Chapter Eight #2
“—what I would give to see it again,” he was saying as I poured wine over his shoulder. “The look on Wyatt’s face when Mou—” He stopped himself. Shook his head. “When Bianca Mortlake burnt half the tiltyard down. Wasn’t it magnificent, Edward?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“I spent all my energy yesterday healing her wounds.” His tone had hardened.
His hand shot out, gripping my wrist as I lowered the carafe of wine.
“If you Guildfords think your infernal magician is welcome at court again, you are sorely mistaken. Very mistaken. Tell your uncle Charles I said that.” He rose from his chair and nearly tripped.
When I called after him, he only wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, fixing me with a glare.
“Yes, Ed, I know. ’Tis late. Too late to dance. ”
He waved me over and positioned me opposite him on the floor. Raised his palm, expecting me to meet it.
He’d always been a lovely dancer, ever since we were children. He’d insisted we learn dances popular in the courts of Carmin and Lionesse, drilling us until we knew the steps. Hal loathed dancing; he only wanted to joust or swing his sword.
Roland scowled at my reluctance. “Ed, I thought I taught you this one.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, ducking my head. I was flushed and hot all over, burning with humiliation.
Sensing my lack of enthusiasm, he snatched up his goblet, spilling a trail of wine on the floor. “To bed, then. If we must. Edward, did you see the bear I had to fight? The dragon she became?”
Guiding a drunk Roland down the hall to his apartments was an ordeal. He paused beneath portraits or tapestries he found particularly lovely and stared at them for minutes at a time. He recited a verse into the empty courtyard. I took his cup while he was distracted and left it on a windowsill.
After throwing open the doors to his chambers, his hands slipped back into his hair. The candles were burnt to the quick here, too, the only light streaming from the hearth. “Draw a bath, won’t you, Ed?”
His fingers trailed over the strings of his breeches.
My mouth fell open. Was I meant to undress him? Fill his bath? Empty his chamber pot?
Roland’s eyes narrowed. I saw the suspicion leaping behind them, quick and agile. “What is it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I just—for a moment— Nothing.” I was unsure what Edward would say or do next. I began with removing Roland’s bulky box coat, then his doublet, laying them carefully over a chair by the crackling fire. I didn’t dare breathe or look too long in one place.
On his upper body, Roland wore only a loose linen shirt. I could see his lithe muscles beneath the gossamer fabric, the terrain of his stomach. He shrugged it off and handed it to me. Next came the breeches and hose and boots.
I had seen men before. None looked like Roland did. He rolled his wide shoulders, cracked his neck from side to side. I trained my eyes on his face, then ran off to find a pail of hot water for his tub.
I had been with men before. With some it was a chore. With others, frantic. Stolen time in empty hallways, against doors, in a field of long grass that itched all over for days afterward. I closed my eyes.
The water was heavy; it took a long while to carry it.
Roland had turned to watch the fire. Two dimples shone in the small of his back.
I averted my eyes again. The water steamed and hissed as I poured it into the bath, thick ribbons of oils slithering through it. “The flowers, Ed,” Roland reminded me.
“Oh. Apologies, Your Grace.”
“In the bowl. On top of the wardrobe.”
“Right. Yes.” I scattered the rose petals in the bath. He sighed as he finally lowered himself in, his arms flexing with his weight. The opaque water swayed near his navel.
He sat luxuriating in the bath until the water was icy, until all the soapsuds and steam had cleared away.
“Ed,” he said softly, finger trailing through the water.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
He opened one eye. “Tell me something.”
I sat fretting on the edge of his bed, glancing out the window.
What time was it? Had I missed the Guildford meeting entirely?
I should have chosen a different body than Edward’s, one without such a demanding employer as Roland.
I had begun gritting my teeth in concentration to avoid slipping back into my true form. “What shall I tell you?”
Roland sank deeper into the tub as he laughed. He flicked water at me, watching with amusement as it struck my face. “Did you truly think I wouldn’t realize?”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
At his smirk, I swore under my breath, stormed over to the chair and threw one of his folded shirts at him. He caught it easily. “I undressed you!”
“I only knew for certain when the water turned cold. Edward always grows impatient; he would have insisted I get out ages ago. And his eyes are hazel, greener around the edges, not brown. So.” He met my gaze. “What are you doing here?”
My face heated. “I planned to join the Guildfords as Edward tonight. This detour was unfortunate.”
He leaned his head back, exposing his throat. For a few moments he stared at me, deep in thought. “What will it take for us to trust one another?”
I tore off Edward’s face and sagged in relief. My hair fell loose down my back, no headdress to contain it. He snorted at the oversized livery I wore. “Covering yourself would be a start.”
He took the shirt I’d thrown at him and arranged it on the surface of the water, so it floated over his lower body. “If you spent time in the Lionessian court, Bianca, you’d become more accustomed to nakedness. It wouldn’t shock you. And you’re the one in my—”
“This wasn’t my intention,” I muttered. “I didn’t look. I swear it.”
A disbelieving eye roll. “You already know factions of the court plot against me. Just the other night, Cecily Guildford suspected she might be pregnant, but this morning she bled, according to Joan, and—”
“You do realize that a woman’s monthly bleed is a private matter?”
“You do realize she is the queen, so it is considered everyone’s matter?”
I scoffed, shaking my head.
“It’s all my councilors speak of. And her brother, her father, and Planets know what other men. I try and make her nights more pleasant for her. I alter his appearance and cover his stench, and even then, it is difficult. I believe there is another way.”
“Prospero’s research. Exaltation.”
“Precisely. You guessed it two nights ago, in the library. If Prospero was so consumed by it, he must have believed he could give the king what he wants most. A new son.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked quietly.
“Because I want something, and you want something. We call such an opportune arrangement a trade. When I saw you compete in the tournament, I realized how incredibly useful your talents are.”
“I’ve already agreed to tell you what the Guildfords say.”
“I have something more pressing in mind.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, nodding for him to continue.
“You will become Prospero and speak to the king,” Roland said, drawing a finger first through the water, then along the soaked linen lying across his abdomen.
“He is unstable, mad—this will be just another bout for him. A vision. He’ll believe you to be a ghost come to visit him.
And as Prospero, you’ll discuss your research.
Specifically, what you were researching before your death. ”
Prospero’s name had once been revered—now, it was scarcely even whispered.
He had waited, like every other prisoner, to be led up the winding staircase of the Archimago Tomb.
There may have been a final glimpse of Jupiter somewhere above, a final prayer, before his head was slammed onto the scaffold and snow buried his body.
I saw Roland with snow in his hair, too, the flakes clinging to his long eyelashes. “Now tell me what you want in return,” he pressed.
A formality. He already knew. “Help me investigate Hal’s death.”
“Agreed.”
I felt it in the air between us: the shared loss, that feeling of tripping internally once we remembered all those who were gone. Each day we dressed and ate, and they were dead. Hal. Prospero. The women who had strayed too close to King Richard. The court of our childhood that no longer existed.
He extended his hand for me to shake. Our palms touched, his wet and cold, mine dry and even colder.
Our eyes locked. He scooped up the fabric resting on the water and draped it over his body as he stood, beads running down his chest, down the slant of his hips.
“Would you?” He inclined his head toward another white nightshirt folded on a chair. I tossed it to him.
He splashed me as he leapt from the bath. I heard the rustling of fabric, the patter of droplets hitting the floor as he settled by the fire. “Well, this has been rather productive, hasn’t it?”
I glanced out the window: nearly light. Morning mist hovering over the gardens, the Moon fainter than before.
The Guildfords would be meeting soon, so I had to be quick.
Roland had turned away from me; all I could see was the sharp blade of his cheekbone.
“Hal would have wanted this,” he said softly. “Us working together, for his father.”
“He would have never thought it possible.”
For a moment, we watched the fire spark. Neither of us spoke. Our minds somewhere else, maneuvering pieces around a board.
He didn’t object when I wore Edward’s face again, promising to tell him whatever I learned in the Guildford meeting. In the afternoon, we decided, I would become Prospero.
“And Bianca?” he called, just as my hand touched the door. “Welcome to my court.”
Charles Guildford’s note was a cryptogram.
Most likely, a Mercury designed the cipher for the family long ago.
It would take hours trying to decode it by hand, hours I didn’t have after spending the night with Roland.
And when I searched the palace for any tread of Guildford minds, for the unique tint of their emotions, there was nothing.