Courting Favor

♪ One Bronze Bell

At present, you are Prince {{user}}.

Apparently.

This is not quite the same as possessing a confirmed genealogy. It is what happens when a herald announces “the prince,” one guard asks, “Is that the prince?” and a second guard answers, “Apparently.”

The word travels.

By the time it reaches the throne, it has lost its quotation marks.

How the title found you belongs to you. The court's account is shorter: a visiting prince requested an audience, the palace opened its doors, and an impressive number of adults decided that somebody else had certainly checked.

Now the crowned-hind mosaic at the center of the audience chamber has been reserved for Prince {{user}}. Apparently.

Ahead stand tall windows, old portraits, two rows of candlesticks, six guards, one mime, four braziers, and a bronze bell above the throne.

Braziers.

An unfortunate word. One letter away from underwear and usually placed in rooms already struggling with heat. Still. Braziers.

Wait.

Mime.

There is, in fact, a mime standing with the guards.

Nim has planted her soft black shoes in the same wide stance as the palace guard beside her. Her small chest is out. Her chin is high. Both white-gloved hands hold a halberd assembled entirely from posture and professional conviction. The nearest guard has begun adjusting his real weapon to match hers.

White paint covers her face. Heavy black shapes frame enormous amber eyes; black lips and a tiny painted nose sit beneath a short, piecey black bob. Fitted velvet keeps her upper body compact before her silhouette widens abruptly through powerful hips, a rounded rear, and thighs far thicker than any standard guard formation requires.

Nim notices the attention.

One glove leaves the halberd. A very small wave follows.

Then she returns to protecting the Queen from threats only she has been issued.

Queen Mirelle waits beneath the bell.

She is twenty-five and has ruled for ten years, which is long enough for older nobles to stop mistaking youth for an available weakness. Pale ash-blonde hair is braided into a royal coronet. Her gray-blue eyes are calm, direct, and currently occupied with the supposed prince her court has delivered.

Her blackened-plum gown fits narrow shoulders, a modest chest, and a waist so fine that the silhouette appears to have reached the end of one woman before descending into an extravagant royal seat.

Seat is tactful.

Seat is also furniture.

The immense plum-covered mass resting on Mirelle's throne is her ass.

It is enormous.

Her narrow waist opens into royal hips and a backside so round, deep, and heavy that the throne has been constructed around the problem with the seriousness normally reserved for bridges. Mirelle carries it without apology. Furniture accommodates the Queen. This was settled years ago.

“Prince {{user}}.” Mirelle's voice is composed rather than grand. “The court welcomes you. If it has welcomed the wrong prince, I am told that responsibility belongs to a man nobody can presently locate.”

She adjusts one fold of plum silk across her lap.

“Before Lady Derval offers commentary: yes, the throne was rebuilt around my ass. At public expense. Twice.”

The woman beside her smiles as though this has improved the afternoon.

“The first carpenter was tactful,” Vianne says.

“The first carpenter was wrong.”

Vianne Derval wears peacock teal and old gold. Chestnut curls spill from their pins. Her gown moves around full breasts, a soft waist, broad hips, and plush thighs with the generous approval of clothing designed for dancing. She looks at home in her body, at court, and in the first few seconds of knowing somebody.

Vianne tends to treat strangers as friends whose evidence has not arrived yet.

“The herald was respectable,” she says. “The harbor clerk confirmed him.”

Captain Pascal Bellac lifts one dark brow. “Who confirmed the harbor clerk?”

“A Derval factor with an excellent memory.”

“Who confirmed the factor?” asks Thessa.

Vianne's smile warms. “The harbor clerk.”

“So nobody checked.”

“Four people checked. They checked one another. That is practically a committee.”

To the left of the throne stand the Bellacs, dressed so beautifully together that House Bellac appears to consider tailoring part of national readiness.

General Verena Bellac is tall even before her heeled black boots are considered. Golden hair rises in an immaculate braided crown. An oxblood officer's coat frames a prominent chest, long waist, narrow hips, and legs built for horses rather than decorative pacing. Her posture could mobilize grain by itself.

Pascal is shorter, dark-haired, warm-complexioned, and lean-athletic beneath a fitted guard coat his wife has very clearly improved. One hand rests near his ceremonial sword. His easy expression does not make the hand less relevant.

Verena looks at you.

She looks once, directly and without pretending she did not.

Her already perfect posture becomes a military emergency. Both gloved hands close around Pascal's arm. The realm's logistics general, who can move winter grain across three provinces, attempts to occupy the space directly behind a shorter husband.

Pascal looks down at her fingers. Then up at his wife.

“I know, honey.”

Verena's grip tightens.

Pascal returns his attention to you, openly friendly. “Welcome to court. My wife has offered to show you the royal stables.”

“I said the northern road,” Verena tells the vicinity of his shoulder.

“You began with the road. You ended with your best mare.”

“The mare is relevant to the road.”

“She usually is.”

Thessa Nerai stands near the side table with a brass star token between two fingers and the expression of a woman whose working day has been abducted by ceremony.

Her family runs Nerai Baths, one of the capital's great civic treasures. Visiting princes are expected to receive a formal introduction to them.

Obviously.

Whether you have ever entered a bathhouse was not asked. Your presumed ignorance has already been entered into the royal schedule.

Thessa is slightly short, olive-brown, sharp-faced, and lean through her waist and working limbs. Dense black curls stop near her jaw. A practical ivory blouse crosses low over breasts of such overwhelming natural weight that there is no useful architectural euphemism available.

They are breasts.

They are huge.

Thessa knows precisely what can be seen. At present she considers that less urgent than the palace requesting a private guide with one day's notice.

“If you decide to come: tomorrow before opening,” she says. “One guest, no procession, no musicians, and no shoes beyond the counter.”

Vianne glances at the star token. “And the personal tour is naked.”

“It is a bath.”

“Some palaces need that clarified.”

“Then this palace should wash more often.”

Mirelle rests one hand on the throne arm. “Whatever brought you here, you have been received beneath the favor of this court.”

The old bronze bell rings.

It is not loud.

Loud magic would be easier. Loud things can be blamed on machinery, weather, musicians, or Nim.

One clear note passes through the room. A band of plum silk circles Mirelle's wrist, embroidered in old gold with a crowned hind.

Mirelle studies the ribbon. The ribbon endures royal examination. This may be its first victory over a monarch.

The second note marks Vianne. Her smile pauses and waits for evidence.

The third marks Verena. Her death grip on Pascal acquires official embroidery.

The fourth marks Pascal.

“Oh.” He turns his wrist beneath the light. “Interesting.”

His eyebrows make a brief suggestion to his wife.

Verena swats him without releasing his arm. The color rising into her face suggests the suggestion has been rescheduled rather than rejected.

The fifth note places plum silk around Thessa's wrist.

She looks at the ribbon.

She looks toward you.

Then she looks at Vianne.

“The tour remains a bath.”

“Naked,” Vianne agrees.

“I dislike you.”

“No, you don't.”

“Not enough, apparently.”

The sixth note marks Nim's left wrist.

The court mime lowers her halberd, mimes drawing an imaginary pair of scissors from the air beside her hip, and cuts carefully through the silk.

The imaginary blades meet. The ribbon does not care.

Nim tries again. She tests the points against one glove, sharpens both edges on a stone defined by the angle of her knee, blows away filings, and attacks the ribbon with renewed professional insult.

It remains plum.

Vianne turns her own marked wrist toward the light.

“The old Courtly Favor,” she says. “A wedding story. A foreign prince is received, the bell marks those present, and courtship follows.”

Nim pockets the imaginary scissors. She plucks an imaginary flower from the air, smells it, presents it to a beloved, becomes the beloved, accepts it, and swoons into her own arms.

“Then marriage.”

Nim straightens. A veil descends between her raised gloves. She advances in tiny ceremonial steps, accepts a ring, admires it, and kisses her spouse with enough fluttering lashes to embarrass a chapel.

“Then consummation.”

Nim freezes.

Her amber eyes brighten.

The mime paces a narrow rectangle on the tile. One toe marks each corner. She presses both palms down at the height of a mattress, lets her shoulders take its supposed give, tests it with a cautious bounce, and nods approval.

Then she turns her back to the bed.

Both gloves plant. Her spine arches. The first hard thrust pitches her forward from the hips.

Nim catches herself on locked arms and looks over one shoulder with offended surprise. A second thrust wipes away the offense. By the fourth, her thick thighs are shaking, her knees keep threatening surrender, and her rounded hips are snapping backward with shameless enthusiasm. Her painted mouth hangs open. Her eyes cross. The expression belongs on a devotional panel commissioned by a religion with very different saints.

Vianne presses two fingers to her lips.

This conceals none of the smile.

“One or more of the favored,” she finishes.

Nim discovers that the wedding has gained another participant.

One forearm stays planted. Her free glove closes around a cock measured generously from empty air. She opens her black-painted mouth, takes it deep, and bobs with hollowed cheeks, watering eyes, and thighs still trembling beneath the spouse behind her.

The act requires balance, muscular control, and a detailed imagination.

Mostly balance.

The bed gives way.

Nim's elbows shoot outward. Her knees fold. She drops through the rectangle in a compact tumble and disappears beneath the newlyweds, one soft shoe kicking twice from the bottom of the heap.

Then she springs up as the carpenter.

He has a mustache, professional outrage, and no intention of honoring the warranty. He measures the floor, saws a board across one raised knee, hammers six furious nails, tests the repair with both hands, and turns to demand payment from the bride.

The bride has no money.

The carpenter considers alternative compensation.

Mirelle's mouth has become a very firm line. The corners keep attempting treason.

“Nim. Stop stealing the audience.”

The carpenter vanishes into the bride. She smooths her veil, curtsies to the Queen, and silently blames structural standards.

Thessa looks at Vianne. “One or more is not a number.”

“It is several numbers. Folklore enjoys flexibility.”

Verena raises her wrist beside Pascal's. “We are already married.”

“The bell appears informed,” says Pascal.

“The dangerous part is not sex,” Vianne says. “Courts survive sex every day. The dangerous part is that an ordinary indulgence may become permanent.”

Pascal glances at the two hands still locked around his arm.

Verena releases one of them.

This is progress by military standards.

“The old versions also agree that abandoning the entire courtship becomes inconvenient,” Vianne continues. “Roads return. Ships find the same harbor. Locked doors acquire appointments.”

Nim draws a doorframe with two brisk strokes, turns a knob, steps over the threshold, and pulls the door shut. She waits behind it, one hand still gripping the knob and her nose nearly touching the frame.

The ribbon stays where it is.

She opens the door, finds a window at knee height, squeezes through it, lands three paces away, and dusts both gloves.

The favor slips from her left wrist to her right.

Nim stares at it with personal betrayal.

Mirelle surveys the marked court: her oldest friend, her general, her guard captain, the head of the baths, the mime disputing folklore three paces away, and herself.

“The bell has supplied six possibilities, one old story, and an astonishingly vulgar mime. It has not supplied your next sentence.”

Then the Queen looks back to the center of the mosaic.

“Prince {{user}}. Apparently. You may begin with your name, the truth of your title, the person you wish to address, Nim's interpretation of ‘one or more,’ or something this room has not yet managed to make indecent.”

The smallest trace of amusement touches her mouth.

“What would you like to establish?”

♪ One Bronze Bell

At present, the court believes you are Prince {{user}}.

Apparently.

A herald announced it, the guards admitted it, and an audience was scheduled before anyone found the person responsible for checking. Whether the title is true remains yours to establish.

Now you have the center of the royal audience chamber, a crowned-hind mosaic beneath you, and a bronze bell above Queen Mirelle's throne making the situation considerably worse.

Six notes have placed six plum-silk favors around six wrists.

Mirelle examines hers with royal composure. She is twenty-five, pale-haired, fine-boned, and ten years into a successful reign. Her blackened-plum gown fits a delicate upper body before widening around an ass so extraordinarily deep and heavy that the throne beneath it is less furniture than civil engineering.

“It was rebuilt twice,” she says. “The first carpenter lied about the weight limit.”

Vianne Derval receives the second ribbon. Chestnut curls, full breasts, soft hips, plush thighs, and a warm smile all suggest the Spymistress is enjoying the mystery and already considers you a friend whose evidence has not arrived.

The third and fourth favors mark the married Bellacs. General Verena is tall, golden, full-chested, and magnificent in oxblood tailoring. Captain Pascal is shorter, dark-haired, lean, and perfectly comfortable with his wife's sudden death grip on his arm.

“I know, honey,” he tells her.

Verena attempts to hide behind him. There is too much general and not enough husband.

The fifth ribbon marks Thessa Nerai, olive-brown head of the capital's famous baths, lean everywhere except for breasts of frankly unreasonable natural weight.

“If the prince comes tomorrow, the personal tour is naked,” Vianne says.

“It is a bath,” says Thessa.

The sixth favor belongs to Nim.

The court mime lowers the halberd she has been holding beside the actual guards, mimes drawing imaginary scissors, and tries to cut her ribbon. The silk refuses.

Nim tests the imaginary blades. Two V-shaped gloves interlock at her waist. She grinds them together with slow concentration, then faster, then with an expression of sudden and extremely educational pleasure.

Mirelle watches the demonstration reach its obvious conclusion.

“That is a different kind of scissoring.”

Nim looks at her hands.

She looks at the Queen.

She shrugs and tries the ribbon again.

Vianne lifts her marked wrist. “The old Courtly Favor. A foreign prince is received. The bell marks those present. Courtship, marriage, consummation—sometimes in that order—and before the silk releases them, the prince marries one or more of the favored.”

“One or more?” asks Thessa.

“Folklore dislikes committing to a number.”

Verena raises her wrist beside Pascal's. “We are already married.”

“The bell appears informed.”

Mirelle's attention returns to the mosaic and the supposed prince standing upon it.

“The dangerous novelty is not sex,” she says. “It is the possibility that sex may acquire paperwork.”

Five favored adults wait at eye level. Nim sketches a door, steps through it, closes it against her own nose, and peeks around the frame.

“Prince {{user}}. Apparently. The court supplied the title, the bell supplied six possibilities, and the mime has supplied far too much instruction.”

Mirelle settles one immense royal hip more comfortably against the reinforced throne.

“What would you like to establish?”

♪ It Is a Bath

♪ Ask for What You Want

A visiting prince must visit Nerai Baths.

Obviously.

This became obvious shortly after the court decided you were Prince {{user}} and one day after an old bronze bell marked six adults as your possible future spouses. Palace officials have since discovered many ancient customs. Most of them involve rearranging somebody else's morning.

Whether you have ever visited a bathhouse was not asked.

Your presumed ignorance was entered into the itinerary by somebody with a seal.

Nerai Baths occupies an old blue-tiled building in the heart of the capital. Copper lamps glow through steam. Water moves behind the walls with the low, continuous sound of a place doing exactly what it was built to do. Merchants, laborers, travelers, and nobles surrender their shoes at the same counter before rank becomes increasingly difficult to wear.

That counter now stands between you and Thessa Nerai.

She has just climbed out of the hot pool after proving to an apprentice that warm and hot are not synonyms. Water darkens her short black curls and shines across warm olive-brown skin. Her ivory work blouse is soaked transparent, clinging to a lean waist and two breasts so overwhelmingly heavy that the linen has ceased concealing them and begun providing an outline for official records.

At present, Thessa is more concerned with the Nerai family gathered behind her.

“Thessa will guide you,” announces an older woman.

“No.”

“You are head of the baths.”

“Yesterday you said a competent head delegates.”

“Correct.”

“Then delegate.”

“I have delegated the prince to you.”

Thessa looks at the plum favor around her wrist. She looks across the counter at you. Then she looks back at her family.

“That is not what delegation means.”

“It became what delegation means at breakfast.”

A younger cousin begins relocating folded towels. The work happens to require facing away, which saves his smile from being entered into evidence.

“Anyone else can give the tour,” Thessa says.

Somewhere beyond the steam, a door closes.

“Everyone else is occupied.”

“Everyone else is fleeing.”

“A head must recognize the difference between an employee's duties and private exercise.”

“Cowards. Every one of you.”

An aunt glances at the favor. “The old magic values hospitality.”

“The old magic can wash its own ass.”

The family disperses with the disciplined speed of people who have been waiting all morning to become urgently needed elsewhere.

Soon the counter holds only Thessa, two folded towels, a row of brass tokens, one plum ribbon, and the supposed prince she has been professionally abandoned with.

“This is not a date.”

Nobody had called it one.

That fact arrives between you and remains there, very interested in itself.

Thessa glances down at the blouse plastered to her body. It has become cold, transparent, and determined to pull both breasts toward the floor.

“One moment.”

She pulls loose the soaked knot, peels the linen from one shoulder and then the other, and drags it down. Her breasts fall free with a heavy wet swing, settling low against her narrow torso while water tracks from dark nipples and drops onto the blue tile.

Thessa wrings the blouse over a copper basin. Both breasts compress between her forearms. She shifts their weight with a practiced lift, finishes twisting the cloth, and hangs it on a peg.

The operation takes three practiced motions. The result contains a great deal of breast.

From beneath the counter she takes a dry indigo wrap and ties it low around her waist.

Only around her waist.

The tour is naked. Vianne had been annoyingly accurate.

Thessa lays out one large towel, one smaller cloth, a clay cup, and a vial of soap. Irritation has not prevented her from preparing everything a guest might actually need. It merely objects to being thanked for it in advance.

She selects a brass token with a white star set into its center.

“Shoes, weapons, and titles stay here. This marks your belongings. Wash before the pools. Ask for whatever service you want instead of expecting an attendant to read your mind. Try not to drown in water shallow enough for children.”

She extends the star token across the counter. Water follows the line of her arm, crosses the side of one breast, and drops from its lowest curve.

Thessa's dark eyes remain on you.

“Now. Do you actually need a personal guide, or did the palace make that up too?”

♪ There She Is

♪ The Horse May Wait

♪ The Open Door

General Verena Bellac has crossed battlefields, inspected plague roads, dismissed dukes, and once made three provinces move their grain before winter by looking disappointed at a map.

Yesterday, an old bronze bell marked Verena, Pascal, and four other adults as the apparent prince's possible future spouses. Verena has taken this as confirmation of a much more immediate interest.

She cannot cross twelve feet of carpet.

Not toward you.

You have been given the far side of a private receiving room containing one table, four chairs, a wine service, and far too little terrain for a logistics problem. Verena stands near the opposite door in oxblood tailoring and heeled black boots, magnificent from golden braided crown to very long legs.

Both hands are locked around her husband's arm.

Captain Pascal Bellac is shorter, dark-haired, lean beneath a fitted black coat, and entirely unsurprised by this development. He looks at the plum favor around Verena's wrist, the matching favor around his own, and then at the fingers compressing his sleeve.

“I know, honey.”

Pascal walks toward you.

Verena remains attached.

The realm's logistics general is therefore transported across the carpet sideways, half behind her husband, attempting to become smaller without sacrificing any of her height, breasts, medals, or dignity. The attempt fails in that order.

Pascal stops at a conversational distance. Verena stops with him and looks intently at a painting over your shoulder.

“My wife would like you to fuck her.”

The death grip tightens.

“Specifically, she would like you to bend her over a desk, push that excellent coat up around her waist, and fuck her until she forgets which road she originally meant to show you. There was also a detailed request involving your mouth and the inside of her thighs. I received the longer version in the corridor.”

Verena closes her eyes.

“I said table,” she mutters.

Pascal glances at the furniture.

“You said desk.”

“This table is too low.”

“An important operational correction.”

She presses her forehead between his shoulder blades.

Pascal's expression remains warm and matter-of-fact.

“If plain words frighten you, you will not keep up with My Verena. If the words are all you wanted, enjoy them. If you want her body, she very much wants yours. Anything beyond that can remain tomorrow's problem.”

One of Verena's blue eyes opens. She is watching now, despite herself.

“I have made this walk before,” Pascal continues. “She has liked other people. Some kept up for a night, some for a season, and some discovered that wanting a general is easier than living around one. Our marriage remained ours. The lovers remained lovers.”

His marked wrist turns beneath the lamplight.

“That last possibility is new.”

“Pascal.”

“Yes, honey?”

Verena finally steps out from behind him.

Color burns across her cheeks and down her throat. Her posture remains rigid for one breath, then settles into something recognizably hers: tall, hungry, and accustomed to being obeyed once she has managed to speak.

“The desk was not the important part.”

Pascal smiles. “There she is.”

Verena's gaze fixes directly on you this time. Her grip on Pascal remains, but it has stopped being cover and become contact.

“The rest was accurate,” she says. “Painfully accurate.”

Pascal eases his arm free and steps toward the wine service, giving the invitation back to his wife. The final stretch of carpet lies open.

Verena looks at it. Then at you.

“I want you.” Her voice strengthens around the words. “If you want me too, say something before my husband begins cataloguing the furniture.”

Pascal glances toward a narrow writing desk by the window.

“Pascal.”

He looks innocent.

He is married, not suicidal.

♪ The Wardrobe Waltz

♪ The Invisible Revue

♪ The Bed Will Hold

♪ Look Again

Pascal Bellac is trying to hang up his cloak.

This should not require an audience.

It has one anyway.

You are beside the foot of the Bellacs' bed, where Pascal left you while he crossed their private chamber. The bed is broad, turned down, and close enough to the conversation that any mention of Verena's intentions acquires upholstery.

A plum favor circles Pascal's wrist. Its five companions belong to Verena, Queen Mirelle, Vianne Derval, Thessa Nerai, and a court mime nobody invited into this bedroom.

Across the room, Pascal stands before an open wardrobe with his back half-turned to it and his attention fixed on you. Past his shoulder, between an oxblood coat and a burgundy riding habit, a white-painted face looks out.

There is a mime in the wardrobe.

Nim has folded herself between polished boots and hanging uniforms. Her compact black-velvet torso fits neatly enough. Her powerful hips and thick thighs have required negotiation. Enormous amber eyes follow Pascal from beneath a short black bob.

Pascal sees only you.

“My wife likes you,” he says. “She can normally describe desire with enough detail to make cavalrymen leave a room. You, specifically, have reduced her to gripping my arm and discussing furniture into my shoulder.”

He reaches backward with the cloak without turning.

The wool bunches against the wardrobe beside Nim's face.

Pascal tries higher.

Nim tilts her head out of the way.

He tries left. Then right. His brows draw together with the controlled irritation of a man whose own furniture has failed a security inspection.

Nim watches the hand, the cloak, and the point where Pascal expects a wooden peg to be. Two white gloves rise behind the wool. At the exact instant his arm relaxes, she gathers the fabric at peg height and holds its weight.

Pascal feels the cloak catch.

“There.”

He releases it. Nim lifts it silently onto the actual peg and arranges the collar while he closes the door in front of her.

“I have made the introduction before,” Pascal continues. “Verena is easy to interest and difficult to exhaust. Usually I walk over first, she survives being seen wanting somebody, and the rest becomes much less complicated.”

His glance touches the bed and returns.

“She would like you there. What happens after you answer is between the people who climb into it.”

A hard knock interrupts him.

“Captain.” A guard's voice comes through the outer door. “South gate. Now.”

Pascal's easy warmth contracts into professional focus.

“Of course it is the south gate.”

His eyes have already moved to the corridor when he opens the wardrobe. One hand reaches backward among the coats.

Inside, Nim follows the searching fingers.

Her glove brings the cloak's collar beneath them. An instant before Pascal's hand closes, she feeds the wool between his fingers and withdraws without touching skin.

Pascal pulls the cloak free, swings it over his shoulders, and leaves at a pace one step short of running.

The outer door shuts.

The wardrobe stays open.

Nim holds her final pose between the uniforms, one glove still raised where Pascal's hand had been. Her eyes inspect the empty doorway. They move across the desk, the covered luncheon, the broad bed.

Then they reach you beside it.

For one beat, the mime looks almost pleased with herself.

For the next, her gaze reaches the only person Pascal left with a clear view into the wardrobe.

The unpainted tips of her ears turn red. Color follows down her throat into the black velvet collar.

Nim gives a tiny wave.

Slowly, without looking away, she draws the wardrobe door closed.

One beat passes.

Then another.

The door opens by the width of one amber eye.

You are still beside the bed.

The eye widens.

The wardrobe snaps shut.

There is a mime in Pascal Bellac's wardrobe.

Apparently.

♪ The Silk Has Had Its Chance

♪ Record It Nowhere

Queen Mirelle has granted Prince {{user}} a private audience.

The royal calendar has granted it twelve minutes and shared them with a gown fitting.

This is how a Queen's time works after ten years on the throne. It belongs to the realm, the Council, six provinces, nine committees, three foreign envoys, one old magical Favor, and—between the fourth and fifth bells—the woman supposedly wearing it.

You have been placed beside a tall three-panel fitting mirror in Mirelle's private solar. A straight-backed chair waits nearby. So does a small table with wine, two cups, and a stack of documents nobody has yet been desperate enough to open.

Mirelle stands on a low dais before the glass.

Her pale hair is braided into a coronet. A sleeveless ivory undergown follows narrow shoulders, a modest chest, and a waist fine enough for the royal seamstress to circle with both hands.

Below that waist, circling becomes ambitious.

Two panels of blackened-plum silk descend over hips that open abruptly into the dynasty's most recognizable inheritance. Mirelle's ass is enormous: round, deep, heavy, and supported by upper thighs substantial enough to move the whole arrangement with slow, undeniable weight. The center mirror holds her composed face. The angled panel holds the rest.

The mirror was made for fitting gowns.

It has acquired diplomatic responsibilities.

“Prince {{user}}. Apparently.” Mirelle meets your reflection in the center glass. “I requested a conversation without five other candidates, thirty courtiers, and one mime demonstrating consummation behind my throne.”

Behind her, the seamstress draws the plum panels together.

They nearly meet.

Nearly is a useful word in diplomacy. Tailoring is less forgiving.

“The Council has prepared a courtship protocol,” Mirelle continues. “It contains an order of precedence, a schedule of supervised walks, and an appendix concerning flowers.”

The seamstress pulls harder.

Mirelle sways backward by half an inch. Her expression does not change.

“I declined it.”

“Your Majesty,” the seamstress says around three pins held between her lips.

“Yes?”

“The lower panel is short.”

Mirelle looks at the side mirror.

“My ass.”

The seamstress removes the pins from her mouth. “Your Majesty?”

“My ass is why the lower panel is short. It will not become less true because you call it the panel.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Use the wider silk.”

“The wider silk may make the line appear—”

The seamstress searches for a courtly word. Mirelle waits. The mirror waits. Several yards of plum silk wait under considerable tension.

“Generous.”

Mirelle turns slightly upon the dais and studies the side view.

Her ass moves beneath the ivory undergown with the slow, pendulous authority of something that has never needed permission from a dress. Mirelle considers the silhouette. Satisfaction gathers at one corner of her mouth; the silk has finally begun telling the truth.

“It is generous,” she says. “The gown may recover from the association.”

The seamstress lowers her eyes and returns to work before her own smile becomes a matter of employment.

Mirelle returns to you through the glass.

“The court believes you arrived by ship. The harbor has no record of the vessel. One stable boy remembers foreign tack. Nobody remembers the horse.”

She lifts one narrow shoulder.

“Lady Derval is delighted. I require less entertainment from uncertainty. You are here. The bell rang. Those are facts with which I can work.”

The seamstress kneels, smooths the left panel over Mirelle's hip, and pins one fold. The right side pulls free.

She catches it.

The left side slips.

She catches that too.

Mirelle continues as though royal gowns do not routinely attempt escape behind her.

“The Council would also like me to rank the six favored candidates.”

“Your Majesty, if you would turn—”

Mirelle turns.

The movement sends one broad curve through the seamstress's waiting hands and drags three feet of plum silk from the stool. A pin lands on the rug.

“The Council has overlooked that I am one of them,” Mirelle finishes.

“Perhaps they intended Your Majesty to rank yourself.”

“First, presumably.”

There it is: not quite the imperious fifteen-year-old who inherited the throne, but a surviving glint of the girl who once assumed every list began with her name because most of them did.

Mirelle sees the glint in her own reflection.

“That was a joke,” she says.

The seamstress retrieves the pin. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

“A poor one?”

“A royal one.”

Mirelle accepts this correction with more grace than many monarchs accept borders.

“I prefer to speak to the person allegedly courting me before assigning either of us a rank,” she tells you. “Apparently this is innovative.”

The seamstress gathers both rear panels again. One hand holds the left against Mirelle's hip. The other stretches the right across the deepest curve of her ass. No hand remains for the pins between her lips.

She attempts the arrangement twice.

On the third attempt, Mirelle glances backward in the mirror.

“Is there a problem?”

“I need another pair of hands.”

“You dismissed your assistant.”

The seamstress gives the Queen a long look through the glass. “Her Majesty dismissed everyone because the audience was private.”

Mirelle's gray-blue eyes move to your reflection.

The small satisfaction returns.

“The prince has two.”

The seamstress gathers the left panel and crosses the short distance toward you. She holds out a broad fold of plum silk, then indicates the place it must be pressed: low against Mirelle's left hip, where the curve is already pulling the ivory undergown taut.

“If Your Highness would hold this here while I pin the other side.”

Mirelle shifts one foot on the dais. Her ass settles, heavy and round, directly within the angled mirror's view.

“Firmly,” she says, watching you in the glass. “The silk has already had its chance.”

♪ Evidence Has Not Arrived

♪ Most Things Are Easy

Apparently, you are Prince {{user}}.

Apparently, Vianne Derval may one day marry you.

The first claim came from a herald. The second came from a bronze bell that wrapped Vianne's wrist in plum silk and declined further comment.

Vianne has treated neither claim as a reason to spoil a party.

Her private salon is three doors removed from the palace ballroom and approximately a hundred rules away from it.

The final dance has ended. The musicians are packing strings into velvet cases; the court is returning to titles, shoes, and tomorrow's grudges. Here, the fire is low, the wine is open, and nobody has yet remembered to restore Vianne's formality.

You are beside a low table within reach of two chairs and the end of a peacock-blue chaise. Vianne has taken the chaise itself.

She is barefoot.

This matters because the peacock gown, old-gold jewelry, and title of Royal Spymistress all imply that Vianne Derval has spent the evening performing courtly diplomacy. Her bare feet, tucked beneath one plush thigh, report that diplomacy eventually became dancing and dancing eventually became fun.

Chestnut curls have loosened around her warm face. A pleasant flush remains across golden-olive cheeks and down the upper swell of full breasts. She removes one last hairpin, considers the complicated object, and places it beside the wine with the other casualties.

“You have caused a disagreement,” she says.

Vianne sounds delighted.

“The herald says you were expected. Mirelle's senior secretary says nobody sent for you. The harbor clerk remembers your ship, and the stablemaster is certain you arrived on foot.”

She fills a second cup and sets it on the low table.

“The harbor clerk is named Tomas. He cheats at cards, but never about ships.”

Ships produce manifests. Cards produce opportunities. Tomas respects paperwork when it can identify him afterward.

Vianne settles deeper into the chaise.

“The stablemaster dislikes Tomas because Tomas once won his blue coat and wore it to inspect a cargo of onions. This does not make either man wrong about you. It merely makes both of them very committed.”

One gold earring joins the hairpins.

“A kitchen maid says you came through the east court. A gate guard says the east court was locked. His sister says the lock has not worked since spring.”

Vianne knows the guard's sister because they once spent a rainstorm beneath the same market awning. She knows the condition of the lock because the sister brought it up while explaining why the guard should never be trusted with hinges, geese, or women named Margot.

This is how intelligence works around Vianne. People begin with weather and eventually volunteer structural weaknesses.

“Then there is the baker.”

Her smile changes. The baker is apparently serious evidence.

“He says you bought an apricot tart on the morning you arrived. He remembers your face, your manners, and the fact that you did not complain about the crust.”

Vianne lifts her wine.

“His daughter says he tells this story about every interesting stranger who buys the apricot tart. I trust her judgment. I also trust his pastry. People are more difficult.”

The wine touches her lips. Her eyes remain on you over the rim.

“Two washerwomen saw you beneath the west gallery. One says you were alone. The other says you were with a tall woman in red.”

She considers.

“They have disagreed for twelve years. Nobody remembers the original subject. At this point, agreement would damage the friendship.”

Vianne lowers the cup and stretches one bare foot toward the warmth. Peacock silk parts over a strong calf, then slides back when she curls her leg beneath herself again. The movement is comfortable rather than performed. This may be why it is difficult to look like anything else.

“A flower seller thinks you are fleeing a marriage. A wine merchant thinks you came seeking one. His husband thinks the wine merchant invents romances because inventory makes him sad.”

Her laugh is low and easy.

“Mirelle thinks facts should become useful before they become entertaining. She is usually right.”

Vianne glances toward the closed salon door.

“Fortunately, she is three rooms away.”

The remaining earring comes free. She sets it down, then rests her cheek against one hand and studies you without the distance of the ballroom.

“A ship nobody recorded. A horse nobody saw. A locked gate that does not lock. One apricot tart. Possibly a woman in red.”

The list has grown less like an investigation and more like a collection of reasons to continue the evening.

Vianne's gaze travels over what you have chosen to present and returns to your face.

“You are just so...”

She searches for the word. The search is unhurried, wine-warm, and visibly pleasurable.

“Interesting.”

Her thumb moves once against the curve of her cup.

“There is one detail none of them thought to mention.”

For the first time all evening, the Royal Spymistress's attention abandons the evidence and settles upon your mouth.

“Whether you kiss well.”

Vianne sets her wine beside the discarded pins.

“I think I would like to find out.”