In Which Jeda Is Anything but Envied

October 15, 1181

If the most out-of-the-way room Jeda could find was someone else's bedroom--or three other people's bedroom, going by the number of beds--she could always smooth the sheets when she left, close the door as she'd found it, make it as though she'd never been inside. It wasn't something she ordinarily condoned, violating strangers' space like that, but she could worry about such courtesy later, after she'd had a moment to breathe. No one would think to seek a princess in the servants' quarters.

She flattened the pillow against the headboard and leaned back, more sitting than lying. If she lay, she'd be too long seeking the will to stand, but she was tired of standing. Sitting was a compromise, and if no one else was willing to give her at least that, then why should she deny it of herself?

The king had arranged for a 'consultation' with Lady Arydath some time in the coming weeks. At least he'd had the decency to inform Jeda of this himself, though God forbid he could have asked her first. He'd told her it was nothing to worry about, mainly just to humor Ietrin, but she knew better than to think he wasn't expecting a boy out of her as well. Right now, all he was getting out of her was a sticky redness in the cloth beneath her thighs, and apparently there was something wrong with that.

Never mind that Ietrin hadn't even risen to the occasion, so to speak, when they'd tried the week before. Was she a horrible wife for having found his malfunction a relief?

Serves you right, Ietrin. It was a cruel thought of the variety she'd once aspired to be above, but bitterness had its ways of dragging one down. Maybe one day, I'll get really lucky and it will fall right off of you.

"Uh... your highness?"

An alarm flared in her head, some warning that her thoughts had left her head and the speaker had caught them. She scrambled to compose herself before daring to look at him, and only then through the corners of her guilty angled eyes.

The man, however, did not appear to find anything about her unseemly. He merely stared back at her, a little confused and a little amused, like he would look at any other out-of-place object. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that is my bed."

"Oh!" A warm tingle spread through Jeda's cheeks. A blush? She'd forgotten what blushes felt like. Her last one must have been some time after she'd grown wise to Ietrin's lack of interest, perhaps after an indulgent bit of flirting from one of her brother's friends. "I'm sorry. I didn't think anyone would be wanting a nap so early. I did mean to be out before--"

"Don't apologize. Technically, you do have every right to be here."

Technically, she supposed she did have the right to occupy any room she pleased, unless the king or the queen or Ietrin had stated otherwise. But she felt no less ashamed as she hurried from the bed. "No, it was rude of me to come here. I should have just gone back to my own room. Please don't hold this against me, Master..." Shit! What was this man's name? Had she even seen him before? "I'm sorry, but I don't know your name."

"Not many do." He winked. It had to have been over a decade since a man last winked at her, and back then, any 'men' she'd known were boys. "I'm Rickard Finessa, the new master of the king's wine cellars. You may call me Rick if it please you, your highness."

When was the last time a new person, a stranger, had approached her with such familiarity? Any other master would have had her call him just that. "It would please me. And you needn't bother with the 'your highness'. Just call me Jeda." Everyone who cares about me does.

"Jeda. I wonder if not many know that either."

Outside of her circle? No, not many did. "I... suppose not."

"I imagine it must be a lonely life, that of a princess." Lonely? Perhaps it meant less to hear it from a man, but still--to be anything but envied! She knew she would never grow hungry, but so few knew the difference between survival and living. What Jeda did was the former. Princesses did not do the latter. Kings and priests and social-climbing young girls alike could not understand. But this humble servant...

"Lonely, yes." Dare she test him? She didn't think she'd ever tested anyone. But if anyone could pass... "With rare moments of solitude."

"Thank God for those moments, then! I don't know about you, but I find that I'm never lonelier than when I'm among the masses, who neither know me nor care."

Jeda blinked. "You are uncanny."

"You seem a little so yourself."

Did she? "I find it easier if I don't think about me."

Another blush. Why was she telling him this? She didn't know this man. For all she knew he had a knife in his boot, ready to reach for it the second her guard dropped. Perhaps Ietrin had sent him. Perhaps he'd grown tired of waiting for a son, and he'd sent Rick after Jeda so he could dispose of her and start anew with a prettier, younger, more allegedly fertile bride.

But her guard had been lowered from the minute he'd walked in. He hadn't reached at all.

"Jeda, that is the most profoundly tragic thing I've ever heard."

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