Haimish Talmadge
Not a lord—not yet, at least, but Daphne knows that his father was one of King Bartholomew’s most loyal generals during the war. It’s how he went from being the third son of a blacksmith to the lord of one of the most prosperous parts of Friv. If it were Lord Talmadge’s name on Cliona’s list, Daphne would dismiss it without another thought, but it isn’t, and she realizes she doesn’t know much about Haimish Talmadge at all.
She supposes it’s time to change that.
The package Daphne sent has been thoroughly examined, as Violie explains to Sophronia, apologizing for its delay in reaching her. But however thoroughly the palace staff might have searched it, they didn’t discover King Bartholomew’s seal and a sample of his writing hidden in the false bottom. Daphne has done her duty, and once Beatriz does hers, it will be Sophronia’s turn, though in the meantime she hides the entire box in the back of her wardrobe. Part of her hopes Beatriz makes her move soon so she can see her sisters again, but she’s surprised to realize that a part of her is dreading it. Though the harsh words from her mother’s letter echo in her mind, reminding her that queen is not a role she is meant to fill, Sophronia knows she could be a good one in Temarin, and what’s more, Leopold is on his way to becoming a good king as well, now that he’s trying.
Temarin is a broken land—in part, at least, due to him—but Sophronia knows that they can fix it. After seeing firsthand how the people have been suffering, she finds she isn’t eager to turn the responsibility or the crown over to her mother. The crown feels like hers.
The riot was a step backward, but in hindsight, Sophronia knows that they should never have organized a speech in the first place.
“We wanted credit,” she told Leopold the night after the riot, when they’d gone to bed, both of them exhausted and contemplative.
“We tried to help,” he said, shaking his head. “They didn’t want it.”
“We could have halved their taxes and said nothing, let our actions speak for us,” she said. “But we didn’t. Because we wanted credit, we wanted approval. But Leo, we can’t take that without taking blame as well. And blame for the bad far outweighs the good we’ve tried to do to counteract it.”
“But we’re trying,” he told her, sounding alarmingly close to a child—though perhaps it wasn’t so alarming at all. In many ways, Leopold is more of a child than Sophronia ever has been. “Don’t they appreciate that we’re trying?”
“We wanted credit for trying,” she said with a heavy sigh. “But after so much betrayal, so much hurt, so much death—why should they give us credit for doing the bare minimum to clean up a mess we made ourselves?”
Leopold didn’t say anything for a moment. “So how do we change their minds?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I suppose we start by acknowledging that we may not be able to, that the damage done might be unfixable. And then we keep trying to fix it anyway. Not for the glory of it, but because it’s right.”
Leopold didn’t say anything for so long that Sophronia thought he might have fallen asleep. Just as she was about to drift off, though, he spoke again.
“You keep saying we,” he said. “It wasn’t we. It was me. I’m sorry that you were hurt because of me.”
Sophronia rolled toward him so that they lay face to face. The moonlight pouring through the window cast a silver sheen over his face, turning it spectral. He looked older than he had the day before, like he’d lived a lifetime in just the last few hours. “We’re in this together, Leo,” she told him softly.
She thinks about that now, when she is alone in her room—the perfect opportunity to take out the seal so she can forge a letter in King Bartholomew’s handwriting, drawing him as well into the imminent war. Her mother has always said it’s good to be prepared, and Sophronia is sure Beatriz will have Cellaria frothing for war any day now. She should get the letter done, so it can be ready to deliver when the time comes. She should do as her mother said and not worry about Eugenia and her plots, should let her do even more to weaken Bessemia. She shouldn’t care if Eugenia drives it into the ground. She should do what her mother told her to do.
Instead, she encodes a letter to Beatriz, asking about the origin of the Cellarian wine the queen has been spending millions of asters on, then rings for a servant to send it out with the day’s mail.
* * *
—
The only good thing that comes from having dinner with Ansel is that Eugenia is even more distrustful of him than Sophronia. Every time he slurps his soup or uses the wrong fork, she flinches like he’s physically struck her—not that Ansel notices. He’s too busy charming the princes with stories of his time as a fisherman’s apprentice sailing the Vixania Ocean.
“I heard there are sea monsters in those waters!” Reid says, his eyes growing wide.
Ansel scoffs. “That’s what the Frivian sailors would have you believe—so that they get to keep all the fish for themselves,” he says. “The worst monster I met on those trips was my captain. He snored like an angry bear and was quick with his fists.”
“He hit you?” Gideon asks.
Eugenia jumps in, the glare she shoots at Ansel making the room feel chillier. “That is not appropriate conversation for the dinner table.”
“Apologies,” Ansel says, offering a sheepish smile that doesn’t quite match the mirth in his eyes.
“Are you still a fisherman?” Leopold asks, using his knife and fork to cut a bite of steak. The way he holds the gold cutlery, the way he knows exactly how to cut his food, even the way he chews it, marks him as a king. Leopold likely doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but Ansel does. He holds his own cutlery with clumsy hands, and if Sophronia had to guess, she’d say he’s never eaten steak before.
“No, Your Majesty,” he says. “We mostly caught firetail—a good, moderately priced fish—but over the past year, it’s become too expensive for the lower classes to afford, and it isn’t fine enough for nobility like yourselves. The captain let most of us go.”
Leopold glances at Sophronia, and though she’s glad to see the discomfort in his eyes, the urge to do something, she’s too wary of the messenger. Ansel has been polite since he arrived for dinner, and it’s possible that his speaking with Violie was a coincidence, but Sophronia doesn’t trust him. She’s learned to listen to her instincts.
“What do you do now, then?” Sophronia asks, reaching for her wine goblet and taking a small sip, keeping an eye on Ansel all the while.
Ansel holds her gaze. “Odd jobs, mostly,” he says, shrugging. “I suppose the last one I did was scrubbing down the gallows after hangings.”
He says the words conversationally enough, but Sophronia has to suppress a shudder. Eugenia, however, suppresses nothing.