Chapter 9 — I Will Call Your Name (2/7)

The Second Prince, Philip. In truth, there had never been a single thread of connection between Diana and this man — Philip had died young, cut down by assassins. By the time she made her true debut into high society and so much as learned that he existed, he was already gone.

He and Ferdinand had been all but the same age, barely ten months apart — ten months after the first queen bore Ferdinand, the second queen had borne Philip. She did remember that her father had once weighed him as a candidate for her hand. At any rate, this was a man she knew nothing whatsoever about — as his standing at the door, rather than in the drawing room, made plain enough.

“Princess! Good to see you!”

Philip's hair was the royal line's signature high-purity gold, and his eyes were an enigmatic green tinged with brown rather than any fresh, bright shade. Unlike Ferdinand, who went about with his eyes half-hooded and his chin hoisted in a boy's bid to pass for a grown man, there was an unadorned quality to Philip that was not at all unbecoming.

He beamed the moment he laid eyes on Diana. They were perfect strangers, yet he stepped right up, took her hand without asking, and shook it briskly. What is with this improper closeness? Could we share some connection I don't remember? Sliding her hand free, Diana bowed.

“It is an honor to meet you, Your Highness.”

At that graceful etiquette, the corners of Philip's mouth curled upward.

“So glad to meet you, Princess! I thought I'd stop by on my way back from an outing! You might become my sister-in-law one day, after all. Besides, I do have business here.”

“Business with my father or my brother, then—”

“It's not the Duke or the young lord I came to see. It's you, Princess.”

Business with me? Diana had been about to step into the drawing room. With a small motion she told Giscard, who had followed her, to wait outside, and went in — and so she never heard the words that left Giscard's mouth.

“...Sister-in-law?”

“The tea here is a mess.”

That was Philip's opening line. It put no one out, though, for it carried neither insult nor displeasure — merely a candid opinion about tea.

“Forgive me, Your Highness. I shall see to it that my people are properly trained.”

Call it a remarkably quick recovery on Mirva's part — apparently she meant to obstruct her in exactly this way again. Diana ordered the maid at the teapot to bring fresh cups and new leaves, then sent her out. Brewing tea, at least, she could manage well enough; in Lodbrok she had always steeped and poured it herself, for fear of poison.

Philip watched Diana make the tea as though it were a marvel. Nobles who truly loved tea did sometimes brew it themselves, but it was hardly a common sight. What a graceful figure she cut, pouring. Philip raised his cup and took a slow sip.

“It's good.”

Philip was honest this time, too.

“And now — what business brings you here, Your Highness?”

At her words, Philip flashed a grin.

“To tell the truth, the story about an outing is a secret. In company, one needs a respectable lie or two. Princess — I came to see you.”

What now? So this is what Philip is like. His manners were so far beyond the pale she hardly knew where to begin correcting them. A royal visit was never this abrupt — at the very least...

“Here.”

Diana looked down at the letter — pink paper, fussy with scarlet silk ribbons. A man in somber navy offering up paper in so gay a palette made for an odd picture. She took it anyway.

“It's from Ionia.”

“Ionia... Her Highness the Princess?”

“Ordering a prince about on a letter errand. Unbelievable.” he grumbled into his tea. If it was Ionia, she might have sent a courier instead of a prince...

“She begged and begged — said it mustn't fall into anyone else's hands. What was I supposed to do?” Philip muttered, as though he had read her mind. With unsteady hands, Diana unfolded the gaudy letter paper.

Ionia was calling her by a pet name. And not “big sister,” either — Ungni... of all things...

It bore none of the court's polished phrasing — just what a child of ten would write. A smile stole onto her face unbidden.

“You must be very fond of Princess Ionia.”

Oddly enough — though the girl was Ferdinand's full sister by blood — it was Philip who had volunteered as her errand-boy.

“Fond of her? That little menace.” He shook his head as though sick of it — yet she could hear in it the same warmth that colored her own voice whenever she spoke of Alexa. In the end, he had barged in unannounced for the sole purpose of delivering this letter.

“It cannot be easy, calling at the home of someone you have never once spoken with. What a kind older brother you are.”

“...”

When she said it smiling and sweet, Philip's face went abruptly scarlet. He glanced furtively at her and mumbled something vague.

“I shall write a reply for the Princess.”

When Diana gave the bell-pull a tug, the one who appeared was Giscard himself. Ah — right. She had left him standing at the door.

“I'll be writing a letter. Bring me writing things.”

Giscard bowed at the waist and left the room. Philip stared hard after his back.

“Is he your servant?”

“No. A slave.”

“A slave?”

Philip kept staring at him openly. Ah, of course — Giscard was a slave granted by the Farnborough crown.

“Do you know him, by any chance?”

Could he have seen him at the Farnborough palace? She nursed that hope — but Philip frowned and shook his head.

“No, that isn't it.”

His answer felt strangely evasive. A good while later, Giscard returned with pen, paper, and ink. Diana took up the quill. A soft rustling filled the room as the feather moved smoothly beneath her fingers, laying down lines of fluid script.

For a moment, the two boys simply watched. She wrote without one trace of a child's restlessness, her posture demure and composed, her lowered eyes following each character with quiet care. When a lock of her half-tied curls slipped loose, she swept it back behind her ear and bent over the page once more — and the two of them gazed on, spellbound.

Only when she set down the quill and looked up at them did the boys realize they had been caught in something like a trance.

“What did you write?”

Philip asked, his voice bright to the point of awkwardness. Diana noticed nothing strange in it.

“I begged Her Majesty the Queen — to ask whether she might perhaps grant me a talk over tea.”

He snatched the letter away and read it. It was exactly as she said.

“Boring.”

Not one flourish — stiff, spare words. Diana Brien, far too grown for her twelve years. Philip frowned and clucked his tongue.

“Can't you put a little more heart into it?”

“I did put my heart into it.”

“Here, you read it. Is this what you call heart?” Philip thrust the paper, quite unthinkingly, at the stiffly standing Giscard. Something subtle hardened in Giscard's face. Diana regarded him, puzzled.

“Look.”

He waved it under his nose — but Giscard said nothing at all. Then Philip caught himself. He had tried to hand the Princess's own letter to just anyone.

“Ah — sorry. That was rude of me, Princess.”

“...”

Seeing her face stiffen, Philip stole a wary glance at her, then laughed.

“Well then, I'll run this over. I am the courier, after all. Ah — no need to see me out.”

With that, Philip vanished as if in flight. So flustered was his retreat that the papers on the desk scattered with a flutter, leaving behind only an eerie hush — like the desolation after a storm has passed.

“Haah...”

Her tension dissolved, and Diana sank into her chair. Philip had a strange way of leaving no distance at all. What sort of prince was so loud, so rude...

Giscard had watched in silence; now he gathered up the scattered sheets. Then his hand came to rest on the paper Diana had scribbled on — a trial page, made to test the pen before the letter proper.

Giscard. She had written his name. And Giscard saw it.

“It's nothing. I just — it came to mind, that's all.”

“...”

“It's just that your name came to me, that's all.”

“My name...” Giscard murmured, low, clutching the paper tight and peering at it more closely — and Diana realized he was looking at it upside down.

“...You can't read?”

“...”

At her question, Giscard raised his head and looked at her. Strange to say, his face seemed steeped in naked shame. Come to think of it, Philip's behavior earlier had been off as well. For a heartbeat, Diana was struck speechless. He couldn't read? Giscard? In her first life, it had never once even occurred to her that he might not be able to...

“Truly? You?”

Then when had he learned to read? During his mercenary days? Surely by the time he wore the crown, he could read...? Diana stared blankly at the boy, his face awash in humiliation — and that stare kindled his anger.

“If you find me pitiful—”

“No. I was only surprised.”

“...”

“Shall I find you a teacher?”

At that, Giscard's face twisted.

“There is no need.”

“...”

“Plenty of slaves cannot read. What would a slave brat do with letters?”

“...”

“And who, on top of that, would ever teach a slave his letters?”

He really is young. Seeing him at last sulk like a boy his own age, the old nausea she used to feel toward him drained away. By a strange twist, the sight of his clumsy, childish side made her feel she might survive this after all.

“Then you'll be a clever slave.”

“...”

“If you're to be my slave, you'll need to know your letters properly.”

“...”

“I'll teach you.”

Smiling, Diana wrote upon the paper in Giscard's hands and passed it back.

Diana held it out to him. Giscard seemed to understand that this was his own name. How strange it all was. The one who had appeared claiming to be his master had bathed him and changed his clothes, told him to learn the sword — and now offered to teach him letters...

Looking at the girl before him, Giscard felt an unbearable shame. Shame at himself, for not knowing a single letter that every child his age knew. Fury at his own ignorance, for not even knowing his name.

He had been laughed at many times over his illiteracy. Even his dead mother had done so.

She might so easily have mocked an illiterate slave for a fool — she did nothing of the sort. Surprised she was, yes; then, gently, she said she would teach him.

In the end, she promised to show him the letters he had tried and failed to learn by himself. Promised to show him a new world.

Was this, too, only because “it was the right thing to do”? Strange. Diana Brien was truly strange.

At the man's words, the people lifted their eyes, limp, toward it. Ah — the faint of heart screwed theirs shut. The man glared at it with eyes that smoldered. He was gaunt, and every now and then he staggered, as if his strength were failing.

Yet what made them fear this man was those eyes — eyes that seemed to drag everything around them inward. A killing intent dense enough to fell a man on gaze alone, rage, some vast and concentrated something hung about him.

Even with darkness fallen, those eyes, it seemed, would go on shining. That glacial terror set the people trembling.

“The wife you people killed — my wife!”

But the “it” he bade them look upon was no longer a person. A wife is a person — not a thing rotting away. What had been a woman of platinum-blonde hair had lost the last of its color and was turning black. It was a wretched sight.

“Kiss the back of my wife's hand.”

A flinch ran through the crowd. Startled by the words, they looked up at him. Had the man truly gone mad?

“...”

“What — can you not bring yourselves to kiss a rotting corpse?!”

The man gave a grim smile — and in the same instant a scream rang out. His laughter began to swell. Ah. Another corpse had come into being.

Amid that savage terror, his alone was the voice of a man murmuring in sorrow.

Diana opened her eyes. The man's laughter would not leave her ears — stuck to them, thick and tacky. That mad cackle ringing at the edge of her hearing felt clammy. Was it the rage steeped in it, or the grief...?

She shook her head at once. One must never reward a lousy dream with a reaction. She had far too much to do.

“You're awake?”

Diana flinched at the voice — Giscard's voice. When she sat up, he stood looking blankly down at her. Don't tell me he stood watch all night.

Is it really all right for things to be like this? For an instant the thought crossed her mind. Had there ever been such calm between the two of them? Then Diana realized: one full month had now passed since Giscard became her slave. Ah — of course. This was not that hellish royal palace of Lodbrok. She rubbed her drowsy eyes again and again.

“Sally should have come to wake me.”

“Lady Mirva ordered it. She had me come in her stead.”

Ah. Diana nodded. Since that day, Mirva had been obedient to her — on the surface. But she kept venting her spite in little ways like this. A meaningless thrashing, nothing more. Truth be told, it would suit everyone if the woman saw the light and handed back her post as mistress of the house — though leaving an estate to a girl twelve years her junior was surely asking too much.

With Giscard kept as her slave, the days were astonishingly tranquil. The servants of the house did put him to work now and then, but no one mistreated him, and no blow was ever dealt.

Eating the food Diana provided, Giscard began to put on flesh; the moment his starved body received its fill of nourishment, he grew at an astonishing rate. He was already the height of a grown man, already needing a man's clothes made to fit. Nor was that all — at his startlingly handsome face, Diana could only smile bitterly.

At times, the sight of that face forced her to choke down the revulsion that came surging up.

“How did the sword go yesterday?”

“Well.”

“Sir Liam says you have a talent for it.”

When word spread that she meant to have a slave trained in the sword and made her guard, many showed their distaste. Naturally — it was a slight against the knights.

Sir Liam, a commoner by birth in the Duke's service, was one of the few who would lend Diana his ear. Saying he had a younger brother built much like Giscard, he had begun teaching the boy the sword in secret. Whatever else, Giscard learned the blade well. But there was a problem.

“If only your letters came as easily.”

At that, Giscard said nothing. Diana caught his ears going red and barely kept a laugh from bursting out.

There it was. Giscard learned his letters at a fatally slow pace. Teach him one character, and he would forget another. All he had to do was commit them to memory, yet he would ask why it was like this — and then forget again.

“Bring your book. I'd better look over your letters.”

As she held out the children's primer, a yawn escaped her before she knew it. She was tired.

“You retired late, my lady.”

Giscard spoke first — a rare thing. Diana nodded. Her tutelage, briefly suspended for Princess Ionia's birthday, had begun anew. She had learned it all once before; there was no need to study it again, but her father remained, as ever, a wall.

He did not acknowledge Diana in the least. And then there was Alexa. Alexa could not be left unattended — she was eight, and still in need of care. She had been running a slight fever lately, which demanded all the more attention.

Mirva only made a show of concern; keeping watch over the child's delicate condition fell to Diana. What was more, Alexa — peevish from being ill, perhaps — had grown whinier of late, and had to be humored at every turn.

So the maids were not coming today, either. With none arriving, she had to bind her own hair — and the ribbon string would not cooperate.

Then Giscard reached out and tied it for her. The instant his hand touched her, Diana flinched. Her eyes flew wide as she turned — and Giscard snatched his hand away.

“A slave — laying hands on the young lady's precious person.”

“...”

“Forgive me.”

Diana studied his face. What was he thinking? Did he truly mean it — sorry that a mere slave had dared to touch her? She arranged her expression into deliberate blankness.

Giscard's touch unsettled her. Not because he was a slave. It was simply that it dredged up old memories.

When he had used their marriage as his pretext to take Diana into his arms. When those rough hands had lifted her chin and pressed his mouth to hers. Those same rough hands had seized her head, had wound around her waist and drawn her in.

“I... don't like men touching my body.”

She could not bring herself to say she disliked being touched by a slave. Circling around the truth, Diana managed, at last, to tie her hair on her own.

“Let me see what you've done.”

At her words, Giscard fetched the primer with a small sigh. Teaching Giscard his letters was, in truth, an act of her goodwill. Goodwill. Seen plainly, it looked laughable.

Diana went on teaching Giscard his letters. In time he would be king, and learn to read then — but she hoped that knowing them might ease his way through the world, if only a little. And...

I want him to remember the kindness I have shown him. Even if he harbored a grudge against this place, she hoped he would recall the goodwill she had offered — before he ever swung a blade.

Without a trace of anger, Diana taught him, patient and meticulous.

Today, there was a harvest: for the first time, he had managed to write his name. Looking at the crooked letters, Diana broke into a bright smile.

“Well done, Giscard!”

“...”

“See? You can do it when you try.”

Giscard made no answer. As she wondered why, Diana caught sight of the figure standing behind them. It was Emil.

“...So this is what you get up to the moment you're out of bed.”

Emil strode up and shoved Giscard. Giscard rocked back a step but did not go down. Displeased by that, Emil drew back his foot to kick him.

“What brings you here, Emil?”

“What did you say to Mirva?”

Emil, absorbed in his lessons as heir, took no interest in the household's affairs. Mirva, of all people? As Diana puzzled over it—

“My friends came calling, and the tea never came, so I went to look — and there was Mirva, hanging on the maids' every glance. She couldn't even manage to order the tea out properly? That's the head maid's job.”

“...”

“You made her head maid, didn't you?”

Emil's brow furrowed.

“However grown-up you try to act, it changes nothing — Mirva is the one laboring for this house. She deserves her due respect. You're being awfully childish.”

“...Emil, hear me out.”

“She was Mother's lady-in-waiting, wasn't she? Is your pride so very important?”

Diana looked at him steadily. This was what made Emil so maddening: whenever she struggled, he would always drape some careless remark over it, voiding her words, reducing her actions to nothing — writing it all off as her prickly temper.

No wonder Mirva was forever an angel to their father and to Emil. And Mirva, strangely enough, doted on Emil; the feeling was mutual. Looking at that beloved face — the elder brother she had grieved for — Diana smiled bitterly.

“Emil. It seems Mirva has misunderstood something.”

“What?”

“I made her head maid because she was struggling. It hardly looks right for the person who ought to be overseeing the household to busy herself with drudgery like managing the maids.”

Emil had expected Diana to lose her temper; when she answered gently instead, his face eased. Perhaps he took after their father — he hated to have anyone add a word to his “authority,” and would not so much as listen. Cross him and he would crush you flat. The trick would be to parry him just enough.

“But they say you humiliated Mirva in front of the maids. That you took her to task yourself...”

“Emil. Mirva tried to put the pearl necklace on me — the one Her Majesty the Queen hates. If the Queen flew into a rage, the ones who suffered for it would have been our whole family.”

“...”

“It would have angered you just the same, had you heard of it in my place. And had it reached Father, it would have been a far greater disaster.”

Smiling sweetly, she took Emil's hand.

“Of course, I'll admit I was furious too. But letting the matter end there — before it passed to my father — was mercy on my part. You understand, don't you?”

Emil floundered. He had meant to scold his little sister, and found the words stuck in his throat. Yet backing down wounded his pride. Instead of admitting he understood, he turned his gaze on the slave at her side.

“And you — don't you go neglecting Alexa just to teach letters to some slave.”

“...”

“Father and I attend to matters outside. You're the one who is always within — looking after her is your place. Father says so all the time.”

Then you and Father should be the ones showing Alexa some attention. That was what she wanted to say. Did he know she had stayed up late again last night watching over Alexa? No — before that, why did he not spare her even a flicker of sympathy over what Mirva had tried to do to her?

A suffocating feeling rose in her, sudden and sharp. Emil laid a hand on Diana's shoulder, shot Giscard one last glare, and was gone. Diana loved her family. But every time they staged a scene like this, that stifled feeling closed over her all over again.

Once Emil had vanished, Diana let out a heavy, heavy sigh. Giscard was staring, unblinking, at her bloodless face.