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The royal household, such as it was now, squeezed into the tiny room. Phoebe stood next to Elwyn, and Rohesia’s ladies lined up along the wall. The nursemaids and tutors and secretaries stood out in the corridor, heads bowed, hands clasped in front of them.
“Very good, very good,” said the Bishop of Formacaster, handing a taper to Edwin. “If your majesty could light that, and then touch it to this candle there. Very good.” He stood up straighter and intoned, “Lit it Locht set it tsjuster.” As the Onsetting candle sputtered to life, the little congregation answered, “Lit it Locht fan 'e Earstien segenje ús.” Then, all together, “Mei it Locht akseptearje ús allegearre.”
Let the Light banish the darkness; Let the Light of Earstien bless us; May the Light accept us all.
Elwyn knew the words, and she mouthed them with everyone else, but her thoughts were far, far away from Earstien and the Light. She was thinking of Lily, and she was so wet she could barely sit still.
But whenever she heaved a sigh, or shifted a bit too obviously in her seat, Rohesia gave her a look, as if to say, “What is wrong with you, girl?”
What was wrong was that she was in love, or at least in the heat of passion, and she couldn’t stop herself anymore. It didn’t matter that the Bishop of Formacaster had made a special point of coming up here to Rohesia’s pathetic new rooms to hold a church service for them, or that his doing so was a sign of courageous and extraordinary support for her brother. It didn’t even matter that the bishop had done so as a personal favor to the great Caedmon Aldred. None of that mattered to Elwyn as much as Lily did.
Elwyn knew Rohesia was counting on her to stay around after the service to have tea with the bishop and his retinue, and to make them all feel welcome. But Elwyn had always been shit at that sort of business, and all she wanted to do was get upstairs and find out if Lily was free for the afternoon.
How long did she have to wait? She did her duty for a while, pouring out the tea and asking after the bishop’s wife and children, like she was supposed to. But all the while she was picturing Lily between her legs, using that quick, hot tongue on her.
Rohesia, interrupting a story by the bishop about his schooldays, put a hand on Elwyn’s arm and said, “Are you really sure you’re well? You look rather feverish.”
This seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. “Yes, Mother, I think you’re right. Perhaps I’ll go lie down for a bit.” She didn’t, of course, specify where she would be lying down. Or what she would be doing there once she did.
As she headed out of the tiny apartment, she happened to see Edwin again, sitting in a shadowy corner of a little parlor with all his toy soldiers and Sir Robert Tynsdale. Elwyn couldn’t help but smile at the scene, until she wandered a bit closer and saw what they were doing.
“I’ve painted this one in the arms of the Duke of Haydonshire,” said little Edwin. “He still hasn’t said he’s supporting me, so here’s what I’m going to do.” Then he drew a short knife and lopped the head off the lead figurine.
“I hesitate to correct you, your majesty,” said Sir Robert, “but this is the proper punishment for traitors.” He took the decapitated figurine, drew a much larger dagger, and divided it in four quarters and dangled the pieces off a little stone bridge.
Elwyn bit her lip and walked away without a word. Edwin had always been such a sweet boy. Frankly, he’d always been a bit oversensitive, and more than a few times over the years, she’d wanted to shake him and tell him to grow a pair. Now he was learning how to draw and quarter people with his toy soldiers. But if this was what happened to him, then that was all Cousin Broderick’s fault. And at the moment, that was none of her concern. She had much better things to do.
When she got up to the little apartment where Lily was staying, she was disappointed to hear Senator Pellus’s voice, grousing about something as usual.
“I don’t understand why he won’t come up here to see us. The senate pays his salary, and I’m a senator. Let me tell you, there are going to be some changes made when I get home.”
Elwyn knocked and looked in to see Lily and Pellus sitting on either side of a small table strewn with playing cards and half-empty wine bottles.
“Oh, look. It’s a royal visitor,” said Pellus. “I hope you don’t expect us to receive you in any sort of style.”
Lily hurried to pour a glass of wine, and when Elwyn took it, their hands touched.
Pellus turned and looked out the window, resting his chin on his hand. “Godsdammit. It’s raining again. And it’s so beastly hot up in this room. It’s like living in a greenhouse. And that’s because we are.”
“You might feel better if you have a nap,” suggested Lily.
“I might,” said Pellus, rising unsteadily to his feet, “but I probably won’t.”
He took the wine bottle with him into the next chamber, and Lily locked the door behind him.
Elwyn practically jumped into Lily’s arms, and they nearly had their dresses off before they even got over to the low couch. Lily pulled Elwyn’s shift up, threw it to the side, and then slowly peeled away her underclothes, sliding her tongue all around her breasts and down her abdomen. Elwyn worked on Lily’s laces—she could do it with her eyes closed now, enjoying the feeling of Lily’s fingers on her again.
When they were finally both naked, Elwyn said, “It’s time for you to keep your promise. Show me how to do what you did to me.”
“It’s really not that tricky,” said Lily, as she kissed her way along Elwyn’s shoulder. “You know what to do with your fingers.” She let out a little gasp as Elwyn proved her right. “Mmm...yes. Like that. Now you do the same thing with your tongue, more or less. But because you’re using your tongue, your fingers are free to do other things.”
Elwyn slid off the couch and knelt on the floor between Lily’s thighs, and she did her best to do exactly what Lily had done to her. Lily moaned and ran a hand through Elwyn’s hair.
“Oh, that’s it,” she gasped. “You’ve got it.”
After a minute, Lily’s hips began to move, rocking up and down, and then suddenly all her muscles seemed to contract at once. Her thighs pressed together on either side, locking Elwyn into place so she couldn’t move and could barely breathe. Lily shivered again and shook and let out a long, stifled cry through her hands.
Elwyn tried to keep going, wanting this to continue, wanting Lily to have more and more of this, but Lily seemed to have had enough, and slid away from her, rolling onto her side, panting and twitching.
“You’re...very good...at that,” she said.
Lily took her turn pleasuring Elwyn, and at first Elwyn tried to take mental notes, hoping to improve her performance in the future. But after a minute or two, she forgot everything except that immediate, pulsing sensation, and before she knew it, she was sliding over the edge and holding a pillow to her face to keep Pellus—and the whole castle—from hearing her screams.
***
THEY WERE TOO EXHAUSTED now to do anything else but lie quietly in each other’s arms. But they were too hot and sweaty to put clothes back on—Pellus was right that it was terribly humid up here near the dome. So they curled up naked together on the nearby window seat, next to the cool glass, looking out at the rain and wrapped in a single thin blanket. Elwyn was seated in front, resting on Lily, and Lily had her arms folded tight across Elwyn’s chest.
After a minute of silence, the princess turned slightly and whispered, “I’ve had a terribly naughty idea.”
Lily kissed the side of her head. “I love naughty ideas. They’re always the best kind.”
“Well, I was thinking what would happen if people knew we did this sort of thing. If people knew that I was, um...a bit ‘Thessalian.’”
“That would be pretty awful, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but don’t you see? That would destroy any talk of my marriage to Young Broderick. No one would want to marry me if they thought I was some kind of pervert.”
“That isn’t a ‘naughty’ idea. That’s a bad idea. A terrible idea, in fact. You’d totally destroy your reputation, and for what?”
The princess put her head back and nestled closer. “So I could stay with you.”
Oh, gods. This was getting far too serious. “You shouldn’t want that.”
“Why not?” Elwyn sat up, pulling herself out of the blanket and turning around. “Why shouldn’t I want to be with you?”
“Because you’re a princess and I’m....”
“A courtesan. What difference does that make?”
“More difference than you can possibly imagine.” Lily’s throat tightened and her eyes watered. “A courtesan is just a fancy whore, Elwyn. And believe me, that’s a big step up from where I used to be. You have no idea what I’ve done.”
“Then tell me.”
“Tell you?” Lily gave a bitter laugh. Where even to begin? “Fine. I ran away from home, I got captured by slave traders, and I was sold to a brothel. Not a fancy one, mind you. The worst place you can imagine.”
“Oh, Earstien. I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.”
“It was.” In her mind, Lily could see the dripping walls and the slop buckets. She could smell the dank, stained old mattresses. She could hear the new girls crying softly in the night.
Elwyn tried to take her hand, but Lily shuddered and pulled away. After a few long breaths, she continued. “The owner gave us practically nothing to eat and made us work extra shifts, but he was an idiot, so he managed to go bankrupt. We all got sold, and I was lucky, because someone thought I was pretty enough to make it in Albus Magnus. And I did well enough at my first brothel there that I got bought by an even nicer place—with clean silk sheets and good food and running water—and that’s where I started meeting senators and legates and people like that.”
“Is that where you met Pellus?” Elwyn asked, in a small voice.
“Yes, but I’d still be there today if someone—I can’t tell you her name—hadn’t taken pity on me. She forced the brothel master to give me my freedom and talked Pellus into giving me a permanent place in his household. So you see...,” Lily started crying now in earnest, “I’m nothing. I’m nobody, and you deserve better than me.”
Elwyn looked at her, shocked and stunned, and Lily hated herself for making the girl sad. But then Elwyn took her hands and kissed them. “I don’t think you’ve done anything to be ashamed of. You’re not a nobody. You’re the woman I love.”
Lily lost all composure at that point, and curled up in Elwyn’s arms, crying because of the things she had done, and crying all the more because Elwyn didn’t care about them.
It was like something Moira had told her, back at the very beginning, when Lily had first started working for her: “You are not bound by your past. You can be whatever you want.” But Lily had never really believed it before.
Eventually her tears slowed, and then they stopped, and she and Elwyn sat together, kissing each other’s hands and stroking each other’s hair. At that moment, when Lily was starting to think maybe she loved Elwyn, too, and ought to say so, Pellus woke up from his nap.
They heard him sit up in bed and the clink of glass as he poured himself some wine. “Lily?” he called out. “Lily? Are you there, girl?”
Elwyn and Lily jumped up and began frantically dressing. Luckily, they were getting better at it, and they were mostly presentable when Pellus unlocked the door from his side and looked in. If he noticed that Elwyn’s skirt wasn’t straight, or that Lily’s bodice was only held together by the top two laces, he showed no sign of it.
“I’m out of wine,” he grumbled. “Go get me some more, will you?” With a smirk, he added, “That’s something you’re qualified to do, at least. Serving your customers. Making sure they’re happy.”
The two girls went together into the outer parlor, and when the soldier on duty had his back turned, getting a new bottle from a crate, they shared one more kiss.
Then the princess left, and Lily took the wine into the apartment, where she opened it and carefully poured a very full glass. She took it in to Pellus, who was back in bed, and who gave her a sarcastic round of applause as she approached.
“Ah, it’s like the good old days,” he said. “Maybe I should have asked the princess if I could give her a Sovereign to join us.”
Lily walked up and dumped the wine over his head. As he sat there, sputtering and shivering, she leaned in and said, “That’s the last time you ever taunt me about my past.”