Authors: R.A. Salvatore
S
HE LOOKED AT THE BOUQUETS
,
HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF ROSES AND CARNATIONS
, with a mixture of awe, gratification, respect, and regret. Never had Jilseponie seen so many flowers all together in one place! Never had she experienced such a sweet aroma as this—truly overwhelming. Though for King Danube to do something this dramatic was not too difficult a feat—a snap of his fingers and a call to his many servants—never since her days with Elbryan had anyone gone so out of his way in an effort to please her.
And so she was flattered, and so the mere volume of flowers inspired awe; but there was, too, some sense of regret in her. This had been her best summer with Danube by far. Their conversations had been light and friendly, full of honest discussion of the state of the kingdom and what each of them might do to improve the lot of the common folk. The King was witty and charming, full of mirth and smiles, and while Jilseponie appreciated that type of companionship, she understood herself to be the source of those smiles.
Thus, the discomfort. And now this, to awaken to find her room, and half the upstairs of Chasewind Manor, full of bouquets. It was the most overt act of love Danube had shown her since his arrival, one that asked her in a less-than-subtle manner to elevate their friendship to a higher and more emotional level, a level that Jilseponie was not sure she could yet handle.
A level that the widow of Nightbird believed she would never desire again.
Danube was waiting for her when she went downstairs, sitting in the common room and shifting a bit nervously, Jilseponie saw. He had taken a chance, obviously so, at great risk to his pride.
She didn’t know how she should respond. The realization surprised her somewhat, but the last thing she wanted to do was hurt King Danube. He had been so patient with her through all these years of living in the shadow of Nightbird, and, except for the flowers, had been careful not to apply too much pressure to Jilseponie. So what was she to do now?
She walked right up to stand before him, and as he rose she moved even closer and kissed him on the cheek—drawing more than a few wide-eyed stares, even gasps, from the King’s bodyguard, who were standing about the perimeter of the room.
Danube, so obviously caught off his guard, stammered and fought hard to maintain some semblance of composure.
“They are truly beautiful,” Jilseponie said sincerely. “It is not often that a man of your power and station would go to such trouble, and at such personal risk.”
The last part of her statement rocked Danube back on his heels, and he looked
at her curiously. “Personal risk?” he echoed, and he shook his head and chuckled. “Ever do you speak bluntly, Baroness. Perhaps that is the quality I most admire in you.”
Jilseponie, too, smiled widely. “I have seen too much,” she explained, “to be bothered by the foibles of the human condition. Take my words as a great compliment and as a sincere thank-you.”
“For I have managed to brighten your morning?” Danube asked, and her widening smile was all the answer he needed.
“It is a glorious morning, with a cool breeze blowing across the golden warmth of the sun,” the King went on. “Will you ride with me?”
It was an invitation Jilseponie wouldn’t think of refusing, and soon after, she and King Danube were galloping across the fields behind Chasewind Manor, feeling the wind in their hair and the sun on their faces. To Danube’s credit, he did not press the questions he had obviously opened with the bouquets, and Jilseponie appreciated the space and the time that she might properly think through that somewhat surprising advance.
They rode for most of the morning, shared a wonderful lunch on the back balcony of the mansion, then King Danube asked if Jilseponie would join him on a sail out of the harbor and into the Gulf of Corona, a short trip to watch the amusing dolphins Duke Bretherford had informed him had come in earlier in the week.
In truth, Jilseponie found that she would have liked nothing more than to join Danube on that exciting adventure, for she had heard some of his soldiers talking of the great dolphins, gracefully leaping twenty feet out of the water.
“I fear I must refuse this day,” she had to say, “for I have agreed to a previous and important engagement and have little time to spare.”
It seemed to her as if Danube wanted to ask her about that engagement, perhaps even that a bit of jealousy came into his gray eyes. But to his credit, he did not press the issue. “Enough time for another ride, then?” he asked instead. “A short run through the back fields?”
Smiling, Jilseponie nodded. Soon enough, the pair were out again, trotting easily along the beautiful grounds behind Chasewind Manor, the scents of the summertime fields thick about them, the chatter of the many birds adding natural song to the dance of the horses.
“The sailing will be fine this day,” King Danube remarked offhandedly. “Are you certain you cannot join me?”
Jilseponie wanted to accept that invitation—she truly did!—and her expression conveyed that clearly to King Danube. “I cannot,” she explained, “for I have promised to spend the afternoon with Abbot Braumin, who is making preparations for the dedication of the Chapel of Avelyn.”
“Your old friend Brother Avelyn,” King Danube remarked. “When will that Church get around to canonizing him? Did not the time of plague convince them? Did it not convince every man and woman in all the kingdom? In all the world?”
It did Jilseponie’s heart good to hear the King of Honce-the-Bear speaking so
highly of her lost friend, even more so because she understood the sincerity behind Danube’s words. He was not just saying these things to please Jilseponie.
“I could, perhaps, speak with the current Abbot of St. Honce,” Danube offered. “Though I doubt that the voice of Ohwan carries much weight within the Church—at least, if the Church has grown wiser since the days of Markwart’s rule.” He laughed at the little joke, but Jilseponie, who did not know of Abbot Ohwan, didn’t understand it.
“The process of canonization is well under way, I have been told,” she replied. “Even those in the Church who do not favor the teachings of Avelyn cannot dispute the miracles at Mount Aida, not the second one, at least. Not a single man or woman who entered the covenant and tasted the blood of Avelyn was subsequently touched by the rosy plague, and all those who went there already ill were cured.”
“It would seem that if any have ever been truly worthy of the title of saint, Avelyn Desbris certainly is,” Danube said with a smile. He glanced up at the sky then, noting that the sun had well passed its zenith, and his smile turned into a frown. “You must be away to St. Precious,” he said. “We meet again tonight, perhaps?”
Jilseponie considered the invitation for a moment. Her first instinct was to refuse—hadn’t she been spending too much time with King Danube already, and in a relationship that was fast edging toward a deeper, more uncomfortable level? But, to her surprise, she found herself accepting.
Danube’s smile seemed as bright as the sun itself. “This time you’ll not beat me back to Chasewind!” he cried, and he turned his horse and thundered away.
Jilseponie honestly considered letting Danube finally beat her that day; after all, hadn’t he just filled the second level of Chasewind Manor with flowers for her? It was a fleeting thought, though, one that washed away as soon as she put her heels to Greystone’s flanks.
She had already dismounted and was walking Greystone by the time King Danube joined her at the small paddock behind the mansion’s stables.
His smile had not diminished at all.
“H
e will ask for your hand this season?” Abbot Braumin asked. Jilseponie looked at him hard, wondering why he was so pressing her this day. “Every indication is that King Danube will seek to make Jilseponie his queen before the turn of the year.”
“Then he has told everyone save Jilseponie,” she replied rather sternly.
“Well, of course, he must be certain of your answer before he dares ask,” said Braumin. “It would not do for the King of Honce-the-Bear to have such a proposal refused!”
Jilseponie shrugged and looked away. Of course, Braumin was correct in all his reasoning, as those apparent rumors were, she believed, truthful. All the indications were that King Danube was indeed heading down a trail that would lead to the altar of St. Honce.
“And what will you say?” Abbot Braumin asked bluntly.
“Have we not spoken enough of this already?” Jilseponie returned, shooting him a perfectly exasperated look.
“I fear that we have not, if you know not the answer,” said Braumin. “Is it not my place to guide you through this difficult decision?”
“As the abbot of St. Precious?” Jilseponie asked.
“As your friend,” Braumin corrected.
“Then speak to me as a friend,” said Jilseponie. “It is obvious that you desire that I accept him—do not even begin to try to deny such a preference—and yet you skirt the issue with pleasantries and subtle hints, one after another.”
Abbot Braumin looked down at the floor and sighed deeply. “True enough,” he admitted. “I do wish the union, because in that union, Jilseponie will have a much greater voice, with a much greater potential to make the world a better place, and to elevate Avelyn and Jojonah to the status they so rightfully deserve. For me, all other missions seem to pale beside that reality.”
“But you are not the one who must then share your life and your soul with the King,” Jilseponie reminded. Again Braumin sighed, openly admitting defeat.
“There is another possibility,” he said a moment later.
“I have not yet told you that I mean to decline Danube’s proposal, should it come,” Jilseponie reminded.
“But in the meanwhile, there is something that we might be able to get King Danube to agree to that would give you a greater voice in the city and in all the region.”
Jilseponie looked at him curiously.
“I have been offered the position of presiding over the initiation and first year of the Chapel of Avelyn,” the abbot admitted. “And while that would seem a demotion—and, indeed, in the purest sense it would be—it would grant me the power to oversee the very direction of that soon-to-be abbey, and soon-to-be, unless I miss my guess, very influential abbey. That would leave a void at St. Precious that none above Jilseponie would be capable of filling.”
“But I am already the baroness,” she started to reply, but the words trailed away as she came to comprehend what Braumin was talking about. “Another bishop?” she asked skeptically. “After the debacle of Markwart’s lackeys?”
“That was different,” Braumin assured her.
“King Danube would never agree to the appointment of another bishop, not after the disaster that was Marcalo De’Unnero,” Jilseponie said confidently.
“In both previous cases, with Brother De’Unnero and Brother Francis, the position originated within the Church, not the State,” Braumin explained. “In this instance, the Church would be offering an expansion of King Danube’s power, not the other way around. He may indeed agree, especially considering the trust he has in the person in question.”
“But then the Church would never agree to it,” Jilseponie argued.
“It was Master Fio Bou-raiy of St.-Mere-Abelle who proposed it to me,” Abbot Braumin admitted. “Yours is a voice that many in the Church have long craved to
hear speaking from the pulpit.”
While Jilseponie could not deny the truth of that statement, especially after her work in discovering and then precipitating the covenant of Avelyn, she had never numbered Fio Bou-raiy of St.-Mere-Abelle among the “many” that Braumin now spoke of. The mere fact that Bou-raiy had suggested the significant power shift set off alarms within her mind. Perhaps Bou-raiy and others were accepting the seeming inevitability of a union between her and King Danube and were trying to stake a claim to her voice now, while they still might find some level of influence.
Of course, such a union would send Jilseponie to Ursal, and would thus leave a void in Palmaris.
“You are trading on my good favor with the King,” Jilseponie suddenly accused, a dark side of this discussion coming into focus. “I become bishop, then go off to become queen, and who then—”
“I do none of this for personal gain!” Abbot Braumin interrupted dramatically. He rushed forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, squaring to face her. “I would never do such a thing. If you go to Ursal to become queen of Honce-the-Bear, then, yes, I would be your likely successor as Bishop of Palmaris.”
“Then I am just a means for you, or for Fio Bou-raiy, to once again entrench your Church in Palmaris?” Jilseponie stated as much as asked.
“Hardly entrenched if King Danube, with Jilseponie whispering into his ear, decides that there will be no bishop should you leave to become queen,” Braumin reminded her. “I do none of this for personal gain, on my word.”
Jilseponie paused before replying and looked hard at her dear friend, and knew at once that, of course, he was speaking truthfully. “But for the gain of your Church,” she did say.
“For the gain of the people of Palmaris,” Braumin corrected. “Better that you lead both spiritually and secularly when I go north than have Master Fio Bou-raiy handpick another from St.-Mere-Abelle—one, likely, who knows nothing of Palmaris and her needs. And better, then, if I return to lead both spiritually and secularly in your absence than to have King Danube appoint one such as Duke Kalas, or Duke Tetrafel, as baron. This is not taking advantage of your relationship with King Danube, but rather it is seizing an opportunity presented to us. Can you deny the gain to our cause, and that our cause is for the betterment of the people?”
Jilseponie took her time again to digest the words. The whole thing held a bit of a stench to her, seeming somehow unseemly, but despite all that, she did agree with Braumin’s assessment that it was her place and his and everyone else’s to do what they might to make the world a better place. And as bishop of Palmaris, she could certainly implement some changes that would better the lives of the common folk of the region.