wrong. ‘I can make do without if you can, Your Majesty.’ Sera let warm amusement coat her voice. ‘However, I do look forward to occupying the living quarters traditionally offered the concubines from the north. I’ve read a lot about the space.’
‘Is there a face to match that honeyed voice?’ he asked, after a pause that spanned a measured breath or four.
She raised her hands and pushed her travelling hood from her face. His eyes narrowed. Reluctant amusement teased at his lips. ‘You might want to lead with that face, next time,’ he said.
Sera had not been chosen for her plainness of form. ‘As long as it pleases you, Your Majesty.’
‘I’m sure it pleases everyone.’ There might just be a sense of humour in there somewhere. ‘Lady Sera, how exactly do you expect to be of use to me?’
‘It depends what you need.’
‘I need you gone.’
‘Ah.’ The man was decidedly single-minded. Sera inclined her head in tacit agreement. ‘In that case you need a wife, Your Majesty. Would you like me to find you one?’
* * *
Augustus, King of Arun, was no stranger to the machinations of women, but he’d never—in all his years—encountered women like these. One cloaked in a rich, regal red, her beauty still a force to be reckoned with, never mind her elder status. The other cloaked in deepest black from the neck down, her every feature perfect and her eyes a clear and bitter grey. Neither woman seemed at all perturbed by his displeasure or by the words spilling from their lips.
He was used to having people around who did his bidding, but he called them employees, not servants, and there were rules and guidelines governing what he expected of them and what they could expect from him.
There were no clear rules for this.
He and his aides had spent the last two days in the palace record rooms, scouring the stacks for anything that mentioned the concubines of the High Reaches and the laws governing them. So far, he’d found plenty of information about their grace, beauty and unrivalled manners. So far, he’d found nothing to help him get rid of them.
A concubine of the High Reaches was a gift to be unwrapped with the care one might afford a poisoned chalice, one of his ancestor Kings had written. Not exactly reassuring.
‘These living quarters you’ve read about…’ He shook his head and allowed a frown. ‘They’ve been mothballed for over a hundred and twenty years.’ As children, he and his sister had been fascinated by the huge round room with the ribbed glass ceiling. Right up until his mother had caught them in there one day, staging a mock aerial war on a dozen vicious pumpkins. She’d had that place locked down so fast and put a guard detail on the passageway into it and that had been the end of his secret retreat. ‘There’s no modern heating, no electricity, and the water that used to run into the pools there has long since been diverted. The space is not fit for use.’
‘The people of the High Reaches are not without resources,’ said the elder stateswoman regally. ‘It would be our honour to restore the living area to its former glory.’
They had an answer for everything. ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ he warned and looked towards his executive secretary. ‘Let all bear witness that the terms of the accord have been satisfied. Let it also be recorded that my intention is to see the Lady Sera honourably discharged from her duty as quickly as possible. I’ll find my own wife in my own good time and have no need of a concubine.’ He was only thirty. Wasn’t as if he was that remiss when it came to begetting an heir and securing the throne. His sister could rule if it ever came to that. Her children could rule, although her husband, Theo, would doubtless object. Neighbouring Liesendaach needed an heir too, perhaps even more so than Arun did. He nodded towards his secretary. ‘Show them the hospitality they’ve requested.’
If the abandoned round room didn’t make them flinch, nothing would.
The guards bowed and the women curtseyed, all of it effortlessly choreographed as they turned and swept from the room, leaving only silence behind. Silence and the lingering scent of violets.
* * *
Sera waited just outside the door for Lianthe to fall into step with her. Two guards and their guide up ahead and another guard behind them, a familiar routine in an unfamiliar place.
‘That could have gone better,’ Sera murmured.
‘Insolent whelp,’ said the older woman with enough bite to make the stone walls crumble.
‘Me?’
‘Him. No wonder he isn’t wed.’
The King’s secretary coughed, up ahead.
‘Yes, it’s extremely damp down here,’ offered Lianthe. ‘Although I dare say the rats enjoy it.’
‘We’re taking a short cut, milady. Largely unused,’ the man offered. ‘As for the rooms issued for the Lady Sera’s use, I know not what to say. You’ll find no comfort there. The palace has many other suites available for guests. You have but to ask for different quarters and they’ll be provided.’
He opened a door and there was sunshine and a small walled courtyard stuffed with large pots of neatly kept kitchen herbs. Whoever tended this garden knew what they were about. Another door on the other side of the little courtyard plunged them into dankness once more before the corridor widened enough to allow for half a dozen people to walk comfortably side by side. At the end of the corridor stood a pair of huge doors wrought in black wood with iron hinges. Two thick wooden beams barred the door closed.
The old guide stood aside and looked to the High Reaches guards. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’
‘Very welcoming,’ murmured Sera as the guards pushed against the bindings and ancient wood and metal groaned. ‘Perhaps some plinths and flowers either side might brighten this entrance hall? Discreet lighting. Scented roses.’
With another strangled cough from their guide, the bars slid to the side and the doors were pushed open. A soaring glass-domed space the size of a cathedral apse greeted them, encircled by grey marble columns and shadowy alcoves. What furniture remained lay shrouded beneath dust sheets and if rugs had once graced the vast expanse of grey stone floor they certainly weren’t in evidence now. Dust motes danced in the air at the disturbance from the opening of the doors, and was that a dovecote in one of the alcoves or a postbox for fifty? Another alcove contained the bathing pool, empty but for dirt, but the plumbing had worked once and would work again—it was her job to see to it. There were faded frescoes on the walls and a second floor with a cloistered walkway that looked down on the central area. Chandeliers still hung in place, struggling to shine beneath decades of dust. There was even a circus trapeze roped carelessly to a tiny balcony set one floor above the rest. Illustrations in the journals of the courtesans of old had not done the place justice.
‘Well, now.’ Sera sent a fleeting smile in Lianthe’s direction. ‘Nothing like a challenge.’
The older woman nodded and turned to their guide. ‘Can you offer us cleaners?’ The man looked unsure. ‘No? Then we shall invite our own, and tradespeople too. I suppose we should thank the monarchy for preserving the space in all its historical glory. At least there are no rats.’
‘And I
