Asteria In Love with the Prince (27 page)

When the song finally ended, I found my feet were back on the floor: I’d found the steps, or at least some vague approximation of them. And I had my answer.

“What did you want to say, before?” he asked.

I took a deep breath. “That I love you. And I want to be with you forever.” And suddenly we were kissing, my head tilted up to meet him, his arms scooping me up and lifting me until we were level. I wrapped my legs around him in a very undignified way and clasped my arms around his shoulders, clinging to him with everything I had.

When he eventually put me down, I heard a tiny noise behind me. The Queen was standing in the open doorway and I couldn’t stop the look of anger that crossed my face.

Jagor saw it, and glanced between us. “Mother?” He started to stalk towards her. “Did you say something to Lucy?” Anger was twisting his face now. It was the one and only time I’d seen the Queen look scared.

I caught Jagor just as he reached her. “No,” I said quickly. “No, nothing like that.” Jagor glared at his mother, unconvinced, but relented. “In fact, we should talk now. Could you give us a moment alone?”

Jagor’s gaze flicked between the two of us, but he nodded grimly. He kissed me, as if to make a point, and left.

“Thank you,” said the Queen. She sounded genuinely shaken.

I didn’t reply for a moment. I was gathering my thoughts.

“You’re going to teach me,” I said quietly. “You’re going to teach me everything I need to know to be a princess. Because if you don’t, he’s going to have to choose between us. And you know he’ll choose me.”

We stared at each other for a long moment.

“Agreed,” she said at last. Then, “You surprised me.”

“That’s the thing about us librarians. We can be real
vakts
when we don’t get what we want.”

Chapter Seventeen

We started the next morning.

“Get your head up,” the Queen told me. “No,
up
, Lucy. Not look up; put your head
up.”
She was trying to teach me to lengthen my spine, which apparently would give me a princess’s easy grace. “You walk like a duck,” she told me.

“Can I try it in flats?” I begged. The heels she had me in weren’t making things any easier.

She shook her head. “You should always be in high heels, except in the bedroom.” She paused. “And then in even higher ones.”

I really hoped we weren’t going to get into a princess’s behavior in the bedroom.

She taught me, by sheer rote learning, every obscure term of address for every dignitary we might meet, from earls to viscounts. She taught me where to sit at any table and how to sit down when I found my place. I got in and out of chairs until my thighs burned.

“You will need a maid to assist you,” she told me during a rare break. “I can assign one of the palace slaves to you.”

I thought quickly. There was only one slave I really knew: she’d scared the hell out of me last time I was there, but she was a fast teacher. “Doracella,” I told her. “I’d like Doracella.”

“As you wish. Now, let us return to the walk.…” She obviously relished putting me through everything she must have learned, albeit in fast-forward.

Fortunately, she had a lunch engagement, and I staggered off to look for Jagor. I found him talking to a group of men in black military fatigues. They carried squat, serious-looking machine guns.

“Exkella,” Jagor waved me forward, pleased. “Good, you can meet Captain Sorovic and his men. They’re the crash team: in case of an emergency.”

Sorovic, a shaven-headed man in his forties, gave me a solemn bow. “Exkella.”

I smiled politely. “Good to know you’re on hand.”

“I sincerely hope you never need us: but we’ll be close if you do.”

***

Jagor had to attend another military demonstration with the King that afternoon, but we managed to fit in a light lunch together before he left.

“
Another
one?” I asked.

“We’ve always been…isolated, as a country. When the palladium boom happened, my father let the military spend a lot of the money on our defenses. Now that we’re signing treaties with other countries, the size of our military is ridiculous. When I rule, I’m going to scale it back: that’s not popular with the military chiefs. Attending their demonstrations with my father is a bridge-building exercise…what?”

I was smirking at him. “I’ve never heard you say it before.”

“What?”

“’When I rule’.”

He actually blushed. “I’m not used to saying it,” he admitted.

I leant close. “Is it bad that I quite like it?”

He gave me a seriously wicked smile. “Mother said she’s coaching you,” he said, pouring wine.

“She’s being very helpful.” I tried to stretch my aching thighs under the table, without making it obvious.

“Thank you,” he said, very seriously. I nodded, as if it was nothing, and the pain in my legs seemed to recede a bit.

***

The Queen wanted to meet again that afternoon, but I had time for a quick break. I returned to our suite on trembling legs. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I got there. Normally, if I’d had ten minutes to kill, I’d have been on Facebook moaning about my job, my boss or being stuck in the queue at Starbucks. But there was no way I could do that in my new life: I was in self-imposed isolation, apart from phone calls to Gwen. There was no one I could talk to.

I strode into our suite, head down, and nearly crashed into Doracella. I should have realized the Queen would move fast.

“Apologies, Exkella,” said the slave, even though it was my fault, and curtsied. Her manner was completely different to the last time we’d met. “I am to be your maid, if you approve.”

I closed the door and nodded quickly. “I requested you,” I told her.

She blinked at this. “
Thank you!”
she said, practically wringing her hands.

It dawned on me that
maid to the Exkella
was quite a step up from palace slave. I nodded and smiled, a little embarrassed. “You were very helpful, last time I was here. I need you to help me again: help me be a princess.”

Doracella’s chest puffed up, as if this was the greatest honor that could befall her. “Of
course
, Exkella,” she breathed. “I—if I may say so, Exkella: I was very glad to hear the news of your engagement.” She was blushing.

“You don’t mind that I’ve replaced Calara?”

Doracella lowered her eyes. “I never cared for her, Exkella.”

Someone was on my side, after all. I didn’t want to push her any more, though. “Where do we start?”

She was happy to change the subject. “Your new wardrobe has arrived. Your dresser is on call if you need anything else.”

More new clothes, this time from Asteria. A few days ago, it would have seemed like a needless indulgence: now, a little time spent in fashion heaven would be a nice break from my coaching. I nodded, and Doracella happily swung open the doors to the walk-in wardrobe.

The first rack we saw was full of nothing but lingerie.

“Ah.” I flushed. “Perhaps we should start with the next one.”

Doracella dutifully moved to the next one. It was full of corsets, including a bright red one that was shorter than the others. I remembered the conversation on the plane.

“The next one?” I asked hopefully.

The next one seemed to contain bigger items, and I sighed in relief. That lasted until Doracella held up a skintight latex tube.

“Is that a skirt?” I croaked.

“Oh no,” she said helpfully. “That’s a dress.”

Clearly Jagor was making full use of the fact we didn’t have to hide anymore, and had left very specific instructions with the dresser. By way of Ismelda. I winced. We were going to have to have a long conversation about privacy.

“Is something wrong, Exkella? Do you not like them?” There wasn’t a hint of embarrassment in her voice. Just like Jagor and Ismelda, she saw no shame in sex, even when it involved dressing up in…God, was that a catsuit?

“Nothing at all,” I said gamely. “But I think I’ll try things on later.” I sat down in a chair and gasped in sudden pain. “I’m not sure I’d be able to manage it at the moment. My legs are aching.”

Doracella nodded quickly and shut the wardrobe. “Take off your skirt,” she said, and shut the curtains.

What?

“So I can massage your legs,” she told me, when she saw my face.

I blushed. I couldn’t think of a good excuse, so I slipped my skirt off and sat down again. Doracella went to a drawer and brought out a bottle of oil.
Do they have one in every bedroom?
I wondered. Actually, knowing Asterian attitudes, that wouldn’t have surprised me.

“Put one leg on my shoulder, please,” Doracella told me, kneeling down. I gingerly lifted one foot onto her delicate shoulder, so that my leg was parallel to the floor. My head was spinning. Only weeks ago, I’d been Jagor’s slave. Now I had a slave kneeling in front of me. I really wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

My misgivings lasted until she went to work. Strong fingers smoothed oil into my aching muscles and I groaned as iron knots gradually became taffy. “Ahh.” I managed.

It was comfortably warm in the room and the chair was deliciously soft. I felt the tension gradually lift from me as Doracella worked away in silence. She really knew what she was doing: when she reached my hamstrings, it was exquisite. “
Ngg…”
I groaned.
I could get used to this.

After a while, the silence was so relaxing that I felt I had to talk: having someone
do
something to you does that - like spilling all your secrets to your hairdresser. “How long have you been owned by the palace?” I asked.

“Four years, Exkella. The head of the palace staff picked me herself from the slave market.” She sounded very proud of that.

“Does it get – ooh, stop: right there. Yes, there! Does it get lonely? I mean, while you’re here you’re not…with a man.”

“Except the men of the palace, Exkella.” I still wasn’t used to that: the idea that her male superiors could demand her at any time. Or that she’d so willingly, even happily, let them.

“But you can’t have a relationship – you can’t choose a man of your own. Not unless he buys you from the palace.” Doracella didn’t reply. “Or have I misunderstood?” I asked quickly. “I’m sorry, I’m still not used to—”

“No, no, you’re right, Exkella. I can’t choose a man of my own.”

Why had she hesitated? I looked down at her. She was blushing, her eyes locked determinedly on my legs.

“Doracella!” I breathed, perversely pleased. “You’re seeing someone!”

She gasped and froze. “Exkella,
please
don’t tell! They’d send me back to the market!”

I grinned. “I won’t tell. I know what it’s like to creep around in secret. But tell me more.”

She flushed again, but grinned – that helpless grin you get when you think about
him.
She was as desperate to tell her secrets as I was to hear them. “I have to meet him outside the palace…it’s too dangerous here.”

Which implied he was someone who worked here. This got better and better: I’d have to try to guess who it was. “Are you allowed out of the palace?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, but there’s a way. The laundry baskets are only searched going in: not coming out. They’re easily big enough to hide in. Then the next morning I pretend I was sent on an errand, show my ID and I’m back in. No-one questions a slave sneaking
into
the palace.”

I thought for a moment. “Now that you’re my maid, where will you be sleeping?”

“There’s a servant’s room next door to this suite, Exkella.” She was grinning. I guessed it was the first time she hadn’t had to share a room in a long time.

“I think I might have to send you out on some late-night errands, Doracella. Ones that will take you…oh, several hours at least. You’ll be gone ‘till morning. Ow!”

She’d been so excited by the idea that she’d dug her fingers hard into my leg. “Sorry, Exkella! Really? You’d do that?”

I sank back in my chair, my mind dreamy from the massage. “What are friends for?”

***

I practically pranced back to the Queen on legs as feather light and fluid as a gazelle’s. She seemed to take this as a challenge.

We were done with sitting down in a chair, apparently, but now I had to learn how to get in and out of a car – we practiced down in the underground garage, with Arno in a supporting role as door opener. I must have climbed out of the back seat a hundred times. For weeks afterward, the
clun-clik
of a car door opening haunted my dreams.

When I could barely stand, we practiced walking again. After an hour of telling me
head up, head up
she finally grabbed a single strand of hair in the very centre of the head and lifted. I cried out as I was pulled bolt upright, my heels only just on the ground.

“Good. Now let your whole body hang from your head.” She made me walk like that, almost dangling from her grip, until my posture was perfect. “Don’t forget this: stand correctly and you’ll command attention. You’ll look like a princess no matter what you’re wearing.”

“I remember this lesson,” said Jagor from the doorway. The Queen sighed and released my hair and I ran to him, trying not to slump.

“With you, it was always your shoulders,” said the Queen. “And you still don’t pull them back correctly.”

Jagor gave me a kiss that was all promises and barely-contained passion. “I think the Exkella deserves a break,” he told the Queen. “I’m going to take her down to the coast this evening: to the yacht.”

The Queen sighed again, as if we were conspiring to disappoint her. “Very well. Try not to drink too much, Exkella. We still have a great deal of work to do.”

“Actually,” said Jagor, “I was going to take the
sarith
kit.”