Against an appropriate backdrop of courtiers and Household Guards, Jullia shone in an embroidered yellow silk robe. It had obviously been modeled after Cassius' Imperial Robe of State, because it featured the same design of five-clawed dragons flying above crashing waves. (The dragons all looked bug eyed, but maybe that was the subject matter.) Fabric like that was meant for cooler, drier northern climes. The woman had to be sweltering under all that brocade, but she acted as cool as if she were picnicking in the Jade Mountains – after Lord Magnissimus breathed on her, no less.
I approved. Here was a ruler who understood the power of clothing to project, well, power.
At the sight of their sovereign, all the commoners dropped to their knees, and the two earls bowed low.
Jullia pointedly directed her gaze at Yellow Flame, and not her renegade uncle. "Cousin. What have you to report?"
Her mages had already enhanced her voice so that it carried all the way to the city.
Straightening, Yellow Flame waved a hand at his own mage, who scurried forth to stamp the earl's throat. When he answered, his voice also rang out across the countryside. "Your Majesty, as instructed, I proceeded here with all haste. Upon my arrival, I discovered the forces of the Earl of Black Crag locked in a pitched battle with those of the Lady of the Lychee Tree."
Tree combat must have been common in the south. The queen gave the ring of lychee trees only a cursory glance.
"As I could not prevail upon him to obey Your Majesty's royal decree to cease and desist, I suggested that we settle the conflict by the time-honored tradition of single combat."
Jullia inclined her head, indicating her royal approval.
Behind her shoulder, Anthea's eyes bored into me. She knew that I appreciated nothing more than a good duel between a champion I'd primed to win and an opponent I'd sabotaged thoroughly. Or between two duelists about whom I cared nothing and whose deaths would provide a brief spell of entertainment.
I gave her a minute shake of my head. This particular duel had not been my doing.
Well, sort of.
"Single...combat, you say." Jullia's voice was delicate. She let her gaze rove over the dining table and the fruits, peels, and pits that littered the grass.
"Yes – "
"It's an outrage!" exploded Black Crag. "Julli– " His niece's cold stare cut him off. "Your Majesty, why do you take the word of this – "
"Uncle. We have not yet requested your side of the story."
Blood rushed to Black Crag's face, turning it as red as a ripe lychee, but he held his tongue.
As for me, I studied the queen with newfound interest. (Okay, fine, it was probably respect.) Her composure was at complete odds with my mental image of her. All along, I'd been picturing an inexperienced young woman, frail and weak and unsure of herself, consumed by grief for her father, swept headlong towards her destruction by currents at court that she could not control or, perhaps, even comprehend.
But of course she couldn't be all that young or inexperienced if she were Lodia's mother's school friend.
It was Katu's fault. Him and his overactive poet's imagination!
Leaving Floridiana's shoulder, I alighted on Anthea's, where my claws snagged and tangled in the filmy silk.
You got Jullia to come in person? I whispered as she winced and craned her neck to inspect the damage.
The raccoon dog spirit wrapped firm fingers around my body, pulled me off her shoulder with one hand, and used the other to work my claws free. "Stop squirming," she hissed. "You're making it worse. But no, I didn't 'get' Jullie to do anything."
Then why's she here?
She eased a loop of thread off a claw. "Because she wants to be."
Because you put it into her head that she needs to see the situation for herself?
Another loop of thread slid off a claw. "I didn't 'put' anything into her head. I'm not you. I told you, I don't get involved in politics."
A likely story.
Tagging along with the queen seems pretty involved to me.
She couldn't shrug because it would damage her gown more, but I heard it in her voice. "I'm just here for moral support."
Yeah, moral support definitely counted as getting involved in court politics. But whatever. It wasn't my problem if Anthea were too dense to see that much. It wasn't like I was her mentor (anymore). Really, all I needed her to do was survive long enough to introduce me to the Kitchen God.
" – did it for you, Jullie!" Black Crag's shout interrupted our conversation. "You have always been too soft on the nobles! They are your vassals! Do you really think an Empress would have allowed her nobles the degree of license that you do?"
Yellow Flame was too much of a courtier to snort, but he did raise both eyebrows.
Jullia's voice remained cool. "Yes, about that, Your Grace."
Clenching his sticky fists, Black Crag growled, "I did it for your sake, Your Majesty."
"And we acknowledge the intent, but we cannot condone the action. You are hereby banished from court. Confine yourself to your estate until further notice. If we hear of further attacks upon our vassals, you will answer to us."
Hang on a sec, is that it? She's sending him home? She's not beheading him or anything?!
What kind of puny punishment was this?!
"Not everyone is like you," Anthea muttered.
After working the final loop of silk free from my claws, she didn't bother setting me down anywhere. She simply opened her fingers. I plummeted several inches before I got my wings coordinated. Then I flew around and dug my claws into her other shoulder.
Hey, if she had to get one side of her gown repaired, I might as well make sure it stayed symmetrical, right?
"Why must you be so perverse?" she hissed. "I'd forgotten how much I didn't miss you."
Awww, so you did miss me? I gotta say, though...I didn't miss you at all.
She gnashed her teeth, got me untangled from the silk, stalked forward, and thrust me at Floridiana.
Startled, the mage jerked her head up. She'd been keeping it lowered, peeking at the queen and earls through messy strands of hair.
"This is yours, I believe." Anthea made me sound like a clod of earth kicked up by her horse's hooves.
"No – " began Floridiana, who had no particular desire to lay claim to me – "I mean, yes, gracious lady. I apologize deeply for my, uh, pet sparrow's...misbehavior. If there is anything I might to make up for it – "
"Just keep it away from me." Dropping me into Floridiana's hand and turning on her heel – which would have worked better on a polished marble floor than on coarse grass – Anthea flounced away.
"Are you okay?" Bobo whispered.
She inspected me all over, but I was fine. Anthea hadn't squeezed me hard enough to crush any internal organs. She knew she needed me to implement that kingdom-wide network of temples to the Kitchen God.
"Ssshould you go into the city to tell the Lady what happened? Ssshe must be very worried – "
No.
My answer came out so sharply that Bobo blinked.
Out of the corner of her mouth, Floridiana asked, "Why not? Thought you were friends."
No. I clenched my beak, remembering the Lady of the Lychee Tree's dispassionate tone as she threatened to take my friends hostage. She proved to be undeserving of trust.
"For real? What'd ssshe do?"
"Yes, for real, what could she do to make her undeserving of your trust?"
What was for real was that I didn't appreciate Floridiana's implication.
She hinted that if I didn't side with her, she would find the three of you and hold you prisoner. It's like she doesn't trust me.
"Really?!" gasped Bobo.
Floridiana, on the other hand, heaved a weary sigh. She didn't act nearly as upset about it as I had been, even though it would have been her neck on the line. "Why does that not surprise me at all...."
Hey! What's that supposed to mean?
"If you haven't figured it out on your own by now, I have better things to do than tell you what you have no intention of learning. Anyway, what's the plan now?"
Awwww, does that mean that you do trust me? Just to irritate her, I rubbed the crown of my head against her cheek.
"Cut that out!"
"Hey, who's that?" asked Dusty's voice.
Unnoticed, the horse spirit had ambled over, and now he nosed the other side of Floridiana's head.
"Ugh, don't slobber all over me!" She pushed his head away, but not hard.
Mission accomplished: One mage, thoroughly annoyed.
"Huh, who is that, Rosssie?"
Who is who – oh!
A procession was wending out of the city, humans and spirits clad in the green and gold of the Lychee Grove Earth Court. At their head were Missa and Ancemus, the Lady's foremost mage and top adviser, come to welcome their sovereign. Personally, I found it inappropriate that the Lady of the Lychee Tree hadn't come in person, but things were so topsy-turvy in South Serica that maybe it was simply the way of things.
Those are representatives of the spirit who threatened to take you hostage, but we're all best friends forever now.
Only Floridiana caught my sarcasm.
Bobo and Dusty just looked dazzled by the fancy clothing.
"Do I look all right? Are you sure I look all right?"
"Uh-huh! Uh-huh! You look ssso pretty!"
As I'd expected, Lodia and Bobo got along like a house that had not been set ablaze by exploding crossbow bolts.
My salvation of the city had won me (somewhat cool) official thanks, but my true reward had been Missa welcoming me back into her home, along with Bobo, Floridiana, and Dusty. Well, not literally in Dusty's case, but the horse was enjoying the Kohs' grass when he wasn't poking their neighbors' touch-me-not plants. The way the tiny leaves curled up and wilted fascinated him to no end.
We'd all been invited to a celebratory feast at the Earth Court, and Lodia, naturally, was dithering over what to wear.
"I can't believe the Queen wants to see me! Are you sure she said she wants to see me? Are you sure she wasn't thinking of someone else?" she asked for the ten-thousandth time.
I'd forgotten how tedious the girl could be. Yes. Yes, she did, I repeated for the ten-thousandth time.
It was true: After exchanging meaningless pleasantries with Missa, Jullia had asked out of nowhere, "How fares thy grandchild?"
"Both of them are faring well, Your Majesty. I thank you for my grandchildren's lives." And she'd bowed very deeply.
Jullia had looked flummoxed by the plural. "Both – yes, that is right, she did have a second babe, didn't she? How fares little Lodia?"
I'd told Lodia this story already. Many, many times. But she still refused to believe it.
"The Queen truly remembered my name?" she pressed. "On her own? 'Twasn't because an adviser whispered it to her?"
"Truly!" Bobo reassured her. "Really truly! And then ssshe said, 'I ssshould like to sssee the girl'."
"But did she really mean it? Maybe she was just being polite."
She's the queen, Lodia. She doesn't need to be polite. If she didn't want to see you, she wouldn't have mentioned you at all.
That made Lodia gulp and twist her hands together.
At the other end of the common room table, Floridiana glanced up from one of Missa's magic texts. "Don't worry, Lodia. The queen is simply curious about her old friend's daughter. Just be yourself and everything will be fine."
Her no-nonsense, schoolmistress-ly tone failed to comfort Lodia. "Be myself? Oh, but I never know the right thing to say – what if I mess up and offend her? What if I trip and fall when I greet her? What if – "
"You'll be fine," Floridiana repeated, closing the book with a great deal more gentleness than she ever used on me. "If you're so worried, why don't we rehearse your greetings? I'll play Queen Jullia."
She moved across the room and sat down in the chair that Lodia kept by the window for embroidering. As soon as the mage's hands touched the armrests, her demeanor changed. Her chin lifted at a haughty angle, her body draped against the chairback, and her eyes went distant, focusing somewhere in the middle distance. The transformation was impressive, but –
That's not how Jullia sits. Ignoring Lodia's gasp at my use of the queen's name without any kind of honorific, I corrected Floridiana. She doesn't lounge.
"Like this?" Floridiana's spine snapped straight, no longer touching the chairback at all.
Better.
"All right. Let's rehearse it, Lodia. Start on the other side of the room, by the stairs – yes, that's good. Now approach me. No, don't cringe. Shoulders back, head up. You're the granddaughter of the Lychee Grove Earth Court's most powerful mage and the daughter of the Queen's old friend. Try it again. Yes, that's better...."
As I watched Floridiana coach Lodia, I congratulated myself on introducing the two. I'd known that the mage would be a better mentor to the awkward teenager than I was, just like how she made a better schoolteacher than I did.
I'd been right to bring her to Lychee Grove.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!