He was much as I remembered him, sweet-faced, rather feminine-looking, though he now had a little gray beard and moustache to cover his gentle mouth and a little tummy to cover his gemmed belt. He was considerably fatter, much softer looking, much, much older. His eyelids made sad little swags of wrinkled flesh, hiding his eyes.
She was taller than he, very regal, very handsome, with a strange, exotic beauty, like a tiger. No. More like a serpent. Sleek. Also deadly. Her hair was dark, rising from a widow’s peak to make a double bow of her forehead, a line completed by her pointed chin to make a narrow heart shape. She wore a close fitting gown of blood-colored damask. Her face could have been twenty-five, her body younger yet. Her eyes were several hundred. I thought of Queen Mab and knew that what I saw was not what was really there, then I carefully blanked out that thought and assumed the much excited smile of an elderly woman who was, oh, gracious mercy, right here in the room with royalty and all.
They came up to us. I curtsied. Lord, how long had it been since I had curtsied? My old bones barely made it. Giles bowed. He did it very nicely. He’d had more practice than I, so much was obvious. The chamberlain announced the names we had given. Lady Lavender of Westfaire. Sir Giles of Sawley. It no longer mattered what people called me. Beauty. Dorothy. Catherine. Lavender. I’ll be borrowing Aunt Comfrey’s name next. Though I had no sure reason why, I urgently did not want this woman to know who I really was. Or what I really was.
“We are pleased to welcome you to Marvella,” said the Prince. His wrinkled eyelids rose, exposing his tender soul. Like a quivering oyster.
“We are greatly pleased to be so charmingly welcomed,” I murmured. “We had not expected such hospitality.”
“We have so few visitors,” purred the Princess. “So little news of the outside world.” She looked me up and down, noting the good though plain fabric of my gown—one of those I’d had made in Bristol before we left—the simplicity of my wimple and veil. I knew how I looked. Inoffensive. Her eyes cleared. I was an acceptable dinner guest and nothing to worry about. She gave Giles a quick look and dismissed him, as well. Too old, her eyes said. Not worth the effort.
I felt his hand tremble on my arm. He had caught her look, and it angered him. Well, it had angered me, as well.
We were seated near the middle of the long table, guests but not honored guests. So much the better. I would not have enjoyed conversing with the Princess. Or with the Prince. We ate a salmi of duckling, fresh fruit, roast venison, bananas (grown, so the Prince said, in the conservatory), salad, river salmon, and finally a soup of almonds and chicken and lemons. I asked my table companion to my left, an aged baron, if dinners in Marvella always ended with soup and was told that they did. “Always with something warm and liquid, to fill any holes previously unfilled, my dear.” I remembered a dinner I had eaten when I was young, in Chinanga, with Don Masimiliano. Had that been any less real than this?
We drank wine. I watered mine and kicked Giles, on my right, until he watered his. My left-hand companion was watching me closely, and I murmured something about no longer having the head for wine we had had in our younger years. He was as white headed as I, so we talked about that.
“I’ve outlived all my generation,” he mumbled. “Charme’s father, Prince William, was younger than I by a couple of years, but I outlived my half brother.”
I had heard his name and title, but had not made the connection. “You’re His Highness’s uncle,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize …”
“Nothing to realize. Uncles don’t count for much. Especially half uncles. Prince William was my younger half brother. Our mother was a widow when she married Charme’s grandfather, Prince Enrico. No, no,” he waved the young squire away who was trying to pour more wine into his cup. “Go give it to the Prince, he needs it worse than I.”
I decided to risk it. “I met the His Highness’s parents. Years ago, in England.”
“During the Usurpation,” he nodded, putting a capital letter on it. “The usurper was my older brother, Richard. Richard and I were never in the line of succession, but Richard liked to pretend to have royal blood. Mama didn’t have that. All she had was wealth she’d inherited when our father died. We were babies when Mama married Prince Enrico. Then she bore William, the heir apparent. Richard and I more or less grew up with William. He was the only proper heir, but after Prince Enrico died, Richard stirred up a bunch of malcontents and overthrew the throne.
“William and his wife and the boy fled to England. After they’d been gone a while, and after Richard started passing tax laws right and left, everyone here in Marvella realized what they’d allowed to happen, so they hanged Richard from a gibbet down in the market square and begged William to come home. He did, him and his wife
