Chapter 24
The Alliance
Tiberia, Kingdom of Caesarea, Aurean Empire
It was just shy of two weeks since they arrived in Aurea. Queen Bulah had given them money enough to outfit themselves according to their rank, which made Goldie's job of proving his identity that much easier. Once he was acknowledged as Prince, they were delivered to the Capital with all due haste.
Toma was excluded from most of the proceedings that followed their arrival. He was rarely far from Crescenza's side in his role as her valet. Now, pretty much everything he knew about household servants was what he'd learned in the past several days. Apparently ladies weren't supposed to have valets, but Crescenza justified it by saying that as a widow, she had to act in the stead of the lord of the house and her retinue ought to reflect that. She also claimed that Toma doubled as her bodyguard, a task she couldn't reasonably entrust to a maid. Of course, it was left unsaid that she led a double life as a highway robber and was more than capable of taking care of herself.
As Toma would quickly be outed as an Elban the moment he spoke, the story was that he was mute. Not a deaf-mute, but just mute. This also spared him the trouble of attempting the sort of polite speech expected of the servants to the nobility. It would cause problems if he forgot, but he was able to keep up the act so far.
This was supposed to be the big day where Dru would address the Imperial Diet ahead of their vote to validate her marriage to Goldie and by extension, approve of the alliance with Redgrave. She had been holding frequent private meetings with various lords and ladies and members of the Imperial family ever since they arrived in the Capital, trying to secure the votes she needed beforehand. Toma didn't know the first thing about politicking and he didn't want to. All he had to do was keep quiet and stick by Crescenza.
However, as much as he wanted to stay out of it, he was summoned by Dru under the pretense of relaying a message from her to Crescenza. Toma could be rather dense at times, but even he knew that wasn't her true purpose in calling him.
He knocked on the door to her chambers and before long a maidservant appeared.
"Oh, you must be Lady Aloisa's valet," she said. "Come in, come in. Her Highness is waiting."
Toma bobbed his head like a good little mute servant and followed the maidservant inside. They passed through a couple different rooms before entering the chamber where about a dozen maidservants were busy doing the final preparations on Dru. It took pretty much all of his willpower not to audibly say "wow" when he saw her. She had always been beautiful, but they really outdid themselves emphasizing that fact. He didn't even know where to begin describing the dress. He recalled the fancy dress she had when he first met her, and at the dinner party at Crescenza's. The difference between those dresses and a peasant's smock was about the same as if you compared those dresses to this one. You could probably buy a whole town and everything in it with all those pearls and gemstones.
Dru raised a hand to get the servants doing her makeup to stop before greeting Toma.
"Hello there, Toma," she said. "Thank you for coming." She then told the servants, "What I have to say are for this man's ears alone. Leave us."
The servants bowed and withdrew, but not without a few of them casting suspicious eyes Toma's way. Dru said something in Adomite to Shaya, probably something to the effect of "You too." Shaya said something back in reply before walking out, pausing briefly to pat Toma on the shoulder as she went. Whatever she said caused Dru's cheeks to redden a little under the layer of rouge.
Once the two of them were alone, Dru knitted her hands like she was working a ball of dough. She was nervous, but of course she would be. She was going to be standing in front of the entire Imperial Diet in an hour or so.
"You, you may have figured it out by now, Toma," Dru began, "but there's no message for Lady Aloisa. I just wanted to see you before I went out there."
"I thought it might be something like that," Toma replied.
"You know what this means, don't you? What will happen if everything goes well? The alliance with Aurea will be complete. My mission will have succeeded. And I will be Aurelius' wife in word and in truth."
"It's what you've been working for all this time, right?"
"Yes... Yes, of course. I will have fulfilled my duty to my father, my people and my country."
That was supposed to be a good thing, wasn't it? You sure couldn't tell by looking at her face.
"Toma... You... You may not believe this, but there is a balance to God's plan. He gives with one hand and takes with the other. You may look on royalty and only see wealth, privilege and power, but there is also obligation, beyond any burden an ordinary person would be made to shoulder. We are slaves to duty. If we don't fulfill our obligations to our subjects, we lose our very reason for being. We have no real freedom, no more than a bondservant. We're not permitted to do as our hearts would have us do."
"And what would your heart have you do?"
"Oh, Toma, why must you be so cruel? Do I have to come out and say it?"
Toma shifted uncomfortably. Did he really want to hear it from her own lips? Would it change anything?
"What'll it accomplish?" he asked.
"You were the one who asked, Toma."
"I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, Toma. I... I should say it. I need to tell you... before it's too late. Ever since you saved us at LeBlanc, I've... had feelings for you. I suppose it was inevitable, but then those feelings only grew stronger the longer we were together. I, I've never felt like this about anyone. I always knew my duty was to marry the best possible match for my family and my kingdom. At worst I would be married off to someone at Zadok's whim. All I could hope for was a husband I could learn to love, as my parents did. I never thought I would... would feel like this about someone. I know what I have to do, but I find myself hesitating. I want to answer these feelings, regardless of what it means for my duty."
Toma had to stop her before she got carried away. Not thinking about their respective positions, he took hold of her by the shoulders. Dru's eyes widened and she blushed anew.
"Toma?"
"Dru, you can't do this to yourself. It's like you said. You have your duty. You know what you have to do. Whatever you think you want, you know what would happen if this deal falls apart. You've risked everything for this. You've cost me everything."
Dru averted her eyes.
"I know, Toma... I know it. Do you think this hasn't been eating at me all this time?"
"You've got to let it go, Dru. Nothing good will come of it."
"Nothing good? Nothing at all? Are you telling me you don't feel the same way I feel?"
"What do you want me to tell you? That you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen? That I can't stop thinking about you? That I'm more afraid of this than when I was staring down your sister's Dragon? We can't do anything about it. If we did, it'd ruin everything and that'd only be the start of our problems. Even if you weren't married to Goldie, there's nothing we could do. I'm common-born, an Elban. It'd never work."
"Don't you want to try?"
Toma closed his eyes and found himself tightening his grip on Dru's shoulders. It was taking all of his willpower to keep his defenses up.
"It doesn't matter what I want," he said. "It... it doesn't matter what you want. If you don't go through with this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life, more than you would for burying whatever piddling feelings you have for me."
Hurt, Dru's eyes started to well up.
"'Piddling'? Is that all my feelings mean to you?"
"It's all I mean stacked up against everything else."
"Not to me, Toma."
"If you were honest with yourself, you'd know I'm right. Look, Dru, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna show those old goats that you're the best thing that's ever happened to this country. You've already got Adom and Ostivar in your pocket and you can serve up all Zadok's tributaries on a silver platter. You're gonna be a hero and you're gonna look back on this with pride. You'll be a lot happier with yourself than if you ended up with me. I... I'm probably just gonna end up like my old man and you don't wanna be stuck with that, even if you ignored everything else. Come on, Dru. You know what you gotta do."
Rather than just admit Toma was right and do what she knew she had to do, Dru stood up on her tiptoes and leaned in for a kiss. It wasn't just a little peck on the cheek like the time before but full on the lips. Deep, passionate. A lovers' kiss. It was clumsy, though. Dru obviously wasn't well-practiced. Toma could tell as much despite being entirely unpracticed himself. It didn't matter. You didn't think about things like that in the heat of the moment, not unless you were made of stone and didn't feel a thing. As much as Toma may have wished he didn't feel a thing, it wasn't so.
Who knows what might have happened if Toma allowed himself to be lost in that moment? He didn't have the first clue about what to do in the situation, but the body sort of figures it out. After all, people were doing this long before anyone wrote down anything about how to do it.
Somehow, in spite of everything he wanted to do, in spite of everything she wanted to do, Toma listened to the voice in his head screaming at him to stop. What they were doing was only going to end badly. They had to stop before it was too late.
He pushed her away. Not forcefully, but just enough to put her back at arm's length.
"No, Dru," he said. "We can't."
"What did you feel?" she asked him.
Steeling himself, hardening his heart, Toma told her, "It doesn't matter what I feel. It doesn't matter what you feel. What matters is what you have to do. I'm sorry, Dru."
If he stayed a moment longer, there was no telling how much longer his resistance could hold, so he left. He should have left a long time ago. Probably he shouldn't have come at all.
"Toma, wait!"
He ignored her and kept walking. He felt awful for it, but it would have only been worse if he stayed. She would get over this. She would pick herself up and do her duty. She would do it because she was strong. Without him to encourage her weakness, all that would be left would be her strength. That was what he told himself and he desperately wanted it to be true.
* * *
Toma couldn't bear to be there to watch Dru's address to the Diet. If she saw him there, it might only serve to be a distraction. That made for a convenient excuse, at least.
Crescenza seemed to understand without him having to get into the details. She would make up some reason her valet wasn't at her side. Normally servants weren't permitted in the council chamber anyway.
Several hours passed when Crescenza returned to her chambers. Toma had spent the whole time brooding that he nearly forgot his assumed role. He dutifully rose from his seat and gave a curt bow to Crescenza as she entered with several hangers-on clustered around her. She wound things down as quickly as you could while observing all the courtly niceties, which wasn't particularly quick at all, and once those hangers-on were gone, Crescenza motioned for him to close the doors.
Once he had closed the doors, she said, "You wanna know how she did?"
Toma simply nodded.
"You know," Crescenza replied, "these things can go on for days, weeks even. Luckily for all of us, the Electors passed a motion for cloture to force a vote sooner rather than later."
She paused. Toma knew she was doing it for effect, which annoyed him. She knew it was annoying him and grinned.
"The girl gave one helluva speech. Bore their questions like a cuirassier holding the line. You should've seen her."
"Are you going to tell me what happened or do you mean to kill me with suspense?" Toma asked.
Crescenza acted like she was contemplating the prospect before finally telling him.
"They agreed. A hundred and sixty-seven votes. Damn narrow margin, but a win's a win. The fine details still have to be worked out, but as of today, the alliance is as good as set."
Toma sighed.
"I knew she'd do it."
"How does it feel?"
"How does what feel?"
"Letting go."
Toma shook his head.
"There was never anything to hold on to."
"Wasn't there?"
"No, there wasn't," Toma said firmly. "Come on, I don't need to go through all this with you too."
"So that was what your little errand was about," Crescenza said as if she had it all figured out. "I imagined she'd be the one to make her move. And you were the one to play the responsible martyr. Not an easy thing for someone who hasn't had noblesse oblige beaten into his head ever since he could walk."
What did she want from him? Was she just tormenting him for her own amusement?
Toma tried going back to the original topic.
"So what happens now?"
"A lot of talk," Crescenza said as she stretched out on the sofa. "Not quite so much as there'd be if Zadok wasn't already in Greland and Elba. The fact that the invasion's already well underway will light a fire under their asses. That's something."
"And what are we supposed to be doing while all this talking's going on?"
"Depends on what you're wanting to accomplish. Me, I'm trying to find anyone who'll support action in Ilyria, but you already know that. I've got some leads and I'm hoping that the alliance with Redgrave will give some people the push they need. The push I need."
When Toma didn't say anything, she looked over to him and asked him, "What do you want to do now, Toma? You've done what you set out to do, which was to get Drusilla this far. What comes next is up to you. Nobody can make that decision for you."
Toma didn't have an answer for her, but he was going to have to figure something out.