Kally watched her husband through the half-open door of his dressing room. Yevgen was holding two rather similar blue tunics up to his face, trying to decide which was more suitable for that night’s reception. Evidently, neither was quite right, for he discarded both, much to the consternation of his valet, and selected a third, in a subdued shade of blue with silver frogging that went better with his grey breeches.
Kalasin’s maid had vanished into Kally’s own dressing room to take care of last-minute adjustments to her gown, which was made up of a thousand shades of blue. The inspiration had come from the fine wool shawl that Yevgen had sent as a betrothal gift, and she would wear the sapphires he had given her with the dress.
She watched the valet’s actions with a small smile. While she had known no few dandies in Corus, there were very few Tortallan knights who would admit to taking such care with their appearance. She had rapidly realized that the Imperial perspective on such things was slightly different, though in retrospect it was quite logical. Just as female aristocrats thought nothing of spending days in mud-splattered armour (though they would complain a little about the discomfort) and running people through with three feet of steel, male aristocrats, if they were so inclined, didn’t place much significance on their ability to tell the difference between burgundy and cerise, and which would be more suitable for a formal tunic.
It was just one of the many small differences the Kally was finding between Yevgen and herself, for all that they got along so well. She was very glad now that she had resisted the urge to tease him about his slight vanity when she had first discovered it last spring, after the most urgent of the matters in Sarain had been dealt with. Yevgen would have been more embarrassed that he didn’t understand the joke than anything else, but they did not need that strain on the marriage. The less-rigidly defined masculine and feminine roles in the Empire (sometimes Kally wondered if there were such things at all), a situation which Kally had originally thought perfectly natural, had taken longer to get used to than she had expected, which annoyed her more than a little. Even though she had grown up watching her mother’s Riders and Keladry of Mindelan with admiration and envy, and could shoot a bow and wield sword and knife with a degree of competence, it had been a while before she could pass the female members of the castle garrison in the corridors without a slight feeling of surprise. It had finally sunk in one day when she was riding out with Yevgen and overheard two of the male knights, the burliest members of their bodyguard, exchanging embroidery tips. After that, it was far easier to accept that Imperials did things differently. The local Saren leaders were too busy being shocked at the Imperials themselves to question Kally’s right to be there, which was a relief.
Of course, anyone who thought that because the new Saren King was in any way weak, or that his discerning taste meant some sort of masculine deficiency was usually soundly relieved of that notion on the practice courts. Just as any suggestion that the female knights and soldiers were somehow less feminine was somewhat undermined when it was discovered that more than half of the local male equivalents were busy writing love-letters.
Kally’s maid came and indicated that the gown was ready for her to put on, so she followed the woman into her dressing room and slipped into the dress. By the time she came out, Yevgen was ready, with his valet buzzing around adjusting his hair so that the slight wave at the front fell just so. As usual, he had chosen to complement Kalasin’s clothes, so his elegant blue and grey was a perfect foil for her own gown.
He opened his mouth, seemingly about to say something, when there was knock at the door. With a barely audible sigh, he motioned for his valet to open it.
“Good evening Yevgen, Kalasin,” came a familiar voice, “I hope I’m not interrupting?”
Yevgen gave a genuine smile as he crossed the floor to greet his twin sister. Princess Berenice, the Imperial Heir, was wearing what Kally now knew was the traditional ‘civilian’ dress for a knight. It consisted of an ankle-length, sleeveless tunic (Kally was enough of a Tortallan to hesitate calling something worn by men a ‘dress’), and what appeared to be a long mantle draped in heavy, complicated folds around the body. It was worn mainly by older and diplomatic knights. Kally had observed that most of the younger and military knights that were at Court at the present time dressed as Yevgen did, while a few of the younger female knights had started to copy Kalasin’s now-distinctive long sleeved, fitted Tortallan-style gowns (the ones, obviously, with good relationships with their couturiers considering she’d only been there a week). Kay had chosen a tunic of graduating shades of pink, from a deep rose to a barely-there tint, and the deep purple mantle of the Heir. She wound her pale blonde hair, the same shade as Yevgen’s, under her formal coronet. Kally had noted that long hair seemed to be the sole preserve of Delmaran females – all the other Imperial knights that she knew kept their hair shoulder-length or shorter.
Kally knew Kay better than she knew Rislyn, mainly as Yevgen himself was closer to his twin, and because Kay had come to stay with them for much of the winter, leaving only when Chitral Pass was perfectly clear, though Kally knew perfectly well that Kay’s long stay was not so much due to travel restrictions as to allow Yevgen and Kally time to get to know each other before they had to take full responsibilities for rule.
“How are you two?” Kay was saying, “Kalasin, that’s an absolutely divine gown! I love the gathered effect here…”
It was slightly disconcerting to hear the woman Kally had seen bellow obscenities at slovenly gate guards and wield a two-handed broadsword with equanimity talking about the quality of Carthaki silk as opposed to Femarian damask, but she was rapidly becoming aware that nothing in the Empire was quite what she had originally thought. Yevgen caught her eye and raised a corner of his mouth in an amused lilt, understanding her line of thought.
“So we got in this afternoon. I thought I might pay a visit before we faced the wolves, if it’s not too much trouble…” she glanced between Yevgen and Kalasin with a funny expression on her face.
“Trouble?” Kally asked.
“It’s the reception connected with the formal opening of the special Senate session,” Kay explained as they made their way out of the suite and down to the grand reception rooms. “It’s only for a few days…all they’ll do is vote for a formal expression of condolences about mother, and then formally vote Rislyn in as Empress.”
“The Empress is voted in?” this was news to Kally, for all that Yevgen had given her a very sketchy idea of Imperial politics over the last year.
“Technically,” Kay hesitated, “it’s a bit complicated. The Empire started out as just another merchant city-state, much like…say, Tyra, and the Senate was originally just a gathering of the prominent citizens who ran the city. Obviously, things changed when Bersone expanded, and the Empresses took charge. But it’s a sort of harking back to our roots, and,” she added with a wry twist to her mouth, “it gives the people a illusion that they actually have a say in who the next Empress is.”
“The Senate is technically elected from the people,” Yevgen took over, “but there are qualifications, such as land ownership. Consequently, it’s made up of knights…” he glanced at his sister.
“…lawyers, bankers, and merchants, in that order,” Kay concluded.
They walked in silence for a little while, aware that they were drawing closer to the party.
“Any trouble?” Yevgen asked anxiously.
“Not that I know of.” Kay shook her head, making the rubies and amethysts in her coronet sparkle. Yevgen and Kalasin had selected simpler headwear, Kalasin in the delicate tiara Yevgen had given her as part of his betrothal present, he in a simple silver band set with two sapphires and a diamond. “Petronil would have told the Council.”
“The Senate representative on the Empress’s Council,” Yevgen explained to Kally, “he’s a knight, and a good one. For pure biographical interest, he’s also Radanae Gavrillian’s father. I’ll point him out, but it’s obvious when you see him.”
By then they had reached the doors that lead to the Grand Ballroom. The herald motioned for Kally and Yevgen to come to him, but Kay bid them both a brief adieu and quietly slipped in through a side door.
Kally took a deep breath as she lay a hand on Yevgen’s arm and followed him to the entrance. She reminded herself that she had done this sort of thing hundreds of times before in Corus, but it didn’t help. In the end it was of no matter. Even had she tripped down the staircase, it wouldn’t have made one difference to their reception. Yevgen was evidently popular, and she was immediately pronounced a success. The first few hours passed in a whirl as Yevgen pointed out people of interest, and those related to those she knew. As he indicated Radanae’s parents, her mother a famed General and also a member of the Council, Kally understood why, even though she was a bit small by family standards and had odd interests, Radanae was unchallenged as family heir. She caught a glimpse of Justinia’s unknighted mother, a coroner and respected barrister, who had left the Academy in her second last year to pursue her legal career. Radanae and Justinia themselves, and others of Yevgen and Kay’s friends, those who had accompanied them to Tortall, and those who had been part of the first delegation to Corus came to reintroduce themselves and make her welcome. Aulan, Yevgen’s former roommate, came over to flirt lightly with her before being glared away by Yevgen. Despite having to hold dozens of useless conversation with boring people who examined her as though she were a racehorse at auction, Kally enjoyed most of it, until she heard a very familiar tone, though the voice was new.
“Good evening your Majesties, are you enjoying the party?” it was a woman’s low soprano, and poisonously polite, much like those of the girls she’d had to go to school with when they were being their rudest.
Yevgen evidently recognised it, for he froze momentarily before turning around in a slight bow. “Good evening, Dama Selera. Very much so.”
The newcomer was a strikingly beautiful woman in her early twenties, with rich dark hair perhaps a shade lighter than Kally’s, very pale skin and eyes of an unsettlingly familiar amber hue. There was some sort of tension between Yevgen and herself, and Kally was almost cattily pleased to see that the woman’s very correct attire – in a white tunic and mantel bordered with the complex red and purple design that indicated her graduating year from the Academy – did not flatter either her figure or her complexion.
“I have not had the honour of being presented her Her Majesty,” Selera gave a nod to Kally that was just short of rude.
Yevgen drew himself up, but managed to present the beautiful stranger as Dama Selera Carloni, and then finished “I understand that I am to wish you joy, Dama?”
Kally was then aware that the immediate area around them had gone dead quiet for a function, with no few of the younger knights looking oddly in their direction. Behind a pillar, she could just make out Radanae, in an apple-green tunic, sea-green mantle, and a beautiful carved jade necklace and armband set having a lively conversation with a very large young man with whom she shared a striking resemblance. Evidently there was some trouble, for she sent him off in Kally and Yevgen’s direction, arriving in front of them just as Yevgen finished his sentence, “…Sir Rory Gavrillian.”
Radanae’s elder brother bowed, made some small talk, then a feeble excuse and dragged his fiancée to the opposite end of the room, no mean feat though Kally thought that he must be at least six and a half feet tall.
The silence in their immediate area went on for just a little too long before the young knights went back to their too-trivial conversations. Yevgen was standing still, the completely blank expression on his face hiding all sorts of emotions. At length, though he forced a sociable smile on his face, and guided Kalasin around to meet more people. As she talked about the severity of Saren storms as opposed to the ones in Bersone, Kally remembered where she had seen amber eyes like that before.
Dama Felara Eriel, Yevgen’s former lover. No, she corrected herself sadly as she heard herself say something about ice storms in Tortall’s north, his love.
Later in the evening, when Yevgen had been drawn away to talk about the fur trade, Kally caught a glimpse of a sea-green mantle disappearing around a marble pillar. Anxious to find out from one of her husband’s friends who she knew reasonably well what the meeting with Dama Selera Carloni was about, Kally followed, encouraged when she saw Rory Gavrillian duck out after his little sister.
“What were you thinking, letting Selera embarrass Kalasin like that!” Radanae’s voice was not designed to whisper, so the hiss carried to Kally easily.
“She’s her own woman. I swear, I had no idea she was going to be so stupid until she went up to them.” Rory’s voice was a comfortable baritone, and equally unused to whispering.
A sigh. “Look. Try and keep her away from them. And for the Empire’s sake, make sure no one mentions it anywhere near Kalasin. It’s bloody hard enough trying to run a country, keep up an arranged marriage, and know about one significant in your husband’s life – she knows about Lara – without knowing about less pleasant histories. Remember. Not a word about Selera anywhere near Kalasin or her attendants.”
Rory made a noise of assent and departed, returning to the ballroom somewhere to Kally’s right. There was a delay of a few minutes, before a soft rustle of silk indicated that Radanae was also about to return to the party.
She stepped out and almost ran over Kalasin. Kally gave the other woman no time to be surprised, as she immediately asked, “Who is Selera Carloni? And what is she to Yevgen?”
It looked like a balcony. Kalasin almost would have believed that they were outside, were it not for the comfortable temperature, and the occasional fall of snow against the perfectly clear glass. For a diplomat, Radanae was unusually short of words.
“The Delmaran Family runs heavily to daughters,” she began at last, “and it’s not unusual for several generations to pass without any princes. Like so many rare things, princes tend to be coveted by those who don’t really appreciate them for what they are.” A pause. “I’ll be as succinct as possible, because none of us really like talking about it. There are too many of our shortcomings in it. Now, just because gender is no bar to entry to the Knight’s Academy, it doesn’t tend to follow that we’re all very nice and tolerant people. Selera is one who is not. Oh, she’s intelligent, and loyal to the Empire, never doubt that, and she and Rory are in love, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stand her at the dinner table at home. Anyway, she was part of a group of several girls at the Academy who got their sport at the expense of those who were perhaps less clever and less skilled on the practice courts, or came from less exhalted families than themselves.” Radanae allowed herself a small grin. “My own little group of friends and I never noticed, of course. Kay and Ris were princesses, I was smarter than all of them put together and rich enough to buy them several times over, and Justinia was old Lady Ferox’s granddaughter and perfectly able to kill them by ‘accident’ in the fencing gallery. Lara was one of their favourite victims, for all that she’s Selera’s cousin,” Kally nodded, now knowing where the eyes came from, “but after Kay took Lara under her wing when they became roommates, they sensibly left Lara alone. Now, to come to the most important point, in our mid-teens, they had managed to gather between themselves a very considerable pool of about thirty gold pieces, which would go to the first one of them to well…spend a night with the prince.” Radanae purposefully left it vague, knowing that Kally would work it out. After a few seconds of silence, she continued. “Suffice to say, Selera suddenly found the funds to purchase a new horse – not a Gavrillian, of course,” Kally heard some snobbish, rather self-satisfied tones there, “but a horse nonetheless. You can guess what happened next. Kay had a rather bewildered younger brother to deal with, and did so by introducing him to her roommate. And the rest, so they say, is history. Consequently, none of us have ever liked Selera much, though, in all fairness, she is generally an exemplary example of knighthood, and tonight’s performance is fairly inconsistent with her present character.”
Whoever kept Selera away from Kally after that, whether it was Rory, his friends, or Yevgen’s, did a very good job, for Kalasin never saw her again, save from a very great distance at the largest formal functions.
Yevgen and Kally walked back to their apartment in the early hours of the morning in their customary companionable silence, though Kally was aware that it was tempered with a little tension, even though it was not directed at her.
“What did you think of Senator Petronil?” Yevgen forced the question out in a brightly-lit corridor when the quiet had started to become just a little bit oppressive.
“He seems a very knowledgeable gentleman. I think I see a lot of him in Radanae,” Kally ventured a cautious comment, aware that he was not conversing with his customary ease.
“Yes, most do.” They continued down the hall, until they reached the doors of their room. As always, Yevgen stepped forward and held the door open for them.
Someone had evidently tidied up the suite while they were gone, and had noted when they had left the party so as to leave pots of tea, coffee and chocolate as well as a plate of cakes on the dining table.
“Chocolate?” he asked, pouring a cup and holding it out to Kally, she accepted, then examined him over the gilt rim. A year ago, she would have thought that the was nothing wrong, but now, after nearly a year and a half spent in very close quarters, she knew Yevgen well enough to know that the too-normal, calm exterior belied some fairly fraught thoughts and emotions. She pitied whoever had to face him later in the morning on the practice courts. She had seen him fight often enough – both in practice and for real – often enough to know that he was a formidable opponent, even in his usual, human form. Yevgen was an accomplished enough wildmage to be able to shapeshift, but so far she had only caught the briefest of glimpses of him in his favoured wolf-form, that he had used for spying on the Scanran border. He hadn’t done it in her vicinity since.
He held out the plate of cakes for her to make the first choice, and then selected a miniature fruit tart for himself and sat down in one of the chairs, absently loosening the collar of his tunic.
“I thought that went reasonably well,” Kally took the other chair and a small cinnamon scroll. As with most large functions, there had not been a great deal of food at the reception, and she had long learned that the trick to such parties was to eat before and afterwards.
“Yes, quite,” Yevgen replied, before it was obvious that his mind took off somewhere else.
“It was quite nice seeing so many people I met in Tortall.” Kally continued gamely.
“Kay tells me that they ask after you whenever she meets them.” Again, she had to admire his ability to make sensible conversation while his mind was completely engaged elsewhere.
Kally couldn’t really take his forced politeness and absentness anymore. “Yevgen.” She said in a clear tone, which made him jerk a little, “I have some idea what Dama Selera did, and it’s none of my business, I know, but…” she trailed off at the expression in his eyes.
“Who told you?” he asked, his voice light and dangerous.
She backed away slightly from this completely new side of him. “R…Radanae. I ran into her during the eveni…” Kally didn’t get a change to finish as Yevgen got up from his seat, and with only a very absent ‘Excuse me’, bolted out the door, not even bothering to close it.
The silence in the room was so thick that she could almost taste it. The sound of her breathing, the slight clink as she placed her cup back on its saucer was deafening. Her footsteps were eerily loud as she crossed the marble floor to close the door. It was just as quiet outside the suite. Rislyn, Corin and Kay, who were the only other occupants of the wing, were either still at the function or had found their own entertainments. She sighed as she returned to her seat, unlacing the back of her gown as she did so. The exquisite blue silk fell in a heap at her feet, and Kally unceremoniously scooped it up and pitched it onto the couch in her dressing room. The dainty slippers came next, and then she pulled the pins out of her hair and dumped her jewellery onto the dresser, before changing into her night-gown.
The bed was huge, and the linens were of her favourite blue. Yevgen must have arranged it, for, she guessed, judging from the rest of the décor in the suite, the original hangings and coverlets had probably been the customary red and purple. She smiled at his consideration of her tastes. The romantic in her sighed grumpily. That part of her had been overjoyed at fulfilling the cliché of fairy tales, of handsome princes and beautiful castles. The more practical side of her had enjoyed the last year, tough as it was, of rebuilding Sarain, of finally being able to be her own woman.
She had a pretty good idea of where Yevgen had gone, though, in all fairness, she didn’t feel that it was anything that he should be so concerned about. Kally knew perfectly well that Yevgen had fallen in love at least once before he met her, and it didn’t much matter how many other times he had done so. What mattered, she told herself sternly, was that now he was faithful to her.
It was evident that Yevgen wasn’t going to be back for a while so she pulled the covers up to her neck and lay back on the pillows, thinking. She was Queen Kalasin of Sarain, formerly the Princess Royal of Tortall. She was a competent archer and a passable swordswoman. A trained healer with a powerful Gift. She was married to a wildmage King with good manners who became more of an enigma the better she knew him, as contradictory as it sounded. For that matter, she no longer seemed to know herself. Back in Tortall, it had been easy. She was the eldest Princess, the beauty, the frustrated knight. In Sarain, she was the new Queen, descendent of the jin Wilimas, with dangerous radical views about the way things ought to be done, but with good sense and more ability that the others who had come before her. Now, Kally thought, away from all that, it was no longer so easy to know who she was. The luxuries of this short holiday, and the boredom associated with it, were dangerous. It left her too much time to think about things that simply weren't relevant back ...as she consciously called Sarain now...home. She and Yevgen had left much of the running of the country in the hands of the Council, a body that contained Imperial, Saren, K’mir and Doi members, but worked surprisingly well together. She was Queen Kalasin of Sarain, Princess Royal of Tortall, but that didn’t matter at all in Bersone, where those two countries didn’t even appear on most maps.
*********************
Conversations and Revelations
The Gavrillian House had been prominent in the Empire for so long, and had kept their suite in the Palace for so long, that nobody so much as raised an eyebrow, much less and objection, when they decided to redecorate that suite a year ago. Unlike the rest of the Palace, with its elegant marble, mother-of-pearl highlights, and arched doorways, the Gavrillian suite was furnished in such a manner to make its occupants feel at home. Thus, the floors were of polished wood, covered with woven rugs more for decoration than warmth (for the central heating in the Palace reached almost every corner), and the House colours of amber and warm green predominated.
Rory was staying with their parents, so Radanae had the suite to herself, and she’d invited Kay and Justinia back after the party for a sort of post mortem on the affair. Kelvar, her younger brother, and a member of the elite Empress’s Swords, was on assignment keeping an eye on the more outspoken members of various political organisations that might one day be a threat to Rislyn’s rule. Evidently, an important part of that assignment was spending a lot of time drinking with his quarry and meticulously detailing tavern bills on his expense claim forms. He had found accommodations for himself in a part of the capital that respectable knights weren’t supposed to go to (which meant that they all knew the area as well as they knew the Palace), so it was unlikely that he’d drop in.
“So, what do you think?” she asked her guests, flopping down onto the leather couch. After the function, they’d all changed from their formal clothing into long trousers of stout cotton twill, overdyed so that they appeared almost black, and long-sleeved knitted tunics that barely came to their hips. It was clothing worn by miners and farmers in the northern provinces, and had recently become popular as casual winter wear among knights who had been stationed there.
“Well, if it wasn’t for Selera Carloni being a pretentious bitch – as usual – I think it all went rather well. I saw Evie and Kalasin before the function. They seemed fine. I mean, they got along a lot better than I think I’d get along with somebody my mother picked out for me from a portrait, but that’s not saying much.” Kay swirled her goblet of warm spiced wine around before sipping it. “A very nice one. The ’43 Refaria Shiraz?”
“The ’44,” Radanae corrected. “Even I can’t afford to boil the ‘43 to oblivion with a cinnamon stick and a bit of ginseng.”
Justinia raised her own goblet in a sort of salute. Like most warriors, she viewed formal functions with dread, and only went for the off chance that there might be a moderately entertaining riot. Unlike most others in her position – a good fighter from an undistinguished House, no matter how illustrious the other part of her heritage – she had no real need to go to functions to make connections, already being one of Kay’s most trusted lieutenants. “I definitely think that they get along better than most arranged matches,” she agreed. “It is a pity that Carloni is otherwise so talented,” she mused.
“You mean that she’s one of very few we have who can fight a war and negotiate the peace settlement without giving the other side inflated ideas about their own importance?” Kay asked cynically.
“I was trying to be diplomatic,” Justinia snapped.
“Don’t. It doesn’t become you. Leave it to the pen-pusher there.”
Radanae mumbled a protest through her mouthful of soup. Like most veterans of more tedious social functions, she had made prior arrangements for a decent meal afterwards. Hence, the women helped themselves from a large tureen of thick chicken and vegetable soup with noodles, crusty rolls with butter, a selection of cheeses, and a substantial fruit crumble served with cream.
“Evie was always the romantic,” Kay sighed as she put her bowl and spoon down on the low table that Justinia had dragged into the perfect place for them to rest their feet. “That’s why I think the business with Carloni when we were sixteen turned into such a mess. That’s why I think I dislike her so. It would have been different had that sort of thing been the same for him as it was for the rest of us – a bit of a lark, a chance to see how close we could get before we got dragged in front of the Dean – in one case, to collect a bet.” Here she glanced at Justinia, who had the grace to blush. “But she had to convince Evie that he was in love with her. In retrospect, that’s where I slipped up with Lara. I thought it might take his mind off it. But no, once bitten, he’s convinced that every time that sort of thing happens, he ought to be in love with the girl, never thinking that it’s all going to end badly once mother remembered that the old rules on arranged marriages or discouragement thereof, don’t really apply to royals.” She sighed. “Things have ended badly for him twice. That’s where that ‘oddness’ you’re talking about might be coming from. On one hand, romantic Evie is convinced that he really ought to make an effort to fall in love – whatever that is – with his wife, considering that death or divorce aren’t really preferable options for the foreseeable future. On the other, King Yevgen the really-ought-to-be-responsible-now-that-he’s-nearly-twenty-two, knows that things get strained when one gets too emotionally hysterical. That part of him is trying to keep it as a ‘good friends and partners who happen to be trying to have a baby together’ sort of thing.”
“Are they?” Justinia asked, interested.
“Are they what?”
“Trying for a kid.”
“Well, if they’re not, they should bloody well be. It’s essential that they secure the succession before there's any grumbling from whatever scions are left over from previous dynasties.” Radanae was uncharacteristically blunt about it, “Most societies west of the Roof place a rather high emphasis on genealogical succession – it makes the Houses look positively casual.”
Justinia snorted her disbelief. “And Kalasin?” she asked, changing the subject.
Kay sighed. “Kalasin…Kalasin is a puzzle. I don’t know her nearly so well as I should like, and two decades worth of training has made her rather difficult to read. Initially, her response to Evie was more surprise and relief. I suppose if you’ve been brought up all your life to expect an arranged marriage to somebody three times your age with bad breath, almost anyone’s going to be a relief. And, of course, in my biased opinion, Evie doesn’t scrub up too badly, even if he is my brother. Last winter I got the impression that she was impressed by him, and this evening, I got a feeling that they have managed to come to some sort of understanding in the last year.”
“I still think that they’re in love with each other and too scared to admit it,” Radanae huffed, poking around in the tureen for more noodles.
Kay snorted. “Oh come on. How often does that happen in real life? I know you read three-copper romantic fluff when you should be boring yourself to sleep over treaties – and I don’t blame you for a minute – but that sort of thing never happens in real life. Yevgen and Kalasin are two perfectly sensible adults and decent rulers who can work together to really do some quite remarkable things. As such, they should be perfectly able to discuss such trifling matters between themselves.”
Radanae opened her mouth to rebut, but was interrupted by a furious knocking on the heavy oak door. “Who on earth could that be?” she asked, as Justinia, who was nearest to the door heaved herself up from her comfortable armchair and opened it.
Luckily, Justinia was a tall, strong woman, even by knightly standards, otherwise Yevgen would have knocked her over as he barrelled through the door. He was quite unkept, by his ‘peacetime Palace’ standards, hair mussed and tunic unbuttoned, showing a pale blue shirt. He came to a stop before Radanae, who was on the sofa, barely noticing the other two women in the room, much less make a remark on its décor like everyone else did.
“What did you tell her? And why did you tell her?” he asked, fists balled.
Radanae looked at him confusedly. “Tell who? About what?”
“Kalasin, of course,” he said impatiently, “Selera Carloni,” he spat out the name as though it burned his mouth.
“Oh. Well, in that case, that there was a pool of gold among the older girls at the Academy for the first one to get you into her bed, and that Selera Carloni, sometime during that period, managed to find the funds for a new horse. Kalasin’s not stupid, Yevgen, she knew something was odd from the minute Carloni came up to you and I gather she suspected something of the sort. As to why, she almost ran me down when you were talking to the Tevar Envoy and demanded some sort of clarification. Since you weren’t around to collaborate, I saw no point in telling anything other than the truth.”
His fists balled, then relaxed. He gave a visible exhalation of breath. “I suppose there really wasn’t anything else to be done,” he said reluctantly, sitting down on a convenient chair. “Could I have a drink?” he asked, and then accepted a goblet from Justinia. He took a rather bigger gulp than simple thirst could really account for.
He fidgeted with the fine silver stem for so long Radanae wondered if she would need to apologise to her mother for the state of the goblets when next they met. At length, though, Yevgen decided that he had not walked all the way from his quarters for a goblet of wine and five minutes worth of conversation. “Look.” He said after a long pause. “I appreciate that there wasn’t much else you could have done at the time, and that we’ve known each other, in some cases, since before we were born,” he exchanged a look with his sister, “but there are some things that I would prefer to tell my wife myself. She…Kally…means a lot to me. Gods, you don’t know how much she means to me…”
He was suddenly aware of the silence in the room, of the three pairs of eyes, of wildly different colours, staring at him in disbelief. He was suddenly aware that he’d said too much, and making a stock excuse, got up and left the room.
After another little pause, Kay audibly took a breath. “I stand corrected,” she said in a light tone. “Now, is there any of that goats’ milk Brie left? I can’t plot on an empty stomach.”
Kally couldn’t sleep, so even when he made an effort to open the door quietly and glide softly across the floor, she heard quite clearly when Yevgen got back. She sat up as he walked past the bed on the way to his dressing room, unbuttoning his tunic.
“She didn’t tell me very much, you know,” her words seemed to hang between them as he turned around in surprise. “In fact, she told me about as little as she possibly could.”
There was a moment of tension as he shrugged out of his tunic and sat down heavily on his side of the bed. “I didn’t think you’d still be up,” he said mildly. His eyes met hers momentarily, then he looked away. “Kally…it’s just…well…there are some things about me that I…I can’t tell you. I didn’t particularly appreciate someone else talking about them.”
Her hand, of its own accord, crossed the distance between them to his. “Whatever it was – I don’t pretend to know, and in any case it’s none of my business – Yevgen, whatever happened, it doesn’t matter to…to us.” It was meant as a reassurance, but she could see that it didn’t bring him much comfort. His head jerked up, and the dark brown eyes she liked so much were momentarily filled with such an expression of hurt and hopelessness that a second later, when he reverted back to his customary pleasant courtesy, she wondered if she had imagined it all. “I think I’d better get changed out of these,” was all he said as slid his hand out from under hers and continued towards his dressing room.
He must have been gone no more than a few minutes, but to Kally it seemed an eternity as she lay back down on the pillows, wondering what on earth had caused such a reaction in him. It wasn’t as though he seemed at all to mind whatever had gone on for her before they met. Even though she’d known very well that she couldn’t take any lovers for the same reason that she couldn’t become a knight – for who knows what prospective political bridegrooms might have funny views on – Yevgen wouldn’t have minded if she had. When she had, on some girlish whim, decided to follow the troops up to the Scanran border dressed as a Rider, it had been Yevgen who had met her first. She remembered that meeting, and the band of Scanran irregulars who had accosted them. After the initial shock of their meeting, he hadn’t seemed surprised, much less offended that she was there. He’d assumed that she was there to bid farewell to a lover, and politely informed her of the locations of various parts of the Tortallan army, as mildly as though he were discussing the weather. Why should there be such a response from him when she stated that she didn’t mind either? Life never goes the way one supposes, she told herself, he had no expectation of an arranged marriage, and I know that. Why should I mind that he didn’t have as many restrictions in his life before as I did? Well, yes, I am a bit miffed about it, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
The soft tread of bare feet on marble, coupled with the whisper of crisp linens and a slight movement in the mattress indicated that he had returned. Kally shifted slightly onto her side to face him.
“Is something else wrong?” she asked, “I mean, apart from the obvious.”
He looked at her seriously for a second. “No…not really. It’s only…well…I don’t think you’d have felt it yet. It’s just…well, it’s just that what I thought was home doesn’t feel like home anymore. I spent nearly all my life here and this time…I…I feel like a visitor. This last week…I’ve seen the people I grew up with – the ones that are here. Aulan with the Gate Guard, Tomas teaching at the Academy, Radanae in the Service – they still belong here. They’re happy here, doing what everyone thought they would end up doing. I thought that this would be a holiday, a short respite from all the cares back at the castle, back in Sarain, coming back to where I was comfortable, where I knew who I was and where I belonged - even if I wasn't always completely enthusiastic about it. But now…I suppose it’s an odd feeling, when you walk the corridors you’ve walked a thousand times, talk to people who you know inside and out – and who know you, and always wish you were…elsewhere. Talking to other people. Or arguing, as the case more often is with our hard-heads.” He sighed, then shook his head ruefully. “Look, I’m rambling on. Probably just tired and irritable. Don’t mind me. Thanks for listening, Kal,”
The gentle kiss was as delicate as the brush of a butterfly’s wing against her lips, and just as unexpected. They’d done more than their fair share of kissing (and everything else associated) in the last year and a half, but he still hadn’t lost his ability to take her breath away.
“Goodnight,” he said softly, drawing away and falling back onto the pillows, his eyes closed, and he seemed asleep.
Kally watched him for the merest fraction of a second, taking in the graceful sweep of his eyelashes, the lock of hair that refused to behave, before she, too, drew the blankets up again and closed her eyes. Within minutes, she joined him in slumber.
Someone trying to bribe Senator Sir Amergin Petronil had given him a bottle of very expensive wine in a variety both he and his wife despised. Consequently, his daughter decided to relieve the servants of the trouble of dusting it and shared it with her friends, who weren’t quite so picky when it came to fine wine. Anyway, if her father noticed, she had an identical bottle lying around in the collection locked in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet. Most senior diplomats didn’t like being bribed, but also thought that anyone silly enough to try such a stale technique deserved to lose their investment. So, as a compromise between their consciences, junior diplomats like Radanae could usually accumulate quite a nice collection of wine and useless ornaments by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. If she thought that some of those diplomats (especially those wanting plum assignments) might be, in turn, attempting to curry the favour of a House scion and daughter of two Councillors, she did not mention it as she accepted the cast-off gifts or when she shared her bounty with her peers.
“It’s only a few days until the coronation, blast it, and they’ll be gone soon afterwards. So will we, come to think of it,” Kay complained as she poured her second glass.
“We’ve worked on a tighter schedule before,” Radanae insisted.
“No we haven’t,” Justinia corrected her. “We hardly ever did the mushy stuff, and when we did, it took weeks, if not months, to set up, and then it always went quite messily to hell.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Radanae glared at her unfortunately accurate best friend, who downed her glass in one go. Justinia ignored her.
“Well, that doesn’t matter,” Radanae continued brightly, “hasn’t Ris been complaining about how inefficient it is for all the Embassies west of the Roof to all send their correspondence directly to Bersone? We don’t have enough mages, and the transport costs are going through the roof. Now, wouldn’t it be better if all the non-essential correspondence and non-vital intelligence went to a central point for preliminary analysis so we can determine what was really essential and send that on express, while the rest travels in bulk? And what better point is there than…”
“Yevgen’s capital in Sarain,” Kay concluded, “Perfect.” She smiled. “It will help his economy get off the ropes too, as, if I’m not mistaken, a lot of trade and such is going to follow wherever our luxury-loving bureaucrats go. And who better to help set up the system and co-ordinate the far west network for the Service than someone involved with both its aspects? Someone who is young enough to survive in the comfortless barbarous west, and a good enough fighter to not need a large bodyguard. Someone who is familiar with the cultures of the west, and is on good terms with the King and Queen.” She gave Radanae a meaningful look.
“Precisely,” the diplomat nodded. “Besides, I’m getting sick and tired of proof-reading treaties for spelling mistakes and correct placement of commas. I need an occupation or I shall go mad.”
“Really, could we tell the difference?” Justinia muttered, but then poured the rest of the bottle into their three glasses. “To friendship,” she said as she handed the glasses back to their owners.
“To success!” Kay held her glass aloft.
“And to love – between other people,” Radanae laughed as they brought the glasses together with the soft chink of crystal.
“Hear, hear!” the three downed their drinks, and then stood to depart. Kay made an extravagant bow as she swayed out the door and back to her rooms in the Imperial wing. Justinia walked a few yards to the guestroom in the Gavrillian suite, which Radanae had offered. The Knights’ Barracks, while comfortable, spacious and well maintained, paled in comparison to the private suites, and Kay and Justinia had already spent a year in close quarters with the promise of very many more. There are times when one needs a break.
Radanae took one last look at the mess they had created before scribbling an apologetic note to the servants and leaving a few coins as a tip before blowing out the oil lamps and heading for her room to collapse into bed.
Author’s notes: Thank you very much for all the reviews, everyone. They’re much appreciated, and very helpful – very inspirational too! Please keep them coming. In case anyone’s interested, yes, the three women are wearing jeans and jumpers, and classic Imperial architecture, dress and political structure is Roman-influenced, complete with soaring ceilings, marble pillars, and fountains. Hence, the contrast between the Gavrillian suite – which is meant to have, in comparison, a very relaxed, cosy, homey feel – almost like a wealthy person’s vision of a country cottage, with polished wood floors and panelling and such - and the rest of the Palace is meant to be very jarring. It’s part of how flustered Yevgen is that he doesn’t notice.