Chương 316: 4.6

Jewel would have trembled in excitement if she was still a child. A dove from Kaeketeh had arrived that morning. Which had carried a missive from March Lord Dominik. Which further carried the word he had received from his counterpart in the vault south of him in the Magarska Kingdom.

And now after passing through what her nose suggested were at least five separate wrapping and unwrapping in traveler's parchment did she hold the vellum messenger scroll that yet was held tightly rolled in the unbroken seal of the High King of Magarska himself. Well Gem's hands were holding it. Her far smaller and more delicate fingers were better suited to the task of gently cracking the wax and finally unfurling the missive written in the familiar scrawl of the High King.

Holding it up for Jewel to read in the gloom of her chambers in Light's End. Old Cantor words, despite that not being the fashion of the Magarska courtly missives. With the sharp sparse lines of letter script. Which was a bit ostentatiously wasteful to put in ink on vellum, even if it was a scrap small enough to send as scroll via bird. All of those little details spoke to consideration and friendliness with Jewel. Sentiments that were otherwise missing from the abbreviated and tightly packed words.

That touch along with the news filled Jewel with another suppressed shudder of delighted energy that was all but impossible to hold back from expressing as a few happy twitches in Gem's tail. This tiny scrap of treated lamb's skin might just hold the salvation of the peace.

"The High King of Magarska has accepted the request of an audience in which I can meet with the Wolf Prince." Paul smiled warmly. He knew how much the threat of war was weighing on her.

"So we will be stopping the tour early?" She could not keep her own smile from her lips at this.

"No, we will have almost two years to finish the tour and make our way to the capital of Magarska by the appointed time." He winced a bit. Which Jewel could only laugh at.

"Is the Lord Mayor's culinary enthusiasm weighing too heavily on my fine husband's constitution?" Paul laughed, shifting his back against her scales, running his shift-covered skin lightly against the grain of them so that he could scratch between his shoulders with her hide. It was not exactly the most comfortable thing for someone to do but Jewel enjoyed the closeness it spoke of between them.

Only the countess' husband was permitted to use her scales for something so banal as to scratch at his back, and only in the privacy of their quarters. Uncomfortable pulling on the roots of her scales aside she also liked to feel his laughter against her ribs.

"He takes your provincial preferences way too far. Are we sure that one dish was not literally mud, snot and butter?" Jewel took upon a mock outraged tone.

"You didn't like the cavern silt trout pie?!" He however knew her better then that and simply jabbed his elbow into the more cushioned meat between her ribs. He'd learned years ago to avoid jabbing directly into any of Jewel's bones. Tsugothulan had not been amused with either of them when Paul had apparently damaged something very tricky to repair in his arm. The debilitating pain and tremorous shakes had been cleared up with a minimum of sorcery though.

"Those were not trout, those were slugs with teeth. Teeth that they didn't remove before baking them in a pie!" Jewel could not help but giggle.

"Dariusz had such words for the Lord Mayor and his staff over that. But did you see how the mayor's family ate every spoonful of the stuff though? I feared his wife was going to cut her insides on a tooth!" Her husband joined her in the good natured laughter as well. It was nice these moments they had together, without the judgemental eyes of a court, or the expectations of their staff. Just man and wife. That thought brought a more sombre thought to Jewel.

"Speaking of his wife, my dear husband, was there something wrong with the Emilia girl last night? I thought she fit every single one of your preferences." Paul flushed hot in the face as Jewel suspected he would, but he was her husband and if there was anyone who should talk with her about this it was him. Especially when the subject was specifically finding the poor man a concubine of good standing.

"Jewel... No, there was nothing wrong. She was a fine woman indeed, but I just... Would you please stop trying to arrange suitors for me? I'm your husband!" She huffed and very gently shoved him with the thumb claw of her wing.

"Paul! I've given you my blessing, I've given you more than that even. But you've not taken anyone to bed! In secret, openly! Not in the brothels in Kaeketeh or just a fetching maiden from Valasect, If you would just go out and find someone, anyone yourself by this point I wouldn't have to try and help you!" She could smell his shame, his conflicting tumult of emotions, his overall upset. But she was running out of patience with him. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent.

Report any appearances on Amazon. Her husband was wasting the virility of his youth! His comfort and health! All for something so stupid!

"And don't you dare try to deny it again, I can smell your longing every time some girl, woman or errant thought gets your blood heated Paul!" Her husband covered his face in his hands and groaned. Knuckling at his eyes in the dark. There were not many things that they quarreled over, and honestly none of their conflicting topics compared to the ill muffled shouting matches her mother and father had some nights in her youth. But Jewel could smell, see and hear how often Paul longed for the women around him.

Early in their marriage she had insisted they would have a proper concubine for him if he needed it. But year after year he courted no one for the position! And her resolve to the etiquette of their marriage had slowly cracked and crumbled. By the second year seeing his longing she'd have forgiven him doing something illicit for his sake. But neither did he secret his way out as some lords did, nor seek more proper channels. Paul took no lovers secret or private!

And Jewel had watched him suffer for it year after year. She had heard him have at himself over it some nights in a fury. She'd tried to help him herself one time. But that had only embarrassed them both. His wife she might be but neither of them felt that way about one another. And it spoiled any attempts in the bedroom she had tried. Jewel's patience for it had dwindled more and more with every season. Until she had started having women that matched what she had seen Paul long after join them in court.

Interviewed them, introduced them herself, set them alone in private chambers to enjoy each other's company. But Paul had taken to none of them either! And so they had begun to quarrel over it. Over Jewel's growing interference and Paul's insistent celibacy. Lightly at first but it was growing especially harsher as the tour continued and she caught his eye on more of them with that tell tale scent of want.

"Paul, please stop this, find a woman, any woman, just stop hurting yourself for me!" She wasn't quite sure when the tears had begun to build in both sets of her eyes. But the change in her tone had stilled the embarrassed fury in his.

"Jewel... I just can't. I can't betray you like all those other men do their wives. You are the Countess, if I took a concubine what would that say about you? How would it look? And if it was in secret, how would that scandal hurt you when it came to light? I can't do that to you!" What had been gentle in his tone grew more and more frustrated, more angry. She felt the fire in her throat rise up, and had to exhale very carefully to avoid releasing some ill advised spell.

She did not like what it felt like she would have done to her husband just then if she spoke without care.

"Paul, What does it matter how you reflect on me?! The people in Kaeketeh leave me offerings like a summer harvest goddess! You are my husband, you are my trusted confidant, and I can smell your heart's desperate longing every other day... Please just bed some woman for once in your life!" He just stared at her, stubborn, confident, assured, without fear. Unlike almost everyone else in Jewel's court, vassals and peasants alike. No one else looked at her like that except when she saw it out of Gem's eyes.

But the sudden squeezing pain in her chest forced another tumbling rush of words." Please Paul, you are my husband, my man, you do so much for me. You should know love's touch before you die!" That quenched his anger. She was honestly shocked by her own words herself!

"Jewel, I'm fine, I'm healthy as an Ox! I'm blessed by a goddess against the armaments of men! what brought this on?!" She stared at him in the dark, the warm gloom that she preferred to read by at night. Candles after all were mostly an extravagant waste when you could make out the fine lettering of missives by starlight or less.

"You are not getting younger my husband, you are burning through your youth and not taking any of the pleasures meant for it." She thought of the suddenly wasted form of Lord Kliatbatrn, struck suddenly and without warning from the heights of martial prowess and health. Dragged by all her knowledge and sorcery to only an addled man even after a season of work on it. Finally Paul met her gaze in the dark, she knew he could barely see her in the shadows.

But he knew how to move through their chambers by the touch of her scales under his fingers. A familiarity with the bend and twist of her coils and the sound of her breathing. He looked up at her without seeing and yet she felt how he knew her. Husband to Wife. And then the deepest sigh.

"I'll try... but please my wife, Jewel. You have to stop sending girls to our bedchambers without consulting me first!" Jewel huffed but the mood between them had been soothed. She reached out to his offered hand and clasped it delicately in her own claws. Always delicate she had to be with her man, so utterly fragile his mortal bones were, like dried honey to her touch.

"Only if you promise to actually court some of them yourself Paul." Then with a devious smirk she spoke with a jab.

"Besides if you are so worried about how you reflect on me. What about the reputation you have already garnered? We can't have the Count Consort of Viznove spoken of as a wilting virgin of a man, it's embarrassing me." Paul coughed and sputtered at that, but just as he knew her Jewel knew her man. He was only lightly embarrassed and amused now. Their quarrel for the night was neatly settled.

As they finally shifted to settling for sleep in the admittedly comfortably large chamber the Lord Mayor of Light's End had set aside for Jewel she made her a final peace offering for the night.

"Don't tell the Lord Mayor, but I didn't like that muddy travesty they called a pie either." Which got a comfortable and familiar chuckle out of her man.