It was a strange sight for Katherine to behold: Souchon Palace in a state of buzzing bliss from the ascent of a new monarch. Naturally, not even a year into her reign, there was a feeling of recollection of her own coronation even when the two events were appearing to be nothing alike. For one, and most sorrowfully for Katherine, the King’s mother was there to congratulate him. The exchange of headwear appeared only that. Henry arrived crowned to Souchon Palace, and Louise arrived bare-headed.
Katherine tried to keep her sorrow at bay if only for the aesthetic impact her smile would have on tonight’s accounts. She assumed it would be a long night ahead, and from certain nosey types at court she had come to understand what festivities had been planned both by Henry and against his will by his friends. There would be no time for Katherine to reminisce about her own circumstance, and yet, stepping out of the carriage into a magnificent party, a pang of jealousy popped as if it escaped from her sorrow. Henry’s parents were both living, as were all of the siblings that he had known — an older brother had been returned to the heavens in his infancy, but the implication that Henry had once been a spare never dawned on him. His childhood was one where death happened to the elderly. It showed in his principles: if death could even exist, he must have thought, it turned the other cheek when provoked by a lad too young to know it.
Henry was wearing his house colours, red and grey, and kept his crown on as he entered the ballroom with Katherine by his side. There had been talk of her wishing to appear in her own house colours, wearing her own crown, but these were overblown rumours that were falsified the second she entered, wearing a regal silver gown with real silver thread woven throughout, and long open sleeves that swept the floor. Her dress was cut in Argentan style, with the sleeves just off the shoulder. Her shoes and girdle belt were adorned by red gemstones to finish the nod to the Chavanet colours.
The scratchy silver fabric dug into the tops of her arms. As she strode in, keeping her face smiling and kindly, she already tried to locate the nearest tray of alcoholic drinks to dull the great annoyances of both her wardrobe and Henry’s unjust smugness.
There was no denying it: Henry’s coronation, in terms of the materials spent and the amount of people attending, would go down in history a thousand times before Katherine’s would even be a footnote. Instead of a dusty great hall and a reception of a few vassals in the throne room, a ballroom of magnificent proportions had been decorated with unrivalled precision. The theme implied a celebration of Henry’s person: most of the guests who had not appeared during the day, so that were not vassals, court officials, or his mother’s circle, were part of the fashionable crowd of Massouron and Neuhausen, with a couple of Argentan, Sbaian, Baradran and Ilworthian guests to round it out. There was plenty of music, and the musicians themselves appeared to be roguish bard types rather than the sort of music a king may pick.
Upon his entrance into the dimly lit ballroom that smelled of torches and sweat already so early in the evening, the crowd burst into applause and cheering, and Katherine took a few steps aside to join into the applause, just far enough out of the line of sight to snatch a goblet off of a stand. There had to be something she could do about the increasing agitation of her shoulders and her psyche…
Henry basked in the glory of the applause and held his crown as he bowed, nodding along with the cheers as if they were a song. ‘My esteemed citizens…’ he gloated when there was a lull in the noise. ‘What a great thing to see: a room full of beautiful people who have all come to celebrate none other than the King of Massouron.’
Of course this only invited more applause and cheers, and this time instead of joining, Katherine downed the contents of the goblet. It was oddly like the wine that had been served to her the first time she had arrived.
Then, just while the crowd simmered down, hanging off of Henry’s every word, Henry began to grow quiet. ‘Yes,’ he said to each congratulation thrown his way, and ‘Thank you.’
Thereafter, it was silent. Henry looked to his side to face Katherine, who was looking at him rather dumbfounded. ‘Your wish for the people,’ Katherine whispered, shaking her head all the while. ‘I don’t know. Think of something.’
‘I wish to declare as the new king, that I will offer tax cuts on all spirits of Ilworthian make,’ he said, his voice already hoarse. ‘And I shall amend the advisers’ uniforms!’
Half due to the drunken nature of the guests, and half due to the out-of-touch nature, the crowd broke out again in cheers. Katherine chuckled to herself with the acknowledgement of his idiocy.
‘Queen Katherine,’ she suddenly heard from her side as the crowd roared on, spoken in accented Ilworthian, ‘I was hoping I’d run into you.’
Katherine looked over her bare shoulder and stood eye to eye with a stranger with green eyes and blond hair, wearing an insignia she did not recognise.
She narrowed her eyes and frowned. ‘And you are?’
He nodded. ‘Robert Fairfax, my lady. I was hoping you would be willing to help us in our plan for tonight.’
Katherine halted a servant to take a tiny wooden cup of spirit off of a platter shaped like a large leaf, and threw the two finger’s worth of liquor back. She was unsure of what she had just consumed, burning bright all the way down, and with a faint rosewater taste underneath the singeing.
‘And what sort of plan would that be, Robert?’ she asked. ‘You strike me as an Ilworthian lad, I imagine that means you know I’m not a chambermaid or a whore, so I’ve important plans of my own tonight.’
He huffed indignantly. ‘I bet you do, my lady. A few of us prepared a play for him. I was hoping you could aid us in removing Henry from the room briefly while we prepare the set. It is my promise to you, that it will be a hoot.’
‘A satirical play?’ she asked.
Robert nodded softly. ‘Indeed. Do not fret, my lady. You aren’t in it.’
She chuckled and crossed her arms with great discomfort, having the insides of her arms and her armpits scrape against the glittering fabric of her dress. ‘I’d hope not. Well, I’ll see what I can do for you lot. Truth be told, I’m interested to see what sort of dirt you’ve got on him. Given I am to marry him…’
There was a strange look in Robert’s eyes, bewildered as if he noticed a shift in Katherine’s demeanour or appearance. ‘Right,’ he said uneasily. ‘Well, I hope you enjoy your night, Your Majesty.’
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As Robert crept back into the crowd, Katherine kept her gaze on him. To be frank, she was starting to feel uneasy too, as if she had downed a glass of liquid anxiety. Following her departure from the convent, Katherine had always gravitated towards earthly pleasure, and her propensity to drink was no exception to that. Wine sat easily in her stomach, she had no problem with any ale, and her favourite above all was a good old Ilworthian gin. It seemed however that the strange concoction she had just had, had landed all wrong.
She sought Henry, who found her before she him. ‘Did I see that correctly?’ he asked.
‘Hm?’
‘You and Fairfucks talking.’
Katherine, still under the spell of the liquor, grinned and leaned into Henry. ‘I don’t think his name is actually Fairfucks, my love.’
‘Might as well be. Anyway, they love me out there. Did they love you when you first got out there?’ Henry was clutching another one of the tiny wooden cups.
Katherine was entranced by it. ‘What’s that you’re holding?’ she asked, watching the dark red liquid pulsate with the rhythm of the melodies from the band.
Only then did Henry notice the shift in Katherine. Her pupils were dilated to the point that the colour of her eyes had become hard to tell, and there was a dead and shaded quality to her features. He snickered happily and put a hand over her shoulder. ‘Do you know why we call him Fairfucks, Katherine?’ he asked instead. ‘It’s because he’s fought a duel for the hand of just about every woman I’ve ever met.’
‘Is that so?’ she wondered, trying to recall the face of the libertine before her just a moment ago.
‘Yep. Generally wins as well, but beds them either way,’ he said, and threw back his liquor, seemingly jealous of the enchanted place in the ether where Katherine’s mind seemed to have been launched into. ‘I don’t give a shit which of my friends you wish to sleep with, but I’d like to know in case one of them gives you syphilis. With the amount of partners he has on a weekly basis you’re playing with your life. If I get syphilis, Katherine, all of Souchon Palace will, and I don’t think mother would like that very much.’
Just as Katherine was chewing on the right words to answer, the glassy gaze she cast into the ballroom focused as she saw a woman fall to the ground. Instead of a slow tumble, it looked as though she was slammed into the marble floor. A second later a second woman was swept off her feet as though she had been tripped.
The crowd opened up and the pair of women had begun assaulting each other. One of them was a familiar face to Katherine — Diane, heiress of Le Roumont, with her raven hair in one long braid as Le Roumont was so backwater that the local fashion had not yet evolved to the far more modern and stylish crown braid most women there were wearing. The other was anyone’s guess with her face so bloodied. Her hair was blonde and curled, tendrils framing her mangled features.
Katherine leaned in, disturbed. ‘Should we go?’ she asked, remembering Fairfax’s offer.
Henry was entranced. ‘You’ve got to be kidding, Katherine. This is what we’re here for.’
A pair of guards were approaching, but Henry lowered his hand and shook his head, which caused them to back off. The two women were tumbling around on the floor, pinning one another down and trying to deliver blows to each other’s face, while they both panted and screamed with pain and exertion. Various insults slipped from their lips, and the first guests were beginning to look more in horror than amusement.
Soon thereafter, the blonde yanked at Diane’s hair with such ferociousness that she yelped like a wounded animal, and caused her to kick the woman sitting on her knees. Diane scrambled to her feet and dashed through the crowd, leaving bloody stains on their doublets and gowns as she split it.
From the mantle she took a sword and unsheathed it from its stand.
Henry leaned in to Katherine. ‘I wonder who’d take that tonight,’ he said, then added giddily, ‘There are Sbaian herbs in the drinks tonight. Some sort of leaf that can turn you to violence with the drop of a hat — they give it to their soldiers.’
Diane had run back to her victim, who had been helped up by bystanders, and took the sword in two hands, ready to swing it with as little technique as the weapon allowed.
‘Ladies,’ Henry said, stepping forward before his priceless weapon would be thrust into the belly of Diane’s adversary du jour. ‘I think you’ve done quite enough damage.’
It was true. The blonde’s face was maimed particularly badly, but even Diane’s collarbone looked to be shattered, and a gash on her temple was bleeding so gruesomely that her dress was soaked to the hem, a rivulet of blood in a slow march to the floor.
Diane looked at Henry, still panting and holding her sword, with eyes that were as dead and shaded as Katherine’s. The moment her gaze averted from her victim, a pair of women assisted her with leaving the room, holding her by her shoulders.
‘Down it goes,’ Henry said, speaking to the sword more than anything.
Diane did nothing, and Henry calculated for himself whether it was safe to approach her. With a little bit of shuffling, he realised that he was not in danger, and put his arm around her instead. Katherine recognised a pang of jealousy she had not expected, but her recognition was followed by the awareness from Henry’s words: she just had a drink meant to incite her.
‘Let’s go for a walk, Di,’ Henry said to her, and started to push her forward, first small and unwanted steps, but once she had found a cadence, the movement came easier to her. ‘And let’s take that sword from your hand…’
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Constance approached Katherine when Diane and Henry had vacated, her hands behind her back. On her face was a cold and disturbed look. ‘Congrats on your fiancé’s new crown,’ she said dryly. ‘Shame about the fight.’
Katherine was standing by the wall, her back against the cold stone in order to control the amount of heat she felt on her skin. ‘It was by design,’ she said. ‘It’s what Henry must’ve wanted.’
‘I heard Blondie was a prospect of Henry’s — her name is Camelia. Argentan lady. I suppose a fun night out turned into the end of her political career now her face is all screwed up,’ Constance said as if reciting a rumour word for word.
With Henry now gone, Fairfax and half a dozen young men had all gotten into costumes: Fairfax himself was a jester, someone was dressed as Henry — recognisable from his large spotted cloak, small crown, and twirled moustache, which in the actor’s case was a fake — and others yet were dressed as whores, knights, and references to people Katherine probably had never met. They had gathered in the centre, waiting for him to return. It had been half an hour since they had left.
‘Too bad for her,’ Katherine said with no feeling. ‘But she wasn’t marrying Henry to begin with. I am.’
Constance scratched at her scalp. ‘That’s approximately what Diane said before she bashed Camelia’s head in.’
‘Noted,’ Katherine said. ‘I’m tired of these whore-politics, I’ll tell you that much.’
One of the doors to the outside opened, but it was not King Henry who entered, but rather Sir Henry, who had come in with another Ilworthian knight who was invited, yet also asked to ride out with Massouric banners towards the beginning of the night. He was looking rather weary, at least until Katherine waved to him.
He joined the pair of young women who looked out at the makeshift theatre group. ‘Kathy. Constance.’
There was a puzzled look on his tired face, which only somehow became more ruggedly handsome to Katherine the more downtrodden or beaten up he had been. Constance hollered: ‘Henry! You missed the show. Well, there’s going to be an actual show, but Diane just beat the living daylights out of some girl.’
Henry’s face still bore the markings of his helmet on his neck and the sides of his head. ‘That explains a lot,’ he said. ‘Diane beats the living daylights out of some girl. King Henry fucks the living daylights out of Diane. A just new monarch — just what we needed.’
With agitation still in her system, Katherine’s heart dropped. ‘I’m going to have her killed in some gruesome way,’ she said calmly. ‘I hope that much is clear. I hope some chronicler eavesdrops on me when I say so.’
Henry playfully bumped into Katherine and shook at her shoulders. ‘If you need to loan one of my swords, let me know.’
Katherine briefly thought of the dagger as she let the focus spill from her gaze until all she could see was Henry’s face in a warm cloud of light and stone. Despite her fury, she managed a sly smirk. ‘And in return, I guess you’ll have to fuck the living daylights out of me.’