‘Of course,’ Sister Galina said.
The circumstances were of course extremely fucking awkward. The Princess Crown Royal was publicly betrothed to the Grand Duke of Varnburg, young as he was, and yet here she was receiving the much older son of a provincial knight, and in her personal chambers, no less. I had to be there to act as chaperone and protector of propriety every bit as much as these nuns did. Even so, I dreaded to think what the Dowager Grand Duchess was going to say about this if she ever got wind of their meeting.
We were shown into a magnificent drawing room, even more opulent than the late Prince Consort’s had been. I wondered if this had been the room in which Ailsa had slapped the Princess Crown Royal.
‘Do please take a seat,’ Sister Galina said, and she waved Billy and me into chairs beside which were set low tables laden with sweetmeats and jugs of fruit juice and bottles of wine and brandy, plates and glasses. ‘Please, help yourself to the comforts offered.’
I poured myself a glass of brandy and sipped it slowly. Billy took nothing, for all that he wasn’t usually one to turn down food. The lad was nervous, I realised, and under the circumstances I could hardly blame him.
She entered a moment later, on the arm of yet another nun. The Princess Crown Royal wore a dark-red gown, somewhat less formal than those I had seen her in before, and black lace gloves. Even so, I could see the blistered burns on her fingers as she extended one hand towards the nuns. Billy and I both stood and bowed to her as protocol dictated, but neither of us spoke. Sister Galina hastily poured a glass of fruit juice and put it in the princess’ waiting hand before giving her a low curtsey.
‘Highness,’ she all but whispered, and I could hear the reverence in her tone.
‘He shines,’ the princess said, and a slow smile curved her painted doll’s mouth. ‘This boy, he shines.’
It came to me then that she was looking at Billy in the way that twelve-year-old girls often look at fifteen-year-old lads, and I didn’t like it. Her betrothed had only ten years to him, so I doubted she had ever looked at him like that. I didn’t like it one little bit, or what it might portend.
‘Highness,’ I said, and bowed once more. ‘It is an honour to see you again.’
‘Sir . . . Tomas,’ she said, and I was surprised that she had remembered my name. Or perhaps she had been reminded of it just before the meeting, of course, which I supposed was much more likely. ‘A pleasure.’
She turned back to Billy then, ignoring me completely, and cocked her head to one side as she studied him.
‘Your Highness,’ Billy said awkwardly.
He plainly didn’t know what to say, and there I felt for him. I had to admit that I didn’t either. Neither of us were used to being in the apartments of princesses.
‘Will you play shining games with me?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I have no real friends, and my maids are so fragile I fear I keep breaking them. I am only trying to make them pretty, but it never works.’
‘If you like,’ Billy said, and suddenly he grinned. ‘Do you know how to draw with the lights?’
‘Lights?’ the princess asked. ‘I don’t know what you mean, boy.’
‘It’s easy,’ Billy said. ‘You just do this. I often do this, to keep myself amused when I can’t sleep at night.’
He looked towards the fireplace, and a mote of light began to dance in the cold grate. It was followed a moment later by a second and then a third and then more, until there were a score or more dancing points of light floating in the shadows. They slowly changed colour from white to red to blue to green, swirling and dancing in an intricate pattern.
The princess clapped her gloved, burned hands in delight.
‘More!’ she demanded.
Billy concentrated until he had conjured maybe a hundred or more specks of light. He began to make shapes out of them, human figures and fabulous beasts, forever changing colour and shifting in an endless dance. Two of the figures began to fight, and the princess squealed with joy.
‘You try,’ Billy said.
She dropped her untouched glass of fruit juice on the floor and fixed him with a savage stare.
‘Me?’ she demanded. ‘How can I try? This is witchcraft. It is wicked and it is entertaining, but do you dare suggest that I am a witch, boy? I am a princess!’
‘You shine,’ Billy said flatly, as sticky juice soaked into the priceless Alarian carpet beneath the princess’ velvet slippers.
‘Oh, I do,’ she said, and the rage left her as quickly as it had come. ‘Sometimes I shine so bright I keep myself awake at night. Bright at night, that rhymes. Bright at night. If the doctor is late with my medicine I shine so bright I can hardly see for the light. That rhymes. Bright light. But that is different. I shine because I am a queen. I struggle to contain it all. Sometimes I feel like I will shine so bright it will consume me. My mother shone like a star, and she was a queen and now she is dead. That is what queens do. We shine and then we die.’
I swallowed, and glanced at Billy. He had a deeply concerned look on his too-tight face now, and he was looking at her. I got the distinct impression he was really looking at her, with the cunning. I had no understanding of what was going on, but Billy’s expression alone was enough to tell me that it was nothing good.
‘How do you play shining games, Highness?’ I asked her.
She turned and looked at me, and for a moment I thought that it may have been a mistake to speak.
Then she laughed.
‘Like a queen,’ she said. ‘Queens give commands, and things happen. Fire, light!’ she
