Two young women lay on the bed facing each other. On the
right, the half-elf Svetlana had waist-length hair the colour of dark honey.
Her elven heritage shone through her fair skin, high cheekbones and pointed
ears when compared to her friend and distant cousin. Anya’s hair was shoulder
length, light strawberry-blonde and wavy. She was also fair-skinned despite
spending much of her time outside: the Brevoy sun is not that strong. Her twin
daughters lay between the friends, fussing, sleeping and staring. A small,
fluffy black cat was curled up at Svetlana’s feet.
The women had not seen each other in around 6 months, so
Anya was filling Svetlana in on life back home and Svetlana filled in details
of her travels that Anya had missed: it was well known that Svetlana had risen
from peasant-hood to earldom, but Anya wanted to know more details, and
particularly the events that had led to her coming to New Stetvon herself. With
her small babies, she hadn’t been able to come to the ceremony confirming
Svetlana as a Countess a week or so previously and her husband had come in her
stead, but there was no way she was going to miss her best friend’s wedding.
“The king, hey?”
Svetlana tried to roll her eyes, but at the mention of
Noleski she was smiling too much. “Yeah.”
“So? How’d you meet? Was it very romantic? I’d ask if you
love him or are just power hungry – but I know you too well,” laughing as she
blocked the friendly slap, “so ‘eyes across a crowded room’?”
“Pretty much,” and Svetlana related that first meeting,
waiting to be confirmed as a baron and seeing the Regent, as he was then, for
the first time. Her surprise at his good looks (which Anya seconded – the kings
in their play had always been old, stuffy and ugly but Noleski was younger,
tall and tanned) had made her look more closely and she’d seen the weariness
with which he wore his statehood – which endeared him to her. It was then that
he’d looked up and their eyes had met; “like being struck by lightning!”
“You’ve been struck by lightning? Don’t wake the babies!” as
Svetlana shoved her friend.
Svetlana explained they had chosen to keep quiet about the
relationship (“even to me?” “I’d have told you. I just didn’t see you.”) because
they weren’t entirely sure where they were going with it and because it scared
her to feel that intensely. Anya could understand – “How do you bear to be
apart? Being away from Maksim makes me feel like I’m breaking in two!”
“I just have to do it. I couldn’t let anyone else see”.
“So no one else knew you were going to announce an
engagement?”
Svetlana shook her head “Even I didn’t expect to be – not
til I saw him looking at me when everyone was suggesting people he could
marry.” Anya responded with a quizzical look. “Alexei and the others – he was
saying about how his sister was all pally with Restocovic – warning us cos our
lands border his and he’s, well, not fond of the fact Noleski has the crown and
Natalya’s not exactly the biggest fan of the idea either – I think she wants it
for herself and I don’t trust her”
Anya thought back to earlier in the day, at the dressmakers
where she’d taken Svetlana for her first fitting and the expression that had
flitted across her face on seeing the king’s sister. This would be explained by the antagonism between the two, although Natalya had seemed perfectly
lovely to Anya; more interested in Svetlana’s companion Alexei than Svetlana.
Still, Anya made a mental note to watch her tongue around the woman.
“So anyway, apparently she was trying to marry him off and
then Alexei and Keiran were joining in with their suggestions for brides and
then they went back to the party and he asked me instead.”
“Not especially romantic.”
“No… but I think it would have been if he’d had the time to
do it when he was ready. And he did ask Mum’s permission.”
“And she was ok with it? He’s nearly as old as her!”
“He’s not that old! And anyway, neither’s my mum. And I’ve
never felt like this before.”
Anya extricated a finger from her babe’s grip so she could
pat her friend’s arm. “I know. It shows. You’d never be happy with … someone
else.” She paused. “Piotr doesn’t talk about you. He goes very quiet. What
happened?”
Svetlana wrinkled her nose and rolled onto her back. “What
do you know?”
Anya shrugged. “Not much. He sulked for a long time after
you left, won’t talk about you – had a face like thunder when he heard you were
engaged. To a king! ’Lana!”
And again, Svetlana started smiling like a child. She caught
herself, though, and turned the conversation back to Piotr. “He didn’t
want to come away with me and he didn’t want me to go either,” Anya nodded;
this was well-known, “he wanted me to stay, marry him but I couldn’t. I just… I
love home but …”
Anya laughed, “you’re too big for such a little place.”
“Something like that. I wish you could have come with me,
but with these little ones I get it. It was lonely, though, specially thinking
Piotr hates me and Devin not showing up when he said he would.”
“I don’t think he hates you, but he was hurt – I know you
didn’t mean to, but you know what he’s like. And then only a few months later
you’re marrying a king.”
“Noleski”
“Yeah. So he thinks he wasn’t good enough for you – I know,
I know, and now I’ve met the king and seen how he looks at you I know it’s
nothing like that. But it’s going to take Piotr a bit longer. He feels like you
led him on.”
“Well, I damn well wish he’d grow up a bit. It wouldn’t have
worked and he threw that at me from nowhere. He never told me how he felt and
if he’d let me know I’d’ve let him down gently. He talked like it was his right
that I stay.” Her eyes flashed anger. “I never wanted to fall in love and not
with Noleski. It’s not that he’s a king; it’s that he’s him. Piotr’ll find someone
who suits his life and be happy with babes of his own and I couldn’t ever give
him that. We’d be miserable.”
“I know. Like I said, I saw the king’s face when you got
back and I see your smile every time you mention his name. It’s like me and
Maksim; made for each other.”
“It’s not the wedding I wanted. It’s too big and pompous and
silly.”
“You should get him to marry you again, back home.”
“I intend to. A nice wedding, like yours. And Misha can
oversee it. And none of this stupid multiple dress fittings and frettings about
flowers and who likes whom and who will sit where. We can have a picnic and
they can sort themselves out.”
“Ha! At least your fittings are consistent,” Anya indicated
her post-partum figure and the twins, “I’m shrinking and growing every visit!”
“I was surprised by Natalya. Is that how she’s been the
whole time?.. I mean, nice! And as if she’s actually interested in being
involved?”
“And all lovesick for Alexei? Yeah, pretty much. What’s
Alexei like? He sounds amazing!”
Svetlana pulled a face. “You remember the straggly guy who
cleared that ghost out of the pub cellar? Yeah. That’s him.”
“Really? Natalya makes him sound to be someone more handsome
than her brother and kinder than, well, anyone – and talented and all these
things.”
“Hmmmm. Talented, yeah. But not nice. He had a guy kept
alive whilst the skin was stripped from his body as a lesson once. I mean, the
guy was spying on us for Pitax and treating the people on his land abysmally,
but still.”
“Why do you stay with him?”
“We fell in together. And don’t get me wrong, he can be
lovely and he knows a lot and he’s a very useful companion, but he does creep
me out more often than he doesn’t. I just don’t understand this change in
Natalya – not just the whole obsession with Alexei but also that she isn’t
making a fuss about the wedding. It makes me anxious; like she’s going to try
something.”
“I don’t know, she seems pretty genuine.”
Svetlana suppressed a shudder: it was a dangerous game
Alexei had played when he seduced the queen Svetlana was to replace. “Well
then, we’d better hope he continues to play nice with her until after the
wedding,” and realising that Noleski would have to put up with her without
Svetlana, “until we’ve left for the Crusade.”
“You’re still going?”
The half-elf nodded, “I have to. This was all agreed too
long ago. It’s why the wedding’s so soon. I’ll be well protected.” The cat at
her feet stretched and settled back to sleep.
“I’d have thought he might not want you to.”
“I don’t know that he exactly does, but he’s all tied up
with the bureaucracy and that means it’d be politically awkward for me not to
go. Some things are just easier to go with. Going official has meant he can
insist we take more army than we were originally going to. I dunno, having a
queen might inspire the troops. Or some such bullshit.”
“Are you scared?”
If almost anyone but Anya had asked, Svetlana would have
lied and laughed and said it was an adventure. But Anya was one of her closest
friends, so she nodded and whispered back, “I don’t know enough about it. All I
know is the people who went from home last time never came back. I don’t want
that to be me. And it’s going to be dangerous and difficult and I’m going to
get hurt. So, yeah, I’m terrified. But I have to do this. And I’ve done scary
and difficult things before, and I’ve been hurt before. So I can do this. But I
am scared. Just, don’t let anyone know.”
Anya promised and admitted her own fear at her friend going
to fight a war before turning the conversation back to more mundane topics
(wedding dresses and bridesmaids and so forth) and eventually drifting off to
sleep. Svetlana waited until she was sure Anya and her daughters were not going
to miss her before easing herself off the bed and putting on a tunic – more robust
and practical than the dresses she’d worn so far since returning to New
Stetvon. As she rose, the cat also woke and sat, yawning.
“You stay there,” she whispered.
The cat stared back, “where are you going?”
“Where do you think?” She listened at the door briefly as
the cat blinked his acknowledgement. She moved to the window and carefully
eased it open. He padded over to join her. “No, stay here. I need you to watch
Anya.”
“The guards can keep her safe. Noleski would never forgive
me if anything happened to you.”
“I’m alert and in disguise. She’s asleep in my bed where any
assassin can creep in the window. I’ll never forgive you if anything happens to
her. Please look after her. It’s not as if I’m going far. I trust you more than
the guards – see how they don’t notice me leaving?” as she pulled herself out
of the window, casting a quick spell to make sure if she fell her landing would
be soft. “If they don’t notice me leave, how would they notice someone else
arrive?”
Mr Tiddles, as his collar proclaimed him, acquiesced with
some reluctance. He had further arguments to make but realised he was not going
to change her mind. Instead, he leapt back onto the bed and curled up in the
space Svetlana had left.
Svetlana, meanwhile, carefully began the climb towards the
window where she was sure her fiancé would be.
