[centre][h2]Lalrial, The Heartlands[/h2][/centre]

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	There were three different wines to be offered for the meal. A red vintage, imported to the Imperial Capital from the southern Fleurs de Mer, was Victoria's favourite. Its colour was excellent, and it had the perfect amount of sweetness, accentuated by a very light citrus aftertaste. The best wine to be found in eastern Ethica, the Duchess would opine. Of course, to only offer the best wine from one half of the continent was woefully insufficient to charm a woman such as Lady Marra. Thus, the second choice was the best wine in the west. Another red, this one from the island of Sunvale, a possession of House Gracieux along Xandria's southern coast. Xandrian wines tended to be much spicier than Veletian brands, and Sunvale vintages were far from the exception. Each bottle was entirely pure, no added spices, yet still had a kick stronger than any wine found on the mainland. Victoria loved to talk up the exceptional nature of any one of the innumerous products House Gracieux had for sale, but Sunvale wine was one of her family's possessions that, although it tasted as excellently as she claimed, the Duchess loathed to taste herself. It brought back too many bad memories from horrible times. The third option, the cheapest by far, was more or less for decoration. An afterthought, that no one who cared even slightly about wine would select. A peasant's wine, made from grapes in the northern Luzerne. It was the sort of wine one might offer to children: grape-coloured water more so than alcohol, and sickeningly sweet. When entertaining newly monied merchant families, or especially destitute old blooded nobles, Victoria would sometimes play a game of trying to pass off Luzerne wines for something substantial. Those without a drop of class were far too easy to fool, and she'd yet to be caught in the act. Lady Marra, though, if the rumours of her partying and rampant debauchery were true, was likely to be able to distinguish a Luzerne from a Sunvale.
    
	"Wonderfully pleasant to see you, Lady Marra!" Victoria spoke with a grin as the sister of the Queen of Tellaria walked in. The Duchess was sitting in a private room in the upstairs of an upscale Lalrial restaurant, having been waiting for her appointment with Lady Marra. The door to the elite, private dining quarters was flanked by two officers of the Veletian Gendarmerie; a future Empress could hardly afford the luxury of going out unattended, after all. The inside of the room held no guards, though, as Victoria loathed to be accompanied by the under-classes when dining. This was especially so when the purpose of the meal was not to sate hunger, but to impress. If the wines weren't enough to impress by themselves, hopefully the fact that the entire restaurant was owned by the Duchess Gracieux would be. Victoria rose from her seat for a moment, giving Marra a friendly welcome. "How does the toast of Lalrial fare?"

	The Lady Marra, resplendent in her crimson dress that went so perfectly with both her hair and her eyes smiled beatifically across the table at her current companion as she stretched out a delicate ivory hand to pick up one of the bottles of wine. "I fare well Victoria, I do love the city, so many things to do, people to see, it never grows tiring." She raised the bottle up and looked at the label for a moment before setting it down again and doing the same with another.

	"And how do you fare?" She continued, this time with further pleasantries. "I hear Violette is more prosperous than ever." And as she finished Marra seemed to have made her choice regarding the wines, "I think this will do nicely." She said as she tapped her finger lightly against the side of the first of the three options. Then raising the bottle she poured it in the proper amounts into the glasses set before them.

	Victoria returned to her seat and took a sip from her glass, still wearing an accommodating smile. While Lady Marra was dressed in a vibrant crimson, matching her fiery red hair, Victoria wore an elegant, dark purple dress, and her long black hair was tied behind her, in a Veletian braid. The most splendid part of her ensemble, though, was the jewellery decorating her neck. House Gracieux's ancestral artefact, the gilded bouquet: a golden necklace decorated with gemstones in the shape and colour of flowers. The largest and most central of these flowers, at the nape of Victoria's neck, was of course a violet. "Violette fares excellently. We've recently had to grant a substantial loan to the senate for them to expand the city's docks. I'd dare say we have more ships and more bodies travelling through the flower of the eastern sea than ever. But how has this city we sit in been, of late, with Taramyth's passing?"
    
	"The smallfolk continue on as if nothing happened in truth. But the parties have been dreadfully dull. All anyone wants to talk about these days is who will be the next Emperor, and none of the people talking has any say in the matter." Marra shook her head, a slight frown on her features as if the thought of wasting a perfectly good party with political conversation was offensive to some degree. "It's been the closest to boring I've seen the city."

	Victoria decided to speak her mind. "It requires a special sort of person to pursue politics for any reason other than greed or familial necessity. A benevolent ruler is a sort of rarity that most, like the smallfolk, have never witnessed in their lives. It fuels their pessimism. Most of the best remembered leaders in history are those who simply did nothing in prosperous times. But we're getting into a nasty subject here, aren't we? I'm sure both of your ears have been talked off about the succession quite enough already. How goes the most important affair of all: love? Does the beautiful Lady Marra have a man in her life?"

	Lady Marra's own smile returned as the subject veered away from the endless discussions of sucession once more and she took a somewhat larger sip from her wine glass than those Victoria had taken. She seemed to be pondering the proper way to reply to the question before at last speaking in reply. "Perhaps..." The one word was spoken in such a way that it almost certainly implied that there was someone, and also implied that she wasn't necessarily wanting to disclose it. But she did continue. "You meet so many delightful people at the parties." Then she finished the rest of her glass of wine.

	A pert, knowing grin was drawn across Victoria's face at Marra's words. "Making plenty of friends is all well and good, but be sure you're more diminutive when it comes to lovers." Her smile then dwindled, and she took a healthy sip of wine before continuing. "And that applies doubly to husbands."

	Marra's own face showed a brief flash of sympathy as Victoria spoke in a veiled reference to her own misfortune. "I have refined tastes Victoria, you needn't worry about that. I'm pleased you escaped your own misfortune, it was an ugly affair." And as she finished she picked up the bottle and refilled her own glass before topping off Victoria's.

	"Hopefully none of the men involved in your affairs have been ugly." Victoria joked.

	"Mine have all been gentlemen, if not always perfect ones." She smiled. "You don't get far in my line of work without some ability to judge character." And again, she raised her glass, taking another fairly long sip from it.

	Victoria allowed the conversation to pause for a time, and allow Lady Marra to continue with her wine. After she had carefully decided upon her next words, she spoke. "What do you make of my character, Marra? You are one of the most well known and respected personalities in Lalrial. What does her most astute Lady Marra think of Duchess Victoria Gracieux?"

	And Lady Marra's broad smile remained as she listened to the duchess' words, words that contained praise for her as well. "I think you are a clever and charming lady who turned her mistake into a source of strength and resolve, and I think you've got steel in you, just like Varminia does."

	The Duchess raised her finger as Lady Marra spoke of what she gained from her mistake, and waited until she had finished speaking before adding, "More important than strength and resolve, though, I'm sure you'll agree, is good wine! My old mistake's seat makes some of the best. Please..." Victoria gestured to the wine cabinet at the side of the room facing the door, which held multiple bottes of each of the three vintages that she had offered, and several more. "Help yourself to a bottle or two, for later, or for your own collection." Victoria took a final drink from her glass, then stood from her chair, smiling at Marra. "I'm afraid I need to attend to my husband, Ralltene. I swear, if a man doesn't have a strong woman behind him, he can't accomplish much of anything."

	Marra nodded with clear agreement and a bit of a stifled laugh as Victoria mentioned that wine was more important. She certainly didn't disagree about the importance of such things. And as her host gestured towards the cabinent Marra approved of that as well. "Well you are strong, I'm sure you'll keep him in line, I'm happy things are so much better for you." The crimson haired woman stood as well. "And thank you for a delightful chat, I'll give Varminia your regards."

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