Chapter Nine #2
Girion looked startled. “Don’t tell anyone else,” he whispered.
She nodded, smiling up at him. “I will keep your secrets if you keep mine.”
“It is a bargain. I would have them put it in the vows, but it is implied.”
“The vows! Does royalty have special vows?” Jocasta demanded, stepping back in panic.
Girion looked as if he very much missed the touch of her skin on his.
“You don’t have to do anything but repeat what the bishop says.
Tomorrow, we’ll rehearse. You’ll have to choose attendants, of course.
All the young ladies of noble birth or who have parents of high rank will be at tea today, so you can meet them and select a few—”
“They’re people, not cattle! I can’t just ‘pick out a few’ by looking at them!”
“I’m sure the stewards can give you a little summary of who would be a suitable companion.”
“How did you choose your court? Your gentlemen-in-waiting?”
“I inherited advisors, generals, and guards. I have trained with the men who protect us, and I have seen my appointed ministers and masters serve Caledon’s best interests.”
“Well! Can’t I inherit some ladies? You keep your generals.” Jocasta asked, flinging out her hands.
Girion shook his head slowly. “There haven’t been any in so long.
Lady Somerlynn was my mother’s lady-in-waiting before she—” He stopped, looked away, and then plowed on.
“My stepmother did not want any of my mother’s loyal friends or attendants.
She had her own hand-picked few, and of course, she was not queen for long.
When she died, they were dismissed. They had no purpose. ”
“I see.” Jocasta waited for him to say more, but whenever the topic of his stepmother came up, Girion froze over like an icy lake. “Do you think Lady Somerlynn would be willing to help me until I settle in?”
“I am sure she would.” Girion thought for a moment, stroking his short, newly clipped beard. “I could help.”
“You could?”
“The wives of my advisors, of some of the guards... I will steer you to those I think are most useful to you, and those who would be good companions.”
“Oh, would you? Thank you, Girion!” she whispered, clutching her side as she let a worried breath escape.
“I will always aid you. Protect you. Defend you.”
“I will do the same. Are these our vows?” she asked, coming closer to him.
“Only in part,” he said, his voice dropping. “Jocasta—”
“You can call me Jo when we’re alone.”
“Jo, I— Oh, curse it, yes!” Girion thundered and whipped open the door as someone knocked.
Nalar sniffed at the king. “Really, sire, it was you who demanded a wedding in three days! Do you want your future queen to walk down the aisle looking like she is wearing someone’s bed linen?
” He pushed his way into the room, trailed by his entourage of assistants.
“Of course you don’t! So, I must work on this gown, and the bride must be in it. ”
Girion gave Jocasta a longing look, then nodded. “We have much to do. You will want to spend time with your parents, and I will have so many guests to greet, so we will have little time together. But don’t fret, you will have Lady Somerlynn to assist you.”
Jocasta nodded. Her parents would arrive tomorrow. She would have Lady Somerlynn, who was kind, and Nalar, who at least did not let silence grow around him.
Still, the thought of not being able to talk to Girion made her feel an odd, aching emptiness inside.
I WOULD RATHER CRAWL across burning coals than greet one more noble from another kingdom. Make banal remarks with one more courtier who holds a hereditary position and is as much use as a tack in a pair of breeches.
I would rather be with Jocasta.
A smile played over Girion’s lips that afternoon as visitors to his kingdom made themselves known. Tomorrow, there would be more. He’d had his fitting. Met with advisors. Talked to Bishop Stoddard, who would perform the ceremony, and who wanted to see Jocasta privately before the rehearsal.
Everything was blurring around him—reports of delays in the mines, reports of a settlement party stranded in the northern hills as they were trying to cross them to head to a warmer city with a flowing hot spring, companies to send out to aid and rescue...
If he thought of Jocasta’s face and the way she could make things grow, the blurring stopped.
“You look like a man very much in love. Very content,” Cole whispered.
“Stop that.”
“She looks at you the same way. I peeked in on her and Mother as they were having tea with about thirty women in frilly dresses and mountains of jewels and capes. Jocasta looked like she would rather swallow poison than take another bite of a dainty sweet. But when she is with you—”
“We bicker. She questions.” He forced an exasperated frown to his face.
“She looks happy. And at ease.”
“She is stubborn.”
“You like it.”
Girion’s smile won. “I do. It’s a miracle, you know. I’ve only known her for a short while, but she is... she is most companionable. She’s like no other woman I’ve ever met. All her questions are good ones. She is worried, but doesn’t back down. She would have been a good soldier.”
“You realize that such words from you are a veritable love sonnet, sire?”
“Hush.”
“I just want some credit, that is all. I found her.”
“I convinced her.”
“As if she would have dared to say no to you.”
Girion whipped his head around, eyes wide. “Cole, wait! Do you think she is only marrying me because she feared to deny me?”
“No. Jocasta isn’t like that. She would have hit you with a smoked eel and sent you out of her shop with a blizzarding wind if she didn’t want to say yes.”
“Archduke Reynard and Lady Renata of Wyndwood,” the steward boomed.
Girion jerked his attention forward and tried not to roll his eyes. “Why are they here again? They know I will see them at the wedding, and I’ve seen all too much of them already.”
“Godspeed, sire. I suggest you do what you did earlier when Bishop Stoddard started in on his lecture about sacred music for the ceremony. Think about your lovely bride.”
“How could—”
“I have known you for too long, Girion. Your face never softens. Not until after the ball. Something happened between you, and whatever it is, it is mutual.”
“Ah, Girion! I’ve come to offer my congratulations, of course, and apologies in person. My dear wife had to return to our Wyndwood estate. The other children, you know.”
“I know, and I accept both your felicitations and your regrets,” Girion said stiffly, bowing his head in acknowledgement. “I don’t wish to detain you if your little ones need you.”
“Oh, Mother will manage. She’s a very capable person.” Renata’s smile was thinly layered over a scowl on her narrow face.
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
“And of course, I bring regrets from Prince Fannar. There is a trade summit he must prepare for.”
“It was very short notice, and we don’t want a huge affair.”
“No. No, it would be in very poor taste,” Renata clucked.
“Holding a ball, a banquet, and a royal wedding all in one week while your miners are freezing to death in iced-over pits. Why, just this morning, we heard of twenty families who are stranded in the northern hills, poor things, fleeing their settlement because their branch of the hot springs died.”
“Dried. Not died,” Girion corrected. “Things will flow and thaw soon. You are curiously well-informed, Lady Renata.”
“Oh, you know us. Caledon is our second home,” Reynard said with a hearty laugh.
“My boy, if you will allow me to give you some advice... People aren’t sure this marriage is a wise one.
Now, only a true friend would tell you so, would tell you to your face, not whisper behind your back.
Some of the people are saying that you are marrying a human to leverage how bad things have gotten with an appearance of being pro-human, trying to lift an inferior people to an equal status with shifters. ”
Girion’s shoulders shifted, and his eyes flashed dangerously. “Give me the names of those people, Reynard, so that I may invite them to discuss such an opinion with Jocasta and myself. Who used words like ‘inferior people’ to refer to the humans, who make up easily a third of our population?”
“Well, I couldn’t put a name to a face at the time—”
“Then tell me where you heard it. In what disgusting den of prejudice did you hear it?”
“Oh. You know. On the way over.”
“Walked, did you?” Cole murmured. “I thought you had a carriage. In that carriage, the only two talking would have been you and your daughter.”
“I will not be spoken to by a servant,” Renata hissed and turned her head.
“You will be shown to the stockade by this fine gentleman, son of my highest-ranking general and Lady Somerlynn. Cole is the Captain of the Guard, and there is no higher-ranking military position within the royal household. You are a guest. He is blood of Caledon.” Girion’s voice dropped into something savage, and he could feel his inner form working its way forward.
His fingers flexed to keep in the claws.
“I believe it is you who has strong feelings about a human becoming Queen of Caledon. Perhaps because you thought you would be the better choice,” he hissed, looking between his guests.
Renata had the gall to feign surprise.
Her father spread his hands. “Well, she would be. A common human, even a mage... Believe what you want about my sources, but I know tongues are flying, and there is much speculation about your choice of consort.”
“My father is merely trying to save you the humiliation of an uprising. It looks selfish to host a ball while your people suffer, and even though they know a bride is the key to restoring Caledon’s weak magical line, you are choosing some unknown commoner who may or may not get the job done.”
Girion was stunned by the venom in Renata’s voice, as well as by the mention of an uprising. “My people are going through a difficult patch, you are right. I am working as fast as I can to fix it.”
“Shouldn’t have let it get to this point in the first place, Girion. For years, people have said you should worry about an heir, a family...” Reynard wrung his hands as if his own life were at stake.
Girion’s claws began to emerge, and then—he pictured Jocasta’s face. Her stubborn look and the syrupy smile she could muster in the midst of their bantering and bickering.
His tone and posture changed. “I can see you two are dearly devoted to the people of your second home,” Girion said, nodding. “I know you want to help. I have just the way, something that will make you both happy, and show just how greatly I admire you and value your help,” he practically purred.
Cole looked as though he were having trouble keeping his stoic expression from slipping.
“I’d like to appoint you, Lady Renata,” he bowed low, and Girion hid a smile as Lady Renata’s sneer started to turn into an excited grin, her eyes gleaming, “as royal emissary to the northern hills. Your fire magic will be of great use, just as you said it would be as a bride.”
“I never said such a thing!”
“Your hints were all too plain,” he waved her words away, spread out his arms, and ushered his smaller guests towards the door.
“Cole will take you to the mustering point where the second wave of guards is gathering. I’m sure that your carriage can follow the path of their horses quite easily, and when you reach the base of the hills, your magic will be put into action to save those stranded people.
What a hero of Caledon you will be! Oh, how you will be hailed, Lady Renata, as a great savior of the people—humans, of course.
It’s the humans who aren’t coping with the frozen springs, as they have no furred forms to shift into.
And you, Archduke, I’m sure you’ll wish to accompany your daughter and act as escort, not that there is any reason to worry for her safety, not with the company of guards protecting her, but I don’t think it would look proper, sending her alone.
Now, Jocasta, on the other hand, I would trust alone if I had to, for she has a soldier’s spirit.
Yes, that’ll do, and I do hope you’ll be back in time for the wedding, but if not, I certainly understand.
I trust I’ll hear of your brave exploits once I’m done with my unfortunately short respite from royal duties.
Cole! Show our guests to the mustering point. ”
“With pleasure, sire!” Cole sprang down the long carpet in the throneroom and took over, ushering the babbling, protesting pair from the room.
In about ten minutes, Cole came back and shut the doors behind him. “That was brilliantly handled, sire.”
“I thought so.”
“Not your usual style of blunt or forceful.”
“I have been expanding my strategies, as any good leader should.”
“Yes. The fire magic would have helped, sire, but I’m afraid the Archduke and Lady Renata begged off.”
“Such a surprise.”
“Do you think they’ll show their faces at the wedding?”
“I hope not.”