Queen Louise let herself into Katherine’s boudoir without even knocking. The latter sat at her vanity crosslegged, chatting to the pair of ladies-in-waiting sitting on the edge of her bed. Considering the great amount of clothes strewn across the floor, the amount of pillows on the bed, and the general mess, Louise thought they must have all slept there last night — it fit the reports of outgoing persons that she had seen of last night.
Louise in the doorframe was the spitting image of her portrait, framed not in gold filigree but elegant stones in which the door normally rested. Her jewel toned robes contrasted against the froufrou pastels of Katherine’s clothes and furniture, and drew all eyes to her as she strode in confidently: ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything.’
Katherine lifted a brush as thin and delicate as a handful of eyelashes from the corner of her mouth. ‘Certainly not, mother,’ she said, immediately discarding her focused expression of painting her face in favour of a kinder, more graceful one.
‘Mother,’ she said in saccharine tone. ‘Never do you interrupt.’
Louise’s mouth twitched into a smile. ‘Indeed… may I have you a moment alone?’
Katherine looked over her shoulder to Grace and Constance, who seemed to already understand their friend without so much as a word. Unnecessarily, she added: ‘Please, both of you.’
They were gone before she drew her next breath. Grace and Constance, perhaps everyone in the Ilworthian delegation, were deathly afraid of Louise’s wrath. Though she appeared well-mannered and even careful in the presence of Katherine, those who had heard the tales, knew that this was but a façade: Louise had a fiery leonine centre.
She sat down, slowly and carefully, as if Katherine’s ottoman was made out of glass or meant only to support the weight of fairies. Had it been made for Katherine, it may have even been true. Katherine was far shorter, with babyish small hands and feet, and a short and stout face that did not suit a crown. Louise, on the other hand, was a woman of Amazonian proportions.
‘So… is Souchon starting to feel like home to you, my dear?’ she asked as the first real silence fell in the wake of the ladies’ footsteps.
Katherine turned sharply on the stool to face her future mother-in-law. Her half-painted mouth shivered. ‘It is more home to me than Norbury Lake,’ she said. ‘I mean that. For you, and for Henry, surely, but also for Norbury Castle, where I am asked to reside in Ilworth, will always be my father’s castle. My preference was always Hambledon House or the Hailstone Stronghold up north. Castles where I had never been as the king’s daughter.’
‘Indeed,’ Louise began. ‘Good to hear. My husband worries about you, as poor Silouane worries about all Ginefort children. Your mother not being alive does not mean you are not still, at heart, half a Ginefort. You’ve heard of the Baradran troubles, I’m sure.’
Katherine nodded solemnly. ‘Doubly so. My daughter is a De Serra.’
Louise grimaced. ‘We are well-aware. It jeopardises your position more than your advisers would like you to think. You heard that they have beheaded Ferdinand? Poor, poor Ferdinand. Your cousin. Silouane’s nephew. King of the Baradrans. I wonder who let this all happen, who turned the other cheek to those murderous De Serra princes.’
‘I wonder,’ Katherine echoed as her eyes glazed over. She had not heard that Ferdinand had died but did not think to question it coming from Louise’s mouth. ‘I wonder who has taken power.’
‘Anyone’s guess,’ Louise sighed. ‘Well, you are a lucky one. Escaped within a hair’s breadth of being stuck in that hellhole — and God knows what they would have made of you. You are the spitting image of your Ginefort mother. They would have beheaded you just to have your head to show to the angry mob.’
‘Lucky…’ she let the word’s taste dance in her mouth. ‘Perhaps an alliance with one of us could have served them. I remember little, my dear mother, but I do not recall my former suitor Domenico, who is reported to be the general, to be able to behead a defenceless woman just for the colour of her hair and the general composition of her face.’
Louise scraped her throat. ‘Do you not?’ she asked. ‘You’ve spent years in a convent breeding peace in your spirit, I am aware. But I will continue your mother’s task of raising you as a proud woman of Ginefort heritage. I see a bit of Silouane in you because I know how much he and Joan resembled one another. They would have killed you. Had you been in the Baradrans, you would have died. You are entering a time in your life where you know that God chose you, because if He had forsaken you, Katherine, your head would have been shipped to the poor unfortunate sibling of yours that would have your crown instead. With it, the head of your four-year-old Johanna and God knows what other forbidden brood you’d have by now.’
‘I am lucky to be your daughter-in-law,’ Katherine concluded. ‘Of that, I can be certain. I am lucky to be Prince Henry’s bride.’
She sat back, content, and wrapped her arms around one another. ‘As to Henry, I’ve come to ask a favour of you,’ she said. ‘Hopefully nothing that will worry you.’
‘I would be happy to,’ Katherine said.
‘I have made the decision for Henry to be crowned around the time of your first anniversary on the throne,’ she said. ‘I wish to hand him the kingdom with a warm hand, not a cold one.’
Katherine knew, but knew just as well that she had to feign ignorance. She widened her eyes and inhaled sharply. ‘Oh, mother, what frightening news. All of this novelty in such an unstable world.’
‘It appears indeed that the world is not growing more stable,’ Louise said, her gaze cast downwards, ‘But I do not know how much uncertainty is yet to come, and how much time I still have. I would rather teach him now than to steer the country into darkness by dying behind the steering wheel. Captains leave their ships first. I’m asking you to be a guest of honour so we may use our prestige for good. Let the people know that the Queen of Ilworth and the Queen of Massouron unite in their belief in the King.’
She briefly thought in silence, scratching at the nape of her neck. ‘Shouldn’t you ask Harcourt about this?’ she asked.
‘What?’ Louise chuckled. ‘You are the queen, Katherine. You decide. It is up to you who to endorse and who to trust. If you wonder, truly, whether to endorse your future husband, you could talk it over, but…’
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
‘I fear I will be flayed if I do not,’ Katherine held fast.
Louise winked with so little emotion it appeared to be a twitch. ‘Another thing. I suggest you start declaring yourself an enemy of the new Baradran regime before your maternal family gets here. Your aunt Scemena wrote us — we received word this morning. They are on their way.’
----------------------------------------
The music that came from the old cellar was audible even from the ground floor when the door that led to it swung open, Richard noticed. It was the middle of the night, and he was making his nightly rounds of stalking. He had near infinite authority to do so, stalk anyone from the baker’s boy to the Queen of Massouron, granted to him by Harcourt when he took office. That being said, it did not mean that the prospect of being spotted was any less frightening. If any of Louise’s men found out Richard had spent days making maps of the movements of her high-placed officers that — perhaps accidentally — crossed Katherine’s path, he had no doubt in his mind that the pear of anguish would be used on each of his orifices that would scarcely fit it.
That night had brought him to the precipice of an uncharted land: the infamous dungeons where Prince Henry was rumoured to retire to when his parties got too rowdy for the outside world to bear. Precisely that damned door was taken by his prime suspect William Lennard. Of course, Richard grumbled to himself, the administrator could not just be sleeping soundly at this hour, and instead had to be out in the epicentre of depravity.
Like a lost dog, however, he followed him down the portal that led to a steep staircase down. There was barely any light that came down to the staircase, which was dimly lit with torches that turned the air stuffy, and all noise from the door was muffled by the music and sounds of the tactile.
The furthest he could see, the bottom of the flight of stairs, was a silk sheet nailed to a red tapestry on the wall to shield the viewer’s eyes from what lay behind, occasionally shivering with the movement on the other side of it. Richard braced himself as he walked down, disoriented by the fact that he had lost sight of William, and that he had likely snuck behind the curtain.
It was hot at the bottom of the stairs. A fire appeared to be roaring close to him. No longer a roar of music, singing, and shouting, the closer he got, the more he could make out voices. He tried to peer through the side of the silk sheet, and saw nothing but the gold frame of a portrait, and a suit of armour on a stand.
As he leaned over, though, he could just about see a crack on the other side of curtains, through which he thought to see more layers of silk. He crept over to the other side, and indeed, could see into a partitioned area with silks all around, only as he stood straight as a board against the cold stone of the walls, damp and spoiling the taffeta of his doublet.
He could see a wall, clothed in another tapestry, and embedded with arrows. Just before it stood a bust of an ancient goddess with an apple, gleaming and with a bite missing, perched on her head. Richard recognised Henry by his pudgy form and brown curls, the former he had inherited from the god Dionysus and the latter from his mother. Opposite him stood the tall and dark haired royal administrator, clutching a scroll case in his hand.
Through the general noise of the partying, Richard could still make out what they were saying to one another, especially when Henry’s tone was not that of playful banter, but rather a declaration. In his hand he had a carafe of clear liquid, and in his other a goblet. He raised them both triumphantly, wearing what appeared to be either a toga or a sheet artfully draped over his naked form. Whether his buttocks were covered at all, Richard could not see from the scant angle.
‘Aha, my Ilworthian friend,’ Henry declared in thickly accented Ilworthian, ‘I am willing to make an exception to the guest list tonight, but I will require you to complete one challenge! Worth it, I’m sure, for the opportunity to see right into the privates of the most important people alive?’
‘With all due respect, Your Highness,’ William replied, holding his hands outstretched and his palms down as if anything would calm him out of his drunken frenzy, ‘I’ve just got to deliver something. I can roll it into the room without even—’
‘No!’ he shouted, poured a glass, and pressed it onto William. ‘Let me get the bow. Drink, or I’ll have you executed.’
William hesitated, much to Richard’s secret amusement, but as Henry tossed the carafe carelessly out into the main room — or for all he knew, one of the main rooms — he decided that to drink was the safest bet. Henry turned towards Richard, but slid his gaze over the crack in the silk and did not seem to register the gleaming of his black eyes, and took a crossbow from the wall. There was an arrow ready to fire in its burrows. Henry held it up as if to fire, holding the end of it to the height of William’s head.
‘Now turn!’ he said. ‘Turn thrice, and fire!’
He started to turn, first slowly, but when he heard Henry’s bare feet tapping on the stone, he sped up, until he had seen the tapestry three times. Henry handed him the crossbow, and clapped his hands impatiently until he had fired: a miss, followed by a shiver that came from so far down his body that it could only be the result of the whirlpool of liquor in his stomach.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he grumbled under his breath, and burped with enough movement in his upper chest that he shuddered again.
‘Tough luck, old man,’ Henry said, and clapped his hands. ‘Try again or leave.’
Richard jumped when he heard the door up the flight of stairs opening and closing again. In the doorframe stood Sir Henry. Richard raised his finger to his mouth, and Henry nodded. He paced down the stairs and gave Richard a pat on the shoulder.
‘Nice outfit,’ he whispered to Henry, who was wearing an armour made out of leather, and seemingly nothing else.
He rolled his eyes. ‘I can’t see you,’ he replied sardonically, staring Richard down. ‘So I don’t know what to say about yours.’
‘That’s the right answer,’ he concluded. ‘Because I’m not here.’
Henry passed through the silks — on the other side, as Richard had pointed him to — and impeded on the liminal moment where William was deciding whether or not he was willing to risk vomiting the contents of his stomach onto the cellar floor to deliver a parcel in the middle of the night.
‘Ah, Baradran Henry,’ said Prince Henry, and signalled him closer. ‘Look! We’ve a visitor. Shall we show the man how it’s done?’
Sir Henry, not a man of many words, only nodded, then took a swig of wine from a discarded goblet beyond the threshold of silks he could just about see, turned on his heels a couple of times, had the crossbow handed to him, and fired.
William had to double-take. The apple had vanished.
It was impossible to see from where he stood, but Richard saw it hit the floor just behind its pedestal.
‘Well, off you go!’ the prince said, lifted the curtain to a scene of writhing naked bodies, goblets, glints of gold and practice swords, and signalled the knight to go through. ‘Well done once more.’
‘Henry,’ hissed William. ‘Take this.’
‘Not so fast!’ the prince said, meaning to whip the scroll right out of William’s hand. ‘You haven’t the right. Either try again or leave, scroll and all.’
William sighed and looked over his shoulder. ‘In that case…’ he sighed again. ‘It has been a pleasure, Your Highness, but it is time I call it a night.’
‘I’ll tell Katherine you came to see her,’ Henry said, laying a damp hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Shoo.’
As William turned, Richard felt his heart leap into his throat. It was too late to leave, and even if he made it to the top of the staircase, the hallway that it led to was so wide and long that it was impossible to leave unseen. Instead, he felt himself petrify against the wall, and he hoped that by remaining as still as he could, he would not be seen.
He angrily clawed at the silks to leave, stomping his feet, and Richard felt his face turn red when he was immediately spotted. William looked him up and down, his face coated in sweat, the copper scroll case foggy with condensation. He narrowed his eyes, and Richard narrowed his eyes in response.
‘Good morning, spymaster,’ William said.
‘Good morning, administrator,’ Richard replied in the same placid tone.
William began to climb the stairs, and the obscene glint of his gold cloakpin nearly blinded Richard.
Strange, he thought. His own was quite tarnished.