Page 111 of Prize for the King
“I’ll have tea with your mother, then come back. It’s quite all right.”
The old crone hisses from her pile of blankets. “Is that how you let the human speak to you? Tsk, tsk. The males of my times were much tougher.”
Magnar snorts and gives her a fond look. “No, they weren’t. My father danced hoops around your little finger, and you know it. I’m a slave to my wife, just like him. Treat her well.”
“Slave to a human!” She spits on the floor next to her armchair, and I smile at Magnar to reassure him.
“Go,” I mouth, and he nods reluctantly.
But when his mother looks up, he palms the back of my head and tilts it roughly, leaning down to give me a hard kiss. Barely do I return it when he steps away, shooting his mother a cutting look.
“Harad ash ta kahna,”he says, and it sounds like a warning.
She bursts into an elderly, wheezing laughter. “Save that for those prissy little kings up north. I won’t hurt your human girl. Now leave us. You go, too, knight. Post someone in front of the door if you must. I won’t slaughter the tiny thing.”
Magnar nods at Arvi, and they both leave, throwing me unnerved looks. I smile and sit down on a beautiful, dark wood ottoman opposite the queen without waiting for an invitation.
“What’s your name, Your Majesty?” I ask. “Unless you’d like me to call you ‘Mother’.”
“What even!” she exclaims, throwing her skeletal hand. “Audacious girl. I am Idrina. Hasn’t Magnar told you?”
“I haven’t asked,” I admit, suppressing my guilt and an urge to apologize.Bold as brass. Honest to a fault.That’s what she’ll like. “Which is entirely my fault, of course. I have been preoccupied being forced into marriage to someone I used to believe was a monster, you see.”
“Magnar’s far more civilized than all human scum combined.”
She spits again. I notice the carpet is uneven and pockmarked in that area. It must be her habit, then.
“I admire him greatly,” I say with a smile.
The door opens, and Arvi comes in, bearing a tray. He puts it on the table and leaves, throwing me a nervous look.
“Three knights, and they probably hover over you like hens over newly hatched chickens,” she says when the door closes, and I pour the tea, putting sugar in hers. “I had one knight, and it was enough, but of course, a warring king must have more. Did you fuck them yet?”
I choke on my tea, and the old crone sits back with her cup, watching me with satisfaction until I stop coughing. She clicks her tongue, shaking her head.
“Delicate, are you? I assume you didn’t, then. What a waste.”
“I did, as a matter of fact. All of them.”
Her pleased smile shrinks, and she peers at me as if searching for a lie. In the end, she drinks her tea with a harrumph.
“Are you pregnant yet?” she asks when I hand her a small plate with a few tiny cakes covered in chocolate.
This time, I’m ready. “It’s too early to tell. We’ve only just married.”
“But you traveled here for a fortnight,” she says, her eyes narrowed. “I knew I was pregnant exactly within two weeks of marrying Hrognar.”
I can’t keep my cheeks from heating, and Idrina doesn’t miss it. Her mouth twists in disapproval.
“Magnar offered to wait until we came to Roharra,” I force out, refusing to explain further.
“An Agnidari wife wouldn’t have made her king wait,” she scoffs, then puts a cake in her mouth and chews, watching me with hostility. “That’s what comes from marrying a human. I told him. He should have listened.”
She sticks her verbal pins right where it hurts, one after another. I take a cake to have an excuse for my silence while I war with my feelings, reminding myself over and over this old woman wants to rile me up.
Oh, it’s working, but I won’t let her win.
“I believe you are right,” I say with false cheer. “After all, I’m quite useless outside the bedroom, am I not? I can’t even speak your language. I’d love to learn, though.”
