“It can’t have been all that bad, now can it?” Odillia said as she ran the brush through Corrian’s hair. The new queen purred and leaned back against Odilia.
“It feels like it sometimes. I wasn’t raised to be a queen, I was barely raised to be a noble lady. The pressure is considerably more than I expected.”
“Then tell me, what happened today that caused you to come running into my chambers in tears?”
*
Corrian had overslept, which wouldn’t be a problem normally, but the delegation from La Serenissima was arriving that day, and she had a full schedule of events to attend to. When her maid attempted to rouse her for the third time that morning, she grumbled many curses about ancestors doing foul things with donkeys before she leverred herself somewhat upright.
After Corrian washed face a bit too hard, her maid (who by now knew everything was behind schedule and was unfairly being held responsible for the delay) selected a green gown and began to dress the queen. Corrian was trying to sit still while being laced into her stays, but her late morning meant she had missed breakfast and was now hungry, so when the youngest maid entered with a tray of food, she nearly lunged at it. That is when she heard the rip.
It was entirely her fault, to be sure, but the dressing maid was now in tears, holding the lacing that had ripped through the eyelets. The stays were ruined. Corrian tried to comfort the maid but she was already being shooed out of the room by the senior ladies maid. A new set of stays were quickly found, but this only increased the delay already present.
Once she was fully dressed, her very impatient butler began to hurry her out of her rooms. As she passed the food tray, she snagged one more turnover.
She was shoving the last bite of turnover into her mouth when she found herself at the door to the audience chamber. Walking in, she saw that Gustav was already inside and talking to whom she could only assume were the dignitaries from La Serenissima. She walked up to her husband with a smile only to be met by odd looks from the three Cardicci men next to him.
“Hello, dear,” Gustav said, bending to give her a peck on the cheek. As he did so he whispered, “You have crumbs on your skirt.”
Corrian’s eyes grew wide with shock, and she looked down to find that, yes, her husband was correct, she was wearing her breakfast. She quickly tried to brush them off as best as she could, all the while noticing Gustav’s cheek twitching in suppressed laughter.
To their credit, the other men pretended not to notice any of it.
The talks today were just preliminary, no actual politics or trade would be discussed until later in the week, but this was Corrian’s first time meeting foreign dignitaries as queen, so she was a bit on edge. To his credit, Gustav seemed to sense this and stood by her side the whole day.
It was also customary for royals and ambassadors of all nations to go on a hunt during political visits. Unfortunately, no one told this to Corrian.
“I am looking forward to the boar hunt tomorrow,” Giuseppe Petrei said to another Sarrenisiman in Caerdicci.
“A hunt?!?” Corrian blurted out in D’Angeline, looking with pleading eyes at her husband. That was when Gustav realized no one had told Corrian. He knew his wife hated hunts, she despised the idea of any killing to be honest. She hadn’t even eaten meat since she was a child and saw the crofter’s at her father’s estate butcher a pig. “You cannot be serious!”
“Of course we are serious,” said Dario d’Angelo. “Everyone knows that Terre d’Ange hosts the best boar hunts.”
Corrian turned to look at her husband, her face white as a sheet. “It is customary,” he said gently.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty, I feel unwell,” she said, then hurried back to her room.
Corrian did not join the group for dinner, instead requesting a tray to be sent to her room. After she had finished her meal, her ladies maid (who by now she had thoroughly apologized to for the events of the morning) helped her draft a note to the king.
G,
I am in need of Odillia’s service this evening. I apologize that you will not find either of our beds available to you.
-C
*
Odilia hummed quietly, continuing to stroke Corrian’s auburn hair soothingly after the queen had finished divulging the events of the day.
“I see,” she said finally, rising only to refresh the incense before she returned to the chaise where the queen had draped herself in her agony. Odilia settled herself on the end of the chaise and Corrian squirmed herself around to rest her head in her Royal Companion’s lap. Odilia rested her hand on the other woman’s shoulder as she considered this – what she knew about Corrian, what she knew of Gustav, and what she knew of responsibility.
“You know,” she said softly, “when Gustav first came to Dahlia’s salon and spent his first night with me, we did not fall to bed as so many would expect. We sat up the whole night, just talking. He told me so many things about the weight of the responsibility that his brother bore, how he never begrudged his elder brother being the Dauphin because he saw how heavy the title weighed upon him and how much he needed to do to prepare. We just talked about duty and responsibility and court. And when the sickness took the Dauphin, when Gustav was lifted overnight to become the next king of Terre D’Ange, he came to me again. And we spoke again.”
“I did not know that,” Corrian said, her eyes half closed as Odilia’s voice washed over her.
“Few do. But I have already advised one ruler, and in this the teachings of Dahlia House serve well. Naamah bestowed herself like a queen, and adepts of Dahlia House spend their entire lives searching for that same regal presence and royal air. It will not come overnight, Corrian, and it lives in each of us differently.”
“Easy for you to say,” Corrian said, a little petulantly. “You are a Dahlia. You are the Dahlia. It looks so easy when everything you do is regal.”
“Comparison will do you no good,” Odilia chided gently. “I was raised in Dahlia House as a child. You are learning now what I have spent a lifetime studying. But at the end of the day, you are the Queen of Terre D’Ange. Outside of these rooms, no one need know how overwhelmed you are. No one will know unless you show them. And they will be testing you, everyone will be.”
Corrian pressed her cheek against the soft fabric of Odilia’s skirt, squeezing her eyes shut as though that would make the troubles go away.
“A queen does not hide,” Odilia’s voice said above her, her fingers finding Corrian’s chin and turning her face back up. “The best way a queen can serve her people is to be honest and true. About herself, about who she is. You are the queen, not anyone else. Be true to yourself first and foremost and, at the end of the day, they will respect you for it.”
Looking up into the courtesan’s dark eyes, Corrian found herself nodding.
“Will you…” she sat up so she could look into Odilia’s face, woman to woman, equal to equal, “Will you help me?”
“Your Majesty,” Odilia said, a tiny glint in her eye, “you have named an adept of Dahlia House as your Royal Companion. I would say it is quite clearly my job to do so.”
Corrian couldn’t stop the little giggle from bubbling free, and she thought to herself that if she was able to laugh about it, perhaps the road ahead wouldn’t be so difficult. Especially since she wasn’t walking alone.