The King's Lover

Chapter 13

           

Kusy and Juliet both enjoyed their breakfast, despite the angry glare from Clarisse that was unrelenting. She waited, at least, until they were mostly done to speak to them again.

     "Juliet, I've been meaning to ask you." She pushed away her untouched plate and propped one elbow in its spot, so she could rest her chin in her hand and curl her fingers by her mouth. "How is your medication going?"

     Kusy casually picked up the butter knife that had been brought out with the rest of her dishes and twirled it through her fingers. Juliet didn't seem disturbed, though—she simply set her fork down and smiled at her cousin.

     "No different than usual, Clarisse. Why do you ask?"

    The regent shrugged, sending a few golden strands of hair tumbling over her shoulder. "You know how much I worry about your health. When you don't take medication...well, everyone knows how you get."

     Kusy had no idea how Juliet kept the soft smile on her face. "Yes, the medication does make everything seem...unfocused."

     "Unfocused?"

     Sitting up, Juliet waved one hand through the air. "It makes things blurry, makes my head ache. When I haven't taken it in a while, everything seems to be a bit clearer." Her eyes were sharp as she stared down Clarisse. "But I suppose that it's just my madness making things look like that."

     Clarisse narrowed her eyes right back. "I suppose it is."

     Kusy looked to her right and realized that the entire room was silent, from the high class lords and ladies to the servants waiting meekly to the nearly invisible guards. They were all watching the battle go on between their queen and their regent, but Kusy knew that this was only a fraction of what Juliet would do. She only wondered who's side they'd be on.

    "Did you know, they grow some of the ingredients of the medicine I'm on in Brind," Juliet added brightly. "Kusy's heard of them."

     "Has she?" Clarisse her manicured eyebrows. "Well, I'm sure that she doesn't want to dull breakfast by speaking of them."

    "I am sure you do not want me to bore the court with my knowledge," Kusy replied with a sharp grin. 

     The three of them glanced around at the same moment to see what the court was thinking. Most of them were looking away or shaking their heads. Kusy spotted Marina looking at her plate demurely and shaking her head, but right before her eyes moved on, the blonde lady picked her head up and looked right into her eyes.

     "You know," she started, her voice wavering slightly. "I would like to hear about this medicine."

     Clarisse's head whipped around to look at her, and Marina's eyes fluttered under the regent's furious glare. But she did not back down, and Kusy smiled at her.

     "Juliet's...medicine...is called Calamity," Kusy started, putting an intentional gap around the word medicine to make it even more obvious it was anything but. "It's a blend of lake ivory and June's flower."

     "Lake ivory?" A lord sitting across from Kusy frowned. "That's not medicine; that's basically a hallucinogen."

     Clarisse knocked her glass over, spilling water across the table. As servants rushed forward to mop it up, she glared at the man. "Lord Peter, I'm sure you're mistaken. The queen's medicine—"

     "I have spent years studying medicines and powders, Cl—Your Majesty. I think I know what lake ivory is."

    Impatiently, the regent waved away the mass of servants. "Well, then, Kusy is mistaken. Maybe it's not lake ivory."