It showed a great deal of self-restraint on my part that I didn’t break out a notepad a quarter of the way through the luncheon and start scribbling notes furiously.
What I had expected from this luncheon was a droning lull of idle chatter, vain gossip, and the endless discussion of whose offspring had recently procreated.
What I got—well, it was still all those things, but underneath the innocuous talk of familial relations and upcoming styles was a battlefield of wits and wagers, and the queen was at the head of the fray.
“Oh, Your Majesty, you remembered my sensitivity to wheat,” said the Duchess of Cornwraith as she peered with delight down at a plate that to me, looked very sad indeed without the rolls I’d had to force myself not to devour in one bite.
I also had to fight suspicion from creeping onto my brow, as it seemed quite unlikely to me that beings as healthy as the fae would have food sensitivities.
If the queen was also suspicious, she did not let it show on her face. I’d come to realize it was a mask, carefully crafted over the centuries to be whatever the queen needed in the moment.
I silently encouraged my eyebrows to take notes.
“How could I forget, after that lovely dinner you and the duke hosted at your manor?” the queen said. “I came home and straight away asked my cook if he could recreate that salad simply from my description. Though arrowroot is difficult to get in the city. I inquired, and it seems your province is the only one in all of Alondria where the conditions are right to grow it. I suppose that’s why you can charge so much,” she said with a wink in her eye.
The duchess nodded smugly.
“Though I have heard Charshon produces it as well, though I can’t imagine it’s of better quality. We at the castle can afford yours, of course. But I hate that the people of Dwellen can never seem to get their hands on it, and I suppose even a lesser quality crop from Charshon is better than nothing.”
The duchess’s smile faltered a bit, then quickly regained its brilliance. “Oh, far be it from us. There’s no reason for your merchants to exert themselves and waste a trip to Charshon for their lesser quality crops. I can assure you, my husband would sooner keel over than have Charshon of all places beat us out in trade. And you’ve been so kind to us, I’m sure we can manage a special price.”
The queen clapped her hands together, a charming grin lighting up her face. “Oh, that would be delightful. I cannot wait to see the rush of business it will create for the taverns in town. Everyone will be rushing to get a bite of arrowroot salad, though I imagine none could cook it as well as your staff.”
“Indeed, I would think not,” said the duchess.
Duchess of Cornwraith—wheat sensitivity; she and her husband were conned by a lord of Charshon in a trade for corn. Their cook makes the best arrowroot salad.
I had to keep my jaw from dropping.
It had been right there, scrawled in the queen’s carefully organized notes.
I watched in awe as the queen did it again and again. Kind words here, bringing up an old feud there, until half the females at the table had sworn a better price on crops, a lower fare for using their roads, a lower tariff on imported goods. I wondered how many of these females actually had control over such things, with their husbands holding the true power.
The sparkle in the queen’s eyes each time she won one of them over told me they possessed more power than I’d once thought.
Perhaps influence and power were one and the same, after all. Two sides of the same coin.
Only once during the luncheon did the queen seem at a loss for words. She’d been discussing the price of fish with the wife of a coastal lord, and the female, clearly shrewd herself, had reminded the queen that, as theirs was the only fish-heavy coast on this side of the continent, there simply was not enough fish around to lower the prices.
After a game of flattery, the queen had gotten nowhere, and had about given up, when I got the excellent idea in my head that I would go head to head in a verbal sparring with a high fae lady of Alondria.
“What if there was another resource Dwellen could purchase from your shores? One less troublesome to collect, which could be sold at a fine profit?” I asked. “Surely that would help to offset the price of the fish.”
The lady eyed me with curiosity, as if noticing me for the first time, which I knew was not the case at all. Everyone had been sneaking glances at Prince Evander’s human betrothed all throughout the luncheon, though most had attempted to be discreet about it.
It was sort of impossible to be discreet when everyone was staring.
The queen eyed me with a careful suspicion, and though the look made my mouth go dry, I ignored the scratching sensation in my throat and continued. “The eastern shores of Avelea are dense with fossil beaches, are they not?” I asked.
The lady’s back was rigid, but she answered all the same. “To our ever-loving detriment, yes. Worthless stretches of land. We can’t build there, and the beaches themselves aren’t even enjoyable. You can’t walk across the sand without slicing your feet.”
“Yes, but inconvenient as it may be, the sand from fossil beaches can be used to make glass.”
“Glass?” the lady questioned.
I might have been waiting my entire life for that one-word question. “It’s similar to crystal, but it’s made, not mined. It’s frequently used to make windows in Dwellen, and I imagine the trend will spread to the rest of Alondria before long. Right now glassmakers have to import their sand from Charshon.”
The lady shot a look at the queen, requesting confirmation.
“It’s true. Glassblowing is a thriving business in Dwellen.”
“Hm,” the lady said. “What a thought. That there’s a use for those dreadful beaches of ours all along. My husband will be glad to hear of it, I’m sure.”
I tensed with excitement, awaiting her next words with bated breath. Even the queen seemed to be tilted forward in her seat. “I suppose the girl has a point. If it’s true…and only if it’s true, that sand is as lucrative of a resource as you suggest, the gain our community might receive from trading it could offset the loss from discounting Dwellen’s fish.”
Well, she referred to me in third person as “the girl,” but I would take what I could get.
The look the queen sent my way was a subtle one, one hardly any of the other females at the table would notice.
The queen was like that, I realized. But no amount of subtlety could hide the pride beaming in her eyes.
CHAPTER 25
ELLIE
Apparently it was important to the citizens of old that the heir and his betrothed knew one another on a deep emotional level. I actually found this news to be quite progressive of them. Most brides of the pre-faeistic era were such only due to the fact that they had either been kidnapped from a neighboring land or practically sold like property by their fathers.
That didn’t mean I didn’t think the way they went about it wasn’t stupid, though.
