Rider of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “Yes, but Tremontanan clothing is more like Ruskalder clothing, all those buttons up the back, and there are so many more layers.”

  “But I do not have Tremontanan clothing.” Imogen was puzzled. Why should Elspeth expect her to have anything but what she’d brought with her?

  Elspeth’s face went from surprised to horrified. “You don’t have any clothes.”

  “I have what I am wearing. My other shirt was torn in the battle, but this one is nice.”

  “No, I mean you don’t have the right clothes for the concert.”

  “Why cannot I wear—it is to say, what is wrong with my own clothes?”

  Elspeth shook her head. “Your clothes are good, they’re just not right for a concert. Everyone will be dressed up, you see, and you’ll….” She trailed off, her eyes anxious, then switched to Kirkellish. “They’ll laugh at you,” she said.

  “I don’t understand that at all,” Imogen replied in the same language. “They know what I am. I’ll look like what I am. What’s the problem?”

  “Look,” Elspeth said, her slightly shrill tone contrasting with her obvious attempt to be reasonable, “you dress differently for different things, right?”

  “I always dress the same.”

  “All right, most people dress differently for different things. We wear trousers for riding. We wear dresses for every day. We wear gowns for concerts and dances. If I wore a gown to go riding, you would think I was crazy, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, they will think you’re crazy for wearing your usual clothes to a concert.”

  Imogen’s cheeks heated up. “But this is all I have. I’m not Tremontanan. The Kirkellan don’t have fancy rooms to hold clothes; we have to carry everything we own. I don’t see why I should change just so strangers won’t laugh at me.”

  “Wouldn’t you expect me to dress like a Kirkellan if I came to stay with your people?”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “It just is!” Imogen shouted. It was different, though she couldn’t have told Elspeth how. She’d worn Ruskalder clothing in Ranstjad because Hrovald had insisted on it, and somehow she’d believed it would be different here in Tremontane, that she could be herself and wear her own clothes and not be forced to conform to someone else’s idea of who she was supposed to be. Apparently she was wrong.

  “You don’t need to yell at me,” Elspeth said in an injured tone. “I’m just trying to keep you from looking ridiculous.”

  “You think I look ridiculous?” Imogen shouted, gesturing to herself. “Me and my clothes I wash myself because I don’t know there are people to do that? Do you have people chew your food, too?”

  “Now you’re being stupid!” Elspeth yelled. “What makes you think you can come here and just…just keep on behaving like you’re back on the plains? And make fun of us because we have things you don’t?”

  “I’m here to represent my people, not turn into some fake Tremontanan woman who’s too soft to take care of herself!”

  “If you’re a representative of your people, they must all be stubborn and stupid,” Elspeth yelled, and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Imogen stormed into her bedchamber and slammed the door behind her. It made a satisfyingly loud bang and rebounded against the wall. She wasn’t going to cry. She was angry, and she didn’t cry when she was angry, she yelled and threw things and made everyone around her miserable. Angry. She lay down on her bed and curled up, and let the tears fall.

  She knew Elspeth was right, and it burned inside her. In Hrovald’s house she’d submitted to his dictates, given up fighting and exchanged her warrior’s garb for gowns, but she’d thought in Tremontane things would be different. That she wouldn’t have to give up who she was to fit into someone else’s idea of who she should be. A tiny voice inside her head said, Are you really only you because of your clothes? but she ignored it; it was small and stupid and so, for that matter, was Elspeth. She immediately felt guilty for the cruel thought. Elspeth just wanted to help. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t understand.

  She got up and scrubbed the tears from her eyes. She would go and find someone to play the new game with, the one they’d invented with the green-topped table and the balls that went tock when they struck each other, and try to suppress the uncomfortable feeling that she was the one being stupid.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Imogen woke with the first light, her head aching from a restless night. She went downstairs and found breakfast already laid out on the sideboard; she helped herself to bacon and eggs and toast and jam, poured out a large glass of apple juice and fell to. One of the nicest things about living in Aurilien, or maybe it was just the embassy, was there was always enough to eat. Hrovald had been stingy with food, although what there was of it was unexpectedly excellent. Mistress Schotton’s cook was talented and she believed in cooking for an army. Imogen was happy to be part of that army.

  She heard the distant sound of the front door bell. She had no idea what time it was, but surely it was too early for callers? In a minute a servant came in, bowed, and said, “Milady ambassador has a guest. Should I show her into the parlor?”

  “Who is it?” Imogen asked, swallowing a mouthful of toast.

  The servant hesitated. “The Dowager Consort, Alison North.”

  Imogen choked on her second mouthful. Elspeth’s mother. What on earth was Elspeth’s mother doing here at this hour? She felt guilty all over again, ashamed of the exchange she and Elspeth had had. Was the Dowager Consort here to chastise her for her rudeness? Imogen wiped her chin free of crumbs, brushed off the front of her shirt, and said, “Yes, please do have her go into the parlor and I will come soon.”

  She ate a few more mouthfuls of egg, drained her glass, then sat for a moment, composing herself. The Dowager Consort wouldn’t be so ill-bred as to yell at her in her own embassy, would she? She knew almost nothing of the lady. Elspeth hadn’t talked much about her family while she was Hrovald’s hostage, and Jeffrey had said little more, so Imogen only knew Elspeth looked like her mother, that her mother was the Royal Librarian (whatever that was) and that she needed lots of coffee in the morning before she could truly wake up. Imogen disliked coffee, so they didn’t even have that in common.

  She entered the parlor and came face to face with a beautiful woman who was obviously Elspeth’s mother. They shared the same pale blond hair, though Elspeth’s was straight where the Dowager Consort’s was a mass of riotous curls caught up at the nape of her neck, and they had the same heart-shaped face, porcelain skin, and enormous brown eyes. Unlike Elspeth, who always looked as if she were about to fly away and was, in Imogen’s opinion, far too thin even when she hadn’t been sick, this woman wore her weight well and carried herself with a calm assurance. She wore casual trousers and a full-sleeved shirt with ordinary work boots, an ensemble Imogen would never have expected to see on someone who’d been married to a King. She looked no older than Elspeth until she approached Imogen with her hand outstretched, and as she neared Imogen could see the fine lines around her eyes and lips, felt the inelasticity of the skin of her hand when she grasped it, and more than doubled her estimate of the woman’s age. Of course, she’d have to be—when did Tremontanan women start having children, anyway?—in her late forties at least, to have a child as old as Jeffrey. Imogen hoped she would age as well as the Dowager Consort had.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you,” the woman said. “Elspeth told me you were an early riser, so I thought I’d take the chance you’d be awake at this hour.”

  “You have had your coffee, then,” Imogen said without thinking, and the Dowager Consort laughed, a robust sound at odds with her delicate face.

  “I see Elspeth has been telling tales,” she said. “It’s a sad truth I’m addicted to the stuff. Hot and sweet and milky, that’s how I like it, and I’m usually fit to talk to people once I’ve gotten two or three cups of it into my system.”r />
  “Then I am glad to meet you. Please sit down, if you wish to talk, that is.”

  “I do, if you don’t mind. I wanted to meet the woman my children speak so highly of.” They both sat, Imogen facing the Dowager Consort, perched on the edge of her chair, still expecting a reprimand. “I don’t have words to express my gratitude for how well you cared for my daughter. She was…very ill, wasn’t she?”

  Imogen nodded. “She is still not well. And I am afraid she will always get sick in the winter, now.”

  “So am I. We have good doctors here, and the palace healer, and…anyway, we’ll do our best to keep her healthy.” Imogen waited for her to bring up the rape, but the Dowager Consort blotted her eyes with her fingertips and said, “And Jeffrey tells me you led a rescue during the battle. He’s very impressed by you.”

  Imogen blushed. “It is only that I did what is—was—should be done. War is like that.”

  “It seems we owe you thanks all around, then.”

  Imogen shrugged. “I am glad I can make things better. Elspeth is….” She couldn’t think how to say it without seeming rude. “Fragile,” she said finally.

  “That’s as good a word as any. She’s sweet and intelligent, but she makes people want to protect her. Thank heaven she found Owen Hunter. He’d die for her if he thought his life would save hers.”

  “He did try to die for her, I think. Is he not now Owen North?”

  “Hmm? Oh. No, they chose an indirect adoption. Owen’s been accepted here in the city, but we didn’t think Tremontane’s acceptance would extend to seeing a Ruskalder adopted into the royal house.” Seeing Imogen’s blank expression, she explained, “It means they each maintain their status in their birth family and neither of them has a claim on the estate of the other. Their children, on the other hand, inherit both their parents’ estates and both surnames. So Elspeth is still Elspeth North, Owen is Owen Hunter, and their children will take the name North Hunter.”

  “I am still not sure I understand the why, but I think I understand the what.”

  “Then you’re doing better than half of Tremontane, I think.” The Dowager Consort cleared her throat. “I…you probably know I’m not just here to say hello.”

  Imogen froze. “You are angry with me for being rude to Elspeth.”

  The Dowager Consort shook her head. “Oh, it’s not you I’m angry with. I took Elspeth and Jeffrey both to task for making assumptions and then letting you believe it was your fault.”

  “It is not Jeffrey who does this.” Imogen wondered at the kind of woman who could take a King to task for anything, even if she was his mother.

  “Jeffrey has a responsibility toward you as the representative of a people we’ve just signed an important treaty with. It’s in his interest to ensure you meet the diplomatic community as an equal, something that won’t happen if you can’t fit into society.”

  Imogen felt her anger rising again. “It is wrong to say I cannot be who I am. I am not of this society. Everyone knows this.”

  “And you think it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.”

  “Yes.”

  The Dowager Consort unexpectedly tucked one of her feet under her bottom, a casual gesture Imogen wished she could imitate. “I usually dress like this, you know,” she said. “My work is sometimes dirty, all those old documents—well, I’m sure that’s not interesting to you, and I have a tendency to talk too much about the Library. I hate dressing up for things. It used to be worse—do you know what a corset is?” Imogen shook her head. “It was an undergarment that shaped the body by lacing your waist and breasts very tightly, sometimes so tightly it was hard to breathe. One of the most satisfying things I did as Consort was to phase that fashion out completely.” She laughed, and Imogen smiled even though she wasn’t totally certain what the woman meant. “At any rate, I never felt comfortable in those gowns. Still don’t, really.”

  Imogen waited for her to continue, but she just gazed at Imogen absently, as if she weren’t seeing her. “You are talking about me now,” she said, still feeling resentful.

  “Every time I put on a gown, I’m still myself,” the Dowager Consort said. “It’s just a different side of me. It helped that my husband always looked at me as if I were the most beautiful woman in the room, no matter what I wore.”

  “You are the most beautiful,” Imogen said, and she laughed again.

  “To be honest, Imogen, I think if you stood beside me gowned the way Aurilien society expects a woman to look, no one would look at me at all. You are a remarkable woman.”

  Imogen blushed. The resentment began to fade. “I am beautiful however I dress,” she insisted.

  “You are yourself however you dress,” the Dowager Consort said. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you are defined by the way you look. You’re not one person in riding gear and another one in a dress and yet another in your nightgown.”

  Imogen tried to hold onto her resentment, but it slipped away. It was stupid of her to feel her identity was tied up in her clothing. If she could remain Kirkellan in the midst of soft beds and hot running water, she could remain Kirkellan in a Tremontanan gown. “I think you are right,” she said.

  “Call me Alison,” the Dowager Consort said, “and, Imogen, I would be so pleased if you let me help you with your wardrobe. Your clothing.”

  Imogen nodded. “I am grateful. I felt—” She didn’t know the right word. “I shouted at Elspeth because I did not want to lose myself.”

  Alison tilted her head to one side and smiled. “Maybe we can help you find yourself instead.”

  Imogen’s only experience with acquiring clothing, to date, had been visiting the Ruskalder seamstress who’d provided her with her gowns—that and sewing her own, as all the Kirkellan did. Alison North’s idea of acquiring clothing began with a ride in a carriage drawn by a pair of unhappy horses. “We’re going to need it,” she said, but wouldn’t explain further.

  To Imogen’s surprise, their first stop was not at a dressmaker’s but at a shop selling undergarments of all kinds, plus some odd garments Imogen couldn’t see the purpose of. The Kirkellan were being robbed, she realized, running her fingers over fabrics even finer than the silk her people traded with Veribold for. She was even more disconcerted when Alison presented her with one of those odd garments and demonstrated how to wear it. “It’s beginning to replace the corset, for those of us with rather fuller figures. It’s called a brassiere.” Imogen was grateful it went on underneath her clothes. In the back room, she examined it. The stitching was so fine it was nearly invisible, and she’d never seen the fabric it was made of before. She felt embarrassed, and angry at herself for being embarrassed. She must look like such a…a barbarian to these people, in her clumsily-stitched shirt and the trousers she’d made herself. No wonder Elspeth had been ashamed of her. She put the strange garment on; it felt as awkward as she did. Surely everyone would know she was wearing it.

  But Alison didn’t say anything about it, didn’t even comment on her appearance, just directed the shop assistant to wrap several of them, along with more undergarments than Imogen had ever owned in her life, and stow it all in their carriage. To Imogen’s further surprise, their next stop was at a place displaying trousers and vests and shirts behind a glass window wider and taller than Imogen’s arm span. “Well, it’s my favorite kind of clothing, and I think they’ll have things you can wear without any bothersome fittings,” Alison said, and shepherded her charge up the stairs and into the shop. The idea of ready-made clothing, both here and in the undergarment shop, stunned Imogen. To think tailors—this was a word she learned from Alison—in Aurilien could afford to make clothing for no one in particular, hoping someone would buy it, and people actually did! She wandered around the shop, fingering the fabric, until Alison called her over and piled trousers and shirts into her arms, then directed her to another back room where she could put things on to see if they fit.

  She came out wearing long trousers that fit better than her o
wn and a loose shirt in a soft red fabric that reminded her of her favorite dress back in Ranstjad, and nearly walked into another woman before she realized the woman was her own reflection. The brassiere certainly did alter her figure, she thought, turning to see herself from all angles, and she liked the effect. She stood and stared, not at her body, but at her hazel eyes, her nose that turned up at the end, her round cheeks that were sallow from the long winter. She could be herself even in these unfamiliar clothes. In these unfamiliar undergarments. She looked back at her own clothes, discarded in the back room, and felt not embarrassment, but shame.

  “Those look wonderful,” Alison said when she saw her. “Go try some others on. I’m so glad they have trousers that fit someone as tall as you.”

  “But these are nice,” Imogen protested. “I do not want others.”

  “Oh, you’ll need at least six more shirts and another four pairs of trousers.” Alison laughed at Imogen’s dumbfounded expression. “You’re a very active young woman and I hate to think of how hard your laundry would have to work to keep up with you if you didn’t have a few changes of clothing.”

  The carriage was burdened with more packages. Imogen walked out of the shop in her new red shirt and trousers, with her old clothes bundled up under her arm where no one could see what they were. Alison eyed the little bundle, but said nothing. “I’m afraid this next stop won’t be so much fun,” she told Imogen when they were underway. “Lots of measuring tapes and fittings, but I assure you you’ll like the results.”

  This shop, unlike the other two, had no glass windows of any size, just a discreet plaque next to the door with something in Tremontanese written on it. When Alison pushed the door open, a tinny bell rang out. “Julian?” she said. “I’ve brought you a wonderful surprise.”

  “One moment, milady Consort, I’ll be with you shortly,” a man’s tenor voice said from a back room. Soon a little man, balding on top and wearing a length of measuring tape dangling around his neck, emerged from a dark doorway. “Now—” he began, saw Imogen, and went silent, his mouth agape. “Good heaven,” he said faintly. He turned his faintly protuberant eyes on Alison. “Milady Consort,” he said in the same faint tones, “please tell me you wish me to dress this young woman.”