Allegiance (11 page)

Semari, Dahnath and Shaselle went to join their mothers, Dahnath tugging at her sister's sleeve to pull her away from her newly royal cousin, and it was obvious that feminine chatter was of little appeal to the younger girl when Steldor was around. London, of course, had once more dodged me by moving out of my line of sight. This left me alone with the King. I considered going after Semari and the two sisters, but the time had passed when that might have seemed natural. Feeling Steldor's eyes upon me, I shifted uncomfortably, wondering what held him so transfixed.

“Stop staring,” I scolded, managing to sound irritated rather than embarrassed.

He strode closer to me without breaking eye contact, so close that my heart began to race.

“I can't,” he said, reaching out to play with a strand of my hair. “You take my breath away.”

Without waiting for a response, he flashed his perfect white teeth and walked toward his father and uncle, ensuring that this would be one of the most confounding evenings of my life.

When Steldor at length decided to draw the celebration to a close, he and I bid our guests good-night and departed, returning to our quarters. He came into the parlor after me, and I thought I might say something to him, but when I turned he was disappearing into his bedroom. Peeved, I considered knocking on the door, but didn't want him to make the wrong assumption regarding my interest. I waited a moment to see if he would rejoin me of his own accord, feeling silly to be standing in the middle of the room by my
self. As I debated whether to take a seat and continue to wait or retire to my bedroom, he reemerged, having changed into something less formal. With a slight nod in my direction, he made to leave, strapping his sword belt around his hips, and my thoughts flew to Miranna's conjecture—that Steldor might seek the company of other women if I would not give him mine.

“Where are you going?” I called.

“Why do you care?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious as he pulled the door wide.

“Because I—I… I'm thinking of the promise you made to commit to me the fidelity of your body.” I bit my lip, hoping he would catch on. “I can't help but wonder whose company you keep.”

He swiveled to face me, and I glanced up expecting to be confronted with anger or resentment. Instead, he appeared to find my statement comical.

“Worried about my eternal soul, are you?” he queried. I again struggled to speak, but he waved a hand dismissively. “Don't be. My soul won't be in danger until we've shared a bed. Consummation
is
a requirement of the marriage, remember?”

I grimaced and studied the pattern of the rug, wishing I had not raised the subject. A moment passed in silence, then I felt his hand beneath my chin. When I raised my head, he gave me a long and sensual kiss, his enthralling scent washing over me, and I was thrown off balance. He, however, went on his way as though nothing had transpired between us. Reeling from the unexpected feelings of both pleasure and confusion that his kiss had stirred, I stumbled to my room to prepare for bed. The entire evening now seemed surreal—Baelic's offer to take me horseback riding, Alantonya's questions about Narian, London's unusual be
havior, the compliment Steldor had earlier paid me, the love I had felt in his kiss, my response to his overture. I smiled drolly, for while I was bone weary, I suspected it would be hours before my restless mind and troubled heart would let me sleep.

IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE I TOOK ADVANTAGE OF Baelic's offer to take me horseback riding. Just a week after the dinner party for Miranna, I sent a request to call upon him through a servant. An hour later, the man returned with a message that I was welcome to come to Baelic's city home that afternoon, and to stay for dinner if I were so inclined.

I enjoyed my day, having something new to anticipate. Miranna, generally my main source of enjoyable companionship, had lately spoken of nothing save the boy who had been given permission to court her, and I had begun to yearn for other topics of conversation. Baelic and his family represented a welcome change.

At midafternoon, I notified the Royal Stables to put a carriage in order and bring it to the front gates. I left my drawing room and returned briefly to my quarters to check my appearance and retrieve a lightweight traveling cloak, then hurried out the front doors of the palace. In the Central Courtyard, lilac bushes were in full bloom and full fragrance, perfectly complementing my mood, and the trees and grass were particularly brilliant shades of green.

What I discovered when I neared the gates was not to my liking. The horse master and a groom were in serious discussion about something and glanced guiltily at me when I approached. I groaned on the inside, knowing something was wrong, but not wanting anything to deflate my happiness or interfere with my outing.

“Why do I not see a carriage?” I questioned the moment I reached them, exasperated that my directive had not been carried out.

The men looked anywhere but at me. It was the horse master who at last spoke up.

“It is not prepared, Your Highness.”

“Then have it readied at once or I shall be late, and it will be on your head.”

“Indeed, on my head, but I can't prepare a carriage for you, my lady.”

“And why is that? What impediment can there possibly be?”

The horse master shifted uncomfortably, reluctant to answer; at my scowl of impatience, the groom tentatively offered an explanation.

“The King has ordered that you not be given a horse or carriage without his express permission, Your Majesty.”

My lips parted in surprise, and then anger brewed. The men glanced at each other, and the groom who had broken the news stepped a little behind the horse master for protection.

“One of you, take a message to my uncle, Lord Baelic,” I irritably instructed. “Inform him that I have been delayed but will arrive in time for dinner. I'm going to have a word with the King.”

I stalked back to the palace and barged through the front doors. Without a word to anyone, I marched through the
entryway, the antechamber and the Hall of Kings, straight on to my husband's study, where I barreled through the door without knocking.

My husband did not seem shocked by my unannounced arrival; rather, he looked as though some unexpected entertainment was about to be provided. He was sitting at his desk, booted feet upon its surface, chair pushed back, reading through a few sheets of parchment in his hand, his only discernible reaction the lift in his eyebrows and his ever-widening grin.

“You are unbelievable!” I stormed, hands upon my hips, but he cut me off before I could launch into a full-blown rant.

“I hear that all too often,” he said, managing both flippancy and extreme conceit in one short sentence. “If you want to flatter me, try to think of something every other woman in Hytanica
hasn't
told me.”

I'd obviously caught him in good humor, and I nearly growled with frustration. Here was I, flustered and infuriated, trying my best to reproach him, and in response, he was reflecting on the praises he had garnered from other women.

“They usually whisper it to me between passionate kisses or in the ecstasy of my embrace,” he continued, ignoring the affronted flush warming my skin. “Of course, if you really want to pay me this compliment, then I am ready, willing and able to provide you with the experience.” He swung his feet to the floor and stood, motioning to his left. “There's a sofa right over there if you can't wait. I could free up my schedule, then we could—”

“Stop! That has nothing to do with the reason I'm here. Just stop talking!”

He smirked. “There's a way you could make me stop talking.”

“You're deplorable! And I demand that you inform the stable hands that I can have a carriage whenever I desire!”

“Ahhh,” he said, drawing the sound out in understanding as he resettled in his chair, leaning back. “Going somewhere, were you?”

“Yes, I was!”

“I seem to recollect that you were to tell me before you went out.”

Although I hated his supercilious tone, I was reminded that I
had
promised to keep him informed of my whereabouts when I was outside the palace.

“I intended to leave a message with a Palace Guard,” I lied, not wanting to admit any wrongdoing and knowing that his actions were far more offensive than mine.

“And did you?”

“That's irrelevant!” I seethed, with a stamp of my foot. “The issue here is the respect I deserve as Queen!”

With a skeptical tilt of his head, he picked the papers up from his desk as though the conversation were over, insulting me further.

“You have no right to take away my authority like this!” I exclaimed, my volume rising. “Do you have any idea how you've humiliated me? What next—are you going to order the entire kingdom to ignore the Queen's commands?”

“Of course not,” he said, a touch of boredom creeping into his voice now that our word game had ended. “I'll send a guard to the stables at once to tell the horse master to give you whatever you want.”

His response defused me, and I gaped at him, having expected some sharp, arrogant comeback.

“Is there something more you wanted, darling?”

“No,” I muttered, and though I wasn't certain why I owed him any gratitude, I added a thank-you as I headed out the door to salvage my day.

 

Steldor was true to his word, and roughly an hour later, I arrived at Baelic's city home accompanied by the usual contingency of guards. I sent one of the men who had traveled with me to announce my arrival, while another of my escorts helped me from my carriage.

Baelic emerged from his large two-story manor house and approached, offering a courteous bow and his arm so that he might guide me to the front entry, which had a porch topped by a gallery for musicians. I assumed the gallery opened on to a reception room for hosting dinner parties and other galas. The house, sturdily built of stone, had two wings that came forward off its central section and was timber-roofed, although the roofs of the wings were at right angles to that of the main home.

Lania stood near the entry and swept a gracious curtsey when her husband and I drew near. Her straight, light brown hair was tied with a ribbon at the nape of her neck, and her summery white blouse and green skirt were simple, but lovely. Several of the Palace Guards who had accompanied me took positions on either side of the entry, others having gone around to the rear, while grooms took charge of the guards' mounts.

“Your Highness,” Lania said respectfully. “Do come inside. Tea will be served in the parlor.”

“Actually, I thought I'd show her the horses before tea,” Baelic said, intercepting Lania as she began to lead me inside.

While I was pleased with his suggestion, Lania was not. She turned to her husband with an exasperated sigh, disgruntled but not surprised.

“You can hardly take the Queen to our barn, Baelic.”

“If you prefer, I could bring the horses into the house,” he responded with a wink for me.

“You will do no such thing!”

Lania seemed genuinely distressed, as though she deemed it possible that he would do just that, but I could tell from her soft hazel eyes that she was amused nonetheless.

“I would enjoy seeing the horses,” I cut in, despite how entertaining I found their squabble.

“What did I tell you? She would enjoy seeing them,” Baelic repeated, offering his arm to take me in the direction of the stable. I accepted, but Lania's almost pained voice stopped us.

“Baelic…do remember that it's almost dinnertime.”

“Don't worry—I'll stay clean.”

With a shake of her head, Lania disappeared into the house.

Baelic's barn was large enough for several horses, although I could not begin to guess how many head he might actually own. I recognized the animals milling in a small corral nearby as belonging to the Palace Guards, so knew better than to count those as his, but suspected he might keep some of his personal mounts at the military base—just one advantage of being the cavalry officer.

The door of the stone structure was open, and Baelic ushered me inside where it was refreshingly cool and the air smelled of leather and sweet hay. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the windows along the side walls, I realized I was standing in a meticulously clean aisle that separated a set of five stalls—three on the left, two on the right, with a tack room at the fore. At the end of the aisle, a door that presumably led to another section of the barn was closed.

Baelic wasted no time, leading me to the first stall on the left where a dark bay mare, tall and well-muscled, stood munching from a hay feeder at the back right corner, displaying the length of her sturdy body. She looked up at the sound of our approach, then let out a contented grumble and turned to greet us.

“This is Briar, my baby,” Baelic said, rubbing the mare's nose and ears. “She just turned five.”

“She's beautiful.”

“Isn't she?”

Baelic leaned his forearms on the top of the wooden stall door, close enough for Briar's breath to tousle his hair, which was the same color as her coat. I laughed, wondering if he had forgotten his promise to his wife or if he were simply choosing to ignore it, and his lopsided grin gave me the answer.

“She secretly likes the horse smell. Otherwise she wouldn't have married me.”

He moved toward the second stall, raising a cautionary hand when I began to follow.

“It might be best if you stayed toward the front, and I'll bring the horses into the aisle. Lania will be furious with me already—imagine if I bring the Queen back smelling the same.”

I acquiesced, and Baelic stepped around me to disappear into the tack room at my right, reemerging after a minute with a lead rope in hand. As he disappeared into the stall one down from Briar's, I was struck by the contradictions Baelic, Cannan and Steldor presented, and my thoughts burst from my mouth.

“The men in your family are extremely confusing.”

I froze, shocked at how forward I sounded. Luckily, I was answered with a loud laugh.

“I do believe I've just been insulted.”

“No!” I hastily assured him, blushing scarlet. “I didn't mean it like that—”

Baelic stepped into the aisle with the rope slung around the neck of a gelding as golden as wheat in spring but with white covering the lower portion of each of its legs so that it appeared to be wearing stockings.

“It would have been a compliment, dear niece, but that you bunched me in with the rest of that motley crew.”

“You mean to call the King and the Captain of the Guard a ‘motley crew'?” I queried with raised eyebrows, enjoying his irreverent sense of humor.

He shrugged, patting the horse's beautifully arched neck. Though I was several feet away, the gelding appeared to be about the same size as Tadark's mount, the animal on which I had initially learned to ride, and I hoped that Baelic had picked this one for me.

“This is Alcander. He's my gentlest horse aside from my son's, but Celdrid's mount would be too small for you.”

I took a tiny step forward with the intent to stroke the animal, then remembered Baelic's admonition.

“You can get acquainted with him next time,” Baelic assured me, correctly reading my hesitation.

“Of course. He's just hard to resist.”

“I suppose that brings us back to the men in my family,” he jested, returning Alcander to his stall. “I might be able to clear up a few things for you. Whom shall we address first?”

He crossed the aisle to bring out the next horse, glancing at me with a carefree smile on his face. Although this was the opportunity I had been hoping for, I vacillated, wary of insulting him. He quickly alleviated my concern.

“Don't worry. I have no false notions of my nephew being
an angel, and I know my brother through and through. Ask away.”

“Steldor, then,” I decided, since the bizarre encounter we'd had immediately before I'd come on this visit put him foremost in my mind. “I know he has a frightful temper— I've already seen it once or twice and, in truth, have even deserved his anger. Yet he's never raised a hand to me.” I frowned as I pondered this, then added, “In response to some of my actions, I know my father would not have hesitated to use a strap.”

Baelic had stepped out of the stall and was now leaning against the door, giving me his full attention, and though I felt somewhat sheepish, it was a question to which I deeply wanted an answer.

“That's easy to explain. Like father, like son. Steldor will never hit you, because his father never hit him or his mother.”

“Cannan never struck Steldor?” I repeated in astonishment.

Beatings were a common form of punishment in Hytanica, so common that a man who didn't strike his wife and children on occasion would have been thought old, feeble or crazy. I myself had endured the occasional beating from my famously lenient father, and I had a hard time believing that Cannan, a tough and prestigious military man, had never employed the method.

“That's not to imply that Steldor was perfectly behaved. He would have earned a few lashings from most fathers, but Cannan never laid a hand on the boy. And that, I suppose, brings us to my brother.”