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336 M.E.
The last time Broderick had dropped a problem this large in Muriel’s lap, their son had been born nine months later. But this was not simply one minor difficulty, but two. Twins, as it were. And just as Muriel had been happy to hand off her squalling little boy to someone else, she knew she had to find help with these new problems.
On a frigid January morning, she sat wrapped in furs and blankets on the inner balcony of her Wealdan Castle apartment. Overhead, the snow began to cover the wide glass dome, throwing the trees and fountains of the great Palm Court into shadow. She poured herself another glass of mulled wine and continued pondering what to do.
The first problem, and by far most important, was turning Lady Joyce Brysthwick Thacker into a suitable consort for a king. Joyce was pretty and witty and outgoing, which hid a streak of casual cruelty a mile wide. Muriel didn’t care about the cruelty. The woman would need that. No, what bothered Muriel was Joyce’s flightiness and lack of concern about the dictates of social propriety. Not that Muriel cared about those things any more than Joyce did. But Muriel was respectably married now, and Joyce wasn’t. At least not yet.
As it happened, the dictates of social propriety lay at the heart of her other problem. Lieutenant Volker Rath, Broderick’s longtime lackey and aide-de-camp, was going to need a wife now, too.
Broderick had given her this tedious duty the morning after he returned in triumph with news of Joyce. Muriel and her husband had woken up in the same bed, something that only happened on special occasions now. And finding Joyce was a very special occasion.
That morning, though, as Broderick pulled his clothes back on, he had turned and said, “By the by, if you could find a girl for Volker Rath, I would appreciate it. People are beginning to talk again. He was in Motecaster, and he went to a party hosted by your friend, Teddy Musgrove. One of those parties, if you know what I mean.”
“I thought you didn’t mind if people talked about Rath.”
“I care when his behavior reflects on his judgment, because his judgment reflects on me.”
Muriel’s first thought was to kill two birds with one stone. Why not enlist Joyce’s help in finding a mate for Lieutenant Rath?
She tossed aside the blankets and dressed quickly, choosing a close-fitted riding habit in wool and golden brocaded silk, plus a long, fur-lined blue cloak. Then she rode down through the city to the Crown and Shield Inn, past the east gate, where Joyce was staying until she could find more suitable accommodations.
Joyce said she would “simply love to be of any help at all.” And she promised to devote all her powers of intellect to doing so.
The trouble was that, even though Joyce could make clever double-entendres and flirt outrageously with the best of them, the fires of her intellect were, at best, a flickering rushlight. Worse, she could not apply even these limited means consistently to a problem. When Muriel went to visit her the next day, she found Joyce sleeping off a tremendous hangover. When Muriel returned Friday, she learned Joyce had gone out riding with two officers of the city garrison.
On Sunday, as they left the great, half-finished Terrwyn Cathedral after services, Muriel attempted to remind Joyce of her duty. “Have you thought of any girls at all, my dear?”
“I’m thinking of Phillipa Kirkenwell.”
“Very pretty, yes, and 21-years-old. But unfortunately married. She was sitting with her husband, Baron Kirkenwell. Surely you noticed.”
“Yes, but I meant her hat. Didn’t it look amazing with all those flourishes and silk flowers? I think I’ll stop in at my milliner’s right now and see if I can’t get something similar made. Want to come with me?”
“No, thank you,” said Muriel icily. “I will see you tomorrow. Please think of Lieutenant Rath, if you could.”
She couldn’t, as it turned out. On Monday, Joyce went off sleigh riding with Lady Kirkenwell, together in their new hats, and Muriel began to suspect she would be getting little or no help from Joyce at all. Indeed, she started to think that getting Joyce together with Prince Edgar might be much more of a chore than she had anticipated.
By sheer chance, she saw Joyce again, two days later, at an afternoon luncheon hosted by Teddy Musgrove, of all people. Unlike some of Teddy’s parties, women were invited to this one, so Muriel had accepted his invitation eagerly.
The minute she entered the front hall, she spotted Joyce laying in the front parlor with a mixed group of men and women, all lying on cushions and carpets while sharing a Sahasran hookah. The air was full of pungent blue smoke, and Joyce had a rather dreamy expression on her face.
“Care to join them?” said Teddy, gliding up to Muriel. “Or shall I fetch the whiskey, so we can get hammered in a more traditional way?” He had adorned himself with an old Kenedalic-style embroidered wedding dress, complete with lace veil. “I’m going make this a regular occasion this winter,” he said. “I’m thinking of calling it, ‘Wedding Wednesdays.’ What do you think?”
“I think I’ll take that whiskey, thank you.”
He poured the drinks, and he and Muriel took the bottle over to a low couch at the far end of the room from the hookah. Muriel told him about how unreliable Joyce had been.
“I do wonder exactly what your husband sees in her,” mused Teddy.
Much as Muriel loved Teddy, she had not entrusted him with the secret of Joyce’s destiny, or with the knowledge of the tragic past that made her uniquely qualified to be Queen of Myrcia someday. But Teddy did know that Broderick had paid for Joyce to come to Formacaster and had entrusted Muriel with guaranteeing her entrance into the highest circles of society.
“Are you asking if he’s fucking her?” Muriel raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, obviously.”
Muriel shrugged. “Oh, I assume he’s taking her for a test ride, as one does with a horse. Just to make sure she doesn’t have any embarrassing predilections or some quirk of the plumbing that might prove awkward on her wedding night.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right,” said Teddy, tugging at his bridal veil thoughtfully. “She was married before, wasn’t she? She’s a widow—a rather merry one, it seems. But she never had any children, which makes you wonder if—”
“Speaking of awkward wedding nights,” Muriel said quickly, “I don’t suppose you could help me find a wife for Volker Rath, could you?”
Teddy laughed. “Seriously? Lieutenant Rath seems very happy as a bachelor, as far as I can tell. Very, very happy. In fact, did I tell you about my party at Motecaster? Rath stopped by, and—”
“Yes, that’s exactly the problem,” said Muriel sharply. “You are terrible at keeping secrets, dear, and now people are bothering my husband with rumors about his what his aide-de-camp does in the saddle, if you know what I mean.”
“What difference does that make?” Teddy frowned. “Broderick has never cared about that before. If there’s one thing that has always endeared your husband to me, it’s the fact that he cares less about whether a fellow is ‘Thessalian’ than any other Myrcian I’ve ever met.” He squeezed Muriel’s hand. “Other than you, of course.”
Muriel took a long, slow breath. She couldn’t tell Teddy that Broderick’s expectations, his hopes and dreams, were about to become reality. She couldn’t tell him that Joyce’s marriage to Edgar would ensure that someday soon, the privy council would have to recognize Broderick as heir to the throne. And then everything would change. There could be no hint of scandal around his name. To use a jousting metaphor, Broderick had been born already down two lances to zero because he was a bastard. One more scandal, and he might lose everything.
Not that they couldn’t enjoy little affairs here and there. Plenty of people did that, and if anything, the fact she and Broderick had lovers, but took great pains to ensure they had no bastards, raised their reputation at court, rather than lowering it. There could be no hint of anything strange or foreign, however. That would hurt Broderick’s chances to become king. And it didn’t matter in the slightest that he and Muriel didn’t care what anybody did in the bedroom. Their personal sense of sexual morality wasn’t relevant at all.
“Rath is barely anyone yet,” said Muriel. “But he will become more and more important as the years go by. He will have more and more lands and power. He will need to have someone to help him manage it all, just as I help Broderick.”
Teddy shook his head. “Lovely sentiment, but I know nothing at all about marriage, other than how to avoid it.”
“Ah, but it was your party that got Rath in trouble. So now it’s your responsibility to help me fix this.”
“Very well then. Let me see what I can come up with. More whiskey?”
Muriel declined the offer and went back up to the castle. Before she or Teddy or anyone else spent any more time on this problem, there was one person she absolutely needed to consult.
She found Lieutenant Rath at his tall, spindly desk of dark wood in the Guards’ Barracks, outside Broderick’s office. Broderick was at a meeting of the Privy Council, but Rath was still hard at work, poring over several large financial ledgers and muttering under his breath.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, using her best and friendliest smile.
“Serious irregularities, my lady,” he said, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t tell you about it.”
“Oh, come now. Broderick tells me everything, so you might as well do it and cut out the middleman, as it were.”
Rath drummed his fingers on the page. “You’re friends with the Countess of Garthdin, aren’t you?”
“Yes, of course.” The countess, Margaret Llamu, was the daughter of the Duke of Leornian, and her husband had taken over as constable of the great fortress of Keaton Fastenn after Broderick had been named captain general. Margaret served as the king’s hostess, since the queen was dead, and organized all the official court feasts and celebrations. Muriel didn’t see her precisely as a friend, but she was a terribly useful person to know, at least for the time being. “Margaret is like a sister to me.”
“Perhaps you should tell her husband to be a little less free with public funds.”
“Really? What’s happened?”
“Here are the funds allocated by the council for the maintenance of the fortress.” Rath showed her the books. “And here is what the Earl of Garthdin actually spent. You’ll notice there is a discrepancy. And I hear tell the earl’s house in Leornian is being remodeled at great expense.”
Muriel looked at the two ledgers. “Four Sovereigns. That’s it?”
“Four Sovereigns of the kingdom’s money, my lady.”
“Rath, everyone does this.”
“Not your husband, my lady. He was always quite scrupulous.”
“Not everyone can be Broderick,” she said, smiling. “He prefers to compensate himself in other ways. But as for you, lieutenant, you should think about yourself a little more. Do what other people do. No one will criticize you for it. No one will even notice. I daresay if anyone does, they will think better of you for it. No one likes a prig.”
He looked dumbfounded, then said slowly, “You think I should embezzle money...in order to fit in with everyone else at court?”
“Precisely.” She sidled closer and put an arm around his shoulders. “And you might want to think of other ways in which you could ‘fit in’ a little better. You’re going to be a great man someday, Rath. You’ll want to leave a legacy behind.”
“These are my legacy,” he said, pointing at the ledgers and maps and scrolls covering his desk.
“I mean a family.”
“A...a family?” His deeply-tanned face reddened. “My lady, you know I am not...traditional in that way. I have heard of places in the Empire where men live openly together, but here in Myrcia—”
“You misunderstand me. I mean you need a wife. You are hardly the first man in the Trahernian lands to find himself in this predicament. I think of my Uncle Valdemar, the King of Annenstruk, for example. My mother has told me all the stories about the trials and tribulations the family went through, trying to hush up the scandals and find him an acceptable bride. Don’t be like him, my dear lieutenant. Find a nice, understanding type of girl who will help you maintain the façade. You need only rouse yourself once or twice to get her with child, and then you can carry on doing whatever you like in private.”
Poor Rath looked as if he would have preferred she ask him to take on an entire Immani legion with a carving fork. “My lady, I can’t think how I would ever meet such a girl.”
Muriel leaned in and lightly kissed his temple. “That’s what I’m here for. Leave everything to me.”
She went to supper with Teddy and Gwenifyr Tatham and a young Pinshire knight who was supposed to be courting Gwenifyr. He spent most of the meal staring at Muriel’s cleavage, however, which was fair, as she had left it on display for that very purpose. Later, right before they left the Hawk’s Nest Inn, the knight took her into a dark corner and proposed how they might spend their evening. She let him down easily—easily enough that she might pick him up again later, if she were inclined. For the time being, however, she needed to go see her husband.
It wasn’t entirely a surprise to find Joyce in Broderick’s apartment up at the castle. She was lounging on the somewhat threadbare old bachelor couch that he had brought to the marriage, and which Muriel had been kind enough to let him keep in his own rooms, where she didn’t have to look at it every day. Joyce had all her clothes on, and so did Broderick, but they both looked a bit disheveled, and even the rose-scented candles on the windowsill couldn’t quite cover up the scent of sex in the air.
Joyce hugged Muriel like a long-lost sister and then excused herself because she was “going to the theater with some friends.”
When she was gone, Muriel looked at her husband, raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Are we still auditioning her? I thought she already had the part.”
“A virtuoso brings something new to each performance.” Broderick grinned. “Speaking of which, what are your plans for this evening?”
That was very tempting, indeed, but she could still smell that scent in the air. “Not tonight, darling. We need to talk about Volker Rath. What sort of a man is he?”
“You know what sort of a man he is. You’ve known him for years now.”
“Yes, but imagine he is a bottle of wine or a roll of fine silk. How do I induce some girl to buy him? What are his finest qualities? What should I attempt to mitigate or hide?”
“Other than the fact that he likes ‘assailing the sally port,’ as the phrase goes?”
“That’s hardly a problem to the right sort of girl.” She winked. “As you well know.” He reached for her waist, and she almost let him catch her. But then she spun away and shook a finger in his direction. “No, you’ve had your fun for this evening. Tell me everything you know about Rath. And then we’ll decide how to ‘sell’ him, as it were.”
They opened a bottle of wine and sat down on either end of the grubby old sofa, and as they drank, Broderick told her everything he knew about his aide-de-camp. Rath was nine years younger than Broderick, which made him four years older than Muriel. He’d been educated at a small church school near Drohen, and had joined the army at 16. His first real posting had been to Keaton Fastenn, where he quickly gained two separate reputations. He was known for efficiency and quiet competence. But he was also known for refusing to visit the local brothel girls, and instead forming close friendships with the older shepherd boys in the nearby mountain towns.
“What do you suppose drives him?” Muriel asked. “What makes him such a good soldier?”
“Anger. Anger and brooding resentment.” Broderick swirled his wine in his glass. “I don’t know how you’re going to make that attractive to some young girl, though.”
“Once again, I think you’re underestimating what some girls find attractive,” she said. “A certain amount of smoldering anger at the world gets some of us quite weak in the knees.”
He set down his glass and leaned over her. “Yes, I’ve noticed that.”
She set hers down, too, and started unlacing her bodice. “Yes...I suppose you have, haven’t you?” Then she grabbed his collar and pulled him down for a kiss as his hands ran up under her skirt.
After hours of drunken, sloppy, and scandalously deviant sex all over the apartment, they fell asleep, and she woke the next morning naked, slightly sticky, a bit sore in places, and utterly satisfied. It didn’t hurt that the room smelled of coffee and bacon now, as Broderick had ordered the servants to bring up breakfast on a silver tray.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to stay around this morning,” he asked, as they ate. “I don’t have any duties until 2:00.”
She was tempted, but she felt as if she had allowed him to score a point the previous night. And in spite of the fact that she had thoroughly enjoyed being scored upon, she needed to do something to restore equilibrium between them. “Sorry, but no. I need to see if Teddy Musgrove has any ideas about a wife for Lieutenant Rath.”
“Finster’s balls,” groaned her husband. “Musgrove is the one who caused the problem to begin with.”
“Yes, and that’s why he’s the perfect person to help.” Muriel climbed out of bed and borrowed one of his dressing gowns. “I’m going over to my apartment to take a bath now. If you could, gather my clothes and give them to my maid. There’s a dear.”
She half expected him to come join her in the bath, but he didn’t, and by the time she was washed and dressed again, she decided that was fine. She really did need to see Teddy and find out how he was doing.
When she got to Teddy’s place, she found everything surprisingly neat and tidy. There were no empty wine bottles or broken amphorae in the parlor. There were no pretty young men lounging about the library, reeking of stale wine and scented oil. There were no crushed flower petals or streamers of silk cluttering the hall carpet.
She discovered the reason for this moderation when the butler showed her into the glass conservatory at the back, where Teddy was having a late breakfast with a lovely dark-haired girl. She had porcelain skin and big green eyes and a lacy blue silk dress that was almost as pretty as the shimmering satin peignoir Teddy was wearing.
“Muriel!” cried Teddy. “You know my sister, Lizzie, don’t you?”
“Of course,” said Muriel, smiling, even though she had only vaguely been aware of the existence of the girl until that moment. She had known Teddy had a sister. She had known the girl was at Brancaster for a while. But she hadn’t known the girl was done with her schooling and was now “out” in society.
Lizzie Musgrove stood and curtsied. “Lady Gramiren, I am so pleased to see you again. I don’t suppose you remember, but we met at your wedding.”
“Oh, yes, obviously,” lied Muriel, who didn’t remember the girl being there at all. “How charming. What brings you to Formacaster?”
“I was in the Crown Lands visiting some family friends,” said the girl, “and then Teddy sent me a message saying....” Her face colored. “Saying that he needed help finding a young lady for a certain gentleman.”
Teddy gave an innocent shrug. “Honestly, I’m hopeless with this sort of thing. You girls are so much better. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go put on trousers. I’m going hunting with the Annenstruker ambassador and his military attaché.”
He left the room, and Lizzie blushed even further. Before Muriel could say anything, though, the girl pulled a little scroll from her pocket and said, “I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a list of eligible women, Lady Gramiren. I hope you don’t mind.”
Of course Muriel didn’t mind. “May I see it? Who’s on the list?”
As she read down the scroll, she found herself impressed. There were a few women on there that she wouldn’t have included—daughters of earls and barons who would have been a stretch for Rath at the best of times. But mostly the women came from families in the lower aristocracy and upper gentry. They were daughters of baronets and knights, or daughters of big landowners who had no title, but who were second sons of second sons, or something like that.
She read the list again and saw another common thread between the names. Some of the girls she had never heard of. But those she had were girls with some minor scandal attached to their name. Here was a girl who had tried to elope but had gotten caught. There was a girl who had gone to Sydensby with her family and had fallen in with the “wrong sort” of company. Other girls were known for liking the company of girls, rather than boys. One girl, at least, had gotten pregnant by Muriel’s brother, Lukas, but had lost the baby.
“This is very well done,” said Muriel, looking at young Lizzie with newfound respect. “You came up with this in the last day?”
“It’s something I think about quite frequently,” said the girl. “My...my mother sometimes.... No, I shouldn’t tell you that. Except that you’re one of Teddy’s best friends, so you probably know already. From time to time, my mother talks about making Teddy ‘settle down,’ and she asks me which girls might ‘take him as he is.’ That’s a direct quote.”
Muriel continued scanning the list. “And you don’t think he should have to settle down?”
“Not Teddy. No.” The girl’s delicate brows drew together. “But if he absolutely had to, then I would hope someone would do him the favor of helping him find a nice girl who would be a good partner, even if they weren’t...um, you know.”
“Having sex?”
“Yes, that.”
“Then perhaps we should go speak with some of these girls and see what they think about Lieutenant Rath.”
“Yes, of course!” Lizzie looked bright and happy again. “I’m sure one of them, at least, will see the benefits of the arrangement.”
The next day Muriel picked up Lizzie in her carriage, and they started around town, calling on the girls on the list. Some weren’t even home. A few received Muriel and Lizzie, but seemed to think Lieutenant Rath was beneath their notice.
“Honestly, he’s the aide-de-camp to the captain general,” said Lizzie, scowling as they left one woman’s house. “You’d think people might appreciate that.”
One woman seemed to be interested, and through the icy last week of January, Muriel and Lizzie flattered and cajoled her. They eventually even got her to go on a sleigh ride with Rath, and everything seemed to be going well. But then the girl’s family got wind of it, and they told her she wasn’t to have anything more to do with the lieutenant.
When Muriel broke the bad news to Rath, he sighed and scuffed his boots in the gravel outside the Guards’ Barracks. “Maybe you should give up, my lady,” he said. “Perhaps you’re asking the impossible.”
But Muriel refused to be daunted. That evening she met Lizzie Musgrove at the Hawk’s Nest, and they started making out a new list of every eligible girl they could remember in Myrcia, Annenstruk, the Empire, and Odeland. Lizzie had already done most of the work, in fact.
“This morning, my brother told me I was wasting my time,” she said, scowling. “He asked me, ‘What difference does this make to you?’ But I couldn’t explain it to him.”
“Because you want to find him a girl someday, right?”
“Yes. But also, no. It’s more than that. It’s for me, too.” Lizzie sipped her mead in silence for a minute, then continued. “I’ve never felt normal, Lady Gramiren. When I was at Brancaster, most of the girls drooled all over the boys. And I could see, objectively speaking, how the boys were good looking. Then the boys would go panting after the girls. And I could appreciate that my friends were very pretty. But I felt...nothing. I never felt like sex was important. And every year I thought, maybe I’m not old enough. But now I’m almost 18, and I think.... If it were ever going to happen, it would have happened by now, don’t you think?”
“Sometimes it takes people years to find someone they love.”
Lizzie brought her hand down on the table. “No! That’s not it at all. It’s not a matter of love. I love my brother. I love my mother. I love my friends from school. But I’ve never once felt the slightest sexual urge for anyone. Honestly, my lady, how old were you when you first had an idea you wanted a boy?”
Muriel gave it some thought. “Well...probably quite young. When I was 13, I went with my family to Sydensby. There was a boy there—his name was Ulric, son of an Annenstruker baron. We kissed a lot and rubbed each other a bit raw, and I fully intended to lose my virginity to him, except my stupid older sister, Silvia, caught us and told my parents. But even before that—long before that—I remember liking boys.”
“Yes. Well, for me, that never happened. I remember reading Claudius and Adler in school, and a lot of other romantic poetry. And I liked the romance and the idea of being connected to someone. But I couldn’t imagine wanting sex.”
All of a sudden, an idea began to form in Muriel’s mind. “Wait a moment. So you think you could love someone?”
“Yes. But not sexually.”
“And what about having a family? Would you like to have children?”
The girl looked startled. “I...well, I haven’t ever given it much thought. I assumed I wouldn’t. But you know, I like the idea of having a family. In fact, I think I could stand the notion of sex, if it were just to have children. But not for anything more than that.”
“Oh, really now?” Muriel poured herself some more wine and sat back, grinning.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” the girl said, a bit defensively.
“Nothing, my dear. Nothing at all. But I’ve had the most marvelous idea. Please drink up, and then let’s talk a little bit more...about you.”
***
THE NEXT MORNING, MURIEL found Volker Rath at the castle armory, inspecting several new crates of the latest Annenstruker crossbows. A number of other soldiers were standing around, and when they saw Muriel walk in, they gave her a cheer, knowing that her mother’s family—the royal family of Annenstruk—was responsible for sending these marvelous, modern weapons.
Muriel curtsied and smiled at them all, and then asked Rath if he had “a moment” to talk.
They walked out into the snow, past the stable and the forge, into the middle of the area known as the Captain General’s courtyard.
“There’s a girl I know,” said Muriel, “and I think you might like her.”
“My lady, this is impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, lieutenant. It’s a matter of adapting our minds to the necessities of life. Now have you ever met Elizabeth Musgrove?”
Rath’s face grew red. “Um...Musgrove? Is she related to...?”
“To Lord Teddy? Yes, of course. I’m going to put on a little party tonight, and I’d like you to meet her.”
“I’m sure she is a lovely girl, my lady, but what is the point, honestly?”
“The point is finding you a wife. And trust me, this girl is perfect.”
“I...I don’t know how I could ask her to marry me. How am I going to explain to her what I am? What I feel? What I do?”
Muriel patted his arm. “My dear Lieutenant Rath, this is your lucky day.”