The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,121

the use of your armies in this lunacy Cassius is instigating,” Carrington went on.

Lunacy?

What lunacy could Cassius possibly be instigating?

He did not seem a “lunacy” type of fellow.

“And he did this without your consent. Without even discussing it with you. And that is treason,” Carrington finished.

“It’s hardly treason,” I heard Aunt Mercy murmur. “Perhaps misguided as he was swept up in the discourse. But not treason.”

“I think promising your king’s armies to another country to get involved in what is guaranteed to be a civil war is something quite a bit of a departure from simply misguided,” Carrington spat.

“Mind your tongue to my wife,” Uncle Wilmer ordered in a sharp voice I’d never heard him use.

But in defense of his wife, I liked it.

Or, actually, I liked him demonstrating he had any backbone at all.

“I’m afraid I’m not myself, Your Grace, such is my state of concern about what is happening,” Carrington retorted acidly.

There was a brief moment of silence before Uncle Wilmer returned on what sounded like a sigh, “I’ll have a word with True.”

“How will that be? They’re drawing up the proclamations now and you’ve already agreed to sign them,” Carrington rejoined.

“Perhaps this civil war won’t come about,” Wilmer suggested.

I heard Carrington’s scoffing chuff of expelled air.

“Do you think for one second that the gentry of Airen will stand for their new regent demanding they disband their militias? Not to mention the males of that nation will surely have something to say about giving women right to own property. Eradicating limits on their education and professions. Setting minimal remuneration for their labor at amounts much higher than what they’re currently receiving. And worst of all, offering them the privilege of assembly,” Carrington remarked with disgust.

Cassius intended to do all of that?

And he’d assumed rule, become regent, in order to do it?

Oh my…faith.

“My husband has kept neutral on these gender issues in the past, Carrington, but we’ve always been allied with Airen,” Aunt Mercy noted. “Our people will find it no surprise we’ve tendered our support for the wishes of their sovereigns.”

“We have indeed. Neutral to Gallienus’s rule,” Carrington rejoined. “To that end, any time one of their females entered our lands for refuge and they demand her return, we grant it. In other words, this is not neutral. This is an about face.”

“And there are many in Wodell who do not like that this is the king’s policy,” Aunt Mercy returned, emphasizing the word “king’s” in a manner that stated it wasn’t the king’s policy at all.

And I knew this to be accurate. True had told me. Returning refugee women to Airen was a thorny subject between my country’s king and his son. True without fail advised his father to grant asylum. Carrington advised it would not be good to anger King Gallienus or the members of his gentry who had command of standing armies.

“Enough they’re willing to allow their sons to die for it?” Carrington fired back.

“I do not know,” Mercy retorted. “Though it would be my son in service to his realm and his king who leads the king’s armies and knows the minds of the king’s men, and I would wonder which they would prefer. Riding in aid of a new ruler making just changes in his realm or riding to a folly in order to increase their king’s chest.”

“Mercy,” Uncle Wilmer muttered warningly.

“I am sorry, my husband,” she declared like she was not. “But I will not sit silent and allow anyone to call my son a traitor.”

“Your king’s chest is also yours, my queen, and it grows low,” Carrington spoke as if my aunt had not.

“And why is that, Carrington?” she asked quietly.

Why it was, I knew, was because of the campaigns against Firenze.

There was silence, and while I waited on tenterhooks, my heart beating madly, it jumped, as did my entire body, when I heard a door open down the hall.

I turned that way.

And my mouth dropped open.

Serena of the Nadirii was rushing down the hall.

And she was wearing the garments of a female Firenz.

An orange brassiere festooned in yellow, red and salmon beading, sheer orange skirts that showed her legs with an elaborately bedazzled waistband that went over her hips and fell in dangles and fringes of beads.

She was not hurrying.

She was scurrying, her eyes darting this way and that, as if she feared someone would see her (and fortunately, as she did this, she did not see me).

And I would imagine she did for I never would imagine I would