Chapter 713: Tea at the Thorn Court

Eirwen carried her list of marriage terms into the glasshouse like a banner, forty clauses sealed with ribbon. Duchess Merrin of Wrens received her beneath a canopy of thorn vines, holding a list that was longer.

"Forty clauses is a lot for a first meeting," Miri whispered at her elbow.

"A bride’s father would have demanded fifty, I trimmed," Eirwen whispered back, smoothing her ribbon.

Didi flexed her gloved fingers, glaring at the roses as if they had personally offended her mother. The glasshouse was warm, wet and sweet, a garden built to make guests sleepy before the knives.

"Lady Eirwen of the Alder," Merrin said, "how quaint your ears are, I do hope they aren’t too tender for our climate."

"They have survived worse climates, Duchess, including three of my own aunts," Eirwen answered, bowing exactly as low as her pride allowed.

"And your gown is so brave, dear, I would never dare wear anything so cheerful to a funeral."

"It is not a funeral gown, Duchess, it is a courting gown," Eirwen said, lifting her chin.

"Is that what you call it, dear, how hopeful of you."

Eirwen smiled very sweetly, "Hope is the first clause of any contract, Duchess, I never sign without it."

Behind her Miri and Didi took their seats, each wearing the stiff smile of a hostage told to behave. Thorn roses climbed the glass overhead, their dark red petals drooping slowly toward the guests like patient, hungry mouths.

"Every compliment in this court is a knife, dear, so do try to catch them before they land," Merrin said, pouring tea.

’Quaint, brave, hopeful... I am being stabbed with feathers and I cannot even feel it.’

"Then I shall offer a dowry of one whole forest and a joint funeral for our descendants," Eirwen said, unrolling her list.

The Duchess stared at her for a long moment, her fan frozen halfway to her mouth. Then she burst into delighted laughter, rattling every teacup on the table until Eirwen laughed back.

"My word, a forest, nobody has insulted me so generously in a century," Merrin wheezed, dabbing her eyes.

"I did not mean it as an insult, I meant it as a generous—"

"Opening, yes, I know, I adore it, here is mine."

Merrin flicked her wrist, sending a scroll tumbling off the table to unroll across the floor. Item one, she read aloud, said any groom must be buried in the bride’s own garden.

"That is a threat, Duchess, not a term," Eirwen said, staring at the scroll.

"My dear, in this court the two words mean exactly the same thing."

"Item two, then, the bride may poison the groom’s mother, once, as a courtesy."

"Item two is acceptable if the mother has a sense of humor," Eirwen said.

"None of them ever do, dear, that is what makes it fun."

Behind the Duchess, a servant scribbled every word with the face of a man recording a royal decree.

"Your clause nineteen is very good, a groom must learn the names of all her cousins before the vows," Merrin continued.

"I hoped it would read as thorough," Eirwen said, glowing a little.

Miri leaned slowly across the table, one hand resting gently on the edge of Eirwen’s sleeve. She spoke softly, in the tone she used when a student finally stopped fighting the lesson.

"Good, you can be taught," she murmured, "now breathe and let her finish."

Eirwen flushed to the tips of her ears, straightening in her chair with all the dignity of a burned cat. Across the table, Didi slumped sideways in her seat, one hand pressed theatrically to her forehead, eyes fluttering slowly shut.

"Oh, I feel faint, the thorns smell so sweet and the air is so thin," she whispered, swaying toward a passing servant.

The servant caught her with a startled squeak, Didi’s gloved fingers sliding quite neatly along his belt. A small brass key vanished up her sleeve, leaving him blinking at the princess in his arms.

"I’m much better now, thank you, you may go," she said, patting his chest.

"You are a terrible actress and a magnificent thief," Eirwen whispered.

"I am a princess, thievery is simply taxation with better manners."

"Taxation usually comes with a signature at the bottom, dear," Miri murmured, nudging the teapot over the evidence.

"I shall note it in the margin of clause forty, under miscellaneous crimes," Eirwen whispered.

"East service door, third landing, lift as you turn," Merrin murmured to the sugar tongs.

The Duchess busied herself with the sugar tongs, pretending very hard not to notice a thing. Miri slid a cup toward Eirwen, the three girls settling into their first genuinely quiet moment.

"Nobody has ever courted me," Eirwen admitted, staring into her tea, "they negotiate with me, then send a contract."

"I felt that way for my first twenty years, I thought I was only a tool for somebody else’s plan," Miri said.

"And now?" Eirwen asked.

"Now a boy asks me to teach him a slow step, I forget every rule I own," she admitted, turning pink to her rose-gold hairline.

Under the table, her knee settled firmly against Miri’s, a warmth neither of them ever mentioned.

Didi snorted into her cup so hard that tea dripped from her chin onto the tablecloth. She mopped it up with her glove, scowling at both of them with fierce, wet embarrassment.

"Idiots, all of us... he asked me what I wanted, you know," she muttered, "nobody has ever asked me that before."

Didi stared into her tea as she said it, her voice shrinking until it barely reached the roses. Eirwen and Miri exchanged a glance, then each slid a hand across the cloth to rest beside hers.

"He asked me what I wanted for breakfast," Eirwen said, blinking, "I thought it was a trap."

"It was a trap, the trap was kindness."

"He called me Madam Fiancee in front of a coat rack, I count that as a courtship," Eirwen said.

"The coat rack was listening, Eirwen, you said so yourself," Didi said, grinning into her cup.

"Then it will keep our secret, I hope."

"The lemon cake is the only honest thing in this house, it has never once pretended to be sweet," Merrin remarked.

The three of them looked at one another as the absurdity arrived, three women competing for one oblivious man. Miri snickered first, Eirwen followed with a helpless wheeze, Didi giving in with her face buried in her sleeve.

’We are not rivals, we are the only three people in this palace who understand each other.’

"I propose an alliance," Eirwen said, wiping her eyes, "with a clause forbidding us from laughing at him in public."

"I decline the clause, I accept the alliance," she said, lifting her cup.

"He will know within a day, he is an idiot but he is not blind," Miri said, smiling into her tea.

"We say nothing to him about the key," Didi said, her voice dropping, "until we know the door."

"A sensible clause, I shall add it to the alliance," Eirwen said.

Merrin cleared her throat, ending the sudden laughter like a bare hand closing around a candle flame in the dark. The Duchess leaned across the table with her fan raised to hide her mouth, her voice dropping to a thread.

"Ladies, you have amused an old woman, so I will give you a gift," she whispered, "Ibaran keeps one room in this palace unlit."

"Why would a king keep a room dark?" she asked quietly.

"Nobody enters it, nobody speaks of it... and every servant passing that door begins humming a lullaby."

"What happens to the ones who stop humming?" Eirwen asked.

"They stop being servants, dear..." Merrin said, "then they stop being anything at all."

"Why would you tell us any of this, Duchess, when you could simply watch us burn?" Didi asked, narrowing her eyes.

"My own son served in that wing, he hums at supper now and no longer knows my name," Merrin said.

"Does Ibaran know you are telling us?" Miri asked.

"Ibaran knows everything, dear, he simply forgives most of it, which is the terrifying part."

’Nobody hums lullabies to an empty room, somebody is in there.’

Eirwen reached for her tea and found her fingers shaking, so she set the cup down before it betrayed her. Miri caught the movement and covered her hand with her own, steadying her without a single word or any fuss.

"Drink your tea, ladies, none of this was ever said," Merrin murmured, lifting her fan.

A chill swept through the glasshouse, rattling the thorn vines until every rose slowly turned toward the entrance. The masked chancellor stood in the doorway, silent as a coffin, holding something long wrapped in black velvet.

"What does the key open?" Eirwen whispered, barely moving her lips.

"Whatever door he guards best," she murmured back.

He crossed to the table without a sound, unwrapped the bundle, then laid the sword across the cloth.

"A courtesy before dusk, Princess," he said, "Gazel’s blade, for you to hold until the Blades are called."

The sword was plain and notched, its grip wrapped in the faded blue ribbon Gazel wore on every march. Didi touched the pommel with one fingertip, drawing a single low note from the steel like a held breath.

"Where did you find it?" she asked, her voice perfectly level.

"Where I keep everything dutiful, Highness, in a grave."

"Then I will take very good care of it, until the man who earned it gets it back," Didi said.

"As you wish, Highness, everything returns to its grave in the end."

The chancellor bowed from the waist and glided out through the roses, leaving no footprints on the wet tiles. Every rose turned to follow him, then slowly drifted back toward the three girls, still curious, patient and unhurried.

’Gazel’s sword, a stolen key, a lullaby room... it is all one door, he wants us to open it.’

Her gloved hand slowly closed around the key in her sleeve as the first dusk bell began to ring.