During this time, the queen did not allow Cammon and Amalie any time alone at all. If she couldn’t be present whenever Cammon was expected in the room, she made sure Belinda Brendyn was on hand. If the regent’s wife was unavailable, Wen and Janni were sure to show up, prepared to offer the princess another lesson in self-defense.
Wen had brought Amalie a wicked little dagger with a carved bone hilt and taught her how to use it. Now not a day went by that Cammon didn’t see Amalie absentmindedly touch her hand to her left knee, where the slim sheath had been buckled on just above the bend of bone.
“Sleep with it, too,” Wen advised one day shortly after Tayse and Senneth had departed. “Only take it off when you’re bathing-and even then, keep it close to hand.”
“Well, she might want to take it off when she’s-you know-I mean, her husband-” Janni said, floundering past what she was originally going to say when she realized that the princess probably had never taken a lover.
Wen gave her a look of exaggerated surprise. “You remove all your weapons then? That’s when you need them most.”
The Riders erupted into laughter. Amalie was delighted-she loved it that the other women didn’t guard their tongues around her. Valri, who was present today, tolerated the raillery, though she clearly disliked it. “And these men you spend time with,” Amalie asked, trying to keep her voice grave. “Are they also armed when you are-intimate?”
“The Riders are,” Janni said, still laughing. “But other men? Sometimes I’m amazed at how unprotected they allow themselves to be.”
“But then, who’d want any man but a Rider?” Wen asked. The smile abruptly left her face and Cammon felt her well-worn flare of misery. But what if the Rider doesn’t want you? she was thinking. And then, so clearly that he could not have blocked the thought if he tried: Justin.
Amalie folded her hands in her lap and looked decorous. “I don’t believe a Rider will be my fate,” she said. “So what else should I know in order to protect myself from my husband if he becomes unpleasant?”
“Majesty,” Valri said in a sharp voice. She was sitting halfway across the room, frowning over some correspondence, but this turn in the conversation had caught her attention.
“It’s a fair question,” Janni said, clearly not intimidated by royalty. “Myself, I’d wait till he was asleep, then slit his throat.”
“But if he’s turned violent and wants to hurt her, she can’t wait,” Wen said.
“Please!” Valri exclaimed. “Amalie’s husband will not offer her harm! And if he does, he’ll be imprisoned for treason!”
Wen put her fingers around Amalie’s wrist and pulled the princess to her feet. She was completely ignoring Valri. “I’m going to show you a nice trick,” she said. “Pretend I’m your brutish husband. Now, when I grab your arm-”
Valri flung her hands in the air, watched a moment, and then returned her attention to her letters. Cammon spared her a glance, remembering what she’d said to him more than a week ago. You think I don’t know how to cut a man’s throat? He would put his money on Valri, despite her small size, if he had to wager on who would win a fight between an assailant and the queen.
He sighed. She had certainly won this particular contest between the two of them. He wanted to see Amalie, and Valri wanted him to keep his distance. So far, Valri had prevailed.
There had been no more midnight trysts in the kitchen, no more unchaperoned strolls down to the lair of the raelynx. Sometimes, late at night as he walked back up from Justin’s cottage, Cammon let himself hope that Amalie would sneak from her rooms and come meet him on the back lawn. But even though he allowed some of his longing to escape, to whisper in her ear, he never sensed her moving from the upper reaches of the palace down to the public rooms and gardens. He knew she wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see her. But Valri had developed a habit of coming to Amalie’s room at night to discuss the events of the day. On these nights the queen would fall asleep curled up in her chair-too close for Amalie to creep past her without waking her.
At first, Cammon was annoyed and resentful when he realized that Valri was deliberately staying in Amalie’s room to keep her from any secret assignations with him.
Then he was astonished when he realized that Valri had become one of the people whose presence always registered in his consciousness.
He knew when she was in the breakfast room with the king. He could tell when she had gone down to the kitchens to confer with the cooks. He knew when she was in the gardens with the princess, for he could sense them both, a bright shape of gold, a dense shape of shadow, side by side, slowly pacing.
When had that happened? He still could not break through the Lirren magic when she chose to conceal her thoughts, or Amalie’s. He suspected that, if she tried, she could render her body invisible to him while they were sitting in the same room. But he would still be able to close his eyes and know exactly where she was. She had become a part of him, important to him. Her existence had become ingrained into the daily routine of his own.
He didn’t know how to interpret that. Didn’t know why it had happened. But she was there now, along with the others, indispensable and integral. And so he knew where she spent her nights, and he knew he could expect no more stolen moments with Amalie.
They had, of course, other ways to communicate.
You’re getting very good at this, he told her when she wrestled with Wen and Janni. But use your magic. Steal their thoughts from them. If you can tell where they’re going to strike next, you can block them even more effectively.
Or: Have you convinced Valri that it’s safe to tell Ellynor your secret? I know she’d come talk to you about the Silver Lady.
And: I wish you could meet me tonight very late.
And: I hated that Kianlever lord who came calling.
And: I miss you.
She was right there in the room. But he missed her anyway.
She did not often try to reply in the same way, though now and then he would receive hesitant and incomplete messages in return. One day when Valri was deep in conversation with the regent’s wife, Amalie touched her fingers to her mouth, silently told him, Kitchen-kiss, and gave him a private smile. But she did not escape to meet him there that night. Miss you was something she could send him, though, and so she did, at least once a day. It was as if those two words were the abbreviation for everything else she wanted to tell him.
He wasn’t in the room when she persuaded Valri that it was safe to tell Ellynor her astonishing news, but he was there when the Lirren girl presented herself one morning. Her knock on the door caught him totally by surprise, and he scowled when she stepped in to join them.
“I hate it that you can do that,” he said. “After all the times I’ve practiced listening for your approach!”
She smiled. “Maybe you’ve stopped listening.”
“Maybe you know she’s not dangerous,” Amalie suggested.
“Everyone is dangerous,” Valri said in her dark way.
Cammon sighed.
But it was hard to imagine anyone less threatening than Ellynor that day as she curled up on the chair beside Amalie and began telling stories about the Pale Mother. She was not as small as Valri, but she was dainty and feminine, with a certain innate grace and warmth. The sort of person you might run to when you were hurt and crying.