Page 65 of Heart of Snow
“She’s not my lady. She doesn’t care for anyone but herself.” Picking up my cup of wine, I emptied it in three swallows.
Ilsa raised an eyebrow. “You are changed. Rather more rangy and dangerous than I remember. And quicker to be in your cups.”
“It’s devilishly hot,” I answered. “How do you stand this place?”
“The weather’s no different from home. Cooler, if anythin’.”
“Not the weather—the sea of bodies. The constant orders.”
Ilsa folded her arms and propped them on the table, leaning her smiling face toward me. “The frustration of watchin’ yourlady flirt her way through court and naught for you to do to stop it, you mean.”
I did my best to give her a withering look. “It’s too bad you don’t apply your wit to a more useful purpose, like being the queen’s jester.”
“Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll leave you be.”
I stopped chewing my bread and stared her straight in the eye. “If you think I harbor any hopes when it comes to the countess, you couldn’t be more mistaken.”
Chapter 31
Margaretha
Friedrich is here. Here somewhere,living in this palace where I live.Though weeks had passed since his arrival, my mind still hadn’t settled with the notion. Why was he here? Why would Friedrich have ever agreed to come when Ulrich could have served in his stead? Would that I could ascribe his presence to some softening toward me, but I held little hope of that.
“Are you excited for the tournament?” Ilsa secured the hennin to the wire comb around my head. “Joustin’ and knights and maidens. It’ll be just like the olden days. Likely the biggest court spectacle the queen has ever put on.”
I turned to face her, nearly knocking her in the head with my long, cone-shaped hood. “I’d be more excited if I didn’t feel so ridiculous.”
“Well, you don’t look ridiculous.”
A compliment. Ilsa had been in a rare mood of late. Arranging the hennin’s gauzy veil, she asked, “Shall your prince be joustin’ too?” It seemed her understanding of French was enough now that she understood court gossip.
“Ilsa, I have no claim on Felipe—the prince,” I corrected when she raised both eyebrows. “In truth, I don’t even want him.”
“Hmm.” Her pinched lips said what she could not.
“Go on.” I sighed. “What have you to complain of?”
“Nothin’.” She shook out my skirts, straightening them as I waited for the truth to come out. “Except that I’m sureIshouldn’t turn up my nose at a prince. Even if he weren’t so handsome, I’d be grateful for his gifts of jewels and ermine cloaks and anythin’ else he wanted to give me.”
As Ilsa left to fetch my shoes from the press, her words struck me.Grateful for his gifts. Anything he wanted to give me.
“I’ve been a fool,” I whispered to myself, sinking onto the bed. I’d been so focused on the idea of finding a powerful man to marry, of influencing him as his wife to speak up for Samuel, that I hadn’t considered the favors a very smitten, very uncommitted prince might grant. His religious conviction was still a massive obstacle to overcome, but perhaps I could charm him enough to release one minor German count. And with Samuel freed and the prince gone to marry his English cousin, I’d be at liberty to marry whomever I wanted.
The memory of Friedrich’s kiss came to mind unbidden, but I hurriedly tamped it down. He would not have me now. No matter the stumbling blocks between us—our differences in station, my inescapable purpose here in Brussels—the most insurmountable obstacle now was Friedrich himself.
“Ladies!” Dame Thieuloye clapped her hands, summoning us to line up at the door. Ilsa finished fastening the latchets of my shoes, and I tucked into the train of women following Thieuloye out the door, forgetting the height of the hennin strapped to my head until it knocked against the door frame and went tumbling to the floor. Ilsa rushed to pick it up, sliding it back over the basket weaved into my hair, but delaying me enough that I was last in line to enter the stables. The other ladies were mostly up and on their horses by the time I found the stall where Friedrich was working. Alone. This might be my best chance to ask the question I’d been wondering since his appearance in Brussels.
“Friedrich,” I whispered, “what are you doing here?”
He kept his eyes on his work, buckling the bridle’s throat latch as he answered. “Preparing your horse, my lady.”
“I mean, why are you in Brussels? Why did Father send you and not Ulrich or Hans?”
He gave no answer.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I deserved his silence.
Following him to the mounting block, I put my foot on the first step, but Friedrich amazed me by taking hold of my wrist to stay me. While he looked around him, watching the other pages lead their ladies’ horses toward the exit, I could feel only the warmth of his hand bleeding through my gown. It was wrong that his touch still excited a trilling in my nerves, and I fought for the self-command to subdue it. But just when I’d gotten control of myself, Friedrich turned to me, his face abruptly close to mine as I still stood perched on the bottom step of the mounting block.
