The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  Over my dead body, bird of prey.

  Aubrecht Lievelyn occupied one of the high seats. While Sabran hid in her apartments, her betrothed was always among her subjects, flattering the Inysh with his enthusiasm. At present, he was talking to his sisters, who were fresh off the ship from Zeedeur.

  The twins, Princess Bedona and Princess Betriese, were twenty. They seemed to spend their days laughing at secrets known only to those who had grown together in the womb.

  Princess Ermuna, the eldest sister and heir apparent, was half a year older than Sabran. She was the spit of her brother, tall and arresting, with the same pallid complexion. Thick crimson hair rippled to her hips. Her sleeves were slashed to reveal a lining of gold silk, then pulled in with six brocaded cuffs apiece, each cuff representing a virtue. The Inysh maids of honor were already tying ribbons around their own sleeves to imitate her.

  “Mistress Duryan.”

  Ead turned, then curtsied low. “Your Grace.”

  Aleidine Teldan utt Kantmarkt, Dowager Duchess of Zeedeur and grandmother of Truyde, had come to stand beside her. Coin-sized rubies dripped from her ears.

  “I was most curious to meet you.” Her voice was silvery and mellow. “Ambassador uq-Ispad says you are his pride and joy. A paragon of virtue.”

  “His Excellency is too kind.”

  “Queen Sabran also speaks well of you. It pleases me to see that a convert can live in peace here.” Her gaze flicked toward the high seats. “We are more free-minded in Mentendon. I hope our influence will soften the treatment of skeptics and apostates in this country.”

  Ead drank.

  “May I ask how you know His Excellency, Your Grace?” she asked, steering for a safer topic.

  “We met in Brygstad many years ago. He was a friend of my companion, the late Duke of Zeedeur,” the Dowager Duchess said. “His Excellency was at Jannart’s entombment.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Thank you. The Duke was a kind man, and a tender father to Oscarde. Truyde takes after him.” As she looked toward her granddaughter, who was deep in conversation with Chassar, her face tightened with sudden grief. “Forgive me, Mistress Duryan—”

  “Sit with me, Your Grace.” Ead guided her to a settle. “Child, bring my lady some more wine,” she added to a page, who sprang to obey.

  “Thank you.” As Ead perched beside her, the Dowager Duchess patted her hand. “I am well.” She accepted the wine from the page. “As I was saying, Truyde— Truyde really is the very image of Jannart. She has inherited his love of books and language, too. He had so many maps and manuscripts in his library, I could hardly think where to put them all after his death. Of course, he left most of them to Niclays.”

  That name again. “Would that be Doctor Niclays Roos?”

  “Yes. He was a great friend to Jannart.” She paused. “And to me. Even if he did not know it.”

  “He was here during my first year at court. I was sorry that he left.”

  “It was not by choice.” The Dowager Duchess leaned closer, so Ead could smell the rosemary in her pomander. “I should not say this to most, mistress . . . but Ambassador uq-Ispad is an old friend, and he seems to trust you.” She opened a folding fan and hid her lips with it. “Niclays was exiled from court because he failed to make Queen Sabran an elixir of life.”

  Ead tried not to change her expression. “Her Majesty asked him to do this?”

  “Oh, yes. He arrived in Inys on her eighteenth birthday, not long after Jannart died, and offered her his services as an alchemist.”

  “In exchange for her patronage, I assume.”

  “Indeed.”

  Many royals had sought the water of life. Playing on the fear of death must be a lucrative business—and there had long been rumors at court that Sabran feared the childbed. Roos had preyed on a young queen, dazzling her with his knowledge of science. A charlatan.

  “Niclays was no fraud,” the Dowager Duchess said, as if she could read Ead’s mind. “He truly believed he could make it for her. The elixir was his passion for decades.” There was a note of sadness in her voice. “Her Majesty gave him great lodgings and a workshop at Ascalon Palace—but from what I understand, he lost himself to wine and gambling. And used his royal pension to pay for it.” She paused to let a page top up her glass. “After two years, Sabran decided that Niclays had swindled her. She banished him from Inys and decreed that no country that craved her friendship could give him refuge. The late High Prince Leovart elected to send him to Orisima.”

  The trading post. “I assume Her Majesty has not relented on the subject of his exile.”

  “No. He has been there for seven years.”

  Ead raised her eyebrows. “Seven?”

  From what she understood, Orisima was a tiny island (if island were not too grand a word for it) that clung to the Seiikinese port of Cape Hisan. Seven years there would drive a person mad.

  “Yes,” the Dowager Duchess said, seeing her face. “I beseeched Prince Aubrecht to have him brought home, but he will only do so if Queen Sabran pardons him.”

  “Do you . . . not believe he deserves to be in exile, Your Grace?” Ead ventured.

  After a hesitation, the reply came: “I believe he has been punished enough. Niclays is a good man. If he had not been so deep in mourning for Jannart, I do not think he would have behaved the way he did. He wanted to lose himself.”

  Ead thought of the name on Truyde’s little book of heresy. Niclays. Had the girl intended to use Roos in her plan?

  “I suppose your granddaughter also knows Doctor Roos,” she said.

  “Oh, yes. Niclays was like an uncle to her when she was young.” The Dowager Duchess paused again. “I understand you have some sway with Her Majesty. As one of her ladies, she must hold your opinion in high regard.”

  Now Ead understood why this noblewoman had come to speak to her.

  “The Teldan of Kantmarkt understand commerce,” the Dowager Duchess said, her voice soft. There was a lit cinder of hope in her gaze. “If you speak for Niclays, I can make you a rich woman, Mistress Duryan.”

  This must be what happened to Roslain and Katryen. A hushed request, a sweetener, a whisper to Sabran. What Ead could not understand was why it was happening to her.

  “I am not one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber,” she said. “I do not presume to have Her Majesty’s ear.”

  “I think you are far too modest.” The Dowager Duchess smiled a little. “I saw her walking with you in the Knot Gardens just this morning.”

  Ead took a sip of wine, buying herself a moment.

  She could not get involved in dealings like these. It would be folly to speak for someone Sabran despised when the queen had only just shown an interest in her.

  “I cannot help you, Your Grace,” Ead said. “You would be better served asking Lady Roslain or Lady Katryen.” She stood and curtsied. “Excuse me. I have duties elsewhere.”

  Before the Dowager Duchess could press her on the matter, she made her way toward the doors.

  The Royal Bedchamber in Briar House was much smaller than its counterpart at Ascalon Palace. The ceiling was set low, the walls paneled with dark linenfold oak, and crimson drapes surrounded the bed. Ead was early, but she found Margret sitting inside.

  “Ead,” she said. Her voice was thick with the cold that had buckled half the court. “Now you’ve spoiled the surprise. I hoped to have arrayed the bed before you got here.”

  “So I could continue making idle conversation with nobles I scarcely know?”

  “So you could dance. You used to love to dance.”

  “That was when the sight of the Night Hawk did not make me as bilious as it does now.”

  With a sound of distaste, Margret rose, a letter in her hand. “Is it from home?” Ead asked.

  “Aye. Mama says that Papa has been asking to see me for weeks. Apparently, he has something important to tell me, but I can hardly go to him in the middle of all this.”

  “Sabran would let you
.”

  “I know she would, but Mama insists I stay here. She says Papa most likely has no idea what he is saying, and that it is my duty to remain—but in truth, I think she is living through me.” With a sigh, Margret tucked the letter into her bodice. “You know . . . I was fool enough to think the Master of the Posts would have something from Loth.”

  “He may have written.” Ead helped her lift a fustian. “Combe intercepts every letter.”

  “Then perhaps I shall write a letter saying what a cur he is,” Margret muttered.

  Ead smiled. “I would pay to see his face. Speaking of which,” she added, quieter, “I was just offered payment of my own. In exchange for petitioning the queen.”

  Margret looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “Who from?”

  “The Dowager Duchess of Zeedeur. She wants me to speak for Niclays Roos.”

  “That will do you no good. Loth told me Sabran hates that man with a passion.” Margret glanced at the door. “You be careful, Ead. She lets Ros and Kate get away with it, but Sab is no fool. She knows when the whispers in her ear are too sweet.”

  “I have no intention of playing those games.” Ead touched her elbow. “I think Loth will be all right, Meg. He knows now that the world is more dangerous than it seems.”

  Margret snorted. “You think too highly of his wits. Loth will trust anyone who smiles at him.”

  “I know.” Ead took her by the shoulders and steered her to the door. “Now, go and drink some hot wine at the dance. I am sure Captain Lintley would be pleased to see you.”

  “Captain Lintley?”

  “Yes. The very gallant Captain Lintley.”

  Margret was a little bright-eyed as she left.

  Linora was nowhere to be seen. No doubt she was still dancing. Ead secured the Royal Bedchamber alone. Unlike the room at Ascalon Palace, it had two entrances. The Great Door was for the queen, the Little Door for her consort.

  There had been no attempts on Sabran since the betrothal was announced, but Ead knew it must only be a matter of time. She checked the featherbed, looked behind the curtains, searched every wall and tapestry and floorboard. There was no secret third way in, she was sure, but the possibility that she had missed something nudged at her. At least Chassar had laid new wardings on the threshold, stronger than her own. He had recently eaten of the fruit.

  Ead plumped the little pillows and replenished the closet. She was closing a hot coal into a bedwarmer when Sabran stepped into the room. Ead stood and curtsied.

  “Majesty.”

  Sabran looked her up and down with half-lidded eyes. She wore a sleeveless rail over her nightgown, and a blue sash around her waist. Ead had never seen her so undressed.

  “Forgive me,” Ead said, to fill the silence. “I thought you would not retire until later.”

  “I have slept ill of late. Doctor Bourn tells me I should try to retire by ten of the clock to promote a quiet mind, or some such,” Sabran said. “Do you know some cure for sleeplessness, Ead?”

  “Do you take anything presently, madam?”

  “Sleepwater. Sometimes caudle, if the night is cold.”

  Sleepwater was the Inysh name for a decoction of setwall. While it had some medicinal properties, it was clearly doing little good.

  “I would recommend lavender, earthapple, and creamgrail root, simmered in milk,” Ead said, “with one spoonful of rosewater.”

  “Rosewater.”

  “Yes, madam. In the Ersyr, they say the scent of the rose brings sweet dreams.”

  Slowly, Sabran unfastened her sash.

  “I will taste your remedy. Nothing else has worked,” she said. “When Kate comes, you may tell her what to bring.”

  Ead approached with the barest nod and took the sash from her. Sabran’s eyes were circled with shadow.

  “Does something trouble Your Majesty?” Ead helped her out of the rail. “Something that disquiets your sleep?”

  It was meant in courtesy, with no expectation of an answer. To her surprise, Sabran gave one.

  “The wyrm.” Her gaze was on the fire. “He said the thousand years were almost done. It has been just over a thousand years now since my ancestor vanquished the Nameless One.”

  There was a furrow in her brow. Standing there in her nightgown, she seemed as vulnerable as she would have looked when the cutthroat had beheld her.

  “Wyrms have forked tongues for duplicity, madam.” Ead hung the rail over the back of a chair. “Fýredel is still weak from his slumber, his fire not yet fully lit. He fears the union of Berethnet and Lievelyn. He speaks in riddles to sow misgiving in your mind.”

  “He has succeeded.” Sabran sank onto the bed. “It seems that I must wed. For Inys.”

  Ead did not know the acceptable way to reply to this.

  “Do you not wish to wed, madam?” she finally asked.

  “That matters not.”

  Sabran had power in all things but this. To conceive a legitimate heir, she must wed.

  Roslain or Katryen should be here. They would soothe her fears while they combed her hair for bed. They knew the right things to say, the right way to comfort her while keeping her in the state of mind necessary to her union with Prince Aubrecht.

  “Do you dream, Ead?”

  It came from nowhere, but Ead kept her composure. “I dream of my childhood,” she replied, “and things I have seen around me by daylight, woven into new tapestries.”

  “I long for that. I dream of—of terrible things,” Sabran murmured. “I do not tell my Ladies of the Bedchamber, for I think they would be afraid of me, but . . . I will tell them to you, Ead Duryan, if you will hear them. You are made of firmer stuff.”

  “Of course.”

  She curled up on the rug beside the fire, close to Sabran, who sat with a taut back.

  “I dream of a shaded bower in a forest,” she began, “where sunlight dapples the grass. The entrance is a gateway of purple flowers—sabra flowers, I think.”

  They grew at the end of the known world. It was said that their nectar glowed like starlight. This far north, they were legendary.

  “Everything in the bower is beautiful and pleasing to the ear. Birds sing charming songs, and the breeze is warm, yet the path that leads me on is jeweled with blood.”

  Ead nodded her reassurance, even as something glinted in the back of her mind.

  “At the end of the path, I find a great rock,” Sabran continued, “and I reach out to touch it with a hand I do not think is mine. The rock breaks in two, and inside—” Her voice wavered. “Inside—”

  A chamberer did not have leave to touch the royal person. And yet, seeing that drawn face, Ead found herself reaching for Sabran and clasping one of her hands between her own.

  “Madam,” Ead said, “I am here.”

  Sabran looked up. A moment passed. Slowly, she moved her other hand to cup the braid of their fingers.

  “Blood overflows from within the cleft, and my arms, my belly, are awash with it. I step through the rock, into a standing circle, like those in the north. And scattered all around me are bones. Small bones.” Her eyes closed, and her lips quaked. “I hear terrible laughter, and I realize the laughter is mine. And then I wake.”

  Ead kept the queen in her gaze. Sabran had been right. Roslain and Katryen would have been frightened.

  “It is not real.” Ead tightened her grasp. “None of it is real.”

  “There is a story in this country of a witch,” Sabran said, too far into her memory to hear. “She stole children and took them into the forest. Do you know it, Ead?”

  After a moment, Ead said, “The Lady of the Woods.”

  “I suppose Lord Arteloth told you, as he did me.”

  “Lady Margret.”

  Sabran nodded, her gaze distant. “They tell it to all children in the north. Warn them to stay away from the haithwood, where she walked. She lived long before my ancestor, and yet the fear of her lingers among my subjects.” Gooseflesh stippled her neckline. “My mother told m
e stories of the sea, not the land. I never believed in a Lady of the Woods. Now I fear there was a witch, and that she lives still, working her sorcery upon me.”

  Ead said nothing.

  “That is but one dream,” Sabran said. “On other nights, I dream of the childbed. As I have since I had my first blood. I lie dying while my daughter struggles out of me. I feel her tearing my body, like a knife through silk. Between my legs, waiting to devour her, is the Nameless One.”

  For the first time in the eight years Ead had been at court, she saw tears bead on Sabran’s eyelids.

  “The blood keeps flowing, hot as iron in the forge. It clings to my thighs, sticks them together. I know I am crushing my child, but if I let her breathe . . . she will fall into the jaws of the beast.” Sabran closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were dry. “That nightmare torments me the most.”

  The weight of the crown had taken its toll on her. “Dreams reach deep into our pasts,” Ead said quietly. “Lord Arteloth told you the story of the Lady of the Woods, and it has come back to haunt you now. The mind often wanders to strange places.”

  “I might agree with you,” Sabran said, “had I not had both dreams since long before Lord Arteloth shared that tale with me.”

  Loth had told Ead once that Sabran could not sleep without a candle. Now she knew why.

  “So you see, Ead,” the queen said, “I do not sleep because I am not only afraid of the monsters at my door, but also of the monsters my own mind can conjure. The ones that live within.”

  Ead held her hand a little tighter.

  “You are Queen of Inys,” she said. “All your life, you have known that you would one day wear the crown.” Sabran watched her face. “You fear for your people, but cannot show it to your court. You wear so much armor by daylight that, by night, you can carry it no longer. By night, you are only flesh. And even the flesh of a queen is prone to fear.”

  Sabran was listening. Her pupils were large enough to almost blot the green from her eyes.

  “In darkness, we are naked. Our truest selves. Night is when fear comes to us at its fullest, when we have no way to fight it,” Ead continued. “It will do everything it can to seep inside you. Sometimes it may succeed—but never think that you are the night.”