"Lady Esmerelda Drachenmire, may I have this dance?"
Esme found a hand at her wrist and turned up to see a young man in a blue brocade and trousers, polished boots and burning southern red hair tied back with a blue ribbon. Her heart buoyed as she took the young man's hand and stood to dance.
"Where have you been, Fust?" Esme whispered in the young man's ear. He held her tight and she felt her heart beat against his chest - not quite in time to the music, but neither were their steps. She'd heard rumours the court musician's playing went to hell after he'd had a few drinks.
"Busy," replied Fust, a little shortly. He frowned, as if realising his mistake, and broadened into a smile. "I trust your chambers have been acceptable?"
"Perfectly," said Esme, "though I would have preferred a little company. We've barely spoken for days. I'm impressed you were able to get me into the ball, though. Thank you for the dress, also." Esme moved Fust's hand to her hip, brushing over the emerald folds. She privately suspected it must have cost a courtier like himself a month's wages. Fust smiled, a touch haltingly, as if unused to the compliment.
"Tis only what you deserve. How proceeds the courting feast? I was delayed, I fear."
"Well. The King's entourage is impressive, though his Ducs need reining in, and King Charles is busy trying to keep King William from hitting anyone. I've been asked for my hand in marriage three times, though the barons in question were quite into their cups. One of them proposed to a potted plant a minute after."
"Have you?" Fust's eyes flashed for a moment and his face froze for a moment before resuming his pleasant smile. They parted hands for a moment in the motions of the dance and then joined again.
"Yes, it was most entertaining, although one rather creepy knight just kept staring at everyone." Esme leant in as the dance dictated and placed a chaste kiss on Fust's cheek before they moved apart again. "Fust, what is on your mind? You're barely even paying attention to me. You should cheer up, I hear they have a most excellent Fool here - though he's yet to appear."
Once again Fust's eyes burned and this time Esme felt a little uncomfortable. The moment passed and the dance continued in silence until its completion. As the dance finished, Fust spoke again.
"I am sure a Fool will present himself soon enough. Dearest Esme, will you come with me?"
Esme let him lead her out of the festival hall and into one of the archways at the palace courtyard. Fust was about to speak when they heard some muffled shouting, followed by a scream. A man ran off into the hallways and an angry woman rushed into the courtyard shouting after him, though she soon gave up and stormed back to the feast. When the night was quiet again, Fust took both of Esme's hands and knelt on one knee. He kissed each one as if it were a holy shrine. Esme giggled; she felt her heart growing as if it were fit to burst. When he lifted his head to her again, there was a sort of hardness to his face - a set determination.
"I brought you here to make you a Countess - and, I will not lie, to court you if I could. I did not plan to fall in love with you, but the gods laugh at men's plans. Think of my former intentions what you will, but know that what I say now is out of love to you and for no other reason.
"The law favours the king, and the decision rests with him. Count Lichtenmire's lands and titles are his, if he but pass the law that lets him. I am sorry, but it would take a miracle from Daliochadun himself to make you a Countess."
Esme stared down at the young, beautiful man before her and felt her heart crush, shrivelling in an instant from its buoyant swellings a moment before. She had hoped, hoped desperately... dared to dream of a life away from her father's castle, of a life better than some knight's wife or the third wife of some elderly baron desperate for a son. Dared to dream of such a life with a young noble official at her side. But now... now, was he useless to her? Esme tried to shove such thoughts aside as Fust continued to speak.
"I am noble by birth and blood, of the southern House of Touchstone, but not by land or deed. My ancestral rights were stripped from my father when his brothers would not cease to fight like hounds. But tarnished silver is no more bright or lustrous than common clay. To all for whom it might well matter, I am a commoner and you are still of noble birth, blood, deed and land - though your father's dower be slight.
"I spoke truth as a lie to you also. I am indeed a member of the king's court. I sit at his left hand, I eat and drink with him, I whisper in his ear and I speak with him as an equal. Yet this is not from station, for I am lower than the lowest, even as I sit with the highest. I advise the King not as a trusted councillor, but as his most ridiculed Fool."
Blood pounded through Esme's head. She could feel tears welling in her eyes and see them blurring Touchstone's own. Her heart beat, divided between hatred and love, between dismay at the folly she had been dragged into and joy for the last weeks she had spent with this terrible, brilliant man. Fust held her hands tightly in his own. His voice trembled as he tried to keep his dignity.
"Everything I am is truth, but truth shone through the glass of the Fool. Wisdom in the guise of witlessness. Folly in fine garments. The man who tried to lift you up, who tried to woo you, who spoke with you as an equal and was lucky enough to be graced by your presence and your beauty is still the man who kneels before you now, in desperate need of your love, but with only his love to give. I cannot grant you titles. I cannot grant you wealth. I cannot even grant you wisdom, Daliochadun hang me. I can only grant you all I am, for the rest of our days.
"Esme, my dearest Esme, if you are a Countess and I am the King's advisor, or if you are but a poor baron's daughter and I am but a Fool, I promise that I will stand by you come hell or high water, if you will but marry me as an equal."
Fust awaits Esmerelda's decision.