Heartless (9 page)

He clanged his fist down on the table, causing those seated around him to jump and the glasses and silver to rattle. The courtiers at the next tables strained their ears to listen, waiting in breathless silence.

“Well, what did you find?” Felix demanded at last.

“Nothing.” Gervais flung up his hands and leaned back in his chair with a laugh. “There I stood, ankle-deep in swamp muck, surrounded by miles of nothing. Disgusted, I turned to go, when I heard that great bellow again. ‘GRAAAAAUP! GRAAAAAUP!’ ” He opened and closed his mouth comically. “I looked down at my feet, and what did I find?” He held up a fist. “A bullfrog, no bigger than my hand, puffed up like a child’s balloon!”

Nearly everyone burst into laughter, and Gervais, shaking his head, finished with, “Of course, I tried to step on it, but the fell beast hopped away, and all my heroic efforts were for nothing. No bounty for that dragon’s head!”

“Oh, but you were brave,” Una said and blushed at her audacity, quickly looking down at her plate. “I mean, well, you didn’t know what it was, yet you hunted it anyway. Alone too! That takes courage.” She boldly raised her eyes and received a wink that knocked the breath right out of her.

Gervais leaned back so that his chair balanced on two legs, and took up his wine goblet. “How about you, sir?” He turned to Aethelbald, who sat quietly cutting his meat. Una had forgotten he was there. “I have heard stories of your kingdom since I was a small boy no higher than my nursemaid’s knee. Surely you have had your adventures as well. Have you hunted dragons before?”

Aethelbald went on cutting. “I have,” he said.

“Indeed?” Gervais paused and sipped his wine, a line appearing over his brow. But he smoothed it out with another smile directed briefly toward Una. “Do tell, good Prince,” he said. “Is it a tale of might and daring comparable to my own?” He laughed.

Aethelbald paused and looked up from his plate, his fork halfway to his mouth. “No,” he said and took a bite.

“What? Come, man, there must be a story here somewhere. Did you lead a band of thirty strong? Did your sword taste dragon blood?” Gervais placed an elbow on the table and leaned closer to Aethelbald. “We’re all eager to hear the tale, Prince of Farthestshore.”

Gervais’s eyes were bright and intent upon the other prince, so Una tried to put an expression of interest on her own face. Inside, however, she wished Gervais would stop trying to draw conversation from a block of wood and go on talking.

Aethelbald glanced at Una. Candlelight cast strange shadows across his face. His expression, Una realized, was sad, deeply sad. She felt a pang in her heart and looked away.
Is it my fault?
she wondered.
He knows I don’t want him. It is my choice. I have every right to fall in love with whomever I choose.

“Come, Aethelbald,” Felix prompted. “Let’s hear your story.”

Aethelbald set down his knife and fork and placed his hands flat on either side of his plate. “It is no fit tale for such company,” he said and rose from his chair. “Nor do I wish to tell it.” He nodded to the king. “If you’ll excuse me?” Bowing to those present, he exited the hall. Servants hastened to clear his place.

“I like him,” Gervais declared and lifted his glass to salute the door through which Aethelbald had just disappeared. “Humility is a rare quality in a man, and one I respect.” He drank to this little toast and smiled again at Una, his smile only a touch sardonic.

7

She dreamed again that night.

Nurse firmly closed the windows, and Una climbed under the covers, believing there could be no chance of sleep for her. Her imagination was lost in a romantic whirl, dancing and twirling faster than any music the court musicians could play. “Good night, Miss Princess,” Nurse said as she left the room, but Una did not bother to answer.

Prince Gervais was so handsome! Prince Gervais was so charming! Prince Gervais was come to pay his respects!

Two princes in two days! Who would have thought?

Not that she cared about Aethelbald’s suit, of course. Nor would she concern herself with the sorrowful look he had given her just before leaving the banquet. What cared she for somber eyes, no matter how kind, when Prince Gervais was present and so attentive?

Thus Una’s thoughts continued, and she tossed fitfully as the light of her fire dulled and dimmed. She plumped her pillows so many times that Monster gave an irate squawk and stalked to the foot of the bed, curling up like a chipmunk with his tail wrapped over his nose.

Then the heat came.

It began the same as it had the night before, and with it came sudden remembrance of the dream she had forgotten. The two faces – one black, one white, one ice, and one fire. She remembered the clattering dice, and her heart began to race. The desire to leap from her bed and flee the room filled her, but once more her limbs were like stone and she could not so much as blink. Her mother’s ring on her finger tightened, and her hands throbbed with burning.

The two faces in her mind blended together into one enormous face surrounded by fire, and Una sank into her dream.

There is nothing but fire, and within the fire, a voice.

“Where are you?

“Five years I have searched. Five years I have wasted.

“Beloved of my Enemy, I played for you, didn’t I? I played for you and won! Are you not the one I seek?

“Where are you?”

–––––––

Una woke early the next morning to a dreadful prickling against her cheeks.

Opening one eye, she found herself gazing up Monster’s pink nose.

Though he could not see her, he sensed she was awake and immediately said, “Meeeaa!” in no uncertain terms, placing a velveted paw on her nose.

Una tossed her pet aside and climbed out of bed. Without knowing why, she glanced at her mother’s ring. The clustered opals, when tilted to the light, glowed deep within their centers. Twisting the ring about with her thumb, Una opened the palm of her other hand, not certain what she looked for. Some memory of a burn tugged at her mind. Had not Prince Aethelbald said something about one?

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to think about Aethelbald on a morning like this! She closed both hands into fists. Prince Gervais was come to Oriana Palace, and she must prepare herself for more respects-paying at once.

Deciding to dress herself before Nurse came and determined her wardrobe for her, Una put on a simple, nonconstricting gown, tied her hair in a braid down her back, and slipped her little journal into her pocket.

“I need some air,” she told Monster, who twined himself about her ankles, purring madly. “Ask the maid to feed you when she comes. I’m going for a walk.”

She felt a bit wicked as she slipped from her room and down the hall. Nurse disapproved of princesses going anywhere unattended – or making any independent decisions at all, for that matter. But servants and footmen abounded in every passage and around each corner, and Una hardly felt unattended even as she slipped out into the gardens. Gardeners were already busy pruning bushes and caring for various beds of seedlings. They bowed to her as she passed by, and she nodded.

Her mind spun away onto the same thoughts that had disturbed her rest the night before. “Will he ask for my hand?” she whispered, gazing earnestly into the face of a marble statue standing in a bed of perennials. It was an odd statue, a depiction of her great, great, many-times-great grandfather, King Abundiantus V. Carved in white stone, he stood with one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other resting upon his breast, fingering a pair of incongruous spectacles on a chain. His marble face scowled severely down upon Una as though to say there were far more important things to consider on a spring morning than love and romance.

Una did not believe she and her great-grandsire would have seen eye to eye on many subjects.

She moved on down the garden path.

Surely Gervais would ask for her hand. He could not have come to Parumvir for any other purpose. “But what if he doesn’t like me?” Her face wrinkled with worry. “He’s such a favorite with all the ladies by everyone’s account. He could have his choice of any woman! Why should he consider me?”

She kicked a stone out of the path and watched it skitter off into the lawn. “I am a princess. He’ll consider me for that reason if nothing else. But would he think of me otherwise?”

Music drifted to her ears. Una paused and looked around. The soft strumming of a stringed instrument floated down the path from the garden higher up the hill, nearer the palace. It was called the Rose Garden, though no roses had bloomed there in over twenty years. Today, instead, it bloomed with peonies and clematis, a poem of color. Una turned, gathering her skirts, and retraced her steps. As she entered the Rose Garden, she heard a voice, a deep voice, smooth and rich, singing:

“Oh, my love is like the blue, blue moon

Floating on the rim of June!

Oh, my love is like a white, white dove

Soaring in the sky above!”

Una put a hand to her head and wished to heaven that she had waited and let Nurse style her hair before she went out that morning. Too late now, so she went on, following the lovely voice.

“Oh, my love is like a sweet, sweet song

That never seems too long!”

She turned a corner in the path and saw an arbor festooned in clematis, under which stood Prince Gervais. He strummed an elegant lute, and his eyes locked with hers the moment she stepped into view. He smiled, and she feared her heart had stopped for good this time.

“Oh, my love is like a fine, fine wine

If only she’d be mine!”

He played a few more chords, then placed his hand on the strings to silence their humming.

“Don’t stop,” Una said. “That was lovely.”

“Do you like it?” Gervais asked. He strummed another chord. “It is a song of the great Eanrin of Rudiobus, dedicated to his one true love, the fair Gleamdren, cousin to the queen. By tradition, it is a song meant to be sung only to – ” he set the lute aside and bowed to her – “a woman of rare beauty.”

Red blotches burst forth in wild cavorting across her nose. Una turned away, one hand pressed to her heart, and looked about for the gardeners. The nearest worked several plots away and had their backs discreetly turned. She thought desperately, hoping some witty or clever remark would suggest itself, but the backs of the gardeners presented her with no inspiration. “I . . . I hope you are enjoying your visit in Parumvir,” she managed.

Prince Gervais stepped up beside her, and she could feel his gaze on the side of her face. “Princess Una,” he said, his voice low and soft, “did you know that your eyes shine like the stars?”

Where the star analogy might have come from so early in the morning, Una couldn’t guess, but that hardly mattered at such a moment. She bit her lip and forced a nervous smile. “Oh?”

“Could I lie to one such as you?” He chuckled softly at the thought. “The first moment I gazed into the limpid blue depths of your eyes,” he said, “I knew I might drown there and die a happy man.”

Some small part of her deep inside winced that he’d gotten her eye color wrong. But Una silenced that thought and glanced up into the not-very-handsome but so-very-fascinating face of Beauclair’s prince. “I think I . . . I think I’d rather you didn’t die,” she admitted bravely.

“Truly, Princess Una?” Gervais lifted a hand and reached out as though he might touch her cheek, but restrained himself at the last moment.

“I think so,” she said. Why must she suddenly wish so badly that the gardeners would turn around?

“Princess,” Gervais murmured. “Una, I was wondering if I might . . . speak with your father?”

Una blinked. “My father?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “I suppose so. I mean, I see no reason why you might not. You’re his guest after all. . . . ”

Gervais cleared his throat and moved a fraction of an inch closer. “I meant about a delicate subject.”

“Delicate?”

“Yes.” He reached out and took her hand. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Do you understand me, Una?”

“Oh!” she gasped, then inwardly kicked herself when the next word from her mouth was a resounding, “Uh!”

Crunching footsteps on the gravel path shot through her ears like cannon fire. Una pulled her hand from Gervais’s and spun about to see Prince Aethelbald striding up the garden path. He saw them at the same moment and paused. A sharp expression flashed across his face, then vanished the next moment behind a complete mask. He bowed and went on his way without a word, disappearing around a bend in the path.

Una backed away from Gervais and curtsied. “Thank you, prince, for . . . the lovely song,” she said, then turned and all but ran from the garden, clutching her skirts in both hands.

“Oh dear,” she whispered as she retreated, wishing her thudding heart would ease. She glanced back and saw Gervais shoulder his lute and walk from the clematis arbor. “I think I’m in love – Oh,
dragon’s teeth
!”

With that unladylike phrase she landed in a heap on the garden path. In her flight she had not watched where she went and failed to see Aethelbald when he stepped out in front of her.

“Princess Una,” he said, offering her a hand, “are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Really, the blotches had earned a holiday for all the extra time they’d been putting in these days! She refused Aethelbald’s proffered hand and scrambled to her feet on her own, brushing gravel from the back of her skirts. “Sneaking up on people,” she snapped. “Really, sir, there are proprieties to maintain!”

“I was standing in plain sight.”

“It couldn’t have been that plain since I didn’t see you!”

“You might have seen me had you been looking where you went.”

“I was looking where I went right up until I stopped . . . looking. . . .” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them because Nurse said that princesses should never cross their arms. But then she didn’t know what to do with them, so she crossed them again. “What do you want?”

Was he
smiling
at her? Did his rudeness know no bounds?

“Princess Una,” he said, “I merely wish to inquire after your hands.”

She glared at him. “My what?”

“Your hands.”

He reached out and, much to her surprise, took one of her hands. Too taken aback to know how to react, she watched as he turned it palm up and drew it closer to his face for inspection. His smile was gone now, replaced by a solemn expression. She stood, mouth agape, watching him study her fingers and desperately trying to remember what was considered a seemly response to this sort of situation. None of the etiquette books Nurse had shoved in her face had covered spontaneous hand inspection.

At last Aethelbald raised his gaze to meet hers. “You are badly burned,” he said.

She drew her hand back and studied her fingers herself. There wasn’t a mark to be seen. “I’m not.”

“I see what you cannot,” he replied. She looked up to meet his gaze again. His eyes were dark, flecked with gold about the edges. And somehow, as she looked at them, she felt as though they weren’t quite human. All the wildness of the Twelve-Year Market, the breath of great distances, and the smell of the sky lay hidden in that gaze. For just a moment Una believed him.

“Will you allow me to tend to your hurts?” he asked.

The moment passed.

“You have plenty of nerve, Prince Aethelbald.” It didn’t come out as regally as she had hoped. In fact, she thought she sounded like Nurse, which galled her. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve by ordering me around so!”

“Ordering you around – ”

“First bursting in on me at the market!”

“Bursting in – ”

“Then embarrassing me in front of the whole court!”

“Princess, I – ”

“And now all this rot about invisible injuries and interrupting Prince Gervais as he and I don’t see what business it is of I can do what I like and I think you’re simply and that’s that!”