Page 34 of The Traitor's Curse
Right. Because under those circumstances, the risk of aviolent coup in which half the palace staff could be murdered in their beds always remained very real.
“I think that’s not all, though,” I prodded him. Mattia bit his lip, eyes fixed on some point over my shoulder and off to the left. No, definitely not all, and I was fairly sure I knew what he’d say, if I could persuade him to be honest with me. “Out with it. Your duke commands you.”
Persuade, command, what difference did it make, really?
Mattia cleared his throat, fidgeted, and finally clasped his hands demurely in front of him. To his credit, he did finally meet my eyes as he told me exactly what I’d expected to hear.
“Everyone loves the Lord General, Your Grace. Not that everyone doesn’t respect you deeply! But he’s so very popular. So when the two of you, that is to say. Everyone will love you all the more for being close to him.”
Mattia’s neck had flushed bright red. Over his years as my secretary, he’d developed a courtier’s adeptness at hiding his physical reactions—which meant he had to be practically fainting from embarrassment.
Time to put him out of his misery.
And to put me out of mine. I’d already guessed, although I couldn’t have rested without confirmation. But the certain knowledge that my own people preferred Benedict, and liked me better for taking him to bed, cut rather deeper than I would have liked to admit, even to myself.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad our new understanding will put the people’s minds at ease, and I appreciate your candor. Now hand me that new draft of the maritime treaty with the Elaquin Archipelago, if you would? That’s more than enough time wasted on trivialities.”
“Here you are, Your Grace.” I took the document and picked up my pen, forcing myself to focus not on thoughts of Benedict—and it surprised me how much effort it took to pushhim out of my mind—but on my work. But before I could begin to really read, Mattia added, “Your Grace?” I glanced up. “At the risk of my position, I must say one more word, and I hope you’ll forgive me for how long I’ve served you, and how faithfully. I don’t think your happiness or lack of it is trivial, Your Grace. Perhaps you shouldn’t either.”
Lord Benedict has nothing to do with my happiness.I bit the words back before they could fall off my tongue. True, of course, but I’d just apologized for snapping at Mattia, and I didn’t want to have to do it again.
Besides, he meant well. Even though my happiness was entirely trivial compared to the welfare of Calatria. And absolutely didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with Benedict—unless one counted the thought of him going far away, which would give me the greatest possible joy.
It hadn’t made me happy at all when he’d been gone for two years, though, had it?
Ugh. I much preferred maritime treaties to these silly ideas.
“I appreciate your care for me, Mattia,” I said at last. “And I do know how faithfully you’ve served me. Put some of that service into writing down a list of amendments, if you please.”
“As you like, Your Grace,” Mattia said, and he settled into his own chair with his own cup of coffee, pen poised.
The open window let in a breath of sea air and a shaft of sunlight, and those girls really had thought Benedict and I were rather—well, best not to dwell on it.
But the world had been smiling on me rather more than usual today. And I’d enjoy it while I could.
My enjoyment lasted eleven days—honestly, about ten and a half days longer than I’d expected given recent events.
Out of sheer cowardice, and I couldn’t even deny it, I’d declined to call a council meeting that first week, rescheduling it for a full two weeks after the one we’d had on the day of Fabian’s death. I’d also avoided any larger court gatherings. Mattia had spoken nothing but the truth when he’d pointed out that while the servants, the guards, and a few romantic young girls might find it charming that I’d unbent (bent?) sufficiently to take Benedict as a lover, my more ambitious, critical, and politically minded aristocrats wouldn’t be quite so tolerant of this shift in Calatria’s landscape of power.
Unsettlingly, Lord Zettine accepted my calendar amendments without argument. Although it wasn’t all that unusual to skip a week, I’d expected him to fight me on it on principle. He’d simply sent a note acknowledging the change, and other than that day in court I’d only seen him in passing. He had to be planning something.
But whatever Zettine’s plans, a fortnight of dodging most of my council sounded like bliss, even if I had Benedict to contend with every morning, every mealtime, and every night.
All night, sometimes, though he used his sleep magic on me in between, giving me deeper slumber than I’d otherwise have achieved on my own. If he hadn’t, I’d have been too tired to function during the days.
As it was, I’d had to give in and send Mattia to find me a better cushion for my desk chair.
He hadn’t commented. He hadn’t needed to.
But small humiliations—and also large, thrusting humiliations that had me gasping and moaning in the middle of the night—aside, life had gotten noticeably smoother and more pleasant since Benedict had started…humiliating me. I’d been forced to face the fact that Benedict had been right when he’d described how my subjects felt about me. They reallyhadthought me a joyless, sour stick-in-the-mud before I took upwith Benedict and proved I had human desires after all.
Even Benedict hadn’t been too obnoxious. At least, no more than usual. He hadn’t been talking much during the time we’d needed to spend together out of bed, mostly taking our meals. But the one evening we’d been at loose ends after supper and before bed, and he’d already fucked me, he’d actually produced a book from somewhere and flung himself down on my sitting room sofa. And when I’d sunk low enough, goaded by the oppressive nature of the silence, to snidely remark on my surprise that he’d learned to read, I’d only gotten a sharp glance over the top of the book and a grunt.
Who could blame him, I supposed, given the way I’d embarrassed myself by drunkenly weeping about my mother? Gods. He probably hoped I’d never speak to him on any topic of substance again.
Anyway, his mute companionship might have left me too fidgety to enjoy my meals very much, but at least I’d lost the jumpiness that came with wondering if someone would murder me. Benedict had (many, many) faults, but he could protect me. His years of surviving wars and politics proved that. My continued life and health proved it too. I actually felt physically much better than I had for a while.
And so those eleven days slipped by almost without my noticing their passage, as I hid myself away in meetings with justiciary and diplomatic functionaries during the day and yielded to a silent, brooding Benedict at night.
