Chapter 28
The queen’s solar was arranged for Sahra’s weekly lessons, a semicircle of chairs gathered around the seeker. It captured the eastern light, warming the room for the near-dozen hopeful learners assembled; spring was only weeks away, but the weather gave no hint of it.
The courtiers waited out the beginning of hard times inside the castle walls, passing the time with fascinations, like signing, and whatever games they could manage indoors.
Meanwhile, root vegetable stores were depleting across Gallae.
The famine brought monotony to the royal supper, and hunger to the commoner’s house.
Most of us had the good sense not to complain.
I settled into my usual seat between Winnie and an empty chair—Florence’s, when she bothered to attend.
Looking around the room moved me: all of these people, from the Duke of Greene to Lady Diamond, had dedicated hours to learning this language for me.
Even if most of them merely sought favor with their future queen, I couldn’t deny my gratitude.
Sahra conducted the day’s lesson as we practiced telling stories. The Duke of Greene gave the first example, hands weaving in the air with precise and flowing gestures.
“Excellent,” Sahra praised. “See how he connects each sign? No choppy movements.”
“I could tell a story,” Angharad offered, already giggling. “It’s about a lonely milkmaid and a sailor—”
“Perhaps you should master basic greetings before attempting innuendo,” Winnie suggested softly.
Angharad raised her middle finger.
Sahra turned to Nicolas, who sat rigidly in his chair. She tempered the lesson for him. “Try asking for a glass of wine, Your Highness.”
The prince grunted softly, passing a brief glance my way. I spared him at least a look. Things were strained between us, but I knew better than to go out of my way to offend him. Anything to avoid another private conversation.
He shifted from his rigid position. His hands moved stiffly, fingers tangling in the middle gesture. All the while, the muscles of his face tensed and twitched with repressed frustration.
“Slower,” Quinn suggested. He leaned forward, demonstrating the phrase with natural fluidity and ignoring the way it made Nicolas clench his teeth. The prince tried again, this time managing something that at least resembled the phrase, though his motions remained forced.
Sahra nodded. “Better. Lord Quinn, show us how to respond to that request.”
Quinn’s signing was remarkably smooth, though he was no stranger to learning new languages. The signs were simpler than the spoken tongue, leaving the mind to fill in elements like articles and auxiliary verbs. “Of course, Your Highness. Perhaps a drink will ease your movements.”
His hands found a natural rhythm with the language.
I kept my gaze neutral, though I couldn’t help but notice how seriously he took these lessons.
The garnet ring weighed heavy in my pocket; I’d carried it for weeks now, waiting for the right moment that never seemed to come.
After our Fintrus exchange in my chambers, I was extra careful not to cross that line from friendship into flirtation.
My caution drove a nail between us, but the man was uncursed; I hoped, with time, that whatever he felt for me would fade. It had to.
Winnie had also been practicing, joining classes from the very beginning, even when she ought to have been mourning.
When it came to her turn, she signed with such elegance that she might have taken extra lessons behind the scenes, either with Sahra Doonle or the duke.
The pair of them had been spending more time together, especially now that I’d given her a temporary leave of station.
It didn’t seem as though anything had developed between them, but Winnie kept her secrets behind locks and chains.
For all I knew, the two might have eloped.
“Alana.” Sahra turned. “Challenge them. Come up with something unique.”
I stood, nodding, but unlike all the rest, I couldn’t communicate by tongue.
Only my hands spun the story, and thus I was often used to quiz the rest on how far they’d come.
The sound of shifting fabric and hands greeting hands was the sole noise I produced as I recounted a story from my days of reading in the woods: a handsome magister tricked into servitude by a monster.
“Would anyone like to venture a guess as to the plot of Alana’s story?” Sahra asked.
Angharad raised a hand. “I saw the word handsome.”
Of course she did. I grinned, but what I’d specifically signed was more along the lines of darkly beautiful, along with more detailed embellishments than were contained in the original story.
“A man of uncommon grace, lean enough to slip through shadows and perform whatever foul tasks the monster requested, with eyes that held secrets and a wicked smile.”
Most others followed along as Sahra demonstrated the key phrases again.
It was only when I watched Winnie attempting to sign ‘eyes that held secrets’ that I felt the blood drain from my face.
Quinn’s presence across the circle was like heat from a fire, a burning awareness that took all my strength to ignore.
My fingers found the ring within the small pouch at my belt. The damned thing was starting to feel like a cursed object.
The late winter sun traced its path across the sky. My mortification calcified.
Tonight. I would give him the ring tonight and be done with it.
The remainder of the afternoon disappeared in the library.
Strategically avoiding the suffocating companionship of any man within the castle, I waited until I heard Quinn enter his room before I slipped out of my door and made a mad dash upstairs.
I hid among dusty tomes in the forbidden section, disappointed to discover that prohibited did not necessarily equate to interesting.
My eyes glazed over a tedious survey of families, information that would likely serve me at the wedding but now seemed about as comprehensible as trying to read Vidisi, the native tongue of distant Rividinya.
Lord Mouse found me later, reviving me from a deep slumber I’d unwittingly slipped into. Drool puddled on the early pages of Complete Gallaean Lineages of Major and Minor Noble Houses, smearing the ink on a portion of the page.
“Your Highness, it is time for supper. Lady Florence has been searching for you.”
I rubbed the grit from my eyes, leaning back to stretch. With a yawn, I exited the library.
Florence started up, hardly looking at me before she sensed my presence. “By the Lord, there’s been a search for you for nearly half an hour! The prince seemed to fear you’d run off.”
“Were it so easy.” I grimaced. “Did no one think to check the library?”
“Quinn went there first, but Lord Mouse claimed he hadn’t seen you,” Florence said. “He told me otherwise.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
Florence tried to conceal her amusement. “Perhaps he saw that you wished not to be disturbed.”
We were the last to arrive in the dining hall, and by Nicolas’ expression, he’d worried.
“Asleep in the forbidden wing of the library, Your Highness,” said Florence. “Unharmed.”
“Call off the guard,” Queen Adelaide ordered with a bored, almost annoyed tone, and one of the posted guardsmen left the hall.
I took my place between the queen and prince, flashing both of them an apologetic look.
Nicolas leaned closer to whisper, his voice trembling.
“I was ready to storm out of here if it took one minute further to find you. Mother insisted it would reflect poorly if I showed such anxiety for your well-being.”
I tried not to grimace. “I agree. You wouldn’t want the world to think you live in perpetual terror of invisible threats.”
Nicolas’ fingers slipped between mine, gripping me tightly.
I pried my hand from his to grab a serving of venison.
Every damned night it was venison and root stews and preserved meats and fish.
I had no right to complain, not when the country was on the brink of starvation; the queen’s reforms had bought Gallae some time, but not much.
No, it was less that I was unhappy with the food, and more unhappy with the association I was beginning to form.
Winter had been bleak, and the monotony of supper was a small part of that picture.
Quinn returned after a while, finding his seat. He seemed less angry than I expected, and more…wounded? His gaze met mine in an act of polite acknowledgement.
“I’m glad to see you well,” he said, filling his plate.
Just how worried had he been? His usual composition was nowhere to be found. I imagined him looking in all my usual spells first—the library, the maze, maybe the Lady’s Chambers—before panic took hold.
I almost felt bad. I only wished for some time alone, away from the indecent feelings that had become almost unavoidable around the viscount: guilty fascination for where the night might have gone without Florence’s arrival; anger for him reporting Winnie’s parents.
But perhaps I could have let him know where I was going.
It would’ve made little difference if he’d been out-of-sight within the library.
At least then he’d feel that he was doing an adequate job of protecting me.
Gods, and Nicolas must have been sore with him.
The meal went on with little in the way of conversation.
Each day was a coin toss as to whether anything eventful might be discussed over supper, but my theory was that, so long as Winnie remained present and dressed in black, most of the courtiers felt too uncomfortable to return to any lighthearted small talk.
Just as I readied myself to get up, Nicolas cleared his throat. He didn’t need to do anything else to garner the room’s attention, not with such little competition in volume.