha-Lah didn’t break it.
Eventually, Aramus did.
“If I do that, and all does not go well, it is not my trust in you that will be broken. If others connive, the loss I could sustain is too precious to bear.”
“For we couldn’t quell the Beast?” she asked.
“For I would lose my wife,” he answered.
He heard her soft intake of breath on his words, but she did not expel it to say her own.
“I would not be Cassius. I do not know you in that way,” he told her. “But the two times of our marriage when you let me in, I like what I know. And I would miss it.”
And I want more, he thought, but did not say.
Though he did not stop speaking.
“You did not know my father, my queen, and for this I am melancholy. He was a fine man. A proud father. But an inveterate pirate. He lived for the times he sailed the sea. Which was why he took a wife much later than the age I found you. He was fifteen years older than me when he made my mother his bride. But his love for her, like all the Nereus men, became legend. When his age meant he knew his life was in decline, he told me if he’d have known his world would be filled with her, he would have given up all his years at sea for just one more at her side. And when he died, it was not age that took my beloved mother. It was facing a life without him that did it. This was why I had our priests scour our lands for you so that I would not taste that regret. For I saw in both my parents that flavor was bitter.”
Her tone was near-on gentle when she said, “Oh, Aramus, that is both beautiful and sad.” And when he made no reply, for she was right, he heard her heavy sigh before she queried, “How do we find compromise, my husband?”
“You have a guard everywhere you go, until I say this no longer needs to be so,” he answered instantly. “You allow a servant to taste your food and drink—”
“Aramus—”
He didn’t allow her to cut in.
“I’m telling you how it will be for you to have what you wish, my queen. This is not a negotiation.”
She again went silent.
“A servant tastes your food and drink and you don’t put it to your lips unless one of my men says you can. You can spend time with the women. In this palace. Not in the city. Petals and coins are all well and good, but not every citizen of Firenze was on that street, Ha-Lah. It could be not conniving, but simply something someone says that would cause you upset, or a look they’d give that would be distressing, and I won’t have that either.”
“I don’t know their language,” she reminded him.
“As you’ve noted, many of them speak Valerian,” he returned. “And all of Wodell, Airen and Nadirii have long since adopted that tongue.”
She made no reply.
“We will talk,” he continued. “You will share how you perceive these women. I will do the same. If we feel we’ve come to trust them, your guard will not need to be that close. But you are queen, Ha-Lah, you will always have one.”
“All right,” she agreed.
“All right about your guard, or all of it?” he asked.
“All of it, if I can leave these rooms, meet people, learn about them, see more of this land, even if it’s simply the chambers of the palace of their king. Yes. I will agree. To all of it.”
Aramus smiled and through it said, “Are you an adventurer, my Ha-Lah?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had the opportunity. But the little I’ve had, I know I like.”
She had not had the opportunity.
Something else he now knew about his wife.
“Then we will see about making you safe so you can widen your adventures, wife,” he decided.
“This would be appreciated, husband.”
They both fell silent and Aramus determined that the next night when they were abed, he would not be sharing.
He’d be asking things about her.
In the dark of their room, as quiet fell over them, the entirety of the night and the rum and their agreement settled in and Aramus felt his eyelids getting heavy.
They opened when she whispered a drowsy, “Can we discuss putting boys in the path of possible poison again at a later date?”
At that, while smiling broadly in the dark, he realized he knew some other things about his queen.
The Beginning of Everything Page 19