The Queen of Mages (9 page)

Her reverie was shattered by a resounding
squeak. Countess Besiana approached at speed, knifing through the
sea of nobles before her. The rotund old woman beamed with pride at
her son. “My boy! You’ve arrived at last. Oh, my dear, don’t you
look spectacular,” she added to Amira, taking her hands for a
moment. “Let me show you around.”

Amira hoped that “show you around” meant
“show you to the food,” but alas she spent a good half hour being
paraded before barons, counts, dukes, their wives, their sons,
their elderly dowager mothers. She met Duke Albrecht Visail,
Countess Kiria Harnum, Count Ivian Rambul and the great old Duke
Fortarin Eltasi of Seawatch. The middle-aged Duke Terilin Faroa was
so enchanted with her beauty and spoke with her for so long that
his much younger wife eventually dragged him away by force, her
cheeks red with fury.

Amira was introduced to Duke Loram Arkhail,
Dardan’s liege lord, who bowed graciously and stroked his beard
while eyeing Amira from head to toe. She met Grand High Steward
Aerandin—head of the Niderium, the
Epirro Ulishim
himself—whom Besiana traded jests with; Lord Yarvin; Lord Lairnos;
Duchess Anteria; and Countess Isilian, the last of whom Amira had
met before. She was even introduced to a Warden of Aendavar, a
young man named Mason Iris whose hair had already gone white, and
who wore gleaming silvered armor beneath a black cloak. For a
wonder, he seemed more interested in observing the crowd than in
gawking at Amira. Just as well; Wardens were reputedly fierce
swordsmen, and it unnerved Amira a little to think of his attention
turned on her.

She lost track of the names within minutes
and even the faces and gowns and suits all began to blur together.
After scores of introductions, Amira had to interrupt Besiana. “My
lady countess, I am most grateful that you have introduced me to so
many remarkable people, but I confess that I have not eaten since
luncheon and am growing a little light-headed.”

“Oh, my dear! Let us away outside, and I
will show you. All the best entertainments and delicacies are out
in the gardens, of course.” She drew them through the crowd to a
smaller antechamber that was still thrice the size of the Tarians’
sitting room. Along its walls stood tables absolutely stuffed with
food: fowl and pork, beef and rabbit, and other meats she could not
identify, drowning in brown sauces and red sauces and white sauces,
covered in honey and jelly, and an entire suckling pig that had
been prepared solely for use as a decoration. There were breads and
cheeses, melons and berries, and curious little pink-and-white
crescents she had never seen before arranged around glass bowls of
lumpy red sauce.

And she didn’t get to eat any of it, because
as soon as she started to veer toward the servants who waited by
the stacks of empty plates, Besiana tugged on her sleeve. “No, no,
my dear, this is all local fare. Garovan cuisine. The
interesting
dishes are outside.” Amira gazed wistfully at
the food as they passed, but let Besiana guide her onward.

Dardan, at least, did not seem astonished or
even impressed by any of it. He noticed Amira was looking at him,
and smiled a little. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

Amira realized she must look a gawking fool,
and tried to moderate her expression. “This does not stir you, my
lord?”

Dardan looked alarmed, as if he might have
said the wrong thing. “Ah, no, I don’t mean—that is, it’s certainly
impressive. I just, ah…”

“You didn’t even want to be here,” she
teased.

His mouth worked for a moment, and then he
glanced at his mother, who bulled on ahead. “We had better catch
up.”

They came out into the evening, at the top
of an immense stone staircase. At its foot sat the Queen’s
Courtyard, though in truth it was more like a plaza, a smaller
replica of the Great Square outside Elibarran’s gate. Gardens and
hedges receded into the dimness beyond, but there were oil lamps
aplenty casting light over the central area.

Dozens more nobles milled about here, with
an air of excitement the ballroom had lacked. Amira was startled to
see a man with a huge, drooping moustache throwing flaming torches
into the air, and snatching them before they hit the ground,
laughing gaily all the while. A group of shirtless, muscular
tumblers wearing bright green and red trousers leapt and rolled and
flung one another overhead, to the amusement of a flock of
tittering ladies. Amira saw a semicircle of golden cages arranged
at the bottom of the stair, each bearing some exotic animal. One of
them was an enormous tan-haired cat, with black stripes and fierce
fangs, pacing back and forth. Its gold eyes glinted at her. Beside
it, a large, clumsy green bird stretched out fantastically wide
wings, and squawked and bit at its cage with its wickedly hooked
beak.

Along one edge of the courtyard were yet
more tables with food piled on them. The nobles here seemed to be
carrying their own plates, handing them to be filled by the
servants standing beside each table. Besiana showed Amira and
Dardan to a table stacked high with clean, empty plates. “It’s so
delightfully common fetching your own food!” Besiana squeaked.
Amira forced herself to laugh.

Dardan interposed himself between his mother
and Amira, and began explaining how the crown sent across borders
and seas for fantastic dishes from foreign lands. He seemed
relieved to have something to do. Amira held her tongue and nodded
politely. “Each table represents the cuisine of one nation,” Dardan
said. “It’s considered vulgar, but I’m actually quite partial to
Vaslander food.”

Amira chuckled. Liking
anything
having to do with Vasland would be frowned upon by virtually
everyone. Perhaps the Vaslander table was a test, to see who would
dare eat from it.

The first table held the cuisine of Liahn, a
nation across the ocean to the east. There was a huge steaming pot
of tiny white grains, and several large bowls of various meats and
vegetables arranged around it. The practice seemed to be to heap
the grains, which stuck together in a mass, onto one’s plate, and
then pile meat and vegetables on top. Amira gamely took a small
portion. It was heavily spiced, and the smell alone made her eyes
water. For some reason this reminded her of Katin, and she wondered
for a moment how her
vala
was getting along.

The next table was from Vasland. There were
skewers of plump brown sausages and pink pickled turnips. The
sausages smelled delicious and the turnips vile. Dardan boldly took
several of each, and Amira agreed to try some. The next table, and
the next, and the next all contained strange delicacies, and
Amira’s plate was soon overloaded.

They retired to tall tables draped in silk,
arranged in the center of the courtyard. Dardan had brought two
entire plates heaped high.
Is he really going to eat all
that?
And he did, rapidly churning through both plates and
going back for seconds. Some women might be put off by such
gluttony, but Amira found it amusing. Why not gorge oneself at the
crown’s expense?

Amira restrained herself from wolfing down
her own meal, but it was delicious. Most of it. The tiny grilled
bird’s eggs—she’d already forgotten which table they were
from—tasted foul, and she hid the remainder under some of the
sticky white grains. There was wine aplenty; she found herself a
little tipsy after a few glasses. She knew she could tolerate a lot
more, but she didn’t want to embarrass poor Dardan by out-drinking
him.

She watched the fire juggler again, and
there was a bard, a real live bard brought over from Eliband. This
was a rare treat; they were master singers and storytellers, who
trained for years at some great academy across the sea, and put
Garovan minstrels to shame. This one sang lengthy, ribald songs,
nearly without pausing for breath, and changing the words to mock
any noble who ventured too close, much to their delight.

A balding, dark-skinned man wearing a
glittering red robe appeared at one point, casting sparkling flames
into the air seemingly from his fingertips. Amira wondered for a
moment if he had the ember like she did, but his fires were just a
conjurer’s trick. A green-eyed woman with hair down to her knees
and skin painted gold, wearing little but sheer silk, whipped and
spun a long tendril of multicolored fabric in dizzying patterns.
All the menfolk watched her with interest. Even Dardan, until he
saw Amira looking at him. His cheeks flushed and he turned his back
on the dancer.

When they finished eating and watching the
singers and dancers and magicians, Dardan worked up his courage and
haltingly invited her back to the ballroom for dancing. She
accepted gladly and let him lead on, her toes and fingertips
tingling with excitement.

The formal dances had already begun when
they arrived, and they squeezed in. Amira had only learned a little
of the formal court dances, but the rest wasn’t too hard to pick
up. She spun and twirled between numerous partners, losing sight of
Dardan before suddenly colliding with him again. He gritted his
teeth in concentration and moved stiffly—so much for the hope that
he might be a brilliant dance partner—but Amira found the whole
thing delightful anyway, as she twirled beneath the glittering
chandeliers.

Later dances proved more complicated; Amira
had to apologize several times for stepping on feet. She didn’t
want to stop, but soon she took pity on her victims and guided
Dardan to the edge of the room.

“That was exhilarating,” Amira remarked,
catching her breath.

“Dancing is not normally my favored pastime,
as I’m sure was obvious. But I must admit, I did enjoy it.” Dardan
paused; he’d had a moment of confidence there, Amira saw, but it
faded as he looked at her again. “Um… would you—perhaps a separate
dance?”

They found a section of the ballroom away
from the long paired lines of the formal dances, where couples
moved about with no order at all. This time Amira led the way, and
soon she and Dardan held one another, moving slowly with the music
that drifted down from above.

This
was what she’d dreamed of. The
golden room, the rich attire, and the sweet melodies all conspired
to intoxicate her. The wine had helped, too, but this was a feeling
far beyond simple inebriation. She sent countless tiny prayers to
the Aspect of Joy as she and Dardan danced.

The magic of it was interrupted only when
someone bumped roughly into them. Another young man, his hair a bit
mussed, eyes glazed and face flush from too much wine, barely kept
his balance as he ricocheted off Dardan. He turned to glare at
Amira’s partner. “Watch yourself, man!” he called out, in much too
harsh a tone. His own partner, a pale young lady in blue, looked
mortified.

“My apologies,” Dardan said curtly. He bowed
slightly, first to the other lady and then to the man who’d jostled
him.

The drunken young lord glowered, his
stillness standing out amidst the scores of whirling couples around
him. The pale lady tugged at his hand, and he resentfully turned
away. “Cowardly lout,” he said, much too loudly to be anything but
a deliberate insult.

Dardan did not go red, as Amira might have
expected a young man to do. He merely rolled his eyes, took Amira’s
hand, and led her to another part of the floor, where they resumed
dancing. “My apologies, my lady, for interrupting the dance.”

“Not at all,” she said. Dardan suddenly
looked different; less like a chore to be tolerated, and more
like—

A voice rang out. She lifted her eyes to see
the royal herald standing on the balcony, the better to be seen by
everyone in the ballroom. “His majesty the king awaits in the
throne room.”

“The receiving line,” Dardan muttered, his
face falling as they came to a stop. He had been enjoying himself,
perhaps unconsciously mirroring Amira’s rapture. But now duty
intruded, and that suddenly dampened his mood. It made Amira hate
the herald.

Everyone began to scurry for the exit. “Why
such a rush?” Amira asked.

“The line lengthens quickly,” Dardan said,
wiping a bead of sweat from his brow and offering his arm. “Waiting
an hour just to bow before the king for five seconds is not my idea
of time well spent.”

“Why not wait until later, when the line has
dwindled a bit?” she asked, but when Dardan frowned at her, she
suffered a moment’s chagrin. What had she said wrong?

Dardan’s mouth worked for a moment, and he
flushed. “I apologize. I forget that you have not—that I take these
customs for granted.” He moved briskly, joining them to the stream
of nobles. Amira had to skitter along to keep up; she could not
take long strides in this gown. “I would gladly wait as you
suggest, but those who appear near the end of the line are looked
upon unfavorably.”

The throne room was up another long
staircase and past several more halls. Amira was quite turned
around by the time they arrived. Luck was not wholly against them;
there were only a few dozen nobles ahead of them in the line by the
time they joined it.

Elibarran’s royal throne room was far less
ornate than Amira had imagined it might be. The throne itself was a
massive chair said to have been carved as a single piece from the
bole of a great oak, polished to a high sheen. Its back was carved
to appear as woven branches, intertwining high. The rest of the
room was panelled in a similarly dark wood, with high windows all
along one wall, and painted portraits of former kings hanging along
the other. Aside from that, and a row of low-backed chairs beneath
the portraits, there was little decoration.

Yet the room spoke of power, and iron will.
In contrast to the frivolous opulence of the ballroom, this was a
place where ruling was done. Amira could imagine the intimidation
one would feel when brought before the dais. She already felt
nervous, and she was still fifty feet back in the line.