Queen Estie of Amika, the Queen-Consort of Belleger, was already late for the King's council meeting, but she continued studying herself in her glass for a little longer.

She did not much like what she saw.

At fifteen, when she had met her first Bellegerin in King Smegin's ceremonial hall, she had been a beauty.  At tweety-five, nine years after her wedding, and eight after her father abdicated hid throne, making her Queen in Amika, she had been ravishing.  But now she was thirty-five.  Time and suppressed grief had engraved their fine lines around her eyes.  Anger and hard choices had left their marks at the corners of her mouth.  The loss of the luxuries she had known as a princess had rubbed a subtle roughening into her skin.  And her eyes themselves seemed to have lost their luster.  She was a disappointed wife, apparently unloved, certainly childless.  In addition, she was the ruler of an endangered realm, vexed in its uneasy alliance with Belleger, uncertain of its future.  And she was always afraid.

On some days, her fears seemed so vaporous that they hardly deserved to be named.  On others, she knew precisely what she feared, and why.  And on others, her only real fear - the only one she cared about - was that she had proven herself unworthy.

She was deliberately late to King Bifalt's council meeting.

But she had not chosen to delay her arrival out of pique.  She had too much pride for that, and the issues were too important.  She only faced herself in the glass to pass the time.

She could just as easily have occupied herself by making a mental tally of the austerities imposed on her by her apartments high in one of Belleger's Fist's turrets.  Until her wedding day, she had been accustomed to sumptuous living in Amika's Desire.  When she was here, she occassionally pined for a few of the indulgences that awaited her in Maloresse.

However, she was not petty enough to complain.  After all, King Bifalt's quarters were no more comfortable than hers.  Nothing in the Fist was comfortable.  Every scrap of wealth that her husband acquired, he used to relieve the privations of his people; or to feed and house the workmen who labored on his various fortifications, here and on the coast; or to provide for his army.  Privately, she admired his lack of interest in fine furniture and pampering.  In fact, she had modeled her rule of Amika on his conduct as Belleger's King - much to the consternation of the few functionaries and fewer courtiers she had retained after her father's abdication.

And whenever she exceeded her tolerance for discomfort and strict living, she could return to Amika's Desire.  Her husband did not hold her here.  Oh, he needed her.  She understood what drove him well enough to know that she was needed.  But he did not pretend to rule her.  And he honored her commitment to Amika.  When she absented herself from Belleger, he did not even ask when she might return.  Instead, he visited her in Maloresse faithfully, taking his place as the King-Consort of Amika for a few days or a fortnight, until his own responsibilities called him away, or until she expressed a wish to return.

She could not complain about how she was housed and served in Belleger's Fist without seeming as silly as her sisters.