Yevgen raised an eyebrow at her from his point near the uncooperative fire. “I had assumed that particular eventuality would arise.” He said, giving up and pointing at the kindling until it exploded into flames, the glowing blue fading into more natural orange.
“No, I meant now!”
“In this rain? Kally, I doubt very much that half an hour or so will make much difference back at the Palace – whereas it will make a great deal of difference to us and the horses. Not to mention that it’ll be quicker to get back when it’s not pouring down.” Seemingly satisfied with the fire, he stood and discarded his shirt. Kally allowed herself only a few heartbeats to admire the elegant definition of his muscles as he neatly hung the garment to dry on a rack apparently designed for that purpose, before bringing up her end of the argument again.
“Won’t they be worried?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I can’t say much for the delegation, but I have a feeling that Radanae and the guards, once the weather clears up, will be more vexed that anything else.”
“Vexed? Vexed? Didn’t you say that it could be an assassination attempt? I should think that they’re more than vexed.” Kally was well aware that her voice was spiralling a trifle higher than was strictly suitable for her range, but she didn’t care.
“It could,” he conceded, “but it’s not.”
“Oh? And how would you know that?”
“Largely because neither of us is dead yet.” He said this with the absolute calmness of someone who has been facing assassination attempts since before he was born.
Kally was speechless for a second, so Yevgen felt it necessary to explain. “It would be a simple thing for anyone who is capable of conjuring a fog so dense to have an accomplice introduce a poison. Failing that, it would not have been difficult to install an archer or two above the fog.”
“Poisons?”
An easy shrug. “Oh yes, and quite easy to make, though it’s considered Extremely Ill-Mannered (Yevgen was a man who could make full use of Capital Letters), as my sisters would put it. It’s regarded as quite a crude form of warfare. No, far more likely that it’s a newly-discovered Talent on a training accident, or somebody’s idea of a joke.”
“You take it all very well.”
“Not the first time – though I must admit, that it’s never been a weather-mage this powerful, or one who struck at such an inconvenient time.”
Silence only broken by the crackling fire.
“It’s a very nice place,” Kally hesitated, not knowing what else to say.
“This? Oh, another joke, courtesy of Silas, Kay, and a few of my friends who were here two years ago. It’s a bit of a tradition – quite obscure now – that one’s friends present one with a Retreat on the occasion of one’s wedding. An escape, if one likes. Largely in disuse because hardly anyone actually gets married these days…” he trailed off.
Kally could see the humour in it, “So a sort of hideaway – like a treehouse – away from one’s undesirable spouse?” it was said in a teasing tone, but she was shocked to see him flush slightly.
“Well…yes…in a way. Traditionally, it’s been a hunting lodge – like this one – but at other times, depending on the person – oh, I don’t know – a library in an obscure wing, a town apartment, a little shack on the seaside – it varies.”
She couldn’t quite resist teasing him. “Do you come here often?”
“No. No time. Oh, I didn’t meant it like that, I mean – well, we’ve had so much to do…” it was one of the very few times that Kally had ever known him to stumble verbally and looked at him with interest, before moving closer to the fire so that her clothes would dry quicker.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a hairbrush or anything here, would you?” she asked, seeing the sorry mess of her hair. It was a vanity to keep her hair long, she knew, but it was one thing which made it easier to put on her ‘Queen’ persona. It was much easier to feel regal in an uncomfortable hairstyle that had taken the better part of an hour than one that needed the barest attention from a brush.
He didn’t, though, but found a beautiful carved ivory comb that he confessed was from a very elderly aunt who thought he was a third princess – and could not be convinced otherwise, no matter how many times she saw him. It did the job – and very well indeed.
“You’ve got lovely hair,” the soft comment was barely audible, and Kally wondered if he had even meant to say it aloud.
“What?” she turned to look at him. It was probably the first time that he had directly said anything about her appearance to her.
He blushed. “Sorry. That wasn’t meant to come out. I mean it though.”
“No, it’s quite all right, I’m just surprised. You’ve never said anything like that before.”
He looked at her quizzically. “I’m sure I ha…”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Well,” he fidgeted a bit, “considering the circumstances, it didn’t seem very appropriate.”
“Circumstances?” she gave up on a hopelessly tangled knot and came to sit next to him on the large, overstuffed sofa that dominated the room.
“Well, the circumstances in which we met,” he explained awkwardly. “I mean, everything was arranged long before I came to Tortall – and that sort of thing seemed rather redundant considering the stage things had got to by then – the contracts were all signed, sealed and delivered. Flowers and bad poetry would have been a bit out of place.”
Kally didn’t quite know what to say about that. She thought about mentioning that she would have appreciated even a limerick, but that would have been seriously inappropriate considering the – she winced inwardly – professional way he had gone about the last two years.
The rain continued to fall.
“I never really cared for the poetry,” Kally said into the silence. “I mean, back in Corus – and then at King’s Reach – the boys would send them just because it was the done thing to send bad poetry to the princess. Some of it was really terrible.”
“I can imagine,” he ducked his head to hide a small smile.
“With your taste?” she snorted (from what she saw of his reading-desk, it was full of extremely archaic and important-looking tomes), “I doubt it. Let’s see. My favourite ‘Roses are red, your eyes are blue, you’re the most beautiful thing on this earth, and I really like you.” She giggled. “Garvey of Runnerspring, six years ago. Particularly obnoxious little cretin.”
“Runnerspring?”
“The one you nearly killed.”
“Ah, that one. I must confess that my literary pretensions aren’t quite so sophisticated as that.”
“You really do have quite a nice collection of books,” Kally foundered for something to say.
“Thank you.”
More silence. Kally took a deep breath and then said something that had been on her mind for a while, even before her uncle brought it up a dinner.
“Yevgen?”
“Humm?”
“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want – it’s a bit personal…”
“Kally, in case you’ve forgotten, we happen to be married. I don’t think it gets much more personal that this.”
“You know what Uncle Gareth said last night … and what the Council have been going on about for the last few months….”
“Oh yes, Securing The Succession, oh that. What about it?”
“Yevgen, it’s been nearly two years…Yevgen, I think there might be something wrong with me…I haven’t quite had the courage to go to the Healer and tell her…”
“Horse Lords, Kally, have you been worried about that?” he sat up suddenly and clasped her gently around the forearms. “Kally,” he said firmly putting an equally light finger under her chin and forcing her to meet his eyes. “Look, Kally, oh gods…ummm…I really should have told you earlier…if you were only sleeping with me for an heir…”
“Oh no, no, it’s not that,” then, realising what she said, immediately turned bright scarlet, but ploughed on gamely seeing the quickly shuttered hurt in his eyes, “It’s not that – I meant yes, I mean that part of it’s very nice…but considering how often we…ah…do it…I mean, should it have happened by now.”
He took pity of her and went away to get her a drink. There was evidently plumbing, for he came back with a earthenware mug of cold water. She gulped it down, perhaps obscuring her embarrassed visage from his keen gaze a trifle longer than strictly necessary.
“Kally. Ah. I don’t quite know where to begin…Firstly, if the problem is…ah…physiological…it’s probably me. My family is not known for its fertility – quite the opposite, in fact – and secondly – ah, I guess you may have gathered that the Imperial attitude to ‘sowing one’s oats’ is a trifle different from the Tortallan?”
Kally nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Well, obviously, considering that there are certain inconvenient side effects of ‘sowing one’s oats’, so to speak, certain precautions are taken.” He wasn’t meeting her eyes. “It generally takes a little while to wear off once one stops taking it. A sort of herbal tea.” He added.
“Oh.” Kally let her relief come out. “Well…yes…umm…well…I thought that you would have been disappointed that I wasn’t pregnant yet…”
“Why would I be disappointed?”
She gaped at him in disbelief. “Well, if I was, then you … well, you wouldn’t have to…well”
“Kalasin, if you don’t want to share a bedroom anymore, it’s perfectly fine with me.” His tone was level, his words were level, but there was an undercurrent that indicated that that particular scenario wasn’t his ideal situation.
“No. I mean. No.” he grabbed at him. “It’s…this is coming all out wrong. I mean, I know there are other people you’d far rather be sleeping with than me…” she knew as soon as the words left her mouth that it was the wrong thing.
“Kalasin, listen.” He was clearly angry, “If you don’t want to sleep with me anymore (the actual words he used wouldn’t fit into this rating), just say so. Don’t drag my former life into it. Look, Kalasin, I am not at all disappointed that you’re not pregnant. In fact, the longer that you’re not, the longer I’ve got the most intelligent, gifted, wittiest, most beautiful woman in the known world in my bed. What sort of asinine idiot would be disappointed with that?”
Kally was well aware that her jaw was hanging open. “But…Lara…”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Dama Felara Eriel and I are friends and common acquaintances,” he said tightly, “whatever happened in the past is completely irrelevant now. I’ve kept my vows.”
“Yes! Yes you have! You’re honourable and noble and polite and smart and gorgeous and good in bed and all of that, but …Gods, for nearly two years I’ve been here knowing that the man I’m in love with is in love with somebody else!”
She couldn’t believe she just said that. Neither could he, if the speed at which the fury in his eyes quickly turned to shock was any indication.
He opened his mouth to say something, just as Kally made to apologise, refute her statement, anything, really.
She didn’t get the chance, though, as she was roughly pulled into his arms, her mouth crushed to his, as they collapsed off the sofa and onto the bearskin rug on the floor.
The Tortallan dignitaries insisted that Radanae take them to wherever the King and Queen were as soon as the rain cleared. She could think of no brush-offs or refusals that weren’t at least slightly rude, so she had the complaining Luana saddled and they rode back into the woods. She’d had to make excused quickly, saying that it was a prank, that the lodge itself was a prank from his friends. Anything, really, to make the Tortallans feel that the affair was not at all serious, even if it did have the side effect of portraying Radanae and her friends as frivolous spoiled brats with too much time, power, and money on their hands. Oh well, it couldn’t really be helped.
She was distinctly unhappy with Kay and Justinia, for all their protestations that it was taking far too long for their satisfaction. Radanae supposed that the temptation of a pair of an extremely Talented weather-mage and an earth mage in the same place, must have been impossible to resist. It would probably have been noted down as an experiment in long-range magecraft. Both were usually inhumanly patient people, but did manage to look sheepish when Radanae said that additional plans that she had cooked up with Princess Lianne and Lady Keladry would now have to be re-done.
It was easy enough to find the clearing from Kay’s directions. As the first to dismount, Radanae naturally was the first to the door. There was no answer to her soft knock, so she opened the door. And shut it just as quickly, heading back to the others at a very brisk walk.
“As I might have intimated earlier, I don’t think their Majesties would appreciate company at just this present moment. Why do we not return to the Palace to await them?”
More Exposition/Tidings
Kally raised her head slightly at the sound of the door, but it appeared to be undisturbed. Curious, she pushed herself up from her position half-sprawled across Yevgen, her hand slipping slightly across his sweat soaked pectoral. She could feel his heartbeat still racing underneath her fingertips as he propped himself up on his elbows.
“What was that?” he asked, looking at the door. His eyes went blank for the merest fraction of a second. “Ah. Found out.”
Kally looked at him quizzically as she searched for her clothes, which had been scattered over quite a remarkable distance.
“Our guests, it appears, are rather anxious about the whereabouts of their hosts. Well, we mustn’t disappoint them.” He stretched rather stiffly and then proceeded to pull on his dry, but wrinkled clothing.
“Yevgen…” Kally began hesitantly as she fumbled with the lacings of her shirt. “What I said…before…I…well…umm…”
“Yes?” he said, sounding unnervingly interested. He had that equally intimidating ability to look perfectly composed even when slightly rumpled.
“Before…well…you don’t have to take it seriously, I mean, you have so much more on your mind…”
“Kally, you’re not going to say you burst out an untruth when you were shouting before. You have never been able to lie when you’re flustered.”
“I’m not. I do…oh, I don’t know how to say this…I do like you very much – more than I ought to…and I know you don’t feel the same way about me, so you don’t have to feel all gentlemanly about it.”
“Gentlemanly?” he raised an eyebrow. “That must be the first time anyone’s ever called me that to my face.” Then he sobered. “If you think that…oh Kally, I thought we were friends – even of a rather odd sort.”
“Oh we are – at least, I think we are. I just…oh forget it.” The humiliating red was threatening to overwhelm her complexion again. She wondered if she could ever get back to her normal shade around him.
“Umm. Kally, all things considered, I had though we were more than friends.” He took her unresisting hand and drew her back onto the sofa, settling down until she was resting on his chest.
Had Kalasin not been so distracted, she might have noticed that he was a tightly strung as she, and the only thing that prevented him from showing it was his observation that he had never seen her quite so flustered. Not that her outburst had him completely at ease. Yevgen had thought that that things on that particular front was rather good. Relations were cordial, everything was in decent working nick – and – he winced at the term – they ‘got along’ rather better than he had ever managed with either Lara or Selera.
Things got so messy once emotions got involved – he knew better than most. While he could not entirely deny that he wasn’t greatly flattered by her unexpected declaration, it was, nevertheless, a source of some disquiet in the Saren King.
“…if it had just been you?” Kalasin’s voice penetrated muzzily through the fog that was his confused thoughts.
“Pardon?”
“I said, if it had just been you in the fog this morning, what would you have done. Would you have turned and run like we did today?”
He should have said some polite half-truth, but he could not. When they had married, he had promised to tell the truth – largely because then, that was one of the few very personal things he could offer her. Not crowns, neither the jewels nor the power – those she had, and those he shrewdly guessed held no particular appeal to her aside from the obvious.
Later, of course, he’d given her far more, but he wasn’t about to admit that – much less tell her.
“Stayed, I think. Made a complete idiot of myself, of course, though.”
She sat up, pulling out of the oh-so-casual embrace. “Oh? And you think that I couldn’t take care of myself?”
“Of course not. I have seen you on the practice field, you know. I don’t need to tell you that you’re good – you already know it – not to mention that you are a better mage than I am. What is important, of course, was that we were both out there this morning, and the way things still are in Sarain you are very much indispensable.” He said this in tones that did not dare opposition.
“Indispensable? Me? What about you?”
“What about me?” he snorted, “Kally, you are the granddaughter of the last real Warlord and a woman of one of the greatest K’mir clans. Sarain has stayed united for as long as it has because you are its Queen. I daresay nearly everyone doesn’t give a limp rat’s posterior about me. I am a colourless figure with a loaned army and neat hair. It doesn’t really much matter who I am. Even if I wasn’t Rislyn’s brother, do you think it would make much of a difference to anyone? I am a seat-filler, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve worked together all this time – and the Council looks to you, not me.”
“Force of habit,” he explained. “Their upbringing, for the most part, dictates a certain preference for the male. But you will notice that the K’mir look to you, and nobody tends to give approval unless it’s obvious that you do too.”
“But…but…”
“Kally, can you honestly say that things would have been different had it not been me sent here and to Tortall two years ago? The Empress could very well have sent literally anyone, and nobody would ever be the wiser.”
At this extraordinary declaration, Kally could think of nothing to say but the truth. “I certainly wouldn’t be in a hunting lodge with a rash from bear-fur all over me with anyone else!”
“I’m flattered that you think so, dear,” he said in a light tone, as though he thought she was just being polite, going to the pegs near the door and taking down their now-dry cloaks, and holding hers out. “But I do think it’s time we headed back, don’t you?”
When the King and Queen finally made their way back to the Palace, the first person who greeted them was the Imperial Ambassador, who was sitting at a small ornamental table and sipping a cup of tea. It was such a deliberately casual, studied pose that Yevgen almost forgot to ponder just how she had managed to get the table and chair down from the balcony on the third floor where they usually resided.
“Good day,” Radanae said, putting her tea-cup down. “I believe that the Tortallan delegation is currently touring the gardens under the expert guide of Sir Pietr Akaryon.”
Small smiles at that, for while Akaryon was somewhat of a self-made expert on botany, and occasionally had something interesting to say, it was his ability to keep an audience through sheer persistence that made him so useful.
“I would ask you to stay for a cup of tea, but I’m afraid that this particular blend would result in more uncomfortable questions in Council for both of you, and possibly rather embarrassing side effects for you, Yevgen.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Last I heard, you were complaining about the quality out here.”
“Wishful thinking – the curse of the optimist,” she answered easily, “besides, it’s force of habit. I believe that they’re in the South Rose Garden. By the way, did you know that you’ve got bear fur in your hair?”
They tried to buy a little more time by meandering up the back staircases and obscure passages to their room to get changed. Unfortunately, the Palace had been meticulously planned by a competent, though rather unimaginative architect, and there had been as yet no need for illogical extensions, so there was a surprising lack of the aforementioned passages and staircases.
“What do we tell them?” Kally asked, hastily pulling a dress over her head, buttoning it up, and running a brush through her hair. The impossible knot came out easily, oddly enough.
Yevgen paused in his own ministrations to come over and re-do her buttons properly. “Do we need to tell them anything?” he asked quizzically. “Kally, not to be an absolute snob, we are technically King and Queen, and the last time I checked my etiquette textbook, we technically outrank everybody here, and we don’t really need to explain anything to anyone.”
“Easy to say, harder to remember,” she muttered as she turned to face the mirror to pin up her hair. Her hands were shaking, much to her disgust, so Yevgen silently took the pins away from her and neatly clipped her hair up.
“I have no idea why I’m like this,” she said weakly, “I’m not…flighty…or anything…it’s just…oh…”
“Is it your first encounter with weather magic?” Yevgen asked neutrally, putting his arms around her as she shook. “You’ve an exceptionally strong Gift. Maybe that’s what’s interfering with it?”
“Yes, yes, that must be it,” Kally pulled away, wiping away some stray tears. She had very good control of her Gift, so her pride, at least, doubted it. However, she was glad that he did not mention the reason that that was plaguing her mind. She had blurted out her feelings for him, admittedly in a somewhat garbled manner, but blurt them out she had. No matter what she said now, that revelation could never be taken back. While he seemed comfortable with her statement, still friendly, affectionate, and – when the occasion demanded it – passionate, there was no hint that he returned her depth of feelings. He was too polite to ever say it out loud, but Kalasin knew that she would forever be trapped in a marriage where she felt far more for her husband than he ever would for her.
She had known that was the case for over a year. What was worse now, was that he knew it too.
They walked quietly down to the gardens, speaking of inconsequential things, like seating arrangements for the reception that would introduce the Tortallans to prominent members of the Saren court and the modest complement of ranking Imperials, and changing the paintings on the second gallery. At length, though, they reached the Gardens, planted by various different teams, so that while each was magnificent, they did not quite manage to flow into one another.
Sir Pietr was still rambling on about the beauty of the new rose that he had developed in his spare time. Its silken-soft petals were ivory near the centre, gradually deepening in colour to a dark red around the edges. The leaves and stem were of the deepest, richest green, with an impressive collection of razor-sharp thorns.
It was, of course, named ‘Queen Kalasin.’ Kally chose to see it as a complement.
“Ah, your Majesty,” Duke Gareth was formal in the presence of the Imperial knight, and bowed slightly to his great niece. “How wonderful of you to join us,” he said with perfect equanimity, as though she had not just vanished from the middle of a mountain path. Kally wondered just how much they had ‘found out’ about the few hours that she had spent away.
“Is Yevgen not joining us?” Lianne asked. Dressed, and immaculately turned out, her regal effect was rather ruined by her wet hair.
“Yevgen? He’s right…” Kally turned to her side, to discover that somewhere between the garden gate and the garden itself, he had disappeared.
“A prank.” Yevgen repeated, looking not at all amused.
“Well, it was an experiment with weather and earth-magery,” the diplomatic training kicked in even as Radanae raised the mug of tea to her lips. Behind them there were the muffled sounds as two unfortunate footmen moved the delicate furniture back to its proper place, now that her point had been made.
“Right. A prank that might have got any of us killed! No one could see anything in that fog! I could barely thin it for more than four feet, and I flatter myself to say that I’m not entirely without Talent in that area! Didn’t it occur to them that we might have guests? – that Duke Gareth has a weak heart! Fire – Goddess, I don’t believe they were that reckless!” Somehow he managed to convey the exclamation marks without raising his voice. Radanae made a mental note to ask him how he did it (she couldn’t – the closest she could manage was ‘greatly vexed’), once he’d calmed down a little.
“I don’t believe that anyone except perhaps your honourable self had any inkling that the Tortallans would arrive earlier than planned,” she said dryly. “Besides, you knew that it would have had to be a prank or accident from the East within a few seconds.”
“Yes, yes I did,” he acknowledged, still irritated. “But that’s not the point. That was a lot of unnecessary confusion out there today.”
“On the contrary, I think something very important was cleared up this morning.” Radanae took another drink. “Something that both of you have had hanging over you for a very long time.”
His jaw dropped open.
Radanae snorted, her way of choking back the very undignified giggles that threatened to burst out at his expression.
“I may have chosen to sit out the game, laddie, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know the rules.” She took advantage of her two-months advantage in age, as she always did, to emphasise some purported superiority. “Besides,” her voice took on an edge of practicality, “it’s bloody obvious to anyone with eyes that you’re soppy over each other. Frankly, if one of you at least wasn’t going to confess it, I was going to point it out. It’s making me nauseous.”
He sagged against the wall. “We..were…I don’t know quite what we were talking about, really. She suddenly burst out that she’s in love with me…and, well, you can guess what happened next.”
“Pretty much,” she agreed. “Now, so what are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it?”
“Well, you can’t just go on as though nothing happened. The poor woman’s probably feeling awkward enough as it is without you making it look as though you’re ignoring it because you’re too polite to say that you don’t like her. I mean, you are fond of her, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he answered automatically, “more than fond of her, to be honest,” he confessed. “And I said as much.”
“Did you?”
“Well,” he shuffled uneasily, some section of his mind pointing out that it was rather silly to feel so sheepish near someone he had known all his life, and outranked to boot, “I did say that anyone who would be disappointed that she wasn’t pregnant so that he wouldn’t have to sleep with her anymore was an idiot.”
Radanae rolled her eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh. “But you haven’t actually told her that you like her in so many words, have you?”
“Well…not exactly…” to Radanae, it was as though they were back at the Academy, when she was the go-between for more relationships than she’d ever managed to have herself. She gave the King a stern look.
“It’s not something that comes up in everyday conversation. Come on, it was the last thing I expected after getting stuck in magic fog, half-drowned in a rainstorm, and stumbling into a shack that took twelve hours to put up!”
“True,” Radanae conceded, before her attention was taking by a figure in Saren colours, running full pelt towards them. “What is it?” she turned to face a red-faced messenger.
“Your Majesty, your ladyship,” the messenger was clearly nervous at facing two such important persons, for all that he was only about five years younger than them. “A message…just arrived from the border…it’s from King Barnesh…about wanting to open trade talks…”
Yevgen nodded and dismissed the boy with a tip, then unfolded the message. Wordlessly, he handed it to Radanae after he had skimmed, knowing that she was going to see it sooner or later, and that he might as well cut out the middleman.
Their eyes met.
“I’d better tell Kalasin about this,” Yevgen said quietly, holding out his hand for the sheet of parchment before heading out to the garden. He was checked by a light touch on his arm.
“Yevgen, I know very well that Maren will be the primary subject of your pillow talk tonight, but do put in a word about this morning as well.” There was genuine concern in her eyes, between two old friends, rather than her customary professional reserve, “I know I give a lot of advice – most of it pretty bad, I have to admit – but this time, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to get it all out in the open. Trust me, the longer this goes on, the more awkward it will get.”
He made a non-committal sound, but then gave a grudging nod before stepping out into the garden.
**************
Advice from many quarters (and on nearly as many subjects)
One formal reception is very much like another. One dresses in clothes one normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, makes inane conversation with people one despises, and eats food that has probably been waiting in the kitchen since eleven o’clock in the morning.
Of course, the organiser – I mean the real organiser, not the eerily toothy person wearing big sparkling rocks standing near the door - isn’t there for you to whinge to. They’re usually so exhausted by the numerous little tasks and emergencies that inevitably arise when organising food, drink and entertainment for a few hundred difficult guests that they’re off having a nice, quiet nervous breakdown in a corner somewhere.
Unfortunately, Yevgen Felix Delmaran, Imperial Knight, King of Sarain, did not have that luxury. While various members of what passed as the Saren elite mingled with Imperial officers, Tortallan visitors and token K’mir and Doi representatives, at once united in their appreciation of the catering and criticism of the dancers and musicians, he was closeted away in his study with his wife the Queen, discussing the correspondence from Maren.
“Right.” Kally crossed her arms where she sat on his study chair. “So, after months of fortifying his borders to the point of obsession, Barnesh decides that now he wants to talk?”
“That’s about right,” Yevgen was sitting on the desk proper, for once not really caring that his formal clothes were getting creased. He had discovered in the last few weeks that organising parties was far more difficult that it looked, particularly since he was trying to keep it out of the gossip chain.
The room was simply furnished, and looked rather like Kally’s save the furniture and floorboards was of dark oak and mahogany rather than beech, and the walls were painted a restful grey-green. There was no hint of either red or purple anywhere, oddly enough. Between them, a sort of antithesis of the sophisticated food outside, a plate of toasted sandwiches, and fruit juice in a plain pitcher.
“Could it be a ploy?” Kally asked around a mouthful of ham-cheese-mushroom-on-rye.
“Always a possibility,” Yevgen acknowledged, hunting around on the plate for something without coriander (he hated it), “though, with Barnesh one can never really tell. Slippery character,” he remarked absently, not mentioning that he wasn’t exactly the most guileless of people either, despite his good looks. “Though, he doesn’t seem to have any high-level agents here, though there might be a few of the Maren merchants reporting back.” He smiled, but whether it was because of an observation or because he found some smoked salmon and spring onion on wholegrain, one couldn’t really tell.
“I suppose we must receive his delegation,” Kally said reluctantly, brushing crumbs off her skirt, “though just between you and me, I’m getting sick of all this entertaining. I liked it much better when it was just us…” it took her a fraction of a second to realise what she had just said, and the now-familiar heat began to rise again.
“So did I,” he agreed.
There was a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.
“Ummm…well…” Yevgen began, “Shall we send out messengers to Maren, directly, then?”
“Yes, I think we should…in fact…” whatever Kally thought was temporarily interrupted by a calm, but insistent knocking on the door. Kally and Yevgen exchanged glances, for they had left instructions that they were not to be found with the Palace staff, and even though the Saren members were largely shocked (the Imperials thought it a great laugh), those instructions were obeyed. Never mind that when such directives were issued the King and Queen were far more likely to be discussing trade tariffs or the minutes of the last Council meeting than whatever their rather grubby-minded staff had in mind (though admittedly, sometimes they were right).
The knocking continued. Yevgen sighed and pushed himself off the desk and went to open the door. Only years of training prevented him from giving a little start of surprise as he greeted Duke Gareth and Lady Alanna.
Kally stood up reflexively as they entered, though in the back of her mind she knew that she no longer had to do any such thing even in the most formal of situations. “Uncle Gareth. Alanna. What a surprise…” she said, for lack of anything else.
“Not more of a than surprise to find you in here,” Alanna remarked dryly, picking at a bit of invisible lint on her deep purple tunic. Kally noted with some amusement that Yevgen couldn’t quite refrain from giving Alanna doubtful looks about her choice of colour. Kally supposed that twenty-odd years of wearing colour combinations that didn’t really suit you would bias anyone towards those hues.
“We missed you two out there,” Gareth said mildly. It was a pathetic excuse. Like his favourite protégé, Gareth of Naxen did not care for social functions very much.
“Well, yes, we were just about to come out, weren’t we, Majesty,” Kally held one hand out to her husband while quickly hiding the missive sent from Maren in his desk drawer. Yevgen gave a barely perceptible nod as he raised her fingers lightly to his lips and took her arm in his, clearly indicating to Gareth and Alanna that they should proceed the royals out the door.
Duke Gareth and Lady Alanna, who had escaped from the party on the first excuse they could find, were distinctly amused at finding themselves back out in the corridor, and heading back in the direction of annoying background music and spiced canapés. Gareth had not had a chance to speak at length with his – he calculated the precise relationship in his head – great-nephew-in-law, and was anxious to further the acquaintance of the King of Sarain, both on a diplomatic, and a personal perspective. With the ease of long, tedious experience of functions, he gradually drew the younger man away from the Queen as soon as they re-entered the main reception hall, coincidentally, as others pulled Kally in the opposite direction.
“I hear that you have successfully dealt with the problems with the Gallan irregulars?” Duke Gareth began on a diplomatically neutral subject.
Yevgen had not missed the ploy by the Tortallan Duke to have a private conversation, but there was only a slight twitch of his posture to indicate that as he replied, “There will always be bandit problems in the wintertime. We hope that improved harvest management and storage will eliminate much of the hardship in the north-west, but there will always be those who prefer to steal the labour of others rather than work for themselves.”
They paused for a second, during which Yevgen lifted two long-stem glasses from a passing tray and offered one to the Duke.
“The Eastern Lands are amazed at the progress that has been made in Sarain in the last two years,” Gareth nodded his approval of the sparkling rose wine.
“It is, of course, largely due to her Majesty,”
Duke Gareth could have taken it as empty diplomatic praise given to the Queen’s relatives, but there was a touch of…something that no amount of diplomatic training could cover up, that indicated that the King, at least, believed that it was true. A growing suspicion, one that Gareth had not even considered until that afternoon, began to blossom in earnest.
“King Barnesh of Maren has, by all accounts, been quite taken aback at the speed with which Sarain has again become a member of the Eastern Lands,” Gareth tried again.