Page 11 of The Court of Venus

“Do you? Mind who you speak with in front of her, who you—” He wavered, torn. “If you take someone to your bed, Cecily will hear of it.”

“I don’t intend to take anyone to bed,” I said, lifting my torch higher. “And you’re the one I must mind myself around. At all hours. Not Bess.”

He scratched his neck, a grin playing on his lips. “All hours? You’re paying very close attention, aren’t you?”

As I glared at him, who did he see? That same little girl, chasing after him? A nuisance, sticking her head into tight places where it would get caught?

And yet—I couldn’t resist. Only an hour later, I weaved through shadows as a white cat, trailing Roland and the king. He limped, clung to Roland for balance. I hid behind tapestries, hopped over bars of torchlight. They entered the king’s chambers together, heads bent close. The king was spitting with frustration, and Roland was taking the brunt of it. I could feel the panic in his mind, feel the axe pressed to his throat. Cecily was to be the third queen in as many years, and everything, absolutely everything, seemed to depend upon this latest effort.

I turned the corner and found myself in an abandoned gallery. Once, many portraits had hung here. Now there were only a few. I imagined the lost subjects now, hovering as ghosts, heads dangling from their necks.

Queen Gertrude, Hal’s mother, had loomed imposingly in a frame above the staircase. Her badge was a trove, drawn or stitched as heaps of gold in a mountain cave. When she was first married to the king, she was called the Dragon’s Treasure. Hal swore it was true of her personality: She hoarded her favorites in her rooms, forming a separate court entirely while the king dined with his mistress Alice. That humiliation, and the death of her son, left her mean and isolated. By the time she was beheaded, all her allies had abandoned her. She had only one maid who was ordered to stay by her side at the Tomb. Hal had her golden-brown hair, but not her grim mouth, and the court said she’d birthed all the warmth out of herself and given it to him when he was born.

Then, Alice, the hawk. The king’s most beloved. Where had she hung? I couldn’t recall. But when the king had ordered his mistress painted, the court muttered for days. Wry-mouthed Alice. Laughter was her wake. Laughter, and the king. Always the king trailing after her. I remembered that most, how she walked before him, or else they walked arm in arm, or rode together in the same saddle. I remembered their arguments spearing through the great hall, and how the next day they would be murmuring soft endearments, bent close over a shared plate.

I could see where Eleanor Guildford’s likeness must have been because the frame was recently removed, the space left behind not yet gathering dust. Eleanor, the dove. Solemn and grave, she despised magicians, Prospero in particular, because she believed her connection to the planets was purer. A magician was a window, she argued. She wanted to see the divine light without the distortion of glass. She lived on a higher, loftier plane than the rest of the court, and was often in prayer.

The new queen hung near the window. Fingers of moonlight grasped for her throat. Cecily Guildford, the fox, with her auburn hair and flirtatious brown eyes. Eleanor’s little cousin. What kind of woman chose for her personal symbol an animal her husband adored hunting? What kind of woman wanted to be the soft fur he wrapped around his neck?

So much death. When I had called this court home, there had been so much life.

For hours I stared out at the gardens, watching the night retract, thinking of the dead.

I licked the soft pad of my paw. I’d forgotten how much I loved this form until Roland reminded me. How much I preferred to see clearly in the dark.

Four

Magical tournaments are rare spectacles. The last was held in honor of a second son born to King Richard and Queen Gertrude, though the child died within days.

—PROSPERO THE ALL-KNOWING, THE CELESTIAL BODIES

In the afternoon, Roland lounged at the head of the banquet table, tossing his head back as cupbearers placed fruit on his tongue. He tuned his lute until the rest of the food arrived: garnet wine glistening, meats still steaming, everything staining Roland’s lips and tongue red.

A Sunborn magician, Ambrose, was seated to my left. His eyes were golden orbs, so brilliant and flashing it was difficult to look at him directly without pain. Beside him was Oliver, the Mercury who had shared my cart to the palace. Across from us were two Jupiters—Fulke Roet’s magician, Jasper, a monstrous man with gold stacks in his ears, bulging arms and a roguish grin, eyes the deep stain of twilight. Then Jasper’s young apprentice Cosmo, a boy who laughed nervously and watched Roland with something close to worship, his eyes and hair both robin’s-egg blue. Jasper was raising the level of wine in the poor boy’s goblet every time he looked away.

I had never seen so many magicians gathered together at once. My mind brushed across theirs, a light, hesitant touch. They were all on edge, too—little Cosmo especially.

“Bianca,” Roland called. His pearl earring flashed in the beam cast by Ambrose’s stare. “Will you pass the pheasant?”

I set my cup down. “You can reach from there, can’t you, Roland?”

“Your Grace,” he corrected. “And no, my limbs are entirely worn out this morning, I fear. I can scarcely move. What were you doing last night?”

His goading had the intended effect. I leaned across Tom Guildford’s plate so Roland could hear me better. My voice didn’t carry very far. “Have you ever had a nightmare, and even after you wake, you can’t distinguish what was real or not? The terror still lingers? Well, I dreamt you had killed me, Your Grace.”

It was a half-lie. I had only slept for an hour this morning, curled up as a cat in a patch of fresh sunlight, but the ring-laden hand clasped over my mouth had woken me with a start.

Roland’s brow lifted. “You dreamt of me?”

I scoffed. Courtiers sipped their drinks, trembling with laughter. All the magicians but the Sunborn Ambrose joined in.

“And how did His Grace kill you?” Tom Guildford asked.

Court required plucking the strings of conversation like an instrument. Roland was particularly good at it. Moments like these, when all the courtiers turned in one direction, determined who was a wit or a bore in their collective eye. I thought about my answer. Settled on “He was slow and gentle, I assure you.”

Tom chuckled politely, turning back to his meal.

“Prospero would sit you down and discuss dreams for hours,” Roland said. There was a sharp intake of breath. Glances cast about. Only Roland would dare. I shifted food around my plate and seethed. “One time,” Roland continued, waving his cup around, “I had a dream that I was giving birth to a litter of puppies. Prospero said it meant I was going to win a great fortune, and the next day, I beat Wyatt at cards. How much did I get off you, Wyatt?”