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Her own seal. The seal of her House. It was real.
It was all real—
She turned, still holding the seal in her hand, to survey the rest of the room. Beside the desk was a comfortable chair, not the backless stool she had been using. There were two other chairs beside the one at the desk, and a table with four more chairs around it, all at the farther end, near the fireplace.
All of the furniture was made of bleached and waxed lime-wood, which dated back to her grandfather’s day, but which she secretly preferred to the dark, fumed oak of her mother’s wing. There were no carpets, either, but she was so used to that, she didn’t think she minded.
“I will be giving you the household report here every morning,” said Lady Thalia, “and asking if you approve of the menus for the day, as well as any expenditures from the household budget that I anticipate. I have looked over the budget allotted to One Good Knight
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us, and I foresee no difficulties. I take it that you prefer simple meals?”
She licked lips gone dry. “Oh, yes. Please. I used to eat whatever my servants ate—”
Lady Thalia chuckled. “There is no reason why that practice cannot continue, since the cook I have selected is both skilled and careful. It is not wise to be overindulgent in one’s food at any age, but at yours, particularly, you should continue to eat simply. And a good cook can turn the simplest ingredients into a fine meal, while a bad one can utterly ruin the most expensive and exotic.”
Andie nodded anxiously. “What do I need to know about my—my household right this moment?”
“I hope you approve of my choice for maidservant?” Lady Thalia asked, and nodded with satisfaction when Andie replied that she did. “Good. Iris is not the equal of even the handmaiden of one of your mother’s ladies—”
“Yes, but I don’t want to wear gowns like theirs, or have my hair curled and pinned up and tortured, or—”
Lady Thalia held up her hand. “Which is precisely why I chose Iris when she presented herself. I was told by those I trust of your taste. I believe you value someone competent, trustworthy and certain in what she can do, and are not troubled if she is a bit rough-hewn.”
“I like her,” Andie said without thinking, then immediately wondered if that was the wrong thing to 58
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say. Were you not supposed to like a servant? But someone like Iris, who would be with you at the most intimate of moments, someone who would be the person to care for you if you were ill—
“Good. It doesn’t do to make friends of any servant except one’s handmaiden, and then only if one knows the girl is steady, has integrity and knows her place,” said Lady Thalia firmly. “But if that is the case, as it is with Iris, then you will find having a friend in your handmaiden makes your path much smoother. She can and will tell you servants’ gossip, and that is an invaluable source of information, and you can trust that she either will not gossip about you, or that she will tell nothing that is not com-monplace knowledge. You can trust her with any delicate matter. You can trust that she will not spy on you. All these things are valuable beyond price to anyone in your position.”
“I—I can see that,” Andie replied, once again feeling overwhelmed. This was all so new—and the implications of what Lady Thalia was saying made her realize that perhaps it was a good thing that she had been a lonely child. Loneliness was going to be something that came with her new position, so it was just as well that she was used to it.
Not that she would have chosen differently. She felt that being lonely, or in any case alone, was not all that bad—at least now, she would have some useful work to do, and maybe a little respect.
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decide if you want anything changed,” Lady Thalia said, watching her expression keenly. “By then, I expect, Lady Charis will have a suitable gown for you so you can take your place at the Queen’s morning audience.”
Andie tried not to show her surge of panic.
In the end, she needn’t have panicked. Lady Charis showed Iris what simple cosmetics to apply, and the gown was not a new one, but one of her old ones, in a jade-green, with the augmentation of some bands of bead-embroidery to the neck- and hem-lines. Similar augmentation in the way of jade beads on the straps had been made to her sandals, and she wore a jade necklace and bracelets. Her mother seemed to approve; she smiled slightly when she saw her daughter, and indicated to Andie that for the audience she should take a place next to Cassiopeia’s own handmaiden just behind the throne. The one difference between Andie and the handmaiden was that Andie was allowed to sit on a low stool, while the handmaiden stood. The Audience Hall was a single large room, with frescoes of dancing nymphs (all discreetly clothed) on the walls, and the floor set with sand-colored tiles. Two lines of pillars painted with vines supported the roof, and to discourage loi-tering, there was nothing to sit on except the throne and Andie’s stool. While this might be hard on the aged or infirm, it did keep people from crowding in to gawk and gossip.
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Andie listened to everything as closely as she could, making mental notes when Cassiopeia deferred some decisions for a later date. Andie intu-ited that her mother would want information about the families and situations involved, and that it would be Andie’s job to find that before the continuation of the audience. After a while, she began to relax and enjoy herself. This was infinitely preferable to lessons with a dancing master that she would never use, or in the genealogies of the royal families of Kingdoms that had never heard of Acadia and would never give their realm a second thought.
There were more petitioners than there was time, which was the usual state of things; those waiting showed disappointment but no surprise when Solon stepped forward to announce that the audience was concluded for the day. Those who had not yet been heard would come back tomorrow, and the next day, returning as many times as it took before the Queen would get to their case. Andie was dismissed along with the rest, but at least she knew the protocols from all of her study of court etiquette; she made her bow and returned to her wing, with one of her new Guards in attendance.
It gave her a bit of a pang not to see one of her Six at the door, but she hid it as best she could, and gave each of the young men standing there an encouraging nod. One opened the door for her, and she went in, to discover luncheon was already waiting for her in her dining chamber, with Iris and a table-servant in atten-
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dance. Another shock: the only time she’d ever had a table-servant was when she’d eaten with her mother.
The servant presented dishes for her approval, served her portions of the ones she indicated, poured her drink and kept it refreshed throughout the meal—somewhat unnerving for someone who had been helping herself all these years. Lady Thalia joined her, but only after asking permission!
But she had to admit she was beginning to find these shocks were more pleasant than otherwise.
“After your luncheon, you will bathe and Iris will give you skin treatments to smooth your wind-roughened complexion, and a massage,” Lady Thalia announced. “This is the usual order of things for a lady of rank. It isn’t done to rush straight into work after eating, it ruins the digestion. Then I have arranged for you to give a proper dismissal to your old Guards. I gather that they are the only ones of your former servants to whom you feel a friendly dismissal and a reward is due?”
Feeling a flush suffuse her face again, she nodded, grateful now to Lady Thalia that had the lady’s inherent dignity not made such a gesture unthinkable, she would have leapt out of her chair and run to hug her.
“For future reference, Princess, when a good and faithful servant retires from one’s service, it is perfectly appropriate to bid an affectionate farewell, and it is absolutely the done thing to include a monetary reward,” Lady Thalia continued gravely. “Such rewards ar
e part of the household budget. You, how-
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ever, do not bestow them directly. That is my job.
They are made up into packets in leather purses in your colors, and rank and length of service determines the amount. For your information, as you should know these things, although the usual reward for a Guard is rarely more than four thalers, in the case of those who have served as long as your six retainers did, it is appropriate to double the reward to eight.”
“Is that good?” she asked hesitantly.
“Since a very good small farm can be purchased for six thalers, yes it is,” the lady replied with a nod.
“Such rewards are calculated on the basis of the worth of a small farm. This allows those who have not been provident on their own to purchase something that can support them in their retirement, and perhaps even acquire a spouse to share it with.”
She blinked a little at that; the way it had been phrased, Lady Thalia made it sound as if the retiring Guards were going to stroll down to the next livestock market and buy themselves a husband or wife….
But then again, what did she know? Maybe that was exactly what would happen. Certainly the negotiations that attended the betrothals of any Royal had a lot of resemblance to a cattle-auction….
Well, at least she was going to be able to say good-bye properly! And make sure her Six were going to be all right. That made her happy enough that she was willing to put up with gowns instead of tunics, and makeup, and even truly torturous hairstyles—and no more running off to the cliff ever again!
CHAPTER THREE
“Well?” Cassiopeia asked, as she relaxed under the massaging hands of her servant. She took ample precautions with her body-servants; all were mute. Not deaf—that would have been exceedingly inconvenient. But mute. Most had been slaves, and silenced before she bought and freed them. It was prudent to purchase mute slaves that someone else had rendered incapable of speech; they didn’t blame you, and they were generally so grateful to be freed and treated decently afterward that they remained faithful despite the occasional beating.
Solon did not need to inquire what her subject was. “I am a little more optimistic,” he admitted.
“She looked suitably adult enough to satisfy the people and the Court, and suitably bewildered enough to satisfy me. So long as we can keep her off balance, 64
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all should be well. Your vanity will be pleased by the fact that she is being compared unfavorably to you.”
“Not just my vanity. Anytime you have a potential heir on show, it is wise that people prefer you to her.” Cassiopeia closed her eyes for a moment to judge if the twinge she had just felt was due to some stiffness in her shoulder, or the servant’s momentary distraction. “A little more work to the shoulders, please,” she said, and opened her eyes again.
Solon lounged on a nearby couch; his presence—and sometimes the presence of others of her advisers—at her daily massage was of so long-standing an arrangement that it had ceased to be anything to comment on.
Not that anything could or would go on. The presence of not less than three servants made sure of that.
“Why are you so concerned about keeping her off balance?” she asked. “I know why I am, but I am interested in hearing your reasons.”
“Because, the girl has a formidable intellect, and we do not want her to exercise it in any direction save the one we choose,” he replied, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Ever.”
“I think you overestimate her,” she retorted, feeling a bit annoyed. She knew ambition when she saw it and Andromeda had none. How could mere intellect be a threat? It was the possibility that Andromeda might one day develop ambition that concerned the Queen.
“I think she’s her mother’s daughter where intelli-
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gence is concerned, and I never underestimate her mother,” was his response, which teased her out of her annoyance. “But Lady Thalia will keep her busy for a while learning the ins and outs of running a household, and by the time she feels equal to that job, I shall have something else equally petty and time-consuming for her.” He sighed heavily. “It would have been so much easier if she had taken after her father in intellect and her mother in looks, rather than the other way around.”
“Perhaps,” Cassiopeia said, preferring not to contemplate the prospect of having a daughter who rivaled her mother’s beauty, and had the advantage of youth on top of that. Then again—the answer to that would have been to marry her off to some provincial nobody or fur-wearing barbarian in exchange for a treaty as soon as she turned twelve. “Well, what approach are we to use with the captains from Thessalia this afternoon?”
“Ah.” He brightened considerably. “Andromeda’s report gave me some useful ideas on that score.”
She listened attentively as he outlined his negotiation plans, thoughts about her daughter shoved to the back of her mind.
For now.
Andie’s farewells to her Six would have been a lot harder, if they hadn’t been so determinedly cheerful about it. As it was, she kept from crying only with an effort of will, and only because she didn’t want to ruin 66
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their impression that she was going to be, as Merrha put it, “Snug as a queen bee in her own hive at last.”
She was glad to turn her mind to something else immediately when they were gone, their rewards heavy in their belt-pouches, all of them looking distinctly odd out of uniform. The audience from this morning left her with a clear set of items to research, most notably, the origins of a dispute over some obscure salvage rights. With only one deep-water port for hundreds of leagues in either direction along the coastline, and plenty of treacherous rocks, shoals and reefs along that same coastline, there was no end to wrecks on the shores of Acadia, and salvage rights were valuable and jealously guarded. Half of everything came to the Crown, of course, but the rest could represent rich pickings indeed.
The trouble was, these rights could be subdivided and sold, inherited or given away. So when two petitioners came, both with apparently equal claims to “all goods come ashore to the Bay of Tralis, from Rocky Point to Oyster Rock,” it was time to research all those old wills, deeds of assignment and bills of sale.
By the time she came to the rather surprising conclusion that the disputed rights were not held by either claimant but by a third party who had not even appeared, Lady Thalia was at the door to the library looking for her.
“The magician is here to fit your new oculars, Princess,” she announced.
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lenses rather than smaller, Andie would have leapt to her feet and run out of the library at once—
The trouble was, she wasn’t in a tunic. She was in a gown, which got tangled around her legs as she hastily shoved her stool away from the table at which she was doing her research, making her lose her balance and have to catch the edge of the table, then disentangle the cloth, flushing with acute embarrassment, while Lady Thalia watched impassively.
She said nothing as Andie finally sorted herself out, but Andie could practically hear that cool, com-posed voice making critical notes on her behavior.
Her face heated, and only cooked when she reached the study and found the Guards’ magician waiting there for her.
She gave him a bow of respect. All Sophonts deserved that show of respect even from the Queen herself, but Sophont Balan was something special in her eyes. He wasn’t a Sorcerer nor anything like one of the sort who constructed remote towers and came to the aid of entire nations; like most of the magicians connected with the Acadian Guard, he might have been called a Hedge-Wizard. But he was a clever one, and intent on finding the most he could do with limited powers. Not content with merely repeating the spells he had learned from the various grimoires he had obtained, he was a researcher, always looking to find new and
more ingenious ways of applying magic. It was his contention that the best Magician was not the one who displayed the most 68
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blatant use of power, but the one who used the least power the most efficiently. Which was why he never wasted a mote of magic if he could help it. He would carefully weigh his options when there was a task in front of him, to determine whether it was more efficient to perform it with magic or mundane means.
He didn’t look much like a Magician, either.
Instead of long, dark robes embroidered with mystic symbols and some sort of outlandish headgear, he chose to wear perfectly ordinary brown uniform trousers and tunics as the rest of the Guards wore, with a long canvas vest over the tunic that must have had twenty pockets sewn into it. Like most of the natives of Acadia, he was dark-haired and olive-skinned, with white flecking his curly black hair; he had a long face, and melancholy eyes that lit up when he saw her.
“Well, Princess!” he said, cheerfully, taking a new pair of oculars out of one of the inside pockets of his vest. “I must say this was one of my happier commissions from the Queen in the past few weeks! When Her Majesty summoned me to create new oculars for you, I was very much afraid she was going to ask me to reduce the size of the lenses yet again, but the Lady Kyria was very clear that she wanted me to make them as large as could be conveniently supported on your head!”
Having gone through examinations and fittings at least twice a year since he had begun to make her oculars, Andie went straight to the chair he had One Good Knight
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pulled out from the desk and sat, facing the piece of card-stock he had propped up on the table across the room. The pattern on it was of crisply ruled lines going both horizontally and vertically. He fitted the oculars to her face, and got out of the way so that she could see it.
“It looks quite clear, Sophont,” she said truthfully.