Joslyn gritted her teeth. She wanted to think about Tasia using her upcoming marriage to Mace of House Gifford to cement Western support even less than she wanted to think about Adela being used as a bargaining piece to cement an alliance with the Terintans.
Yet that was what it meant to be royal. Power amongst the highborn was paid for with the currency of bodies – women’s bodies, in particular. Joslyn thought back to all the times she and Tasmyn had play-acted at being highborn Lords and Ladies as children. But now that Joslyn made her home at the palace, she’d seen that being highborn was often just slavery in a different form.
Tasia had grown up knowing she was nothing but a bargaining piece. It was why she had resisted being groomed by her father and her Wise Men, why she had refused every suitor her father had presented to her. But so much for a future written by choice. The ten thousand soldiers outside Port Lorsin sent a clear message that Tasia could run from the fate of marrying a highborn man for only so long.
Mace of House Gifford would be the first Westerner to wear a crown in over a century. And the Western troops would form the bulk of the force Tasia would use to take back the East.
Joslyn knew Tasia had no choice but to marry Mace. Knew she had no choice but to bear Mace’s children. And yet Joslyn hated, hated, hated it.
Tasia and Joslyn spoke no more of marriages or alliances; though they were both likely thinking of Mace and what was to come, they finished their walk to the palace’s rarely used North Gate in silence.
An escort of fifty awaited them at the gate, a mix of palace guardsmen, city guardsmen, and Western soldiers wearing the crests of various noble houses on their breasts. Ammanta and Kort were there as well, which pleased Joslyn. She both trusted and admired the two remaining Fesulians who still served Tasia. Keeping with Fesulian custom, they had remained unflinchingly loyal to Tasia even after all their comrades were killed or lost during the battle against Lord Hermant’s men. One of Joslyn’s first acts of Commander of the Palace Guard was to make Ammanta and Kort ranking members and have them train the guards in Fesulian fighting techniques. It wasn’t a popular choice, but all the palace guards still remaining were loyal to Tasia, which in turn meant they were loyal to Joslyn. For now.
All fifty members of their escort dropped to a knee and bowed their heads when Tasia and Joslyn came into view.
“All hail Her Majesty, the Empress Natasia!” called the commanding officer, a Westerner. “Mother of the Four Realms, friend of the common people, warrior of light who drove back the shadows!”
Friend of the common people, warrior of light.Those were new.
“Hail, Empress Natasia!” the retinue responded.
“Rise, if you please,” Tasia said in her most regal voice. “We have an execution to attend. And the sooner you get off your knees, the sooner we can get it over with.”
A few of the soldiers and guards chuckled at this as they got to their feet. Ammanta led two mares over, and Joslyn helped Tasia to mount before climbing onto her own horse. The escort’s commander mounted, then took the standard of the House of Dorsa from one of his men. Silver double eagles and a crescent moon on a field of black.
“Open the gate!” the officer called. And with that, they were outside the palace walls, riding towards Death’s Hill.
This morning, an execution. This evening, a coronation. And by the end of the week, a royal marriage.
Joslyn’s hands were clenched fists around the mare’s reins.