“Matarh, what’s wrong?” Eria tugged at her tashta, and Brie crouched down next to her, cradling her in her arms, smiling into her inquisitive face.
“You’ll be safe, little one,” she crooned. “I promise.”
There was a knock on the servants’ door and Brie stood up, sucking in her breath. She nodded to the nursemaid, setting Eria down on the floor and reaching under the sash of her tashta for the knife she had there, curling her fingers around the hilt. The nursemaid opened the door; Rhianna entered, carrying a tray. The garda in the corridor outside glanced in, then closed the door again.
“Rhianna,” she said. “It must have been terrible, this morning.”
Rhianna nodded before she answered, almost furtively. “It was, Hirzgin,” the young woman answered. There were dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well, and her manner was distracted and nervous. She placed the tray on the table near Brie’s chair. She wiped her hands on the apron over her plain tashta. “It just doesn’t seem possible. Aide ci’Lawli gave me my chance here and I worked with him so closely, even though I didn’t know him for as long as other people on the staff. I’m shocked and I still expect to hear him calling for me…” She took in a long, slow breath. “The Hirzg said to send wine up for you, and some fruit for the children…”
“The Hirzg?” A quick flash of jealousy surged through Brie, burning for a moment through the grief. Rhianna seemed to sense it. She took a step back and lowered her head, and that made Brie wonder even more.
“Yes, Hirzgin,” the girl was saying. “I mean, the Hirzg told Paulus, and Paulus told me…”
“Ah.” Brie sniffed. “I see.” The jealousy subsided, allowing the sadness and fear to return with a shiver. “The White Stone… Here, in this palais. I simply can’t believe it. The last time…”
She stopped. The last time, the White Stone had killed the Hirzg. She couldn’t say that, afraid that saying it might cause history to repeat itself.
“Please don’t worry, Hirzgin,” Rhianna said. “You’ve nothing to fear.”
Brie looked at the young woman. The words had sounded so firm, so certain, her face lifting, though now she flushed again, lowering her gaze once more. “I mean,” she continued, “that with all the gardai on alert… The White Stone is surely gone by now… Paulus thinks she was most likely hired by somebody with a personal grudge… The White Stone wouldn’t… wouldn’t…”
Brie continued to stare at her as Rhianna’s voice faded and went silent. “You should leave the staff gossip and speculations at the door, Rhianna,” she said to her. “It’s been a stressful day, but that doesn’t excuse spreading rumors.”
Rhianna flushed furiously, curtsying at the rebuke. “I apologize, Hirzgin. I’m sorry.”
Brie waved her silent. “Don’t let it happen again,” she said.
“I won’t, Hirzgin. Ma’am, Paulus also told me to have your domestiques de chambre and those of the Hirzg start packing for Stag Fall. With your leave, Hirzgin, I should go find them and tell them.”
“Yes, certainly,” Brie said. “Go on with you, then.”
Rhianna curtsied again. She turned and hurried away. Brie stared at the door for several breaths after it closed behind her. Then she sighed. “Come, children. Your vatarh has sent up some fruit. Let’s eat, and then perhaps we can have a game of chevaritt…”
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Erik rolled away from her, leaving her body momentarily chilled. Allesandra reached down and pulled the blanket up over herself. She glanced over at Erik, panting next to her. “Satisfied?” she asked. His body, in the candlelight, was heavy and dark, the light glimmering from the polished flesh of his skull and glinting from the white hairs snagged in his midnight beard.
From above the fireplace at the foot of the bed, Kraljica Marguerite stared down at the lovers from her painting, her expression severe.
Erik groaned and nodded. “By Cenzi, woman, you’re a tigress. A danger to all men. You’ve destroyed me entirely.” His voice was a purr, a low growl, and his eyes regarded her possessively.
She smiled at that. But he didn’t ask her the same question she’d asked him; he never did. She wondered if that would begin to do more than annoy her one day. She wondered if he looked at her, saw her age and the way her breasts sagged and her stomach rounded, and whether he wished he were with someone younger, someone who could give him children. She would never give him that, even if she wanted it; her monthly flow had ended a few years ago. The seed that filled her belly now could do nothing.
But she could offer him things that no younger woman could, that no other woman in the world could. She wondered again if she would make that offer to him.
“Perhaps.”
“Hmm?”
Allesandra laughed, not realizing she’d said the word aloud. “Perhaps you would like some refreshment, my love? I could ring for the servants…”
“No, not unless you want something for yourself.” There was silence for a moment; she wondered whether he was falling asleep. “Allesandra?”
“Yes, love?”
“This offer to the Hirzg. If he accepts it. What then happens with me?”
He was staring at her; she could feel his gaze. She held it in the darkness. “I’ve already told you that when the Holdings are one again, I will make certain that a true Gyula sits on West Magyaria’s throne. You shouldn’t worry yourself.”
“Yet I do. When the Holdings are one again, the Kraljica might not want to cause yet more dissent.”
“You talk of this Kraljica as if she were some other woman.”
His hand stroked her side. “My family has been involved in the politics of the Holdings all my life, by necessity. Forgive me for saying this, but one thing my vatarh always told me was that the promise of a Kralji could not buy a beer in the tavern: even a barkeep knows that the Kralji might decide that the folia is better spent somewhere else, and leave you with the tab.”
“You believe I’m that cold?” she asked, and she knew he could hear the warning in her voice. “You think you mean that little to me?” His hand stroked her arm and found her hand, but she didn’t return the pressure of his fingers. He hurried to answer.
“No, of course not.” A breath. A sigh. “I would be lost without you. Truly. Being with you, well, I’ve never felt this way with anyone, not even the matarh of my children. I just hate to think.. .”
“Then don’t think,” she told him. Her voice snapped more sharply than she intended, and she softened her tone. “Just feel what I tell you, and accept it.”
He laughed then, and his hands roamed the slope of her side, falling into the hollow of her hips. His hands tightened there, and he pulled her toward him. His mouth sought hers, his beard brushing her skin. His hands cupped her as he brought her on top of him. She looked down at him, and he seemed vulnerable and almost boyish.
She smiled at that thought. She brought her head down and kissed him deeply, her mouth opening, her hands on either side of his face. When she finally pulled away, gasping, she leaned on her elbows, a cloud hovering above his landscape. Firelight rippled across his face and she saw the eager expression there. “No more thinking, and no more worrying,” she told him. “At least not for a bit…”
Sergei sat in his chair like a wizened toad, one hand clutching the end of his staff, his silver nose reflecting the morning light from the window overlooking the palais gardens. Erik was seated near him, and his face was dark and red with a flush. Allesandra had left her own chair behind her desk, pacing near the balcony entrance.
“I wonder, sometimes, if you aren’t conspiring with my son, Ambassador,” she said. “I thought that you believed you could convince him to accept the offer we tendered.”
“I told you, Kraljica, that I thought he would listen to it sympathetically. And he did exactly that.”
“Yet he requires that I abdicate the throne in seven years in favor of him.”