Pretending to listen earnestly to young Count Bhela’s suggestion that the crown establish a system of cobble-paved merchant roads across the realm, Azoun caught his wife’s eye and turned his head ever so slightly, signaling her to be rid of the ghastly stuff.
Filfaeril grinned viciously and glided to his side without stumbling or tripping or finding some other excuse to let even one of the awful canapes slide off the tray. She managed to interrupt young Bhela’s diatribe with a flash of pearly teeth, accomplishing with a single smile what the king had been attempting in vain for the last half-hour, then pushed the platter forward. The smell of minted grease filled Azoun’s nose, and he suddenly felt so ill that it took an act of will to keep his wineglass in his hand.
“Liverpaste, my dear?” Filfaeril asked. “It’s quail.”
“Love one!” Azoun took a wafer and bit into it, then chewed three quick times and swallowed quickly in a futile attempt to keep his tongue from registering the taste. “Excellent. Won’t you have one, Count Bhela?”
Bhela’s eyes grew as round as coins. “Off your plate, Majesty?”
Azoun nodded enthusiastically. “I know your family well enough to trust you won’t slip me any poison.”
Bhela eyed the wafers with unconcealed longing and nearly reached for one, then caught himself and shook his head. “It wouldn’t be right, Sire. I’m only a count.”
“Please, I insist.”
Bhela’s expression grew nervous, and be glanced around the room at all the other nobles who had been glaring at him for the last quarter hour.
“I beg you, Majesty. The superior lords will consider me haughty,” he said. “In fact, you really should allow me to take my leave. They’ll think I have been monopolizing your time.”
“Yes, yes, of course. How mindless of me.” Azoun dismissed him with a hearty clap on the shoulder, then sighed wearily. “Do send me a study on that idea of yours, Count. Imagine, cobbling an entire highway!”
“Within a tenday, Your Majesty.”
Beaming with pride, Bhela bowed deeply to both the king and queen, then turned and strutted off to bask in the glow of his lengthy audience with the king. Filfaeril took another minted liverpaste off the plate and offered it to Azoun. He accepted the wafer with a smile, but held it between two fingers and allowed himself a generous swig of wine, trying to wash the lingering taste of the last one from his mouth.
“Eat up, my dear,” urged Filfaeril. “You wouldn’t want our hosts to think you fear poison.”
Azoun lowered his glass, then concentrated on maintaining a pleasant smile as he spoke to his wife. “Show some mercy. I’ll never get through this without your help.”
“I am helping. If we are to repair the damage done by Tanalasta, we must be accessible to our nobles.” Filfaeril looked across the chamber toward a boorish man in yellow stockings and crossed garters. “Isn’t that Earl Hioar? He has a wonderful plan for clear-cutting the Dragon Wood. I’ll fetch him.”
Azoun stuffed the minted liverpaste into his mouth whole, then caught Filfaeril by the elbow and said, “Not yet.” Somehow, he managed to mumble the words without spewing wafer over her damask gown. He chewed half a dozen times and gagged the canape down. “Tanalasta gave me no choice.”
“You always have a choice. You’re the king.”
Azoun allowed himself a quick scowl. “You know better. And why are you angry with me, anyway? From the way you were inciting her, I thought you wanted a new heir.”
“I want what is best for Tanalasta,” Filfaeril countered. “Instead, you allowed Vangey to manipulate her into defying you.”
“You helped.”
“Not knowingly.” Without taking her eyes off Azoun, the queen held out her free hand. A waiter scurried forward and placed a glass of wine in it, which she sipped until he had retreated out of earshot. “Vangey used me. Had I known how much she had changed, I would never have… I just didn’t know how much she had changed.”
“After the Abraxus Affair I should think you would consider that a good thing,” said Azoun. “She certainly does. So do I, and so does Vangerdahast.”
“It will make her a stronger queen, yes,” said Filfaeril, “but will it make her happy?”
A pang of sorrow shot through Azoun’s breast, and he had to look away. He loved Tanalasta like any father loves a daughter, but the truth of the matter was that he could not concern himself with her happiness. The good of the realm demanded that he think only of making her a strong ruler. That was a steep price indeed to demand of any parent.
After a moment, he said, “Tanalasta was my favorite, you know. Always so eager to learn. You had only to tell her a thing once, and a year later she would repeat it back to you word for word. And so sweet. How her guileless smile would light the room…”
“I remember.” The queen’s voice remained cold. “I fear what we loved best in her is what Vangey destroyed.”
Azoun grew stoic. “The royal magician did what is best for the realm.” He forced himself to meet Filfaeril’s gaze, then said, “We were wrong to shelter the crown princess from the harsher side of royal life. Even had Aunadar Bleth never set foot in Suzail, Tanalasta’s innocence would have served her poorly on the throne.”
Filfaeril lowered her voice to an angry hiss. “And now that Vangerdahast has stolen her innocence, you do not like the result? Now you deny her the throne?”
“She has not lost the throne yet,” said Azoun. “Tanalasta may still make a fine queen someday-provided she finds a man she can abide as a husband and stops being so headstrong about this business with Chauntea.”
Filfaeril’s pale eyes grew as hard as ice. “You and Vangey are the ones who made her. If you do not like what she has become, then it is your fault and not hers.” The queen finished her wine in a gulp, then held the empty glass out for a servant. “Besides, how can you be sure she isn’t right? The blight is spreading, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Azoun, “and Tanalasta is defying me in that, as well. There are reports from the Immerflow to the Starwater of Purple Dragons using Chauntea’s magic to save blighted fields.”
“Good.” Filfaeril gave her glass to a waiter and waved him away, then thrust another liverpaste under Azoun’s chin. “Enjoy.”
Azoun had no choice but to accept the loathsome thing. As he began to nibble at it, the queen flashed a smile to Raynaar Marliir, signaling him to come forward. The king groaned inwardly, though he knew there was no avoiding this moment. He had heard that Marliir had put together an odd coalition of nobles, War Wizards, and high priests who wished to discuss “the destiny of the realm.” Though he suspected they were less interested in discussing destiny than dictating it-specifically that of the crown princess-he would have to listen politely. The loyalty of the Marliir family was his strongest bulwark against Arabel’s disagreeable habit of rebelling at the kingdom’s most trying moments.
Azoun ran his tongue over his teeth to cleanse them of liverpaste, then smiled as broadly as he could. “Duke Marliir, how good to see you again. I trust Lady Marliir is feeling better.”
“Sadly no,” Raynaar answered curtly. “She is still bedridden with ague, or else she would certainly be in attendance today.”
They had exchanged similar greetings on each of the previous four days. After Tanalasta’s rejection of Dauneth, Merelda Marliir had fallen ghastly ill and asked the royal party to depart her home for the sake of its own health. Knowing he might well have to return to crush a revolt if he left so soon after the stir Tanalasta had caused, Azoun had seized on the northern blight as an excuse to remain another tenday, imposing on his Lord Governor, Myrmeen Lhal, to house the royal party in the city palace. He had then invited all the local notables to an extravagant state dinner. They had responded with a chain of increasingly exotic liverpaste receptions that would, he was quite certain, be the end of him. Of course, Lady Marliir had been too ill to attend any of the events, and Azoun was quite certain she would continue to be ill until a day or two after he left.