She averted her eyes. “You honor me, my lord.”
“I love you.”
She met his eyes now, but uncertainty still painted her features. “You are a good man, Dorian Ursuul, and a great man. May I think about it for a few days?”
“Of course,” he said. His heart died a little. “Let me think about it” isn’t the answer a man wants to his proposal. Of course, most men managed a little romance before asking.
In one way, he was horribly disappointed in himself. In another, he was content. He wanted Jenine’s mind to consent to this match, not just her heart. Romantic feelings would come and go. He didn’t want her to choose in haste and regret at leisure.
She excused herself and the guards let in Dorian’s next appointment. It was Hopper. The man limped in quickly and prostrated himself. Jenine hesitated halfway out the door. She had told Dorian that there was something about Hopper that she wanted to share with him, but they hadn’t gotten around to it.
“Your Holiness,” Hopper said, “the women have been in an uproar. They begged me to ask if you’ll be accepting any of them into your harem.”
Jenine turned away, as if embarrassed to be eavesdropping, but she didn’t hasten to leave, either.
“Of course not,” Dorian said. “Not one of them.”
32
Terah Graesin had moved the coronation up. No matter that an army was encamped around the city, and that with their scant supplies already dwindling it was wildly inappropriate to have a party, Terah had decided she couldn’t wait two months. Her coronation would be in three days. So Momma K had to come to the castle to meet the new court bard. She knocked on his door.
He opened, squinting, and looked about as pleased as Momma K expected. She’d commissioned a piece from him on their last meeting—for the queen’s birthday. She hadn’t mentioned the coronation was the same day. In retaliation, he’d gotten himself hired as the court bard, meaning she was paying for a piece he’d have to compose anyway.
“Do you know who I am, Quoglee Mars?” Momma K asked. As she stepped past him into his small apartment, he sniffed to smell her perfume. Quoglee’s sense of smell was as good as his eyesight was bad. Her spies said he’d even spent time with Alitaera’s royal perfumer.
He hesitated. Then, “You are Madame Kirena, a woman of great power and wealth.” Quoglee’s voice was a tenor so clear it was a pleasure even to hear him speak.
It was a pity nothing else about the man was beautiful. Quoglee Mars resembled nothing so much as a squashed frog. He had a wide, fleshy mouth that turned down at the edges, no neck, a perpetual squint, and a small round gut like a ball. Rather than trousers, he wore baggy yellow tights on his skinny legs, and he had a tiny tricorn hat with a feather in it. He was one of the ugliest men Momma K had ever seen, save for a few lepers far gone in their disease. “I heard your new tale, “The Fall of the House of Gunder.” It was fearless. Beautiful. You should write more,” she said.
Quoglee bowed, accepting the praise as his due. “I usually prefer the honesty of instrumentals. The pipe and lyre never lie, nor by their tones do good men die.”
“An odd sentiment from a minstrel who’s been chased from half the capitals of Midcyru because he can’t stop himself from telling the truth.” Which was why she’d asked if he knew who she was. At least he was capable of discretion. She smiled.
“May I ask why you’re here?” Quoglee asked, squinting at her.
Damn all artists. Their bribes had to come as introductions to the influential, in gifts of clothing or instruments, in arranging special concerts and making sure they were well received. Of course, a bard rarely minded when some beautiful young music aficionado offered to polish his flute, either. But it all had to be discreet. The only punishment they could think to face for Momma K’s displeasure was indifference. Years ago, Momma K had sent a gorgeous little flute case to a newly popular bard called Rowan the Red. The girl had given him some grossly ignorant compliment which she wouldn’t have if she were the educated young noblewoman she was pretending to be. Instead of taking her to his room and giving her better things to do with her mouth, Rowan had quizzed her and publicly made her look a fool. It didn’t take him long to guess who might have sent her. When Momma K’s most gifted wetboy Durzo Blint had arrived a few hours later, the bard was already writing a song mocking her and making wild allegations, some of them true. No one ever heard that catchy tune, or any other tune from Rowan the Red, but it had been a near thing, and since then, Momma K avoided bards when she could.
But bards were too good a resource to abandon. They plied Momma K with every tidbit they knew and lapped up every morsel she dropped. Indeed, they often gave her new information, for bards were always present at parties even if her other spies were not. But Quoglee was different. Quoglee’s stories were rare, and the nobles regarded them as absolute truth; other bards often repeated them. He was hard to interest, but once that interest was piqued, he was a bulldog.
“Do you know who I am, Quoglee Mars?” she asked again.
Again, he hesitated. “You’re the owner of half the brothels in the city. You’re a woman who crawled out of the gutter to climb higher than anyone would have believed. My guess is you’re the Sa’kagé Mistress of Pleasures.”
“One of my girls has a small Talent of foretelling,” Momma K said. “She doesn’t dream often, but when she does, she’s never been wrong. Two years ago she dreamed of you, maestro, though she’d never seen or heard of you and indeed, you hadn’t yet come to Cenaria. She described you perfectly. She said a song burst from your mouth like a river. The river was the purest, clearest water she’d ever seen. She said I tried to stop it, but the waters overwhelmed me and I drowned. The next night she dreamed the same dream, but this time I tried to strike you down before you could sing, but the song was unstoppable, and again I drowned. On the third night, I swam. I think the name of your river is Truth, Quoglee Mars, so I ask again: do you know who I am?”
“You’re the Shinga of the Sa’kagé,” he said quietly.
Though she’d been prepared for it, hearing the truth spoken aloud frightened her. But this was why she’d hired Quoglee Mars in the first place. She’d paid him for a flute piece, then had her informants drop hints to him of a much bigger story, the kind of tale Quoglee couldn’t resist telling. But the man was incredibly bright, and that made him dangerous. “How’d you learn?” she asked.
“Everyone knew you were Jarl’s right hand. When he disappeared, none of the Sa’kagé’s work was interrupted. Agon’s Dogs continued training, the Nocta Hemata happened, and there was no rush of thugs’ bodies floating in the Plith. The Sa’kagé isn’t an organization to put off a struggle for succession just because there’s a war. You’ve been Shinga for more than a month, haven’t you?”
Momma K let out a long, slow breath. “Fifteen years,” she said. “Always behind puppet Shingas. Shingas don’t tend to die of natural causes.”
“So what are you buying? I’m guessing you want more than a flute piece.”
“I want you to sing a song of Terah Graesin’s secrets.”