Beneath the Veil Read online

  Daelyn cocked his head to look at me, then gestured. "Come here."

  I obeyed, expecting him to take the mirror from me. His fingers closed around my wrist and tugged me down to sit beside him. Seated, we were eye to eye. He leaned close to me and put his forehead to mine.

  "You could never look like a troll, Aeris."

  Then he pulled away and stood, leaving me stunned by the intimate contact. He strode to the vanity and tossed the mirror down hard enough to shake the rest of the items on the table. He turned, his hair like liquid gold sliding over his shoulders, and gave me a sly grin.

  "I know what will make us both feel better."

  He rang the bell for a folly. "Bring me cacao. The finest desserts the kitchen can make. You'll love it, Aeris!"

  His enthusiasm was infectious. "I'm certain I will, my prince."

  "Call me Daelyn. I get so weary of being addressed as 'my prince' and 'my lord' all the time. There are so few people who treat me as...well..." he trailed off for a moment, sounded almost wistful. "As just me."

  "I couldn't presume myself to be one of those people," I answered quietly. "I'm just your fetchencarry."

  "Being my friend is a difficult task, Aeris. Worse than being my servant. As fetchencarry, I ask you to be both. I hope you find the rewards worth the heavy burden."

  Impulsively, I reached for his hand. "I do. Daelyn."

  He squeezed gently before dropping my fingers. He turned back to the vanity. "Help me repair this damage, will you? I have to go to court in a chime."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rosten had already whipped the room into a frenzy of discussion. I followed Daelyn to the front and took my seat behind his, my ears abuzz with the myriad of conversations already flowing.

  "Good afternoon, my prince." Rosten was as smooth as placid waters in his address. He made a leg in front of Daelyn, who motioned impatiently for him to rise. "I trust you slept well?"

  "Fair enough." Daelyn simpered at a group of dicing lordlings. "Considering how much ale I'd drunk and how many coins I'd lost to that pair over there."

  Rosten gave the two a glance that showed he thought they were of no consequence. "You were entertaining last eve?"

  Today the Book Monster wore sober, dark blue from head to foot. The plume on his hat was half the size of any other in the room, the fabric bare of extra jewels or embroidery. The sole ornamentation his entire outfit boasted was the medallion bearing Daelyn's crest on a chain he wore round his neck. His graying dark hair hung in a thin, lank braid just past his shoulders. His clothes were of fine quality, and expensive, but not one piece looked as though it brought him joy.

  "Every eve," Daelyn remarked. "You were at home in bed, I presume?"

  Rosten's thin lips curled into some semblance of a smile. "These old bones are too tired to spend nights carousing, my prince. Not like in my youth. However, in light of recent times, I did manage to spend a few chimes in some of the local poetry houses."

  Did I imagine the glitter in Daelyn's eyes came from something other than reflected lamplight? "I hope you found yourself well entertained."

  Rosten thrust out a sheaf of crumpled papers. "There were several...incidents, for lack of a better term, in other parts of the city. And more posters, my lord prince. At the Laughing Peacock, the Dancing Dove and the Ivory Partridge."

  "How fowl," Daelyn quipped.

  Rosten didn't join the laughter that rang throughout the room at Daelyn's joke. "All within a chime of each other, my prince! All hung without anyone so much as noticing them until the criminal had done his work and gone!"

  Daelyn sat back in his chair and put a finger to his chin. Cosmetics covered his scratched forehead and hid the shadows of fatigue beneath his eyes. "Extraordinary."

  "Where did you entertain last eve, my prince?"

  Rosten's silent accusation hung the room with silence. Daelyn cocked his head and asked with quiet, lethal intensity, "Why do you ask?"

  Rosten shrugged. His smile grew broader but still didn't reach his eyes. "I merely thought, my lord prince, you might have seen something. Had you been frequenting one of the poetry houses I mentioned, you might have seen the culprit...first hand."

  "See something? That’s your job, is it not?" Daelyn laughed and looked around the room until most of the other men joined in. I noticed those who did not were those who counted themselves as Rosten's men. There weren't as many as those who followed Daelyn, but there were enough.

  Rosten made another leg. "As you wish, my prince. Have I your approval to take what steps I need to increase the security?"

  Daelyn was playing some sort of game, though I could not imagine what. He gave Rosten a level stare, and I saw the regent behind the rake. He might be extravagant, flamboyant and fashionable...but he was also Prince Regent Daelyn Avigdor, and he was not stupid.

  "Let me see the posters."

  Rosten handed them over. "They are disgusting, my prince. But if you wish to soil your sight –"

  Daelyn motioned for me to take the papers and hand them over. Rosten's glare showed he did not approve. I kept my face purposefully neutral – no difficult task since smiling or frowning made my fresh bruises ache.

  I saw the papers as Daelyn leafed through them. The first showed a woman clothed in a full gown, her only covering a veil clipped to her hair and held back from her face by a garland of ribbon. Her hair flowed down her back like a man's. I recognized the style from the book I'd found in Daelyn's library. The man in the picture was on one knee before the woman, his hand outstretched to clasp hers and his body bent so he could press his lips to her bare hand.

  "Simple pornography." Daelyn tossed the picture to the floor. He held up the next, which showed the same man and woman in a more intimate embrace. "As is this. We've seen it before, Rosten, as schoolboys giggling over it in the privies. Anyone has. It's ridiculous to think that the sight of these posters is going to incite anyone to revolution."

  "Interesting choice of words, my prince." Rosten tapped his fingers together. "Revolution. I fear that's exactly what we have on our hands. There have been eight more reported incidents of follies lashing out against the men of their houses. One man sought a private audience with me to request he be allowed to get rid of the woman of his house, not because she'd tried to harm him, but because she'd demanded he..." Rosten's throat convulsed as he swallowed. He shook his head and managed to continue. "She demanded he make love to her."

  The last came out in a strangled whisper Daelyn leaned forward to catch. "Make love to her? Demanded? I know enough of the male physiology to know that a male can be persuaded to make love to nearly anything. But demanded to? That seems unlikely to me."

  Rosten cleared his throat. "This man was an upstanding merchant in his trade, my prince. Well thought of by his peers, and a regular at one of the poetry houses where we found those pictures. He came to me because he was ashamed of what he'd done, and feared having the folly in his house would tempt him to deviance again. I allowed him to send her to me."

  "He feared she'd tempt him to deviance." Daelyn repeated the words. "What, exactly, did she make him do?"

  Rosten looked around the room. The men who'd been avidly watching and listening pretended to be absorbed in their other tasks, though 'twas clear every ear was tuned to their conversation.

  "She made him orally stimulate her before she would allow him to penetrate her." Rosten sounded sick.

  Orally stimulate a woman? I had to close my eyes to picture it. How on earth would it be done?

  "Why did he not simply avoid intercourse with her altogether?" Daelyn asked smoothly.

  "He was trying to get a son, my prince. It was her time."

  "And how long had he been trying to get a son with her?"

  Rosten shrugged. "She'd been in his household for several years, my prince. He testified he'd lain with her at every opportunity, even at times other than her preflow, in case her cycle was irregular."

  "And has she born children for him?"