Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [75]
It was not a game in which I took part. It began in earnest around the age of sixteen; before that, youthful flirting—the sort of games Katherine and Roshana taught me in the meadow—was accorded little or no weight. At fifteen, I was exempt.
Still, because I was often at Court, I was around it. And because I was a Prince of the Blood, I was not wholly exempt. Even Sidonie, at thirteen, had her would-be suitors. They trod carefully, fearful of the Queen's ire, but one could see them seeking to curry favor that she might be kindly disposed to them in the future.
It didn't work very well.
Those nobles, I avoided. To my surprise, I had to own that Raul L'Envers y Aragon was not one of them. He was pleasant and attentive to her, but in a respectful fashion. Once I got past, to some degree, my dislike of his mother, I found him quite tolerable. He was quiet and thoughtful, with a shrewd sense of humor that surfaced on occasion. If he was laying the groundwork to court Sidonie on his brother's behalf, it was with surpassing discretion; and if his interest was in Alais, it was nowhere evident.
"Why did your mother bring you to Court?" I asked him bluntly one day.
Raul looked at me with surprise in his brown eyes. "To learn my heritage," he said in his softly accented D'Angeline. "Why else?"
"To effect a betrothal," I said.
"Oh." Surprise turned to amusement. "You speak of rumors." He shook his head. "D'Angelines are a funny people. If my brother Serafin wishes to make a bid for the throne of Aragonia, he will marry an Aragonian girl of high standing, not another D'Angeline."
"What about you?" I asked.
We were in the Salon of Eisheth's Harp. Raul glanced around. "I like it here," he said. "I would consider it."
"Alais?" I pressed.
"She's a little girl!" He laughed, spreading his hands. "I have no designs on the throne, any throne. I am like my mother. I like beautiful things. Some things are that simple, your highness."
"Not in my experience," I said.
It could be, though. Raul spoke truly; most of the young nobles flirting and courting did so with exuberance, playing the game for pleasure's sake, reveling in their own youth and beauty, and the multitude of choices available to them. It would not end once they wed, but it would change. To marry or take a formal consort was to establish a household. One might take lovers, afterward, or dally with Naamah's Servants—indeed, most did—but marriage would fix the domestic framework of one's life.
I found it hard to imagine.
When I did try, it was Montrève I thought of. I could envision myself wed to someone like Katherine Friote, a country girl of good family, presiding over the manor; and yet. I could not envision Katherine at Court, where I was beginning to feel a certain sense of belonging.
For one thing, Mavros Shahrizai had returned to winter there. At seventeen, he was beginning to play the Game of Courtship to the hilt, and he cut a dangerous swathe. Still, I was glad to see him, and we resumed our uneasy friendship.
But there were others, too, I began to think of as friends; those whom I found to be good-hearted and decent. Bertran de Trevalion, who was another cousin; his grandmother, Lyonette, had been my father's sister. They used to call her the Lioness of Azzalle. He was a tall young lord with an earnest, open gaze, only a half a year older than I. He was also the heir to the duchy of Trevalion, and knew somewhat about contending with treason in his family lineage. And there were Colette and Julien Trente, whose father, Lord Amaury, had served as Commander of the Queen's Guard and led the expedition to rescue me; and Marguerite Grosmaine, whose mother was the Secretary of the Presence.
They were not boon companions, but they were easy ones. In the countryside,