A Spill of Wine

Jorge watched jealously, the cold carafe held almost to his breast, as Alvor helped Her Most Faithful Eminence to her seat, said a few words into her ear, and went to fetch his decanter. He was an old man, Alvor, at least by comparison to Jorge, who was – as all told him – a model of youthful vitality and masculine perfection. Could Alvor sit a horse as well as he? Or spin upon the dancefloor as he could? When had he last fenced with grace and precision?

And yet it was Renato Alvor who stepped again to the Queen Regent of Savaria and poured for her a wine of deep red. A Prolaisian, Alvor had explained in that superior tone of his, as though Jorge knew nothing of wine. Which did, of course, have an unfortunate grain of truth, but then was it Jorge’s fault that he had been raised in provincial obscurity?

Jorge felt it was to his credit that his patron, the Duke of Bavola, had been so taken by his beauty and poise as to find him apartments at the palace, buy him a new wardrobe, and recommend him to the queen herself as cupbearer. Second cupbearer, as Alvor had sought to make abundantly clear. Jorge wondered how long that would last: surely the queen, the moment she inspected him for the first time, would recognise that he was the superior specimen of the two.

And then it was Jorge’s turn. He scowled at Alvor as they passed – receiving an equally hostile expression in return – but composed himself into a pleasing smile as he approached Queen Apoleana. She turned her head to him and Jorge received his first look at the face that had seduced a king, first as his official mistress, then as queen, and won a kingdom.

Stretching his neck to display its contours to her gaze, then turning his face for her to see its every angle, he demurely met her eyes for a single moment before fixing them on her cup and pouring for her the chilled white, of local vintage, he had been holding since before she entered the modest private dining room for her supper. It was a performance he had perfected under His Grace’s instruction. The duke had told him not to expect any word from the queen, though she might favour him if he pleased her exceptionally.

And so Jorge’s breath caught and head spun when he heard her words.

‘We thank you. Remind us of your name.’

‘Master Jorge Tarues, Your Most Faithful Eminence. Pleased to serve you.’

He said it straight backed, puffing out his chest in his new coat and staring just over her head.

‘Bavola speaks well of you. We are glad his words were not empty.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

Jorge managed to keep his composure as he bowed and turned from her, but could not stop the beaming grin from claiming him as he returned to Alvor, who avoided his eye. No, the Duke of Bavola’s words had not been empty indeed, if they had captured even a small part of Jorge’s qualities.

Over the queen’s first two courses, Jorge kept a careful eye on her cups, refilling once. She favoured the iced white over the red, he noticed, which could be the result of the summer heat, or superior flavour, but he flattered himself in thinking that she drained her glass for the pleasure of her eyes upon his flesh.

And, after long last, her glass of red was empty too. Not truly empty – there were some remnants, anyone could see – but Alvor took the opportunity anyway to step back to Her Most Faithful Eminence and bend beside her and flutter a few favours and refill her glass. And Jorge stepped, to make room for his return, but Alvor changed his course and barrelled into the younger man, no accident at all, and threw the Prolaisian red across Jorge’s new suit of clothes.

Jorge had not been raised in refinement. He was new to the world of polite hostility. In his own world of the very lowest rung of nobility, every scrap was fought for, with tooth and with nail and with steel. And so, with nary a thought, a fist flew, colliding with Alvor’s cheek, throwing him down, and the red wine with him, which painted the floor and the queen and stained Jorge’s coat and breeches and stockings so much further.

It was but a single strike, but Savaria was an old country, and the penalty of using a hand in violence before the monarch – or his regent – remained the loss of the offending instrument, regardless of whether the offender was peasant or lord and aught betwixt.

In an instant, a sword was drawn. One of the queen’s hussars, her constant shadows, identifiable in their dolmans of green and breeches of gold. Jorge saw only red and almost threw himself against the guardsman, but checked himself through a moment’s hesitation and drew himself up, stock still, cursing himself and awaiting judgement.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ enquired the queen, furrowing her brow at the damage to her hem.

Jorge threw himself to the floor, further staining his knees and elbows, a near imitation of the Tosai kowtow.

‘I apologise, Your Most Faithful Eminence. I felt the need to defend my honour.’

Jorge maintained his position. His hair, too, spilled into the growing pool of dark wine, and he could smell it even through his mouth as he panted.

‘The boy struck me!’ exclaimed Alvor. He clambered from the floor. ‘What a beast.’

‘The insult was yours, sir,’ said Jorge, throwing himself back up and advancing on the other man, who cowered back. ‘I stand ready to grant your satisfaction or demand my own.’

‘As you see, ma’am, a beast,’ Alvor repeated with a quick glance at the queen.

‘There should be no violence, nor duelling, in our presence,’ the queen said. ‘Neither law nor custom ought be violated here.’

The hussar stepped closer. His blade was thick and curved. An instrument of death, not grace. A tool of battle, not fencing. Oh so different from those straight slender things at home in Jorge’s soft and elegant palm.

‘Of course, Your Most Faithful Eminence,’ said Jorge. ‘Naturally, that was not my intention. I apologise to you without reservation. To you, ma’am, and you alone.’

‘And yet, Master Tarues, you have struck Master Alvor. He too shall have your apology.’

‘Yes, ma’am, he has it. I apologise, Master Alvor, for committing violence before our queen.’

‘Then Alvor, I’m sure, forgives the transgression.’

Though, by every code of honour ever written, an apology alone could not rectify a blow.

‘Ma’am?’ Alvor exclaimed, and Jorge felt he could do the same. Was this offence to be taken no further? What greater mark of favour could Jorge hope for?

‘Of course, ma’am,’ Alvor finished, after composing himself. ‘It is as you wish it.’

‘Very good. Then Master Tarues is to leave us, and send a servant to clean this mess. Master Alvor, you shall manage the rest of our meal alone. That is all.’

#

‘You did what?’ the Duke of Bavola raged. ‘After I brought you into my favour, into my bed, and taught you the furthest secrets of pleasure, to be employed in my furtherance? You let ir’Vanduera’s creature best you at the first test! Is your head so hot as to rid you of all considerance?’

‘Honour demanded a response, sir,’ said Jorge.

‘What do you know of honour? What king begot your forefathers? In what palace were you raised? Any honour of yours comes from proximity to me – an honour her dismissal of you shall besmirch.’

As the most senior of the Garter Dukes, Bavola would know all of royal forefathers and palace homes. If his great grandfather had been Ordonno III’s legitimate issue, rather than his bastard, the duke would be not a senior peer but King of Savaria. And his mother was Princess Isabel, the young king’s aunt, from which he derived a legitimate, if matrilineal, claim to the crown. They were thoughts that humbled and intimidated Jorge before so great a man.

‘She has not dismissed me. Not yet, at least.’

The duke sighed and closed the gap between them. He placed a large, hot hand against Jorge’s jaw and stroked his cheek with a thick thumb. Jorge looked him in the eyes without a blink or a sound. It was a revealing gaze he met. A disrobing one.

‘Well, I would not have chosen to test your charms against her indulgence just yet,’ said the duke. ‘But if it’s a test you passed, it speaks well of your future. I trust it shall not breed impertinence.’

‘Of course, Your Grace.’

Taking the duke’s lack of response as a dismissal, Jorge bowed his head to his patron and departed.

In the palace corridors, making his way between the duke’s apartments and his own more modest ones, Jorge took care to strut. He was still perfecting a gait that would display his legs within their silken stockings at their best. They were first amongst his features, he thought, and the easiest to display to languid, lustful glances.

He nodded and smiled to those he passed, reminding himself of names when he could, or faking recognition when he couldn’t. He felt eyes on him, furtive as hands, and gloried in them. Perhaps, after a while at court, he would be tired of those eyes. But certainly not yet. He was too new to the glamour and attention for them to have ceased to intoxicate so soon.

Approaching his rooms, Jorge stumbled across an unwelcome sight. Alvor, chatting by the window that overlooked the gardens with three of his friends. Jorge sought to avoid them, but it appeared they had been waiting for him.

They stopped all talk the moment he was noticed, and spread out to block the way. Jorge, unwilling to push through them, slowed to a stop, as though he had no thought at all of walking on. It was late. Few others were still abroad in this part of the palace.

‘How are you all this evening?’ Jorge asked. He glanced behind him. If needed, he could run.

‘So she beds you and you think you’re untouchable? Bastard whore.’

It was one of the friends who spoke. A thickset man who swaggered to inspect Jorge from an arm’s length away. Swinging distance.

‘Neither, thank you. And who am I bedding? Better that I know before the world, I should think.’

‘Playing dumb is for clever men,’ said Alvor, who approached too. ‘You, by contrast, should feign all the intellect you can muster.’

‘Eynas Toino!’ said Jorge. ‘Speak plain you—’

‘You fucked the queen,’ said another of them. ‘That clear enough for you? We’ve all heard the rumours. Doesn’t mean we can’t fuck you back.’

‘Sir!’ Jorge exclaimed. ‘Name your second, for I shall be calling you—’

The first fist connected with his solar plexus, pulling the breath from him and leaving him blind to the second and third blows, which knocked him to the floor. Then they kicked him. His back. His thighs. His chest. His arms. His face. Not once could he return the assaults.

One drew a knife and for a delirious second Jorge knew he was dead. But it didn’t slice his delicate gullet. Instead, he felt a pulling on his hair and then it relaxed as a few locks were shorn free. The final humiliation.

‘Tell Bavola that ir’Vanduera sends his regards,’ someone said. Jorge barely heard over the ringing in his ears. ‘And that he won’t be dislodged, even for all the perfumed beauties in the world.’

Jorge waited until they left before he let himself bawl and scream and pound the floor with his bruised hands.

#

For two days, Jorge begged off his duties, citing illness. He lay in bed, dulling the pain with wine, the curtains closed against throbbing light. Yet, his position was too fragile to risk any longer an absence.

So, he did his best to cover his marred face with powder and practiced at walking without a limp before reporting for duty. Alvor greeted him with a knowing grin, which Jorge ignored: ignored the man entirely and merely said he was well again and went to collect the ice for the chilled wine.

Let Alvor smile all he liked. One day, Jorge would beat him blue and then beat him senseless and then beat him dead. Just not this day. This day, Alvor was nothing. This day, Jorge had to confirm the solidity of his position and ascertain if ruinous rumours had reached royal ears. Rumours did not have to be true to be dangerous. Quite the reverse, in Jorge’s experience.

The queen regent dined in company. A few of the more highly placed courtiers, officers, and ministers. Not one of the grand banquets that her late husband, Leopoldo V, had been famed for hosting daily. Amongst the chosen few, the Duke of Bavola, smiling and laughing in his overwhelming, gregarious way, and only occasionally glancing at Jorge, who served the chilled white with precision but no flare. Beside the queen, her minister of justice, a man sometimes called her favourite. Lord Sebastian ir’Vanduera.

The dinner was long and, for Jorge, tedious. Occasionally, he winced internally from his injuries and had to fight for every scrap of control to keep a measured countenance. He made a point of not looking at Alvor when he could help it. A gesture from the duke told him he was not performing to his best, but Jorge ignored that too.

He couldn’t follow the conversation, which was all of people he didn’t know and problems he wasn’t aware of, all couched in a political cant that was no tongue he knew. The words he understood, but little of the meaning. When the words seemed simple, the reactions and responses were not, as though another utterance had accompanied it, inaudible to Jorge. As though he was the only drunk man in sober company.

And then it was, finally, over and Savaria’s magnates made their homages to the queen regent and filed out, escorted by Alvor, leaving Jorge alone with her. For a moment, he said nothing. He didn’t know what he could say. How to approach. His tongue was not the subtle, silvered thing he had heard from her guests.

‘Your Most Faithful Eminence,’ he began, still unsure how to continue. ‘Might I be given leave to speak?’

‘By all means, Master Tarues,’ she replied. She sipped her wine as she waited.

‘Thank you, ma’am. I have heard a… a disgraceful rumour. An unchaste rumour. Involving myself. I wished to say that I had nothing to do with it. And that no good subject of His Most Faithful Eminence, your son, our most beloved king, could think to repeat it.’

‘We are aware, Master Tarues.’

Feeling his face flush, Jorge bowed his head and kept it bowed as he said, ‘I am saddened that such disgusting tattle has reached your illustrious ears, ma’am.’

‘You find us disgusting? Or do you apply the word to yourself?’

‘No, ma’am! No, I mean… I mean the nature of—’

‘As we said, Master Tarues, we are aware.’ She paused a moment and Jorge dared raise his eyes to her. She seemed amused, and yet there was a coldness there too.

‘The rumour is ours, Master Tarues,’ she said, to his shock. ‘So you needn’t worry on our behalf.’

Jorge did not know how to reply. What it could mean. Was she… could she have spoken of what was still to come? Or did she seek a reason to dismiss him, and had used her own honour to conjure one? Had it merely been the senseless slip of a drink laden tongue? No, not that last. He knew enough not to believe that of her.

‘As a mark of favour to Bavola, you see,’ she said, though he didn’t. ‘To placate him a little in his quest to be named my son’s heir presumptive. And as a warning to ir’Vanduera, that others vie for our esteem, and that not all close to us shall be of his choosing. Something to keep him eager to please and insecure in his position.’

Then he had been wrong. It was nothing to do with him. He was a card to be played at this court by those who did the playing.

‘I see, ma’am. I apologise.’

‘We are sorry of the consequences to you, Master Tarues. To your health. The Duke of Bavola is careless with his people. It is a failing in him, as your experience might instruct him if he cared to learn.’

‘Not at all, ma’am. It is nothing.’

‘No humility now. We see your pain and how you have borne it.’ And, in spite of it all, Jorge felt something towards the queen. Desire, and something beyond it.

‘You are wondering, we are sure, why we have been so open with you.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Jorge lied. Of course she shouldn’t have told him this – and he had not even considered it.

‘So you can tell Bavola when he asks. We would not want him thinking there was any veracity to the rumours. That we would see fit to spread them is favour enough. And so he knows that we are aware of his every intrigue. And for other reasons we will allow him to consider for himself. That shall be all, Master Tarues.’

He bowed to her, deep and long. She had dismissed him – it was not for him to speak. Head clouded as from the strongest drink, considering all the hidden, the half-seen, things of her court, things he still could not see with clarity, like statues in the night glimpsed from a palace window, Jorge left the queen regent to finish the last of her wine.

Thank you for reading. On the housekeeping front, my non-fiction, going up on Thursday 29th July, will be one I’ve been working on for a while: The Kantian Ethics of Terry Pratchett, a discussion of the moral instincts of my favourite author. Not finished yet, but it’s shaping up pretty well.

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One fun element of having so much fiction sharing a single fantasy setting up on here now, is all the connections I can draw. Longtime readers, or those interested in more, might note that Queen Apoleana was at the centre of another story, King of Chefs, Chef of Kings, and got an oblique mention in another, Four-And-A-Half-Engagements.

Don’t know where to continue with my writing? This might help: