“To Isabelle—you must remember—the pretty little French girl,” Marie insisted. House Valois was not welcome at court, but like many, she had heard that sixteen-year-old Lady Isabelle of Orleans was very beautiful indeed, blessed with dark eyes like limpid pools in a small, heart-shaped face. Uncommonly breathtaking and lovely: everything Marie was not. Marie knew she was displeasing her mother by bringing up Leo’s engagement, but she couldn’t help it. What was the use of power and privilege if one could not be happy in life? She missed Gill and wished with all of her heart that she could see him again. If she could, she would tell him exactly how she felt about him this time. She did not want to think about a future with Leopold.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “I am quite certain he is unattached. And if not, he will soon be.”
Marie nodded. This was not just her mother’s will, but the Merlin’s. The peace of the empire depended on her taking the Prussian prince as her bridegroom. The sooner she accepted her fate, the easier her life would be.
“In any event, he is to be our guest. I trust you will help make his stay with us more pleasant.”
“Of course, Mother.” Marie wondered what her father had been like—if her parents had loved each other as history claimed. The great love story of Queen Eleanor and Prince Francis. Or was that another lie? Marie had seen portraits of her mother as a girl. Eleanor had been so beautiful once, with her crown of red hair and dazzling green eyes. They called her the English rose with French charm. Once in a while, she saw glimpses of that fierce, gorgeous girl in the old lady sitting before her—like today, for instance, as her mother planned her daughter’s betrothal, her bright eyes flashing.
“I am sure he will be quite taken by you,” Eleanor said, her voice brimming with confidence as she slathered butter on her toast. It was clear that as far as the queen was concerned, the courtship, proposal, and wedding were as good as done. “If all goes well, perhaps you will be wed by the end of the season.”
It was late March, and the season ended in June, just a few months from now. A royal wedding was just the thing to distract the populace from the costly failure of the long-fought Prussian campaign. The public loved a royal wedding; there would be tea towels with their faces on them before the year was out. At least Leo had a handsome profile. “You will adore him,” Eleanor said in that voice of hers that brooked no argument.
“Yes, of course, Mother,” she replied automatically, and was seized by a hacking fit that left her red and breathless.
Eleanor was instantly alarmed. “Have you taken your tonic?” the queen demanded.
When she was able to speak, Marie nodded. She had taken the latest tonic, but there was nothing that could be done; no amount of spell-casting or potion-making could ease her affliction. The wasting plague was a disease even the healers from the sisterhood could not cure. Marie had heard the sisters murmur that it was her mother’s advanced age that had caused Marie’s many ailments, as Eleanor had been over a century in age when she carried her to term. The pregnancy had been an alchemy of creation, made from the preserved seed of Eleanor’s long-mourned and long-dead husband when the queen had decided that, at last, she was ready to bear a child. Even so, the wasting plague was a virulent disease, and one that afflicted perfectly healthy people out of the blue.
“Emrys assured me this one would provide the miracle we have been hoping for. He had the herbs brought from the East; the viceroy himself sent it from the mountains of the Himalayas,” the queen said, exchanging a sharp look with her enchanter.
“Yes, Mama,” Marie rasped, her chest heaving and her eyes tearing as her mother grew more and more upset.
“You must rest, dearest,” her mother said, rising from her seat to kiss Marie’s forehead. With papery lips against her skin, Marie tried not to shudder.
Marie nodded, still coughing blood, and stood from her chair. She waded through the rows of bowed courtiers, letting her ladies lead her back to her room so she could lie down.
It was an odd thing, her cough; as soon as she left her mother’s presence it abated, and she almost felt fine.