The War of Queens

Chapter 18

Evelyn

 Tiraq was not a very handsome man, even if he was young and still in his best years. His nose was large and stood straight from his face, with small, dark eyes that seemed to always be narrowed. His hair fell in raven tresses to his waist, with little braids in between seemingly at random. And his skin was dark, like commoner, except darker yet. He was not as dark as the Hi’taabnese merchant that she had grown up with in Tibera, but he was certainly not fair.

 Humour him, Adrianne had ordered, and that was the only reason why Evelyn still bothered to smile at his pathetic excuses for jokes.

 She reached for her goblet of wine and interrupted him just as he was about to being talking. “Oh,” she gasped, in the most charming of ways, and giggled a little, as if it were a secret that only the two of them shared. It had worked, she could tell. “Please, continue.”

 The way he watched her put the cup to her lips told her everything she needed to know. “No, you should go on,” he said.

 She put the cup back down. “Tell me of your kingdom, King Tiraq.” Calling him king was not something she did willingly, but since he proclaimed himself King of the Western Mountains, she had to. It would do no good for the marriage negotiations if she blatantly denied his title.

 “Well, it is… a lot less flat than it is here.” He laughed and she realized it was a joke. “The mountain sides are covered with growth and the lands are very fertile. Tell me, princess, have you ever seen a bear?”

 Evelyn tilted her head in interest. “A bear?”

 "Yes.”

 She thought of the great beasts she had heard could sometimes be seen in the North, closest to the mountains. There were a few wandering about around Wolfsbane. She had never seen them in reality, but she remembered seeing the skin of one. Caterina had worn it around her shoulders one of the days that Evelyn and her family went north, and she remembered envying it. There was something so powerful about it – the thought that a great, dangerous monster once wore that skin, but Caterina had brought it to its death. It was a trophy.

 “No,” she said, breathily.

 He smiled. “Would you like to?”

 She swallowed. “Very much so. I have always had a strange… interest with beasts like them,” she explained. “There is something so… powerful about them. Your Grace, have you ever hunted?”

 He took a sip of his wine. “Not very well.”

 This time, her laughter came quite of its own accord. “It’s quite the sport around here. Women do join the hunts, more so now than before, but it’s usually the men who do the killing. Women just like to watch.”

 “I take it you’re no usual woman,” he said, with something of a question in his voice.

 She shook her head. “I would much rather earn my own trophies than watch some man get them for me. I have always been very good with a bow and arrow – even killed some deers myself. I could show you my stag?”

 He frowned. “Your stag?”

 She smiled with pride. “Yes. I killed it just after my mourning period for my first husband ended. It’s a rare one. Its fur is all white, though you should not let its appearance deceive you. He was a devil to catch.”

 Tiraq stood up and walked to her side, holding out its arm for her. She swept up as gracefully as possible and wove her arm around his. She led him to a room placed above the casemate. It was one of the older buildings, the walls were of wood rather than stone and the windows were not small enough to properly light it. Along the walls hung trophy after trophy in the form of an animal’s head.