Freyza closed the carriage door behind himself and the sound of it nearly made him jump. Towards the end of the bench, having shimmied over, sat Katherine, comfortable as always, already digging into the basket Freyza had brought for the way there. He sat down opposite her, slanted towards the other door of the carriage, and watched her in silence, digging out a porcelain bowl that he knew was slotted, carrying strawberries on one side and whipped cream on the other. Her feet were on the bench before her, next to Freyza.
‘D’you want anything?’ she asked, having put the bowl on her lap. ‘Sorry, I just started eating. I’m absolutely famished. I heard Prince Louis is preparing a banquet for us when we arrive to Bourrac, so you won’t have to go back home hungry. Favours ought to pay.’
Freyza wrinkled his nose in a smile. ‘Gracious and generous, but no thank you, Your Majesty. In fact, accept what I’ve brought as a gift. It’s particularly thrilling to have been asked to come along with you on this expedition, if slightly mysterious to me still.’
Katherine huffed. With great satisfaction, she wiggled the toe boxes of her shoes against the side of the carriage. ‘Who said it would be thrilling, Master Freyza? Perhaps all I wanted to do was read a book on the way to Bourrac. Never told you otherwise, have I?’
With the soft clattering of hooves on the cobbles, the carriage began going, slowly at first due to its heavy weight packed upon its back. Freyza was smiling somewhat madly when met with Katherine’s mischief.
‘Do you insist on inviting me when you mean to ignore me for the duration of our time together, and then send me back on my own?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said, dipping a strawberry into whipped cream. ‘You’ll get fed halfway through. Wine, Lord Freyza?’
She opened the curtain, letting the forest daylight stream in. The way the sun shone on her hands made them appear almost ghostlike, with long translucent nails extending them.
He loosened the ruff around his neck. The tight sensation of the starch linen never completely waned when he wore them, and whenever he left the great hall of Souchon Palace, he was eager to get it off. Besides, Katherine had already undone the lace of her partlet as well, leaving her neck looking ruddy and scratched from the collar.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘If I may advise, that purple-toned bottle holds an old Baradran. From the Ginefort days.’
Katherine looked up. ‘Sneaky,’ she said.
‘How come? I might not drink in my homeland, but what inspires you to imagine I do not stray from my belief when in Massouron?’ he asked. ‘Believe me, I care very little to inspire frustration in you by not supplying a good wine. We are stuck together for a number of hours, after all.’
She pulled the cork out with her teeth. ‘Unless,’ she said lisping from the cork still held by her teeth, ‘Halfway through I ask you to get out of my carriage, and you will oblige.’
‘Certainly,’ he said, taking the half-filled goblet from her. ‘And I will certainly die before I make it back. Which is, I assume, what you wanted to hear, is it not? So now we’ve established the frame of this — you won’t be speaking to me, you’ll have me fend for myself in the wild, but if I behave, at least I’ll be at a luncheon. Is that a fair representation?’
‘Well… I was hoping I’d be meeting a different Freyza once he’d be out of his office,’ Katherine said, putting the cork back on and withdrawing her legs. ‘One that doesn’t wish for a fair negotiation but instead I could speak to more candidly. But to answer your question, yes, that is what I said.’
She held his gaze briefly, before she wiggled her brows and held up her goblet. ‘Hook your arm through mine, if you will.’
Freyza hesitantly wove his arm around hers, trying as hard as he could not to accidentally touch her. Even hovering the littlest amount of space above her, he could feel the heat of her skin through the satin sleeves of her gown. ‘Chin-chin,’ she said resolutely with a wink.
He leaned in to be able to tilt his goblet back, knocked accidentally into her knees with his.
‘Sorry,’ Freyza said moments before he downed his glass. He swore he saw her smile past the edges of the goblet.
Freyza knew she was toying with him in the way he had been so warned about, but knew there was no way out. When she hooked her arm out of his, having finished her half-glass, she leaned back to the embroidered cushion behind her. The air had the scent of spring flowers carried onto it, or perhaps they were already beginning to lose their mind. The light pitter-patter of May rain softened the silence.
He noticed that she was eyeing him up and down. From below her downcast blonde lashes, her eyes slid from the point of his beard down the buttons on his doublet, lingering by its hem, and then all the way through to the toebox of his shoes. And yet, she said nothing. Intuitively he crossed his legs, wiggling his foot nervously.
‘I brought a game of chess,’ he said. ‘I imagine you’ve been taught to play.’
‘I have,’ she said, grinning. ‘But I’m amused already.’
The carriage came to a slow halt and Freyza peered out of the window. ‘Horses,’ he said.
It was a herd of over three dozen wild horses, spotted and taupe, standing on the dirt road and the bushes on its side. Katherine shimmied to his side of the carriage and looked out alongside, her back pressed against his shoulder.
‘I see,’ she said.
The coachman waddled off from his seat to scare the horses, which all just looked at him with annoyance and unwillingness to move, grazing peacefully in the bushes. Katherine opened the little door and slipped out, demonstratively stretching her legs out on the path.
‘We’ll be sitting all day,’ she said. ‘Might as well take advantage of the cards that we’ve been dealt.’
Hesitantly, Freyza followed her out, putting his feet down into the thick crud that had coagulated onto the dirt road. The horses were not just before them, some of them had started to gather around the carriage. The horseman came back to them.
‘Your Majesty,’ he said, his Massouric accent coming through, ‘I’m afraid we will have to wait for them to leave.’
Katherine shifted her weight from her heels to her toes and back, and looked over her shoulder to the caravan of carriages from her retinue that were beginning to pile up behind them, separated by some of the horses. ‘Well, then,’ she said, turning to Freyza. ‘We may have to break out the chessboard out after all.’
Freyza looked out over the meadow just behind the row of trees, where there was a small town. He reached for his coins and gave a few to the coachman.
‘If we must wait, I’d rather do so under the enjoyment of a fresh pastry,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind, do you? The rest of the gold is yours.’
He looked over at Katherine, who remained quiet. ‘Indeed, my lord,’ he said, with a small bow. ‘And you, Your Majesty.’
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‘You really can’t help yourself,’ Katherine said to Freyza once their servant was out of earshot. ‘Always showing just how fabulously wealthy you are — and for what? As if I’m the least bit impressed. It really shows you’re not from here, you know, or it’d equally show that you’ve very little to do with those in power. Those who serve us need to know their place. It is not to be constantly rewarded with tips like a favourite.’
He looked over at her. Her arms were crossed tightly over her ribcage, and she refused to look his way. ‘I mean well,’ he said, beginning as well to get agitated. ‘These horses aren’t my doing either.’
Katherine sighed wearily and sat down on the step of the carriage. ‘We’ll miss the banquet,’ she said. ‘That’s for sure.’
Carefully he approached her, his arms behind his back, and took a seat on the very edge of the step beside her. ‘It is very unfortunate,’ he said. ‘They may begin to think something happened to us on the way.’
She was quiet a while, leaning onto him since there was nowhere else to lean her back against. The horses’ intent chewing and shuffling grew louder the longer that she kept quiet. Finally, she sighed once more and said: ‘I’d kill for another drink, I’ll have you know that. I hope nobody from the retinue comes to talk to us.’
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This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
It was hours later when the herd dissipated, and despite the pastries and other foodstuffs that Freyza had brought, the drinks had been flowing too freely for any nutrition to ground them. They were back on their way, and the wine seemed to have materialised the silent desire of both parties. Red-faced, they now sat next to one another, facing away from the front of the coach, the windows half-shut as they were approaching the civilised world again.
Both of them were jubilant to be back on the road. It had been surprisingly cold to stand on the crud, and now with their shoes kicked off and yet another drink in their respective hands, it felt to them as if they had escaped death.
‘Master Freyza, Master Freyza,’ Katherine said, beckoning to him despite his face being inches from hers, after their never-have-I-ever questions had run out finally. ‘You’ve travelled your whole life, haven’t you?’
He nodded, clutching his goblet with two hands. ‘How so?’
‘Didn’t it get tiring?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you came to live at Souchon?’
Freyza scraped his throat, wondering how he could skirt around the issue despite his inebriation. In these past few months since they had met, and had thrown themselves headfirst into their trades, he had tried to say very little about himself. Even though he knew that gossip travelled like wildfire especially in such a place as Souchon Palace, he felt the need to appear civilized and buttoned-up before Katherine.
‘Tiring…’ he began. ‘Not quite. Rather I saw my time in the Sbai Empire come to a close a little — a chapter had ended. But I owe the Sultan all that I have and for that, I remain at his service.’
That had not satisfied Katherine. ‘I’ve heard from my ladies-in-waiting you used to sell harlots to the sultan,’ she said. ‘And you used to be married to one of these girls.’
Freyza’s cheeks burnt red immediately. ‘Odalisques,’ he said, more instinct than it was intentional to correct her. ‘I, uh. I come from a long line of traders, Lady Katherine. My father’s ship supplied two sultans with women. One of my father’s women gave birth to Sultan Selim. It may not sound like a very honorable position to you, but it has been one of the greatest blessings in my life to have been born to such a great man with such great shoes to fill.’
Katherine leaned in further, putting her temple on his shoulder. ‘So what’s the job like, exactly? What’s a day in the life like?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m afraid you’ll think of me differently, Lady Katherine,’ he said. ‘I’ve practiced an occupation unknown in your culture, and frowned-upon. And then, even moreso, to consider the type of women Sultan Selim asks for… no. Simply distasteful to elaborate.’
‘How on earth so?’ she asked, chuckling. ‘I’ll have you know, Freyza, I’m a head of state. Not some feeble doll locked up in a tower somewhere. In fact, I was until recently King Henri’s betrothed, so there appears to be little left that could shock me.’
Freyza clasped his hands together. It scared him to speak freely to her: all this time, his responses had been carefully chosen, most of them studied. He knew that anything he said off the cuff threatened to unveil his nervousness around her.
‘I travel to distant parts of the world and either purchase people off of the tribes, or take them in case there is no trade possible or we’ve found a place that is hostile to us. Then we teach them the basics of Sbaian or Baradran, depending on their market, and sell them either on the auction or directly to some customers, such as the Sultan.’ Freyza scraped his throat. ‘I had a few customers about who I knew what they were looking for. There was a duke in the Baradrans who took in any and all young man who could fight. The Sultan had a particular profile for his women, and so I had very warm trade relations with the tribesmen of the Najan Isles. Those were his favourite. Still are, but the Najan Isles are hard to approach without a rapport, since they speak their own native tongue and are naturally not interested in harbouring kidnappers.’
‘The Najan Isles…’ Katherine repeating, having heard of the small island group off the coast of the Baradrans, but knowing very little about them, as was common with continental nobility. Only in the Sbai Empire were they recognized as the breeding ground of such fine specimens. ‘So what does one of these women cost?’
Freyza bobbed his head softly. ‘Anything from six-hundred to twelve-hundred akce in an auction. Depends on factors such as age, appearance, whether they can be sold as virgins, whether they have any particular skill. Weirdly, it’s most lucrative to teach them an instrument. I’ve learned the lute just so my father could use me to teach it to slaves back when I was a young man.’
The carriage whirred on softly. ‘Must I be worried?’ she asked. ‘What would you say a person like myself would auction for?’
He thought he would faint. He had the answer ready to fire, having considered and discussed it a million times, but instead of blurting it out he knew he had to rein himself in. ‘What a horrible question, Lady Katherine,’ he said. ‘And something I can only speculate on. Women don’t generally come to us dressed up as the Queen of Ilworth speaking perfect Baradran and knowing how to play a harp. I’d probably not bring you to the auction and instead send you straight to the Sultan — I think I’d be sacked if I’d auction someone who fits the description to your degree.’
Katherine grinned. ‘What description?’
‘Small,’ he began, ‘Delicate, white as a moonlit sail, red-ochre hair, freckled like calico cloth. At an auction, just for your proximity to the Sultan’s wishes, you’d probably make a slaver’s month. A thousand or towards the eleven-hundred. As princess, you may have broken a month record.’
She held his gaze and her smile grew. ‘And that’s without you knowing about my lucrative skills.’
‘Indeed it is,’ he said, finally caving into the desire he had had all day to put his hand beneath her chin. ‘If ever you wish for a detailed appraisal, you’ll have to tell me about those.’
Her eyes were glazed over and peered out of her skull with giddy amusement. ‘You say that with such interest that I’m worried that even if I decide that I’d rather not get appraised, I’ll have to tell you about them.’
Freyza did his best to shrug coolly. ‘I suppose so, Lady Katherine.’
Katherine clicked her tongue and leaned in further. The scent of her perfumed body in her clothes, mingled with the scent of food and drink in the fibers of her clothes and her hair, the smoke that warned them of impending civilization, the salty sea air already present so far from the shore, all of it reminded them of their circumstances.
She would leave for good. They were alone, it was dark out, their carriage was blue-torched. Freyza could hardly believe his own ears and eyes. In his mind, he heard Bayezid. Each time he had come to Bayezid, thrown into the dungeons of his own longing, his advice had been the same. You don’t know until you know.
Though, even though he was petrified with her so close, it was obvious that Katherine had little of the same reservations, having already propped herself up on her knees in order to reach him, seemingly in a split second having gone from sitting at his side to her hands beneath his collar, half in his lap.
‘Isn’t seeing believing?’ she asked.
The implication only petrified him further, and he was suddenly sober as could be. ‘I, uh…’
She left him little time to respond, instead silencing him with a kiss. As she helped herself out of her sleeves, ready to next attack the laces on her dress, suddenly the carriage found itself on an incline, which pushed her off of his lap.
The moment briefly stretched as she slid down to the other side of the carriage.
Worried she had hurt herself, Freyza reached down, putting his feet against the opposite bench. Katherine, however, was laughing.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she chuckled. ‘We’re nearly there now. That’s Bourrac, the gate is on a steep hill.’
Freyza took Katherine’s hand and helped her back up to the bench, after which she began pulling the knitted sleeves of her dress back on. ‘Act normal,’ she said with a wink.
To leave like this seemed like the greatest injustice in the world to Freyza. ‘Will do, somehow,’ he said.
‘You have little choice, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘You should probably put your ruff back around your neck. Perhaps Louis will let you in then.’
‘I suppose…’ he said. He felt his hands grow cold. The last thing he wished for in that moment was to have to sit opposite the King’s flamboyant brother tonight, before then being whisked away in a carriage or taken to a local inn to spend the night thinking about a woman who was not only perfect, but now for good out of his reach. She had let it slip herself: once, she had been Henri’s betrothed. The tense was decidedly past. Her time in Souchon Palace was over.
She smiled. ‘Or you may come to me to Ilworth, but I’m afraid you’ve duties to tend to, don’t you? Very important duties that you can’t possibly be putting off.’
He looked at her rather solemnly, his ruff framing his pointed beard like a platter would a pig’s stuffed head. ‘I really do,’ he said.
The carriage door opened, with the coachman before them. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said.
Katherine got out of the carriage and Freyza followed her. It was squarely night, with the sliver of the moon lighting the steep incline of the gardens of Bourrac’s estate, and a couple of torches by the door. They were greeted by a servant woman who wore a neat blue doublet over her plump form, even before the rest of her retinue rolled in.
‘Your Majesty,’ she repeated as if she had heard the coachman. ‘Finally you made it. His Highness Prince Louis has been worried sick with you all day.’
She smiled, taking her cloak from the hook on the carriage door. ‘There was no need,’ she said, briefly eyeing Freyza, ‘Just a herd of horses on our way. Though I brought Lord Freyza to keep me company, I hope Prince Louis doesn’t mind the visitor. I don’t think it would be wise to send him back through the night. Besides, what’s one more?’
The servant looked him up and down. ‘Hm,’ she said. ‘I am afraid I will have to request His Highness about the possibility of another chamber for your visitor.’
As they began to walk towards the estate, Katherine felt her eye twitch. To Freyza she said, leaning in, ‘I wonder who told this woman that Louis could disobey me.’
Freyza shook his head. ‘It is indeed rather uncalled for.’
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There was a sense of cameraderie with Katherine that Freyza was pleasantly surprised to feel. He felt as though they were part of a secret plot, though instead of causing anyone’s demise, the plot instead would conclude with them alone, preferably in a bedchamber fit for royalty with plush flannel to keep out the cold, but if necessary, at this point Freyza would have settled for a cupboard he could lock. They entered through the main hall and were whisked up the stairs into a little dark walkway that ended in a half-opened door to a comfortable sitting room by the fireplace. Happily, feigning heartbreak, Katherine did not hear much from her court.
By the hearth sat Louis, dressed in comfortable home clothes and looking rather weary. His white skin had been sallowed, and especially his eyes had turned hollow with sleeplessness. His blond hair was combed in such a way that his part seemed to look much wider in the dim light than it must have been in reality.
‘Lady Katherine,’ he said, poking the embers. ‘You came after all.’
He stood up and embraced her, then turned his attention to Freyza.
‘We indeed made it,’ Katherine said, getting between the pair of them. ‘And I brought company. It’s a hell of a journey to Bourrac from Souchon, Louis. I’m sure you understand.’
Louis raised his brows. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I just wonder why your carriage-warmer is here, that’s all. You don’t happen to have anyone at court who could do the job?’
‘The most honorable Lord Freyza, Duke of Tougaf?’ she asked. ‘Why, I don’t think he’s a carriage-warmer to me, Louis. In fact, you won’t even know he’s here and tomorrow he’ll be on his way. Isn’t that right, Freyza?’
Freyza nodded softly. ‘Your Highness.’
‘Come now. You won’t even have to show him around, for I will do so. Please. As a favour to your sister-in-law,’ she said.
Louis defeatedly sat back down. ‘I’m heading to bed. If you are too, and if he’s gone by the time we breakfast, I’m happy.’
Katherine clapped her hands together. ‘That’s all I needed to hear.’