Page 24 of Grave Flowers
“Certainly.” He cleared his throat. With an overabundance of declarative emphasis, he said, “Princess.”
Several baskets of colorful thread and whets sat on a bench beneath a window. Aeric cleared the baskets aside, managing to do so without setting the wine bottle down. “Would you care to sit and have the cup?”
“I would.”
I perched on one end of the bench, and he settled on the other.
“We’re supposed to share a cup, but I thought you might prefer two at this point in our … association,” he said carefully, as though wary of my reaction.
“I would, thank you,” I said.
Solemnly, Aeric procured two chalices made of Crusan silver from a nearby cabinet and poured wine into both. His hand trembled a little, making the bottle’s neck scrape against the chalices’ mouths. Either he was very sick from last night’s wine … or he was nervous about something. He certainly couldn’t be nervous about me. For that, he’d have to care about impressing or wooing me, and he hadn’t made the slightest effort at either—in fact, everything he did worked to the contrary of such romantic gestures. Wine ill it was.
Aeric held out a chalice.
“The other one, please.” I reached for the one he’d intended to keep for himself. “I like the jewels on it.”
It was one of the first things I’d been taught as a princess. Never take the glass offered, lest it be poisoned. Aeric, though, nodded and handed it to me without hesitation. I felt the need to keep my guard raised around him, but he certainly didn’t seem to have any vigilance.
He took a sip and grimaced. “Perhaps”—he took a shallow breath—“I should switch to water.”
“It may be wise.”
“Except it’d be a travesty to waste this.” He didn’t even have the wherewithal to be ashamed. Instead, the sly grin from last night returned, as though the situation entertained him. I took a drink from my chalice and winced. Radixan wines were tart, bitter, and the only dry thing in the kingdom. This wine was sugary and rich. Its sweetnessmade my teeth ache. However, it was pleasingly strong, much more so than ours. Our wine was more for function than enjoyment. The alcohol content was low so it could be drunk over a long period. Warmth spread through my body, chasing away the chill of the cathedral and the pervasive fear hanging over me. Aeric again attempted to take a sip but violently shook his head and lowered it.
“The travesty is how green your face is,” I said, annoyance growing.
“Your concern for my health is moving,” Aeric replied dryly. “Though perhaps I should be more concerned for your health, specifically regarding your bones. The way you danced last night defied everything I’ve ever known about the pursuit. You practically bent in half.”
If only he knew why. Even if Inessa hadn’t been there, Rigby had practically beat new joints into me, ones that could twist abnormally, grace forced from me in the same way as sweat, tears, and blood.
“Are you all right?” Aeric asked, his tone suddenly softer. “You look dejected.”
“Oh, dancing simply isn’t my chief pleasure,” I said.
“Well, you’ll never need to dance on my accord,” he said. His voice was kind. “I did want to ask if you’re adjusting to your new home. I … heard you dismissed one of your attendants.”
I stiffened, defensive. “And?”
“She’s the daughter of a loyal family who has long served us,” Aeric replied. “Her firing ruffled so many feathers, we could restuff all the pillows in Acus.”
“Her service was lacking,” I said unapologetically, even as shame rose within me at the memory of tears filling Decima’s eyes.
“This morning, her parents came to me and asked for her to be reinstated,” Aeric said. “They are elderly and rely on her income because she is their only child. It was quite the scene, involving beseeching. Lots of it. I’d rather be impaled than beseeched, but it seems to come with the job.”
I took another swallow of wine. Decima had done nothing wrong, but I needed to persist. Sinets never backed down from their decisions.
“If the parents are elderly and unable to earn their keep and their daughter is unruly, how are they beneficial to you?” I responded the way Inessa did whenever I questioned why we had to do cruel things, laying out brutal stepping stones of reality and, when necessary, lies. “How can they serve you in any meaningful way?”
“They are my subjects,” Aeric said without hesitation. “The question should be how I serve them, not the other way around.”
I had never heard such a thing articulated sincerely. Our sacred writes were full of contradictory moralistic concepts like the servant monarch and the holy fool, but such drivel belonged there, with the leather tomes in monasteriums. Of course, Aeric had been raised in one. Perhaps he shouldn’t have left. Those concepts didn’t work in an actual court. I let out a scornful laugh, one first coined and perfected by Inessa.
Aeric’s face stiffened and then went blank. There was nothing to draw from it. He might as well be a portrait, one painted with no talent or soul and completely devoid of emotion. It was enough to make me swallow down the laughter and take another self-conscious drink of wine. Worry came over me.
“What did you tell her parents?” I asked. If Aeric had rehired the girl against my will, I would look like a fool, and the show of power would do the exact opposite—it would reveal how powerless I really was.
“I gave the father a job of equal compensation in the stables,” Aeric said, voice as lacking in emotion as his face. “I told them that if my bride does not wish to have their daughter in her employ, I will not require it.”
