Chapter Ninety-One: Willing Participant

“Missing?” Osmund echoed.

Mirhan perched at the emperor’s bedside, right near the man’s hairy calf. It was unsettlingly intimate, giving one the impression of intruding on a couple in their marital chamber. “He was last seen at dinner after Cemil’s forces rode off,” Mirhan elaborated, sparing them all several rounds of questions. “He left early, and when the maids came in the next morning, there was only a note in a crude hand, claiming urgent business back in Şebyan. There have been no sightings since. Even that tambur player he’s sweet on seemed clueless.”

Osmund struggled to keep pace. “Then—his horse is gone?”

“Taken from the stables, but no one knows when, or by who,” said Mirhan. “If it was indeed the prince, he brought no escort for his own protection. We believe the note was forged.”

“Help us find our new friend.” The emperor’s eyes were stony, his tone eerily calm. “I’ll have everything you know. Who he’s been talking to, where, and why.”

This was beginning to sound serious. Gooseflesh prickled on the back of Osmund’s neck. “I-I’ve barely spoken to him at all since we rode in,” he stammered. “I heard him complaining that Cemil—that Şehzade Cemil didn’t introduce him. That’s all. To tell you the truth, he dislikes me.”

“Then you haven’t seen him with the princess?” Mirhan prompted.

It was a leading question. Osmund blinked. “With Princess Nicoleta?”

Mirhan’s eyes darted momentarily to his sovereign, seeking guidance. The old man sighed, rearranging himself again on the bed. The high-gabled room smelled of incense and sweat and sick. “The Tolmish and the Videlari are coreligionists,” said the emperor at last. “You share the Ocentine faith.”

“W-we do, my sovereign.”

“Some might say that makes you natural allies.”

From the fog, something was beginning to take shape, but Osmund couldn’t yet make sense of it. “You…think maybe she knows something?”

“Apparently he has pursued her doggedly whenever Cemil’s back is turned, though she has been too discreet to acknowledge him in public.” Mirhan crossed one thigh over the other. He was immaculately-dressed, in stark contrast to his lord, though his collar was unbuttoned and askew, revealing a blush of warm-colored skin. “Perhaps he presumed a greater friendship than she. They would’ve been but children when they met…but it’s not impossible.”

Osmund stumbled and fell on that sentence. “When they—what?”

The emperor hummed. “The heavens provided me fifteen sons,” said He suddenly, eyes clouded with the nostalgic air of someone telling a story, “and only once, briefly, a daughter.” It was Mirhan and Osmund who now exchanged looks. Mirhan’s seemed to say, don’t interrupt. An unnecessary warning—Osmund’s heart was in his throat.

“I thought to betrothe her to the Tolmish prince. The boy was timid and weak, his father a lout. I long hated the man. But the Isles are wealthy and powerful. It would’ve been a smart match, if it had borne fruit. After we withdrew our offer, Videl offered to the kingdom their own princess.”

Osmund’s head spun. He wracked through his memories, through the forgotten faces of over a dozen uninterested princesses who had been thrust upon him as a child, but with the one notable exception they were all so indistinct.

Nicoleta. Princess Nicoleta, of Videl. That name…

“Little birds told me their families conspired together to keep Videl out of our hands. A failure, of course, and their planned alliance met the same fate. But suppose they kept in touch all these years?”

Osmund’s mouth moved uselessly. The emperor stroked his chin.

“Keep your eyes and ears open from now on, little bird,” said the bedbound old man. His voice wavering from strain was calm and commanding. “The Tolmish prince was under our protection. Naturally, we are concerned.”

Osmund opened his mouth again, and was surprised when words emerged. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Excellent.” The old man winced as he moved up on the bed. He gestured for Mirhan, who immediately began sponging down his exposed skin. This seemed like Osmund’s cue to leave.

But before he could make it to the door: “There is something familiar about you,” said the emperor distantly, as if bothered by a riddle. “Something in the eyes.”

Osmund stood frozen, awaiting the next words like the executioner’s blade. But the old man’s mind had already wandered fickly elsewhere. “Go,” he said, sending him off with a motion of his hand. “Let me trust in your faithful friendship with my family.”

Osmund’s mind was a fury as he paced the courtyard. He turned the facts this way and that, but could not get them to form a picture.

Mainly he wondered: what kind of blasted game is Lord Pravin playing?!

If his assumptions were correct, the man had secret dealings with at least three people here. Firstly, with Mirhan, to knock off Yücel and remove an imperial prince from the game. Then with the emperor, to secure an alliance of sorts with the Tolmish Merchants’ Guild, and secure a way forward for Meskato expansionism. And lastly, Pravin had created the impostor himself to maintain the fiction that the Prince of Valcrest was a willing participant in his designs, in exchange for said hand-picked prince getting to wear fancy clothes and live in a castle as a pet. Or so Osmund assumed.

The impostor’s behavior and subsequent disappearance added another tangle to the whole mess. Did he run away? Osmund wondered, which was perhaps projecting. Or is he dead? And could Nicoleta really know something?

The name indeed tickled some dusty corner of his mind. It was possible their families had corresponded without his awareness. But if he had met Nicoleta as a child, he had no recollection of it.

But what if—she remembered him?

No. He pushed that horrifying thought away with some violence. Surely not. Cemil himself hadn’t remembered him, and anyway, Osmund no longer resembled in the slightest that small child with a proper haircut who only stammered and cried. He had to believe that.

In any case, it still left the question: why had the fake prince been trying so hard to get an audience with her?

Only one woman could answer that question for him.

And he’d be a blundering fool to ask her outright.

Thankfully, a solution presented herself, and her name was Ioana.

Cemil claimed that Osmund had a natural talent for making friends of all kinds, and Osmund had been forced to do a quick reckoning and admit that it was true. Who would’ve guessed that the unloved Prince of Valcrest had access to such a skill when his title wasn’t weighing him down?

Ioana was Nicoleta’s quick and expressive attendant and interpreter, who spoke several useful languages, including both Meskato and Tolmish, and proved to be (like servants and maids so often were) a bit of a gossip. She was rarely separated from her princess, but apparently had a fondness for sweets. Funny “coincidence”, then, that Osmund kept chancing upon her when he was fresh from the kitchens with a handful of sweet dumplings. Almost every day, in fact.

“I do hope the campaign is going well,” said the girl thoughtfully as she tried to get the last of the sugary glaze off of her fingers in a ladylike fashion. Here in the shaded eaves of the courtyard by the bakehouse, the smell of fresh dough was rich and fragrant. “Şehzade Cemil is such a handsome and considerate man. My lady is so fortunate.”

Osmund hadn’t meant to lead them down this road. He smiled against the twinge in his chest. “…Indeed. She’s…they’re both fortunate.”

They were speaking in Tolmish at Ioana’s own initiative, claiming she found the language friendlier than Meskato. “It’s such a shame that they don’t seem to…” she trailed off, and blushed at Osmund’s inquisitive look. “I’m sorry, you’ll take offense. You are his dear friend.”

She had to know the gossip. Still, those words: dear friend. “Go ahead. I promise I won’t tell.”

Ioana took a preparing breath, already eager to trust, and he almost felt ashamed. She reminded him of Nuray. “I think my lady hoped her future husband would be a different kind of man.” She looked in both directions. “She has told me…she finds him a bit naïve. Idealistic. Though he pretends otherwise, which ill suits him.”

That was a surprise. “I like that about him,” Osmund said before he could stop himself.

“He makes grand declarations, which she dislikes,” Ioana sighed. “She was hoping he would be more…restrained. They make a beautiful pair, but they may be a bad match.”

So Nicoleta was a bit of a romantic, too. “He’ll grow into the role,” Osmund heard himself saying in a quiet voice. “She must give him time. He cares about his people more than anything, and I know she does too. They’re likely a better match than they think.”

Ioana beamed excitedly. “Yes! I assured her of the same, sir. Time will prove us right, I feel it.”

Osmund’s gaze wandered, and with an inward cringe he spotted Prince Luca lurking by one of the doors to the hall, looking at him with those big, expectant eyes. “Our prince seems quite taken with you,” Ioana remarked with a giggling tone.

“He must be very lonely,” Osmund said with pity and annoyance, both of which sat uncomfortably within him. “Shouldn’t he have friends his own age?”

A bit of the laughter vanished from the girl’s face. “He is…delicate. My lady doesn’t think it wise.”

“She seems quite protective of her cousin. Is she too busy to spend time with him, herself?”

Ioana’s expression changed then, seeing past him, and Osmund turned to behold the very princess in question, her strides through the courtyard quick and determined. In her hand was a dueling saber. She was on the warpath, headed directly for Osmund.

A woman betrothed, come to eliminate her rival.

Before he could formulate an escape, she tossed the sword at him. His fumbling hands narrowly stopped its trajectory towards his chest. A second weapon remained in her grip.

The princess spoke. “My lady saw you wear a sword, and wishes to ask you for a friendly duel,” Ioana translated. “Will you indulge her?”

Osmund’s jaw dropped as his mind raced to catch up. “Th-the saber I wear is decorative,” he babbled, mentally cursing the mercenaries who had given it to him. “I cannot fight you.”

Nicoleta spoke through Ioana. “Then you never learned?”

That he could not claim. On top of the mostly unsuccessful instruction he’d received as a child, upon their return from Kaliany Cemil had insisted on drilling him with the basics. It seemed to be more an excuse to get them both panting and sweaty, if the usual conclusions to their lessons were any indication.

His dithering must have been taken as an invitation to “please beat me with a stick”, because Nicoleta raised the wooden dueling sword in one hand and advanced on him. Ioana kept pace with her lady’s quick words. “Royal rules, first to ten,” she announced. “Is that acceptable?”

Osmund desperately threw up another defense. “Th-the princess is hardly dressed appropriately for swordplay,” he attempted, nodding to her full skirts in an appeal to propriety that surely would’ve worked on the Isles.

“My lady duels often like this. She doesn’t mind the disadvantage.”

An interested audience was beginning to form, cutting off any possible exit. Osmund was forced to accept that there was no graceful way out of this humiliation, and no Cemil, Sakina, or Emre to come to his rescue. (He heard a familiar laugh, which told him that Nienos found the proceedings very amusing indeed, and had no intention of stopping them.) “Then, in return for providing you a dueling partner, might I be treated to a private audience?” he asked, still in Tolmish.

Without waiting for Ioana to translate, Nicoleta gave a slight nod. Headstrong girl, she hadn’t even known what she’d just agreed to.

Or…had she?

No time to ponder it. The surprisingly nimble girl lunged forward, and the duel began.

What little ingrained instinct Osmund possessed rushed to the forefront. He managed to avoid embarrassing himself for a few seconds, at least. His shorter-limbed opponent scored the first hit, a tap against his forearm. A cheer went up, even among the Meskato, for whom the petite princess must’ve seemed an underdog. Osmund wondered if he had any supporters in that crowd.

This thought awakened in him some embittered defiance. If she was determined to take his remaining pride from him, he wouldn’t surrender it without a fight.

Hardening his resolve, he launched into the next offensive. She was far the superior duelist; that much was clear. But she wasn’t giving it her all just yet, and Osmund was. He leaned into a quick jab with his blade and so managed to score the next point. To his relief, he did hear some whoops of support. Mostly from the mercenaries, and maybe from those hoping for a fair match.

They traded blows to increasing enthusiasm from the crowd, but in the end it was not a close contest. Osmund threw down the wooden saber once the bout was done. His arms and thighs stung—she had not hit him hard, but her blows had unknowingly provoked some of his existing bruises, the rough treatment he’d begged for from Cemil on the road. “You’ve bested me fairly,” he said with as much courtesy as he could muster. He wondered if the fake smile he wore hid his anger or his exhaustion. He was not as practiced in the art as Mirhan.

Nicoleta nodded, and spoke. “My lady thanks you most humbly for the sport,” said Ioana awkwardly, apparently noticing the tension. “She will see you tomorrow for the audience you requested. She thinks the weather will be fine.”