the people who are closest to the king. You can use me, sir.”
“I am interested in a girl,” said the voice. “A new arrival.
Do you know of her?”
“Aye! Aye, I do, sir. Sera, she’s called. Worked in the stables,
’til the king took a liking to her.” He thought of the thrashing,
the humiliation, and his anger overrode his fear.
“Now I hear she’s to settle in the palace. Nicholas, he wants
to ride her. She’s a pretty enough piece, and eager to spread her
legs for him.”
“Sera,” said the voice. “Seraphina, perhaps.”
“If you want her, sir, I could find her fer you. I’m probably
the only one here who knows what she looks like, eh? And I’ll
do it, not fer a reward, but fer the pleasure of seeing that little
whore brought low. Would you like fer me to bring her, sir?”
The hand holding the sword hesitated and dropped.
Dawson shuddered in relief. The sweat poured down his back,
and he prayed that his cramping bowels wouldn’t give way.
The specter motioned, and three men stepped forward.
“These men will accompany you. They will stick closer
to you than your own skin. If you have not produced the girl by
the month’s end, they will kill you. Do you understand?”
Dawson nodded madly. “Aye, sir. You needn’t worry,
sir. I’ll bring her back before the new moon.”
Seven
“Sera!”
As she stared in devastation after Nicholas galloping toward
the park, Sera heard Katherine’s voice. Katherine ran down the
stairway, her face flushed and wreathed with smiles. Reaching
Wind Rider’s side, she scratched his chin and looked up at Sera.
“I am so glad to see you. Nicholas sent a messenger to me
immediately after he found you. I was so relieved.” Katherine
reached up a hand and squeezed Sera’s as it gripped the reins.
“You mustn’t try to run away from us again. So many terrible
things could have happened to you, and then how I would have
suffered for you!”
A groom helped her down and bowed low. Reluctantly, she
realized there was nothing else to do but walk into the palace’s
front entrance beside Katherine. She had never come this way
before. Her ignominious visits had been in the dark of night,
through the back stairways for yet another royal scolding. Now
she climbed wide marble stairs and walked through a tall set of
double doors intricately carved in bronze. Another imposing
marble staircase led into an enormous hallway beneath a high,
high dome.
It was an odd sort of palace. For all its glittering ormolu
vases, its overly fussy inlaid furniture and its magnificent statues,
it was beautiful in the way that a harmonious natural setting
was beautiful. If Sera didn’t consider it a prison, she would
have felt almost comfortable in it.
“My grandfather had it built,” said Katherine. “I’ve always
loved it—the airiness and the sense that a family, not a monarch,
lives here.”
“Come,” she said, as Sera lingered before a statue of Apollo
with his lyre, thinking of home. “You must be fitted for gowns.
Tomorrow, if you’re not too weary from your journey, I’ll show
you the town.”
Katherine stopped before a door on the second story and
opened it.
Sera stepped inside and stared. “You use these chambers
merely for sleeping?” she asked, shocked at the space around
her.
“Of course. Nicholas insisted that this one be made ready
for you. It was my grandmother’s. Do you like the wallpaper? I
used to count the species of birds when I was a little girl, but I
never could count that high.”
“This is not a room for someone like me,” said Sera, looking
at the bright colors on the wall, the pink silk curtains hanging
from the high tester above the wide bed, the blue Aubusson
carpet that covered the entire floor.
“Oh, but my lady, it is perfect for you. With your golden
coloring, your delicate bone structure.” A tall, slender modiste
with graying curls bustled in, followed by three assistants, buried
beneath the large bolts of cloth they carried. She bowed to
Katherine as the princess walked toward the door.
“I’ll see you later today,” said Katherine, and shut the door
behind her.
The modiste looked her up and down. “His majesty chose
well—a charming setting for his beautiful jewel.”
His beautiful jewel? “I am no one’s beautiful anything,”
said Sera with a frown.
The modiste prattled on as though she had not even heard
Sera. “Now, we have little time to lose. You must have the first
gown ready to wear by this evening, and also a sleeping gown,
one that will enhance your lovely bosom and those soft
shoulders. I have chosen a sky blue for you tonight. It only
needs the measuring to complete it, and we will make more
each day. If you will shed that. . .” Staring at Sera’s travel stained
gown, the modiste sniffed and hurried her behind a screen set
up at the end of the chamber.
Deftly, she unhooked the gown, leaving Sera only in her
chemise. She stood behind the screen, hot with embarrassment,
while the woman wielded a tape measure across her breasts,
her hips, and down her legs, clucking in admiration all the time.
Sera had stripped to a short tunic many times on the exercise
field, but never in her life had she experienced anything so
invasive.
“You are quite special, you know. The king has never gone
so far as to house one like you in his palace.”
Sera froze. “And just what do you mean by ‘one like me’,
Madame?”
“An irresistibly beautiful young woman who has captured
the imagination of the commoners and the passion of a king.”
The modiste nodded her head once in satisfaction. “Yes, that is
exactly how I shall put it to Monsieur Carlsohnn when I order
the rest of your fabric.”
“You will not discuss me with anyone, Madame, else I shall
not wear one of your gowns, and if I am asked why not, I shall
say it is because you are a foolish gossip.” Sera controlled the
urge to shake the woman.
The modiste seemed not the least bit fazed by her outburst.
“I assure you, Lady Sera,” she said cheerfully, “the courtiers
gossip already. Now that I’ve seen you, I shall certainly express
my own admiration of your beauty to all of them.”
Sera heaved an exasperated sigh and simply gave up the
battle. The woman chatted on about how careful Sera must be
to dispose her favors upon only the most powerful and the richest
of the nobles, for she would, of course, wish to influence the
king in their favor only when liberally rewarded. “Take jewels,
that’s my advice. Coin is so déclassé,” said the modiste as she
pinned and tucked the dreadful silk nightgown that revealed far
too much of Sera’s breasts.
Sera felt her stomach lurch. One such as she. The king’s<
br />
mistress—that is what this woman meant, and everyone knew
it.
The modiste finally quitted the room, taking Sera’s only
gown. She heard a sound at the door and skittered behind the
screen again. As it opened, she peeked out. Servants entered
with a hip bath that they placed before the fire and filled with
hot, steaming water. They laid towels and a robe upon a wooden
chest and left silently.
She scrubbed her body hard in the bath, trying to wash away
more than the dust of the road. Her mind went round and round
on the best way to escape Montanyard, but there were guards,
and walls, and a king who could find her as easily as a mage
could find the Hills in a hill cloak. She bowed her head, her hair
trailing in the cooling water, feeling like a bird caught in a snare.
She shivered, reached for a towel and dried her body.
Wrapping the robe about her, she walked to the tall windows
and looked out at the park, longing for freedom and home. Her
hand rested on the wall, with its brilliant paintings of birds and
flowers. Idly, she traced the outline of a beautiful bright green
bird in flight, stroking the spread wings, the rose colored throat,
the jewled eye. Her fingers paused. Her eyes widened.
“A nikos,” she whispered, startled and amazed. “How? Who
knew of this?”
A nikos, precious and symbolic—found in only one place
in the world.
Arkadia.
Sera pressed her forehead against the cool pane of the
window and quiet filled her soul. Surely, this was a sign that
somehow, someday, she would go home again.
The next morning, she left the beautiful cage that was her
chamber to meet Katherine in the palace’s entry hall. The
princess, dressed in her pelisse and muff, peered out the high
window and frowned. “I don’t know whether we can go today,”
she said. “Just look at those clouds. You can hear the wind. It’s
going to rain at any minute, and I’m not allowed to go out when
the weather looks so threatening.”
Sera looked up at the sky and over at Katherine’s gloomy
face. In some ways, the princess was as much a slave to her
position as Sera had been in Hadar’s palace.
She looked up at the sky again and wondered. If I truly had
the Gift in all its power, would it be so bad to use it for Katherine?
To give her a happy day, would it be wrong to ask the sun to
come out and the clouds to disperse? What harm could it do?
“Come on sun,” she whispered inside her heart, inwardly
chuckling at her own foolishness. “Shine for Katherine.”
The sky lightened. The clouds thinned. Wisps of blue
showed through the gray, and then, like a triumphant conqueror,
the sun burst through, warming the earth. Even the brisk wind
quieted to a pleasant breeze.
Katherine turned to her laughing in delight. “Did you see
that? It was almost as if the sun felt sorry for me. Hurry! If we
get out of here now, nobody can call us back.”
Katherine’s face was aglow with more than crisp air and
bright morning sunlight. “I want to thank you,” she said in a
confiding voice.
“For what?” Sera asked in guilty surprise. Could Katherine
have guessed? For that matter, had she actually brought about
the change in weather, or had she simply wished when the
weather decided to change of its own accord? Fear gripped her.
How could she learn what to control and what to set free when
she had no one to ask?
“To thank you for so many things,” Katherine said, bringing
her back from her frightening thoughts. “Your friendship. The
chance to talk to you about matters closest to my heart. For the
courage you gave me to finally reveal myself to…to…”
“You didn’t! Did you truly, Katherine?”
Katherine blushed, this time a rosy, feminine color that
complemented her glowing dark eyes. “I did! I lured Andre into
the garden last night, and I told him of my feelings for him, and
he, well, he returns them, Sera. Really, to hear him, his ardor,
his voice! He took my hand, and he kissed it. He knelt before
me—can you believe it? Me!”
“Of course I believe it, goose. Anyone looking at him could
see it in his eyes. That is wonderful news. I wish you happy,
Katherine, with all my heart.”
Katherine stared at her as though she had lost her wits. “But
we cannot wed, you know that. Still, it’s good to know one is
loved in so delightfully thorough a manner.”
“You should wed! When this war is over, everything will
change for the best. Perhaps the Russians will defeat Bonaparte,
and Nicholas will find and defeat the Brotherhood. It is possible,
you know.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Katherine, and her beautiful, expressive
eyes looked upon her with such compassion. “You are a dreamer,
and I’m, well, I’m a Rostov. My future doesn’t hold happiness,
but duty.”
Then, her lips curved in a mischievous grin. “So, let us be
realists, Sera, and indulge ourselves where we may, in a
shopping spree.”
“A shopping what?”
“A spree. Where you don’t care about economy—you just
buy whatever you like and hang the cost.” At Sera’s blank stare,
Katherine laughed.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never done anything without
considering the cost?”
“One thing,” Sera said quietly. And that was why she was
in this strange world.
But it was difficult to hold even a wisp of resentment with
Katherine. The townspeople bowed and smiled at them as they
walked toward the town, followed at a discreet distance by a
palace footman. The princess insisted upon buying her an
intricately embroidered blue shawl from Kashmir, a pair of pink
satin dancing slippers that were so pretty she did not even object,
and a pair of white leather gloves that were soft as butter.
The drapers, silversmiths, cobblers, and confectioners Sera
met that day made her feel more at home than the pinched-
nosed courtiers she had passed on her way to Katherine’s room.
They welcomed her with the same familiar fondness they
showed their princess. At Carlsohnn’s, the fine fabric shop, Sera
spied some lace in the back corner of the shop window. It would
be perfect for Katherine. Sera bade her move ahead to the next
shop, planning to buy some of it for her as a surprise.
“Aye, Lady Sera,” said the draper unrolling the lace and
cutting several yards of it, “it’s convent made. Feel it, now. Ain’t
it lovely?”
Sera allowed that it was, indeed.
“Our boy, Billy Carlsohnn, was the ensign for his majesty,
all the time you were in Selonia. And our cousin, Carrie, her
youngster was the little girl you found at the orphanage for her.
Oh! You’re all they can talk about. We’re that grateful, my lady.”
The draper handed her a brown parcel wrapped with a length
of string. “And if I might be so bold as to
congratulate you, my
lady, I believe I speak for all of us.”
Sera ran to catch up with Katherine, who stood beside the
heavily burdened footman in front of a small teashop with a
blue and white sign above the door.
Katherine eyed the menu posted upon the window. “Oh,
lovely! They have those little poppy seed cakes that you must
try, and the cream filled tarts.”
“Katherine,” she said, holding her back with a hand on her
arm. “Monsieur Carlsohnn wished to congratulate me on
something. What was he talking about? Have you any idea?”
“About the new title and lands you own.” Katherine
wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t Nikki explain it to you? You’re the
Countess Fremons now.”
Sera shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since we returned
from Selonia.” That was only yesterday. Why did she feel as
though eons had passed since she’d been with him?
“What is this Countess Fremons nonsense?” she asked after
Katherine led the way into the teashop and ordered for them.
“Oh, Nikki thought that you ought to have a title and land
of your own. Fremons has been in our family for generations.
It’s a rich province, and you’ll love the old castle. It was built
several centuries ago, but just last year, Nikki had it renovated.”
“Katherine, I cannot accept a gift like that.”
Katherine’s nose wrinkled in puzzlement. “Why not?”
Because your controlling brother didn’t even bother to
tell me himself, she thought. The waitress smiled and bobbed a
curtsey as she set out the cakes and tea.
Sera tried to put the matter calmly for Katherine’s sake.
“Well, it’s rather a… bribe, isn’t it? For staying, I mean. I expect
to go just as soon as I may.” She looked carefully at Katherine.
“You do realize that, don’t you?”
Katherine shrugged and smiled. “Oh, I know that you wish
to leave soon, but you wished to leave last week, and the week
before that, and you’re still here.” She squeezed Sera’s hand.
“It’s only fitting that you receive a title and land after all you
have done for us.”
“I have done nothing,” said Sera, and the teacup rattled
against the saucer when she put it down.
“Montanyard and Selonia do not agree. Nor do I. Now, try
one of the gateaux—the one with the pink marzipan flower.”
Lennox, Mary - Heart of Fire.txt Page 17