“Sorry,” Mylla said in a low voice, following Tasia’s gaze to where the guard stood a few yards away.
“Your Highness, my Lady,” the guard said into the silence that had followed Mylla’s mumbled apology, “would you prefer that I remain in the antechamber until I am needed?”
Tasia paused a moment. The guard must have been listening to their conversation, which Tasia didn’t like. But she had the good sense to offer Tasia and Mylla some modicum of privacy, which Tasia did like.
“Yes, actually,” Tasia said. “I would prefer that.”
The guard turned to go.
“Wait a moment, Joslyn. Have some grapes before you leave.” Tasia broke off a handful of grapes and extended them towards the guard. A peace offering. A token of appreciation.
A treat for an animal still being trained.
When Joslyn didn’t come any closer to accept the grapes, Tasia said, “They’re fresh from the vineyards just outside the city. Probably picked this morning.”
Perhaps Joslyn could be won over, just as Tasia had won over the night shift guards at the Sunfall Gate.
Joslyn shook her head. “Thank you, Princess, but I ate with Cole and His Majesty the Emperor at the noontide meal already.”
Tasia shrugged. “Suit yourself. But they are here if you change your mind.” She smiled at Joslyn and plucked a grape from the stem with her teeth.
#
“You’re going to be late, Princess,” Mylla said when she finished pinning Tasia’s second braid into a neat curl on the top of her head.
“I wouldn’t have been, except for the girl who insisted on telling me the entire raunchy adventure between herself and Willem the boring dog boy.”
Mylla grinned. “Don’t blame me. You asked for the details; I merely fulfilled your wishes. As a good handmaid is meant to do.”
Tasia caught Mylla’s eye in the mirror of the vanity. “You’re so much more than a handmaid to me,” she said, no longer teasing the girl. “You know that, don’t you?”
Mylla chuckled. “I suppose, Princess.” She placed her hands on Tasia’s shoulders, leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek. “Now hurry up, or you truly will be late. And I don’t want you telling Norix it was my fault again. Last time you were late, he stopped me in a corridor and berated me on ‘negligence in my duties’ for ten minutes.” She rolled her eyes mightily. “And stared at my breasts throughout the entire lecture, I should add.”
Tasia laughed. “That sounds like Norix. He’s hardly looked me in the eye since my twelfth birthday. Unless my nipples are actually eyes and I didn’t realize it.”
Mylla gave a mock gasp and covered her mouth. “What would your father say, if he knew?”
“He wouldn’t believe it. I don’t think my father knows or cares what a nipple is. Or what it’s for.”
“Mmm, I know what it’s for,” said Mylla, and she leaned around the Princess and dipped her head, biting at Tasia’s breast through her gown until the Princess squealed and cuffed her lightly.
“Stop that!” Tasia said through bouts of giggles. “You’ll leave a smudge on the dress and then everyone will know.”
“No one knows anything,” Mylla said tiredly, with the air of someone who had said the same words many times before. “If they did, I would have been removed from your service ages ago.”
She had a point. Tasia didn’t know what to call the relationship she had with Mylla, but she knew they’d been something more than friends for at least three years now.
“Do you think that the guard saw the contraption in the bed earlier today?” Tasia asked, keeping her voice low.
“No. And if she did, so what? I doubt nomads have enough imagination to create such a toy, let alone to guess its purpose.”
“I hope you’re right,” Tasia said.
Mylla gave an impatient sigh. “What are you still doing here? You need to get to your lessons already.”
“You’re right, of course you’re right,” Tasia said, and she hurried from the bedchamber and into the antechamber. Joslyn stood in the center of the room, alert but still, hand on the pommel of the short sword. “You’re to go everywhere that I go, correct, Guard?”
“Yes, Princess,” said the guard.
“Then you are about to enjoy your first royal tutoring session. In which we will be discussing the fascinating topic of the early history of the Empire. Come along now.”
6
The tower room where Tasia attended lessons with Wise Man Norix was at the top of a winding set of spiral stairs, one of the highest points in the entire palace. And because heat rises, and because there was only one window, narrow and high enough that Norix never opened it, the room was perpetually hot. Not the breezy kind of hot that comes from the sun beating on the face while at the beach on a summer’s day; the kind of breezeless hot that makes the air feel thick and impossibly hard to breathe. The kind of hot that traps the mingled smells of dust and sweat and old food. And the musk of wet things that had never properly dried.
The kind of hot that makes a person drowsy, that makes a person’s eyes want to automatically droop closed, almost as soon as she comes into contact with it.
“…which was when the House of Wisdom was formed, of course,” Tasia heard Norix say. His voice sounded distant, as if he were at the opposite end of the room instead of seated across the table from her.
She nodded with a head that felt twice as heavy as it normally did as she tried but failed to piece together what her tutor had just told her.
When the first Emperor came to what was now Port Lorsin… except he wasn’t an Emperor then, just as there was no House of Dorsa then… he was a barbarian… there was a great fight… the legends about the beasts who’d chased the tribe south were only that — legends, tribal myths… and there were two brothers… one thought himself a sorcerer… the one who didn’t think himself a sorcerer who killed the one who did… and that was when the House of Wisdom was formed. Of course.
“Princess Natasia,” said Norix. “Are you listening to me?”
Tasia’s chin, which had been dipping towards her chest, snapped up. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Yes, I was listening — that was when the House of Wisdom was formed.”
He peered at her, clearly displeased with his pupil. “And what were the events immediately leading up to its formation?”
She’d fallen asleep for a moment, hadn’t she? Had she heard that part? There were brothers… mythical beasts… a sorcerer… Or had she dreamed that part?
Tasia looked away from Norix, letting her gaze wander the room as if she might find the answer somewhere amongst his dusty floor-to-ceiling shelves of parchment scrolls and books, rodent skulls and maps of the known world, arrays of glass jars filled with milky liquids and who-knew-what inside, half-burned candles and tattered, faded tapestries.
Joslyn stood next to the dusty shelf nearest the door, hand resting on the silver pommel of her short sword as always, and it seemed that she watched Tasia as intently as Norix.