“Who can say for certain? Perhaps it is the Medium’s will for your mother to bear no other children. Even now, we await the word.” He waved his hand toward the mounds of parchment on his desk. “I have missives to write, instructions to send, curiosity to sate. Every ruler of every kingdom wishes to know the sex of the child and if it is born living. Do you see that pile on the edge of my desk? It is an offer of marriage from the King of Pry-Ree if the babe is a boy. A vast sum. The King of Dahomey has several daughters, quite old already, and you can be sure he would send a parchment and a cask of jewels to secure an alliance with the young prince, just as he did for you.” A wise smile split his mouth. “He may still begrudge the past, but he is clever enough to value a relationship with a stronger kingdom.”
Maia smiled ruefully at the thought of her marriage. When she was two years old, the King of Dahomey had sired his heir and promptly made an alliance with Comoros, binding the two children with a plight troth. The troth was retracted years later after a trade agreement fell apart between Dahomey and Paeiz, a conflict that had ended in a brutal war.
Maia had always known her marriage would be political. Even at nine, she harbored no illusions about that. However, she trusted Chancellor Walraven and knew him to be a shrewd man . . . and a caring one. He was her father’s closest advisor, her personal tutor, and a prominent Dochte Mandar even outside their kingdom.
Maia smoothed the front of her dress over her aching knees. “Do you have any plans for me . . . to marry?” she asked him, trying not to betray her conflicted feelings on the subject.
“Hmmm?”
She saw that he was cocking his head, his ear angled toward the open door.
“Are there any negotiations underway for . . . my marriage?”
“Not presently,” Walraven replied. “You are a handsome lass, if a bit shy. There are certainly no shortages of offers for your hand. But it would not be politically prudent to finalize anything until it is clear whether or not your mother will give birth to an heir. As your father’s advisor, I must steer the ship the way the winds are blowing, not where I wish them to blow. If I judge them properly, you will one day rule this realm even though no woman ever has. That will make a difference in who I select as your consort, do you not think?”
Maia could hear shuffling feet coming up the turret stairwell. Chancellor Walraven stood and hefted the tome onto his desk, shoving aside a stack of parchments to make room. He frisked the front of his cassock and gazed through the window pane, out over the mass of shingled roofs and belching chimneys. The sky was a soot stain outside.
It was one of her father’s knights who breached the threshold. Carew. His face was damp with sweat, his eyes haunted with emotion, and Maia knew just from looking at him that the babe was dead. Her stomach shriveled at the thought, and she felt the ache press against her heart. She wanted a sibling, even if it meant losing her chance of becoming Comoros’s queen one day. She had always enjoyed the company of other children, but though she never lacked for playmates, every other child in the kingdom was inferior to her in rank and station. She knew the other children had all been trained to agree with her. To let her win at their games, to fawn over her ideas and her desires.
She hated that.
To her mind, it was nothing more than luck that had made her a princess. She considered everyone her equal unless they proved themselves not to be. Maia was competitive by nature, she wanted to win on her own merits, not because someone else let her. As a result, she did not have many friends her own age. Most, like the chancellor, were much older and wiser.
“The babe . . . is stillborn,” Carew said between gasps. He hung his head and shook it. “A boy. You must come down and console my master. He is beyond himself with grief.”
“I will come presently,” Walraven said gravely. Maia watched him as he peered out of the window again, steeling himself for the encounter to come. His jaw muscles clenched, and his hands fidgeted, but he took a calming breath and then turned toward the knight. “Come with me, Maia.”
She was shocked and pleased that he would invite her on such an errand. She clambered off the window seat and felt dagger slashes of pain shoot down her legs. Rubbing her calves, she began hobbling down the steps after the chancellor.