Beyond those walkways stretched the park grounds, miles in each direction save north, where they ran into the Eldest’s City, the greatest and proudest city in all Southlands. All these things should be Lionheart’s someday. The barons would swear their vows of loyalty as they knelt at his feet. Everyone in the kingdom would pay him tribute, honor, and reverence.
And, of course, he would choose a bride to rule beside him as his mother ruled alongside his father. A strong woman, a beautiful woman. That is what the people of Southlands required.
“Rose Red,” Lionheart said, without turning to look at her, “do you think I will make a good king?”
Rose Red said nothing for a long moment. Her hands froze in their work. This was not a question she should be asked, much less one she should be permitted to answer.
But Lionheart turned to her, and in that instant, as she peered through the slit in her veils, she did not see a prince. She saw Leo. She saw the boy who had once told her he would be a jester someday; the boy who had built stick-and-leaf ships and sunk them in the Lake of Endless Blackness; the boy who had brandished a beanpole like a sword and battled imaginary foes with all the vim of a legend.
The boy who had looked into the monster’s pool.
“It’s not my place to say, Your Highness,” Rose Red whispered.
He looked hurt at this response. Rose Red wished she could take back those words.
“I give you permission to speak,” Lionheart said, but his voice was harder now. He was a prince again, no longer the Leo she knew. Rose Red bowed her head and curtsied again, deeply.
“I believe you are the kindest and best master, Your Highness,” she said. “Therefore, you must be the kindest and best king.”
Lionheart gazed at her, searching the huddled form for some sign of the playmate he had once enjoyed. But everything was different now, down from the mountain. They were no longer a boy and a girl; they were a prince and a chambermaid. She was not his friend, not his peer, not even an upper servant with whom he could rightly exchange civilities.
“Carry on with your work,” he said and stepped from the sitting room into the adjoining dressing room.
He prepared himself for dinner that night, having never liked employing a man to aid him. As befit a prince, he wore red and black, and when he sat at table with his parents and Daylily, he saw that she wore the same colors, just as though she were already a princess. But her face was demure, and she addressed herself primarily to the Eldest and Queen Starflower, only turning to Lionheart when he happened to speak to her. All politeness and poise and beneath it all, allure. No one who saw her could fail to notice what a fine queen she would make.
The meal complete, Queen Starflower turned to her son with a smile. Lionheart made an effort not to flinch under it.
“Why don’t you entertain our guest, my dear?” Starflower said. “You have skill, and we would all enjoy a demonstration.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Daylily, turning her great eyes upon him. “I seem to remember asking you to play last summer during our stay at Hill House, but you never could be convinced.”
Lionheart shrugged, an unprincely gesture.
“Won’t you please now?” Daylily asked, her gaze ever so compelling.
A lute was sent for, and Lionheart accepted it and stood before those assembled. He liked the feeling of all those eyes upon him, not least of all Lady Daylily’s. His father watched with mild interest, his mother like a hawk. And down the table several places, Foxbrush sat with his hair oiled, giving Lionheart dagger looks that were almost hysterical. Lionheart gave his cousin a grin before strumming the first chord. Then he sang:
“O Gleamdren fair, I love thee true.
Be the moon waxed full or new,
In all my world-enscoping view,
There shineth none so bright as you.”
Daylily nodded quietly to herself as the prince performed the first few bars of the familiar song. A song of Eanrin, Chief Poet of Iubdan Rudiobus, it was one of the most renowned romantic ballads in all history. And Lionheart had chosen to play it for her. She did not smile, for that might be too obvious, but she gazed long and full at Lionheart’s face.
“Sing of all the lovers true
Beneath a sky of sapphire hue.
In light o’ the love I bear for you,
All theirs must fade like morning dew.”
So why, she wondered, did he keep glancing at his mother that way?
Lionheart sang on:
“This passion that I feel for you
Is something rather like the flu.
The flu brought on by cook’s new stew
That tasted like an old man’s shoe.
"Oh, sing me now a song of stew!
A stew that’s fit for lover’s brew!
A stew so hearty and so—”
“Lionheart!”
Queen Starflower’s voice struck like an arrow to its mark. Even King Hawkeye, who was chuckling quietly behind his hand, coughed and sat up at her words. Daylily, as those last verses poured off the prince’s tongue, had grown pale and clenched her fists tightly in her lap.
The queen’s eyes snapped fire. “If you cannot sing the work of Bard Eanrin with the proper reverence, I beg you will desist.”