Shadow War - Deborah Chester [100]
Elandra raised her hand, and the woman fell silent.
No one dared speak after that. They waited, the minutes dragging by. The coronation robes, heavily embroidered and trimmed in white sable, waited on their stand. She might never wear them.
“No one has ever done this,” someone whispered. “To keep him waiting ... who would dare?”
Elandra knew the risk she was taking. The emperor’s temper was always uncertain. He was displeased enough with her already. By now his irritation must be explosive. He could call the whole thing off. She would be dismissed in disgrace, set aside as an abandoned wife, her reputation ruined, no prospect of future marriage to someone else possible.
Her nerve almost failed her. She found herself looking at some of the jewelry spilling from the opened cases. There were some very fine emeralds glowing richly at her. They were of a pleasing cut. The earrings would flatter her. How easy to give in. Why had she started this in the first place? A little fit of pique could cost her everything.
But she had started it, and she would finish it. If she did anything less, she would be branded as weak. Her authority, what little she possessed now, would crumble entirely. She would never be taken seriously again. She had been insulted, whether through some scheme of the jeweler or whether through someone at the palace or whether through the desires of Kostimon himself she did not know, but she would not let an insult go unchallenged. No one of Albain blood could.
Again, footsteps came to the door. This time it was one of her guardsmen, a trifle breathless as though he had been running. He handed the Mistress of the Bedchamber a leather box, bowed, and retreated.
The mistress, looking stern with disapproval, carried the box to Elandra. It was dusty and spotted with age. The leather had rotted away in places. Elandra was shocked, for she had truly expected Fauvina’s things to be better cared for than this.
As the box was unlocked and opened, Elandra swallowed hard. She supposed the mistress was right about the jewels being brittle and tarnished. She would look tawdry wearing them. She didn’t even know if they were beautiful or horrid. She should have never backed herself into a corner like this.
In silence the mistress turned the box around so that Elandra might see the contents for herself.
A muted glitter came from the depths of the box.
“Draw back the curtains,” Elandra commanded.
The ladies did so, letting more sunlight into the room. Elandra reached in and pulled out a bracelet. It was heavy and dark.
As she turned it over, the sunlight filled the gems with life so that they blazed in her hand. Elandra gasped.
Rows and rows of small, square-cut gemstones filled the wide bracelet. Rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, topazes, amethysts, spinels, citrines, and peridots all flashed together in a radiance of color. Dropping the bracelet in her lap, she drew out the heavy necklace with both hands. It was a large collar, studded with the same array of stones as the bracelet, that stretched from shoulder to shoulder and dropped to a wide V in the center. The settings were gold and very ancient, but nothing had broken. Normally she would never have chosen pieces with so many colors, but they did not clash, and they would look magnificent against her cloth-of-gold dress.
These, she knew without being told, were the true imperial jewels. No empress since Fauvina had worn them. But their diversity clearly symbolized the many provinces that had forged the empire. Elandra felt a shiver pass through her, as though she felt the dead woman’s approval pass through the jewelry to her. She had been right to insist on this. She knew it in her bones.
There was silence around her. Elandra stopped admiring the jewelry long enough to glance at her ladies with an open challenge in her eyes.
“I am late,” she said. “Attend me