Maelani stopped in the short hall that connected her father's office with the anteroom and gathered herself. She sighed and made a show of waving fresh air onto her flushed face. Maelani knew that a contingent of guards was watching her every move from concealed murder holes in the walls and ceiling. They would be some of her father's most trusted men, but even they weren't above a bit of court gossip. She had no doubt that they would take the locations of the spyholes to their graves under even the most baroque of tortures, but what would it matter that the duke's daughter was all flustered at the sight of the new lord constable?
Let them talk, Maelani thought. I've made my choice and the sooner the city gossips talk themselves through it, the better.
Not wanting to lay it on too thick, she stepped briskly down the hall.
The door to the anteroom swung open for her, and before she bothered to scan the room, she said, "Theria, don't dawdle."
Her maid rustled about in her chair, her servant's gown all wrinkled though her large frame was fairly packed into it like a sausage in its casing. The gown they had traded the day before had been specially made so that it would accommodate both Maelani and her maid. The servant's day-to-day uniform enjoyed a much less expert tailoring. The maid stood, glancing quickly back and forth between Maelani and the man she'd been sitting next to.
"Vargussel," Maelani said, the moment she remembered the man's name.
Vargussel stood while bending at the waist in a sort of ascending bow. His thin lips twisted into a grin Maelani had seen on a hundred faces, though they were always much younger faces. A man of Vargussel's age shouldn't look at a woman her age with a grin like that.
Theria stepped away from the older man, her own face puckered in a most unattractive way.
"Oh, Mistress," the maid said as she swished up next to her employer. "I understand you know this...gentleman?"
Vargussel nodded like some kind of carrion bird inspecting a carcass and said, "It has been my distinct pleasure to make the lady's acquaintance on a number of occasions. Lady Maelani..."
Maelani sighed and said, "Ah, yes, Vargussel. How do you do?"
"Well," the man simpered, his face turning a blotchy red. "And My Lady?"
"I am fine, thank you," Maelani replied, making it a point to be nothing more than curtly polite. "So, Theria," she continued, turning to her maid, "let us—"
Vargussel stepped forward, not exactly blocking Maelani's path, but both women were startled by his sudden approach. Theria yelped and put a hand to her chest. Vargussel hurriedly stepped back, blushing and sweating. It all made for a scene Maelani would replay in her most humiliating nightmares.
A waft of some heavy, damp stench slid across her as if the air itself had suddenly become greasy, and it was all Maelani could do to keep her face from registering her revulsion. The smell had come from Vargussel.
Theria, on the other hand, made no attempt to disguise the fact that the room contained something rotten.
"Goodness, sir," she said, looking away and pressing her chubby fingers to her mouth and nose.
"My apologies," Vargussel said, hunching into another bow. "My...experiments...in the service of the duke..."
Maelani watched him stammer and hedge with no interest at all. She took one step closer to the door, feeling Theria move to join her, when Vargussel put up a hand.
"Please, Lady Maelani," he said.
The duke's daughter stopped, pursed her lips, and waited for the man to speak.
"Lady..." Vargussel began, then he wrung his hands.
"Vargussel," she said, "please do not let me keep you. I'm certain your business with my father is of the utmost urgency."
"They'll send for me," he said, "when the duke is ready for me. In the meantime, though, if I might have just the briefest morsel of your time."
Maelani set her weight all on her right foot and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"I, uh..." Vargussel began.
Theria put a hand on Maelani's arm and the duke's daughter looked down at her maid. The woman's beady eyes darted between Maelani and the door, her face a caricature of impatience. Maelani lifted an eyebrow to put her off, but said nothing.
Vargussel cleared his throat, and Maelani made a show of granting him her attention. The man seemed to have calmed himself.
"My family," he said, "was once one of the duchy's most prominent. We continue to control substantial resources, as the lady is certainly aware. The finest of the duchy's bloodlines mingles with my own, and it has been my honor to serve the duke in matters arcane and mundane alike. I have property and position, and I am unmarried."
Maelani's blood ran cold.
"Your father," the wretched man continued, "has made it clear that a marriage is in the offing. I beg..."
Vargussel finally looked her in the eyes, and if Maelani's blood could have run any colder, it would have. His eyes were hard, almost lifeless, but possessed of a keen intelligence that made Maelani almost as afraid as she was surprised.
"No," he corrected himself. "I do not beg, my lady, because I do not need to. I have the position, the blood, the service, and the will to make you my wife."
Maelani drew a slow breath, doing her best to ignore the man's odor, and said, "Sir, you assume much."
"I do," Vargussel answered. "I am a blunt man. That I admit freely. I have spent my life in serious study, in the consideration of matters of extraordinary significance and ancient power, but I have always put the needs of the duchy before my own and before the needs of my family. Now it is my family and yours both in need of an heir. You will find no better match—not among the sniveling brats of this city's bourgeoisie."
"Won't I?" Maelani asked.
"Sir," Theria cut in, "please accept my apologies, but I fear you are making the lady uncomfortable."
Maelani regarded her maid with a smile. Good old Theria: scared all the time, but dependable in a pinch.
Vargussel turned his gaze on Theria, who withered from it and stepped behind her mistress.
"Still," Maelani said to Vargussel, "you assume much."
Vargussel smiled and bowed his head slightly. Maelani took stock of the man again. He was taller than her and not badly put together. She thought that he might even have been attractive one day, decades past. His clothing was of the finest cut, but easily eight months or more out of date. She couldn't help but look at his shoes, though she preferred to at least try to stare the presumptuous man down.
"I have more to offer," he said, "than merely my family's fortune and loyalty. I will beg My Lady's forgiveness for one more transgression of protocol."
Maelani opened her mouth to withdraw that forgiveness, but Vargussel spoke over her.
"I love you," he said.
Theria gasped again, and Maelani could feel the maid peeking out from behind her.
"I—" Maelani started.
"Sir!" Theria all but yelped.
Without a glance at the maid, Vargussel said, "I love you, My Lady, in a most chaste and sincere way. I have known you all your life and have watched you grow from a troublesome child to a young woman of such grace and beauty, a mere duchy is not enough for you. Make me your husband, Maelani, and I'm certain you will grow to love me as I love you. Make me your duke, Maelani, and I will make you a queen."
Maelani realized she still had her mouth open, and she closed it, tapping her teeth together. She ignored the feeling of Theria's eyes burning into the back of her neck, and she worked hard on what she would say next. Vargussel stared at her, his hands pressed together as if he was praying. He was two strides away from her and she could still smell him.
"Vargussel," she said, "I know that you have served my father and the Duchy of Koratia well on many occasions for many years, so I will honor that and not repeat your hasty words to the duke. I will simply remind you, sir, that it is inappropriate for anyone to—"
"I know," Vargussel interrupted, drawing a raised eyebrow from Maelani. "I know all that. I know everything you're going to say, but all I can do is lay myself bare before you, My Lady, and await our life together."
"You smell," Maelani said, her mouth running far ahead of her mind, which sat by cheering.
"Lady...?" Vargussel started, his face turning blotchy red again.
"You smell," Maelani said, more loudly. "You reek of a sewer, you hideous, dried up old prune."
"Lady, I—"
"Will shut your stinking hole and let me finish, you wretch," the young woman continued.
Theria giggled and Vargussel flashed the maid a horrified glance.
"You think I could love you?" Maelani continued. "How could you think that? Is that what drives you in your most arcane and mysterious studies in your filth-reeking laboratory, you gutter rat? Is it those grimy, little fantasies that fuel your twisted old mind when you shop for last year's ridiculous pigaches? Look at you. Look at yourself."
Vargussel clamped his mouth shut, his lips pressing into a white line.
"Mistress," Theria whispered, tugging on her arm.
Maelani jerked her arm out of her maid's grip and held up a thin finger at Vargussel.
The door opened and a guard stepped in. The noise startled all three of the anteroom's occupants and they shuffled uncomfortably, taking stock of themselves before the intruder.
"Vargussel," the guard said, looking from the old wizard to the duke's daughter to the maid.
Maelani could see the man trying to work out the situation and had to assume he hadn't heard the conversation. She turned to the guard, who bowed, then she strode quickly to the outer door. Theria hustled behind her, shooting Vargussel one last look of stern disapproval.
"Sir," the guard said, "the duke will see you now."
Maelani let Theria close the door behind them without looking back.