Chapter 3
"Have they been spotted yet?"
"No, my lady."
Estora sighed, "Thank you." She closed the door and walked back to the couch where her husband sat.
"You have to stop asking the guards that every ten minutes. It won't make them be here any sooner." Xandis told his wife softly.
"I know. I know, but it doesn't change that Karigan needs to be here."
"We can only pray for godspeed, my dear." Estora nodded and leaned against a strong shoulder. Xandis wrapped his arm around her and tried to comfort her worries. They had arrived in Sacor City three days ago to find that the whole of the city was gripped in a fast spreading fever. To their horror they found that the fever had even spread into the castle, and the king now lay in his sick bed. The menders would not venture whether he could recover. For two days he had been asking for Karigan and his children, but in his fever induced delirium he could not grasp that they were away from home. Estora's greatest fear was that he would pass into Westrion's keeping before Karigan had the chance to say her good byes. For now Estora and Xandis could only sit and wait and remember different times.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (start flashback)
King Zachary had kept his word. He arranged to have her attend court business with him, so she would not be out of her element when she was queen. The problem was that it didn't stop her from being out of her element now.
"You see, Excellency, we hope to expand Sacoridian trade into the East this spring, but the Cathay government requires that these documents be signed by our sovereign before we may enter their ports." A rather rotund merchant concluded his proposal as he stood before the king, Lady Estora and Rider Sir Karigan G'ladheon. Such a request seemed straight forward enough. Sacoridian merchants were always trying to make inroads into Cathay trade. Cathay was the source of superior silks and spices, but they wanted little from Sacoridia or Rhovanny. If the decision was Estora's alone she would grant the signatures, but she saw Karigan frowning.
Zachary answered the merchant simply, "Thank you Master Conic. You will have your answer by this evening." The merchant bowed at the dismissal and quickly left the room. After the door to Zachary's private study closed, the king turned to Lady Estora.
"What do you think?" He had been asking her opinion after many of the audiences, although it was always with an air of a teacher testing a pupil. Soon she would no longer be an apprentice monarch, and when that happened these decisions would fall to her too. He was, understandably, eager to asses her skill, but Estora only wished she could read how well she was doing in his eyes.
"I see no reason to deny him, sire," Lady Estora answered. Zachary's mask stayed firmly in place.
"What of his manner? What is not suspicious?" He asked.
"He certainly seemed eager, but I am sure he has a great deal of money set into this venture already."
"Perhaps," Zachary responded. "Karigan, do you have anything to contribute?"
Karigan looked like she would soon burst with whatever sour news she had to impart. "Yes, sire. Master Conic should not be allowed permission to enter Cathay under the Crown's blessing. His clan has extensive interest in opium."
"But opium is a medicine. Why is that a problem?" Estora asked.
"Many of the poorest people in Cathay are addicted to the substance, Estora. If I sign his papers and he sells opium, it will reflect badly upon all of Sacoridia," Zachary answered.
Estora, not for the first time, cursed her sheltered life. She had been raised as a gentle court Lady. She knew how to respond to subtle insults disguised in pleasantries, how to read when some one was lying, but she knew nothing of the world outside the walls of nobility. Opium addiction, alcoholism, gambling away fortunes, perversion; such things were whispered by courtiers, but such rumors were not allowed to reach her ears. All of her efforts to familiarize herself with the country had only proven her ignorance.
When she first entered her engagement, she was convinced she would be more than a gracious hostess, a warm bedmate and royal broodmare. Now she did not think she had the abilities to be anything more. What really scared her was that she knew Sacoridia was facing turbulent times. Sacoridia needed a queen like Karigan.
Karigan could read people just as well as any aristocrat, perhaps better. Her world experience went far beyond that of most people because of her travels as a Green Rider, and because of her adventures. Those adventures proved to Estora that Karigan was the superior match for Zachary when it came to pure mettle. Many admired Estora for standing up to Prince Amilton during the coup or for surviving her kidnapping, but she felt it was a paltry example of courage. Zachary and Karigan fought against Price Amilton. Karigan saved her from the kidnapping at the risk of her own life. That was the type of courage Sacoridia needed in its queen. And Sacoridia's queen needed to know when a merchant wanted to be nothing more than a dope peddler.
Cummings announced that the merchant was the last audience of the day. Estora bid farewell to her fiancé and her friend. She had an appointment to keep with mother, yet another afternoon of wedding plans. Zachary gave her a cursory nod as he turned to his papers and started to explain his orders for the dispatches Karigan would take. Sighing inwardly, Estora left the study.
Zachary was a good man. She did not, could not deny that, but he was not the man for her. Oh, he was everything the twittering girls who surrounded her could want in a man. He was handsome, kind, intelligent and thoughtful, but he had yet to properly court her. Her mother reassured her that when she was married and they had more time alone, he would likely woo her just as Estora's father had done. Such pieces of advice did little to ease Estora's mind. Even when they did have more time alone, she couldn't change that Zachary was more reserved than F'ryan. More and more she missed F'ryan's reckless charm and open warmth, his easy manners and easier smile.
With bittersweet memories of her lost love flitting through her mind, Estora returned to her family apartments for an afternoon of embroidering wedding linens with her mother and sisters. Nearly an hour into the work, she began to wonder just how binding the betrothal contract really was. Half an hour later, as she knotted off the petals of a rose, she was resolved to break the contract if she could.
IIIIIIIIIIII
"Estora, what are you doing?" the voice startled her out her concentration. She looked up to see her father standing in the doorway of his study. The candle he carried did little to chase away the shadows created by the still night.
"Why didn't you tell me about the king's conditions?" Estora asked her father.
"Because I didn't think you would ever need to invoke them. Now go to bed. It is very late." Lord Coutre ordered impatiently.
"No, I will not. I am too old to be sent to bed as a child." Estora stood from behind her father's desk, holding the contract and the notes she had made. "I have been reading this contract all night in the hope of finding something to break it."
"Estora, you cannot be serious," Lord Coutre exclaimed, "Surely you are not so foolish to break a contract so long in the making and of such importance for the standing of our family?"
"The standing of our family? Father, our family is already the strongest force in the Eastern provinces and therefore a force to be reckoned with throughout the nation. It is only because of that power you were able to get King Zachary to agree to this contract in the first place. Every addition he made is a possible way out. A man who truly wished to marry me would not make such changes. Surely you realized that?"
"Did the king do something to bring about this? What ever he has done to make you doubt his intentions, I will have him make amends."
"King Zachary has done nothing that needs to be censured. However, I have formed my resolve. I never wanted to be queen, and I do not wish to be married to a man I do not love."
"Love, you are too sentimental Estora. Love will come—"
"And if it doesn't? Father, I have loved. I still love a man you never would have allowed me to marry if he had lived. After experiencing that, I can't enter into a marriage without some affection. I don't have any tender feelings for the king, and Zachary doesn't love me either. In fact, I suspect he loves someone else." Estora took a deep breath before telling her father of her decision. With more steel in her voice then she felt in her heart, she continued, "I intend to challenge my betrothal contract on the grounds of coercion."
"Estora—"
"You won't change my mind. I am going to talk to Zachary in the morning."
It took just three weeks to fully dissolve the contract. Of course there were out cries, but nothing came of it. The contract break was mutual and legal with little that her father could really say about it. She silently thanked the gods that Sacoridian law and society differed from Rhovan in that a father could not compel his daughter into a marriage at any age.
Later, after the fervor had died down, Estora turned her attention to planning the rest of her life without reference to her family's desires. It was during this time that she started to spend more time with Xandis. In him she found a kind friend full of the reckless charm she so desperately missed. After a year of meetings around the castle, they decided to marry in a small ceremony that went virtually unnoticed due to the birth announcement of the king's first born.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS (end flashback)
Fingers brushed across Estora's temple, bringing her out of her memories. It's funny how things work out, Estora thought as she gave a small smile to her husband. The past nineteen years were very happy ones for her and the king, just not in the way her father once intended. I only hope I don't have to face Karigan with news that will surely devastate her.