Anne Bishop - Shalador's Lady

“I didn’t answer because I have nothing to say to you.”

Kermilla stamped her foot. “Queen’s gift, Cassidy. I need the money you owe me for taking over the court.”

She hadn’t known she could be this furious, hadn’t known this much anger lived inside her. “I owe you nothing.”

“You do! Queen’s gift—”

“Is a gift , not an obligation. And you didn’t take over a court from a retiring Queen, Kermilla. You took my court. There’s a vast difference, and if you can’t see that I suggest you have someone explain it to you.” Someone with big, hard boots that could leave an impression where it might do the girl the most good. “The village treasury has the same amount of marks as when I came to Bhak. A little more, in fact.”

“But that’s the village treasury. Every copper spent from there has to be reported to the Province Queen. Those marks aren’t Queen’s income. I have expenses, Cassidy.”

“So did I, and I had no more than you when I started. Merchants are willing to run an account for a Queen’s personal expenses and court expenses. Those accounts are billed quarterly and deducted from that merchant’s tithe.”

“But they’re sending bills !” Kermilla shouted.

Which meant the girl had already spent past the summer tithe owed by those merchants. Once the tithe was met, a Queen and her court were expected to pay for goods like everyone else in the village.

“Then I suggest you curtail your spending until the harvest tithe,” Cassidy said.

“I’m not like you,” Kermilla snapped. “I know what it takes to look like a Queen and dress like a Queen and act like a Queen. Those things take money .”

“Then talk to your Steward. He’ll tell you how much income you can expect after you settle your obligations to the Province Queen and village treasury, and pay your court.”

“That’s your answer?”

“That my answer. You rule Bhak and Woolskin. Your income comes from their tithes.” And may the Darkness have mercy on those people. “I have work to do, and despite what you told Dryden, you are not a welcome guest. You’ve had your say. Now go. I don’t want you in my Territory.”

Kermilla looked stunned.

Cassidy strode to the door and reached for the handle.

“Cassidy . . . wait.”

She couldn’t wait. Her stomach burned and her bowels were turning to liquid. “Get out of my Territory,” she said harshly. “And take your cocks with you.”

Cassidy brushed past Theran, who was lingering in the hallway, and snapped at Ranon when he intercepted her on the way to her suite and tried to ask if she was all right.

She wasn’t all right. Wouldn’t be all right until Kermilla was back in Dharo and she could lock away all the painful memories. Again.

Kermilla dabbed her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

Cassidy had been so angry. She had never seen Cassidy like that! And so unwilling to listen .

It had been a mistake bringing Jhorma with her. She had thought bringing her Master of the Guard might appear too much like a threat, and her Steward had to stay in Bhak to take care of all the boring details. That left Jhorma to represent the Queen’s Triangle—the males who were dominant in a court because they dealt with the Queen directly.

When she’d decided to come to Dena Nehele, she’d thought that reminding Cassidy that she was the Queen Jhorma had chosen to serve and pleasure would intimidate Cassidy a little. At least enough that Cassidy wouldn’t keep ignoring the Queen’s gift which should have been left as the seed money for Kermilla’s personal expenses.

But Cassidy had seen Jhorma and gotten so angry . And that dark-eyed Warlord Prince was so scary ! He looked like he wanted to rip out her throat with his teeth !

It wasn’t fun being a ruling Queen. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Being in Cassidy’s court for her training had been great fun. She had danced and flirted and talked and attended the luncheons with the—well, they weren’t aristos, but they were the most influential people you could find in a place like Bhak. Sure, she had to follow Cassidy around to “learn” how to be a Queen, as if she didn’t know how to be a Queen, and she had made careful notes about what duties she would keep and what duties—the boring duties—she would require the Ladies in her First Circle to shoulder.

Then she found out she’d have to pay anyone who was officially in her First Circle, so she’d limited that Circle to the necessary twelve males. Which meant she had to take care of the boring duties, and since they were boring, she hadn’t bothered with them half the time. And lately it seemed like her Steward was handing her a list of complaints every day. And her Master of the Guard . . . Well, he’d seemed so charming when he’d first begun to serve her, and he’d been a darling when she’d been training with Cassidy. Now she dreaded talking to him because he looked grim grim grim when he reminded her that she was the village’s moral center and she could not allow rowdy young Blood males to use the landens for sport. There was already trouble because of a little mischief, but he’d wanted to publicly strap those boys because a landen had gotten hurt—and he hadn’t looked at her with any kind of warmth after she forbade him to punish the boys. And that merchant! Whining over a broken window and wanting the Warlord’s family to pay for the damages. Well, she couldn’t order that, could she? The Warlord’s sister was one of her closest friends. And then the merchant wanted to deduct the cost of the damages from the tithes and her Steward let him. Without asking her. Saying it was the only thing to do if she wasn’t going to hold the Warlord responsible.

She didn’t have a big enough court. That was the problem. There should be people taking care of these things so that she could be a Queen .

She’d spent some of the village treasury, which she shouldn’t have done and wouldn’t have needed to do if Cassidy hadn’t been selfish. So now she had to have the Queen’s gift in case the Province Queen’s Steward asked her Steward for a financial report. She had to replace what she’d taken, or she would end up having to justify her expenses to Lady Darlena.

Even worse, because she was only twenty-one and this was her first court, Lady Sabrina, the Queen of Dharo, had given her Bhak to rule for one year. A proving ground, Sabrina had called it. If the villages, Bhak and landen Woolskin, prospered under her rule, she could keep them. If not, Sabrina would declare her court broken and arbitrarily reassign her males to other courts, and she would have to form a new court and find another village to rule since Bhak and Woolskin would be given to another Queen.

It was all very distressing.

“Are you all right?”

She gasped at the sound of a strange male voice, then turned to face him, dabbing at her eyes so she looked as woeful as she felt.

Mine.

The shock of it rocked her, that pull, that demand that she be the one to hold the emotional leash that would keep him balanced. She’d never felt anything like this. Was she supposed to feel anything like this?

“Yes, thank you, I’m fine,” she said. “A little distressed is all. I seem to have come at a bad time and upset Cassidy.”

He was so handsome with that dark hair and those dreamy green eyes and that golden brown skin. There was a hardness to him that said warrior . More than being a Warlord Prince who was ready to fight, this man had fought, had been on killing fields that mattered .