“And,” Vansy continued, “M'Lady can be somewhat intimidating.”
“Intimidating?” Alythia gaped at her in the mirror. “Exactly how am I intimidating?!”
“M'Lady is very beautiful, and very headstrong, and in case M'Lady has not noticed, Petrodor is not a city accustomed to beautiful, headstrong women who say what they think.”
Alythia had to laugh. Vansy was right, of course. But that only made the challenge greater, and more exciting. “They'll come to like me,” she said slyly. “You'll see. I'll win them over. I'll become the talk of all Petrodor. They've never seen anyone like me before.”
Lady Halmady, however, had other ideas. “The front of that dress,” she said disdainfully, upon entering the chambers, “is disgracefully low. Remove it at once and find another.”
Lady Halmady dressed principally in black, as was fitting for a high-class lady of Petrodor whose hair was beginning to grey. Her face was round, and her hair curled like her son's, but her eyes were hard, and tight with little wrinkles. Alythia found her stiff with formality, and utterly obsessed with matters of status and decorum. It made a distasteful spectacle. Nobility and royalty should be graceful, not uptight and insecure.
“Oh, but really, Mother,” Alythia laughed, trying to make light of it.
“Really nothing.” Her mother-in-law's lips pursed together tightly. “The festival celebrations of Sadisi are some of the grandest on the Petrodor calendar. The honour of House Halmady is at stake. I'll not have it said that the heir of Halmady is wedded to a highlands wench of easy virtue.”
“You…you accuse highlanders of easy virtue?” Alythia asked. “Mother, I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth!”
“From where I'm standing,” Lady Halmady said coldly, “and from where countless men shall no doubt also be standing at the festival, with wide, salivating mouths, there seems little truth to your claim.”
“At least they're no brothels in Lenayin!” Alythia retorted. “I never even understood what a brothel was until someone who'd travelled to Petrodor explained it to me!”
“You watch your tongue with me, young lady! I'll tolerate none of your highland lip in this house, I warn you!”
“If you have such contempt for highlanders,” said Alythia in exasperation, “then why in the world did you allow your son to marry one?”
Lady Halmady slapped her. Alythia's head snapped about, a cheek and temple stinging. The force of the blow astonished her.
“You do not question the motivations of this family's elders, do you understand me?” The older woman's voice was tight with rage. “You are your husband's servant, and thus a servant of this house. You do not question. You obey. I know that you are a princess. It may seem to you that this family is nothing more than commoners. But let me assure you, young lady, that a noble family of Petrodor is of a vastly higher station than even the royalty of that highland barbarian cesspit could aspire to. You did not marry down, my dear. It is we who married down, I am quite sure.”
Lady Halmady turned and stalked out, her black dress sweeping the polished boards in her wake. Alythia put a hand to her face, her ears still ringing. Selyna and Vansy hurried to her side.
“Oh, M'Lady,” Selyna gasped, “you're bleeding!”
Alythia looked at her fingers and saw that it was true. Lady Halmady wore many rings. Who'd have thought that old lady could wield such a blow? Alythia had little experience in being hit. In fact, she thought dazedly, she'd not been hit since…since that little bitch of a sister Sashandra had given her a right hook at their brother Krystoff's funeral. She'd been hitting everyone, then. That was twelve years ago.
“That will swell up,” Vansy said matter-of-factly. “Look, you can see it swelling now.”
“Swell up?” Alythia felt a wave of panic. She pushed her maids aside and staggered to the mirror, peering close. The cut was as long as a fingernail and, as Vansy had said, already swelling. “Oh that…that horrid old bitch! Look what she's done! I'm going to kill her! All this work for nothing…I can't go to Sadisi like this! Like a sailor straight from a dockside brawl! What will people say?”
“M'Lady,” Selyna ventured in a small voice, “perhaps you should keep your voice down a little…”
“What does it matter?” Alythia fumed. “She can't speak this barbarian tongue anyhow!” She yelled toward the door in Torovan, “She wouldn't learn a single syllable of that heathen monstrosity of a language, it's too far beneath her! She married down, you see! Down into the sewer, down into the swamp! Well how is she such a fucking sophisticate, when I can speak four languages and she can only manage one?”
She stumbled on one thick-heeled sandal in her fury, nearly falling. She tore it off her foot and threw it hard at the door. It hit with a loud crack and fell impotently to the floor.
Family Halmady left for Sadisi Festival without her. Alythia stood and watched through a small, barred window as the carriages left. Hooves clattered between mansion walls, and she caught a glimpse of armed guards hanging off the trailing carriages. Half of the house contingent, and many men from loyal, lower families, would be guarding the family's seniors: Patachi Elmar Halmady (her father-in-law), Lady Halmady, Gregan, brother Vincen and his wife Rovina, younger brother Tristi, little sister Elra and her rag-doll, Topo. The rag-doll got to go. The Lenay princess did not.
There were few good views over neighbouring streets, for defensive purposes. Serrin archers were good shots. Soon Alythia grew tired of peering through the little stone window in Vincen and Rovina's chambers, and went back to her own. But there was nothing to do besides sit on her bed and sulk.
This year's Sadisi Festival was going to be thrown at the Steiner Mansion. Family Steiner was the wealthiest, most powerful family in Petrodor. Family Halmady liked to style themselves the second-most powerful, but in Petrodor, such things were always debatable. Steiner Mansion was even more grand than Halmady Mansion, and their celebrations and parties were opulent beyond imagining. Such grand events were Alythia's raison d’etre. She loved to socialise. She loved to impress. She loved to be near real power, and feel its warmth radiating through her. She'd been looking forward to this day since she'd first arrived in Petrodor. Now, it was all ruined.
The family would say she was ill. A few might believe it at first, but not later, when the gossip started. Halmady Mansion had many servants, and where there were servants, there was gossip. It had been the same in Baen-Tar. News of the conflict between Lady Halmady and her son's new wife would soon make the rounds. Such conflicts were not uncommon, she'd gathered. No doubt everyone would find it very amusing.
She snorted at the thought and curled her bare feet up on the bed, touching the swelling on her face. It wasn't all bad, she realised. Such gossip could easily hurt Lady Halmady worse than it hurt herself. Men in particular might take the beautiful princess's side before they took that crusty old battle-axe's. Especially if she gave them some extra persuasion. She thought about it for a while, watching the odd firework streak across the bay, and refusing to become too dispirited. She was clever at this kind of thing, she knew she was. It was a puzzle, but all puzzles had a solution.
After a while, she began to wish she hadn't allowed Selyna and Vansy to leave. There was a servants’ party somewhere along the lower slope. They'd volunteered to stay behind and keep her company, but obviously their hearts weren't in it. Alythia couldn't blame them. Both would stay with her in Petrodor for a year to help her settle in. The pay was good, some of which would be sent back to their families in Lenayin. There was also the prospect of a Petrodor husband, one reason both were so eager to attend the Sadisi celebrations. But until that husband arrived, or the year was up and they returned home to Lenayin, they were both very much in the same position that she was-young Lenay women abroad for the first time in their lives, and very often overwhelmed by the foreignness of it all.