| |
A cool breeze swept through the garden of the Pradivani Palace, scented with the cedars and pines of the valley, and carrying the distant rumble of Adhik Falls. The frogs trilled in the lily pond, and over in the flowering jacaranda trees by the guest bungalows, a nightingale sang. Nearly all the lights were out in the main house, and Rada was making her last rounds before bed. She worked for the Vizierate, not for the army, but she still felt it was her duty to make sure the guards were all alert and the gates were safely shut.
As she left the main brick path and headed across the lawn to her own bungalow, she heard footsteps in the gravel around the fountain. She turned to see someone approaching, silhouetted against the brass lamps on the veranda of the main house.
“Ah, Lady Rada,” said a cheerful male voice. A few steps closer, and she saw it was the Earl of Hyrne, uncle of Elwyn and young King Edwin. He was a big man with tousled blond hair and a military tunic that had probably fit him much better two years ago, when he had led the Sigor armies to defeat. He took in the garden and the stars shimmering through the trees. “Lovely night, isn’t it? I hate to bother you, but do you have a minute? I need a word.”
She could hardly refuse, even though she was already stifling her yawns. He took her up the lawn to the main palace, a low, sprawling structure of white stucco, with long, half-shuttered verandas and gently-sloping roofs of green tile. Cherry trees and willows clustered at the corners, and a massive bougainvillea, thick as an oak at the base and heavy with huge purple blossoms, hung over the wide glass doors leading to the earl’s study.
Most of the books and scrolls on the shelves had come with the house—cast-offs from the libraries of the larger royal palaces up on Chamalee Hill. The furniture had a haphazard, random quality to it, as well. The sideboard and coffee table were of slim ebony, carved in intricate geometrical patterns. But the desk was a rich, heavy mahogany, and the chairs were pale, sagging wicker. There were pictures on the walls—little watercolors of birds and local tapestries in wild colors—none of which matched the others.
When Rada and the earl were seated in the creaking wicker chairs by the desk, he pulled a small book from his pocket and thumbed through it. “I was reading this yesterday,” he said. “It’s an old romance from Annenstruk, and I ran across something I’d like to ask you about.” Then he cleared his throat and read something that sounded rather nice, but that she did not understand in the least.
With an embarrassed smile, she said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know much Annensprak.”
“My apologies. It means, roughly, ‘When he had drunk the potion, he saw her beauty as if for the first time,’ or words to that effect.” He set the book aside. “A love potion, in other words. I was wondering if there really are such things.”
“Not exactly,” she said. “They’re not like you read about in stories.” One of the things she had learned since starting work for the Vizierate was that virtually nothing about magy was ever the same in real life as it was in fiction.
“But they do exist?”
“Well...,” she shifted in her chair. “There are a few potions, but they can’t make people fall in love. They mimic the effects of...,” she coughed and felt her cheeks grow warm, “of physical arousal.”
“They don’t make you love someone, but they can make you think—temporarily—that you desire a person.”
“Exactly. So there are limits.” She recalled what she had read on the subject. “If you truly felt nothing for a person, if you found them repulsive, say, or if it was a member of your family, then the potion wouldn’t work at all. You’d just be embarrassed that you were getting all hot and bothered around your aunt, or whoever it was, and you’d probably run away.”
“I see.” He nodded. “They still sound very useful. Do you think you could make one of those potions for me?”
“Sir?” She sat back, and the old wicker chair creaked and popped. “Sir, that sort of thing is extremely dangerous. Not to mention, well...it’s wrong to use on someone if they don’t know you’re doing it.” She felt a quick stab of shame for her own furtive inquiries into the subject. Of course she had abandoned the idea; she would never have actually used a potion on Sir Walter. But she had been tempted, all the same. “You can’t force people to feel desire for you. It’s not right.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want it for anything like that,” the earl said quickly. “I was mainly thinking I might use it on myself sometime.” His face fell, and he looked away. “I am lonely here, my lady.”
She wasn’t sure he understood how the potion worked, but she felt very sorry for him, all the same. Here he was in a foreign land, watching over his niece and nephew, while the rest of his family remained in Myrcia, practically under house arrest. He had been married, but his wife had died in childbirth during the last days of the Siege of Leornian. His little daughter had survived, and now lived in Rawdon, where she was being raised by his sister, Queen Rohesia, alongside Elwyn’s little sister, Princess Alice. The poor man had been through a lot.
“Please,” he said. “It would mean a great deal.”
So she gave in and agreed to make him a potion called Garm Kamar, the “heat of the loins,” as it was usually translated. It didn’t even take her half an hour to mix everything together. She just needed some wine for a base, then added concentrated essence of damiana, rose petals, nutmeg, and jasmine, following the recipe in her books. All of those were common herbs for medicine or cooking, and she had them on hand already. Then she merely needed to add a simple binding spell from her ring.
The next day, when the potion had finished steeping and she took it to him, he smiled and shook her hand, before locking the bottle away in a lower drawer of his desk. “Now, while I’ve got you here,” he said, “I was wondering what you thought about Lord Anish Ganda and my niece, Elwyn.”
Rada felt herself blushing. “They’re quite friendly, sir.”
“More than friendly,” he said, his brow clouding. “She’s fucking him like a bitch in heat. And he’s not the first one. I’m worried about her, Lady Rada.”
“If you’re, er...worried about her suffering any sort of embarrassment, sir, I could make her a potion that prevents—”
“Earstien, no. That might simply encourage her.” He waved Rada’s suggestion away with an irritated sweep of his arm. “Blast it all, two years ago, she was almost married to Sir Alfred Estnor. Shit. If only he hadn’t died.”
“Indeed, sir.”
Elwyn almost never talked about her dead fiancé, but of course, Walter had been one of Sir Alfred’s officers and a close friend, as well. To hear Walter tell it, Sir Alfred had been handsome, clever, and brave—the paragon of every knightly virtue.
“I need to see her settled,” said the earl. “I need her to make a smart alliance. We need someone we can use to help put Edwin back on the throne. I’ve been thinking about ways of making sure she falls for the right man for once.”
A shiver ran down Rada’s spine, and her mouth fell open of its own accord. “Sir, you’re not going to make her take that love potion, are you?”
Holding up his hands, he said, “I promise I won’t use it without her knowledge. I’ll only use a little here and there to, shall we say, help things along.”
She bolted out of her chair. “You lied to me, sir.”
“I did nothing of the kind. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. Now, if you’re not busy, you might stick around. I’ve asked my niece to come see me here. I’ve got some news for her, and you might as well hear it, too.” His voice fell to a whisper. “Promise me you won’t mention the potion yet. I probably won’t need to use it at all, and I’d hate for her to worry about it.”
For half a minute, she paced around his study, trying to decide what to do. In the end, after she extracted a very solemn promise from the earl that he would never use the potion without consulting her first, she agreed to keep it quiet for the time being.
A few minutes later, Elwyn arrived. She had on a plain dress of green cotton with a belt of little gold chains, and a pair of sturdy brown boots. It looked as if she was planning to go out for a walk. She seemed wary, but her face lit up the moment she saw Rada was there, too.
The earl fetched her tea personally, and then, when they were all seated in his old wicker chairs, he said, “I’ve got some rather interesting news for you, my dear girl. For the past few months, I’ve been in secret contact with Flora Byrne, Duchess of Keneburg.”
Elwyn crossed her arms and gave a little snort of derision. “The usurper’s whore, you mean. Did you ask her how she likes the taste of Cousin Broderick?”
“Possibly not so well anymore,” grinned the earl. “My sources tell me she’s been thrown over in favor of some pretty young Annenstruker widow. Lady Jannike Overfelt is her name, apparently, though I’ve never heard of her before. There’s a rumor Queen Muriel was the one who arranged it. I think Flora might be open to making a deal with us.”
“Assuming you can even trust her,” said Elwyn.
“We can trust her,” said the earl, “if we have a proper alliance. A marriage alliance. I was wondering what you thought of her son, Andras.”
Elwyn tilted her head slowly to one side, and her sharp, high cheekbones went pink, then crimson. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
The earl smiled in a paternal sort of way. “It would be a very advantageous match, my dear. Think of how much it would mean to have Keneburg’s armies on our side when we—”
“Absolutely not. I refuse.” Elwyn jumped to her feet. “If I thought I would end up married to a son of that blasted bitch, then I would have stayed in Myrcia and married Cousin Broderick’s son, the way he wanted.” She started to leave, but turned back for a second at the door. “It would be better that way, you know. If you’re going to pimp me out to the enemy, you might as well aim for the very top.” Then she ran out of the room.
Rada caught up with her a few minutes later, down Madyan Road from the compound at the little public garden overlooking Adhik Falls. The markets of the old town and the palaces of Chamalee Hill loomed overhead on either side of the gorge here. Mist rose from the pool in a billowing cloud that twisted one way, and then the other, and then vanished down the valley as the wind changed.
Elwyn was slumped over, leaning on the railing and looking down into the abyss. When Rada approached, she saw the princess was crying.
“My lady,” Rada said, “you shouldn’t despair.”
“Why not?” said Elwyn bitterly. Rada could barely hear her over the thunder of the waterfall. “I’ve gotten so good at it these past few years.”
“If you’d like, I can talk to the earl and try to convince him to reconsider this match.”
“It won’t do any good, Rada.” Elwyn wiped her eyes, but the tears were coming faster now. “He told me they’d do this, you know. Cousin Broderick, the usurper, I mean. He warned me my family would try to sell me off to the highest bidder, and he was right.” She waved a hand down at the gorge. “So I’m thinking my best options are jumping from here or running away. Which would you recommend?”
Rada knew exactly how she felt. Once, on the very worst day of her life, she had faced the same two choices. Putting a tentative arm around Elwyn’s shoulders, she said, “You shouldn’t talk like that. I think we should go back and speak with your uncle again, but—”
“He’s not really my uncle,” snapped Elwyn. “His sister is my stepmother.”
“Yes, I know,” said Rada soothingly. “But be that as it may, he’ll surely understand your feelings if you talk to him.”
“He’s never once cared about my feelings before,” said the princess. “Why would he start now? He’s not going to change his mind, Rada. I’ve either got to kill myself, or I’ve got to get out of here. Otherwise, I’ll be his little puppet for the rest of my fucking life.”
Rada thought of the earl, and of the potion she had made for him. One way or another, his lordship would get what he wanted, no matter how his step-niece felt about it. And Rada didn’t think she could just stand by and let that happen. She liked Elwyn.
There had been a time, a decade ago, when Rada would have considered it her sworn duty to fight anyone from Elwyn’s family. And yet, protecting the princess had long since ceased to be an obligation for Rada. Now it was a pleasure. Perhaps it was because the princess liked so few people that it felt like an honor to be chosen.
“Very well,” Rada finally said, giving Elwyn a little squeeze. “Very well. If you’re bound and determined to run away, then I will go with you.”
“You will?”
“Of course.”
Elwyn turned and threw her arms around Rada, pulling her so close that neither could breathe for a moment. “Oh, thank you,” sobbed Elwyn. Then she stood back, took Rada’s hands in her own and kissed them. With a watery expression, lip quivering, she said, “You’re my only real friend, you know. I always hoped that...well, that maybe you felt the same.”
To Rada, this all seemed a bit over the top, but she put an arm around the girl and led her back to the palace. By the time they’d gotten there, Elwyn seemed in much better spirits, talking about how they could get out of the city without being seen. At the gate, she stopped and whispered, “You’re really serious about this? You swear you’ll help me?”
“I swear I will,” said Rada.
They parted with a long hug by the lily pond, and then Rada ran to her bungalow, where she started a letter to her superiors at the Vizierate of Magy, asking for their help in getting the princess away from her family and away from this marriage.