Free The Rose Throne by Mette Ivie Harrison Page A

compliments, though they seemed sincere enough. It sometimes felt as if he must be speaking to someone else who looked like her, but was not her. To the princess, but not Ailsbet.
    If she had been born in Aristonne, Ailsbet sometimes imagined, how different she might have turned out to be. Her musical talent would have been praised and encouraged from the first, and she might have been able to spend all her life making music. Instead,in Rurik, she had to act the part of a princess. She had to worry about her gowns and her speech and every detail of courtly manners.
    “And yet you live among others who do not understand your music in the least, yes?” said Lord Umber, persisting.
    Ailsbet nodded.
    “Do you know, I think you and I have something in common.”
    “What is that?” It was obviously not music, Ailsbet thought.
    “We both want one thing very much, to the exclusion of everything else. And we can help each other get it,” said Lord Umber.
    “And what is it you want?” asked Ailsbet.
    Lord Umber put his hands to his head as if laying a crown there.
    Ailsbet went cold for a moment. He wanted her father’s throne and his crown? But how did he think he would get them? This was not about an invasion of Weirland, not to him. Lord Umber was thinking beyond this year, beyond her father’s lifetime. Married to her, Lord Umber would have a good chance of holding both thrones. If her father died before Edik was fully grown, Lord Umber would be the more experienced man, in politics and thetaweyr. But even if her father lived many more years, he might have a chance to take the throne. He had qualities that Edik did not.
    “You are very quick to see the truth. That is what I admire in you,” said Lord Umber into her ear.
    She stared up at him. “If you think I wish to be queen of both islands,” she said softly, “you are wrong.”
    “Oh, no. I know you better than that. Do you think I have not heard a word you have said? You want music, Princess Ailsbet, and I can give that to you, when I have power of my own.” Umber gestured toward the river Weyr, which led south to the Channel of Arhort. In that direction lay Aristonne itself, the seat of all music, the place where Master Lukacs had been born, and to which he had returned. Where he lived now and where Ailsbet might go—if she were no longer tied to the crown.
    Umber was ambitious, Ailsbet knew, as well as sly and smart. Perhaps she was wrong to let herself feel something for him, but for the first time, Ailsbet thought that she actually liked Lord Umber.

C HAPTER E IGHT
Ailsbet
    A S THE WEEKS BEFORE the formal betrothal ceremony passed, Lord Umber began to tease Ailsbet with a wicked sense of humor so dark that she found it irresistible. Many at court tried to compliment Ailsbet on her delicate hands or her graceful dancing, things she did not care in the least about. But Lord Umber would whisper under his breath some truer compliment, like “what sharp eyes you have, like knives cutting through fat” and “what strong legs you have, to run away from those who become too obsequious.”
    “You have the sparkling wit of your father,” saida foul-smelling older nobleman one night.
    Lord Umber motioned to her and spoke so softly only she could hear. “Your father’s wit is fading like his hair. But your wit—it will remain strong long after you are old.”
    “An old woman’s wit, that is what I have?” asked Ailsbet.
    “Like my own nanny,” said Lord Umber.
    The following day, King Haikor announced that there was to be an autumn hunt, and all the nobles of the court were to attend him.
    “My father used to let me hunt with him, when I was younger,” said Ailsbet privately to Lord Umber. She thought she would like to go this time, and she was considering asking her father before the entire court.
    “When he could pretend that you were a son and not a daughter, perhaps,” said Lord Umber.
    Ailsbet stared at him. Had he guessed the truth about her?