“I think it’s best to stay silent and observe until you can judge the situation,” Amielle said, her laconic manner reminding Melia of Amron. “I’m sure you’ve also been taught how to dothat.”
Melia felt the barb in Amielle’s words, but she nodded nevertheless. It was a wise piece of advice, and useful. Amril might have been rash, aggressive, self-centered, but he wasn’t stupid. The Carevna of Seragia was not some girl he could harass and insult. He wouldn’t dare, not after the most difficult negotiations in history.
No matter how he felt. No matter what Melia had put in his drink.
Aratea was a little older than Melia, and she seemed poised and refined, but when the door of the antechamber opened and the noise of male voices filled the air, a spark of panic flared up in her pale blue eyes.
“It’s time,” Amielle said. “We must leave you now.”
Don’t resist him and he’ll have nothing to break. But those were not the words one said to a bride on her wedding night, so Melia kept her mouth shut and gave Aratea a long look of sympathy. “Good luck,” she whispered.
The carevna nodded and sipped from her glass. She was probably too sober to face Amril.
The atmosphere on the other side of the door had grown wilder. The ladies were joined by the men from the prince’s retinue, and there was no shortage of flushed faces, messy clothes and ruffled dresses, and hands sliding to touch hot skin under the pretense of dancing. As if the idea of what was about to happen in the royal chamber had inspired everybody else to seek their own fulfillment once the formal part was over.
“I’m leaving now,” Amielle whispered in Melia’s ear. She touched her rounded belly. “This thing drains all my energy. I’m going to faint if I don’t lie down.”
Melia couldn’t object to that. Still, as Amielle was leaving, she muttered, “And what am I supposed to do here on my own?”
She searched Amril’s party, looking for Amron in vain. Herhusband was nowhere in sight, leaving Melia at the mercy of the hands reaching for her. Usually, her plain looks and cold manner protected her from unwanted advances, but on a night like this, when everyone was more than a little drunk, she was just as coveted a prize as any lady-in-waiting. A young man caught her wrist and pulled her into his lap. She elbowed him in the stomach, her eyes on the crown prince.
Was Amril behaving any differently than usual?
He stood in the middle of the crowd, draining a cup, looking his unruly, wild self.
“Careful, my prince, alcohol destroys virility,” a lady said and laughed.
“It’s not the wine that makes men limp in your presence, Ramina, but your shrewish tongue,” a young nobleman retorted.
Amril was swaying gently, his flush turning an ugly shade of purple. Melia regretted that she hadn’t asked Ferisa what she’d put into the concoction, because he surely wasn’t displaying signs of fatigue and sleepiness. On the contrary, she noticed the bright spark of arrowfoil in his eyes, the agitation of a soldier getting ready for battle.
She turned her back to the crowd and took the vial out of her pocket. A solitary drop lingered in it. Melia was no expert in potions, but she had spent enough time in Ferisa’s den to recognize the smell of the herbs she often used, to tell her potions apart.
She shook the drop into her palm and sniffed it. Arrowfoil, yes, for energy and aggression. But also lobelia and vervain. She licked the drop.
Oh, Father!
Powerful emetics, both of them. It was too late to do anything about it, though.
And why should you do anything about it?
“Bring me wine!” the prince ordered.
She didn’t care for Amril, and he didn’t care for her. He’d crush her like a cockroach if he thought she stood in his way. He’d sacrificed every inch of Elmarran soil, every drop of blood the Elmarrans spilled, for an advantageous marriage with a Seragian princess. He deserved no consideration, no help.
The golden prince. Behind his mask of bravado, he was probably as nervous as his bride. He’d bedded tavern wenches and ladies alike, more than anyone could count, but the woman waiting for him in the royal bedchamber was not like them. Every noblewoman knew from the earliest age that her body was not her own. It was interesting to see a prince realize that. Amron had known it—and fought against it on their wedding night—but he had the luxury of being the less important prince.
In the other room, even if it was for this night only, that composed, plain young woman whose body was Seragian territory and a vessel for imperial will held just as much power as Amril.
And thanks to Melia, he would perform badly.
The songs had turned bawdy, and the court ladies reached for the prince’s clothes, giggling as they disrobed him. He was laughing, but his laughter had no joy to it as the hands that had known his body before now untied, unclasped, unbuttoned, and pulled off the layers of fine fabrics roughly, impatiently, and without any wish to caress. The cruelty was shocking but not surprising if one remembered how Amril had treated them. This was a payback for his wandering hands, his demanding grasps.
Amril flinched and cried out in pain. Disheveled and undressed to his shirt, he pushed the ladies away hard, breaking the unspoken rules of the wedding-night disrobing. One stumbled, one would have fallen if a courtier hadn’t caught her. They protested, but Amril ignored them, raking his fingers through his locks. A fine film of sweat lay on his brow.
The two imperial ladies-in-waiting guarding the bedchamberwatched the spectacle with distaste. The crowd’s feeble attempts to invite the carevna to show herself were ignored, the language barrier suddenly an impenetrable obstacle.
“Go and make us proud!” some drunken fool cried.
