Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) by Steele Alexandra Page A

advisors looked
back to jeer, then raised their large noses high in the air and turned away.
    There was something a little grotesque about
the spectacle, as the Fool continued thrashing about, performing some other
stunt that made all the powdered people roar with laughter again. He was one of
the few who weren’t laughing, and Spencer thought the man’s eyes looked almost
dead. Spencer wasn’t surprised. It had to be a dreadful job, making a fool of
yourself over and over again for a group of stuck up royals.
    As Spencer watched, a heavily pregnant woman
in a lavender colored gown waddled through the sea of Ladies, which parted for
her obligingly. Spencer noticed that she alone among the women was wearing
sensible flat shoes, and that she alone was not laughing. In fact, she looked
both uncomfortable and painfully bored. She looked so very bored that Spencer
guessed who she was.
    “That’s your mother?” He asked Lorna.
    “How did you know?” Daphne asked.
    Spencer glanced back at the woman, who was
rubbing the back of her neck and frowning. “She looks like someone with nothing
to prove,” he told Daphne.
    “That’s our father,” Lorna pointed out a man
in a crown, with thick black hair and a bushy black beard. He was standing with
a tall young woman who had hair that was a light auburn, several shades softer
than Daphne’s. She wore a crown on her brow and carried herself with her back
ramrod straight, so Spencer suspected that she was a princess, but her garb
seemed… unconventional, for a princess. She wore a great cloak of thick, shaggy
fur, and beneath that she wore a simple tunic, leggings and boots. Spencer saw
several of the Ladies of the Court raising their brows at her, but when she
turned they sniveled and simpered and flagged their little fans, so she was
almost certainly royalty.
    “That’s our sister Anise,” Daphne said.
    “The one who’s second in line?” Spencer
couldn’t help the way his voice squeaked. Following Tryphena’s death, her son
Delwyn would take the throne. After Delwyn, his eldest daughter Anise was next
in line. Spencer had been raised not to judge people by their appearances, but
he couldn’t help but be a little concerned at the thought of the Kingdom being
ruled by someone who was dressed like one of the Cave People of Elleshmere.
“What is she wearing?”
    Daphne sighed. “She loves that cape. She made
it from the pelt of the first bear she killed.”
    “She kills bears ?” His voice squeaked once
more. Then again, he thought, better bears than people. Her grandmother seemed
to prefer people and that was downright terrifying.
    “She kills everything,” Daphne said. “She’s
been hunting practically since the day she was born. It’s the only thing that
interests her. Well, that and fishing, but she only likes fishing for exciting
things like Electric Eel and Man-eating Trout.”
    Spencer blinked, trying to reconcile the
image of the slim young woman of auburn hair and pale, narrow lips with the
person Daphne was telling him about. The bear cloak did make it easier, though,
and as he watched Anise said something to her father, and Prince Delwyn gave a
hearty laugh and slapped her hard on the back. “She’s his favorite,” Daphne
said, and to her credit she sounded only a little jealous. “She’s his heir and
the best hunter and the best at sports and he says she never whines.”
    “Well, that is an appealing quality.” Spencer
had to admit. He was still appraising the future Queen of Wulfyddia when a
small old woman stepped out from behind Anise. It was the Queen. Spencer knew
it immediately, though he had never seen her in person before. She had the dark
eyes of her granddaughters and her profile was identical to those that adorned
the coins in his pocket. His first thought was that she wasn’t nearly as
terrifying as he would have expected, but as he watched she surveyed the
assembled guests with such a cold stare that he could imagine how she