For one of the Suleviae, a mortal aspect of the Trifold Goddess, no lover could take primacy over duty, and every affair must be weighed for political consequence. Was this straightforward attraction, or did Prince Gustav think to gain some advantage? What cost to Prytennia in a night’s pleasure with the Lord Protector of the realm’s nearest neighbour? Should rumours that the Prince was close to an engagement with France’s Princess Heloise be taken into account?
A lifetime of questions like that made ten years of remembering not to eat strawberries seem…not trivial, but manageable.
Whatever the case, Princess Leodhild seemed to at least be listening as the pair disappeared around the curve of the stair. Rian looked away, and caught Lyle in the same motion. The Alban offered her a conspiratorial grin.
“My professional duties fortunately have limits.”
“Corralling a tom cat would be quite an accomplishment, besides,” Rian murmured.
“He’s usually a little more circumspect,” Lyle said. “But, ah—” Colour touched the Alban’s cheeks, his professional poise lost for an instant.
“But it’s Prytennia?” Unperturbed, Rian shrugged. “Foreign notions of propriety are unlikely to diminish Princess Leodhild.”
“Of course not.” Lyle looked around the clearing crowd, and Rian realised he was checking on Evelyn Carstairs, caught up with First Minister Aquila. “Arianne…Dama Seaforth, could I speak to you privately for a moment?”
Curious, since the man’s serious tone didn’t seem to suggest an imminent proposition, Rian led him to the Bound’s day room, testing her ability to find it. The gale beat against the still-closed shutters. No-one at dinner had discussed the persistence and increasing strength of this latest windstorm, but Rian doubted it had been far from anyone’s mind.
“I am not—” Lyle began, then shook his head, tugging at the high collar of his shirt. “I mean no disrespect to Lord Msrah, who is an exemplary man, but, ah, there must be something I can do to help. Will you allow me to speak to the Prince on your behalf?”
At a loss as to what business she might have with a Swedish Prince, Rian tilted her head, studying the young Alban. He was wonderful to look at, the cheekbones matched by a fine physique. And a picture of earnest solemnity.
“I see.” Rian smiled. “You’re wanting to rescue me.”
“To offer at least some possibility of an alternative. We have wonderful schools in Alba. And Prince Gustav would almost certainly take great delight in scoring a point against vampirism in circumstances that don’t impact Sweden’s current overtures to Prytennia. I’m sure you’ve thought about this deeply already, but—ah, I can’t not say something, can’t not offer. Blood service is…is…even if it’s possible to reconcile people agreeing to be treated as cattle, there’s so much more to it than a business exchange. The fact that the Lord Nomarch chooses not to exercise the control the bond gives him doesn’t make it any less real.”
“You’re the second person to say something of the sort to me since I came to Sheerside.” Though the young man from the library hadn’t been offering alternatives. “You tried to talk Evelyn out of this as well, didn’t you?”
“I almost destroyed our friendship trying to change his mind.” Lyle sighed, and sat down at the piano, absently tracing the curved wood hiding the keys. “To give his parents credit, they sent him to Alba deliberately, to allow him to experience a life that didn’t revolve entirely around a vampire. But how could a few years erase all the time spent learning this place was normal? You understand that beyond Msrah—that a thing that is far more than a polite and urbane…that it’s a human shape with—and it will be literally living inside you—!” He shuddered.
Rian found herself a seat. “I don’t find that aspect particularly horrifying,” she said. “Medicine has been teaching us that a great many things live inside us, after all. Evelyn certainly seems to have taken no harm from it.”
“Even so, I’m right to believe you would not choose this life for yourself, am I not?”
“I wouldn’t be here if not for my brother’s death, no. And there’s some parts I expect to find challenging. But this is a measured choice, not one of desperation.” Rian paused, then added: “My mother shared some of your discomfort. She didn’t visit a Thoth-den her entire life, because the idea of vampire blood inside her—even if it was healing her—turned her stomach. We always went to the nearest Daughter of Lakshmi if we were ill. That advantages me now, because I’m one of the increasingly small number of Prytennians harbouring no trace of any of the symbiont lines, but mother died before she was forty, of something a Thoth-den could easily have corrected.”
“I’ve never been sick enough to need blood treatment, but I wouldn’t hesitate if it meant my life, so the symbiont itself isn’t enough to turn me away from blood service. The danger, the Bond, and the…accompanying sensations are larger hurdles, but I’m satisfied with Lord Msrah’s reputation. I think the hardest thing for me will be staying in the one place, and the length of the contract. I’m used to a lot more freedom. Though, pragmatically speaking, three children have already changed that.”
“They’ll be everywhere soon,” Lyle murmured. “Rome is considering officially allowing vampires within the New Republic’s borders, instead of simply turning a blind eye to those already there. Sweden allows their phials and potions. Even Alba!”
Rian glanced at Lyle’s left wrist. He wasn’t wearing long, cross-laced Prytennian cuffs, but instead sported thistle-stamped cufflinks. He grimaced in response and shifted his hand so she could see the image of a bird’s wing hovering below the surface of the skin.
“Yes, how two-faced can I be, to eat at a vampire’s table, use the vampires’ protections, but want to rescue you and Evelyn?”
The wing was a visual indication that Lyle had taken a Dose, temporarily preventing himself from fathering children. Like Rome, Sweden still did not allow vampires within its borders, but vampiric medical knowledge and, lately, their vaccinations, cures, and particularly the Dose, had been permitted and widely taken up. Many months of hot debate had been spent on the fine hypocrisy of forbidding vampires, but using a derivative of their blood.
“In a hundred years there won’t be a village on this planet that doesn’t have its own parasite,” Lyle continued miserably. “Keeping the herd healthy.”
“And all of us carrying a tiny trace of monster?” Rian contemplated the possibility that she could live to see that future, if she chose to stay in Msrah’s service. “Given I can name at least three countries where vampires literally cannot set foot, you can be sure some of the herd will remain, ah, undomesticated. And while I appreciate the gesture, Lyle, I’m not looking to be rescued.”
He shook his head, then summoned a smile. “Of course not. Forgive my departure into melodrama. My sister tells me it’s my greatest weakness: always seeing the worst in the things that make me uncomfortable.”
“Listening to your instincts isn’t such a bad thing,” Rian said, standing. “Goodnight, Lyle.”
Leaving him with a nod, Rian traced her way back to her room. It did not matter that the Alban had apparently detected a level of reluctance in her. It was true enough that she wouldn’t choose this life, but she needed to be pragmatic about housing and schooling three children.
And it was a small price to pay for Aedric.
THREE