Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“Are you thinking of running away?”

Nadine’s voice held a hint of laughter, barely suppressed.

“Hardly,” Ilse said. “Unless I could persuade Raul to flee with me. How did you evade my guards?”

“I seduced them one after another. They were too grateful to demand mere money. As for your royal beloved, he might agree to an elopement. I saw his expression last week, during that dreadful meeting with the chief steward.”

Nadine had not officially attended that meeting, but Ilse had long ago suspected Nadine had infiltrated all the secret passageways within this palace. Or not all of them—that might require a lifetime—but certainly the ones that let her observe such meetings. No doubt she and Heloïse used those dark corridors for other nefarious activities as well.

Ilse turned, expecting to see Nadine’s usual mocking smile.

But no. Nadine’s mouth tucked in at both corners, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I remember,” she whispered. “I remember when you first came to us in Tiralien. I—please do not hate me for this—I saw you bruised and bloody as our beloved lord carried you from the doorstep. You should have seen how he snapped at Lord Dedrick and the others.” Here she tried for a genuine smile and failed. “No. Perhaps not. However often I wished to smack Lord Dedrick, he was a true and honest lover, and I grieve for his end.”

She blinked. The tears vanished, as if by magic, and once more Nadine was the elegant courtesan. Ilse knew how to see beyond that mask, however. “I love you,” she said, and touched Nadine’s cheek. “I am glad to have you as my friend. Will you and Heloïse marry here, or wait until you return to Valentain?”

Two dancers, in the complicated dance of love and friendship. Nadine tilted her head, accepting this new direction for the conversation. “I told her I was unfit for marriage.”

A pause. But Ilse had learned how to wait.

“This winter,” Nadine said quickly. “We stay in court another month, then return to Valentain with the duke.” Her gaze dropped to the tiled floor. “I am afraid. Laugh if you like. You should. But I am terrified. My only courage comes from you and the example you give me. Yes, you. I have watched you confront kitchen girls and kings without flinching. I hope merely to face my beloved’s family when they no longer have matters of state to distract them.”

Ilse clasped Nadine’s hands. “I am happy for you.”

Nadine stifled a laugh. “And I am for you. Now”—she expelled a breath—“let us wake your indolent attendants.”

And so it began, the hours of formal ritual. Trailed by her senior attendants, Ilse marched in a formal procession to the grand formal baths in the lower levels of Duenne Palace. There she immersed herself in warm water mixed with oil and scented with herbs, the same as Armand’s bride had, and all the other queens of Veraene and Erythandra, a tradition recorded as far back as the times when the Veraenen tribes still lived in the northern plains.

Cleansed as ritual required, she submitted to her attendants, who wrapped her in bleached towels of new linen, woven especially for this day. She and they mounted the stairs to her new chambers, the ones formally assigned to the queen, where her bridal clothing awaited her.

But first, more rituals, more tradition. Her hair brushed dry and tied with white ribbons, so that it fell in a dark cascade down her back. A long loose tunic of new linen donned. It barely hid her body in the full sunlight, but she would not leave this room. Only her attendants and Raul himself would see her.

A barbaric custom and costume both, he had murmured, when they were first confronted with this oldest of all traditions.

Yours or mine, she had whispered back.

He had smirked at her response, but as he entered the chamber this morning, she could see that all pretense of amusement had leaked away from his face, leaving him pale and grave. He, too, had endured a cleansing bath, and he, too, was dressed in unbleached linen, his costume a robe caught around his waist by a hemp rope, and nothing else. As he strode forward, the cloth rippled back. He might as well have entered the room naked.

The attendants all glanced away. Ilse met his gaze, saw his face suffused with embarrassment. “That is not like you,” she whispered.

“I am growing old,” he whispe

red back.

She laughed.

He grinned back and took her hands.

“That, my lord and almost king, is not part of the ritual.”

Raul leaned toward her. “You have no idea what damage I wish to inflict upon ritual at this moment,” he whispered.

Her cheeks flooded with warmth. “I can guess.”

Servants brought unadorned stone mugs, an equally plain jug, and baskets woven from reeds that contained their breakfast, then they withdrew, along with all the attendants. Ilse and Raul partook of a plain meal, unleavened bread dipped in oil and sweet herbs, plain white cheese, and coffee brewed thick and bitter. Later, after the marriage and coronation, would come the grand feast with royal guests, nobles from court, and emissaries from other kingdoms and republics, but for this hour, the future king and queen were ordinary citizens, or as much like them as possible.

Raul poured coffee into their mugs. “Anike,” he said.

She lifted hers in salute, her hands curled around the rough surface. “Stefan.”