The Dragon of Trelian (5 page)

“Especially lately,” added Nan Vera unhelpfully.

With a monumental effort of will, Meg managed not to glare at Nan Vera and instead tried to look appropriately chastened. “I’m sorry, Mother. Sorry, Father. Sorry, everyone. Please, don’t let me interrupt. Father, I believe you were speaking?”

The look her father gave her said plainly that he knew she was trying to avoid giving an explanation for her lateness. She could almost see him teetering on the brink; would he scold her? Demand to know where she had been? Or shake his head and give her one of those grins that used to come so easily to his face when she was small? He was a different person when he smiled. But Meg supposed that most of the business of being a king didn’t call for smiling as much as it did solemnity. Especially — to echo a certain annoying nursemaid — lately.

She was almost sorry when Maerlie came to her aid. It would have been interesting to see which way he would have gone.

“Father was just about to tell us exactly how and when you’re all going to meet my handsome future husband and his family,” Maerlie said brightly, blinking up at him in exaggerated innocence. That did evoke the rueful head shake and the grin, but of course now it was for Maerlie, not for her. Their mother rolled her eyes good-naturedly, Nan Vera frowned at the opportunity for discipline wasted, and the moment of danger was past. No need to make up excuses or feel guilty about lying to her family.

“Yes, well. Now that we’re all finally assembled,” he said, indicating Meg and then, with another smile, Mattie’s bear, “we can go to meet them at once. We did of course offer to postpone dinner until they had more time to rest up from their travels, but King Ryllin and Queen Carlinda did not wish to put off meeting the rest of the family any longer, and so we will proceed as planned. I know I do not need to remind everyone to be pleasant and agreeable or to remain present for the entire evening”— this last with a meaningful glance at both Meg and Maurel —“and — yes, except for you, of course, Nan Vera, when it’s time for Mattie to be put down — and to do everything possible to represent our family in the best possible manner to our future new relations. Maerlie, on the way, please inform your tardy sister about the seating arrangements and other matters we’ve already discussed.”

At that, everyone rose. Meg gave her mother one more quiet apology and received a forgiving hand-squeeze in return. Then the queen walked off with Morgan at her side, speaking of whatever it was such a pair of grown-up women might discuss at times like these. Meg carefully approached Nan Vera and swooped in to give Mattie a quick kiss on the forehead before ducking aside to the relative safety of Maerlie’s protective company. Now that Maerlie was getting married, Nan Vera seemed to think she was suddenly off-limits for scolding. Meg hoped that wasn’t going to mean an extra helping for herself from now on.

“You didn’t miss anything, really,” Maerlie said, lacing her arm through Meg’s and whisking her along into the hallway. “After we spend a few minutes with Ryant and his family, we’ll all proceed to the Great Hall for dinner, which will include a bunch of ambassadors and royal cousins and other interesting and not-so-interesting individuals. We won’t be sitting together; they’re mixing us about to ensure that all the guests end up with someone of royal blood to talk to so no one gets offended. So there won’t be an opportunity until much later for you to report in on what you think of this man I’m about to run off with. Don’t think that lets you off the hook, though. I expect full details of your thoughts and reactions.”

“You’ll have it,” Meg said, laughing. “Have you ever known me to keep my opinion to myself, requested or not?”

“Good point. I needn’t have worried. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must become the proper princess and future daughter-in-law.”

Meg smiled as Maerlie straightened up and visibly assumed her formal persona before entering the candlelit room adjoining the dining hall. But really it wasn’t as silly as Maerlie pretended. Soon she’d forget that the proper princess was just a role, and that’s who she’d become, for real, forever. And then it would be Maerlie giving her neutral nods instead of mischievous, half-hidden grins.

“I’m nervous,” Maurel whispered, coming up beside her. Meg pulled herself out of her melancholy thoughts and gave her sister a quick hug. “Don’t worry,” she said. “They’ll love you. How could they not?”

About to pass through the door, they suddenly found themselves yanked aside by Nan Vera. “Wait, wait, wait!” the woman whispered frantically, first handing the baby to Meg while she pinned Maurel’s braids swiftly back into place and then shifting the baby to Maurel and rubbing, not quite gently, a creamy salve into Meg’s scraped hand.

“Thank you,” Meg said quietly, suddenly touched by Nan Vera’s care about such things.

Nan Vera only nodded impatiently and ushered the girls into the room before her.

The next hour or so was something of a whirlwind — a blur of new faces and names and smiles and bows and curtsies and lots of those careful, expressionless nods that so many adults seemed so fond of. Meg had been prepared to suffer through a somewhat boring evening of royal posturing, punctuated by moments of happiness for Maer and sadness for herself accompanied by a continuous effort to not think about her secret no matter how much it clamored for her attention. But despite her ambivalence about the impending wedding and her dread of all that it threatened to change, Meg found herself swept up in the excitement of the whole thing. Secrets aside, sadness aside, there was something irresistibly enthralling about the cascade of new people. Especially, she had to admit, certain new people.

Especially, in fact, one in particular.

King Ryllin and Queen Carlinda had brought a number of distinguished members of their household along with them to Trelian, and all of them had been seated at the enormous table together. The head and foot of the table were left empty, to represent equality between the two kingdoms, and everyone was seated along the two long sides. Maerlie and Prince Ryant, along with both sets of royal parents, were seated in a group at one end, but as her sister had foretold, everyone else from both households had been mingled together, so that instead of her usual place between her next oldest and next youngest sister, Meg found herself surrounded by new and
very
interesting dinner companions.

On her left was none other than Serek, which was especially fascinating for two reasons. First, after having just met Calen that afternoon, it was impossible not to take a greater interest in his master, this mysterious new mage who had been rather elusive ever since his arrival at the castle. No one had been able to get much of a sense of him, other than that he seemed very serious and not much inclined to socializing. The second and even more compelling reason, however, was that Serek had quietly intercepted her parents upon their entry to the hall, which surely must mean something significant — that there was something he had to tell them that could not wait. Unfortunately, by the time Meg had edged close enough to hear anything, her father was thanking the mage and asking him to meet them later that evening for further discussion. Serek bowed his head and walked away, and the king and queen hastily recomposed their features into happy, proud parental expressions. But for a moment, they had seemed anything but happy. What had Serek said to them?

After a formal welcome, in which both kings and queens spoke briefly and eloquently of their joy at the impending marriage and hopes for renewed peace between their kingdoms, everyone was led to their seats by a flurry of nervous-looking pages. Serek gave Meg a silent nod of greeting as he sat down beside her, and such was her surprise at suddenly being this close to him, it was all she could do to smile and nod politely in return. Sadly, he didn’t seem interested in making conversation, which made it difficult to keep finding excuses to turn toward him and study him, as she wanted to.

Luckily, that wasn’t true of Meg’s other table companions. On her right was Richton, another of Prince Ryant’s personal guard. She had expected him to be something like Jorn, quiet and mysterious and brusque, but in fact Richton seemed to enjoy talking almost as much as Serek seemed to avoid it. He had all sorts of fascinating tales of travel and danger and adventure, and he told them with such humor and skill that he had enraptured that entire section of the table by the time the soup was served.

The only thing able to distract Meg from Richton’s stories was the young man sitting directly across from her. Wilem was the son of Sen Eva Lichtendor, the senior advisor to the throne of Kragnir. He was also a trusted companion of Prince Ryant, which made him a potentially invaluable source of all kinds of interesting information. He was
also
incredibly — almost unbearably — handsome . . . even better-looking, in Meg’s opinion, than the prince (who had actually turned out to be as nice-looking in real life as in his portrait). This had the unfortunate side effect of making it rather difficult for Meg to think clearly or come up with appropriately charming and intelligent things to say to him.

Richton was just finishing a particularly exciting account of how he and Jorn had nearly been killed during a pirate attack when Meg heard Maurel speak up from her place on Richton’s right.

“Was that how Jorn got that big scar? From the pirates?”

Meg winced and was about to apologize on her sister’s behalf, but Richton spoke first.

“I am sorry, young princess, but that’s not my tale to tell,” he said, not unkindly. “If you want to know about Jorn’s scar, you’re going to have to ask him yourself. Shall I call him over for you?” He rose partway out of his chair.

“No!” Maurel cried immediately. Her eyes had grown enormous in her small face.

Richton laughed softly and sat back down. “I’m only teasing, little one,” he said, patting her hand gently. “It would take a braver man than me to interrupt Jorn during a meal.”

Everyone laughed at this, and Maurel gave a tentative smile, perhaps not sure of the joke but realizing all the same that Richton was only playing. Meg smiled, too. Richton seemed a happy and good-natured man, and that seemed to indicate good things about Prince Ryant as well. Meg very much wanted to believe that the prince was as perfect as he seemed. Marrying for love was seldom an option in a ruling family, and although Meg knew and accepted this fact in theory, the idea that Maerlie might find actual love within an arranged marriage . . . well, that would be wonderful. Wonderful for Maerlie, and wonderful in that it meant maybe such a thing would be possible for Meg as well.

Meg cradled this thought in her mind as she stole another glance at Wilem, across the table. The son of a royal advisor was not the most likely match for a princess. But they couldn’t
all
marry princes, probably, and she was going to have to marry
someone
eventually, once she was older and well . . . ready. And Wilem was so striking, and tall, and strong-looking, and well spoken, and polite, and he chewed with his mouth closed — she’d been checking — and when he smiled, one side of his mouth curved up higher than the other in a way that made her feel sort of sweetly nervous and silly. And then there were his eyes, his beautiful dark eyes, which she suddenly realized were looking right back at her across the table. . . .

Meg blinked and quickly looked away.
Stupid, stupid,
she thought angrily, reaching for her heavily watered wine to stall until she could think of some reasonable explanation for why she had been staring at him. Her brain refused to cooperate. She risked looking back up and found him still watching her, though not with annoyance or contempt as she had feared. Instead he gave her one of those smiles, which did nothing to help quiet the mad fluttering of her heart within her chest, and held her gaze a moment more before turning to respond to something his mother, seated to his right, had asked him.

Freed from her momentary paralysis, Meg looked away and found Maerlie smirking at her from the far end of the table. Meg shrugged helplessly, and Maerlie shook her head, laughing.

For the rest of the meal, Meg did her best to avoid looking at Wilem as much as possible. This was made easier by two things. One, that Maurel was keeping Wilem occupied with endless boring questions about what it was like living in Kragnir, which Wilem was too polite to do anything other than answer, and two, that Sen Eva, Wilem’s mother, had actually managed to draw Serek into a conversation, and nearly all of Meg’s attention was focused on this rare and informative event.

“It was fortunate that Trelian was able to secure your services so quickly after Mage Fredrin’s passing, Mage Serek,” Sen Eva said as a serving boy replaced her plate with the next course. “Although I’m sure your previous patrons were sorry to lose you.”

“The Magistratum is careful not to reassign a mage without a replacement at hand,” Serek answered. “I believe Mage Arlena arrived within hours of my departure, in fact.”

“Of course.” Sen Eva inclined her head slightly. “I suppose after more than three hundred years, the Magistratum has things well in hand.” She flashed a radiant smile at him, the kind of smile that usually made one feel compelled to smile back. Serek pursed his lips; Meg wondered if that passed for a smile as far as he was concerned.

“I don’t have a great deal of experience in these matters,” Sen Eva went on. “Our mage at Kragnir has been at his post for as long as I can remember, and we have not had many dealings with the Magistratum in recent years. Is it difficult, moving around as often as you have?”

“Difficult, madam?”

“Well, adjusting to a new place, new people . . .”

“A mage’s life is dedicated to his work, wherever he is posted. I am, of course, honored to have been appointed King’s Mage, but I serve King Tormon and Queen Merilyn best by focusing on the work, not the environment.”

Meg was impressed by Sen Eva’s ability to persevere with such poise in the face of Serek’s determined bluntness. Most people probably would have given up, but Sen Eva smiled warmly at him again. “I’m sure this dedication is indeed what led to your appointment, Mage Serek.” She paused, then went on, “May I ask — is an appointment such as this one, an honor like this — is it recorded in your marks? Forgive me, but I’ve never understood the full scope of what a mage’s marks include.”