“Oh,” said Ama. “But you were only trying to protect yourself!”
“Law is law,” Allys answered. “I swooned from the pain, and my sister—this one’s mother—brought me home. I caught fever from infection and near died, I did. It was weeks before I healed, and weeks more before I could work again. But I lived. I lived. And when I was in my own head again, I found that the man I so feared wanted no more to do with me, disfigured as I was.
“So you see, lady, my wish was granted, after all.”
Four
Emory’s Coronation
Tillie had found a leather collar for Sorrow, and though Ama hated the idea of restraining the lynx, she hated even more the thought of leaving her behind. When she first fastened the collar around Sorrow’s neck, the lynx kitten flopped onto her side and clawed at it with her back paws.
It was on tightly enough not to come off over her head with such treatment, but not so tightly as to cause discomfort, and when Ama offered her a piece of smoked fish as distraction, Sorrow accepted it, and the collar, as well.
The leash was made of fine gold chain, cool and slippery in Ama’s hand, with a leather strap for a handle. Tillie connected leash to collar and handed it to Ama, who practiced for some minutes leading the kit about the room.
Sorrow was a smart student, and though it was certain that she would have preferred freedom to being chained, regular rewards of smoked fish and scratches behind her ears seemed to convince her to be complacent enough.
And she was still small enough that Ama could carry her if Sorrow grew overwhelmed by the crowds, though if she grew as big as her mother had been, this would not always be an option.
And Emory said Sorrow must be gone before the wedding night, Ama thought.
Sorrow would not be yet full-grown by midwinter. She would be a gangly youth, at best. What would her chances be, alone in the forest, and in the cold?
So Ama had a goaclass="underline" She must convince Emory to allow her to keep Sorrow past the wedding, at least, and, perhaps, for always.
“The coronation will take place out of doors, on the high balcony,” Tillie said, picking up a fur-trimmed mantle from a chair. “Your lynx will be warm enough, but you should wear this.” She swung the mantle across Ama’s shoulders and fastened it at her left shoulder with a large broach.
Ama liked the weight of the cloak; she liked the gilded blue-stoned clasp; she liked the soft fluff of dark fur against her cheek, with the hood pulled up over her hair.
“You cut a fine figure, you do,” Tillie said. “The king should be well pleased to have you at his side.”
Ama took up the leather strap of Sorrow’s golden leash. The lynx, smart as she was, followed close as Ama crossed the room to the mirror. There was a lady there, amber eyes shaded by the fur-trimmed hood, a lady with a ribbon-laced red braid across her breast, a purple velvet gown, and a lynx, sharp of tooth and claw, at her heel.
The lady in the mirror looked like someone Ama would be pleased to know and like a complete stranger, both at the same time.
“You are ready.” Tillie sounded certain, and Ama, a stranger to her very own skin, felt it smarter to rely on what Tillie knew than what she herself might feel.
Tillie said she was ready; and so Ama went.
Just inside the high balcony, Ama found Emory waiting for her.
“And when I thought you couldn’t be lovelier,” he said, with a sweeping bow, “here you come, a delight of velvet and fur, to prove me wrong. Your lynx companion makes for a lovely accessory, I shall grant you that.”
Emory reached out for Ama’s hand, and she hesitated only a second before extending it. He flipped her hand over and kissed her there, in the soft white center of her palm.
Then he pulled her close and whispered into her ear, “Dearest, please accept my apology for my appearance last night in your quarters. It is certainly not my character to act in . . . such a passion-fueled manner. But who could blame me, when a beauty such as yourself is under my roof, and so close to being my wife? Certainly, many men would not have been able to restrain themselves at all, confronted with the same situation.”
He withdrew slightly, so that Ama could see into his deep-blue eyes, so that Ama could see his softly tilting smile.
She felt her own mouth pull into a returning smile, and cast her gaze down. “I thank you for your uncommon restraint, my lord,” she answered.
“The time will come soon enough that such restraint shall not be required of me,” Emory said. “And that is a day I truly look toward. Until then, I shall try not to allow your feminine powers to induce me to another such visit.”
Ama dropped a curtsy, as best she could with her one hand still taken up by Emory’s and her other hand clutching Sorrow’s leash.
She was relieved when she heard the rustling of the queen mother’s skirts behind her and Emory released her hand to greet her.
“Mother,” he said, voice full and loud now, “you look positively charming.”
Ama turned and curtsied.
The queen mother’s gown, built of a sharp black taffeta, was covered all over by a flowering bloom of gems—on her chest, a bouquet designed of rubies, citrines, sapphires, and diamonds; and down her waist and across the vast expanse of her skirt wound curlicues of thorn-laced stems, rendered in ropes of emeralds. She did not wear a cape, most probably because she did not want to obscure the fine jewel work of her gown, but her hair was up in a vine-like network of braids, with roses of pink gems tucked into the filigree of the rose-gold crown that circled her head.
“Ama,” she said, when Ama rose from her curtsy, “you must introduce me to this glorious pet of yours.”
“Certainly, Queen Mother,” Ama said, hoping desperately that the lynx would receive her silent pleas to behave herself. “This is the kit I call Sorrow.”
The queen mother offered her hand, and Sorrow sniffed it, then extended her pretty pink tongue in a kiss.
“A darling,” the queen mother said admiringly, and scratched the cat between the ears. Sorrow stepped forward and rubbed her head against the queen mother’s skirt and purred, a deep rumble of a sound.
The queen mother laughed, delighted. “I believe your Sorrow finds in me a sympathetic friend,” she said, and then looked up at Ama with an expression so searing that Ama felt laid bare by it, as if the force of the gaze had burned her clothes from her limbs, and her skin, as well.
“I hope Sorrow’s mistress finds me equally sympathetic,” she said.
“Indeed,” Ama answered at once, for she knew it was the correct answer, whether it was the truth or not.
“You must visit me in my chambers and meet my pets,” the queen mother continued.
Ama bowed her head in thanks for the invitation.
“Shall we?” Emory said, and then they turned—Emory at the center, flanked by the queen mother on his right and Ama, herself accompanied by Sorrow, on his left.