LITMIR.BIZ

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where the bustier came together at the back of her neck. ‘So do I have your permission to call in the falconer?’

      ‘Is this a plea for different living quarters? Because I’m being as clear as I can be here. I don’t want to give you any quarters, but, given that I must, you are welcome to more suitable living arrangements than the ones you have requested. I would not deny you that.’

      ‘It’s not a plea for new quarters.’ He tested her patience, this King with the giant stick up his rear. ‘And, yes, you’re being very clear. Perhaps I should be equally clear.’ Save herself a few meetings with him in the process. ‘I want your permission to clean and ready my living quarters for use. I will call in experts, when necessary. I will see the courtesan’s lodgings restored and it will cost you and the palace nothing. I will take all care to preserve the history of the rooms—more care than you or your people would. I will submit names, on a daily basis, of each and every craftsperson or cleaning person that I bring in. By your leave, and provided I have free rein to do so, I can have those rooms fit to live in within a week. Do I have your permission?’

      ‘You argue like a politician. All fine words, sketchy rationale and promises you’ll never keep.’

      ‘I’ll keep this promise, Your Majesty. Consider this a test if you need a reason to say yes.’

      ‘And when you leave again? What happens to all these home improvements then?’

      ‘I expect the next courtesan will benefit from them.’

      ‘Sera.’ He spoke quietly but with an authority that ran bone-deep, and it got to her in a way the authority of her teachers never had. ‘There’s not going to be another courtesan delivered to a King of Arun. This I promise.’

      ‘Then turn the place into a museum,’ she snapped, defiant in the face of extinction. ‘You don’t value me. I get it. You don’t need my help, you don’t want my help, and you don’t understand the backing you’ve just been blessed with. So be it. Meanwhile, we’re both bound by tradition and moreover I have dues to pay. Do I have your permission to engage the help I need to make my living quarters habitable?’

      ‘And here I thought courtesans were meant to be compliant.’

      ‘I am compliant.’ She could be so meekly compliant his head would spin. ‘I can be whatever you want me to be. All I need is direction.’

      His face did not betray his thoughts. Not by the flicker of an eye or the twitching of a muscle.

      ‘You have my permission to make your living quarters habitable,’ he said finally. ‘And Sera?’

      She waited.

      ‘Don’t ever walk the halls of my palace in your ancient slave uniform again.’

      * * *

      The King’s secretary had gone by the time Sera arrived back in the quarters she’d claimed as her own. She held her head high as she entered, never mind that the chill in the air and the ice in the King’s eyes had turned her skin to gooseflesh. She wouldn’t cry, she never had—not even at her mother’s funeral—but the gigantic task of readying this space for use and earning Augustus of Arun’s trust, and, yes, finding him a wife, was daunting enough to make her smile falter and her shoulders droop as she stared around at her new home.

      Lianthe and the guards had already begun pulling covers off the furnishings and for that she would be grateful. She wasn’t alone in this. Other people had faith in her abilities.

      ‘I’ve already sent for cleaning equipment and linens,’ Lianthe said when she saw her. ‘Did you find him again?’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘He’s a funny guy. He’s also hard as nails underneath, doesn’t like not getting his own way and he’s going to be hell on my sense of self-worth.’

      ‘We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy sell. I’m sure you’ll come to a greater understanding of each other eventually.’

      ‘I’m glad someone’s sure,’ she murmured.

      ‘And what did he have to say about securing a falconer to help get rid of our feathered friends?’

      ‘Oh, that?’ She’d forgotten about that. ‘He said yes.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      SIX DAYS LATER, Augustus was no closer to a solution when it came to removing his unwanted gift from the palace. He’d kept his distance, stuck to his routine and tried to stay immune to the whispers of the staff as word got around that the palace’s pleasure rooms were being refurbished. Ladies Sera and Lianthe had engaged cleaning staff and craftspeople to help with the repairs. Stonemasons had been brought in. Electricity had been restored. Structural engineers had been and gone, proclaiming the glass-domed roof still fit for purpose, with only minor repair required.

      Tomas the falconer had come for the owls and brought King Casimir of Byzenmaach’s sister Claudia with him. Apparently Sera and Claudia had gone to school together. Sera had prepared a lavish dinner for them that had gone on for hours. They’d caught up on each other’s lives. Swapped stories. Augustus had been invited.

      He hadn’t attended.

      Whispers turned into rumours, each one more fanciful than the rest.

      The Lady Sera was a sorceress, a witch, an enchantress and his apparent downfall. Her eyes were, variously, the softest dove-grey and as kind as an angel’s or as bleak as the winter sky and hard as stone. She and her guards danced with swords beneath the dome, and splattered reflected sunlight across the walls with uncanny precision, so the cleaners said. She’d had the trapeze taken down only to replace it with another, and this time the trapeze fluttered with silks that fell to the floor, his secretary told him.

      Silks she climbed up and down as if they were steps.

      Yesterday, a convoy of heavily guarded trucks had arrived from the north and requested entry, sending palace security into a spin and Augustus into a rare temper. Don’t get too comfortable, he’d said. He would find a way to undo this, he’d said. They knew he was working on it. They had no need for deliveries full of priceless artworks only ever revealed when a courtesan of the High Reaches was in residence at the palace.

      Even the palace walls were buzzing.

      Augustus’s father, former King and still an advisor to the throne, had been no help. He’d been married with two young children by the time he’d reached thirty and no courtesan of the High Reaches had ever come to him. There was no precedent for getting rid of one that didn’t directly relate to the rules of the accord. A courtesan, once bestowed, could be removed once a wife and heir had been secured and not before. She could be sent elsewhere at the King’s bidding but would still retain full ownership…no, not ownership, access…full access to her quarters in the palace.

      She had the right to refuse entrance to all but him. She had the right to entertain there but the guest list had to be approved by him. He’d asked for more details when it came to Sera Boreas’s background and education and an information file had landed on his desk this morning. She’d studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford. She’d taken music lessons in St Petersburg. Dance lessons with members of the National Ballet company of China. Learned martial arts from the monks of the High Reaches. Her origins were shrouded in mystery. Her mother had kept the company of high ranking politicians and dignitaries the world over. Her mother had been a companion, a facilitator, often providing neutral ground where those from opposing political persuasions could meet. Lianthe of the High Reaches might just be her grandmother but that had yet to be verified. The more he read, the less real she became to him.

      For all her contacts and endless qualifications, he still didn’t know what she did except in the vaguest terms.

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