Labyrinth Gate (14 page)

Such a prim little thing, thought the Regent. It’s a miracle my profligate brother produced someone of her temperament. She allowed herself the briefest of smiles. After all, the girl was so dutiful that she never corrected her elders in public—or at least would not until she gained her full rank as queen. If she gained it.

The girl pushed the document aside and scanned the next one. Her plain face brightened.

The Regent coughed, to gain the assembly’s attention. “I believe,” she said in her clear, well-modulated voice, “that our final business is of better cheer than most.” This elicited a few smiles. “His Highness, Prince Elberic of Alsetz-Orray, has graciously accepted in all particulars our final negotiations for the marriage of his son, Prince Frederick, to—” Here she paused to let the ministers cast surreptitious glances at the Princess Georgiana. The girl’s cheeks bore a faint but becoming flush. “—our future queen.”

Another murmur of pleased assent flowed around the table.

“Your Highness.” One man interrupted the undertone. He was examining the list of articles under the agreement. “I understood that Prince Elberic originally asked for the wedding to take place this summer. But in the final articles, I see here that it is fixed for midwinter instead—that, indeed, it is to be held concurrently with Princess Georgiana’s coronation.”

“Have you an objection to this course, Lord Felton?” The Regent glanced quickly towards the heir, but the girl’s face was impassive. “Surely the hasty preparations that would be necessary to present a summer wedding would not allow us to do justice to the importance of the occasion. While by combining the wedding and the coronation, we will have ample time to present a setting and spectacle fitting to Princess Georgiana’s rank and person.”

“Hmph.” Lord Felton’s mouth held a disapproving line. “I’d have thought it best to get the wedding over and done with, the new-marrieds acquainted and an heir on the way, all before the coronation.”

“Indeed, Lord Felton,” replied the Regent in her smoothest voice. “All reasonable concerns. But it is true that we are in general blessed with good health in this family, although my brother’s constitution, sadly, was never strong. And also, that Princess Georgiana had some hand herself in choosing Prince Frederick. They are acquainted, as you know. We are past medieval times, I hope, when royal children were forced to marry sight unseen. Is that not so, your highness?”

“Indeed, Aunt.” The girl retained her composure under this attention. “It is my duty to marry as will benefit my realm. I am grateful that some choice was allowed me in a prospective consort. Our Lady was gracious enough to have allowed there to be a field of several candidates.” A brief chuckle greeted this remark. The Regent frowned. “I know,” continued the girl, as deeply serious as if she was not aware of anything humorous in her comments, “that my father, may the Son bless and keep him, had only one choice of bride, and that you yourself, Aunt, had no eligible suitors at all available. I know I have been blessed in this matter.”

Several of the ministers coughed. Lord Felton shuffled papers.

“Very true, my dear princess,” replied the Regent when it was obvious the girl had nothing more to say. “We are all blessed in this contract. Now.” She took on a brisker tone. “Lord Felton. As Minister of Ceremony, I will leave it in your capable hands to draft the initial preparations for the Festival of Lights wedding and coronation. I believe it will be an auspicious time, coinciding as it does with her highness’s sixteenth birthday, and will prove to be a fine occasion for such spectacle as will please the lower classes.”

“As you wish, your highness.” Lord Felton bowed his head.

“Then.” The Regent nodded to a servant, who moved forward quickly to pull her chair back so she could stand. The ministers stood as well. The heir remained seated. “With your leave, your highness, we should prepare for our private audiences.”

“Of course.” The princess inclined her head. The ministers collected their papers and, taking their leave of her in turn, departed from the chamber.

“I’m afraid, Aunt,” said the girl when the others had all left, “that I’ve forgotten whom we are to see today.”

“Only one. At his request.” The Regent moved around the long table to stand closer to her niece. “The Earl of Elen.”

Princess Georgiana rose abruptly, not waiting for a servant to help her with her chair. She crossed herself. “I will not receive him.” Her voice held uncharacteristic passion. “That such a monster is a peer of the realm I can do nothing about. But I refuse to acknowledge his presence by receiving him.”

“As you wish, my dear,” said the Regent softly.

“What does he want in any case?”

“I’m not sure.” The Regent paused. “One cannot simply refuse a request by, as you said, a peer of the realm. You will soon enough have to accept that he is one of your subjects.”

“Then I will deal with him,” said the princess stoutly, “as he deserves. But while you are, as is proper, my Regent and Protector, Aunt, I will abide by your supervision. If you insist I see him with you, I will.”

“I do not insist,” murmured the Regent.

“You are very good, Aunt. I would prefer not to see him.”

“Then, with your permission, I will leave you, your highness.”

The princess hesitated. “There is one thing else. I cannot like the harshness with which you propose to deal with these trade people. Surely you do not fear that all this letter-writing presages an invasion from across the Channel?”

The Regent sighed, a showy, dramatic gesture. “My dear. It is naive to believe that simple, poor trading folk could read and write so eloquently, that they have the education and the ability to present such arguments. They are simply pawns in the hands of an outside force, a mob to be swayed against us with clever slogans.
That
is the danger that must be crushed, once and for all.”

“But—” The princess looked thoughtful for a moment, a curious combination of puzzlement and determination. “Do you not suppose that even the mildest of these grievances has perhaps some grounding in fact? In justice? That perhaps, as it says here—” She picked up again the document she had been examining earlier. “—their wages are too low for them to even buy food for their families?”

“My dear girl.” The Regent pulled the document gently from the princess’s hand. “When I was a girl there was never any of this sort of talk. The lower classes were perfectly content with the station that Our Lady had ordained for them. It is only the revolution across the Channel that has brought in spies and rabble-rousers who work to incite a few malcontents. Once that faction is erased, the people will be happy again. After all, remember that one of the basic tenets of these societies is universal suffrage.”

The princess frowned. “Of course that is impossible. But surely a better method of poor relief—”

A liveried servant entered. “Your highness.” He bowed. “The Earl of Elen awaits in the gold chamber.”

The princess flushed, breaking off. “I will go now, Aunt.” She turned away quickly. “I believe Mistress Wynne is expecting me for my mathematics tutorial.” With a little flick of her skirts to avoid a chair, she hurried around the table and out a side door.

The Regent put down the document she held with a satisfied smile. Really, that girl wore such conservative clothing that it was almost laughable. She had no style at all.

She straightened her own dress, a low-cut, fashionable gown that made her handsome figure apparent without flaunting it. One had, after all, a certain appearance and decorum to maintain.

She nodded to the liveried servant and let him precede her to the gold chamber. At the door to that room, she paused a moment, silent.

The earl sat in a finely-brocaded chair, legs stretched out negligently before him, ankles crossed. It amused her that his dress was, like her niece’s, elegant but quite conservative. He stared, all fine-boned intentness, at the fire wavering in the hearth. Following his gaze, she discerned shapes moving within the flames, like creatures gesturing in some arcane wordless language. Abruptly they dissolved into mere fire. She turned to see that he had now risen, and was regarding her with the cold arrogance that characterized him.

“Your highness.” He punctuated the title with a brief, but correct, bow.

“Speaking to friends?” she asked as she passed in front of the fire.

“There are many who can speak,” he said softly, “if one knows the means to communicate with them.” He clasped his hands behind his coat, regarding her with an entirely neutral expression. “But you know that as well as I. To what do I owe the honor of your summons?”

She smiled, stopping now at a window that overlooked the great central courtyard. “No pleasantries, Lord Elen? No polite conversation before the business at hand?”

When he did not reply, she turned to face him. That he was so handsome was a pity, she thought. She had sufficient confidence in her own attractiveness that she had never felt the need to augment it by sorcerous means. That
he
used magic to cover his true features she did not doubt—she sometimes wondered what he really looked like. Her brother, before his unfortunate demise, had once told her of an interview he had conducted with a servant girl who claimed to have been raped by the earl. He had appeared to her, the girl had said, as a hideous, deformed monster. What her brother’s interest in the girl had been she had not inquired after too deeply.

She coughed slightly. The earl’s expression, under scrutiny, remained carefully polite but obviously disinterested. “I must congratulate you, Lord Elen, on the announcement of your betrothal. I believe the wedding is to take place in but a few more days.”

“Ten days, your highness.”

“To a titleless young woman, I believe. Her father is some sort of academic.”

“A professor.”

“Ah. A professor. Yes, I remember now.” She touched, lightly, the back of a gold-embroidered chair. “One can only hope she is prepared for your—ah—tastes, Lord Elen.”

His face remained closed. “My tastes, your highness?”

“Girls. Boys. Young, old, violent, persuasive. Broad, so I have heard. I hope she is a flexible girl.”

The barest of smiles, completely undecipherable, touched the earl’s face. “I am certain she will suffice for the purpose.” His voice was as calm as the stillness before a storm breaks.

“You have decided at last that it is necessary to produce an heir?”

“That is the general opinion of society, yes. But I feel sure that you did not summon me here in order to felicitate me on my betrothal.”

“Indeed. It has come to my attention that you are undertaking the financing of an expedition to the fabled city of Pariamne.”

“Indeed,” he echoed, not moving.

“I see no reason,” she continued, “why our interests cannot combine in this instance.”

“I was not aware we had any interests in common, your highness.”

“There is no need to play the simpleton, Lord Elen.”

“I was not. You refer, I collect, to the obvious truth that we have both ventured deep into the magical arts. But our ultimate goals I doubt in any way intersect.”

“Do they not? Let me be frank, Lord Elen.”

“Please do.” He let the comment escape with less sarcasm than she imagined he intended.

“I want a share in that expedition. I can offer you a great deal for a portion of any treasure found, and for access to all the discoveries you make and the conclusions you and Professor Farr draw from your investigations.”

“Under the agreements I signed with the professor, I am not at liberty to assign any portion of treasure or disclose anything he has or will confide in me regarding his researches.”

“By Our Lady!” she swore, losing her composure. An instant later she had controlled it again. Her anger seemed to radiate uselessly against his chill disdain. “He is not even a noble. I have said I will reward you.”

“And with what,” asked the earl, “do you mean to interest me?”

She let a long silence fill the gap while she paced across the room to halt before the fire. “The Princess Georgiana,” she said flatly. “Her betrothal arrangements are not yet final. I can arrange that she marry you instead.”

“I am intrigued, your highness, by what I can only deduce from that proposal must be your opinion of me. As you know, I am already betrothed.”

“To a chit of a non-titled girl with no connections—not even a beauty, I have heard. You know perfectly well that she can be disposed of quite easily.”

“Of course I know it,” he said. “It is one of her chief attributes. But let
me
be frank. I have no interest in the Princess Georgiana, and less in the throne. I do have an interest in Pariamne. My intended bride gives me complete leverage to indulge that interest. Try to harm her in any way, and I will use every means at my disposal to injure you in return.” He sketched the slightest of bows. “Your highness.”

She smiled. “Have we descended to threats already?” she asked. “Is there no middle ground we can agree on? Tell me the location of the city. You know I do not possess enough liquid funds to buy out your interest from this professor. Instead, I will send a few of my own people, discreetly. They will not interfere with your expedition in any way.”

“As I said before, I am not at liberty to disclose any information about the expedition.”

Her eyes narrowed, a look meant to pierce even the iciest hauteur. “Surely your duty to your Regent supersedes that to a mere professor!”

“Undoubtedly it does,” he replied, unperturbed. “But it does not supersede my duty to myself. Do you not know the motto on the Elen crest, your highness? ‘Build first thine own estate.’”

“Are we so different, Lord Elen?” Her tone became more soothing. “Are the sources of our power so utterly opposed? By joining forces we can gain the more.”

The earl smiled for the first time, a grim expression indeed. “Somehow, I doubt you appreciate the source of my power—and might disbelieve it if you knew. I think there is no point in our joining forces.”

“None at all?” she asked sweetly.

“None. With your leave, your highness—” He inclined his head.