Beneath the Veil Read online

  Someone had lifted me while I slept. Someone had brought me here. With frantic fingers I patted myself to be sure my breast bindings were still in place and the cloths inside myself undisturbed. I still wore the clothes I'd put on after my bath. I wiped at my face and stepped down from the bed. I swayed for a moment, disoriented. I stepped to the curtain.

  "....going to do about it?" Lir's voice, unmistakable.

  "Do?" Daelyn gave a light chuckle. "What I always do. Tell the idiots there's nothing to worry about and offer another reward to anyone who can bring me the hand of who's been hanging the letters."

  "Do you think that's wise? Offering a reward, I mean. The promise of coin can urge even a lazy man to action."

  Daelyn's voice grew hard. "Think you to question my judgment on this, Lir?"

  A low laugh sent a chill down my spine. "Of course not."

  "Good," the Prince snapped. "Because you, of all my men, are the one I trust most."

  "I know this."

  "If you were to begin doubting me..." Daelyn's voice grew soft and mournful. "I don't know what I'd do."

  "You won't have to do anything, because I don't doubt you. I know your cause. I've helped you in it since you began, have I not?"

  The Prince's voice became low and seductive. "And you've been well rewarded for your risk, pet."

  Were they kissing? Beginning to make love? I heard the soft shuffling of clothes, the moist noises of mouths meeting. Should I pull the curtain back, or leave it hang?

  "Go see if that new fetchencarry is yet awake," I heard Daelyn say, and I stepped back from the curtain.

  I didn't wish to let the prince know I'd been listening to his private conversation. Hastily, I turned to the bed and bent over it, pretending I had only just risen. When Lir pulled aside the curtain, I didn't have to pretend to be startled.

  "You've slept the night away. You have duties to attend."

  I nodded and smoothed my wrinkled clothes. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't apologize to me for your lack of attention." Lir looked surprised. "I'm not your master."

  I was used to apologizing for that. My uncle Akadar had often punished me for the same crime. I nodded and moved to push past him, but Lir had left no room for me to get by.

  For a moment, I was close enough to take in the scent of him. Many men wore perfume, some to cover up the fact they rarely bathed. Lir smelled of nothing but soap and water and the fresh outdoors. I breathed deeply on instinct.

  I looked up and our eyes met. A grin quirked his lips. He reached to tug the braid hanging over my shoulder, and the silk ribbon of his sleeve brushed at my cheek.

  "You'd better hurry, lad," he said, and broke the spell he'd cast upon me.

  He stepped aside to let me pass, and I did, hurrying to the chair in which Prince Daelyn reclined. I stood in front of him, reverent but not obeisant. Obeisance was for follies only. "I apologize, my lord. I fell asleep...."

  "I know that." Daelyn plucked another joba melon from the bowl on his lap and sucked it dry of juice. He cocked his head to peer at me. "If I'd known you were going to cause me this much trouble, I think I might have left you selling melons."

  "I plead your mercy --"

  "Shut up." Daelyn's tone was mild, but the words sharp. "I'll give you another chance, boy, because I'm in sore need of a fetchencarry, a good one, to help me around here, and you still look a likely candidate."

  "Thank you."

  He rolled his eyes and pressed a square of lace-edged linen to his mouth. "Mother's Milk! I'm not going to have you beheaded for falling asleep! You act as though you're afraid of me!"

  "No, sir." I shook my head. "But you are the Prince Regent. Sir."

  Daelyn took the handkerchief away. "And you think you'd be wise to cater to my whims, is that it?"

  I didn't know how to answer. "I think it would be wise to do what you ask of me, my lord."

  "Good answer," Lir said from his chair opposite Daelyn.

  Daelyn nodded. "Aeris, do you have any idea what I might ask of you?"

  I shook my head. The prince smiled. He gave Lir a look I couldn't interpret. Then he bid me to step closer.

  "I need a lad who can accompany me anyplace I go. Not only someone to fetch and carry, for Sinder knows I have enough people to do that for me."

  I had a flash of insight, remembering what I'd thought the night before. "And you have many to entertain you."

  He raised a brow. "You're quick. I like that."

  "You want me to be your companion."

  "I have many of those, as well. And I think we can be certain you're not capable of advising me on my wardrobe." Daelyn smirked at my wrinkled clothes, then steepled his fingers beneath his chin and gave me a long, steady stare. "So what, my lad, could I possibly want you for?"

  I had to admit defeat. "I don't know."

  "And that," the Prince said as he leaned in close enough to me that I could smell the wine on his breath, "is what makes you so perfect."

  Chapter Six

  My education began at once. I spent the rest of that day following Daelyn and his entourage on his jaunts around the palace. We had luncheon with some friends, viewed a demonstration by Lir's class of small lads learning the Art, and walked the streets in what Daelyn fondly called "an outing."

  They all ignored me unless to snap their fingers for me to fetch, or to carry. I earned my name that day. By the end of it, my still-aching body only wanted to sleep. Dinner rested like a stone in my stomach. Moving had become an effort.

  I'd stolen a moment to sit while Daelyn bid his goodbyes to the bevy of lordlings who'd followed him all day. When he turned back to me, he raised a brow at my comfortable position but only brushed past me when I moved to stand. He pulled a sheaf of papers and a few books from one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in his library and tossed them at me.

  "I'm going out," he said without preamble. "You can read, can't you?"

  I could, and I told him so. "But my lord, where –"

  "Out. With my companions. Probably to do some drinking and some fucking, if all goes well." He lifted an eyebrow at my blush. "Unless you don't approve?"

  "It’s not my place to say."

  "Indeed, it is not." Daelyn smoothed his hair. "I'll need some assistance in my preparations."

  I headed toward the door. "I'll fetch a folly."

  "You'll do no such thing."

  I stopped, my body twisting, and grimaced. "My lord?"

  Daelyn gave a long-suffering sigh. I'd spent the entire day feeling weaker, duller and uglier than him and his friends. Now I felt infinitely stupider, as well.

  "Aeris," he said calmly. "I despise being waited on by women."

  The word didn't sound quite as forbidden when spoken with such a cultured tongue. "I plead your mercy."

  He held up a hand to silence me. "Being my fetchencarry is more than following me around and bringing me cups of wine. It’s even more than making certain doors open before I step up to them and close after I go through. You are to help me dress, do my hair, my cosmetics, repair my garments should they become torn and make certain they're washed when they become soiled. You're to aid me in any matter that requires attendance upon my person. Do you understand?"

  "Thank you for your patience with me. I...I understand." I didn't, not really. He had follies aplenty to serve in the palace. I'd seen them. He was asking me to do women's work, and yet the request was made to sound like a privilege, not an insult.

  "There are follies to bring us food and take it away, and follies to clean my chambers. Follies to do the things that follies do." He paused delicately. "But when it comes to things I need done for me, you must do them."

  Selling joba melons had begun to seem a far easier task. "I'll do my best for you."

  "You will?" He laughed. "How refreshing. Now, I need to make myself gorgeous. Ring for the folly to bring some wine. You can lay out my clothes for me while I freshen."

  "Do you need my assistance in the privy, my lord?"