Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) (16 page)

“He’s expressing the hope that I will marry soon,” Alassa said. She turned and started to walk towards the door. “Come on. We’re going to spend most of the day in the carriage. Again.”

N
IGHTINGALE MET THEM AS THEY WALKED
out of the castle and into the courtyard, drawing Lady Barb aside for a frantic conversation. Emily heard enough to realize that he was annoyed at having been left out of breakfast with King Jorlem, although she couldn’t tell if he thought he’d been insulted or if he’d thought he should be there to support Alassa. Lady Barb’s response was quiet, too quiet for Emily to hear, but it managed to convince Nightingale to shut up. Emily was almost impressed.

Prince Hedrick had a coach of his own, along with a small troop of soldiers as an escort. Emily was relieved; she’d worried that they’d wind up sharing a carriage with the Prince, which would have prevented them from talking openly. She scrambled up into the carriage and watched as Alassa waved goodbye to the castle’s staff, before she scrambled up to sit beside Emily. A moment later, the carriage lurched into life.

“We’re several hours late,” Alassa observed. “We may end up spending two days in Red Rose.”

Emily shrugged. “Is your father going to be happy?”

“Probably not,” Alassa muttered. “But cancelling engagements would cause diplomatic storms. I’m not just meant to make an appearance; I’m meant to dance with the princes and show myself to the crowds.”

“But you were attacked,” Emily protested. “Isn’t your safety important?”

“So is pleasing–or at least refraining from offending–the other Kings,” Alassa said, sourly. She looked out of the window for a long moment, eying the cheering crowds. “If someone like you causes a diplomatic incident, it can be smoothed over. But me? If I cause a diplomatic incident, the entire kingdom could suffer.”

Emily nodded and straightened up. “That blade wasn’t a necromantic weapon,” she said, flatly. “I handled Shadye’s knife and it felt…
evil
. The blades the maid carried were just ordinary blades, cursed to kill whoever they cut.”

“And she was carrying several of them,” Alassa agreed. “Not the sort of thing anyone sane would do with a necromantic weapon. Or an Object of Power.”

Enchanted objects were common, but they rarely lasted very long, unless the spells holding them together were renewed on a regular basis. Those objects that
did
remain charged for decades–or centuries–were often incredibly powerful, with hundreds of legends surrounding them. Emily had been amused to discover that Objects of Power were more common in legend than in reality. Besides, there was nothing that quite matched the One Ring or the Deathly Hallows, something so powerful that nothing could stand against it.

“I don’t think it
was
the necromancers,” Emily said, dragging her thoughts back to the topic at hand. “And I don’t see how King Jorlem benefits from arranging your death. Can you?”

Alassa shook her head.

“So,” Emily said. “Who does that leave?”

She scowled, thoughtfully. “Who was next in line to the throne before you were born?”

“The Duke of Iron–my uncle,” Alassa said. “But he’s not much younger than my father. If he took the throne, he wouldn’t be on it for very long before death took him. He did marry a younger woman, but they never managed to have children.”

Emily could envisage a royal uncle killing the princess,
then
the King, just so he could take the throne, but surely someone else would have considered the possibility. And besides, presumably the duke couldn’t lie to his brother. Any plot would have been sniffed out before it was too late.

“He’s a good man,” Alassa added. “And he spends most of his time near the border anyway. He dislikes coming in to Court.”

“I like him already,” Emily said. They shared a smile. “Who else is there?”

Alassa considered. “There are the Nine Barons,” she said, after a moment. “They have some claim to the throne, but it is very thin. The strongest would be Baron Silver, at least by marriage; he’s my mother’s brother. But she was the youngest child in his family, so she wouldn’t have been very important if she
hadn’t
married my father.”

“I’m confused,” Emily admitted. She rubbed her forehead. “Baron Silver is your uncle, right? Your mother’s brother.” Alassa nodded. “Doesn’t that give him a claim to the throne?”

“No, although he
could
try to claim a regency,” Alassa explained. “The other barons would unite against him if he tried a blatant power grab.”

“So your father married the baron’s daughter,” Emily mused. “Couldn’t you marry one of their sons?”

“It would put one of their children on the throne,” Alassa reminded her. “Even as consort, he’d have a disturbing amount of influence. The other barons wouldn’t stand for it.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Clearly, King Randor hadn’t hesitated to marry a baron’s daughter, but princesses had to put up with different rules. Although it
was
possible that they had a point; a king could seek his pleasure elsewhere, while a queen had to remain faithful to her husband. It all seemed absurd to her. Why couldn’t Alassa simply find someone to impregnate her and then have no further contact with him?

“Because they wouldn’t have been sealed and brought into the Royal Bloodline,” Alassa explained, when Emily asked. “And besides, they would want to know who had fathered my child. Who knows
what
could happen in the future?”

“You could marry a commoner,” Emily suggested. “Someone who…”

“You really are from somewhere
different
,” Alassa said, in tones of absolute disbelief. “What do you think that would
do
to the bloodlines?”

Emily wondered just how long that would last. If commoners had been getting wealthier since Bryon and Alexis III–even before Emily had started introducing her innovations–they would eventually start demanding a greater say in how the money was spent. Or, for that matter, offering to meet noble debts in exchange for marrying into quality. Emily had no idea how stable such a marriage would be, if one had been born noble and the other a commoner, but she suspected that it would happen. And then…

Introducing new blood might be just what the nobility needed. Inbreeding had severely damaged aristocracies in the past. But they’d have to get over their prejudices first.

“So you really have to choose between marrying an outsider and praying that it doesn’t lead you into trouble, or remaining unmarried,” Emily said. She shook her head a moment later. “No, you
can’t
remain unmarried.”

“No,” Alassa agreed. She lowered her eyes for a long moment. “Did you see that it was Hedrick who learned magic?”

Emily nodded.

“The crown prince is rarely trained in formal magic,” Alassa said. “
I
was only allowed to go to Whitehall because I have no siblings. Ideally, I would have taken the throne and my sister would have been my magical support. People…worry about the effect of sorcery on their ruler’s mind.”

She smiled, ruefully. “My father isn’t
that
powerful,” she added, “or perhaps he would have taught me himself. As it is, people worry more about sorceresses. They think that women with power are dangerous.”

Emily snorted. That had been true in her world’s history, too. The Romans and Greeks had feared powerful women, while in medieval Europe the mere accusation of witchcraft had often been enough to condemn even the most aristocratic of women. But here, they might have a point. Not all of the full-fledged sorcerers she had met had been stable–and necromancers were completely insane. And she’d heard of sorcerer-kings who had allowed their lust for power to overwhelm their common sense.

“They expect a strong man to take you in hand,” she said, quietly. How could
anyone
think like that? But if they’d known Alassa while she was a brat, they might have had a point about that too. A year ago, the barons had probably feared what would happen if Alassa had been allowed to take the throne. “And to rule in your stead, if necessary.”

“Yes,” Alassa said. Her face twisted into a snarl. “Bastards!”

Emily nodded in sympathy. Zangaria–and the rest of the Allied Lands–seemed to be governed by sexist principles. Emily found them outrageous and stupid, not least because she knew that there were plenty of queens who had governed successfully in Earth’s history. But Zangaria had never had a female queen–and it did have a tradition that women were supposed to follow their husbands. Whoever married Alassa would inherit a ready-made power base he could use to make himself very prominent indeed.

And if they’d known her before she went to Whitehall–and they would have known her–they might have been right to worry.

She turned and looked out of the window, watching as farmland gave way to tiny hamlets before returning to farmland. Most farms were small, worked by hand and animal power, despite the prevalence of magic in the world. Emily had sketched out plans for steam engines that would transform Zangaria–and then the rest of the planet–along with several other ideas that craftsmen might be able to turn into something workable. But it wouldn’t always be beneficial, she knew. The cotton gin had been invented just in time to make slavery economically profitable again.

A handful of peasants were working in the field, not bothering to look up as the procession flashed by. Emily wondered at their dull clothes and permanently tired expressions, wondering why magic wasn’t used to help them. But she knew the answer to that; even the simplest of healing spells consumed a surprising amount of energy. If every magician in Whitehall tried to offer healing without fee, they’d drain themselves overnight and accomplish very little. And the peasants, having a very hard life, would age rapidly. Living in filth didn’t help.

She shuddered as they raced past a farmhouse that was really more like a shack. Little children were running around, almost all naked. Even the ones that wore some clothes were wearing nothing more than loincloths. She caught sight of a woman working at a spinning wheel and shuddered as she realized that the woman couldn’t be much older than Emily herself. Her belly was swelling with yet another pregnancy.

Jade had asked Emily to marry him at seventeen, just below legal age on Earth. It had never really sunk into Emily’s mind that legal age in the Allied Lands was defined as after a girl started her first period. But then, none of her school friends had been married…the girl she’d seen, for a brief moment, hadn’t won the genetic lottery. Without magic, without money, she’d simply been married off as early as possible. Emily doubted that she would live more than another ten years.

Maybe you’re wrong
, she told herself. But she doubted it.

She must have dozed off, for the next thing she knew was that the carriage had stopped and someone was banging on the door. Emily opened the door and jumped down to the ground, then turned to help Alassa step down. They were in the midst of a city, with mountains rising up all around them. Oddly, there were only a handful of people staring at the royal party, but Emily found it something of a relief. Alassa didn’t seem to care.

“Welcome to the Republic of Tarn,” Lady Barb said. “We planned to stop here for lunch, but we don’t have much time so eat quickly.”

She meant it too, Emily realized, as she followed Lady Barb into a small inn. There were no city fathers waiting for them, no ceremonies they had to endure; all they had to do was eat and drink. Emily checked the food automatically, then started to eat as much as she could. The meal was simple–Nightingale could be heard grumbling that it wasn’t suitable for a princess–but surprisingly tasty. Besides, the inn was much cleaner than the accommodation in the last castle. Even the toilets were clean.

“The city fathers have laws enforcing hygiene,” Lady Barb explained, when Emily asked. Being away from the last castle seemed to have improved her mood, although magic crackled around her protectively. “Anyone who throws their slops into the streets gets publicly beaten. Innkeepers are expected to keep their dwellings
clean
. Those who are caught flouting the law are sold into slavery and made to clean the city.”

Emily shuddered. It sounded awful. On the other hand, the city fathers did have a point. Poor hygiene accounted for most of the epidemics that had ravaged the medieval world, before medical science had advanced to the point where germs were understood–although it had taken longer for everyone to accept that something as simple as washing one’s hands after going to the toilet could help prevent the spread of disease. Some doctors had been surprisingly reluctant to accept it, even though they’d been
doctors
. Didn’t they know that their first duty was to their patients?

And Tarn seemed to smell much better than Dragon’s Den.

“The Republic sits between Alluvia and Red Rose,” Lady Barb added, clearly taking advantage of the opportunity to educate Alassa about the city. “Simply put, the city can support itself through careful farming, but it cannot hope to expand into either kingdom–both are happy to leave it independent as a buffer between them. It also allows for a great deal of trade that might not be officially acknowledged.”