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Everyone was talking about a Gemot now for some reason, even though nobody could explain why they needed one. Rohesia fumed about it, calling it insulting and almost treasonous. For once, Elwyn felt in complete agreement with her stepmother. She didn’t know if anyone had told Edwin yet, but perhaps he had heard the rumors. He had certainly become withdrawn and pensive since the funeral. Maybe he was coming to terms with the awful responsibilities that had descended on him. Or maybe he missed their father.
Late one evening, though, Elwyn discovered what really worried the boy. She had been out hunting nearly all day, and she was sharpening her knives before bed, when there was a tap on the glass door that led to the outer balcony, the one she shared with the nursery. Looking up, startled, she saw Edwin there, barefoot in his nightshirt.
“What are you doing out there?” she demanded, as she pulled him into her bedroom. He’d never been one for spying before.
“Elwyn...,” he said, twisting his hands together nervously. “Elwyn, can I tell you something, and you promise you won’t get mad?”
“He’s terrified of me,” she thought sadly. “I’m the worst big sister ever.”
Aloud, she said, “I promise. What’s wrong, dear?” She put an arm around him and led him over to her bed. He nestled himself into the pillows, and she sat at the foot, leaning against the thick oak bedpost. “Go ahead,” she prompted. “Whatever it is, I’ll do my best to help.”
“Thanks,” he said, “but I don’t know what you could do.” He took a deep breath, and his face reddened. “You know how I looked in Finster’s Book, and everyone was there, and they made a big ceremony out of it?”
She nodded.
“Well, mother says I don’t ever have to tell anyone what I read in there.”
“That’s right. But I’m guessing that’s what you want to tell me.” Elwyn sat up a little straighter, thinking of her father’s warning about the book and Cousin Broderick. “Did it tell you to beware of someone?”
The boy shook his head, and his eyes glistened. “No, it didn’t. When I looked at the book, it...it didn’t say anything.”
A shiver ran up Elwyn’s back. “What do you mean it didn’t say anything?”
“There was nothing there,” said Edwin, eyes wide and frantic. “Nothing at all. The pages were blank. I told mother, but she doesn’t believe me.” He hugged a pillow tightly to himself. “That can’t be normal, can it? I mean, isn’t it supposed to give me instructions or something?”
“Well...,” Elwyn tried not to let her brother see quite how unsettling she found this news. “Well, um...maybe it doesn’t have any instructions because you’re doing everything right so far.”
A look of palpable relief came over the boy’s face. “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that.” He lunged forward and hugged her. “You’re brilliant. I’m sure you’re right.”
She was sure she wasn’t. There was no telling why Finster’s Book was blank now, but she had a bad feeling it wasn’t a good sign for Edwin. Or for his family, for that matter.
He left happy, but she hardly slept that night. First, she gave serious consideration to asking Lord Aldred or Lady Jorunn about it, but decided not to. She didn’t want to betray Edwin’s confidence. The more she thought, the more she worried that the blank pages meant that somehow Edwin wasn’t the true king. Certainly there were people who would see it that way. So maybe she and Edwin ought to keep quiet about it.
She thought about the book a lot the next day, when she went down to the city to go visiting. Elwyn hated paying social calls, but Rohesia said they needed to “nip this Gemot business in the bud.” She also said that she was “too angry to talk rationally to people about it,” which meant Elwyn would be making all these calls alone.
“We must keep up appearances,” Rohesia told her as she left. And so they would. The nobles had to be convinced that Edwin and the queen were fit to rule, even if it seemed like Finster’s Book had a different opinion. Elwyn had to try, even though she knew she was the worst person possible for the job.
She started her calls with an easy one—Flora Byrne. Elwyn had always liked the beautiful, outspoken duchess. They were both avid hunters, and Flora always sent Elwyn a hundred new arrows for the Autumnal Equinox. They sat in the duchess’s upstairs parlor, and Flora gave Elwyn a big cup of coffee that turned out to be generously spiked with whiskey.
“I’m not opposed to a Gemot in theory,” Flora said, when Elwyn finally brought up the subject. “It would probably be good fun. But no one has given me a single good reason why we need one. Your brother is the rightful king, and that’s that. You only have a Gemot when the succession is disputed, or when there’s no heir. Everything’s going fine now. I don’t see any reason to muck it all up.”
“So you’re still happy with having the queen as regent?”
“Oh, absolutely.” Flora took a long drink of her spiked coffee and grinned. “It will do some of those men up at the castle a world of good to have to take orders from a woman for once. It certainly did some good for my dear Hugh.”
Elwyn nodded. It was easy to forget Flora was married. Duke Hugh, one of the few men in Myrcia with a courtesy title from his wife, generally stayed home and managed the estates while his wife went to court and sat on the privy council. Some people made fun of him behind his back for this, but Elwyn had always liked him.
“Folks will say the queen isn’t suited to politics,” Flora continued, “But Rohesia is a smart woman and a sweetheart to boot; she really is.”
“Um...sure.” Elwyn couldn’t have disagreed more strongly about the “sweetheart” business, but at least it seemed like Duchess Flora’s support was secure.
The conversation then turned to hunting, as it always did when Elwyn and Flora met. Talking about stags and foxes was very pleasant, until suddenly the duchess took an unexpected and unwelcome turn. “Did I tell you my son Pedr has a new Brigantian mare? I bet he’d let you ride her if you went hunting over on Gleade Hill together.”
“That would be...lovely,” said Elwyn.
She liked Pedr Byrne, even though he wasn’t a very good shot with a bow. But the duchess had been hinting for several years now that she thought her son would be a good match for Elwyn. She might have even been right. But Elwyn hated the notion of being pushed into marriage, even if it was the ultimate way to win allies. The only thing she hated worse than people asking her about it openly was when they tried to be subtle.
“Yes, I’m sure Pedr would love to see you,” Flora continued. “It would be a nice distraction for you, too.”
“Perhaps later,” said Elwyn. “I’m...well, I’m still in mourning now.”
Flora patted her hand. “Oh, yes. Of course. How insensitive of me.”
Elwyn excused herself as soon as she could and made her way back to the castle. That was enough for one day, as far as she was concerned.
The next evening, however, Gerold Halifax, Duke of Haydonshire, was throwing a party, and Rohesia said Elwyn had to go. The duke wasn’t on the council, but he had a lot of influence with the southern nobles, who were otherwise likely to be swayed by the other southern duke—Lukas Ostensen. Duke Gerold also happened to be a relative, since Elwyn’s grandmother Queen Matilda had been born a Halifax.
Elwyn didn’t know him nearly as well as she knew Duchess Flora, but Rohesia told her that he had sent an enormous wreath of lilies for the funeral, so she started by thanking him for it.
The duke looked into his wineglass. “Oh, that? My wife was the one who sent it.” He turned and looked out across the crowded great hall of his mansion, clearly searching for someone else to talk to.
“Have you heard these rumors about a Gemot, your grace?” Elwyn asked, desperate to hold his attention.
“Yes,” he said, with an irritated grimace, “but only from people I consider idiots.”
“So you would oppose a call for a Gemot?”
He swirled the wine in his glass. “Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think it would be better if we chose our kings based on ability, rather than birth, like the Immani do.”
Elwyn couldn’t stop herself. “And do you think this principle should be applied to dukedoms, too?” Then she stormed off, fuming.
News of her little outburst made its way back to Rohesia before the party was over, and Elwyn had to endure a stern lecture on her “thoughtlessness.”
“The duke was rude to me first,” Elwyn said.
“That’s no excuse,” said the queen. “A princess should be above such things. We cannot afford to gratuitously offend people.”
After that, Rohesia decided to accompany Elwyn on her social rounds, after all. There was a reception the next evening at a country house near the city owned by Robert Dryhten, Duke of Leornian, and the queen said she didn’t want any more “slip-ups.” The duke was decidedly on “their” side, but there would be a lot of people at the party who were agnostic on the question of the Gemot. “We must try to persuade as many people as we can,” Rohesia said.
Elwyn had been to the duke’s estate many times—it was near the Summer Palace, so she’d taken part in quite a number of hunts on the premises. The woods and gardens were lovely, and she was looking forward to walking around them in the moonlight. But then the clouds rolled in, and by the time the royal barge arrived at the duke’s private dock, the rain was coming down in buckets.
“Bugger this blasted weather!” said the duke, as he crossed the low, half-timbered entrance hall to welcome them. “We’ll still enjoy ourselves, though, even if we can’t use the gardens, right?”
A footman brought over two mugs of steaming mulled cider, and Elwyn accepted hers gratefully. Rohesia went off with the duke to talk to some nobles from Dunkelshire, and Elwyn was suddenly left to her own devices again. She disliked large parties as a rule, and the bigger and more crowded they were, the more she hated them. Plus, she was still damp from the rain, and her thin slippers squished and slid with every step.
She forced herself to exchange a few banal pleasantries with a couple people, and then went off to find a quiet corner where she could hear herself think. It couldn’t be too difficult. The duke’s house was full of odd little misshapen parlors and strange little nooks half-hidden behind stuffed elk or bears.
First she stopped by the buffet table, covered in heaps of spiced game meats and pickled vegetables. As she pondered whether to take the desert antelope or the curried rabbit, she was approached by the Earl of Hyrne, Rohesia’s older brother. He was much nicer than Rohesia, though he labored under the misapprehension that the queen and Elwyn were the best of friends.
Since he sat on the council, Elwyn dutifully tried to discuss the rumored Gemot with him. But he had apparently discovered a new Annenstruker poet, and that was all he wanted to talk about.
“I’ll have to lend you the book,” he told her. “It’s simply marvelous. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d like.”
“Do you really think so?” Elwyn had never enjoyed poetry, and she wondered where on earth the earl had gotten the idea that she did.
Mindful of Rohesia’s words about gratuitously offending people, Elwyn endured half an hour of the earl’s tedious enthusiasm before he finished his drink and went off to find another one. She was trying to think of where she could go to avoid running into him again, when Sir Robert Tynsdale wandered over to join her.
Like Cousin Broderick, Tynsdale was one of the natural sons of old King Ethelred, though he was half Broderick’s age and not nearly so famous and distinguished. Unlike Broderick, he was a quiet, reserved sort of man, the sort of fellow it was easier to respect than to like. But he had managed to endear himself to Elwyn by marrying Alicia Garmont, one of her best friends from school.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you were talking to the earl,” he said.
“Yes. You’ve probably heard people talking about having a Gemot. My mother wants to ‘nip it in the bud,’ as she puts it.”
Tynsdale rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, at least you know the earl’s vote is safe. There’s no way he’d ever vote against his sister’s wishes.”
He was right, and suddenly Elwyn realized she had wasted half an hour of her life talking to the earl for no reason at all. Tynsdale hadn’t been deliberately unkind, but without meaning to, he had completely deflated her.
“I’m so bad at this,” she muttered.
Tynsdale gave her one of his rare smiles. “Don’t worry. You’ll get better.”
Perhaps she would, but not that night. She gave it up as a lost cause and decided to go take a walk around the gardens, in spite of the rain. Out on the back veranda, beyond the light of the big iron braziers, she removed her slippers and stuck them in her pockets. Then she wandered off, barefoot, through the wet grass.
When she reached the end of the lawn, near the fountain and the hedge maze, she heard footsteps splashing up the adjoining path, and she ducked into the deeper shade of a grape arbor. Moments later, a female figure, hooded and cloaked, came past. The figure paused at the edge of the lawn and pushed back her hood, giving a nervous glance in the direction of the house. It was only for a second, but even so, Elwyn instantly recognized Muriel, Baroness Gramiren, Cousin Broderick’s wife.
The baroness headed off again, downhill through the orchard in the direction of the fishpond. Elwyn had gone fishing there many times as a girl, and though she liked the place, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to go there on a rainy night. Elwyn was reminded, yet again, of her father’s warning about Cousin Broderick. Visions flashed through her mind of dark, vaguely-defined conspiracies, and she decided to follow Muriel. She tiptoed through the orchard, ducking silently from tree to tree, though the rain was coming down so hard now that even a troop of horses couldn’t have been heard.
At the edge of the fishpond sat a rustic little boathouse, with a thatched roof and ivy on the walls. Elwyn was surprised to see a light in the window there. The baroness jogged to the door, took another quick look around, and went inside. Elwyn waited a minute, then crept slowly up to the window. As she drew closer, she heard a gasp, and a giggle, and the low murmur of a man’s voice. There was a wet slap, like a sodden bit of cloth being cast aside. Someone hurriedly closed the curtains, leaving a gap the width of Elwyn’s thumb.
Slowly, she raised her head and peeked through the crack. Someone had put blankets and pillows on the bait locker, creating a little bed of sorts. As she watched, the baroness came into view, now dressed only in her shift and leading a shirtless young man who was definitely not Cousin Broderick. Giggling like a little girl, the baroness spun him around, and Elwyn nearly cried out when she saw it was Pedr Byrne, Duchess Flora’s son.
Had she known he was so muscular? She hadn’t ever seen him shirtless before. He reached out and, ever so slowly, peeled off the baroness’s shift. Then he knelt in front of her and pulled down her underthings, after which he leaned in and.... Oh, Earstien, was he really putting his mouth in there, between her thighs? Elwyn hadn’t imagined people really did things like that outside of Immani novels.
For a few long, rather confusing seconds, Elwyn wasn’t certain where to look. She felt herself growing warm and tingly, and she wanted to watch Pedr, with his big, bulging chest, and his massive arms, but also keep her eyes on Muriel, and all those curves.
“Oh, this is so wrong,” she said to herself. “I really shouldn’t be watching this.” But the baroness was so perfect and beautiful.
The rain abruptly stopped and someone tugged at her arm. She turned to see Rohesia standing there, wrapped in a thick fur cloak and holding an umbrella over her.
“What in Earstien’s name are you doing out here?” the queen asked. There was surprisingly little anger in her voice. She sounded honestly curious, in fact. Perhaps she was worried her stepdaughter had gone mad.
Elwyn led Rohesia a little way uphill of the boathouse and told her what had happened. She didn’t describe what Pedr had been doing, or how she had felt when she had seen Muriel naked. But she gave a rough idea of what was going on.
“Well, well,” said Rohesia. “So Muriel’s newest plaything is Pedr Byrne. Not a bad choice, really; she does like them young. Though I know Flora was hoping Pedr would take a liking to you.”
“But...but Mother,” said Elwyn. “It’s shocking, isn’t it? Aren’t you shocked?”
“Elwyn....”
“Yes?”
“Do try to grow up.”
Shaking her head, the queen took Elwyn’s arm and led her back toward the duke’s house. When they got to the lawn, Elwyn asked, “Do you think Duchess Flora knows?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. And if she doesn’t, she’s not going to hear about it from you or me.” Rohesia paused and gave Elwyn a very stern look. “A princess should be above such things. And we’re not so blessed with friends right now that we can afford to start a scandal that embarrasses Flora. So forget what you saw.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Elwyn, but she knew she would never forget it, not as long as she lived.