Page 2 of Lily of the Valley

"Very well, then." Stifling an inappropriate sigh, she gathered her skirts and made her way back to the private parlor where she'd been practicing her speech. That's what she got for thinking she'd have a quiet morning for once.

Inside, Alice closed the door before joining Lily and Clarissa at the table. Penelope wasn't back yet, but that wasn't really surprising. She'd need more time to get information.

"That toad wouldn't acknowledge his own mother if he thought it would besmirch his reputation," Clarissa said. "Why on earth is he suddenly claiming to have cousins who belong in prison?"

"They're not from here, not even close," Alice said, "though their accents are so good, it's hard to tell."

Lily huffed, annoyed with herself. "I didn't notice." She was passable in the languages of the neighboring kingdoms, but she did not have an ear for them the way Alice did. Then again, few people possessed the same skills as an assassin masquerading as a harmless handmaiden.

"Well-trained by the way they moved, and well-paid by their armor and weapons," Alice added. "Nevermind that flashy broach."

"Gold-plated," Lily said dismissively. "Pewter, likely. He wants to look expensive, but doesn't want to actually pay for it. They must be from very far afield if we've never heard of them. Why, though. If something was so wrong that they had to call in foreign mercenaries, Father would have told me about it. What is Ferdinand up to?"

"I don't know, and it troubles me we've heard no whispers whatsoever," Clarissa replied. "There's no such thing as a secret in the palace, so how did His Grace manage to keep one. And what the hell is it."

"Language," Alice chided lightly.

"Fuck off," Clarissa retorted.

Alice laughed. "I'll do some investigating of my own tonight."

Clarissa shook her head, sending her dark bronze curls bobbing about her head. "No, you need to stay close to Lily. Those creeps leave a bad taste in my mouth. There's nothing particularly wrong with them on the surface; they look and act like mercenaries. Everything about them looks ordinary, and yet everything about them screams danger."

"I'll stay close."

Lily drummed her nails, painted a soft pink, on the table. "If you can't investigate, then we need someone else. I want Josiah."

Clarissa rose and slipped from the room. Alice was the bodyguard; Clarissa was her politician; Penelope was her charmer; and Leigh was the scholar. They were her inner circle, her dearest friends, and she would be lost, as a person and a princess, without them.

She had been named Lily for many reasons, among them that it was a bit of a play on words: their kingdom was nestled in a valley, right at the edge of the enormous forest that spanned most of the continent, south of a great mountain range that served as a natural border between multiple kingdoms. Lily of the Valley was also her father's favorite flower.

But a valley was only as good as what inhabited it, and Lily had taken care with the resources she'd planted. She had the sinking feeling her choices were about to be tested, though she had no idea how or even why.

The door opened again, but this time it was a servant bearing a tea tray. By the time he'd left, Penelope had arrived. "Oh, good, I was hoping you'd come back here." She took her usual seat, facing Lily and the window behind her, with Alice closest to the door and Clarissa's seat opposite her.

"What did you learn?"

"They're from Techar, and not thought well of there. The best I can determine right now, they've never come this far west for work. They don't usually go further than Cecer."

"But now suddenly they're here in Willowen and cousins to His Grace," Lily said, pressing a thumbnail into her bottom lip as she thought. "I need to speak with my father, but I doubt I'll get to him before the meeting this afternoon." They called it a meeting, but it was more of an announcement.

For the past three years, there had been squabbling and the odd actual fistfight over revisions to the property tax laws. Nobles had fought them tooth and nail, not liking that they might actually have to pay them instead of slipping through holes in the current laws. His Majesty was determined, though, and Lily and her circle had helped him to push the revisions through.

Today was the formal announcement of the changes, with an explanation of what they would entail, when they would become active, and so on. Normally such things were announced by other means: criers, bulletins, and such. But the anger over the matter had compelled her father to deal with it directly.

Now five thugs from Techar, all the way to the southeast of the continent, showed up with no warning claiming their leader was cousin to the Grand Duke?

After all this time, they clearly still thought she was a stupid, airy princess. There'd never been anything but kings on the throne, and every man except her father struggled with the idea of a queen. They'd learn to accept it, or they'd learn to live somewhere else. That was a battle for another day, however.

She poured herself more tea, and had just picked up the cup when the door opened once more, admitting Clarissa and Josiah. Tall, dark, and imposing, Sergeant of the Guard Josiah Make was also popular around court for his beauty and infamous for his reticence to talk about himself. No one even really knew where he was from or what had first brought him to the royal palace. He'd replaced the previous Sergeant of the Guard and that had been that.

He was also one of her few friends, outside of her inner circle. "Josiah, thank you for coming."

"Is this about those reprobates that just showed up? I don't like their arrogance."

Lily motioned for him to sit, but he refused with a bare shake of his head. "Black Wolves, they operate in Techar, Beksal, and Cecer. They're flat out not allowed in several other kingdoms, and I've never known them to come this far west. It troubles me deeply they showed up so abruptly and that His Grace was the only one expecting them."

"We had the same concerns," Lily said. "Alice cannot leave my side, so we were hoping you could investigate the matter."

---