Amilia groaned internally. “I visited with her already.” She’d done that a few days after her return, using that time to mentally prepare herself for the reunion she would sooner avoid. It had been a while since then, though. “Did she say why?”
“Not to me, my lady. But…she is your mother. I would not say she needs a reason to call upon her only daughter.”
“No, but I do. And please, stop calling me ‘my lady’ when we’re alone. I’ve opened my legs for you a dozen times, Mallister. I think it’s about time you used my name.”
The beautiful blond knight didn’t seem to like that. “Well…I am still here to protect you.”
She laughed aloud. “And this is where you’ll refuse to cross the line? Calling me Amilia? Not staying out of my bed. That’s the hill you’ll die on, is it?”
He stiffened, and not in the way she liked. “There have to remain some…boundaries.”
Her laughter grew only the louder at that. “Speaking of boundaries, there are some things you still haven’t done to me, Mallister. Certain areas you haven’t explored. I would have that rectified. Tonight,” she said.
A shade of red was climbing his neck. I have myself another Jeremy Gullimer, she thought. Only an even more beautiful, dutiful, version.
“I was planning to…to train tonight…Amilia. I’ve been neglecting it, ever since you returned.”
She had required a different type of training from him, that was true. Her bed-games were swordplay, of another sort. And he’s fast becoming a master, I’ll grant. Not quite, but he’s almost there. She thought of the forms, Blockform and Strikeform and Rushform and the rest. She knew less than a little about all those, but of Bedform she considered herself an expert.
“Well, as you wish, sir. I will just get drunk and call upon someone else.” She smiled playfully and skipped along, rather enjoying this newfound hedonism. There was something liberating about knowing the world would soon end. She could do as she pleased, consequences be damned, finally living without the shadow of a man - her grandfather or her husband or some ugly ancient mage - looming over her and telling her what to do.
She even whistled, as she went, smiling, laughing spontaneously. Sir Mallister followed several steps behind her, his pace steady. “I can see you glowering from here, Mally. You know, you’re much more sensitive than your sister was. I don’t think I ever saw her cry.” She turned back, grinning, and that turned his glower into a smile. “You see, isn’t that better? You don’t have to take things so seriously.”
She continued to skip along, skirts swishing, lips whistling, passing a few other guards along the way, who frowned at her as though she was mad. Well, I just might be. I’ve seen enough to crack. Other guards smiled, though, as a man does when they see a pretty young woman having fun, and she recognised among them one or two who she flirted with before, even pulled behind some pillar or wall to indulge in a few moments of fun. If only the world knew. They had always seen the Jewel of Tukor as some precious thing, so prim and proper, but the truth was far removed. This is me, the truest me. I like to flirt and frolic and…
“My lady, about your mother…”
Her mood took a dive. She slowed and stopped and turned. “What about her?”
“Will you visit with her, as she asks? She is alone in her apartments, isolated. Do you not feel compelled to ease her solitude?”
Oh, how beautifully he speaks. As beautifully as that face and fine courtly manner. “You visit her, then, if you’re so concerned for her well-being. You did not have to grow up with her, Mallister. And her isolation is self-imposed.”
“She suffers from agoraphobia, my lady. It is a known condition, and not her fault.”
He’s too sweet, she thought. Give me a slap and I might like you better. Push me to the floor and maybe I’ll love you. She cringed at the thoughts, hating them, hating herself. She hated her mother too. “You mean she’s a hermit. That’s the common word for it.”
“An oversimplification. She…”
Amilia cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. I’ll go and see her again when I please. You’re not going to persuade me.”
“As you say.” He straightened his back, and his cloak as well, putting himself in perfect order.
She had another long look at that mantle again, striped in white and green and brown. Beneath it he had on his godsteel mail hauberk, and at his hips he bore twin blades. The regalia of the Six. Another thing she hated. “I don’t want to see you in that cloak again,” she said, deciding that all of a sudden. “Your order is dead, Mallister. You’ll wear the garb of an Emerald Guard from now on. Or your house colours should you prefer.” They were pale green and gold, those colours, terribly noble and easy on the eye. His sigil was much the same, a gallant golden knight, standing heroic on a field of green. They might have used him for the model, she thought. “Your choice.”
The muscles in his jaw were taut as a bowstring. “My lady, if I may…”
“No, you may not. Have you forgotten that it was the Six that killed my father, Mallister? They were only following orders, yes, but the very sight of that cloak insults me. The Brothers Hunt are dead, Sir Edwyn Huffort too, and I’m told the Ram of Ruxmond perished of the wounds he suffered that day. That leaves Sir Owen and Sir Kevyn, and where are they?”
“Sir Owen is missing, my lady. And Sir Kevyn…”
“Is with my brother, I know. The Bull and the Oak, the last surviving members, until you came along. Don’t tar yourself with that brush, Mallister. There are things about the Six that you don’t want to know, details that would make your pretty little toenails curl. You’re not the same as the rest of them. Spare yourself, and spare me. And take off that damned cloak.”
“Fine.” Sir Mallister Monsort reached up to his shoulder clasps, unfixed them one by one, and let the mantle fall to the ground. “I’ll be an order of one, then, my duty to protect you.”
And love me, she thought, pathetic. Why do I always need to be loved?
She turned and walked on, her mood soured and spoiled. Wine will help, she thought. And that bard, him too. Annabette had managed to track down Gifford Gold-Tongue in the end, though by the time she had brought him up to the palace, Amilia was otherwise engaged. That did not mean she hadn’t made use of his services since, though, bringing him to her apartments occasionally to serenade her with that tongue. Thus far, it had only been used for singing. But tonight…
“Are you truly going to train, Mallister? Why bother, when the world is ending?”
“That is the reason, my lady. The world is ending, and it needs my sword.”
I need your sword. And not the one at your hip. “You should have marched south with my brother, then. You’re wasted here with me if you want to be a hero.”
“I don’t want to be a hero, only to help. And your brother asked that I stay, as I told you. For…”
“Our mother, I know. A cursed duty for one so valorous and bold.”
“There is honour in defending a queen.”
“My mother was never queen because my father was never king…”
“I meant you, my lady.”
Oh, was her first thought. Then she reflected on what that meant. Queen of Rasalan. Hadrin’s queen. The rope around her wrists, the bedposts and the guards, her husband’s haunted face. The broken body of Sir Jeremy Gullimer, hanging on the wall…
“I’m not a queen,” she hissed. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
