“You were not unwell when I sent her away,” Qes said, still kneeling, looking at the floor. “And that afternoon she sent gifts, which I refused.”
I hadn’t been listening to the servants’ gossip for nearly a month for nothing. “You insulted Varoshtej’s wife in my name.”
“My princess would be within her rights to have me whipped, or even killed.”
“You know I would never do that.”
“I know nothing of the sort, my lady.” That was the Qes I knew.
But I was still puzzled. “Why? The noble Varoshtej loves the prince. Wouldn’t it be better to get along with his wives?”
“The noble Varoshtej loves himself,” said Qes sharply. “No one else has tried to visit you, no one else understands yet what your situation is. For now they wait, and watch.”
I didn’t think I understood myself what my situation was. “But Varoshtej’s wife…get up, I can’t talk to you like that.” She rose, and I continued. “Varoshtej’s wife wants to know if I’m a threat to her husband.” I remembered the conversation I had overheard weeks ago, between Atehatsqe and Varoshtej. How would his wife interpret his attitude towards me? Would she imagine that I might deliberately undermine her husband’s influence with Atehatsqe? “The king can only delay Varoshtej’s eventually becoming king’s priest,” I said, thinking of the plots and subtle slanders that so absorbed my servants. “But I might conceivably prevent it altogether.” Qes still said nothing, and I thought there was a piece I wasn’t seeing. I shook my head. “I have no intention of meddling in Varoshtej’s affairs. How do I make his wife understand that?”
“She won’t understand,” said Qes. “If she were in your place she would leave nothing she could reach untouched. She will have her ambitions gratified soon enough; she might have the grace to leave you be. If I see her again, I will slap her.”
“You would have your hand cut off,” I said. “I don’t think I could prevent it.”
“I am a woman, and a slave,” Qes said, “but even I have pride.”
I looked down at the gold plate in front of me. I had to finish the bread and the last of the fruit to keep my agreement with the doctor, but the thought of eating it made my throat close up. I didn’t understand the source of Qes’ anger. “Don’t slap Varoshtej’s wife. Please.”
“As my lady wishes.”
A servant came bowing into the room. “My lady’s bath is ready.”
“The princess is still breakfasting,” said Qes, and the servant fluttered away.
“The princess,” I said, a thought having just occurred to me, “doesn’t want to wear a dress. Or cosmetics. Or jewelry.” If I could have Qes whipped or killed, surely I could order my own wardrobe.
“The queen has commanded my lady’s presence this morning.”
“And it won’t do to insult the queen,” I guessed.
“It certainly will not,” said Qes firmly.
The queen’s courtyard was larger than mine, and cooler, but she sat in a bare room with only one chair. When I entered she sent the servants away and then stared at me impassively. She was younger than I’d expected — certainly younger than my mother — and she was still very pretty. She’d dressed relatively plainly, and wore less jewelry than I did. My servants had dressed me as though I were going into battle and my jewelry was armor, which perhaps it was. I wondered for a moment what that meant about the queen. One day she will bow to you, Qes had said. Don’t throw this in her face. As I waited for her to speak I realized that she meant to give me no opportunity to do that.
“I had intended never to set eyes on you,” she said after a long silence. “When I heard what had happened, I hoped that you would die on the road to Therete.”
This was not the polite, indirect conversation that I had become accustomed to from the gossip of the servants.
“But it wouldn’t have made any difference,” she continued, “There is no cheating the gods.”
“I don’t understand, Highness.”
“You are an imbecile.”
“A what?” My vocabulary was improving, but still had gaps.
“An idiot. A fool!” Loud enough to startle a servant into the room. The queen waved her out with a curt gesture. “You end the curse!” she said, her voice bitter. “There is only one way, short of your miraculously sprouting a womb.”
“I still don’t understand.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If my son has no children, how will the curse be ended?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.”
She looked away from me and down. “I wish there were no gods.”
“So do I.”
She looked up, her face impassive again. “Well. There is nothing for it but to make the best of what we have. Sit!”
Before I could decide if she meant me to sit on the floor, a servant appeared with a chair. I sat.
“Your mother? Where is she?”
“She went back to her tribe, Highness.”
“They accepted her?”
“Of course.”
“She is fortunate in that, at least.” More servants appeared, with a table and the familiar tray of sweets. “Perhaps I will write to her. You are too thin. Eat.”
“Excuse me, Highness, I’ve just had breakfast.”
“That was an hour ago, and besides you didn’t finish,” the queen said. I blinked, astonished. Surely trivial gossip didn’t move with such speed?
Or else…I had never thought to wonder where my servants had come from. Were they from this household? And had it been by Atehatsqe’s request, or the queen’s offer? I thought of Qes’ anger for Varoshtej, and of her waiting to tell me the Queen wished to see me until after she’d told me about her insult to Varoshtej’s wife.
I took a sweet from the tray and the queen relaxed visibly. “My son has given you property,” she said, not a question.
“Yes.” Three villages, one of them a fishing community on the coast. What they produced that I or my servants didn’t eat was sold in the market, Qes had told me, and the money was mine.
“I certainly hope you’re better at investing than embroidery,” she said, and then lectured me for an hour on farm management.
They finally found a priest, a royal cousin who was either sufficiently dutiful or sufficiently extortable. The whole city took an intense interest in his installment. When a mouse ran across his foot and startled him into pausing during a necessary recitation, forcing him to repeat the previous two days of ceremony, my servants interrupted my bath to bring me the news. There had been no public declaration, but I doubt there was anyone in the city who wasn’t aware of the moment he entered the temple precinct and climbed to the tower where the god waited.
He was inside for a long time, nearly an entire day. When he finally came out, he went straight to the palace and presented himself to the king.
I had never cared particularly what the Lord of the Sky had or had not said to the king’s priests. Since that day in the ashes of my father’s house, I hadn’t cared about anything but my own misery and I had never looked up and around me to understand sufficiently what I had been involved in. It was now that I began to see just what the stakes were, just what the queen had meant when she said there was only one way to end the curse, and why she had been so bitter towards me. And, perhaps, why she had relented somewhat.
Gods didn’t lie, not without paying the price. But men might. The king, whose life and power depended on Artej Ehat’s support, could only learn the god’s will through intermediaries. If those intermediaries weren’t absolutely loyal…
I wondered just how long the king of Therete had been nursing that fear. How long he had been searching for the smallest signs of disloyalty, searching so hard that he found them where they’d never existed.