To look at him, you'd never know that a few days ago he had been scrambling desperately up a goat trail, covered in dust, face swathed in bandages. In fact, it was impossible to picture him scrambling up a goat trail. It was impossible to picture him in any sort of setting but this one.
She even felt a little embarrassed at having spied on him like that, as if she had used the mirror to watch him in his private rooms. He would hate it if he knew; no one who created a facade like his wanted anyone ever to see him at less than perfection — even though she had watched him demonstrating a high order of cleverness and skill.
He was, of course, oblivious to her thoughts. Instead, he offered her a single flower with a little bit of a flourish. It was one she wasn't familiar with, about the size of the first joint of her thumb, a creamy white color, with five ruffled petals around a tiny pink heart.
A spicy scent wafted up to her from it, and she felt her eyes widening in delight. The scent was not familiar, either, and she thought she knew every meadow flower that there was. "Thank you!" she said, taking the curiously shaped little white flower with the scent that was all out of proportion to its size.
"What is this?"
"To tell the truth, Princess, I have no idea." He chuckled a little, his lids dropping down over his eyes to give him a slightly sleepy and very relaxed expression. "There was a woman in the flower market selling them. No one paid any special attention to her or her flowers, so I assume they are common, but I never encountered a scent like that before, and I thought you might like it. She assured me that one small flower will dispense its perfume all night long."
Rosamund slipped the stem in among the laces of her bodice. "Thank you for thinking of me," she said. "I prefer scented flowers that are not so showy to scentless ones that produce enormous blossoms. The trouble with many of the lovely flowers in the Royal Garden is that they have no scent. The plantings were established in my great-grandfather's time, and I would dearly love to remove some of them for choices of my own. But I'm not supposed to ask for change, or the chief gardener will get into a huff and sulk for days, which, apparently, is a disaster."
There was an odd moment, like a flicker of chill across his face, that startled her.What did I say to strike a nerve? she wondered, but then as quickly as it had come, the expression passed and she could not be certain it had ever been there at all. How strange...what on earth could that have meant? Was he a gardener in disguise? Was he under the impression that even a gardener could intimidate her? Did he not approve? Did he think that a ruler should have absolute power over servants? Did he think her weak? Did he not understand she was joking?
"How often we are the slaves to our own servants," he said lightly. "Or perhaps, slave to custom. There are probably good reasons for what seems like a ridiculous condition. Perhaps the beds are so well established that removing the plantings would take an enormous amount of effort and ruin the design of the garden for a decade." He waved a hand in the air. "I am merely maundering and getting far from the subject I wished to broach to you. I was wondering if, now that there are fewer of us, I might challenge you to a game or two of cards in the evening? Not just with me, of course, but with whoever happens to wish to play. It would be a little more mentally challenging than walking around and around the gardens, as enchanting as they are." There was a certain sharp look to his gaze, as if he expected her to refuse, and intended to persuade her.
However, she was perfectly willing to agree without the persuasion. Of course, she wasn't going to let him know that. That would spoil the game. "I think that might be arranged," she replied noncommittally. "I will see what I can do."
He bowed again, at just the right moment, and backed away. As always, he did everything at just the right moment. She wondered how he did it, even as she moved on to other guests. But from time to time, as the scent of that little ruffled flower came to her nose, she smiled.
While Rosa circulated among the Princes, Lily and Jimson were plumbing ideas for the next contest. All the windows to the Queen's chambers stood wide-open to catch every hint of breeze that there was, for now that there were not so many suitors, the sound of distant conversation was far less than the drone of a few bees.
It wasn't a question of being able to stage contests — it was a question of having one that everyone could complete. Like the famous knot-puzzle that had been "solved" by a slash of a sword, it wouldn't serve anything to have one man finish the task in a way that left all the others sitting on their proverbial thumbs. And there was the matter of what they were going to test.
"What about intelligence?" said Jimson. "We don't need to stage every contest in public. And not that the first two tests didn't require intelligence, but I was thinking of solving something that is more obviously a problem. Something that requires logic and analysis and thinking."
Lily nodded and fanned herself with a sandalwood fan as she reclined on the cool satin of her favorite divan from this room. Since there was no one but Jimson and the servants to see her, she had rid herself of the overpowering weight of the gown and petticoats and corset, and was in a light and frothy wrap designed to be bearable for summer. It was getting very warm now; Midsummer Day was almost on them. "Well, there's the old classic of separating different sorts of grains or seeds," she suggested. "And that can be done in all sorts of ways. If you have animals to help, if you have magic, and if you are clever enough to get sieves with holes of three sizes."
"Yes, but that doesn't require intelligence," Jimson countered. "Cleverness, ingenuity or resources, but not intelligence."
"Thurman was intelligent — oh!" She suddenly remembered a puzzle that Thurman had set her, and how much the late King had loved logic and riddles. "I think I have it!" She chuckled. "I think our Princes are not going to like it much, however. And we won't have to set aside anything other than a room."
Today, when the contest had been announced, everyone had been afire to find out what it was. When they were all ushered into the ballroom — a ballroom that had been refurnished with thirty-one desks or tables and chairs — no one had quite believed what the trial was going to be.
But when each of them was presented with a pen, a fat stack of foolscap, and a set of written pages — Well it was clear that the contest was going to involve something that brawn could not compensate for. Siegfried stared at the first lines on the first page of the stack of paper he had been given. At least it was in a language he could read. His own. That alone was amazing.
A farmer is standing on one bank of a river, with a fox, a chicken and a bag of grain. He needs to get to the other side of the river, taking the fox, the chicken and the grain with him. However, the boat used to cross the river is only large enough to carry the farmer and one of the things he needs to take with him, so he will need to make several trips in order to get everything across. In addition, he cannot leave the fox unattended with the chicken, or else the fox will eat the chicken; and he cannot leave the chicken unattended with the grain, or else the chicken will eat the grain. The fox is not particularly partial to grain, and may be left alone with it. How can he get everything across the river without anything being eaten?