The Arrival of the Kingdom's Flower

Rubbing my palms against the rough burlap of my apron didn't get rid of the dry clumps of rye, but at least it gave me something to do with my hands.

"It doesn't speed it up either, genius," I muttered under my breath to Damián.

Damián didn't laugh, but the right corner of his mouth curved just a millimeter. He had a smudge of soot on his cheekbone and his left hand glued to the hilt of his service dagger, looking for all the world as if he expected the roof beams to cave in on us any second. His scratched bronze compass, the one the Genoese pilot had left behind, peeked out from the frayed edge of his leather pocket.

The survival inventory for a dog of a dawn was ridiculous: knuckles scraped by coarse flour, two pinches of raw fermented dough under my fingernails, and a glob of rye stuck to the fabric of my underskirt.

"Take that off before Beltrán comes down to count the salt-fish sacks," Damián said, pointing his chin at the dough stain. "And clean your face. If they see white dust on your eyelashes, they aren't going to think you were praying matins."

"I've got flour even in my ears, don't piss me off."

"You talk weird when you're sleepy, Your Excellency."

"I talk the way civilized people talk where I grew up," I grumbled, spitting on the tips of two fingers to rub my chin. "Back there people don't cut each other's throats over a signature on a parchment with sealing wax."

"Here they do."

Point for the sentry.

Damián pulled a dark, fibrous, dry splinter from the lining of his doublet and broke it in two with his teeth. He handed me a half without looking me in the eye, with that stiff awkwardness forced upon him by his troop uniform.

"Bitter licorice. It kills the smell of toasted grease before you go up to her chambers."

I popped the wood chip into my mouth. It tasted like wet earth, old root, and a sweetish aftertaste that scraped the palate, but it numbed the hunger and the stench of salty dampness rising from the dock cellars.

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't thank me. Hurry up. Lady Moncada went up to the east wing last night and the bugles are going to sound as soon as the bay clears. Don't let her sweet-talk you if she puts on her slaughtered-lamb face."

He paused with one boot resting on the first step of the spiral staircase, looking toward the leaded transom where the rain was beginning to beat with a dull pitter-patter, turning the floating dust a leaden gray.

"Altar saints smell like myrrh from a distance, but up close they only give off the vinegar of envy."

Before I could throw a heavy retort back at him, Damián pulled the ring of the trapdoor and vanished among the bales of pitch like an alley cat. The wood creaked with a harsh rattle of poorly greased iron, leaving me alone with the cold of the flagstones.

Climbing three flights of spiral stairs while dodging the washerwomen was a nightmare-level stealth video game, only here there was no stamina bar or reset button if a mop girl caught me barefoot.

Caterina nearly fainted when she saw me slip into the bedchamber. She was sitting on the edge of the camphor trunk, biting her knuckles until they turned blue-gray, with her nightgown twisted and a tallow candle burned down to the pewter saucer.

"My lady!" she whispered, with the muffled shriek of a startled bird. "By the Virgin of the Pillar... where on earth had you gone? The steward came twice. He asked if you required herbal tea for the fevers."

"Tell him the fevers went away on their own," I said, taking off my dirty apron and tossing it to the bottom of the chest where I kept my spare petticoats. "Help me with this beast. Quick."

"This beast" was the raw silk corset with whalebone stays. Putting on that civil armor was the closest thing to a boa constrictor giving you a fraternal hug while you were forced to smile for a family photo.

Caterina yanked on the waxed laces with a vengeance. My breath cut off dry in my throat and my ribs crunched in a silent complaint.

"Slower, I'm not a bale of Peñafiel wool."

"It's just that the air isn't reaching the light-blue bodice, my lady. And Don Beltrán said the lady of Moncada has already come down from the east wing with her retinue."

I looked at myself in the oval quicksilver mirror. The glass had a greenish smudge in the upper corner that warped my forehead, but the reflection gave back the exact same girl as always: dark circles like boxing bruises, pale skin from being locked up, and a tight mouth that looked nothing like the haughty harpy this world's script expected me to be.

A bugle sounded outside.

It was a sharp, metallic, strident bellow that bounced against the ashlar walls of the citadel, followed by the dry, unison snap of twelve halberds slamming against the courtyard flagstones.

The show's leading lady had arrived.

The arcade gallery smelled exactly of what Damián had warned: expensive wax, Damascus rose essence, and hot myrrh brought in silver censers to mask the smell of brine and marshland that always oozed from the lower walls.

Sibila de Moncada advanced down the corridor as if floating on a cloud of light-blue gauze.

She was a postcard picture. In the original game, on my old computer screen miles and miles and who knows how many centuries away, this was the moment when every user left drooling comments in the forums: "Oh, protect Sibila! Look how sweet she is, how unfair the villain treats her!"

What a brazen farce.

She wore a veil of the finest thread with pearls sewn along the edge framing a face with tiny features, large moist brown eyes that seemed to beg forgiveness for existing, and hands gloved in white kidskin crossed over her belly holding a tiny devotional book between her fingers. Two maids followed her with bowed heads, carrying a basket with lemon scrapings and convent preserves to ease the suffering duchess's supposed headache.

To her left, dragging her heels with the sluggishness of a bored bureaucrat, came the notary of Peñafiel, hugging a boiled leather folder full of documents sealed with red wax.

When Sibila saw me standing by the stone balustrade, she quickened her pace with a flutter of skirts that stirred up a sweet breeze.

"Violante!" she exclaimed with a trembling thread of a voice, the very picture of filial piety. "My poor sister! Good God, look at your eyes, you're consumed by grief!"

My whole body tightened. My natural impulse —that of a poor neighborhood girl from Bogotá whose face is suddenly being used for cheap drama— was to cross my arms and tell her to save the theater for the heralds. But the moment I pressed my lips together to spit out the insult, an icy spike shot through my temples, numbing my jaw as if I'd been injected with liquid lead. The inertia of the script showed no mercy for slips.

I had to swallow bitter saliva and force my shoulders to relax.

"Sister Sibila." I managed to articulate, in a voice that sounded drier than courtesy demanded, but docile enough not to faint from dizziness. "I didn't expect your visit so hastily in this downpour."

"How could I not come?" Sibila extended her gloved hands and took me by the forearms. Her touch was soft, warm, almost maternal, but the pressure of her fingers on the linen sleeve had the measured strength of a blacksmith's tongs. "I've spent the night awake beside the notary, praying to SaintTecla for you. Don Beltrán told me you've scarcely touched a morsel since Don Guillén set sail on that cursed galley. Look at your hands... they're shaking like poplar leaves."

"It's the damp chill of the galleries," I replied, fixing my gaze on her brown eyes. "It seeps right down to the bones."

"I know, my dove. I know very well."

Sibila took a half-step forward, closing the distance between us with a gesture so fluid and theatrical it looked rehearsed in front of a mirror a hundred times. The notary stopped three paces back, cleared his throat, and pretended to check the ties of his folder; the maids lowered their gaze to the floor with rehearsed devotion.

Sibila wrapped her blue-silk-clad arms around my shoulders.

To anyone watching from the battlements or the far end of the hallway, it was the heartbreaking embrace of two orphans consoling each other before the imminent tragedy of the regency.

I felt her cold cheek brush against mine. The scent of roses plugged my nose.

And then, with her lips practically glued to the cartilage of my left ear, her honeyed altarpiece-saint tone vanished completely.

"Enjoy the air in the galleries, my dove..." she whispered with a venomous coldness that froze my blood. "You have barely eighty-nine days left before that white neck kisses the executioner's block, and this citadel already has a new mistress."