All The Queen's Ladies [NaNoWriMo Project]

Boldness

You would not think a place like this could exist somewhere like the High Palace, with its confection of white towers and sugar-dusting frosts on the leaves, its parades of airy corridors and roaring fires in the halls. It shouldn't have a place like this. A room, not a suite, lurking under one of the staircases at the back of Lawrin's Keep. You could easily walk past the door if you weren't looking for it; there is no decoration, no sigil, nothing to indicate that it is anything other than one of those odd little rooms castles sometimes have, that had some purpose once but which have been long forgotten. Inside there is a desk half-hidden under piles of paper and a sprawling abacus, at an awkward angle to allow it to actually fit in in the first place. A banner of a tree, empty of leaves but thick with branches, hangs from one of the beams, attempting to divide the room in two but succeeding only in drawing attention to how small it is. Light slices in through an arrow-slit. The bed seems to have been added as an after-thought. The tower steward, currently one Garef Delles of House Harwood, lives in a smart suite at the keep's entrance, with pages attending to many of his needs even though he is not even a gentleman born. But his son lives here, breathing in the dust, probably dreaming of his old room back at Harwood Ridge. It was no bigger, but at least it had a good view.

Nobody is there to show her in so she does so herself. A young man is bent over the desk and flipping impatiently at the abacus. His cuffs bear old ink stains. Absorbed in his work, he does not hear her enter; she watches and listens to the scritch of the quill as it darts elegantly across the page, the click click click of the beads on the abacus, the soft sigh when yet again something doesn't add up. She waits until he shifts the paper aside and reaches for another one, but suddenly she wants to see his face before she speaks, so instead of a greeting she smooths a hand down her skirts, creating a rustle of cloth. It gets his attention. He half turns, sees who it is, beams and turns fully, with one arm dangling down the back of his chair. In her head, Lady Pallina sniffs. Is that any way to greet a lady? In her head she assures her again: oh, Gweon knows his place. There is nobody more humble.

His expression lights, and her reservations fade. She can speak. Things have changed - but nothing has changed.

"Gweon."

"Branwen."

"Are you well?"

His face gives the answer. "Thank you," he says. "For speaking to the queen."

She flushes, awkward, caught in the knowledge that he will have heard this from somebody else, likely in passing. It is not news to learn by accident, that you will be spared the muddy fields and the snow and the screaming, bloodthirsty enemy. "I wanted to tell you myself. But the queen needed me, and my father came to fetch you... I meant to come earlier, I promise. Am I forgiven?"

"Let's see." He likes lists. "I don't have to march hundreds of miles with men I don't know telling me how lucky I am to be joining them. I don't have to deal with useless commanders who hardly know the difference between north and south. I don't have to spend sleepless nights worrying about borrowed weapons and armour that may as well be paper. I don't have to sleep in a tent. And I don't have to fight slavering, snow-drinking, bear-fur clad northmen." A smile, tentative but genuine. "Right now I think I could forgive you anything."

"Hide your jewels, then!"

He looks around the room; the ink is probably the most valuable thing in it, excepting his good self. "If you see any in sight, let me know."

It is a relief to see him without the tension of the last months, to see him smile. He will not admit it, not even to her, but he has been afraid. It has coloured his manners and his bearing and his expressions, made him fractious, an effort to communicate with. The blots under his eyes have not faded yet, but already he looks better and has his humour back. She grins. She can take any amount of Lady Eliyne's teasing, if this is the result.