Page 25 of Of Brides Of Queens

In this, I hope, we might find agreement if alignment must elude us for a time.

A transactional arrangement could carry us through spinning confusions.

With Sight,

King See

I reread the letter more than once. “And what does he mean by this?

I had not thought of learning war with so much else to occupy my mind, but sense filled me at his simple statement. “Does he seek to teach me then? For what price?”

There must be others who could teach me warfare, so the assumption thathewould be my teacher was arrogant to say the least.

Transactional agreement…

He proposed agreement to carry us through spinning confusions with the future hope of restoring our alignment. I wished for this too.

“Where might I write a letter, Valetise?” I asked, slightly breathless from the confines of the gray leather.

She gestured to a blank section of wall. “There, my queen.”

The wall pushed out a carved writing desk, equipped with thick paper, an ink pot and quill, and a wax set. The candle I’d need to melt the wax already burned bright. The bottom of the wax seal faced me and I could see the ornate QP engraved there. QP. Queen Perantiqua.Now every king would know whose letter he received. “How did you sense it there?”

“Without this queendom, I do not exist, and so I sense everything here that is needed to best serve you and help you thrive. In this way, I survive. My strict purpose is to dress you as befits unworldly exquisiteness, for that is what you are. No one shall ever doubt this while I attend you because I shall arm you with the way I dress you… and protect your heart on any given night.”

Like tonight.

I’d envied her clarity of purpose before, and I did so again, but envy was a vice I could manage in this quantity. “I thank you for your purpose. I could not do these things myself.”

“Nor could any queen or king or princess.”

I considered the wall that had been bare and was now a writing corner equipped with everything I might need. “What else do you know of my queendom?”

“I know that your mother will supply all your homely needs from her deathbed, as only a mother could have this purpose. I might sense what is here, but she is the power that provides for her daughter.”

Leather protested as I sat at the writing desk. I hadn’t been sure I could. “I miss my mother.”

“I know, my queen,” Valetise said. “You murmur to her in daylight.”

“Would that she might answer. I miss our talks most of all.”

“She answers you. Each time you dream of her, she adds more warmth to the room. Another pillow or blanket or rug.”

I peered around the room anew. “Goodness, I didn’t know.”

“Your mother loves you even in death.”

A lump visited my throat again. Tonight I felt fragile indeed.

Valetise returned to her wardrobe, and I took up a sheet of paper, wondering over the smoothness and thickness before I placed it on the desk.

First things first.

See,I wrote.

Do you offer to tutor me in war?

I gather that writing your name on my body and displaying me to a king was your first lesson.

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