EIGHT
The Wheel-Barrow was a vigorous position, requiring a certain athleticism on the part of both participants. I wasn’t sure if I cared to repeat it, but it was an interesting experiment, and it tired me enough so that I slept soundly and late.
I awoke to find that the King’s absolution of me had further repercussions. Noémie d’Etoile presented Bao and me with a stack of engraved cards printed on thick, expensive paper.
“What are these?” I asked in bewilderment.
“Calling cards,” Noémie said. “It’s become quite the fashion in the past few years. These were left by all the people who came to pay you a visit this morning.”
I flipped through the cards, glancing at the names engraved on them. “But I don’t even know these people!”
She smiled. “Well, it seems they wish to make your acquaintance.”
“Do I have to meet all of them?” I asked in dismay.
“ ’Tis your choice,” Noémie said. “No doubt most of them seek to curry favor since the King’s embraced you and your father has a certain amount of influence with the Lord Minister. Are there none you would call a friend from your time here in the City before?”
“Prince Thierry was the closest thing to a friend I had here,” I said absently. “And he’s on the far side of the world.”
“Didn’t you bed him?” Bao commented.
“Only the once! And we made our peace with it. There’s no one—” I turned over another card. “Oh.”
“Someone you know?”
“Aye.” I gazed at Lianne Tremaine’s name, surrounded by a printed wreath of delicate blossoms. “She was the King’s Poet once—the youngest ever appointed. And she was a member of the Circle of Shalomon.”
“The demon-summoners?” Bao asked.
I nodded, glancing at Noémie. “You must have known.”
“I did.” Her expression remained serene. “People make mistakes, Moirin. Sometimes they learn from them. I believe Lianne Tremaine has done so. She’s fallen far from her days of glory.” Leaning over, she tapped the card. “Those are eglantine blossoms. Since the King dismissed her from her post, she’s taken a position at Eglantine House.”
It surprised me. “As a Servant of Naamah?”
“No, no.” Noémie shook her head. “As a tutor to their young poets, although it’s also true that many patrons commission her to write poems on their behalf. Whatever else may be true, her talent is undeniable.”
Bao examined the card. “You should see her, Moirin.”
“Why?” My memories of Lianne Tremaine weren’t particularly fond ones.
He gave me one of his shrewd looks. “You and she, you made the same mistake.”
“I didn’t want to!” I protested.
Bao shrugged. “But you did it. Maybe you can learn from each other. Maybe she knows something about that idiot Lord Raphael that can help you figure out what unfinished business you have together.”
“You have an irksome habit of being right,” I observed. “My lady Noémie, was there any word from his majesty?”
“No,” she said. “Were you expecting it?”
“I’m not sure what I expected,” I admitted.
“Let’s go call on the little princess,” Bao suggested. “Afterward, you can decide what you want to do about this.” He flicked Lianne Tremaine’s card with one finger. “And the King.”
“Do you think we should return so soon?” I asked.
He nodded. “We promised her. Soon never comes soon enough to a young child. And I think that one has been disappointed many, many times before. Let her see that we mean to keep our promise.”
I smiled at him. “You’re uncommonly sensitive when it comes to children, my bad boy. All right, then. Let’s go.”
Once again, Bao was right.
Upon presenting ourselves at the royal nursery, we were confronted by the stony-faced nursemaid Nathalie Simon. “You’re interrupting her highness’ morning lesson,” she informed us.
“Do you mean to forbid us entry?” I inquired.
Bao favored her with one of his most charming smiles. “We’ll be only a minute, my lady.”
Grudgingly, she admitted us.
Desirée and her tutor were seated in undersized chairs in a sunlit corner of the chamber, heads bowed over a slate of sliding alphabet blocks. I paused, listening to the sound of her childish voice chanting the alphabet.
“Ah… Bay… Cey…”
“You’ve guests, young highness,” Nathalie announced in a hard tone.
Desirée’s silver-gilt head lifted, and a dazzling smile dawned on her face. “You came!”
“Of course!” Bao scoffed. “Did you think we wouldn’t?” With careless grace, he crossed the room and sank to sit cross-legged beside her, peering at the slate of blocks. “So these are D’Angeline letters, huh? Maybe you can teach them to me.”
Her fair brow furrowed. “Are you mocking?”
Bao shook his head. “No. In Ch’in, we write differently.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We just do.”
Watching them, I couldn’t help but smile. Desirée’s tutor rose, her expression caught somewhere between respect and defiance.
“Lady Moirin, I believe?” She made a reluctant curtsy, bobbing her head. “I’d heard you’d taken an interest in the child.”
“So I have,” I said calmly.
“She’s bright, very bright.” Her chin rose. “I’ll not apologize for teaching her beyond her years.”
“Nor should you,” I agreed. “What’s your name?”
“Aimée Girard.”
A thought came to me as I watched Desirée earnestly teaching the alphabet to Bao. “Do you suppose you might take on a second pupil, my lady?”
“You’re serious?”
I nodded. “Bao, what do you think of the notion?”
He glanced up. “I think I would like to read the names written on these calling cards we are receiving.” A grin crossed his face. “Not to mention what is written in the very interesting books in the temple’s library.”
Aimée Girard flushed. “Ah… well. You understand we will be reading only very, very simple texts?”
“Yes, of course.” With one finger, Bao pushed blocks around on the slate. “Would you like me to study with you, your highness?”
Desirée’s expression was dubious. “You’re not mocking?”
“No.” His voice was solemn. “I promise.”
“Then I would like it very much,” she said decisively. “Can Bao stay, mademoiselle?”
“Will you be on your best behavior if I say yes?” her tutor inquired. The child nodded vigorously. “Very well, then.” She smiled. “Messire Bao, it seems we have an arrangement.”
I smiled, too. “Then I will leave you to it, and return in a while.”
Desirée rose and gave me an unexpected hug, her small arms tight around my legs. “Thank you for coming,” she said in a muffled tone, loosing me as unexpectedly as she’d embraced me. “And for bringing Bao.”
“Of course, dear heart.” I bowed to her in the Bhodistani manner.
With a giggle, she returned the bow, and then sat back down on her little chair, arranging her hands in a contemplative mudra. “See! I remember.”
“So you do!” I clapped. “Very well done, your highness.”
The nursemaid Nathalie escorted me to the door, every line of her body expressing disapproval. “Do you imagine his majesty will be pleased to hear you’re teaching the child heathen prayers, and now setting strange foreigners to study with her?” she asked in a low voice.
“I imagine he’ll be pleased to know his royal daughter is learning about other cultures,” I said evenly. “Ancient, venerable cultures. And I would thank you not to speak of my husband as a strange foreigner.”
“It’s unsuitable!” Her face hardened. “He made a jest about reading texts from the Temple of Naamah in her very presence!”
“That was ill advised,” I agreed. “But it was a jest the child is too young to grasp. I’ll speak to him about it.”
It didn’t placate her. With a look of unmitigated disgust, she flung the nursery door open, startling a young page in House Courcel’s blue livery, who was lounging in the hallway.
“Lady Moirin!” He sketched a hasty bow as I exited the nursery. “Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting you so soon. His majesty wishes to see you.”
“By all means,” I agreed. Nathalie sniffed and closed the door firmly behind me. Eyeing the closed door, I hoped very much that the King’s summons boded good rather than ill.
King Daniel de la Courcel was in the Hall of Portraits. Approaching, I would have expected to find him contemplating Jehanne’s portrait, or the portrait of his first wife, Seraphine, whom he had also loved deeply. To my surprise, I was wrong. The page coughed discreetly to announce our arrival, and the King shifted slightly to acknowledge it. For several minutes, we waited in silence, not wishing to intrude on his reverie.
At length, he turned. “Thank you, Richard. You may go.” The page bowed and took his leave. “Do you know who she is?” his majesty asked me, indicating the portrait of a beautiful dark-haired woman with strong brows, candid blue eyes, and a mouth that promised firmness and compassion alike.
“Aye, my lord,” I said. Prince Thierry had taken me to see the Hall of Portraits on my first visit to the Palace. “Anielle de la Courcel. She would have been your grandmother, yes?”
“Yes.” Daniel touched the gilded frame with reverent fingers. “She was the last great ruler Terre d’Ange has known. Did you know they called her reign the Years of Joy?” His mouth twisted. “I wonder what they will call mine.”
I said nothing.
“You’re no courtier to feed me smooth lies,” he observed. “Nor a false friend to give me words of false comfort. I appreciate it.”
“Your majesty—”
King Daniel raised one hand to silence me. “I meant my words. Moirin, there’s a matter I wish to discuss with you in private. Come, we’ll speak in my study.”
I inclined my head. “Of course, my lord.”
As I followed him, I couldn’t help but hesitate in front of Jehanne’s portrait, newly hung since last I had visited the Hall of Portraits. The King paused, his expression pained. “That was done the first year of our marriage,” he said quietly. “She sat for it in the costume she wore for the Longest Night.”
I gazed at it without speaking. It was beautiful, of course—it was Jehanne. The artist had done a good job of capturing the sparkle of her eyes, the translucence of her skin. Her pale hair was piled in a coronet, and she wore a high collar of delicate silver filigree from which diamonds spilled like droplets of ice, hundreds of scintillating points of light. Her wicked little smile looked like it belonged to a woman keeping a delightful secret—and knowing Jehanne, she probably was.
“It’s very beautiful,” I murmured.
Daniel turned away. “I know.”
His study was as I remembered it, a warm, masculine room with a great deal of polished wood. It was tidier, though. There were no papers cluttering his gleaming desk, as there had been in the Lord Minister’s study.
At his majesty’s urging, I took one of the high-backed chairs before the fireplace. He stirred the coals with a poker. “You paid a second visit to the princess. I thought you would stay longer.”
“She was at her studies,” I said. “Bao stayed. Unless you disapprove, he will learn to read alongside her.”
The King looked startled. “He will?”
“Unless you disapprove,” I repeated. “It is not that he cannot read,” I added. “The Ch’in use a very, very different form of writing.” The memory of my Ch’in princess Snow Tiger tracing characters on my bare skin with the end of her braid and laughing at my struggles came to me, and I cleared my throat. “It is actually quite difficult to learn.”
“Ah… yes.” Daniel blinked. “I recall seeing Master Lo Feng’s poetry. Lovely, but incomprehensible. Tell me, Moirin… how do you find my daughter?”
I met his gaze. “Much like her mother, my lord. Willful, with moods that switch like the wind. Charming, despite her temper. Clever and quick-witted.”
“Is that all?”
His gaze was steady. I drew a deep breath. “No, my lord. I find her lonely and neglected.”
“Ah.”
“Desirée is a tempestuous child,” I said. “But she is a child nonetheless. If you are asking, your majesty, I think she would be better served by nursemaids more inclined to patience and tolerance of a child’s foibles.” I frowned in thought. “I am not sure, yet, about her tutor. That is one of the reasons I suggested Bao stay and study with her. He will be able to provide a better gauge.”
The King raised his brows. “Was that your true purpose in suggesting such an unorthodox arrangement, then?”
I shrugged. “It was a convenient confluence of purposes.”
“I see.”
“Do I overstep my bounds, my lord?” I asked him honestly.
“No more than I had hoped.” Daniel de la Courcel poked at the fire a second time, then settled into the chair opposite me, gazing into the shifting embers in the grate. “Moirin, do you know of the Montrèvan Oath?”
I shook my head. “No, my lord.”
He gave a faint smile. “It began when Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève… Have you heard of him?” I nodded. “Ah, good. When Anafiel Delaunay, for he was disinherited at the time, swore an oath to Rolande de la Courcel”—the King counted on his fingers—“my thrice-times great-grandfather… swore an oath to protect the interests of Rolande’s infant daughter Ysandre.”
“I know the story,” I murmured.
He nodded. “That oath was sworn in secret. But it formed the basis for a new tradition begun by Sidonie and Imriel de la Courcel, who openly invited their kinsman Barquiel L’Envers to be the oath-sworn protector of their firstborn child.”
“Your grandmother Anielle?”
“Even so.” Daniel de la Courcel sighed. “And if I read the histories rightly, it was meant to acknowledge the healing of a rift between House Courcel and House L’Envers. Since then, it has become something of a political prize to be won.”
“Oh?” I inquired.
The King leveled his gaze at me. “When Thierry was born, I appointed my kinsman Rogier Courcel, the Duc de Barthelme, to be the oath-sworn protector of my firstborn son. This charge, he accepted with grace and gratitude. He swore the Montrèvan Oath.”
“Do you doubt him?” I asked softly.
“No.” He leaned forward, hands braced on his knees. “Not his loyalty, no. I would never have appointed him Lord Minister if I did. But my daughter, Jehanne’s daughter…” His fingers clenched, bunching the fabric of his breeches. His voice broke. “She should have an oath-sworn protector who cares for her happiness. Someone like you, Moirin.”
I saw the picture he was painting.
“My lord!” I said in protest. “Oh, my lord! It is a great honor you offer, but I cannot promise to stay with her. My home lies in Alba, and I mean to return there in the spring, at least for a time. And…” I touched my chest. “There is the matter of my inconvenient destiny, which I do not think is finished with me. What if it calls me away from her side… as it did—as it did from her mother’s?”
King Daniel de la Courcel’s gaze was unwavering. “And yet it brought you back, too. I am not asking you to stay with her, Moirin. I am asking you to love her. Will you?”
I sighed. “How can I do otherwise?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Before you accept, hear me out in full. I fear this will not be a popular decision. You’re a descendant of House Courcel, but you’re a young woman without land or a title. You’re only half-D’Angeline—”
“And the other half Maghuin Dhonn,” I said wryly. “Believe me, my lord, I know the regard in which my mother’s folk are held.”
Daniel nodded. “Many will claim I chose you out of sentimental folly. It’s likely to cause a scandal, and I daresay you’ve had your fill of those. That’s why I make this offer in private. If you wish to decline, I will understand. No one else need ever know this conversation took place.”
“Are you sure it’s not sentimental folly?” I asked him.
“No.” His expression was candid. “Not entirely. But sentimental folly lies at the heart of all that is good in Terre d’Ange.”
“Love as thou wilt,” I murmured.
“Yes.” He fixed me with his unblinking gaze. “So, Moirin. Do you accept or decline?”
My diadh-anam flickered, but it gave no guidance, merely warned me that this was a decision of moment, and my own to make. “If I accept, does it grant me the authority to replace the head nursemaid?”
He gave me his faint smile. “And the tutor, too, if you deem her unsuitable.”
It occurred to me that I should talk to Bao before making such a grave decision; and then I thought twice, and knew what he would say. For all his teasing ways, Bao had a hero’s romantic heart. He wouldn’t hesitate. “I accept.”
The King inclined his head. “I will make the announcement, and see that a date is set for the ceremony.”