As if preordained for this very moment, the soft knock at the door came once, then twice.
“Enter,” she said simply, her eyes still grazing across the field of the cloth mural.
A uniformed member of the Guard, one of two who were always stationed just outside her door wherever she might be, entered the room and bowed. “Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but the prince is outside the door, and says that you called for him.”
“Thank you, Jeffrey. Show him in,” she said. Turning to her five handmaidens, she said, “You are all dismissed for the afternoon.” Smiling at Marlene in particular, she added, “I shan’t put you through any more of my artistic ramblings today.”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” Marlene said as she began to shoo the reluctant ladies from the room. Joining the queen in her quiet time was always one of the best ways to catch up on the palace gossip, and the very subject of that gossip was about to enter the room. None of them, including Marlene, really wanted to leave.
The senior handmaiden leaned in toward the queen, a knowing smile on her face. “You realize, of course, the position you now put me in,” she said teasingly. “For the next two days they will all hound me mercilessly for any news of the prince that might come my way.”
Morganna smiled back at her friend and confidante of so many years. “He has been so busy getting into trouble lately, I wouldn’t know where to begin even if I chose to tell you.”
Marlene winked knowingly and curtsied, then turned to hustle the remaining handmaidens out of the room like a mother hen trying to retain control of her wandering brood of chicks. They all curtsied as they passed the prince, and the queen watched her son bow to them and smile courteously. The younger of the handmaidens twittered and blushed. Morganna shook her head and raised a knowing eyebrow at Shailiha. It was always the same.
Despite his choice in clothing and the fact that he was again dirty from head to toe, the queen smiled with pride. Regardless of his recent misbehavior, she loved this one more than her life. Shailiha had always been the stable one, the obedient one, the respectful one, but Tristan had always been her favorite, right or wrong. Over the last two days he seemed to have developed a more mature and commanding demeanor, and after hearing about his adventures, she knew why.
She walked up and embraced him, kissing him upon his right cheek.
“Sit down, Tristan,” she said, “and I will have some tea sent in.” She motioned him to a small but elegant sitting area that faced two very large, open, stained-glass windows, from which could be seen the Eutracian countryside.
Before sitting down, Tristan reached up to her cheek and used the underside of his thumb to wipe away a small smudge that he had left there. He had rushed to change and wash—he must have missed some dirt on his cheek. “The queen mustn’t be seen like this,” he said, smiling into the eyes he loved so much. “The palace wags will talk. And given the fact that I have already supplied them with so much lately to talk about, let’s not give them any more.”
He turned to Shailiha with a look that he hoped would garner him some sympathy, but his sister simply smiled back cattily, enjoying his discomfort. He playfully narrowed his eyes. “I suppose you’re here because you want to be,” he whispered. “As for me, I’d rather face one of Wigg’s interminable lectures in the Wizards’ Conservatory than take tea, even if it is with the two of you.”
Morganna, her attention once again upon the tapestry, said, “Why don’t the two of you go out on the balcony? I shall join you when the tea arrives. Besides, I want to get this dark area repaired, before I lose the light.”
Tristan, with his sister in tow, begrudgingly walked to the stained-glass balcony doors and opened them wide. After watching his sister gently lower herself into one of the high-backed upholstered chairs, he sat in one next to her, crossed his long legs, and looked out to the tranquil scene below.
Still looking out over the balcony, he whispered, “Are you going to tell me, or shall I have to command one of the wizards to torture it out of you?”
Shailiha looked over to his sharp profile to find a look of playful nastiness on his face.
“Tell you what?” she asked. She bit her upper lip to keep from smiling, obviously having trouble controlling either the urge to reveal a secret or her enjoyment of his discomfort, or both. The prince thought it was both.
Behind him, he heard his mother call for Jeffrey.
“Yes, Your Highness?” the guard asked.
“Please send for tea and scones for three,” she said simply.
“Yes, Your Highness,” the short reply came.
“I really don’t want any tea, Mother,” the prince said over his shoulder in his most apologetic manner. Tristan hated the idea of taking tea, of sitting around holding dainty china in the air while eating with the points of his teeth and pretending to be polite to the kinds of people who generally attended such things—even if those people were, in this case, only his sister and mother.
“Then don’t drink any,” the queen called with a laugh. “Besides, the reason I asked for the two of you to meet me in private wasn’t really about having tea.”
Tristan felt something inside of him slip a little. I’m probably due for another of their talks regarding the last couple of days, he reflected glumly. What could my mother say to me that all of the others already have not? He sat patiently next to his teasing sister for as long as he could without saying anything more, but eventually he simply had to ask.
“You know why we’re here, don’t you?” He looked conspiratorially into Shailiha’s eyes, begging for a clue.
Shailiha’s expression changed slightly, from one of mischief to one of affection. “Yes,” she whispered back. “I never could keep a secret from you, and you know it. I do indeed know why we are here, but that is for Mother to say, not me.” She cast her eyes down and rubbed her hand across her unborn. Suddenly, her hazel eyes flew open.
“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked quickly.
“Nothing, really.” Shailiha smiled. “She just kicked. She has been doing rather a lot of that lately.”
“She?” Tristan asked.
“Oh, yes,” Shailiha said softly. “My baby is a girl. I just know it. Don’t ask me how, but for some time I have sensed that it will be a girl, with blond hair like mother and me. And green eyes like Frederick’s, of course.”
“Tristan,” she then softly asked, looking a bit more seriously into his face. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course,” he replied. “Anything—you know that. I always have, and I always will.”
She reached out to take his hand, and before he could comment or pull it back she placed it lightly upon her abdomen, where hers had been only a moment before. As if Shailiha could command it, the baby kicked, and Tristan jumped back a little in surprise. I have never before felt life within another, he realized. Somehow it makes the fact that she is pregnant just that much more real.
“I placed your hand there for a reason, Brother,” she said softly.
“And that is?”
“To show you that the consequences of one’s action have very real effects upon the lives of others, as Father tried in his own way to tell you in the room below the palace. I do not say these things simply to drive home the painful points that Father made before, but to tell you that I believe I am the only person in the world who truly understands you. I hope and pray with all of my heart that you will heed that which your family has told you.” She smiled softly into his eyes as she searched her mind for the proper analogy. “This kingdom is about to become yours, and you must grasp it firmly, yet tenderly, the way a man would hold the woman he loves most, never letting her go.”