"My Darkness, it is wondrous, but a horse you are not."
"The phoukas are shape-shifters, my queen."
The laughter faded around the edges, then she said in a voice still light with it, "Are you implying that you can change the size?"
"Would I imply something like that?" he asked in his neutral voice.
I watched emotions flow across her face too fast to catch: disbelief, curiosity, and finally a hard-edged wanting. She stared at him the way misers stare at gold, a covetous, clinging, selfish want.
"When all this is over, Darkness, if you have not fathered a child with the princess, we will make you live up to this boast."
I think I failed at the neutral face, but I tried to hang on to it.
"I do not boast, my queen," Doyle said, almost in a whisper.
"I don't know what to wish for now, my Darkness. If you make babies with Meredith, I will never know the joy of you. And I still believe what I have always believed, and what has truly kept you out of my bed."
"Dare I ask what that is?" he said.
"You may dare. I may even answer."
Silence stretched for a second or two, then Doyle said, "What do you believe that has kept me out of your bed all these years?" He turned his head enough to see her face when he asked.
"That you would be king in truth, not merely in name. And I will not share my power." She looked past him to me. I fought to keep a blank face, and knew I was losing. "What of you, Meredith? How do you feel about having a true king, one who will demand a share of your power, and a share of more than your bed?"
I thought of several answers, discarded them all, and tried, very carefully to tell the truth. "I share better than you do, Aunt Andais."
She stared at me, a look in her eyes that I couldn't read. I met that gaze with one of my own, letting the sincerity of what I'd said show in my eyes.
"You share better than me, you share better than me. What does that mean, when I do not share at all?"
"It is the truth, Aunt Andais. It means exactly what it says, nothing more, nothing less."
She stared at me for a long, long moment. "Taranis does not share his power either."
"I know," I said.
"You cannot be a dictator if you do not dictate."
"I am learning that a queen must rule those around her, truly rule them, but I am not learning that a queen must dictate to all around her. I am finding that the counsel of my guards, who you so wisely sent with me, is worth listening to."
"I have counselors," she said, and it sounded almost defensive.
"So does Taranis," I said.
Andais sat back against one of the bedposts. She seemed almost to slump, the one bare hand playing along the black ribbons on her dress. "But neither of us listens to anyone. The emperor has no clothes."
The last comment caught me off guard. It must have showed, because she said, "You look surprised, niece of mine."
"I didn't expect you to know the story."
"I had a human lover some time ago who was fond of children's stories. He read to me when I could not sleep." There was a dreamy wistfulness to her voice now, a true note of regret.
She continued in a more normal tone. "The Nameless has been freed. It was last seen headed west. I doubt it will get as far as the Western Sea, but I thought you should know, all the same." With that, she made a gesture and the mirror went blank.
My eyes were very wide in the glass. "Can you make the mirror so that no one can get through without signaling to us first?"
"Yes," he said.