Not everyone was too pleased with the changes that Sigrid and Roland were making in the new empire. Murmurs of discontent were whispered in the royal family. Some royal relatives were not too happy to be left out when government positions were handled out.
In the two weeks that had passed, the whispers had turned into louder noise which Sigrid and Roland had been ignoring but the matter could not be ignored anymore, it seemed.
A meeting of the royal family was held, governed by Roland’s grandmother, King Raff’s mother, the Queen consort Sylvie Maximus. Sigrid had never met the woman, and she always assumed that she was dead.
For one, nothing about her appeared in the novel. Two, the queen consort did not attend her wedding and three, nobody mentioned the elderly woman. In fact, Sigrid found a fourth reason, she had not seen Sylvie when King Raff was injured. As they stepped foot into the grand manor Sylvie called home, Sigrid found herself feeling uneasy.
It was that feeling that somebody had eyes on them. Forget the rest of the royal relatives that had already arrived and were roaming around for one reason or the other. These eyes were coming from somewhere above them and they felt predatory.
"Someone is watching us." She whispered to Roland.
Roland saw his cousins, uncles, servants....pretty much everyone was looking at them. They were the Crown prince and princess, it was only natural that people were always looking at them.
"Everyone that is passing by is looking at us." he told her.
She shook her head, turned to the stairs that led up to the second floor and that’s when she saw the watcher. It was an elderly woman standing on the landing just above the steps. She had a walking cane in one hand and a middle aged maid was supporting her from one side.
It was not hard to guess that this was the queen consort, Roland had got his eyes from her.
"Grandmother, it is so great to see you. You haven’t aged a bit." Roland called out affectionately. The tone of his voice and smile on his face told Sigrid a different story. One that said their relationship was a good one. Which presented the question of why Roland had not mentioned the elderly woman if they were so close?
She observed the elderly woman carefully through wary eyes. The queen consort looked to be as old as elder tree. Her unsmiling eyes were as cold as winter’s dawn. She was dressed in black, resembling a raven that was marking prey. There was something about her which Sigrid could only sum up in one word, ’off.’
Something about the queen consort made Sigrid want to keep a distance between herself and the elderly woman. She had that look of the women in small towns that people talked about in whispers, calling them witches.
"System, I am willing to pay for information. Is there anything you can tell me about the queen consort?"
"She is a mage." The system answered.
The fingers that Sigrid had around Roland’s bicep tightened. Shock coursed through her mind at the answer which was unexpected. All this time, Sigrid had assumed that Romilda was the only female member of the Maximus family hiding deeply but there was another. A mage at that!!
How had she escaped having her magic stripped from her for.....
"System, how long has she been a mage?"
"Sixty nine years." It replied.
"Sixty nine years!!" She muttered, a soft laughter of disbelief came from her. What it meant was that she had not awakened at birth because she was obviously approaching her last remaining years on earth. If she was to die at one hundred, she had at least fifteen or twenty years of life left in her.
When had she awakened?
"How old is she?" Sigrid asked.
"Ninety one." The system replied.
It was another answer that caught her off guard. She looked seventy six or early eighty at most. She had invested well in skin care apparently, or she was using her mage abilities to hold off aging quickly.
Sigrid was a bit miffed at her husband for not telling her about his old mage grandmother. Perhaps they could have met earlier and become friends. An old mage like her had stories to tell on what life was like for female mages in the days of oppression.
"Is she bad or good?" she asked the system.
"She is somewhere in between."
Information on her was provided by the system. The worst thing she had ever done was not warn her husband, the former king about the fact that one of his son’s was poisoning him. Instead, like Romilda, she had secretly watched and maintained silence.
Sigrid figured out the reasons as to why pretty quickly, the queen consort was a mage and her husband the king had not only oppressed female mages but also had those that awakened at later ages executed secretly.
Her whole life, Sylvie had lived in fear that the man whose head laid next to hers at night sometimes would behead her while she slept. As long as he was alive, she would never get a comfortable night’s sleep.
After the king’s death, she moved away from the royal castle and practically barricaded herself in her manor, keeping away from the rest of society. She had forbidden all royal relatives from disturbing her peace.
Since then, Sylvie Maximus had been sleeping like a baby and eating whatever she wanted, safe in the knowledge that her head was very secure.
Sigrid understood where the queen consort was coming from concerning the former king and she did not blame the woman one bit. In fact, she thought the elderly woman could be useful. The mage estate was still short of qualified teachers and the queen consort could actually fill in a position quite nicely.
Slowly, she walked down the stairs with the help of her maid.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the maid let go of her and she walked while relying only on the cane. Her elegance and grace were still prominent. She stopped in front of them and a change came over her face, she smiled warmly.
The smile made Sigrid feel guilty about all the ugly presumptions thought that she had made about the queen consort. From up close, her wrinkles were clearer, marks left by years of fear and stress that she endured, being a female mage married to a king. Her hair was somewhere between gray and white. Her eyes were not cold, they were just glassy on the surface and sad. They carried sorrow, heaviness and exhaustion. It was if they were seeking understanding from Sigrid.
Sigrid’s heart went out to the queen consort and she wanted to help ease that sorrow.
"My love, this is my grandmother." Roland shook her gently and made an introduction.
"Greetings, queen consort, it is my great honor to meet you." Sigrid took a step back and curtsied.
"Rise child, and embrace me." The queen consort answered.