Chapter Text
Connor's fingers moved deftly across her back, loosening her corset lacings, opening the clasps of her jewels. "Careful not to snag my hair," Tess said, and Connor laughed.
"Why didn't you ask one of your ladies to do this, if you're so worried?"
"Because I hate banquets, and the last thing I need directly before one is to be fussed over and bothered by some chambermaid who fails to understand that I'm still getting used to court manners and fancy dress. Usually I'd ask Wren, but as she's not here you'll have to do. And don't pretend you've never helped a woman dress - I know several of your sisters very well, after all."
She turned to look at him. He was already elegant in his midnight blue court attire, dark red hair tied back in a neat band at his neck, and she cringed inwardly at the contrast: she'd spent the afternoon riding out with Garian to review the Guard, and her hem and hair were both encrusted with mud. She was sure that she looked less that beautiful, and she felt her face warming with a blush. Connor had more than demonstrated his feelings for her, but some part of her still feared the scathing force of his judgment.
"You needn't worry, you know," he said gently, breath ghosting across her neck as he gathered her hair up and away from the tangling chains. "I left all that up in the mountains."
She didn't bother to ask how he knew - since he'd come back, he knew her innermost thoughts more often than not. It wasn't the same awareness born of long companionship that Wren shared with her, the deep familiarity that allowed her to guess her friend's thoughts with uncanny accuracy. It wasn't even like Wren's scrying gift. Connor just knew, as if she'd spoken aloud the things that she always kept privately bound up inside her own head. It could, at times, be irritating - but usually she found it comforting. "You never told me why," she said to him, "and so I sometimes find it difficult to be entirely sure of you. That is," she corrected herself, "you told us all about the Iyon Daiyin message, and it's been clear enough how you feel about me, but you've never told me what it was made you change your mind on that subject. I remember a time when I was not so attractive to you."
Now he was blushing too, which was rare - Prince Connor Shaltar rarely lost his composure, at least when clothed. When he was not, things were very different. He sighed. "I was wrong, during the war. Wrong about a fair number of things, as my quest so aptly demonstrated to me, but I was mainly wrong in that I expected you to be a Queen, and failed to understand that you also had to be a King. Seeing you here, now, I think I understand a bit better. My sister Astren was a king's wife - and her place in the world was very different from your position. I don't expect that you'll ever marry, for one thing."
"Not unless Wren can be my husband," Tess said wryly, suppressing the inevitable twinge of longing for her too-soon-lost mother. "Though I suppose we'll have to think about it sooner or later. I don't suppose I can bear an heir to my cousin and my magician and Wren, all at once together."
"Don't worry about that. Go wash, and then we shall have to face the rude horde."
"Rude is right. Garian invited Mirlee to stay with him this sixmonth, and I shall have to listen diplomatically to all her wingeing," Teressa lamented. "I do wish that Wren were here. It's scarcely a fair trade. I lose her sense and good humor and overall saneness, and in return I have to play the gracious hostess to Hawk's people, who inevitably quarrel with everybody over anything."
"I know you'd rather have Wren, or Tyron, for that matter. But Idres will see that no trouble comes to them, and frankly I expect they're having a deal more fun than we shall. Neither of them are any good at parties or court manners, which is why they're the perfect emissaries for us to send to Fortress Rhiscarlan. I believe that was your brilliant idea, Your Majesty. You can scarcely complain that they've obeyed you."
Tess giggled. "While you were still - before you came back, I mean, I made Tyron stand up at my side at all the official functions." At Connor's disbelieving look, she said, "Well, I needed someone, and you'd run out on me. Wren couldn't very well do it. At least Tyron possesses a title, though it's not a noble one. But Queen's Magician sounds a lot more impressive than Magic Prentice and Former Ruiner of Pottery."
Connor snorted inelegantly. "She'd like that. But Tyron?"
"Oh, just that I've never in my life seen a more miserable face. You know how when he's uncomfortable his face goes all to triangles? It was doing that. Finally I dismissed the poor dear, and he took off immediately for the corner where he'd hidden his books."
"I'd still rather have them here as not, no matter how much they're enjoying their adventures," Connor said, "but we'll manage well enough. Now go and take your bath, and then I'll help you dress." He kissed her bared neck, and then gave her a little shove toward the porcelain tub.
As Teressa sank back into the lavender-perfumed water, she marveled again at just how wonderful a hot bath could feel. She'd spent her whole young life doing without, and now she found herself occasionally amazed at the sheer comfort of life as a Queen. Of course, plenty of other parts of her new life were less wonderful; the politics and the terrible decisions and the need to speak politely to people she disliked or even hated more than made up for the material benefits of her new station.
Don't fool yourself, Wren said into her mind. You always did like having your hair clean more than was sensible.
Hello, Wren, Tess thought at her lazily, knowing that Wren would understand without the application of any effort on her part. There's nothing odd about liking to be clean, you know.
There is when you like it this much, Wren thought at her amusedly. Heavens, Tess, it makes you happier than kissing!
That's not true, Tess retorted. Not than your kissing, anyway.
She offered Wren an image of herself, painting it in warm pinks and golds, smiling at the thought of her friend's kisses. She couldn't send to Wren herself - she had no gift at all for that kind of mental magic - but she'd learned how to romance her friend in a funny backwards sort of way.
Tess, Wren sent to her, the name expressed in a sort of happy sigh. I miss you. I wish I could be there with you. Wren sent her an unexpectedly plain imagining of the two of them together in a warm bath, both unclad, Wren's round, sturdy body wrapped around Tess's willowy one, and Tess felt heat flood her. I love helping you dress, and undress.
Oh, Wren, don't, Tess begged. I have to be presentable for a formal court supper in not nearly enough time, and if you get me all worked up I shall be terribly distracted, and I'm not nearly good enough yet at this to conceal those kind of feelings. I shall be flushed and flustered any everyone will suspect, and then there will be gossip, and you'll have utterly spoilt me!
Have Connor take care of you, Wren said with a leer. You know he'd love to.
Yes, Tess agreed, but I think we'll wait for after supper for that sort of thing. I want to have enough energy for dancing, after all.
Now I'm all downcast that I shan't get to watch you dancing. You do it so very well, it's like your feet sprout wings or some equally impossible feat of spellwork. I'll be particularly put out if you do the brannel with anyone but me - it's my very favorite. Tyron's off nattering about enchantments with Idres at the moment, so I'm either breaking bread in the common room or eating alone with Hawk! I think I'll have to decline his invitation - any ideas for a suitably grand way of letting him down gracefully?
Do yo really think Hawk would appreciate the grace? Tess asked her. Sometimes I think you get on best with him precisely because you don't have fine court manners. He seems more inclined to trust you - which is as it ought to be, for I trust you more than anyone myself.
Connor's voice, calling from the antechamber, pulled Teressa momentarily away from the magical contact. "Tess, are you nearly finished? We're going to be more than fashionably late if you don't hurry."
"Scrying with Wren," she called back, hearing lazy satiation in her own voice.
"Tell her to make sure Tyron takes the time to have something to eat tonight," Connor said. "He'll get focused on something and end up even bonier."
Go on, Wren, Tess sent mentally. You probably ought to dig Tyron up. He gets too abstracted with none of us nearby, and I don't think I want Idres helping with that particular problem.
Wren didn't answer her in words, but sent her another image, which Tess could tell through the scry she intended as a prediction, of Tyron's tired face smiling in the flickering light of a candle, his mouth red and full with having been well-kissed. Good luck, Tess, and sweet dreams! Wren caroled, and then was gone.
"Here," Connor said, coming into the warm, steam-filled room. "You finish washing, and I'll get started on your hair. You'll have to wear a circlet tonight, because I'll be damned if I'm going to take the time to braid any little tiny finicky ornaments into it. I can put it up well enough, but anything more than that is outside the realm of both my skill and my patience."
Later, at the banquet, Teressa was happy to have the authority contained in that small crown. Nyl Covelan, Garian's toady of old, had taken upon himself the authority he thought Garian had vacated, and spent most of his time harassing whatever personage he might force to obey his whims. Aunt Carlas had been hinting broadly of a betrothal between this eminently eligible young man and her own darling, lemon-faced Mirlee. Tess had privately wished them joy of it, until Tyron had mentioned the possibility of offspring, which was one of the more horrible thoughts he'd ever shared with her.
Her table was not as large as it might have been, but it still managed to contain nearly thirty nobles, each with servants circling them. Each of the factions had its representatives: the supercilious members of the court who remembered her parents' rule more fondly than her own, the young ambitious social climbers, the well-dressed young women of lesser families hunting noble husbands, a pair of visiting dignitaries from Hawk's rebuilt fortress, Aunt Leila as the Siradi advisor to the court, the other masters and high-level prentices from the magic school.
Tess had been doing all right at juggling them, trying to keep Hawk's man from utterly scandalizing the Lady Corenna's aging sensibilities and refereeing several impromptu bullying sessions among the young ladies - a darkly beautiful Lamreci girl with exapnses of flawless milk-chocolate skin on display, who was come but recently to Cantirmoor, was vying with Mirlee for social supremacy. In the process, she was provoking Mirlee herself to new heights of rudeness, as well as causing a fair amount of upset with her own more circumspect manipulations. However, Tess might have made it through the meal unscathed by social failure, had Nyl's voice not risen unfortunately loudly into an ill-timed moment of silence: "...really quite scandalous," he was saying. "Everyone knows that Iyon Daiyin magic is perverse - why else keep it so secret? It's an absolute disgrace, that sort of bad blood in a royal family."
Out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw Connor stiffen, face pale to the lips with what might have been shame, or even anger. She didn't turn to look at him. It was bad enough that everyone knew where Nyl's stiletto had been aimed. She was groping for a response, any response, when the other Rhiscarlan emissary, a tall, broad-framed woman who wore her dark hair in a coronet of infinitely tiny braids, spoke in a voice that crackled like summer lightning: "Be not so swift to dismiss the enchantments that saved your hide but a few scant years ago. Or are you even so young that you cannot recall your own defense and liberation?"
"I'm sure he didn't mean -" Garian prevaricated nervously, shooting his former compatriot a quelling glare.
"He meant exactly what he said," the woman - her name was Yaranis, Tess remembered, and her arched brows were drawn together in anger, her red-brown face flushing darker along her strong cheekbones - said scornfully.
Tess gathered herself. "But he did not speak with the authority of his queen, nor of her kingdom," she declared, drawing hauteur down around herself like a cloak. "Meldrith had publicly proclaimed its dedication to the study and recovery of Iyon Daiyin traits, which position we hold to be vital. We hold clearly the memory of the role played by those same traits in our victory against the false sorcerer Andreus."
Yaranis inclined her head, the spark fading from her black eyes as she accepted the gesture of political support. "You are gracious, Your Majesty. Some of your people are less so."
"May my court and the Rhiscarlan Lands continue, then, to learn from one another." Tess let herself glance over at Connor, and found to her relief that he looked much recovered, and even somewhat pleased by her very public rebuke of Nyl, who slumped, red-faced and chastened, in his well-padded chair. Too many of her nobles, Tess reflected, had escaped the war by retreating back to their own strongholds, living out the time of trouble in protected luxury.
Mistress Leila, eyes dancing, added her coals of fire to the growing heap on Nyl's idiotic head. "Do you know, Teressa, your victory has started quite the fashion in Siradayel. You would not believe the number of people, common and noble, I've heard boasting in the last year about their 'Iyon Daiyin heritage.'" Tess saw her throw a sideways smile at her brother, who pulled a face at her in return.
"It's ridiculous," he said quietly. The soft tone of Connor's voice was not enough to stop the entire table from craning as one to look at him.
"Entirely so," Tess agreed, "but scarcely surprising, for all that. Wren tells me that the girls in the orphanage where my parents concealed me for so many years play make-believe games as themselves now, because being an orphan is just as romantic as being a noble." She could see some of the court women looking at her askance, but she didn't care. She'd decided not to try and hide her humble upbringing; it was a doomed task anyway. Too many people knew that the Rhisadel queen had been raised plainly in a mountain orphanage for her to cover it up with any success. The only path, she'd decided, was to take strength from her past, to treat it as a gift rather than as a secret - and if the ladies of her court did not approve, that was their matter.
After their disapproval, Connor's gaze when she met it was a sudden reprieve, an unexpected shelter. He was looking at her in a way that made her feel, just for a moment, as if they were the only two people in the world, quite erasing the crowded dining hall. "If it's romance they're after, it seems to me that orphan and princess and Iyon Daiyin get are all equally likely to find it," he said.
Her reply was meant to answer his intimacy, but she also pitched her voice to be heard, looking at the sullen courtier, the commanding emissary, the scandalized dowager. "If I can create in the course of my rule a kingdom that offers a chance for better things at every member of my people, I will count myself a good Queen."
With a falsely bright smile, Mirlee Rhismordith led the call for a toast. Some things, Tess reflected as chatter rose around her again, were constant – her cousin would always bend over backwards in pursuit of advancement, for all that she was doomed to failure. But Connor was smiling, and the Rhiscarlan emissaries were both chatting animatedly with Mistress Leila. Everything that mattered was, for the moment, as it ought to be. She took a long drink of the cup of hot chocolate that served to end the main meal, tasting the deep complex sweetness of it.