***
The atmosphere of the Council Chamber this afternoon was unwontedly subdued. Usually there had been at least three arguments by this time, and the kinds of icy, polite catcalling that made people who were not used to Council debates blanch and wonder if a duel was about to break out. Today, however, was different. The atmosphere hadn’t been so edgily cordial since the first, tentative sessions after Selenay’s coronation. Around the horseshoe-shaped, heavy wooden table not a voice had been raised. The representatives of the Bardic, Heraldic, and Healer Circles, in their red, white, and green uniforms respectively, had been extremely quiet, as had the Lord Marshal’s Herald and the Seneschal’s Herald, and of course, her own, the Queen’s Own Herald, Talamir.
As for the rest—well, they had been nervous. They didn’t really know her, although she had been in their midst all of her life. They were her father’s Council, really, not hers. They were his friends, advisers, and peers, and none of them had expected to serve her at all, much less so quickly. So they often argued and battled among themselves, as if she wasn’t even there, or was no more than a token place holder.
Except on the rare occasions when what they wished to do was going to have to involve her. Then they generally acted as they did today; becoming very quiet, and rather nervous. These elder statesmen and women were apparently unaware that they gave themselves away, acting as they did.
Queen Selenay knew why they were nervous, of course. They didn’t know she knew, which might have been funny under other circumstances. In the throne that had been her father’s, with the chair at her right hand empty, Selenay watched her Councilors behaving as if they were good little schoolchildren debating beneath the strict disciplinarian eye of their teacher.
This was, of course, because they were shortly going to unite in a totally uncharacteristic burst of single-mindedness and do their level best to force their Queen to do something she had no intention of doing whatsoever.
Marry. Worse than that, to marry someone they, not she, had chosen. The potential candidates were as sad a collection as nightmare could have conjured. The youngest was ten, the oldest ninety. Among them were a number of young men, but even these were impossible. Some she had heartily detested from the moment she’d met them, others she didn’t even know, and from their reputations, had no desire to know. A very few might be reasonable fellows, some were pleasant enough company on a casual basis, but that was no reason to marry any of them. Some were even Heralds, or at least, Trainees—but the Heralds all had lives of their own that she was not a part of, and as for Trainees—well, they seemed like mere infants to her now.
Her Councilors, however, did not see it that way.
It hadn’t been like this when her father had sat in this throne, but Sendar had ruled as well as reigned. She reigned, but only the backing of the Heralds made it possible for her to command much of anything. She knew that; she had expected it from the moment she took the Crown. She was much too young to be a Queen, much too young to command the respect of men and women old enough to be her parents. Not even the white uniform proclaiming her a full Herald managed to gain her that respect.
Well, there were ways around that. But she was getting weary of the artful dodges, of setting her words in the mouths of others, and she had not even reigned a year. And these marriage plans were more than a mere inconvenience; they were an attack on her autonomy. Her good Councilors would not be happy with a mere Prince Consort. They wanted a King.
She tapped her index finger idly on the stack of papers just under her right hand, and smiled a grim little smile. Her Councilors—the non-Heraldic ones, anyway—were not aware that she had come prepared for this afternoon’s meeting. She knew what every man and woman around the table was about to put forward, for not all of them had been close-mouthed about it, and Talamir had gotten wind of it and let her know what was planned. That had given her ample time to prepare for what they were about to unleash on her. They had no idea that she had come forewarned and forearmed.
For that matter, other than Talamir and Elcarth, she wasn’t sure the other Heralds at the Council table were aware that she’d been engaged in laying the groundwork to defend her freedom.
It was nothing less that she had done, for her Councilors were determined that she should not reign alone—and each and every one of them had a particular candidate to place in the running, sometimes more than one. All of them, of course, with the best interests of the Kingdom foremost in their minds, or so, at least, they would tell themselves. Of course, every candidate would have blood ties or ties of obligation to the Councilor who put him forward, but never mind that. They would put such things out of their minds, telling themselves that they were doing this for Valdemar, and not for any selfish reasons. There was no Heir! Selenay had been an only child, and the Crown now rested on her fragile head alone! She must marry, and produce children, quickly!
Of course, if the chosen spouse happened to be helpful to friends and families, well. . . .
Every one of them had given over whatever disputes they had to settle on that list of potential Consorts, arguing and trading without any consideration for what she wanted, until they had mutually agreed on enough men that if they couldn’t bully her into taking one, they could wear her down until she agreed out of exhaustion.
When Talamir told her what the plans were, Selenay had gone straight to Herald-Chronicler-Second Myste, who was surely the only person in Haven who had the esoteric knowledge to help her out of the trap. And although she had not really expected a great deal of sympathy from Myste, the Herald had amazed her by reacting with indignation to the plans.
“By Keronos!” Myste had exclaimed, her eyes behind the thick lenses of her spectacles going narrow with speculation. “That’s obscene! You haven’t been Queen a year, girl! Shouldn’t they at least wait until you’ve settled, and gotten comfortable with your place?”
“Apparently not,” Selenay had replied, seething with anger. “And apparently none of them want to see a foreigner brought in as Consort either—or at least, they don’t seem to have taken much thought about that particular possibility. Insane, I’d call it. Not that I particularly want a foreign Consort, but Father used to have serious talks with me about the possibility of needing to cement a foreign alliance with a marriage.”
“Idiots,” Myste had muttered under her breath, pushing her lenses up on her nose. “The hand of a Queen’s too damned valuable to waste. What if, as your father said, we need an alliance?”
“What if we just need to keep five or six princes dangling on promises?” Selenay had countered. “And besides—”
She didn’t add the “besides,” which was that she wanted to be able to love her husband, not merely tolerate being in the same room with him. Myste probably guessed it, for she’d given Selenay a shrewd look, but she hadn’t said anything, except: “Well, if they haven’t got the sense to see past their own interests, it’s up to some of the rest of us to see to it that they can’t meddle.”
And Myste had outdone herself on the Queen’s behalf, spending every spare moment locked away with dusty law and record books going back generations. The result was the pile of neatly-written papers under Selenay’s hand.