Chapter 1429: Kingship(5)

The serving wenches had filled the deep porphyry basin to its brim with steaming water, scrubbing her skin with lye soap until she gleamed pinker than when she came out of her mother’s womb.

They trimmed her nails down to smooth crescents and brushed out the dark tangles of her hair until it cascaded over the polished rim of the tub in a heavy, glistening wave. Jasmine drew her legs up, resting her wet heels upon the carved footstand built into the stone.

It was hardly the most modest posture for a sovereign, but she was Queen of Yarzat, in her private solar, her pleasure was the only law that carried weight.

Maggi, the youngest of her maidservants, soon came forward carrying a lacquered tray of phials, their precious distillations catching the amber light of the candles.

She stood waiting for her sovereign decision.

Tonight was the great feast; and she would have to stand before the assembled lords of the entire realm both the new and the old. She had to look her best.

She pointed to the silver-stoppered flask. Jasmine.

Just like her name. More than once, Alpheo had murmured his approval into the soft hollow behind her ear while they lay tangled beneath the furs. It would make half the rough-handed legates in the army choke on their ale to know that the legendary terror of the marches, the Butcher of the Ford, liked to be tucked against her breast or be held as the small spoon when the bedchamber doors were bolted.

But that was a secret forged under their linen, safe from the world.

Maggi dabbed a drop of the thick essence upon her fingers, smoothing it across the line of the Queen’s throat, beneath the lobes of her ears, and down over the slope of her collarbones before tracing a light, lingering circle across each pink nipple.

Jasmine let her eyelids drift shut, the fragrant vapor enveloping her senses like a warm, hazy shroud.

There were many truths about her husband that contradicted the blood-drenched monster celebrated in the taverns. The conqueror had a soft, quiet need for warmth, he loved having her fingers wind through his unruly curls while the night wind rattled the casements. She found it immensely endearing.

A man who tore realms apart by day, yet curled in her arms by night like a battered hound seeking a hearth.

The rustle of heavy fabric stirred the mist. Irri entered, accompanied by two pages bearing a rack of gowns. Jasmine appraised them through half-lidded eyes before flicking a wet finger toward the piece that caught her fancy.

It was an exquisite thing of ivory samite and cloth-of-silver, shot through with delicate moon-pale thread and lined with whispering silk.

"You will outshine every jewel in the hall, my Queen," Irri said with an obsequious curtsy.

"And your skin will look radiant against the silver," Maggi purred from the side of the tub, her fingertips brushing once, then twice, a little too deliberately across the Queen’s wet breast.

"The whole hall will hold its breath at the sight of you. The King won’t be able to tear his eyes away."

Jasmine enjoyed the flattery well enough, but she misliked the brazen familiarity of the girl’s hands. The wench was getting too bold in her liberties.

With a sharp, dismissive flick of her wrist, Jasmine swatted the maid’s fingers away. Maggi offered a frightened, stammering apology, but the Queen paid her no mind, turning her gaze back to the gown hanging in the candle-glow.

The bodice was daringly slashed across the front, cut low enough to frame the swell of her bosom in shimmering lace. It was far from pious, yet it was mild compared to the crimson piece to the right, which plunged nearly to the navel. That one would have thrown the banquet into outright chaos, flustering every provincial lord at the high table and likely sending in a collapse Archon Vesparian face-first into his bowl of leek broth.

The Archon’s Killer.

She suppressed a wicked little chuckle at the thought. A dress that could strike down the high priest of the Five Gods with a single glimpse of royal bosom. Perhaps she would leave it draped over herself just to watch Alpheo’s eyes bug out when he came to fetch her.

Than she would tell the joke. She would liked that, she would like it very much.

She leaned her head back against the warm rim, surrendering completely to the water’s embrace. The maids had gathered the flasks and scurried off to lay out the jewels and slippers in the adjoining chamber. There were still many turns of the glass before the trumpets sounded the feast; the court could wait upon its queen, and no lord alive would dare murmur a complaint with her husband sitting beside her.

A slow, self-satisfied smile touched her lips, until a pair of hands settled heavily onto her wet shoulders while creeping to her jaw.

She stiffened, ready to turn and box the insolent maid’s ears for daring to touch her unbidden.. But then the voice came.

"What is that sly grin about?"

The tension evaporated from her spine. She leaned back into the grip, letting out a soft sigh as the thick, scarred thumbs began working the knotted muscles along her shoulder blades, the way he knew she liked.

"Merely enjoying the company of my own thoughts," she murmured, tilting her head to give his hands more room.

"I used to do that," Alpheo said quietly, his thumbs digging deep into a stubborn ache near her collar. "When I was a scabby lad in the gutter."

"I imagine your choices of entertainment were rather scarce back then."

"Aye. I was dirt-poor in distractions. But not anymore." A dark, boyish mirth crept into his voice. Even without turning, she could hear the grin stretching across his weathered face. "Now I’m rich in toys."

"Toys?" Jasmine turned her head slightly, peering up at him over her wet shoulder.

"Aye. You must have seen them out in the yard. They march when I bark, they butcher when I point, and they’ll happily die in a ditch if I put my sword on it. Hard to overlook them, my love, they like to dress in the same iron and march under bolt of cloth."

She laughed, the rolling sound breaking through the bathhouse steam. Only Alpheo would look upon his hardened, blood-soaked legionaries and name them his playthings.

"One must make do with what one has," she drawled playfully.

"You worked wonders with the Great Hall," he said, leaning down to press a warm, rough kiss against the wet curve of her cheek. His breath smelled of cloves. "The tapestries, the musicians... I was wise to leave the court to your hands. Had I managed the feast, the lords would be eating dried salt-beef off their trenchers and sitting on upturned barrels."

Jasmine smothered a broad, triumphant smirk, feigning a bored yawn to hide her vanity.

"I could have made it a spectacle to echo through the next century, had I not been shackled to a miser," she teased, tapping a wet finger against his wrist. "I wanted caged lions from the southern deserts, spotted giraffes, and war-elephants decked in cloth-of-gold to leave those backwater Oizenian pissing themselves in awe. But no, my great conqueror had to play the copper-counting bailiff."

She pitched her voice into a harsh, mocking growl: "’Too extravagant, Jasmine! The treasury will bleed!’ You great fool, extravagance is the entire bloody point of a coronation, there is only one per reign! The last thing we need is the realm whispering that the new King of the South buys his wine on credit!"

"I hardly think anyone will suspect us of penury," Alpheo chuckled, winding a damp, dark curl around his calloused finger. "Our dear lords labor under the delusion that when I squat over the privy, I shit solid silver."

"Must you be so foul?" she chided, though there was not an ounce of venom in her tone.

"Foul? My love, if my tongue offends your delicate ears, you had best seat yourself at the far end of the dais tonight. Every lord from here to the coast will be clamoring for my ear, and a lifetime in the camps has gifted me two talents." He caught her dripping hand, bringing her wet knuckles to his lips for a slow, lingering kiss. His gaze locked onto hers, dark and unblinking. "I learned how to die in peace..."

He leaned in closer, his aw brushing her ear, "...and I learned how to tell magnificent cock-jokes." A wicked grin. "Care to hear the one about the priest and the baker’s donkey?"

Jasmine shoved him away with a wet splash, rising from the basin in a cascade of shimmering droplets. "Keep your barracks filth well beyond earshot, Alpheo. My patience for camp-humor drowned with the last tide."

She had to bite the inside of her cheek to stifle the triumphant smirk threatening to break across her face as she caught him gazing at her. Water streamed down the lush curves of her hips and thighs, as she stepped gracefully onto the fur rugs.

She glided past him, close enough for the steam rising from her skin to brush his chest.

"Can you manage that much restraint, my King?"

"I may," Alpheo growled, catching her by the waist and hauling her against his tunic.

"May," the Queen murmured, resting her hands against the rough wool of his doublet. It was a treacherous, slippery word, may.

Yet tonight, it would suffice.

She tilted her chin up and leaned in for the kiss.