Page 47 of The Half King
“But…” Cerise began. “I thought he offered to marry you if…”
“If I conceive his child,” Delora finished. “Yes, that’s the story.”
The story?Was it a lie, then?
“Will you allow me to explain?” Delora asked again.
Cerise moved closer to the bench so they could talk quietly. She lowered onto the grass in front of the bench, and Blue padded along beside her. Blue sniffed at the lunch basket and whined. The woman with the auburn hair lifted the basket onto her lap and began feeding Blue nibbles of cold chicken while Delora spoke.
“This is Philippa,” Delora said, indicating the other woman. “She was my harp tutor when I lived at home. I loved her from the moment we met, but I couldn’t tell my father. He was raised in the old ways, to believe that women belong only with men. So when he hired a matchmaker to find me a husband, I didn’t object. I thought my suitors would be old and ugly and that I could turn them down and never get married.” Delora released a dry laugh. “But the matchmaker was good at her job. Too good. She kept bringing me handsome, wealthy men no reasonable girl would refuse. I started to run out of excuses to say no, and I knew it was only a matter of time until my father made the decision for me.”
“So you asked the king to intervene?” Cerise guessed.
“He’s a good friend,” Delora said. “Good enough to lie and give me the perfect excuse to end the matchmaking once and for all. His idea was brilliant. He said that no man would risk offending the king by proposing marriage to his courtesan. So that was the role he gave me. My father was furious at first, but then Kian added the bit about making me his queen if I conceived an heir. He even gave me the title oflady. After that, there were no complaints. Every father dreams of his daughter being a queen.”
“That’s what you meant by becoming a courtesan to save yourself.” Cerise could see the irony now. “The king’s friendship made you free, but that same friendship draws his spirit to you and puts you at risk.”
“I don’t have as much freedom as you think.” Delora reached for Philippa’s hand and gripped it. “The priests here are a lot like my father—believers in the old ways. They don’t care about the law of the land. They wouldn’t dare to act against me while the king is alive, but if they knew about Philippa, they could find a reason to send her away. Or worse.”
Anger rose in Cerise’s chest. She didn’t say so, but the priests had no grounds to object. The goddess had never been controlled by a man. Shiera loved all of her creations equally, men and women alike. Some of the priests in Mortara needed to learn their place.
“The priests won’t find out from me,” Cerise promised. “But are you saying the king has never tried to produce an heir?”
Delora tilted her head to the side, her eyes softening. “You’ve seen the way he suffers, my lady. Do you believe he would pass that agony on to a child?”
The answer formed in Cerise’s heart. No, of course he wouldn’t want his firstborn child, or any child, to bear his curse. But still, wasn’t it reckless of him to let the Mortara bloodline die out before the curses were broken? They had only just discovered how to find the Petros Blade, and that was assuming Mother Strout’s information was correct. What if they failed? Then the Order would try to take the throne, and that was an outcome more chilling than the shadows.
…
Much like the day before, Cerise awoke to a loud bark from her pup. Her eyes flew open, and she sat bolt upright in bed, peering around her room by the faint, orange glow of dawn. She found no one in her chamber except for Blue, who seemed perfectly content standing beside her, now as tall as a fawn, wagging his stumpy tail and licking his chops as if he had just finished eating.
“Did you swallow a bug?” she asked. “They always make you throw up. When will you learn?”
Blue licked her chin, and at once, Cerise recoiled from the scent of his breath. The odor was unmistakable. He had eaten a treat from the kennel master. But Cerise couldn’t imagine where Blue had found it. She didn’t remember bringing any treats back to her room. Surely she would have smelled them if she had.
Something wasn’t right.
She pulled back the sheet and tiptoed across the bedchamber until she reached the doorway to the sitting room. When she peeked into the sitting room and found it empty, she continued all the way to the suite door and turned the knob.
The door was unlocked.
“No, that’s impossible,” she murmured to herself. She had locked the door last night. She was certain of it. She had even tested the door afterward by trying to open it, and it hadn’t budged.
Someone must have stolen a key to her suite. But if the intruder had a key, why hadn’t they locked the door behind them? Did theywanther to know that they had been in her bedchamber? That they had watched her sleep and could have violated her at their leisure? Was someone in the palace purposefully trying to scare her?
“Well, it’s not working,” she announced, though her trembling voice made her a liar. She returned to her bedchamber and ruffled Blue’s head. “Never mind what I said yesterday about staying a baby. I want you to grow big enough to eat the person who’s sneaking into my room. Do we have a deal?”
Blue yipped and turned in a circle—his way of communicating that he needed to go outside to relieve himself.
Cerise dressed quickly in riding clothes—a gauzy linen tunic over pants—and covered her hair in a light scarf to protect her from the sun. She had already packed two changes of clothes and her heartrending mirror in a small bag, which she strapped over one shoulder. She fastened her homemade sling around the other shoulder, and after squeezing Blue inside it, she was ready to start the day’s journey.
She stopped at the kitchens to procure a bowl of honeyed oats for herself and a whole raw chicken for Blue, and also to verify that the provisions she’d ordered the day before had been delivered to the stables. With that handled, she swept outside to the gardens, where she and Blue ate their breakfast and exercised their legs while they still could.
After Blue had run through the hedge maze and expended his energy, Cerise tucked him inside the sling and then walked across the paddock to meet Daerick and Kian. When she arrived, she noticed three horses tethered outside the stables, each bearing water and supplies and saddled for the day’s ride. Kian lingered in the shade, dressed in the light tan linen of a farmhand, surveying the castle grounds with a cool gaze and a lifted chin.
“Good morning, Your Majesty,” she called to him, searching his face for any hint that Delora had told him about their encounter yesterday. The subject seemed delicate, or at least private, and Cerise didn’t know if she should bring it up. When Kian only greeted her with a nod, she added, “Where’s Daerick?”
“At the cleric’s office foryetanother bag of coin.” Kian waved her over to the shade to wait with him. After she joined him, he eliminated the polite distance between their bodies and stood close enough to make her pulse hitch. “This guide of his had better be worth it,” he said while scratching Blue’s ears.
