The Queen's Tale. Grace D'Otare

by one, and rolled them down her legs.

      Dante did not answer. He watched her carefully, but his expression was somewhat colder than before.

      Philomena tried to explain. “There were several men in contention for the job, you see? The treaty was the important thing. The Lord Chamberlain and I always referred to them by their…advantages. King Trade Agreement. King Fishing Rights. Benvenuto was King Western Border.”

      “If you would permit a question,” her soldier asked, in a rather choked tone. “Why him? Why not one of the others?”

      “For the good of the country, of course. My marriage will cement an alliance protecting our most vulnerable border.” One, two, her stockings floated to the floor beside her slippers.

      Oh, my. She’d never walked barefoot on the sitting room rug. Her toes wiggled into the darkest reds of the pattern. So soft…for the first time that evening, she spoke without tightness in her throat. “It will give the mountain folk access to the sea and trade opportunities. This marriage will create a great good for my people.”

      “You care so much for your people, you’d marry a man whose name you barely recall?”

      She offered him a sympathetic smile. “You are a soldier, sir. You offer your body and your life every day. Could I do less?”

      Philomena sat down on the rug, crossing her legs like a girl. She removed the golden bracelets from her wrists, her ear bobs and the necklace at her throat, dropping each into a pile in her lap. Her rings were the last to go. She hesitated at her wedding band.

      “You are too young for such sacrifice,” he said.

      She tried not to laugh. “I am more than twenty, sir. And joined in holy matrimony to his majesty, the king, God rest his soul, at the age of thirteen.”

      “Good lord.” The man paused and she could almost hear the clicking of his mental calculations. “The man was close to ninety when he died.”

      With a clank, she dropped her wedding ring into the pile. Tomorrow, she would wear another. Tonight, she would wear none.

      “And well past seventy when he consummated our marriage.”

      “Thirteen,” Dante mumbled under his breath, his eyes on the pile of jewelry in her lap.

      “Do not think ill of the king. He was a good man—he waited until I was of an age to carry a child without danger before he…initiated marital activity. Then he became ill and such activities were no longer of great interest.” Philomena took hold of the lace at the front of her dress and pulled. There. Another tie undone.

      “We found other joys, other comforts.”

      “But, if you have no interest in—”

      “I did not say, I had no interest,” she interrupted, slightly flustered. “But tomorrow such choices will be taken from my hands. I will make vows and I will honor them, sir, make no mistake.”

      He studied her with those blue, blue eyes. “I believe you will.”

      Philomena took a deep breath. Something in her eased. “His majesty, God rest his soul, taught me much. How to understand my people. To be a good ruler. But there is one thing he was unable to teach me…”

      “Yes?”

      She stared down at the gap in her bodice. Without lacing, her breasts shifted freely. The brush of silk brought a nearly painful tightening of her nipples.

      In a voice too breathless for a queen she answered, “The ways of love. Physical love.”