“What?” Florin is taken aback. He steps away from her, as though suspecting witchcraft.
“You have the same forehead as the woman my panther killed. That, and you look as though you would gladly stick that cheese knife in my eye.”
Florin’s mouth twitches.
“She was my sister.”
“I see.”
“Are you not going to apologise to me?”
“Why should I? Your sister was trying to kidnap me.”
“It was her job.”
“Then she should have worked for someone other than Cecilia Tudor. I am sorry for your grief but I will not apologise for something that was not my fault.”
Florin snorts, turns away from her. Cecilia thinks he might actually take the knife and stick it in her eye, and the thought makes her heart race.
“You sound exactly like her.”
“Your sister?”
“Cecie.” There is a strange timbre to his voice, like a creaking oak about to topple. Cecilia doesn’t know how to read it, nor does she like him shortening her name. It’s entirely inappropriate for royalty. Is that how he and Lorena referred to her when not in her hearing? Like an equal, or a pet?
Seymour begins to laugh. She’s such a strange woman – she gives the impression of being a slip of a thing, a waif, until you realise that she is taller than most men. She should be quailing.
“What do you find so amusing?” Florin says.
“I am thinking of my husband, that is all,” Seymour replies, wiping tears from one cheek. Her other hand, Cecilia notes, still rests on the peculiarly stiff part of her gown’s hem.
“What of him?”
“He has a way of charming brilliant women to fall in love with him despite his many glaring faults. I thought it was a quirk of the divine power he stole, but now I see it is simply a family trait.”
Florin and she look at each other for a moment, he standing over her. He breaks the silence. “Are you calling me a brilliant woman, lady?”
“There are worse things to be called, sir,” she says.
“I know that. I was raised by one. The one you killed.”
Cecilia shifts in her seat, pressing her eye closer to the whorl. This isn’t how she expected their confrontation to play out. Her calculations had led her to believe that either it would become heated and violent, or that Seymour’s ridiculous morality would lead her to share information with Florin through guilt. This is unanticipated, but not unwelcome. Has she not always known that hate and love are the two most persuasive emotions? And here she has accidentally stumbled upon both. A fascinating concoction.
Florin sits next to Seymour on the pallet and grimaces. “Gods, this is uncomfortable.”
“I have slept on worse.”
“It is driving Cecie mad that she knows so little about you and where you have been.”
Cecilia curses Florin silently. He does not know it, did not even mean it as a question, but it is enough to put Seymour on her guard. She draws away from him. Too direct, imbecile. Florin has not noticed, though, for he continues blithely, “This story of magic and gods and palaces. I don’t know what to think.”
“What religion do you follow?” Seymour asks.
“I follow my mistress,” he says. “She is my god and goddess, my emperor and empress, my king, my home, my heartbeat and breath.”
Cecilia draws away from the whorl, winded. It is good, this adoration he shows her. So why does she squirm on her seat? Just because she does not return his feelings does not mean she deprives him.
“It is excruciating to love so fully, is it not?” Seymour says.
