Title: In Her Majesty's Service
Author: Anchan
Disclaimer: All the characters and so forth wherein are property of Judal.
When Ishtar was five, Darres endured many meals that no other living human being would find edible. Fortified by years as Selen's main food taster, Darres could munch his way through Ishtar's cooking with little more expression than a sigh. The pride and hope in her small face when she presented her efforts in a bowl destroyed any desire he had for more appetising cuisine.
At the very least, from a practical viewpoint, he had the second strongest stomach in St Pheliosta after Lady Ishtar herself and he could survive in the wild without supplies for months.
He did wish that she'd remember to add salt, though.
When Ishtar was six, Darres marched her down to the kitchens one day and locked her in with the cook. She emerged all smiles and flung her arms around his neck. He ended up carrying her down the corridor, almost dropping her when she decided that she wanted a piggyback instead and tried to squirm around his waist.
Her cooking didn't improve. Darres began to suspect that she was doing it on purpose. But since she still smiled like that and pleaded with Darres to play silly games with her (fighting imaginary dragons with mops, coaxing her maid into making her an eyepatch so that she could play at being pirates and she was just too good at hide and seek), children's games that he'd never really played himself, he let it go.
It changed too soon. When Ishtar was seven, Darres ran forward to catch her as she sank to the ground, sobbing as she stared at the slumped form of her food taster. The next morning, he delivered justice to the assassins in Ishtar's name and two days after that he stood with her and her maid at the food taster's funeral. Less than a year later, it was just Darres and Ishtar. Both times, Ishtar simply watched the rites, her face still and cold. Both times, Darres wanted to hold her tightly and never let her go. Both times, he said nothing. Both times, he did nothing.
When Ishtar turned eight, she had a birthday party. Darres spent the day being climbed on by small children and received too many sticky hugs and not enough money (but then, if he'd been doing the job for money...). He remembered the day principally for the look on Ishtar's face in the evening, long after all but Falan had departed.
"Darres," she whispered, her face pale and miserable. "Darres, if I get older, I have to get married."
He nodded and thought, damn Sir Keld.
"Falan says that people keep talking about cousin Vord in La Naan to Uncle Jened and she thinks that's what they mean. She's really scared." She stared up at him, green eyes wide and luminous in the darkness.
"Don't worry." Darres wasn't good at giving comfort, but he knew this one. "If whoever it is upsets you, I'll knock his head right off his shoulders."
It didn't seem to make her much happier. "Why can't I marry you?"
He had a lot of answers, ones that he had been told, ones that he had worked out for himself. He couldn't tell her any of them.
When Ishtar was nine, she spent a lot of time drawing cartoons of Sir Keld in various unflattering manners. Darres spent most of his time that year trying to keep Sir Keld from seeing them. He succeeded, but only barely, and only because he pointed out to Ishtar that if her assiduous guardian found the sketches, it would be him who would bear the brunt of his wrath.
The accuracy of the statement may or may not have been one hundred percent, but the effectiveness definitely was.
When Ishtar was ten, she developed a passion for oranges. They had to be imported from Razenia and were more than a little costly, but she insisted.
"Here," she said to Darres and tossed him one. "Try it."
He turned it in his hands and inspected the strange, scaly skin. Peeling it as he had seen Ishtar do, then dividing it into sections, he carefully bit down on one.
The sharp, bitter tang shocked him for a moment and his expression must have shown his distaste, for Ishtar giggled delightedly. Swallowing manfully, he braved another bite and another, until the fruit was completely gone. Ishtar clapped her hands and hugged him.
She gradually stopped yearning for oranges, but by then the fashion had caught on with the nobility, much to Ishtar's disgust. Even so, Darres wondered idly if he could buy another. In places, the orange had been unexpectedly sweet.
When Ishtar was eleven, Falan came to St Pheliosta and stayed for two months. Jened was furious – or Darres hoped he was – but, as they'd known he wouldn't, he didn't dare attack Ishtar when Falan was constantly at her side.
Neither of the girls knew anything except that Falan had, for once, been successful in her pleas to go and stay with Ishtar. Darres wished that they would never have to. He also knew that it was a vain wish and a stupid one. The best rulers were never the nicest people, because the nicest people ended up dead.
Ishtar was twelve when her maid rushed out of her bedchamber one morning waving a bloodstained sheet and announced, "The Princess has become a Woman." Darres could almost hear the capital letters clink into place. Ishtar trailed after her, crimson-faced and tears of humiliation leaking from her eyes. There were three guards on duty, including Darres; one fainted, one recoiled in horror and Darres snatched the sheet from the maid and threatened to fire her on the spot.
It was Ishtar who saved the situation, oddly enough, even trying to sink into the floor. She explained in a tiny voice that the maid was from the countryside and that a girl's first period was a big deal there and could Darres please not hold the sheet up like that, he wasn't making things any better.
When Ishtar was thirteen, she quarrelled with Sir Keld; a true, adult argument. Darres had his hand on his sword hilt the entire time, in case Ishtar threw a fit, but it was Sir Keld who lost his temper first and stormed out. Ishtar decided that she'd won and turned to Darres with a bright, brittle smile and he stifled a groan.
"You'll be late for the reception," was all he said, however, and ushered her out.
He pretended not to notice her glares at the courtiers, at the servants, at everyone but him.
Ishtar was only fourteen when she came out, expected to make an early marriage, no point in hanging around. She was dazzling in some white frock that looked like a peasant's and cost fifty times as much, deceptively sweet and innocent with a way of looking at you with her huge eyes shadowed by her lids and lashes. She smiled widely at the young baron who was talking to her and, casting a glance at Darres (who pretended to be very busy with his drink), proceeded to flirt outrageously with him. She left him a flustered mess as she wandered over to Darres and flopped down on the couch next to him.
"I'm so bored," she moaned.
"I can see that," replied Darres in the most sarcastic tones he could muster, with a faint move of his head towards the baron.
"That's not my fault," said Ishtar defensively. "It's his first time at one of these things, too, you know."
"I don't know," he said flatly, unaccountably irritated with her. "All I know is that you need a good spanking. Your Highness."
"You always say that," she sighed and leant her head back against his shoulder. She stayed there for the rest of the evening, more or less. Darres tried hard not to be pleased about this and failed badly.
Anyway, it meant that she wasn't causing a scandal somewhere else.
Contrary to all expectations, Ishtar was still unbetrothed at fifteen. She still refused point-blank to even consider Prince Yuujel, she'd never even met any of the princes of La Naan and the prince of Mil Seii had disappeared, presumably to his workroom.
It was times like this, Darres decided, watching Ishtar dance with an extremely handsome marquis, that he wished devoutly that Falan had been born a boy. Or that Ishtar had, for that matter, and then everything would be much easier. She was smiling, seemingly genuinely, at her dance partner and really, a sex-change was sounding good right then. Didn't she know the trouble that would come if she got herself involved with someone?
Obviously not.
Thumping his head against the cool marble of the mantelpiece, Darres resigned himself to threatening Ishtar with a spanking, a threat that she would undoubtedly ignore, especially since he never carried it out.
"Darres?"
He wasn't going to look at her.
"Darres!"
Cursing himself inwardly, he lifted his head slightly to glare at her.
"What? What did I do now?"
"Lady Ishtar…" he sighed.
"Are you going to lecture me about my duty?" she demanded, the bitterness in her voice surprising Darres. "I don't get enough of that from the old fart?"
"…No." There were times when even he couldn't tell Ishtar anything if she didn't want to hear it. Generally, Darres was able to work out when those were. Sir Keld had never been able to.
"Look, I know how far I can go, all right? Just let me have some fun."
It wasn't that, he wanted to say, but kept silent, seeing the hard cast to her eyes and mouth.
"And if you're worrying about…me…then it's already too late, okay?"
"What?" That, he could react to and he did so, but Ishtar had vanished into the crowd. Nevertheless, Darres resolved to have a little chat with her dance partner the next morning.
Around the time that Ishtar turned sixteen, Darres realised that she was running further and further away from him each time she escaped. He still chased after her, of course. After ten and a half years, he wasn't sure that he knew how to do anything else.
One day, when he had caught her and was yelling at her, she cocked her head to one side and asked: "Don't you love me any more, Darres?"
Darres stared at her, stricken, and realised that he always had.