The Hidden City

possibilities.
    Mirtai, grim, implacable, and wearing an Atan breastplate of polished steel and black leather, stood several yards down the corridor, her face set in an expression of sullen obedience and her hand on her sword-hilt.
    ‘You’re still angry with me, aren’t you?’ Danae asked the golden giantess, not even bothering to turn around.
    ‘It’s not my place to either approve or disapprove of my owner.’ Mirtai was being stubborn about it.
    ‘Oh, stop that. Come here.’
    Mirtai marched up the hall to where her capricious little owner was sitting. ‘Yes?’
    ‘I’m going to try again. Please listen to me this time.’
    ‘As your Majesty commands.’
    ‘That’s getting very tiresome, you know. We love you, Mirtai.’
    ‘Is your Majesty speaking in the royal plural?’
    ‘You’re starting to make me cross. I’ve got a name, and you know what it is. We all love you, and it would have broken our hearts if you’d decided to kill yourself. I spoke to you the way I did to bring you to your senses, you ninny.’
    ‘I know why you did it, Danae, but did you have to humiliate me in front of the others?’
    ‘I apologize.’
    ‘You can’t do that. You’re a queen, and queens can’t appologize.”
    ‘I can if I want.’ Danae paused. ‘So there,’ she added.
    Mirtai laughed and suddenly embraced the little girl. ‘You’re never going to learn how to be a queen, Danae.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. Being the queen just means that you get what you want. I do that all the time anyway. I don’t need a crown or an army for something as simple as that.’
    ‘You’re a very spoiled little girl, your Majesty.’
    ‘I know, and I love every minute of it.’
    Then the Princess heard a faint, far-away murmur, a murmur that Mirtai could not, of course, even sense. ‘Why don’t you go find Melidere?’ she suggested. She sighed and rolled her eyes upward. ‘I’m sure she’s looking for me anyway. It’s probably time for another one of those girl lessons.’
    ‘She’s giving you instruction in courtly manners and traditional courtesies, Danae,’ Mirtai reproved her. ‘If you’re going to be a queen, you’ll need to know those things.’
    ‘I think it’s silly, myself. Go on ahead, Mirtai. I’ll be along in a minute.’
    The giantess went off down the hall, and Princess Danae spoke very quietly. ‘What is it, Setras?’ she asked her cousin.
    ‘You already know the courtesies, Aphrael,’ her curly-haired cousin said, appearing suddenly beside her. ‘Why are you taking lessons?’
    ‘It gives Melidere something to occupy her mind and keeps her out of mischief. I spent a great deal of time and effort getting her and Stragen together. I don’t want her to spoil it by getting bored and starting to look for outside entertainment.’
    ‘That’s very important to you, isn’t it?’ Setras sounded a little puzzled. ‘Why should the things they do to perpetuate themselves interest you at all?’
    ‘You probably wouldn’t understand, Setras You’re too young.’
    ‘I’m as old as you are.
    ‘Yes, but you don’t pay any attention to what your worshippers are doing when they’re alone together.’
    ‘I know what they’re doing. It’s ridiculous.’
    ‘They seem to like it.’
    ‘Flowers are much more dignified about it,’ he sniffed.
    ‘Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?’
    ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I have a message for you. There’s an Alcione Knight—one of the ones who serve me. I think you know him. He’s a moon-faced fellow named Tynian.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He went back to Chyrellos to pick up some help, and it seems that he inadvertently chose every Pandion skilled enough to pass messages on to you and brought them all to this part of the world, so there wasn’t anybody with the Church Knights to tell you what happened in Zemoch.’
    ‘Yes, I already know about that. Anakha’s going to talk with Tynian about that. What happened in Zemoch?’
    ‘The Church Knights had an encounter with Klael. A third of them were killed.’
    Aphrael unleashed a blistering string of curses.
    ‘Aphrael!’ he gasped. ‘You’re not supposed to talk that way.’
    ‘Oh, go bury it, Setras! Why didn’t you tell me about this as soon as you got here?’
    ‘I was curious about the other thing,’ he confessed. ‘It’s not as if they all got killed, Aphrael. There are still plenty of them left. In a little while there’ll be as many as before. They’re ferociously