The essail border:
Raymond house
King Raoul had been at the funeral of King Anthal along with his Armorican queen, Hermudis. They, and the King and Queen of Essail had all ridden back together to eastern Essail along with that dreadfully dull baldheaded Hilda and ler little monks. That they had the same father was no strange thing. That they had come from the same womb, Morgellyn could hardly believe.
But tonight the royals minus the royal nun and her retinue dined at Raymond House and tonight, Morgellyn put her daughter in a watered silk gown and did up her hair in the elaborate braids they wore in the north, or in the Royan kingdoms for that matter.
“I don’t want to marry him, Mother,” Linalla protested.
“Don’t be stupid,” Morgellyn said, pulling a little too tightly on the cinch around her daughter’s waist. “No one’s getting married today. But just give it three years—”
“Mother!”
“I was wed to your father before I was sixteen.”
“Everyone knows you hate him.”
Morgellyn spun Linalla around and struck her across the face.
The girl yelped, and Morgellyn turned her around and, with an especially vicious tug, she did the last of her cinches.
“Bite your tongue, you stupid girl,” Morgellyn commanded, sitting down.
Did everyone know? She wondered. More importantly, did Stephen know? And she didn’t hate him, not really. She just could not be in love with him. She corrected herself . Well, I do not love him is the thing.
But when her maid walked into the room, Morgellyn decided that was enough honesty.
“The Princess will walk ahead of me,” Morgellyn said, “so much the better for Bohemond to see her.”
“But, yes my lady,” old Wenis said, “and how old is the Prince Bohemond?”
“Eighteen and with a will to wed,” the Queen said. She turned to her daughter and said, “Show him you are a woman and not a girl.”
“I am a girl,” Linalla said, fiercely.
“Not in a few years time, dearie,” old Wenis said. “And there was a time when a girl your age would have been packed off and wed after her first bleeding.”
“There was a time,” Linalla told her, “when a servant who didn’t know how to keep her mouth shut would have had her tongue ripped from her throat.”
Morgellyn did not correct Linalla for this. If all went well her daughter would be Princess Reignant of Sussail and afterward it’s Queen. She would have to learn, and slaves had better learn to respect and obey.
As the Princess walked ahead of her mother, down the corridor, through the small breezeway and then into the great hall of Raymond House, Morgellyn, her golden hair tied back in similar fashion as her daughters, reflected, “She does not think I would be in awe of her, or proud of her. She cannot know. She cannot understand.”
As her daughter swept past Prince Bohemond, she noted the pleased look on his face. Yes, yes. And there was his sister, the Princess Isobel, looking unimpressed, bitch. Stephen, the fool, looked somewhere between amazed and stupid, and he took his daughter’s hand and put her to his left. It would have been just like Philip to complain that this was his place, even though he was eight, but she had given him a long talking to about minding his manners before company.
And now, at last, Morgellyn came, and when Stephen took her hand and she sat down beside him, she smiled graciously on the house, and over the food and upon their guests. Her eyes passed over Isobel, over Bohemond and over the Queen of Sussail and met squarely with Raoul the King.
In the south alone the Remulans, who in the Old Kingdoms were called Rufanians, had remained, and the South Ayl did not conquer as much as they had intermarried. There the royal line had strong Royan and Rufanian blood, and the southerners had often married with the Armoricans across the sea, and the Valencians as well. They were a hot blooded lot, and Raoul’s chocolate eyes met hers and asked a question so loud she wondered no one could hear it.
Smiling, Morgellyn, beside her stupid husband, mouthed the answer.
“Yes.”
After supper, the Queen had retired to her favorite rooms in this house, or some of them. Up here where her herbs hung, and glass bottles revealed ground spices and powders, she worked her craft. When Eva came into the room, Morgellyn, leaning over a counter, chopping herbs, looked up and said, “Did you deliver the draft?”
“It’s in the King’s beer.”
“You made sure it was the right one? Not the one for Queen Hermudis?”
“I did, Lady, though I do not see the difference in one sleeping draft or another.”
“It is not for you to see, but to obey.”
“Yes.”
Eva looked so exhilarated Morgellyn made note of this. When she was reprimanded, Eva took an almost erotic pleasure in it. This strangeness made her fond of the girl. There was no other she would have trusted with the delivery of her powders and elixirs.
Now, Morgellyn moved from the counter, wiping her fingers on the work dress she wore when she was retired from court. She caught Eva’s hand and led her along the long wall, opposite the large windows. All along it, at irregular intervals, were old bronze panels and now, standing eye level with one, she opened it and said, “Look through the darkenglass.
“We can see them,” the Queen said, “but they cannot see us. How do you like him? Does he suit you?”
The square of glass looked down from the top of a warmly lit bathing room. Below, Eva could see a tall, dark haired man, much like his father, chocolate eyed with a touch of roundness in his face, strong shouldered, darker than most Ayl, dark as some Royan, his teeth flashing as he spoke to the page boy who began to undress him.
“The Prince Bohemond?”
“Yes,” Morgellyn murmured.
Eva knew from that bath room this window would seem like one of many square patterns in the wall, and as she looked away, to look at all the other panels in the Queen’s apothecary, she wondered what rooms they spied.
“He is good to look at,” Eva said, returning to gazing on Bohemond’s naked body, “much like his father.”
“Go to him if you wish. Tell him you are a gift from the Queen.”
Eva blinked at her.
“Remain with him for the night even. Especially. He is young. He will be done in five minutes, but keep him entertained all evening. Make him work to pleasure you. Tell him I insist.”
“He is your majesty’s future son in law.”
“Linalla is thirteen,” Morgellyn said, matter of factly. “The more you enjoy him and he enjoys you, the more he will remember his first meeting of Linalla as a wonderful night. By the strange alchemy of memory and men’s minds he will forever associate seeing Linalla with the most passionate night of his life. Make sure to take the jug of wine. Yes, that one right there. And you do not wish to have a prince’s bastard when you are not in his household. Take that direweed and boil it into a tea for yourself while he sleeps.”
Having taken the jug of wine and the small bag of weeds, Eva bowed delightedly, and put her hand to the door. Morgellyn was watching as the young prince with his beautiful brown body stepped into the tub full of sudsy water. How lovely he was. How surprised he would be when Eva appeared.
“Will your majesty be watching our pleasure?” Eva said.
“Of course I will,” Morgellyn said. “It will increase my own desire for less than an hour from now when I go to Bohemond’s father.”
As Morgellyn watched the boy washing himself, the water glossy on his skin, Eva said, “While I am making love to the son you will be with the father. It makes me shiver.”
“Off with you, you insolent slut,” Morgellyn said, indulgently, as Eva left the room.
She did not blame Eva, though. She could not. As her nipples rose and her thighs moistened she realized the same thought made her shiver too.
