The King's Bastard - By Rowena Cory Daniells Page 0,65
distracted him from collecting Affinity beasts. According to the old stories he'd liked animals better than people. Piro had never known her father's father but she often felt a sneaking sympathy for him.
'How's my pretty boy?' Piro whispered. She admired the foenix as he ate kitchen scraps from her hand, then rubbed his throat on her fingers. He blinked his emerald eyes and made a soft interrogative sound in his throat. Piro was sure he understood everything she said and, unlike her mother, he never scolded her or tried to change her.
'There you are!' Seela, her old nurse, pounced on her. 'The queen wants you, and be quick about it.'
Seela bustled Piro up the stairs, warning her to mind her tongue as they hurried along to her mother's solarium. It had been decorated with a recurring flower, vine and animal motif. These wound in and around each other in complex patterns. Picked out in paint and semi-precious stones, every surface glistened, catching the light. The chamber ran the length of the west wall, which was illuminated by deep-set diamond paned windows, so it was pleasant even in midwinter. But Piro hated it because it felt like a prison to her. Its walls were the invisible walls of royal expectation, fine lace, female giggles and lessons in law and account keeping.
Piro found her mother surrounded by the ladies of the court. They were laying out clothes and jewellery for tonight's midwinter feast, gossiping and laughing, twittering like birds.
Piro dutifully bent one knee. 'You wanted me, queen mother?'
Myrella dismissed her women. While they collected their combs and shawls, Piro shifted impatiently from foot to foot, her toes damp in her riding boots.
People said she looked like Queen Myrella, but they were nothing alike. Her mother had been a dutiful daughter to one king, then the equally dutiful wife of another. Piro couldn't get through the day without treading on someone's toes.
She was a little taller than the queen but just as fine-boned. Her mother had been considered a beauty in her day. At nearly thirty-six the queen's fine skin was barely lined, and her black hair, hidden under a fashionable head-dress, held hardly any grey. All her life Piro had been disappointing her mother. If the queen was a potter and Piro was her pot, then the queen was constantly pinching and prodding her into a shape that was not natural.
Piro mentally rehearsed her apology. As soon as the last woman left, she launched into her speech. 'I am so sorry, mother. What with all the excitement and Fyn's friend finding Halcyon's Fate, I -'
'Forgot? I thought as much, but you're no longer a careless child. At your age I was planning my wedding! How do you think Lence felt, when you didn't bother to turn up for his betrothal?'
'Betrothal?'
'To King Merofyn's daughter.'
Piro was stunned. 'I... I did not know. You should have told me.'
'Delicate negotiations have been going on for two years. Hardly the sort of thing a careless child needs to know!'
Piro was stung.
Her mother smoothed down the central panel of her heavily embroidered velvet gown and frowned as she looked Piro up and down. 'That dress won't do. Off with it.'
'I don't see why I have to get changed. The feast is not until this evening.'
Before her mother could speak, the door opened and her old nurse came back.
'Not ready yet, Piro? They're waiting for you in the trophy chamber,' Seela said. 'I caught a glimpse of him. Such a good-looking man. Clever too, they say.'
'Who are you talking about?' Piro fought a sinking feeling.
The old woman cast her mother a sharp look. Seela had been the queen's nurse and tutor when she was a child, having come with her from Merofynia. After the marriage Seela had stayed on to help rear the royal children. 'You haven't told her, Myrella?'
In a flash, Piro realised what this meeting was all about. Just as Lence must marry to strengthen Rolencia's alliances, so must she. 'Who have I been betrothed to?'
'A fine young warlord,' her mother spoke soothingly. Seela stepped behind Piro to undo the laces of her gown. 'This is just a first meeting. Either of you may decide not to take it any further.'
But they both knew Piro could not decline without offending the warlord. He was some upstart princeling from beyond the Divide, the petty ruler of a barren spar of land that stretched out into the sea. Piro snorted. A mere barbarian warlord, not even a kingson!