Footsteps clunked across the floor, and Achan darted back outside the chamber. The door opened and Lord Nathak stepped out. He jumped when he saw Achan and clasped a hand over his chest. He took a long breath and stalked away.
A chill danced over Achan as he watched the man go. Why would Lord Nathak urge the prince not to harm him?
Achan took a deep breath and re-entered the room, this time walking all the way inside. Chora spotted him and led him to the balcony overlooking the inner bailey courtyard and tournament field. Prince Gidon lay on a wooden chaise lounge wearing a red silk robe. He didn’t look injured. Achan hadn’t swung very hard anyway.
Achan’s own shirt stuck to his throbbing back. He didn’t want to know how bad it looked after Myet’s handiwork. He shifted his weight and tugged at the back hem of his shirt to loosen it. His wounds tingled at the rush of cool air.
Prince Gidon raised one hand and snapped at a servant who stood in the corner of the balcony. The servant stepped around Achan and held the fruit tray in front of the prince.
“Well, stray,” Prince Gidon said, “in order to take the throne Lord Nathak insists I choose a bride. This very night.”
Achan wrinkled his nose and glanced at the servant, who kept his eyes down. Achan could care less about Prince Gidon’s marital options. Did the prince expect him to respond? “He…wants you married? Tonight?”
The prince took a handful of grapes and shooed the servant away with a snort. “No, fool. I must choose who I want tonight. The marriage will happen later. If I don’t choose, Lord Nathak will choose for me.”
Achan didn’t know why he was here. Why would Prince Gidon want him around if he wanted him dead? Clueless to the rules of this game, he could only play along. “Is that bad, Your Highness?”
“Possibly.” The prince sucked a grape into his mouth. “Have you seen Lady Gali? That beast is among my prospects.”
Achan failed to stifle a snicker, which hurt his back. At twenty-two, Lady Gali of Berland stood over six feet and was as broad-shouldered as Sir Kenton. Besides her height, she wore bone bangles around her neck and arms, “jewelry” that looked more like shackles. What an intimidating couple she and the prince would make.
“Then you see what I’m up against.” Prince Gidon popped another grape into his mouth. “The pickings are slim indeed. Who would you choose if you had to?”
Lady Tara’s golden hair filled his thoughts. “I wouldn’t know, Your Highness.”
Prince Gidon stood and grabbed Achan’s chin in a vice-like grip. He steered Achan toward the edge of the balcony. “I wish your opinion, stray. Who? The fairest? The wittiest? The curviest? I wouldn’t expect you to understand the politics of houses, so we’ll keep things simple. Who do you favor?”
Achan stepped to the ledge in an act of obedience, but he merely wanted free of Prince Gidon’s touch.
Below them, the inner bailey moved at a slower pace than what Achan was used to in the outer bailey. Pairs of young ladies strolled arm in arm near the temple gardens, picking flowers and feeding the ducks. Achan recognized a few faces from the hoodman’s blind game but knew none of them by name. He looked from lady to lady in the courtyard below, seeking the most vile.
A familiar giggle rose from the side yard where a peasant boy was making a dog do tricks. Lady Tara clapped her hands, her lustrous hair shining brighter than Ôwr. Her blue gown was the color of the sky. He’d never recommend Lady Tara. Prince Gidon would ruin her.
“You choose Tara.” The prince’s blue eyes flashed to Achan’s, then back to Lady Tara below.
“No.” Achan said quickly. “She’s kind, that’s all.”
“Kindness.” Prince Gidon grimaced. “A weakness in a queen.”
“Why?”
“Because she would pity the people. Every beggar in Er’Rets would make the trek to Armonguard just to spin their tale of woe for her sympathy. And she would give it. She’d bankrupt the treasury in a season.”
Lady Tara was no fool. She’d be kind to those who needed it. But Achan was relieved the prince did not desire her for a bride.
“She is beautiful.” Prince Gidon paused to pour a fistful of grapes into his mouth. “Perhaps I will take her as a mistress.”
Achan gripped the railing until his knuckles turned white.
“But”—the prince smacked his lips—“nobles don’t make good mistresses. Too demanding. Plus it upsets their fathers, and there you edge into the politics that would melt your dimwitted mind. Who is that pretty brown maid who speaks to you so often?”
“Gren?” Achan answered before thinking. How did the prince know who Achan talked to?
“She is a peasant?”
Achan could only stare.
“Now she would make me an excellent mistress. I shall inquire about taking her with me to Mahanaim.”
Achan sputtered. “I…uh…she’s betrothed…to Riga Hoff.”
“Hoff, you say?” The prince snorted. “Then I would be doing her a favor.” He popped another grape into his already full mouth.
Achan trembled. “If you say this is to punish me, Your Majesty, I beg you to choose another method. I’ll gladly face Myet again.”
“Punish you?”
“Gren is a quiet girl who dreams of raising children and chickens. She loves her family and would die without them. There are many others you could take on your journey.”
The prince shrugged and looked down on the noblewomen. “But who will I marry, stray? Lady Halona is but a child. Lady Jacqueline would give the council too much control of me. My cousin, Lady Glassea, would give the rebels too much control of me. Lady Mandzee is the best political match, but her sister, Jaira, is far prettier, though she’d rob me blind.” He pounded the tray and sent grapes flying. “There is no one worthy!”
Achan thought back to Sir Gavin’s lectures of the nobles in Er’Rets. “Does not Lord Sigul have a daughter? Lady Tova or something?”
The prince scoffed. “I would rather wed a peasant.”
“Could you?” Perhaps if Prince Gidon were to actually marry Gren it wouldn’t be so—
For the briefest moment, the prince looked ghostly white. Then a wide smile spread over his face and he laughed. “Never. With a noble bride comes a dowry and land and an army and power…for me. And since there is nothing more important than my throne, I shall have to settle. Gods know who I want, but Lord Nathak has failed me there.”
“Who do you want?”
Prince Gidon fell back on the chaise lounge and propped both red satin slippers up on the back, crossing his ankles. “You need a shave, stray. I’ll not have a squire who looks older than me.”
Achan ran his fingers over his scratchy, swollen jaw. His whiskers had grown fast since Wils’s shave. “I am older than you,” he paused, then quickly added, “Your Majesty.”
“Ridiculous. Tomorrow be cleanshaven or you can fight me without your weapon.”
Achan opened his mouth to protest, but when he took in Prince Gidon from head to toe, he saw the prince was right. It was ridiculous to think Achan was older than this man. He looked well over sixteen years of age. Maybe it was from eating so heartily his whole life.
“You will accompany me on my journey to Mahanaim, of course,” Prince Gidon said. “Lord Nathak has dispatched my other squires on various errands, so you will have to do everything yourself. We leave in two days. You’re dismissed.”
Achan’s jaw dropped. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Achan begged Noam’s help to put salve on his back. Then he washed out his shirt and put on his stray’s tunic. He took a knife from the kitchens and went to the river to shave.
He knelt on the bank and leaned over to see his reflection. The sky was cloudy, so all he could see was a dark blob. Still, he scraped the blade over his cheeks again and again, trying to cut the hairs. He’d never seen a man shave and had no idea how to go about it. He jerked each time the blade nicked him, and cut himself more than his stubble. In the end his cheeks not only still felt prickly, but he’d drawn blood in several places. He tried again. Eventually he gave up and stalked to Gren’s cottage.