Songs of Love & Death

She shaded her brow with one hand and peered at me. “No one else would have thought to look for me here. You pay attention to things no one else does.”

I studied her lovely face, trying to gauge her mood. “Are you angry with me?”

“For leaving me here?” she inquired. “Or for agreeing to serve as my panderer to Prince Rolande?”

A sharp comment from Edmée was a rarity, and I felt myself flush with anger. “If you don’t want—”

“No, no!” She sat up with alacrity, reaching out to take my hand. “I’m sorry, Anafiel. You’re doing a service to the family, and I’m grateful for it. It’s just… I don’t know how I feel about being used to advance my father’s ambition.” She squeezed my hand, searching my eyes. “I need you to be my advocate, too. I trust you. If you think Rolande de la Courcel is someone I could come to love, I will believe you. But if you don’t…” She shook her head. “I cannot wed a man I could never love, heir to the throne or no.”

“Never,” I assured her, all traces of resentment fled. I had known Edmée de Rocaille since we were children. Even as a girl, she had a sweetness of spirit I had quickly learned to cherish, and she was truly as dear as a sister to me; dearer, mayhap, since I had no blood siblings of my own. “I promise, if I don’t find the Dauphin to be kind, generous, wise, warm-hearted, and perfect in every way, not a word of pandering shall escape my lips.”

Edmée laughed. “Well. You might allow him a minor flaw or two. He is allowed to be human.”

“Oh, no,” I said seriously. “Perfect in every way. For you, I insist on it.”

She eyed me fondly. “I’ll miss you.”

I leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll miss you, too.”

Edmée tugged my hand. “Lie with me here a moment and look at the sky. When we’re apart and missing one another, we can look at the sky and remember that the same sun shines on us both.”

I obeyed.

The sky was an intense, vivid blue. The scent of lavender hung all around us, so strong it was almost intoxicating, mingling with the scent of sun-warmed earth. The buzzing of the industrious honeybees was hypnotic, making me drowsy. Closing my eyes, I reveled in the feel of the sun on my skin, thinking how much I would miss Terre d’Ange. Between my childhood at Montrève and the seven years I’d been fostered at Rocaille, I’d lived all my life here in Siovale province. I couldn’t imagine calling anyplace else home.

The beginnings of a poem, a classic Siovalese ode to the landscape, teased at my thoughts.

“Do you think you’ll like him?” Edmée murmured. “Prince Rolande?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They say he’s high-spirited.” I cracked open one eye and peered at her. “And handsome.”

Edmée smiled. “I hope he likes poetry.”

“I hope so, too.”

WAS I TRULY that innocent and carefree in those days?

Yes, I suppose I was.

Remembering hurts.

PRINCE ROLANDE DE la Courcel, the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange, did not like poetry.

I discovered this in a Tiberian bathhouse, approximately one hour before the recital that was meant to be my introduction to the Dauphin.

My journey to the city of Tiberium in the allied nation-states of Caerdicca Unitas had been long, but uneventful. I was accompanied by my tutor, Leon Degrasse, a gifted poet in his own right and a skilled diplomat who had long served the Comte de Rocaille. Once we arrived in Tiberium, he quickly secured appropriate lodgings, hired a small staff to see to our needs, enrolled me in the University’s curriculum, and arranged the aforementioned recital, down to choosing the verses I was to recite and the elegant poet’s robe I was to wear.

I’d developed an affinity for poetry early, and was reckoned something of a prodigy, even by D’Angeline standards. My youthful body of work spanned a dozen styles, many in the classic Siovalese mode, many others aping the work of poets before me, and a few seeking to find my own voice. Messire Degrasse gauged it best if I stuck to the classical forms, and so it was that an hour before the event, I luxuriated in the ministrations of the most skilled barber in Tiberium’s most prestigious bathhouse, a warm, damp linen towel draped over my face, running through verses in my mind while the barber combed and trimmed my hair, oiled my skin, and buffed my nails with a pumice-stone.

There I heard them enter, but I paid no heed until one spoke. Folk were always coming and going in the bathhouse.

“Oh, damn my luck!” a man’s voice said in Caerdicci, then switched to D’Angeline. “Can’t you pull rank for once, Rolande? I’d my heart set on a rubdown and a trim before this damned recital.”

Beneath the towel, I startled.

“Isn’t the point of this whole Tiberian experience to teach me to understand the common man’s concerns?” a good-natured voice replied in D’Angeline. “Behold, the suffering of an ordinary citizen, forced to wait his turn!”

Others laughed. The first man grumbled. “There’s no time to wait, your highness. Are you quite sure we must attend?”

“Sadly, yes.” The prince’s good-natured voice turned dry.

“Politics,” someone else said.