AUDREY FLAMESWORTH
Renly Bailiff had the truth of it. The king was a man gracious in his features. With hair blue with the beauty of the sky at dusk, he was breathtaking to all who gazed upon him, and she no doubt had hers taken as well when she had seen him walk through the large doors of the royal hall, following the herald’s announcement.
He was dressed in a grey-black doublet with a golden cape reaching all the way to his hind-knee, caressing his back in glory. His sleeves were a dagged one that fell to the same length as his cape, patterned with the wings of ravens in gold. He had not the pig face she thought he would have, he was fair and the most beguiling man she had ever seen, a man all would want to wed and bed, and even whore.
“Seems I had the truth of it, my lady,” Renly had muttered to her while they watched him from the gallery take his seat on the throne. Yes, she knew, she saw now, he was beautiful, but she still did not want herself caged all for the beauty of a man. Beddable and bewitching as he was, she still did not want to sacrifice her freedom for beauty she herself had… If only that was true.
“Yes, Bailiff. Seems you did,” Audrey had whispered back in a low defeated tone. She did not know which troubled her the most now, the tinge of glee she felt knowing that the king was not the ugly man she had believed he was, and that ending up as his bride would not be as bad as she used to have thought it out to be, or the slight possibility that she ends up wedding the king and becoming a piece in whatever plans her father had, while she sits caged in this castle of shivering rocks.
And it seemed more of a possibility with every gentle wave of the king’s hand, dismissing the high ladies that came before him. Tall and short, bony and beefy faced, enameled and curtsied, none seemed to grasp his interest, none at all. Maybe he would dismiss her like that, she thought, but was that what she really wanted?
Her eyes had not left him ever since the proceedings began, and her consuming gaze which devoured him whole, seemed to block out her hearings to the world around her. She glimpsed the high ladies come and go; one, two, three, all beautiful and seemingly with a lot of assets from their houses to offer the throne, but none of their names she could hear nor care to recall, her focus was on the king and on him alone, that was until Renly Bailiff made a remark she did not want to admit.
“Your eyes seem to be on the king. Do I have the truth of it as well that you might be considering being his bride now?” She did not notice the crooked josh of a smile that came after he spoke, but she no doubt understood what he was trying to do. She had gotten her senses returned to her now that he had called her gaze back from the charm of the man on the throne, and she would not fall for his tricks as long as she had it.
She slapped, with the back of her palm, his belly hidden beneath the woollen long-robe of scarlet he wore. “What nonsense you speak, Bailiff. I’m just wondering how well your inexistent plan will go. You seem to forget that you were unable to hide my beauty like you said you would,” she whispered, while watching the eighth return back to the gallery north of her and west of the royal hall. Would I return in such way too…? She wondered.
“All I had said I owe to the direty of the moment, my lady. Your beauty is impossible to hide, and you know that.” He groaned slightly as he turned his head backwards slightly to his left to watch the ninth high lady walk down from their own gallery, his body tingling from the thick perfume she wore. “None of these high ladies hold a candle to your elegance, my lady of Flamesworth.”
“None of the lords in the realm hold a candle to your wisecrack mouth, my Lord Bailiff.” It was a jest, he knew, but he made the most of it.
“Oh, my lady called me a lord,” he said as he turned his head sharply back to Audrey. “The ravens must have chosen to bestow me with the cover of their wings,” he chuckled silently. It would not do to make it loud, they were before the king, just at the gallery where they sat closer to the high windows of the royal hall, showering them with the sunless light of day.
“The ravens should stop wasting their wings on you, and bestow me with them instead to shield me from the eyes of the king. It would be a much better use for their wings.” She had a bright face home to a lot of smiles, but the smile was not there now, her face was of confusion and thought, and not once during their discussion did she take her eyes to her steward, they were anchored below, at the bronze throne occupying the warmth of the king.
Renly took notice, but he had no cue as to what went on in her mind. What better than to ask, he thought. “My lady? Anything of trouble on your mind.”
Audrey smacked her lips softly. “You ask me that when the trouble is already before me? I sit trying to think of a way to not end up caged as a pawn for my father, so it would dawn good if you let me be for a moment Bailiff, I would love to escape his hold before I wander into it.” But what is wrong with me…? Am I attracted to the king…? She shook her head deep within where no one could see. No… it’s just a fleeting desire for his beauty, I’ll make sure not to end up as his bride, it will all fade away after that…
It was all to no avail, her thinking did not bloom flowers before the king waved his hand again, and with the sounds of the footsteps of the ninth and the echoing murmurs filling the royal hall, the herald’s cry came, and with it the sound of her name. “Lady Audrey of House Flamesworth!”
Eyes’ perused her irritatingly, for some reasons, as she stood and began to wander down the steps of the gallery, past the column of guards standing beneath the banner of a raven standing atop a diagonal sword on a field of gold, and towards the centre of the royal hall, where she stopped her graceful stride just below the dais, but before a long four edged table with two men sitting before it, across from each other. She had been taught grace since childhood, and despite the tenseness her body wallowed in at the moment, it was as evident as a needle in a haystack.
She looked at the men seated at the table. The one on the left wore a long padded velvet coat and had pretty hair tied into a ponytail—a bun would have been better, she thought. His hair was auburn almost as bright as her mother’s, but its lack in fiery tone made it fall short of that grace. No one came closer to the red of the phoenix than her mother, no one.
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The other on the right wore linen clothes, top in grey and pants in the colour of coal, his black hair twirled and looked to be damp at its edges, but nothing dripped from it. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she was sure she did not imagine the little boil growing at the edge of his nose which he kept trying to hide. It’s just a boil… she thought.
“The king listens,” the auburn-haired man said, calling her gaze from the man of boil and to him, with a quill in hand, preparing to be put to work on the parchment laid before him.
Her eyes went slowly from him to the king as she prepared to greet, but it quickly went to the floor without taking as much as a satisfying look at the man on the throne. Her arm joints held her blue scarf with elegance, as the thumb and forefinger on each of her hands picked up the edge of her satin-silk dress of silver while she bowed curtsily, her hair jewelled with tears of rubies aglow like fire, and embroidered into one long whip, falling over her left shoulder to mix in with the colour of her dress. “Hail His Grace! King and lord of Ravenwing, watcher of the skies and the lands and the hills and the rivers. I am Audrey Flamesworth, daughter of Winston Flamesworth, lord of Ironhold, and I present myself before you in the grace of the ravens.” Her chest tightened and the corset made it ever so daunting, while the silver choker gripping her throat made her neck ache with her bow.
“Raise your head,” the king said and she heard; his tender voice faint with a little deepness. Goosepimples spread all over her arms, she was glad her sleeves covered them, they would no doubt be the size of large watermelon seeds, she would have no one see how much the king’s voice made her quiver in something that she found akin to excitement, especially not her steward above in the gallery.
“Thank you, Your Grace.” She let her gown drop, and she slowly raised her head. She would see him now, up close, she would see… Ravens! What she glimpsed from the gallery was not what she saw now, there was no justice done to this man’s beauty from up there. Down here, she saw his narrow eyes clearly, his fair skin shined, even better than hers, and his hair… oh, his blue hair that the golden crown gemmed on all sides sat atop, oiled and glossed… he was too pretty to be called a man, any longer his hair grew and he might as well have been called a lady. But what really took her away was his eyes, it was silver, like what Renly had told her that day at the brothel, like… Her brows narrowed at the thought. She had seen such eyes before, but where? She could not recall.
“Speak,” the auburn-haired man interrupted her thoughts with a tone of urgency. The king had not the time to dawdle here, she knew, and neither did she. The more she gazed at him, the more she would want to be with him, she needed to make sure he waved her off like the others. It would be simple. It should.
Audrey breathed a calming exhale. “Do you mind if I speak truthfully, Your Grace?” She wondered what the look on her steward’s face would be, but she could not glance up at him, however she did hear the little murmurs coming from both the galleries at the eastern and western wings of the royal hall. She paid them no mind though. She was beginning to get the idea why her father wanted her to marry the king with ever so much urge, the name Flamesworth was not one that had a place in court, they did not seem to be welcome here. This was not a place for her.
The king leaned forward in his throne and placed his chin atop his hand. “Do just that, if you wish.” He was not smiling, and it made it harder for her, but little want she had for his smile, it would only make his beauty greater.
“Wedlock to the throne is all about what is best for the kingdom, that is if what I have been taught from childbirth was of any truth, and I say with all honesty, Your Grace, that House Flamesworth has nothing of any importance to offer the throne if I become betrothed to you.” Gasps echoed off the walls, shocking ones and even ones of relief, and the murmurs increased by a great fold, until the herald called for silence. She continued, “We are the lowest of the noble families in the realm, and we lack neither enough gold to form a trickle of what the throne already has. Our levies count to at most a hundred, and if we dip our heads into the gutters, then maybe we could enlist a hundred more. With an army of two hundred, we have not enough to offer the throne.
“The only thing we have is our sword making skills, and that we’ve signed off already to the throne. You already own everything we have, therefore I find it believable that entering into wedlock with someone like me would be a waste to the kingdom and all the prosperity it should have and deserve. That is the truth I wished to say to you, Your Grace.” With that I should be waved off… She had just plunged her house lower than it already was, but what hurt her the most was not how her father would feel—the man cared little for hers, so why should she care for his—but what hurt her the most, was that she would no doubt lose the chance to further gaze at the king’s beauty so close ever again, but if it was for her freedom, she would gladly do it all once more. Nothing was greater than that.
The murmurs grew louder than before, talks she did not want to listen to. Some echoed words of surprise and wonder of why she did what she did, while some were happy that she did such, those were undoubtedly the ones that could not stand her beauty, and some further kept up with their dirty talks of insults of her house, none she mattered about though, all she wanted now was to turn and bewitch herself with the scrunched expression that would be all over her steward’s face. She would smile then, maybe laugh.
The herald cried silence again, and the murmurs faded.
“Do you mean to say you do not desire sitting as queen of this kingdom? Leave your mind off your house and what you have to offer, you do not desire sitting beside me as queen?” The king asked, his narrow eyes still narrow, his expression unchanged, like though he was not surprised the same as the others in the royal hall. “You do not want the power that comes with it?”
“Everyone bears a desire for such, Your Grace. To sit as queen of a kingdom is something that sweetens the mind of all, but my desire for that is not the greater one, it is the one that is little, and even if it was the greater one, my value to the throne has made it insignificant. Please forgive my insolence, Your Grace, but that is how I feel.” Audrey bowed slightly again, and by the time she raised her head back to the gaze of the king, she met a winsome smile cuddling his face, it had changed, his expression had changed, and she wondered why as her eyebrows squeezed in perplexity.
“Flynn,” the king voiced, “call the bridal selection to a close, I have chosen my bride. Audrey, is it? Take as long as you want, and bring back whoever you want, but I shall have you return to be my bride on the day of the tourney. Is that when the ceremony is again, Flynn? Yes, then you should be here before the tourney. You will be queen.”
Flynn gestured to the herald and he called the proceedings to a close. The king stood and swaggered out of the royal hall gently, ignoring her face of confusion, the auburn-haired man leaving with him, along with the boil-nosed one, others in the gallery took to leave too, but that they did not do without the unending murmurs and spiteful words towards her, whereas she could not move a step from where she stood. She was dumbfounded, wondering what had just happened, and how it did. Her eyes turned to gaze up at the chaotic movements of the western gallery where she had stayed, and there she saw Renly at the edge, watching her with a pitiful smile, which confirmed what she knew happened. It was true. She was to be queen.