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They were near the city now, Andras could tell. There was more traffic on the road, and there were scattered little hamlets here and there in the hills. But he was unprepared for the suddenness of their arrival. They were riding along the shores of a pure blue lake; then the forest seemed to part, and he was looking at a wild jumble of buildings in all the colors of the rainbow—vivid pinks and blues and golds—rising up a steep hillside like a fashionable crowd at the theater. Another few yards, and he started seeing houses up the hill to his right, too. Bigger houses, with walled gardens and high, tiled roofs.
“Keep your head down,” said Rada quietly, and she led him to the side door of a wide brick building beside a green and shady park. There was a deep gorge beyond, and Andras could hear what sounded like a waterfall nearby. “We’re going to duck in here for a moment,” she said, pulling him into a tiny back parlor with painted screens and low lacquered tables. Digging in a bag, she produced an enormous fake beard, black and bushy, along with a straw hat. “Put these on,” she ordered. “We’ve only got a little way left to go, but there are a lot of Myrcian exiles in this part of town, and we can’t have you recognized. At least not yet.”
He had been quite excited about reaching the end of his long journey, but a cold dread settled into the pit of his stomach at this reminder that he was, technically speaking, going into enemy territory. Any Myrcians he met here would be Sigor supporters, and none of them would be especially happy to meet a Byrne.
When he had on his ridiculous disguise, Rada went into the next room and gave a servant girl a few coins to run up to the gate of some palace and tell the guard, “The young bear is here.” Presumably this was a code phrase to let Elwyn and her family know they should expect him.
Andras changed his shirt and put on his best velvet doublet while Rada ordered some tea and cakes. But they had barely started eating when the servant girl came back and said a soldier had told her to say, “The falcon awaits her tercel.”
The notion that he and Elwyn were a pair of birds being mated by their falconer made Andras snort, which earned him a scowl from Rada, and a reminder to “Please behave yourself.”
They started out again, skirting the edge of the gorge, with gated mansions rising above them on the right. As Rada had anticipated, they passed a number of men and women who were obviously Myrcian, all richly dressed and calling out cheerful greetings to Rada as they saw her. Several asked who Andras was, and she introduced him each time as, “Sir Andrew, newly arrived today.” In five hundred yards, he had half a dozen invitations to supper, but fortunately Rada managed to get him out of each one by saying he had “a pressing engagement at the palace.”
Following the road, they came to a smaller hill—a kind of spur off the main slope, where there was a compound surrounded by a high whitewashed wall. Two Sahasran soldiers bowed as Andras rode in through the gate, and ten Myrcian knights drew their swords in salute as Rada led the way up a winding gravel path through azaleas and cypress trees.
“You can take off the beard now,” said Rada.
“Thank Earstien.”
At last, they came out in a shaded garden, where they passed a lily pond and a fountain, and approached a low, white house with a long veranda.
Two men in blue silk tunics were waiting on the front steps. Andras recognized one instantly as the Earl of Hyrne. It had been more than five years, and the earl had put on a few pounds, but his eager grin was unmistakable. As for the other fellow, thinner and younger, Andras didn’t know him at first, until he noticed the little gold circlet in the boy’s hair, and he realized it must be Edwin.
King Edwin. He had to remember this kid was his king now.
Dismounting, he bowed low to the young fellow, who rushed down the steps to shake his hand, almost bouncing with excitement. “It’s so good to see you, Andras!” he cried.
“And to see you, too, your majesty,” said Andras.
They must have been desperate for supporters, or at least starved for new company, because he and Edwin had never been especially close. They were eleven years apart, and when the Sigors had left Formacaster, Edwin had still been playing with toy soldiers in the nursery. Even so, it was nice to feel appreciated.
The earl came down and shook his hand, too, and then ushered him through the veranda and into a big, shady parlor full of mismatched wicker furniture and faded watercolor paintings. Servant girls in blue and white cotton dresses came in through a wide archway with trays of honey cakes and a big silver urn of coffee. Andras drank a little and tried the cakes, but he was too nervous to eat much. This was finally the moment he’d been waiting for. This moment would decide the course of his entire life, and maybe change the course of Myrcian history.
And yet, there seemed to be some sort of delay. After a few awkward minutes, as he stood talking about the weather with Edwin, the earl bowed and said, “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to...um, see how things are coming along.”
He left, and somewhere deeper in the house, Andras could hear raised voices and slamming doors.
Edwin took a deep breath and said, “My sister has been looking forward to seeing you.”
Quick footsteps came up the hall, accompanied by low muttering. Then a swish of fabric, and Elwyn appeared in the archway, with the earl right behind her. Both of them were rather red in the face.
She wore a close-fitting Sahasran dress of white silk, embroidered with pink and red cherry blossoms. Andras couldn’t help staring. Had she always been built like that, with those hips and those legs? It had been so long since he’d seen her that he had forgotten how attractive she was. She was slightly out of breath, panting through full red lips, chest heaving, with the tops of her little breasts rising and falling above her bodice. Her bright blue eyes were wide, as if she was startled to find him there. Andras found his mouth had dropped open, and he shut it with a snap, worried he would start drooling.
“So you’re here,” she said, crossing her arms.
He bowed. “Yes, your royal highness. I bring you greetings from my parents.” He had composed a little speech in his head during the long ride. “They wish for you to—”
“They wish for me to forget that they stabbed my brother in the fucking back?” Elwyn said.
That was more or less the gist of the speech, but she had said it more vividly. “Your royal highness, your majesty,” he nodded to Edwin, “We all hope that with the Sigor and Byrne families together once again, there will be a new era of—”
“A new era of bullshit, no doubt,” said Elwyn.
The earl cleared his throat loudly. “Perhaps, Elwyn, you might show Lord Andras the gardens.”
“Really?” She gave the earl a look of mock astonishment. “Are you sure? Why don’t we just skip straight to the point? Andras and I can get to it, right now, right here on the coffee table.” Turning back to Andras, she started to slowly hike up her skirt. “What about it, Andras? I’m game if you are. If we’re lucky, you can impregnate me before lunch.”
“Will you excuse us for a moment?” said the earl through gritted teeth. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back through the arch and down the hall. A door slammed, but their raised voices were still audible through the walls. The earl shouted something about duty and the princess was snarling about treason.
Edwin shuffled his feet and gave Andras a nervous grin. “Um...shall we have a seat out on the veranda? The, uh...breeze is nice this time of day.”
They went out and sat on big wicker couches, while the servants moved the coffee urn and the cakes again. There was indeed a lovely breeze rustling through the leaves, and between that and the splashing of the fountain, and the chattering of the birds in the jacaranda trees, Andras could barely hear the earl and Elwyn fighting back in the house.
He knew he should try to be polite. This was clearly excruciating for poor Edwin, but Andras couldn’t help saying, “She was looking forward to seeing me, was she?”
“She’s a trifle nervous,” said Rada.
“So I noticed.” Andras had never known the princess well, even back in the days when he had been at court as the Duke of Haydonshire’s squire. But in those few minutes in the parlor, she had more than lived up to her reputation for having one of the fiercest tempers in Myrcia.
“So...your family is well?” asked Edwin, out of nowhere.
“They’re fine. Thank you for asking,” said Andras.
They fell into awkward silence, sipping their coffee and eating cakes, just for something to do. Andras was annoyed at Rada. Sometime during their long ride from Pinburg, she might have warned him that Elwyn didn’t want this marriage. It would have been good to know ahead of time. It would have been even better if he’d known back in Formacaster—it would have saved him a trip.
And yet, as he sat there, and the agonizing minutes dragged by, he couldn’t help remembering how Elwyn had looked in that dress, and those barely-parted lips, and those perfect, round little breasts rising and falling in her bodice. He thought of her, and pretty soon he had to cross his legs and hold his coffee cup over his lap to cover the growing bulge in his trousers.
Edwin apparently decided to make another stab at conversation. “I think the important thing to remember, Andras, is that my sister is a very...spirited person.”
“That she is.” In his mind, he could feel her lips on his skin, sliding down his torso and then wrapping around him. He could see those breasts free and glistening with sweat, rising and falling as she rode him to climax. In spite of himself, he started to smile. This was not going to be easy, but then again, nothing worthwhile ever was. “It’s alright,” he said. “I like a challenge.”