Working her carved ivory fan, she eyed one of the gardeners’ . . . constructs. It seemed to be three huge nude women wrestling desperately with gigantic serpents. “They are quite remarkable,” she said. One said what one must when coming as a beggar.
“Yes. Yes, aren’t they? Ah, it looks as if affairs of state call me. Pressing matters, I fear.” A dozen men, coated as colorfully as the flowers that were no longer there, had appeared on the short marble stair at the far end of the walk and were waiting in front of a dozen fluted columns that supported nothing. “Until this evening, my dear. We will speak further of your dreadful problems, and what I can do.”
He bowed over her hand, stopping just short of kissing it, and she curtsied slightly, murmuring appropriate inanities, and then he swept away, followed by all but one of the coterie of servants that had been trailing them everywhere.
With him gone, Morgase worked the fan harder than she could in his presence—the man pretended the heat barely touched him, with sweat streaming down his face—and turned back toward her apartments. Hers by sufferance, just as the pale blue gown she wore was a gift. She had insisted on the high neck despite the weather; she had definite ideas about low necklines.
The lone serving man followed behind her, at a short distance. And Tallanvor, of course, on her heels and still insisting on wearing the rough green coat he had traveled here in, sword on his hip as though he expected an attack in the Seranda Palace, not two miles from Amador. She tried to ignore the tall young man, but as usual, he would not be ignored.
“We should have gone to Ghealdan, Morgase. To Jehannah.”
She had let some things go on far too long. Her skirts swished as she whirled to confront him, and her eyes blazed. “On our journey, certain discretions were necessary, but those around us now know who I am. You will remember that too, and show proper respect for your Queen. On your knees!”
To her shock, he did not move. “Are you my Queen, Morgase?” At least he lowered his voice so the servant could not overhear and spread it about, but his eyes. . . . She very nearly backed away from the stark desire there. And the anger. “I will not abandon you this side of death, Morgase, but you abandoned much when you abandoned Andor to Gaebril. When you find it again, I will kneel at your feet, and you can strike off my head if you choose, but until then. . . . We should have gone to Ghealdan.”
The young fool would have been willing to die fighting the usurper even after she discovered that no House in Andor would support her, and day by day, week by week since she had decided her only choice was to seek foreign aid, he had grown more insolent and insubordinate. She could ask Ailron for Tallanvor’s head, and receive it with no questions asked. But just because they were unasked did not mean they would be unthought. She truly was a beggar here, and could not afford to ask one favor more than absolutely necessary. Besides, without Tallanvor, she would not be here. She would be a prisoner—worse than a prisoner—to Lord Gaebril. Those were the only reasons Tallanvor would keep his head.
Her army guarded the ornately carved doors to her apartments. Basel Gill was a pink-cheeked man with graying hair combed vainly back over a bald spot. His leather jerkin, sewn with steel discs, strained around his girth, and he wore a sword he had not touched in twenty years before belting it on to follow her. Lamgwin was bulky and hard, though heavy-lidded eyes made him look half-asleep. He wore a sword too, but the scars on his face and a nose broken more than once made it plain he was used to employing fists, or a cudgel. An innkeeper and a street tough; aside from Tallanvor, that was the army she had so far to take back Andor and her throne from Gaebril.
The pair were all awkward bows, but she glided past and slammed the door in Tallanvor’s face. “The world,” she announced in a growl, “would be a far better place without men.”
“An emptier place, certainly,” Morgase’s old nurse said from her chair beside a velvet-draped anteroom window. With her head bent over her embroidery hoop, Lini’s gray bun waggled in the air. A reed-thin woman, she was not nearly so frail as she looked. “I assume Ailron was no more forthcoming today? Or is it Tallanvor, child? You must learn not to let men put you in a fret. Fretting makes your face blotchy.” Lini still would not admit that she was out of the nursery, despite having been nurse to Morgase’s daughter in turn.
“Ailron was charming,” Morgase said carefully. The third woman in the room, on her knees taking folded bedsheets from a chest, sniffed loudly, and Morgase avoided glaring at her with an effort. Breane was Lamgwin’s . . . companion. The short suntanned woman followed where he went, but she was Cairhienin, and Morgase was no queen of hers, as she made clear. “Another day or two,” Morgase continued, “and I think I will get a pledge from him. Today, he finally agreed I need soldiers from outside to retake Caemlyn. Once Gaebril is driven from Caemlyn, the nobles will flock to me once more.” She hoped they would; she was in Amadicia because she had let Gaebril blind her, had mistreated even her oldest friends among the Houses at his behest.
“ ‘A slow horse does not always reach the end of the journey,’ ” Lini quoted, still intent on her embroidery. She was very fond of old sayings, some of which Morgase suspected her of making up on the spot.
“This one will,” Morgase insisted. Tallanvor was wrong about Ghealdan; according to Ailron, that country was in near anarchy because of this Prophet all the servants whispered about, the fellow preaching the Rebirth of the Dragon. “I would like some punch, Breane.” The woman only looked at her until she added, “If you please.” Even then she set about the pouring with a wooden sulkiness.
The mixture of wine and fruit juices was iced, and refreshing in the heat; the silver goblet felt good against Morgase’s forehead. Ailron had snow and ice brought down from the Mountains of Mist, though it took nearly a steady stream of wagons to provide enough for the palace.
Lini took a goblet, too. “Concerning Tallanvor,” she began after a sip.
“Leave over, Lini!” Morgase snapped.
“So he is younger than you,” Breane said. She had poured for herself, as well. The effrontery of the woman! She was supposed to be a servant, whatever she had been in Cairhien. “If you want him, take him. Lamgwin says he is sworn to you, and I have seen him look at you.” She laughed huskily. “He will not refuse.” Cairhienin were disgusting, but at least most of them kept their disso
