Page 59 of The Prince's Mage

He sighed. “You didn’t hear—you heard but you didn’t understand the kind of things he said about you. I thought the soldiers would be the worst of it, but it has been nothing compared to what people have said in the palace. At least with the soldiers I could bark at them or have them under my command to punish as I saw fit for the horrid, disgusting things they said, but here? I cannot stop it. It is bad enough I hear them and my people refuse to respect me enough to at least hide their talk from me, but it is not something you should have to deal with.”

Aimilia’s laughter subsided enough for her to chime in again in the Inimicus tongue. “You know—plan works—she is—uxorem—rest of your lives—learn our language and put with—people—well, rather what I’ve said about her that everyone else is not saying—sorry about that by the way. Scorned women are not rational women.”

“Aimilia!” Gavril snapped at her.

She raised her hands defensively and then turned to Marcella and spoke in Marcella’s tongue, saying, “Disgusting things said. I said first. My bad. Few speak worse than I about you. People… not unique.”

Gavril turned back to Marcella and said in her language, “The fact that Aimilia has stopped saying those things doesn’t mean that everyone else still isn’t saying them and putting their own vile spin on them. More than once I have caught someone with some particular detail that wasn’t true for them to claim they heard it from one of the soldiers with us.”

What disgusting things? Did it have anything to do with the fact that Gavril had her in the room connected to his? That certainly couldn’t help.

Aimilia leaned forward and said in their language so quickly Marcella knew there were words she did know in there that she couldn’t make out, “Wait, there are true details?—telling me it’s true—ripped—she grabbed you—threw her—spent the entire—tent—we will be having words! I am not—stable yet!”

Gavril snapped. “No! Who do you think I am?—exactly—talking about—starts as—see her face—put her on my horse—stay alone in the tent—she’s some kind of—can’t even say it—lose all of my sense—a savage—beside the point—don’t get to be upset—you started most of the rumors!”

Marcella shook her head and said in the Inimicus language, “Enough! Do not care about words. Let them speak.”

When Gavril turned back to her, a thought flickered through her mind. She shifted in her chair away from him. Did he really think her so weak and pathetic the inane gossip of his nobles would destroy her?

He could not call her resilient and claim to love and admire her for it one night and then the next fret so over shielding her from petty words.

She’d never been a creature to be well spoken of, if not derided on character at least on ability. She knew how little there was worth speaking well of and how vast the amount there was to deride. Accuracy didn’t matter to her. Even if the Inimicus were not particularly right on the details or even the fault, Marcella might be pathetic, but she was not that pathetic.

Gavril spoke in her language, “Please, let me have this. Let me succeed at protecting you from this at least.”

Oh. Maybe this wasn’t about how little he thought of her but how little he thought of himself.

But it changed nothing.

She spoke in his language, “I want to go. This is best plan. Do not need to be treated like infant.”

Despite her butchering the last phrase, Gavril sighed and she could see she’d won, especially as Aimilia perked up again. He muttered, “Fine. As you command.”

Aimilia clapped her hands together and beamed. She said in their language, “—my plan, I get to pick what she wears.”

Marcella almost regretted agreeing now that she saw the light in Aimilia’s eyes at the prospect. Almost.

Chapter21

MARCELLA

That night before the banquet Marcella was determined to end their ritual of saving each other from their nightmares. She knew if nothing happened, Gavril would get suspicious like he had the night she’d snuck out, so she was resolved to just send him away the second he appeared, but unfortunately, she wasn’t woken up by his soft reassurances but by his screaming.

Half-asleep, she stumbled over to Gavril’s door. Her hand hovered over the knob when she remembered her resolution to stop this in the hope of saving both of them some pain down the road. She closed her fist and started to pull it back when she heard Gavril’s voice.

A desperate muffled cry on the other side of the door.

In the shape of her name.

She was so weak.

She flung the door open and rushed into his room and to his side, calling out his name as he woke up sweating and cursing from a nightmare. He buried his head in her stomach and she ran her hand through his hair, telling him the story of how Hypatia had realized just how much she and Marcella looked alike when Hypatia had been trying to hide from her tutors and Marcella had been grabbed by them and hauled into her lessons despite her assertions she was not Hypatia.

Frankly, the best lessons Marcella had ever gotten, even if most of it had been over her head.

Gavril’s laugh into her stomach had her stuttering over her next sentence and her hand stilling on his shoulders. If she succeeded in a few nights this was going to be the last time she ever heard him laugh.

She bit her lip.

---