Sindhu sighed when his eyes landed on the untouched platter, gathering heat under the midday sun. The table was a mess, the cabin stank of warm cake, and Kiet had left not even the shade of his canopy bed all morning.

'If you will not eat, at least allow me to draw you a bath, m-maharaj.' He reached over the table and pushed open the windows. Sea breeze drifted in. The bed curtains shifted.

'I've not asked you to come mother me, Master Mandabu; only to speak of her.' Kiet squinted in the streaming sunlight. His swiftlet, on the other hand, only too gladly made for the open window. 'You've worked a long time for our family. You must have known her well.'

'As well as a servant can know his m-mistress, certainly.'

'Sit.' Kiet gestured to the table.

Sindhu took a chair and dragged it away from the melting cakes.

'People have been telling me strange things about her, of late. Impossible things.'

'Us baseborn fill the time with stories, m-maharaj. You should hear some of the things they say about the M-Maha Rani. It is best not to ... concern yourself with wild tales.'

'Of course. They knew her not like those closest to her did. But I had the privilege of being her son and I fear I have been shielded from her ... less maternal side.'

Sindhu opened his mouth, but all that came were a string of stuttered words.

For the first time that day Kiet rose from his bed and moved to pour him some water from a pitcher. 'What did you think of my mother?'

'The truth is, m-maharaj ... I did not know her enough to have m-much of an opinion, and the higher she rose in her station, the less I knew who she became.'

'The higher she rose? My mother climbed no ranks; she jumped straight to becoming Judhistir's rajini at the age of sixteen.'

'Hardly, m-maharaj ...' Sindhu's brows tapered to a point. 'How do you think your m-mother came to live at the Grand Palace?'

'She wedded the Maha Rama, of course.' Kiet waved his hands, impatient. It was a story so often told—a tale of romance people liked to recite in song and poetry—that it had become for him unbearable to hear. 'She'd been a member of one of his riding parties. Her horse came intemperate, broke away from the group, threw my mother off in the middle of the woods. Fortunately the Rama had chased after them and arrived in time to save her. The rest is history.'

'Ah, yes ... I knew that horse. I worked for your m-mother's family long before she ever came to the Grand Palace. I saw her raise that mare from a foal, break into and train it herself.'

What is he saying?

Sindhu's face was unreadable. He continued before Kiet could get a word in, 'But how do you think she came to be in the hunting party in the first place?'

'Her family visited the Grand Palace every year, as do many high nobles of Surikhand.'

'That is correct, yes, and so they did in the beginning. They would spend a ... a-month every year in Kathedra, from the time your m-mother was twelve. That was how Rajini Chei came to know of her. The rajini had already taken her as a companion by the time—'

Kiet turned so quickly, the sentence died on Sindhu's lips. 'She what?'

'Well, she was such a bright child, Rajini Chei took her on as one of her ladies-in-waiting.'

'How absurd! My mother never could stand Chei, nor the rajini her.' Her words rung all of a sudden, clear in his head. A lazy afternoon, voices drifting from his sister's bedchamber, and he standing transfixed by its door.

'That is Chei's mistake.' Despite Kiesja's clear disinterest, their mother always did like to talk of Chei's supposed faults. 'She has made herself invaluable to the Rama. A prudent woman knows never to make a man feel like he needs you. Nothing breeds insecurity more surely and swiftly, and elsewhere will an insecure man seek to feed his pride. But make a man feel needed ... then have you him wrapped around your finger.'

'She did not always resent Rajini Chei.' Sindhu's voice cut into his mother's dubious advice. 'Resentment grows. They were close, like m-mother and daughter. You laugh now, but I tell no tales, m-maharaj! Your m-mother was the only one who actually enjoyed listening to the rajini talk of ... politics and history. It also helped that she got along well with her son.'

'Alain?' It came out more forceful than he intended. Of course he would have been born already. Mother was only three years his senior. Kiet shook his head. 'For all her constant badmouthing of Chei, never once had my mother even uttered Alain's name. It was as though he never existed to her. Whatever you heard from the court, they have been fooled into thinking—'

'But, but ... these are not tales from court, m-maharaj! I came to see your mother once every m-month and witnessed first-hand their time together. She would talk and drink with the rajini, or sit and read with M-Maharaj Alain—'

'You visited her every month?'

Sindhu gave an uncertain nod. 'She could only have me join her full-time when she became rajini in her own right. Until then she would send for me monthly.'

'What for?'

'Well ... plants have always been my specialty. I had to live off the land by my-myself from a very early age, so I know m-many things others do not.' He was growing more nervous by the second, his nose never even stopped twitching. 'Your mother would commission flowers for the rajini ... seasonal plants, fresh bouquets, things to ... bring scent and colour to the con-consortial estate.'

'A hundred florists are there in Kathedra, who could expediently the same service provide.'

'True, true.' Sindhu squirmed in his seat, his eyes lowered in embarrassment. 'There were other things, too, she needed every month, that required ... discretion.'

'What things?'

'Oh, you know ... jantau root, ceribor, lover's lace ...'

Kiet startled at his list. Jantau root was believed to alleviate sexual dysfunction, ceribor used for menstruation sickness, but lover's lace was a strong contraceptive when brewed correctly.

Wind howled through the window in the immediate silence. Sindhu was not the only one growing uncomfortable. Of all the things Kiet expected to uncover, digging into his mother's past like this, sexual dysfunction was the last of it. But the jantau could have certainly been not for her; she would have been too young to suffer from dysfunction so egregious it required drastic intervention.

Judhistir, however ...

Kiet shuddered at the thought.

And lover's lace?

How his mother used to give him an earful every time she caught a girl sneaking out of his bedchamber in the morning; used them as examples to his sisters on how they ought 'wait for the marital bed'. And all along she had herself been a connoisseur of lover's lace?

'Do as I say, not as I do, eh, Mother?' He sniffed.

'M-maharaj?'

'Nothing. It is a side of her I never knew, is all. Lover's lace.'

Gods. She'd make them stay for breakfast.

Every girl she caught with him. Brewed them their tea herself. He had loved her for it; thought she wished to know them in case he grew fond of one. But now he wondered ...

Another thought struck him still.

His mother could've not been handing out lover's lace to other women of the court—she cared too much for her image and honour to be caught dead in possession of such highly contentious and disreputable a thing—but neither could she have been using it all for herself. No matter how you looked at it, a fresh supply of lover's lace every month was simply too much for a single person to consume alone. Anything more than a drop in one's tea once every couple weeks' turn risked rendering a woman wholly and irrevocably barren, and his mother had gone on to birth not one but three children.

Chei, on the other hand ... Sindhu met his gaze, and Kiet knew the thought had—once upon a time—crossed the servant's mind, too.

Kiet's voice chilled. 'When did my mother ... when did Chei take her in?'

'Ah ... I do not remember the exact year, but your m-mother would have been thirteen, fourteen years of age?'

At which point Alain would've been, what, eleven? Kiet counted the years, dug in his head for the history of the time. Judhistir would've been eight years married to Dhvani, their third and final child together had just been a year born ...

And having fulfilled his duties to Dhvani, Judhistir would have just turned his attention back on Chei to try for his second child with his favoured consort.

Judhistir wedded Dhvani only to appease the Obusirjan House. He never would have taken a third consort had Chei not lost his favour. But she did. When she failed to bear him more children.

Then he wedded my mother.
   

❖ ❖ ❖
    

☆ this chapter is dedicated to mafasps ☆

Video: The Guild of Ambience
Image: Original artists unknown

Oh wow, what a sickening revelation. Did you ever think Amarin could've done such a thing? I certainly didn't see it coming until I wrote the scene (⁄ ⁄^⁄ᗨ⁄^⁄ ⁄) But more importantly, do you think Kiet's onto something, or is he just jumping to conclusions?

In other news, A GRACE OF CROWNS has now officially joined the Paid Stories programme! It couldn't have happened without all my amazing readers, so thank you so much!
If you're enjoying the series, please consider supporting me by purchasing the book so I can continue to write. You can buy the whole thing for 153 coins, or unlock the chapters for 3 coins each. Reading list adds and shares on twitter/instagram/tik tok also helps a ton! Thanks so much for your support 💜