Tales of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  She hesitated, then accepted and somewhat awkwardly, more awkwardly than he’d ever seen her, dismounted. “I must stable Victory,” she said. The tears were gone as if they’d never been.

  “I know,” Jeffrey said. A groom came toward them and Jeffrey handed her his reins. “She’ll take you—us—to the stables,” he said, amending his statement when he saw the lost look return to her face. So, now she wants my company, he thought, somewhat irritably, then felt ashamed of himself. She was lonely, and he wasn’t going to be spiteful.

  The stables were a series of long enclosed stalls surrounding a wide yard of packed earth. A forge, currently cold, lay at the far side of the yard. One of the slim Tremontanan horses trotted around the yard on a long line held by a man who stood near the center. Jeffrey couldn’t see the point of the exercise, but then he knew almost nothing about horses. Sounds of movement and an occasional whinny came from one of the buildings. The groom went unhesitatingly toward that building and went inside; Imogen and Jeffrey followed.

  The young groom disappeared into one of the stalls; an older woman stuck her head out of another. “Your Majesty,” she said, surprised, “how can I help you?” She looked at Victory and her mouth hung open. She looked at Imogen, dressed in her Kirkellan clothing, looked at the horse again, then started miming something Jeffrey couldn’t make out at all.

  “I speak your language,” Imogen said, amused.

  “That’s a relief,” the woman said, smiling wryly. “I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to mime ‘oats’. Come this way, milady, and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but we weren’t expecting such a big horse.”

  “She is Kirkellan.”

  “I know, but I’ve never seen one up close, milady.”

  “I am just Imogen.”

  “You’re a diplomat, so you’re milady while you’re here, milady, and I’d better not hear of my people saying otherwise.”

  “Very well. I am milady and you are?”

  “Kate Fanshaw, milady, and I have the keeping of the stables at the palace. I think we have a stall she’ll fit into. What’s her name, milady?”

  “She is Victory, and thank you for asking.”

  The stall was big enough, more than big enough, and Victory made a whickering noise of approval. Imogen removed her tack and wiped her down, then brushed her, checking her legs and hooves for injuries and murmuring softly to her. It was like watching a mother care for her enormous child.

  “You seem well suited to each other,” Jeffrey said, surprising Imogen, who seemed to have forgotten he was there. “How long have you had her?”

  “I do not have her. Victory and I are friends since she was—almost since she was foaled.”

  “Good heaven, she’s unshod,” said Fanshaw. “May I look at her hoof?”

  Imogen stroked Victory’s nose and whispered to her, then said, “You can to—I mean, yes, do look.”

  Fanshaw gently lifted Victory’s left front hoof and traced its contours. “I never realized your horses go unshod.”

  “They do for most of the year. For the winter they have the shoes.” Imogen brushed Victory’s light red mane and laid her cheek against her soft nose.

  “You may want to see about having her shod now. Everything around here is paved. She won’t like that.”

  “You have a…a person who puts the shoes on the—on horses?”

  “A farrier? Two or three. Come back sometime and I’ll introduce you. They’re very good.”

  Imogen gave Fanshaw an approving look. “Thank you,” she said, and finished putting away Victory’s gear while the horse stuck her nose deep into the hay trough. “I will come again soon.” Jeffrey watched her stroke Victory’s mane again, then lift her gear onto her shoulder. “What is it?” she asked him, and he realized he’d been staring at her.

  He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking. “Nothing,” he said. “Let me call someone to carry that for you.”

  “I am—I can carry it for me,” she said, her knuckles whitening on the grip, and he let the subject drop.

  “Now that Victory is in her new home, shall I show you yours?” he asked.

  Imogen nodded, then shook her head and said, “I rather you show me where the Kirkellan will stay, so I know where to find my tiermatha.”

  Jeffrey nodded and led her around to the front of the palace again, wondering if she expected her tiermatha to go everywhere with her. How was she supposed to attend diplomatic functions trailed by twelve fierce warriors who looked capable of disemboweling someone with a dinner fork? And yet…was it his job to tell her how to do hers? She wouldn’t be much good as a Kirkellan ambassador if he told her what to say or do. He sighed. He just had to hope she’d get over being homesick and probably resentful and learn to serve her people. Something in that rang an echo in his head, but he couldn’t think why.

  “You are unhappy with me,” Imogen said.

  “What? No, I’m not,” Jeffrey said, uncomfortably aware that this wasn’t exactly true.

  “You made—” Imogen gave a sigh. “That is a not comfortable sound. You think I should not want to see my tiermatha.”

  How much lying should he do? “I know how important your tiermatha is—are?—to you,” he said carefully. “You would not be Imogen if you didn’t care about them. I am worried that…you don’t want to be here. To be an ambassador.”

  Imogen stopped. “You do not know that,” she said. She put her gear on the ground and crossed her arms across her chest.

  “I can guess. You wanted to go home, didn’t you? And Mairen told you you’d be the ambassador because you speak Tremontanese, and you resented it. So I think you’re resisting it, and that worries me.”

  Imogen looked away from him, toward the palace wall. “I speak Tremontanese, and you and I are friends,” she said in a low voice. “If we are not friends, Mairen had find—would have found someone else.”

  Jeffrey was staggered. “So you don’t want us to be friends? Isn’t it a little late for that?”

  Imogen laughed, still looking away. It sounded bitter. “I am not nice to you because I felt it was your fault I am here,” she said. “I am angry at Mother. You are right. I do not want to be here, but I promised I would be a good ambassador and I break my promise already.” Her voice wobbled a little. Jeffrey closed his eyes and sighed again. “There,” Imogen said. “That is the disappointed sound you make.”

  He stared at her, disbelieving, then started to laugh. After a while Imogen turned back to look at him. Her face was a mixture of irritation and confusion that made him laugh harder. “That’s not disappointment,” he said when he regained control of himself. “That’s the sound I make when I don’t know what to do. Imogen, I know you’re sad and frustrated and now you’re lonely because everyone you know is gone, but being resentful isn’t going to make things better. I—” He almost said, I know because my father left, too, but the words stuck in his throat. He said instead, “Isn’t there anything good about being here?”

  She looked blank, then smiled mischievously. “Elspeth says you have good Devices.”

  Jeffrey laughed again. “Anything else?”

  She pursed her lips, thinking. “Kate Fanshaw is nice to Victory. Nicer than Hrovald’s person was.”

  “Imogen…”

  She laughed. “Yes. I have friends. And you are one.”

  “Thank heaven for that. And you have…let me count…one hundred and eighteen Kirkellan friends who will be happy to go riding with you or fight with you or whatever it is you do for fun in the Eidestal.”

  “And I will be a good ambassador when I learn what that is.”

  “Didn’t Mairen tell you what to do?”

  “She said, tell people about the Kirkellan and listen to them talk about their—I mean themselves. But there should be more than that.”

  “Not really. You can find out what other countries want and what the Kirkellan can give them, and make agreements about that. But mostly you want other
countries to like yours so they’ll be friendly if you ever need anything from them.”

  Imogen nodded thoughtfully. “I think I can do that.”

  “So do I. Now, do you want to see your tiermatha, or do you want to leave that great bundle of yours somewhere? Because I really can get someone to take it to your rooms for you.”

  Imogen thought about it. “It is heavy,” she said, “and I think I can still be Kirkellan if someone else carries it.”

  Jeffrey looked around and snapped his fingers at a passing page. “Take this to the ambassador’s quarters,” he said, “wherever that is. Ask someone in the east wing for help.” As the page stumbled off under the weight of Imogen’s gear, he told her, “I thought you might be more comfortable among friends, so when I sent word you were coming I told them to set you up in the east wing. Elspeth and Owen will be there, and me and my mother—I think you’ll like her.”

  “If she is like her children I think I will like her too,” Imogen grinned, and together they proceeded toward the main entrance of the palace.

  Jeffrey had grown up in the palace, but now he saw it anew through Imogen’s amazed eyes. There was color everywhere, in the soft rugs that covered the floor, in the walls painted different colors in every room they passed, in paintings hung on the walls that contrasted with sculpture in white marble or warm, rosy wood. Imogen ran a finger across the bare shoulder of a naked marble woman only two feet tall, poised as if to take flight from the pedestal she perched on. “Is it that people in Tremontane often wear no clothes?”

  Jeffrey looked at the statue and laughed. “Some of our artists celebrate the human form by showing it unclad. If that woman were full-sized and alive, she’d be very embarrassed to be caught naked like that.”

  He pointed down a hall to a door where two guards in North livery stood sentinel. “This door leads to the east wing. That’s where you’ll be staying. I thought I should show you the way to the barracks from here, so you can find it yourself later.”

  He took her down a series of passages, all carpeted in dark blue with walls painted white and gold, then opened a door on a much less ornate, much narrower hallway that appeared to be in the older part of the palace. The walls were stone rather than painted plaster, and the floor was worn in the middle as if generations of palace inhabitants had walked this way every day for years. They had the hallway to themselves until they came to the end, where a guard in green and brown saluted the king and opened the door for him.

  They came outside into a cacophony of shouts and chanting and the clacking of wooden swords. When Jeffrey’s vision adjusted to the bright sunlight, he saw an exercise yard filled with men and women engaged in swordplay, calisthenics, hand to hand combat, and other training activities. Beyond the yard lay a wide green expanse hundreds of feet across, surrounded by tiers of seats painted bright green and white and covered by tapering roofs. Tiny figures ran around the edge of the open space delineated by the tiers. “What is that?” Imogen asked, pointing.

  “That’s the parade ground,” Jeffrey said. “The army does drills there, and we have other things, races and contests of skill, that people come to watch. George, how are you?” he said, extending his hand to a curly-haired older man wearing a sleeveless tunic stained with sweat. “Meet the Kirkellan ambassador, Imogen. This is the army’s training master, George Donaldson. George, has Fred come by yet?”

  “He was here about ten minutes ago. Over a hundred Kirkellan warriors, he said. Sounded a little—” Donaldson glanced at Imogen, then went on, “We’ll do our best, but I don’t mind telling you I’m a little worried at having over a hundred people barracked with us who don’t speak our language.”

  “They will learn. Or perhaps you will learn ours,” Imogen said, a little belligerently.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend,” Donaldson said stiffly.

  Imogen glanced at Jeffrey, and her belligerence faded. “No, I am the sorry one, I am worried about the language problem too.” Donaldson relaxed just a little. “Can I work here? With your people?” The people in question had mostly stopped working and were watching Imogen. She did stand out, Jeffrey thought, and probably would even if she weren’t dressed like a Kirkellan warrior. He wondered what she’d look like gowned for a reception. It was hard to imagine.

  “You, madam ambassador? I—” Now Donaldson looked astounded. “I beg your pardon, but is that something you should do?”

  “I am Kirkellan warrior too,” Imogen said.

  “Yes, but you’re a diplomat, and they’re just soldiers. If they hurt you—”

  Imogen laughed. “If they hurt me, then I deserve it,” she said. “And more likely I will hurt them. Though I try not to because that is bad…” She trailed off and waved her hand as if to convey a thought.

  “Bad form?” Jeffrey said, amused.

  “That is good enough. Bad form to hurt others for not being careful, you or them.”

  Donaldson looked confused, but nodded as if he understood. Probably he just wanted the strange conversation to end. Jeffrey covered his mouth to conceal a smile. “I assured the matrian that the ambassador could have as much training as she desires,” he said. “Try to get over your class consciousness just this once, George.”

  “As if I haven’t kicked your ass repeatedly since you were a kid, Jeffrey,” Donaldson said amiably. “And I admit it, milady, I’d like to see you fight.” He gave her a look of admiring appraisal. “Come by any time and we’ll give you a workout.”

  “Thank you,” Imogen said. “I would start now, but I think the king is tired of showing me places.”

  “Not at all,” Jeffrey said, realizing that he was enjoying himself. Imogen wasn’t at all shy about showing her emotions, amazement or irritation or amusement, and he found it interesting to show her something new and see what she thought of it. “Though I thought you might want to wash, since we’ve been on the road for so long.”

  “I will come back later,” Imogen assured Donaldson, and after one last look around the training yard, she went back the way they’d come, leaving Jeffrey to bid Donaldson goodbye and hurry to catch up.

  “I think he must be good at what he does,” Imogen said.

  “He is. What makes you say that?”

  “He wanted me not to fight because I am a diplomat, not because I am not a warrior. He could look at me and see what I can do. That is a not common talent.”

  “He taught my brother and me to fight. Sylvester never cared for it, but I got to be pretty good, if it’s not bragging to say so.”

  “It is never bragging to be honest, only to say you are better when you do not know you are,” Imogen said. “Maybe you and I will fight sometime.”

  “I don’t think I’m up to your weight class,” Jeffrey said without thinking, then immediately said, “Oh, heaven, that was rude.”

  “It was rude?” Imogen said. “I am heavier than you. That is not rude. It is unfortunate for you, I think.”

  Jeffrey choked on a laugh. “I mean in my culture it’s rude to comment on a lady’s weight.”

  “That is strange. Will a woman be less fat or too skinny if you say nothing?”

  “I, um, I never really thought about it. I suppose it’s rude because, um, if a lady is heavy and she doesn’t want to be, it’s rude to point out something she can’t help.”

  “I understand that better than the other. But I am a fat girl and I like how I am.”

  Jeffrey, looking at Imogen, thought he might have said “well padded” rather than “fat girl,” then wondered why he was trying to make the distinction. “I like how you are, too,” he said.

  “Thank you. Will those soldiers let me in?”

  “They will. I’ll make sure the guards on sentry duty all know who you are.” They passed between the soldiers and entered the east wing. A short hallway opened on a sitting room with a high ceiling and a vast fireplace made of river stones in which coals had been banked to a warm glow. The parquet floor was covered with plush rugs;
chairs and sofas upholstered in North blue raw silk were arranged near the fireplace, lamp Devices scattered throughout the room. Three other hallways led off the room at each of the other corners. One had light coming from it; the other two were dark.

  Jeffrey went to the fireplace and pulled a rope dangling from the ceiling. “I don’t know what rooms you’ve been assigned,” he said, “though I don’t know why it matters, they’re all pretty much alike.” He pointed at one of the dark hallways. “My mother lives down that hall, but she’s in Kingsport until tomorrow—” A man in North livery emerged from the well-lit hallway, bowing so the bald spot on the top of his head was visible. “Can you tell me where madam ambassador will be staying?”

  The man bowed again and silently led the way along the other darkened hall, past rows of doors that all looked alike even to Jeffrey, who’d grown up here. He wondered if they ought to put up a sign so Imogen could find her way back without having to try every door on her side of the hallway. “That’s my room, there,” he said, pointing, as if that mattered to her, “and Elspeth is across the way—”

  The door opened and Elspeth herself emerged. She gave a little shriek and flung herself at Imogen. “I’m so glad you’re here!” she squealed. “When Jeffrey said you were the ambassador I was just so thrilled! We’re going to have so much fun, you and I, I promise, it won’t be all stuffy dinners and receptions!”

  Imogen hugged the girl back. “I am glad to see you too. I did not know there would be stuffy anything. I still do not know how to be an ambassador, but I will try.” She looked at Jeffrey and smiled, and he smiled back at her, feeling lighthearted all of a sudden.

  “I know where her rooms are, so you can stop following her around, Jeffrey, I know you have work to do,” Elspeth said.

  “I—you’re right,” he said. “I will see you both at supper, then, and—” But they’d gone into Imogen’s room and shut the door, leaving Jeffrey feeling a little adrift. He went to his own room, deciding to wash before getting back to work. In fact, it was late enough he might not even go to his offices until tomorrow. Anything that had built up while he was gone could wait a few more hours, and the more he thought about it, the more itchy and dirty he felt. A long bath, and then a long supper with his family and Imogen. He felt better already.