Never After

Today it seemed like she might be trying one more time. Her face wore a more urgent expression than usual. “Olivia,” she said. “It’s not too late.”

I had been standing at the window, watching the bustle in the palace courtyard, where most of the contestants had set up tents and pavilions. There were still probably two dozen remaining, and at least half of them were milling around in the warm golden light of an autumn afternoon. The whole scene of color and endless motion was amazingly inviting, and I longed to be down there with my suitors instead of up here with my stepmother.

I turned my back to the pageantry outside and said in the surly voice I usually employed while speaking to Gisele, “It’s not too late for what?”

“To accept Harwin,” she said.

I let out a gusty breath of surprise. “I am not going to marry Harwin!”

She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Have you taken a good look at some of the individuals who have come to the palace with the intention of wi

I stiffened my back. I would not let her see that her alarm was echoing my own uneasiness. “The competition has already started,” I said. “It would not be hon orable to cancel it now.”

“You’ll be thinking a lot less about honor once you find yourself married to a man you ca

I actually stamped my foot. “I do not choose to marry Harwin,” I said. “A woman should have some choice in the matter of her marriage!”

“She should, which is why she should say yes when the choice she is offered is a tolerable one,” Gisele replied.

“Is that how you ended up married to a king?” I said in a rude voice. “Because you turned down the other matches your father would have made for you?”

She watched me steadily with those dark, unreadable eyes. “Do you think your father is the person I would have married had I been given the choice?”

I hunched a shoulder. “You married him fast enough. My mother had only been dead six months.”

“My father and your father strode from the crypt to the chapel, already making plans,” she shot back. “I would have been here six days after her death if they had had their way.”

I shrugged again. What did it matter? She had been eager enough to jump into the marriage bed with a man old enough to be her father. “At any rate, you can see why I am not so interested in your advice on how to make a happy marriage.”

She continued to keep her gaze on me. “Your father wants a son,” she said. “The minute he has one, you will be shoved aside—forgotten. I recommend that you make sure you are safely married off to a man you like and admire before your father gets his son, or your life will become wretched in the extreme. There. I have just given you another piece of good advice that you will no doubt ignore.”

“I suppose it’s very lucky for me that you have so far failed to provide him that son,” I said.

“I suppose it is.”

I spread my hands in an impatient gesture. “Why do I find it so hard to believe that you have my best interests at heart?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Why do you?”

Shrugging again, I turned my back on her and once more gave all my attention to the tumble and gaiety in the courtyard. “Thank you for your concern,” I said, my polite voice obviously insincere. “But I think I can manage my life without your interference.”

I waited till after dark. And then I put on a plain, brown cloak, pulled the hood over my head, and stole down the servants’ stairways, out the kitchen exit, and into the vast courtyard. Soon I was winding my way through the variegated tents, jostling bodies, and loud merriment that had taken over what was normally a very formal space.

It was hard to take it all in. Servants and pages were racing past the irregular campfires, carrying messages and fetching food. Some of the men were outside their tents, arguing and practicing swordplay. Some were inside; I could see their shadows leap and gesture on the cloth walls, lit from within. The smells were diverse and suffocating—smoke, meat, ale, mud, horse, leather, and excrement, from man or beast or both. Now and then I heard a woman’s laugh or high-pitched squeal over the lower rumble of men’s voices.

The sounds surprised me and I found myself frowning. I had a low opinion of any man who brought a doxy to a competition to win the hand of a princess. Shouldn’t all my suitors be pure of heart as well as strong and brave and brilliant? I would have any man disqualified if he consorted with low women while he was wooing me. If, of course, I could figure out which ones they were.

I had wound my way halfway through the courtyard when I spotted the big bruiser who had caught my eye during the joust. He was sitting on an overturned barrel, but he was so heavy it looked as though his body weight was slowly forcing it into the ground. In one hand he held a hunk of charred meat hacked off the bone; in the other, he held a slovenly woman whose breasts were so big her dirty white camisole could hardly contain them. Three comrades lounged nearby, calling out advice. I hurried on before I could quite decipher what that advice pertained to.

No. He would not be an acceptable bridegroom by any measure.

He could not win my father’s competition, could he?>

I wandered on, drawing my cloak more tightly around my body to fend off the chill of the autumn evening. I was a little reassured to come upon a corner of the camp where no one was wolfing down overcooked meals or enjoying the attention of questionable women. There were plenty of sober-looking young men sitting contemplatively before their fires, or oiling their blades or mending their tack. I even saw one reading a book. He was a tall, lean fellow who looked to be mostly ribs and elbows. I couldn’t imagine how he’d made it through the joust without being unhorsed, but I guessed he would fare well during the test of intelligence. Standing in the darkness, I studied his face by flickering firelight. He looked humorless, severe, fanatical. I would not want to be married to him, either.

Though I would choose him over the big brute with the greasy skin.

If I was allowed to choose.

I pushed away my anxiety and moved on.

At the very last tent pitched just inside the palace gate, I saw a man practicing magic.

It was difficult at first to get a glimpse of him, because he had drawn a small crowd of onlookers who ringed him about, murmuring astonishment. I found a discarded trunk with a broken lock and stood on it to get a better view. And then I, too, was gasping with delight at the show unfolding before me.

A slim, handsome young man stood in a circle of spectators, his face and body lit by the curiously brilliant flames of a low fire. But no—it was not an ordinary fire; it was a blaze made of jagged blocks of golden quartz, each tendril of flame tapered to a point, the whole thing glowing like a harvest moon. While we watched, he twisted his outstretched hands, and the colors within surged to red and hunkered down to purple. He snapped his fingers and the light disappeared completely—and then suddenly sprang back to life, crackling and leaping like an ordinary little fire.

“How’d you do that?” someone asked in a stupefied voice, speaking for all of us.

“Magic,” said the young man, and then he laughed.

He was plainly visible in the light from the natural fire, and he was adorable. His shoulder-length blond hair had a rogue curl; his face wore a rascal’s smile. The mischievous look was counteracted somewhat by deep-set eyes, a generous mouth, and a patrician nose. His hands were elegant and expressive; he reached for the sky and I swear every person in the audience looked up to see what he might pluck from the air. A bird, as it happened, squawking and indignant, who shook itself and leapt from his palm to wing back into the night. He laughed to see it go, his expression purely joyous.