Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) (47 page)

Quinn didn’t falter again; she smiled widely and reached to take Luke’s hand. “If you’re Mia’s father, then I’m sure I like you already. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“And you as well, Lady Quinn.”

When he had first begun courting her, William had thought about how difficult it might be for Quinn to adjust to the idea of having a relationship with a prince. As a child of the king, William often had to contend with heavy obligations, formal events, and diplomatic relationships. He knew it wasn’t always easy to deal with the constant demands of his position. Simon’s wife, Evelyn, still had difficulty with it, and the one girl Maxwell had been halfway serious with about a cycle ago, had eventually broken up with him over it. Max had been hurt pretty deeply.

Tonight, though, watching the way Luke and Marcus, two guards he’d known his whole life, bowed their heads low when they spoke to Quinn, deferring to her, made him realize for the first time that he’d had it wrong. If she decided to acknowledge her birthright,
he
would be the one doing the escorting and smiling.

As they sat down at the table, William put his hand under her elbow, rubbing it gently under the pretense of assisting her. She glanced at him, giving him a slight smile before turning her attention to the four men sitting down with them – his father, Nathaniel, Luke, and Marcus.

“King Stephen tells me that both of you would like to join the Friends of Philip,” Marcus began, cutting straight to the issue.

“Yes.” They answered simultaneously. William wondered if Quinn’s palms were as sweaty as his were becoming.

“Do you understand what you’re getting yourselves into?”

Quinn frowned; under the table, William put his hand on her knee, smoothing the lacy, white fabric of her skirt. Briefly, she touched her hand to his, and her slight tremble calmed as she touched him.

“I’m sure we don’t know all of it,” William answered. “Everyone here knows about Quinn?”

“Yes,” Stephen answered. “It’s still a secret, even among members of the Friends, but Marcus has always known, and we informed Luke only recently. I’m sorry, Quinn, but we are reaching a point where, given the safety concerns, and especially with you and William courting officially, we have to expand the circle. Luke is highly trusted, and we felt confident in sharing the information with him.”

Luke looked at Quinn. “I still can’t believe it, Lady Quinn, but I swear I will guard your secret with my life.

William wasn’t certain how she would react, and he was surprised when she just nodded. “It’s not going to be possible to keep the secret for much longer, I don’t think.”

“Are you genuinely considering accepting your role, milady?” Marcus asked.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. William tightened his grip on her knee, but this time she was so deep in thought that he wasn’t sure she noticed.

When she opened her eyes, she didn’t answer his question, instead asking one of her own. “Tell me about the Friends of Philip.”

Marcus’ eyebrow went up almost imperceptibly, and out of the corner of his eye, William saw his father give a tiny nod.

“What do you know about the history of our kingdoms, Quinn?”

She shook her head. “Not much, really. I heard a story once, about the twins … but I don’t think I was paying close attention at the time.”

“The version of the story in the children’s history books,” William clarified. “I think she read that during the poisonings.”

“Those were the books that were poisoned?” Luke asked.

“Yes. Interesting, don’t you think?” Nathaniel answered, and the two of them exchanged a look. William had never really thought about it before – that the poisoned books were the ones which taught about the shared history of the two kingdoms.

“Anyway,” Marcus looked back at Quinn, “that’s a fairly simplified version of the story. It’s true that Philotheum and Eirentheos were once one much larger kingdom. At one point, in fact, all of this was Philotheum.”

“And then there were twins, right?” she asked. “And they didn’t know which one of them was the first born?”

“Yes.” Nathaniel spoke now. “The story is that it was a very difficult birth, and the queen nearly died. It’s an old story, and the records aren’t completely accurate, but the thought is that the babies were handed off to a young nursemaid. It wasn’t until the next morning, when it looked as though the queen might actually live, that anyone realized there might be a problem. Nobody had any idea which baby was which; what boy was the heir to the throne.”

“I guess you can’t exactly flip a coin over something like that.”

Luke looked panic-stricken over Quinn’s joke, but Stephen chuckled. “No, not exactly.”

“So they just decided to split the kingdom in half and share?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite that simple, Quinn.” Although there was a smile hiding in the edges of his expression, Marcus’ voice was serious. “Actually, for many years, the king and queen made no decision at all. Hoping it would all work out on its own, I suppose.”

“We call it
the dandelion choice
,” Stephen said.

Quinn’s entire body stiffened and William looked at her in alarm. “What’s the
dandelion choice
?” she asked.

Although she’d re-composed herself nearly instantly, William patted her knee softly as he answered. “When you plant a garden, no matter how carefully, there will always be weeds – plants that work their own way in, tend to themselves, and multiply. A gardener has two choices. He can carefully cultivate the plants he has placed there, feeding them, watering them, and vigilantly guarding them against the weeds…”

“Or you can let the weeds in,” Quinn said.

“Yes. Some weeds, dandelions in particular, are quite useful, and even beautiful. They provide food, medicine, decoration, entertainment. You can even make a kind of coffee from ground dandelion roots.”

“So why not just have a dandelion garden? It’s easier.” The level of understanding in Quinn’s voice was frightening William a little.

“It’s easier, and there are even some advantages, right. But deciding to have a dandelion garden is, in many ways, a choice to make no decision at all. You don’t have to make that choice. If you just don’t decide anything, the dandelions will decide for you.”

“Is that so bad?”

“It’s not – until you reach the point where you have no control over the situation at all. The dandelions start to go everywhere, choking the life out of any other plants in your garden, starting to spread outside your fence. Eventually, you’re at their mercy – it’s no longer your garden; the dandelions have taken over.”

“And you can no longer have roses.”

William frowned; he couldn’t remember ever having talked about this with her before. “No. Choosing ‘the roses’ is the opposite of choosing ‘dandelions.’ Roses are delicate, difficult to cultivate, and early on they’re easy to kill. They need lots of sunshine, water, food, and care. They’re vulnerable to bugs and weeds. And growing them can even be painful. With the roses come the thorns.”

“But if you put the work in …”

“Right. If you make that choice, put in the work, there’s nothing more beautiful than a perfect rose.”

Quinn nodded, closing her eyes for a long moment. “So they just didn’t decide; and the ‘dandelions’ took over.”

Stephen raised an eyebrow; William could tell that his father was as surprised by Quinn’s reaction as he was. “It was a very tenuous time for Philotheum in many ways. After the birth of the twins, the queen was never able to conceive again – Philip and Aaron were it. And there were other relatives circling, saying that if they couldn’t make a decision, then maybe it was time for another branch of the family to take over the throne. One cousin in particular – Norman, the son of the king’s second-born brother, had married a royal from Dovelnia and moved to the far eastern portion of the kingdom. It was mostly wilderness, sparsely populated and largely ignored, and he was basically ruling there, sort of setting up a kingdom of his own.”

“Here, you mean?” Quinn asked. “Philotheum is the western part, Eirentheos the eastern, yes?”

“Yes, Quinn. It would have been the part of the kingdom that is now Eirentheos. I’m getting to that.” Stephen exchanged a wary look with Nathaniel.

“And there was a problem with the kingdom this guy was setting up?”

“Yes. The people of Dovelnia – where this man’s wife was from – have always challenged our beliefs about the Maker. They’ve always maintained that we – the original Philotheum, and later the two kingdoms of Philotheum and Eirentheos – don’t rule our people with enough power, that we use our beliefs as an excuse not to take advantage of the resources we have, both physical and human, to ‘improve’ our kingdoms.

“They believe that a king should be someone with strong power over his people, that the people aren’t wise enough to decide on their own how they should live their lives – they require a king to interpret messages from the Maker and enforce those messages in law. In Dovelnia, the king has absolute power, and he rules through appointed religious leaders who own land and govern the people in small townships. The people become very dependent on these leaders.

 “Norman, in his short time reigning over this portion of the kingdom, acquired quite a large amount of wealth. His ‘people’ were practically slaves, living under those to whom he had gifted land – gifts that, of course, were not his to give. And his influence was spreading.”

“Like a dandelion.”

“Exactly like a dandelion. Meanwhile, the king had become elderly and ill, while two potential heirs were doing nothing, making no decisions.”

“Did they fight over who would take the throne?”

“Philip and Aaron? No. From all of the stories, it was never a battle. But it was a lack of making a decision.”

William couldn’t be sure, but he thought that Quinn squirmed a little at his father’s words.

“So what happened?”

“The stories say that a messenger from the Maker himself appeared, separately to both Aaron and Philip. I don’t know if the messenger appeared physically, or in their dreams,” Stephen spoke now. “The legends say that it’s where the story of the dandelion and the rose came from. But whatever happened, it was Philip who eventually proposed the solution. It meant a war, to remove Norman from his rule, but they did it. Afterwards, the kingdom was divided equally along the Philotheos River. Philip allowed his brother to choose which side to take as his own. Eirentheos wasn’t much at the time. The already small population had been devastated in the war, and there was a lot of rebuilding to do, but it’s what Aaron chose. He wrote in his private journals that watching his brother make that decision had convinced him that Philip was the true leader – that he must have been the firstborn, and he deserved to rule the more powerful kingdom.”

“And Aaron’s half became Eirentheos.” Quinn said. William could tell by the faraway sound of her voice that she was thinking deeply about this.

“Yes. Although until very recently, the two kingdoms operated very much as one, two parts to a complete whole.” Stephen reached toward the middle of the table, and picked up two small, metal objects. William had been too preoccupied to notice them lying there before.

When he held the first one up, they could see that it was a little silver replica of the Eirenthean seal, the same symbol that appeared on William’s pendant. The second object was a gold replica of the Philothean seal. For a moment, Stephen held them separately, one in each hand, and then he moved his hands together, joining them. They watched as the two separate images joined and became one complete design, the design of the tattoos worn by members of the Friends of Philip.

“Why a tattoo?” William asked. It was something he had been wondering about for a while now. “Doesn’t it make you a target if you’re captured?”

“Yes, it does. Especially now,” Marcus answered, looking William in the eye.