Seven Kings to curse them all

A cold night

Queen Margrethe held in her seething temper. She pushed open her suite doors and tore her black headpiece from her head. The Queen had no taste for dramatics in public, but now in private she spilled her thoughts to Lady Kian. 

"That girls tongue needs a lashing." 

Lady Kian was her lady in waiting, appointed to the Queen at the time of her marriage as she was the Kings little sister. Lady Kian had her late brothers dark umber skin and cool emerald eyes, she constantly dressed in mustard coloured dresses and was always at the Queens side. "Your grace she is child, foolish and simple minded. She will learn her place." 

"She should do well to learn it now." The Queen motioned for Lady Kian to begin to undo her buttons and laces. "I detest those feasts." 

"It must be hard to sit and keep a pleasant face among all the drunken squabble." 

"Pump them with wine and they shall love you for the night." the Queen removed her bracelets and rings, throwing them on the nightstand in the distance. Some missed and clattered on the stone floor. "Thats what my mother said." 

"God rest her soul." Lady Kian removed the Queens skirts and bodice, now unlacing her corset. 

"She would have told Fredrick to kill the girl too. My mother." 

"The Princess Valdor?" Lady Kian let her voice rise in slight shock. 

"Yes. If those loyalists had not written about that babies whereabouts, i know he would have seen sense and done as i bid." the Queen sighed "and now she comes to court, having been spared her life and raised on the Evanoffian coin only to slight me." 

"She is eighteen. Her head filled with flighty thoughts. You should remind her of her place indeed." 

"Perhaps i can leave that to Victor. He has a mean but cleaver temperament. She must see me as a mother figure, i need her on my side remember?" 

"But how loyal can the Valdorians be after all these years? All the love and prosperity under your domain..." 

"Loyal enough. They ruled for three centuries, usurped by my foolish husband in a brash way." the Queen shook her head. 

"My foolish brother indeed, but he gained their respect. Left the throne almost undisputed to do so." 

"And the council whispers behind my back, i know it. My informants tell me." 

"They do?" Lady Kian let her voice echo a sense of surprise again. 

"Indeed." The Queen studied her ladies face. "My nightgown." she instructed. Lady Kian obliged and helped the Queen into it. 

"Shall i put out all your candles your grace?" 

"All but my nightstand." The Queen pulled back her silk sheets and slipped into her duck feather bed. She put on her thin glasses and picked up her book. "Goodnight." 

Lady Kian used a small snuffer to put out all the candles and closed the door. Two guards stood either side and one would come later to sleep at the foot of the regents bed for her safety. Lady Kian hurried to her rooms lower down on the other side of the castle and her own servant undressed and prepared her for bed. Her husband was already laid in his bed, he poured over some legal documents, their huge scruffy grey haired dog slobbered by the fire. 

"She knows." Lady Kian warned her husband. "She knows the council may be plotting something." she climbed into her own bed, next to her husbands. "Is it you?" 

"No my dear." Lord Kian did not look up. 

"You promise me?" 

"Promise." 

"She will hang us both for it if you are." 

"I know." he said sternly. 

"And our children. You know that the Evanoffs don't care to dispose even of the innocent. Not if it compromises them." 

"Stop gnawing at my ear woman." Lord Kian stacked up his papers and threw them on the floor beside him. He rolled away from his wife, the bed creaking as he did so. 

"Perhaps one day when they come to drag us to the gallows you will have wished you listened to me." Lady Kian put out her own candle, seeing her words were falling flat. "God knows i wish you would." 

"How sure you are that you know me." 

"I have been married to you for over twenty years, i have seen you clamber for power and political prowess. I know you will never stop. Even when you were hand of the king, you always looked higher. It is the only reason you married me at all. Power." 

"You should not speak that way. I am your husband. I demand respect." 

"As you wish" she conceded, knowing that to fall out with him would be costly. As she fell asleep she could only pray that her husband would not be caught. She knew him well enough to tell his lies. She hoped that the Queen would be preoccupied with her new toy; Cecily Valdor.