Mercedes Lackey - Exile's Valor

Or maybe not. In Selenay’s limited experience, a confirmed bachelor like Alberich had a tendency to panic when confronted by the question of potential matrimony, regardless of whether it was his or someone else’s.

Besides, he’s probably concerned that if I flatten every other possible consort, someone will suggest him as an alternative. The mere thought made her stifle a smile. While the Heralds would welcome the idea, and possibly even the Bard and Healer would as well, the rest of her Councilors would have apoplexy. They’d suggest she take an illiterate fisherman from Lake Evendim before they suggested Alberich. Not that she’d mind an illiterate fisherman from Lake Evendim half so much as she disliked some of the so-called “candidates” for her hand her Councilors were going to suggest.

The Councilors had been well aware from the moment they started their plotting that this was a subject their Queen was not going to entertain gladly, which was why they were intending to surprise her with it, in hopes of taking her off guard.

As they disposed of some final trivial business, they kept glancing at her out of the corners of their eyes, and there was a certain nervous tone to their voices that would have been amusing if she had not been so very angry with them. Her father had not been dead a year, and already they were at her to marry! As if she could not rule by herself, or at the very least, rule with the true counsel of those who were loyal to her (and not merely devoted to their own interests), and rule well and wisely!

:You can rule with more wisdom than some of their choices,: her Companion Caryo said into her mind. :Not that some of their choices would be allowed to rule at all. They wouldn’t be Chosen by a Companion if every living male in Valdemar were to drop dead this moment.:

A stinging indictment indeed, coming from Caryo.

And there was the real rub. What some of her Councilors seemed to keep forgetting was that any husband she took would be nothing more than Prince Consort unless he was also a Herald. Only then could he be a co-ruler.

Of course, they probably assumed that a young woman would be easily led by her husband to give him whatever he wanted, which would certainly make him the power behind the throne, if not an actual monarch. Some of them probably assumed that she could make a Companion Choose him, if she wanted it badly enough.

:The more fools they,: said Caryo.

:Well, they have a poor opinion of how strong a woman’s will can be.: Selenay reflected, as she gathered her nerve, that it was a very good thing that Caryo was of a mind with her. It would be great deal easier to resist both bullying and blandishment with Caryo behind her.

:And don’t forget, you have Myste, too,: Caryo reminded her.

Yes, indeed. Myste, her secret weapon, who not only had supplied her with this vast and intricate report, but was currently mewed up in the library with every book of Valdemaran genealogy in Haven at her fingertips, and a page to bring her whatever she needed for as long as this meeting lasted. No, her Councilors surely could never have reckoned on Myste.

The last of the minor business was disposed of. The Councilors put up their papers, some of them poured themselves wine, and there was a great deal of coughing and shuffling of feet. Then, as she expected, really, it was Lord Gartheser, more portly now than he had been before the Tedrel Wars, and more florid of face, who cleared his throat awkwardly and put the subject on the table.

“About the matter of Your Majesty’s marriage—” he said, and stopped.

Selenay smiled sweetly, a smile that went no farther than her lips, as she looked down each side of the horseshoe-shaped table before she allowed her eyes to rest on Gartheser.

He makes a poor conspirator, she thought. It was from him that Talamir had learned what was toward, though Gartheser himself was probably completely unaware that he had betrayed anything. But he gave himself away, according to Talamir, in a hundred ways, by little nervous tics, by being unable to meet a person’s eyes, by dropping far too many hints when he was satisfied with himself. At that point, both Talamir and Alberich had gone to work, and no secret was secure when those two were ferreting it out.

Though it occurred to her that Talamir had probably not done nearly as much work as Alberich. Talamir’s sympathy was probably at least in part with the Council. Well, give credit where it was due; he had told her in the first place.

“My marriage?” she asked, in feigned innocence. “I wasn’t aware I had been betrothed, much less that there was a marriage in view. Certainly King Sendar never said anything of the sort to me.”

“Ah, well, Your Majesty, that’s the whole point,” Gartheser managed. “You haven’t one, you see. Betrothed, that is.”

She took her time and looked carefully around the horseshoe-shaped table again, making sure to look each one of her Councilors steadily in the eyes. The silence was deafening. No one moved. “Indeed.”

“And you—that is, we thought—that is—” Gartheser couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore. He dropped his gaze and stared at his hands, and stumbled to a halt.

“We have some candidates in mind, Selenay,” Lord Orthallen took up the thread smoothly. Orthallen looked the part of the senior statesman; he had retained a fine figure, and the silver streaking in his dark blond hair in no way detracted from his handsome appearance. Women younger than Selenay threw themselves at him on a regular basis, though she had never heard so much as a whisper to indicate that he was unfaithful to his wife. “You really must marry as soon as may be, of course. A young woman cannot rule alone.”

“Indeed,” she said levelly, hiding her rage with immense care. She wanted to scream at them, then burst into tears, and nothing could be more fatal at this moment.

But the others took that lack of objection on her part as the signal that she was going to be properly malleable, and took heart from it. Only Elcarth and Talamir understood that Selenay had her own plans. Elcarth winced a little at her tone; Talamir’s lips quirked, just a trifle.

“The first, and indeed, the most eligible candidate is my nephew Rannulf,” Gartheser said brightly, “who—”

“Is not eligible at all, I’m afraid,” she interrupted smoothly, with feigned regret. “He’s related to me within the second degree, on his mother’s side, through the Lycaelis bloodline. You know well that no King or Queen of Valdemar can wed a subject who is within the third degree of blood-relationship. That is the law, my Lord, and nothing you nor I can do will change that.” She raised her eyebrows at them. “The reason is a very good one, of course. I shall be indelicate here, for there is no delicate way to say this. As my father told me often, the monarchs of Valdemar cannot afford the kinds of—difficulties—that can arise when a bloodline becomes too inbred.”

And with you and yours marrying cousins and cross-cousins with the gay abandon of people blind to consequences, that’s the reason half of your so-called “ candidates ” are dough-faced mouth-breathers who couldn’t count to ten without taking their shoes off, she thought viciously.

:Harsh. With justification, but harsh,: Caryo observed sardonically.

Gartheser blinked, his mouth still open, and stared at her. Finally he shut it. “Ah,” he said at last. “Oh—are you quite sure of that?”

She opened Myste’s report to the relevant page. “Rannulf’s mother is Lady Elena of Penderkeep. Lady Elena’s mother was my father’s cousin through his mother. That is within the second degree.”