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The levee was officially over, and Princess Donella felt she had spent enough time in the real world for one day. The Alokkoan envoy had been so dull, and he had kept asking questions about the war and politics she couldn’t answer. What had the Sigor rebels been up to for the five years they had been gone from the capital? Was Edwin Sigor, the king in exile, still in Sahasra Deva? Did anyone think he would gather an army to invade? Were the Immani financially backing the Sigor supporters in the east? She apologized that she really never listened to court gossip and had no good answers. Finally when he realized she was a terrible source of information, they parted in the Palm Court, and she had rushed back to the festival pavilion. But by then Andras and his Zekustian friend were long gone. Blast it all.
As the groups of knights and nobles and ladies began to break up, she ran upstairs to her room, where her lady’s maid, Janice, helped her out of her stiff gown of blue silk taffeta. Had Andras noticed it? She certainly hoped so. But he would be at court all the time now. There would be other days and other dresses. No reason to dwell on it.
For now, she had work to do. With minimal help, she slipped into one of her everyday dresses—plain blue wool, with green collars and cuffs. Then she grabbed her little portable writing set and headed outside.
Queen Maud’s Garden, named after the first queen of Myrcia, lay beyond the festival pavilion, at the extreme northern end of the castle hill, a private retreat for the ladies and gentlemen of the court. Still dressed in their finest bright silks and linens, people wandered up and down the gravel paths, admiring the banks of enormous red and orange lilies, and sharing quiet, private moments under trellises heavy with roses and clematis.
Donella felt a touch of pride as she walked through the little park. Particularly as she passed the geraniums and petunias. She had always loved gardening, and although her mother didn’t want her to get her own hands dirty anymore, Donella consulted with the royal gardeners every spring and helped decide which annuals would be planted in which beds.
She had also taken it on herself to decide which hedges would be cut back, and which would be allowed to grow freely. As a result, she could make little nooks and crannies for herself that no one (other than the gardeners) knew about. So, after letting one elderly couple shuffle past her near the choir of the royal chapel, she ducked between a thick wall of boxwood and a lilac bush, and she took her seat on a tiny wooden bench, half-shaded by ivy.
She set out her pens and her little desk and ruled her parchment, then tried to decide exactly how she would start her next story. It was part of a new series with a new hero, and Lauren Byrne was already demanding the next installment. This chapter was an important one, though. Sir Donald Graham was about to meet his lady love for the first time—or the girl who would be his lady love, anyway—and Donella didn’t have a name for her yet.
In her mind, she could see Donald. Tall, certainly. With golden hair and blue eyes that were...well, rather the same color as her own. A prominent nose, too. Something to give his face character and possibly suggest to the reader a certain...virility. Donella blushed.
But what of his lady? Dark red hair, maybe, and blue eyes. Roughly the color of...well, of Andras’s. A thought struck Donella. What was the feminine form of Andras? Andrea? Yes, Andrea. Lady Andrea, then. The fair Lady Andrea Burnell, of flashing eyes and raven-red hair.
Could hair be “raven-red”? A very dark red, perhaps, and nearly black? Did that make any sense? Donella thought it did, and wrote it down so she wouldn’t forget.
About the time she was ready to start the chapter in earnest, though, she heard rustling in the lilac bush, and seconds later, one of her mother’s ladies-in-waiting appeared. It was Therese Halifax, daughter of the Duke of Haydonshire and one of the nicer people at court. She made an awkward curtsy in the confined space and said, “Sorry, my lady, but your mother has asked to see you.”
Donella turned to the left, her eyes wandering up the walls of the palace, past the festival pavilion, up the soaring towers with their crystal chambers at the top, then down again past the gleaming dome and over the long balconies thrusting out from the walls. Her eyes came to rest on the largest of these, on the fourth floor facing north. One of the glass doors stood ajar, and no doubt her mother was lurking there in the shadows, watching her at this very moment.
With a sigh, Donella packed up her writing set again. “I’ll go right now,” she told Therese. “No need to run ahead.”
As they stepped together out onto the path, Therese whispered, “Just so you know, Arturo is up there, too.”
“Naturally,” said Donella. There was no anger in her voice or disappointment. There was barely even resignation. Arturo was there because of course he would be.
A few minutes later, she knocked on the huge, gilded doors of the royal bedroom, and when her mother told her to enter, she waited until the count of ten to be sure. Her mother had very eccentric notions of privacy.
At least today the queen was fully clothed. So far. She stood at her simple white-lacquered dressing table, past the vast royal bed with its gauzy curtains. Sir Arturo, the queen’s latest “favorite,” stood behind her, trying to undo the laces of her bodice with his big, clumsy hands while she frowned at herself in a full-length mirror. Her eyes caught Donella’s in the reflection, and she smiled.
“There, now, Arturo. Step aside and let my daughter do it.” She pointed at a bottle resting nearby. “Fetch us a different wine. This one is a bit oaky for my taste.”
The strapping young man stepped dutifully away and bowed to Donella as he passed her. “Um...hello my lady,” he said, blushing. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” He was quite young, but at least he hadn’t actually gone to school with her like the last one, Sir Rodney.
Donella got the laces untied and helped her mother out of the gray court dress, revealing a simple shift of pure white silk. Then her mother stripped that away, too, and started removing her underthings. Donella quickly averted her eyes.
“You might as well look,” said her mother. “It’s what you’ll be seeing in the mirror in twenty years.”
But Donella didn’t look again until the queen had on another shift—this one coal black and lacy, with bits of silver embroidery on the bodice and sleeves, and a skirt that barely extended to mid-thigh.
“I saw you writing in the garden. Is it another of your little stories?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Donella. “I’m starting a new series with a new hero.”
“How nice,” said her mother vaguely. “I still have that one you gave me around here somewhere. I really do mean to finish reading it someday.”
Donella wasn’t holding her breath. “Therese said you needed to see me, Mother.”
“Ah, yes. I saw you go straight as an arrow for Andras Byrne the moment we got to the pavilion. Is there something going on between you two?”
“I...well, um...,” Donella stammered. She bit her lip and shuffled her feet, then added, “I, er...um,” before managing to piece together a pair of actual sentences: “We’re only friends. He’s Lauren’s brother, after all.”
“Just so you know, if there were something going on, I would approve.”
“You would?” Donella’s heart leapt like a startled doe.
“Yes, his mother is having a rather difficult time right now.” With a mysterious grin, the queen added, “Or at least she’s about to. But anyway, I worry the Byrne family might feel somewhat unappreciated. And you two would make a fine couple.”
“You really think so?” asked Donella, leaning in to look at herself in the mirror and tugging on the end of her braid. The rest of what her mother had said barely registered with her at all.
“I am certain of it. In fact, the sooner you are seen to be courting, the better.”
Donella jumped back. “Courting? Mother, I...I mean, Andras and I are friends. I would hardly know what to say.”
“You don’t need to do much talking,” said the queen. “Arturo is proof of that. Put yourself in Andras’s way and make sure he can’t fail to notice you.”
Thinking of some of the courtship stories she had written, Donella said, “Shouldn’t we have some sort of formal introduction or chaperoned visits or something?”
“No, invite him out with you. Go riding, go hunting, go boating on the river. Go someplace you can be together and things can,” the queen gave a low chuckle, “take their natural course. And as long as you two are alone, I’m sure they will.”
“Alone? Mother, would that be entirely proper?”
“The less proper the better.” She led Donella over to the bed and opened the top drawer of the little white-lacquered table. Pointing to a blue crystal bottle, she said, “There are potions you can use to keep from getting pregnant, if that’s what you’re worried about. It won’t be too long before I don’t need this anymore, thank Earstien. You may as well take some of my reserve stock.”
This conversation had taken such a strange and alarming turn that Donella couldn’t even form words anymore. She gaped at her mother, eyes wide.
“Or if that doesn’t take your fancy,” her mother went on, pulling out a different bottle with an oily gold liquid inside, “then there’s always ‘Thessalian’ sex.”
From a lower drawer, she produced a small volume with red covers and handed it to Donella. It proved to be a Sahasran sex manual, with the most shockingly lurid scenes in bright watercolors. The first one showed a very well-endowed young lady kneeling before a man, who was thrusting half of...himself...into her mouth, while she did something with her hands in the area of his backside.
“Mother! This is awful!”
“Yes, I admit some of the pictures aren’t as clear as they could be. But you can get the general idea, I hope. You’ll want to study the first chapter and the third.” She offered the oil, too. “Care to borrow this? No? Well, you know where it is now if you need it.” She started to put the bottle back, then appeared to have second thoughts and left it sitting out by the bed.
Arturo returned with a different wine, and Donella felt it was her cue to leave. Knowing her mother, she half expected to be invited to stay and take notes, but luckily the queen did nothing to halt her, merely calling out, “Feel free to do some experimenting on your own,” as Donella shut the door.
She went down the hall, through the old nursery, dark and empty, to her own apartment, where she stuffed the sex manual behind one of the dozens of mounted trophies on her bedroom wall. She didn’t dare put it on her bookshelves or even under the bed. What if Janice or the housemaids should see it? No, better to put it behind the head of some poor old elk, where no one would think to look for it.
The trophies—deer and elk and wild boar—weren’t actually hers. They were left over from the previous occupant of the apartment, Princess Elwyn of the deposed Sigor dynasty. Donella didn’t like hunting very much. She always felt sorry for the animals. But she kept the heads and antlers up on the wall because they seemed like the kind of things a young bachelor knight would have in his quarters. It helped her understand the heroes of her stories a little better to live in the sort of place they would have. She had given names to all the trophies, though. The elk she had hidden the pornographic book behind was Fransis.
Looking the big stag in his glassy black eyes, she said, “Oh, Fransis. Did Elwyn ever have to put up with this from her parents?” Most likely she had. There had been some plan to get Elwyn to marry Donella’s older brother at one point, and from what Donella had heard, Elwyn hadn’t been very happy about it. No doubt this was the common lot of all princesses everywhere.
She went to her outer balcony—the one with a view over the whole city—and took a long breath of clear, spring air. No need to be discouraged. The important point—the thing she had to keep reminding herself about—was that her mother approved of a match with Andras. This was more than she ever could have hoped for. More than she had even dared to pray for, in fact.
“Now I have to figure out how to approach him,” she thought. Whatever her mother said, Donella was determined to do this her own way, without the help of Sahasran sex manuals.