“Indrid Down is home now, Elsie.”
Elsabet frowned. “Can one not have two homes? I just . . . I miss being there, before all of this.” She gestured to her head, to the silver crown set with cloudy stones that felt melted to her head. “I miss being near those who know what the sight gift is and how it works. People here look at me like an oddity. And they expect every day at court to be a wonder. As if I ought to be spouting grand prophecy twice in the afternoon and once before breakfast.”
She took up her freshly dealt cards and set them down again when Bess pushed more of Gilbert’s tonic toward her in a cup.
“I do not want any more. It’s bitter.”
“Please,” Bess said. “Your illness worries everyone.”
“It was only a headache. Only dust in my chest from the hunt.” But Elsabet drank the tonic down even if just to see Bess smile. “Besides, they were not worried so much as irritated.”
“Perhaps if you would not arrive late so often,” Gilbert said as he arranged his hand.
“That wouldn’t change a thing. My Black Council does not like me because I do not do things the way they want me to. But weren’t you the one who told me, Gilbert, that I should make my mark as queen the instant I arrived at the Volroy? The moment I took my crown. Weren’t you the one who warned me that young queens are not taken seriously? That it could take years before I was truly the ruler of my island?”
“Was it not also me who warned you that a queen is only as good as her advisers?”
“Yes.” She crooked her mouth at him. “But you were wrong. That may be true of other queens, but an oracle queen is only as good as her gift.”
At the corner of the canopy, ever watchful, Rosamund Antere cocked her head of bloodred hair.
“Rosamund? What is it?”
“Your king-consort approaches.”
Elsabet’s heart thrummed in her chest, and she cursed it silently. She was a queen, not some village girl who could let her heart dictate her behavior. But with William, her king-consort, that was a difficult thing to remember. Every time he walked into a room she held her breath. Every time he looked at her, she wanted to hide her unattractive face behind her hand.
William was from Centra, a country across the seas to the northeast. It boasted a fine army and bountiful croplands. A king-consort from Centra was always a politically savvy selection. Though to tell the truth, Elsabet would have chosen William even if he had come from nothing.
Other suitors had been handsome. All of them, actually. And several had been dashing. But none of them looked at Elsabet the way William had. No one in her whole life had looked at her like that. Like she was beautiful. Desirable. And certainly no one as attractive as he was, with his bright blue eyes and midnight hair. When they were courting, he used to say that on the throne their black hair would make them as finely matched as a set of carriage horses.
He entered the canopy and one of Elsabet’s attendants quickly brought him a seat. Though it was probably a waste of time. William never stayed in one place for long. He was a man of sport. It had been at his insistence that they rose before dawn to hunt for grouse that morning.
He bent and kissed the queen’s cheek, but when she frowned, he turned her face and kissed her lips instead. “These are for you.” He set a bundle of wildflowers on the tabletop, pretty blooms of pink and white and yellow, their stems cut evenly by his dagger and tied with a length of striped ribbon.
“I picked them from the riverbank near where I was swimming,” he said as Elsabet sniffed, and indeed, the cloth around his collar was still wet.
Elsabet fingered the ribbon. It was an expensive adornment, a new fashion that she had seen many of the daughters from well-gifted families wearing.
“Where did you get the ribbon?” she asked, and William swallowed. “Did you go by the market?”
“Yes! I couldn’t very well present you with a loose bundle.”
Elsabet tried to smile. She gestured to the cards. “Shall we deal you in?”
“No.” William chewed his lip. “I crave some music. I think I’ll go and secure us a few musicians.” Then he was gone, with no more than a glance, and Elsabet half rose out of her chair to follow him. But he did not disappear completely. He lingered in the garden, chatting with a few of the people who had gathered near the queen’s party in small conversational parties of their own. Elsabet’s throat tightened as he touched the chin of a very pretty elemental girl with a bright blond bun.
“You know he has always been flirtatious,” Gilbert said quietly. “That was one of the qualities that drew you to him when he was only a suitor.”
Elsabet tore her eyes away from William and forced herself to play a card. “Gilbert, does your sight gift now extend to mind reading?”
“No, my queen.”
“I didn’t think so.” Gilbert’s gift was for visions in smoke, along with the uncanny ability to find things he sought, that manifested in a near-trance state and caused him to sway strangely back and forth. His sight gift did not extend to hearing the thoughts of others or sensing their emotions. Her gift did not extend to that either, and she was glad of it.
Forcing herself to ignore William, Elsabet leaned back to look up at the grandness of the castle. Or rather, the grandness that was to come. The great fortress of the Volroy had been under construction for a hundred years, and still the heights of the towers were not complete. For a hundred years, black stone had made its way across the island, over land and down river and around the sea to Bardon Harbor. A hundred years and countless changes of master builders and craftsmen and laborers. But under Elsabet, it would be finished. She knew it, because she had seen it. In the same vision that showed her she would best her sisters and become the Queen Crowned. She saw herself in a vision wandering the rooms of the completed West Tower, with a crown upon her head.
“There will be black spires atop them soon,” she said, and Bess followed her gaze upward. “Did you know, Bess, that it was the war queen, Aethiel, who began construction of the Volroy?”
“I know it,” Gilbert answered before Bess could reply. “Aethiel began it, and elemental Elo, the fire breather, continued it, and so did our last queen, the warrior Emmeline.”
“Of course you know that.” Elsabet shoved him playfully to knock the smugness out of his expression. “You are a historian. But make sure the commonfolk know it, too, will you? I think they are beginning to resent the expense.”
“Your reign is bound to be less expensive than those of the war queens,” Gilbert said, “with their constant raids and battles.”
At the mention of war, Rosamund spoke quickly, surprising them all that she had been bothering to listen. “The people understand war. They understand its costs. Its glory.” She shrugged. “And the spoils don’t hurt either.”
“Would you have me be a war queen, then, Rosamund?”
Rosamund turned her head and regarded the queen with steady green eyes. She smiled. “I would not have you be anything but what you are.”
“Good.” Elsabet smiled back, her gaze flitting past William, who was returning with his found musicians. “Because the time of the war queens is over. Now we shall have peace. The island has earned it.”
THE BLACK GREEN
In the summer months, it was not uncommon for the queen to hold court or entertain guests outdoors. She favored the garden known as the Black Green, a rectangular space bordered by hedges and a stone wall on the north, with soft, cropped green grass and few trees. Wide, gravel paths cut through from every corner and converged at a dark stone fountain. Inevitably, one of the foreigners would quip that the Black Green was not very black, and the queen would reply that they could not very well call it “the Green Green.” Everyone would laugh, and Francesca Arron would ball her hands into fists. Most people, even most of the Black Council, found the outdoor courts rather pleasant. But to Francesca Arron, it was yet another way that Elsabet bucked tradition.
Francesca stood apart from the oth
ers, watching as the queen entertained the ambassador from Valostra and his four companions. The queen having chosen a king-consort from the rival nation of Centra, there was not much for the Valostrans to do there. The bulk of Fennbirn’s trade and resources were reserved for the country of the king-consort. But the Valostrans had no shortage of coin and continued to send representatives regardless, in the hopes of maintaining good relations until the next Ascension began.
“Well done, Queen Elsabet!” The ambassador clapped when the queen’s ball struck the painted pole they had stuck into the ground. It was a game played with the feet, and to do it well, Elsabet had drawn her skirts up nearly to the knee.
“Careful,” Sonia Beaulin said as she approached to offer Francesca a bundle of poison berries. She held up a small dish of honey to dip them in. “Your scowl is beginning to show through your artfully constructed expression.”
“Humph.” Francesca stuffed a sweetened berry into her mouth. “Look at her. Just look at her. Playing their games with her dress hiked up to her head.”
“It’s nowhere near her head. And her legs are not bare. Nothing that could be considered inappropriate.”
“Not inappropriate here. But in their country? They will return to Valostra and say the queen is indecent. A harlot.”
“Then let them return,” Sonia said, her war gift bristling, “with their tongues cut out.”
“Once again, you miss the point. I care not for their opinion and have no respect for their ridiculous standards of conduct. But reports like that are what bring the soldiers to our shores. War, to root out our indecency and corruption. To save our souls.” Francesca spat a berry seed upon the ground. “There is nothing I hate more than an attack and slaughter meant to save us from ourselves.”
At the mention of battle, Sonia’s eyes glittered. “Surely Queen Elsabet’s sight gift would give us plenty of warning should that come to pass.”
“The sight gift is unreliable. And hers is waning.”
“How do you know?”
Francesca raised her eyes to Sonia’s. “I just do.”
A collective gasp rose as the queen, attempting to make another kick, tripped when her skirt came loose and fell to her knees. An embarrassment to be sure, but Elsabet only laughed. She brayed, really, her mouth too wide and her teeth too large. And the Valostrans were quick to help her to her feet, crowding around her in their garish striped tunics and feathered hats. It was a good thing she was a queen. Any other girl that plain they would have left in the dirt.
“Look,” Francesca said. “Even the king-consort knows she is allowing too many liberties.” William was smiling, but as the game went on, his smile became more and more doubtful. “He knows they will talk.”
“Well, what are we to do?” asked Sonia. “We are her advisers, but she takes very little advice. Catherine says to let her settle into the crown more. Then she’ll stop striving always to do things her own way. Then she’ll tire of trying to make her mark.”
“Catherine Howe has been smitten with the queen since before the crowning. Just like your rival.” She nodded toward the Commander of Queensguard, standing ever at the ready, monitoring her soldiers placed at each entrance.
Pleasure bloomed in Francesca’s chest as Sonia bared her teeth. Such a strong hatred. Francesca liked strong emotions. Strong emotions she could use.
THE QUEEN’S CHAMBER
Queen Elsabet stared into her crystal mirror. After a long day of entertaining the Valostrans, she found herself alone again, with only Bess, her favorite maid, who made the queen ready for bed. Alone, the queen’s mood often became depressed, and the reflection staring back from the mirror did nothing to raise her spirits. Bess had already removed Elsabet’s carefully applied makeup, and the face the queen saw was clean, unadorned.
She straightened her back and took a breath. Handsome, they called her. She was a queen of presence, they said. She hoped it was true. With such a homely face, it was all she could aspire to.
“Do you think pretty queens have an easier time of it?” Elsabet asked as Bess brushed out the queen’s long, black hair. “Or must we all prance about like prized horses to impress?”
“Easier. Who wants easier? The Elsabet I know chases challenges. She relishes them.”
Elsabet sighed. So she did. When she had her first vision of the Ascension and in it saw that her youngest sister would kill their eldest sister for her, she was slightly disappointed. One less task between her and the crown. She felt like she should have done it all.
“Sweet Bess.” Elsabet reached back and touched the girl’s hand. She and Bess were practically the same age, but beautiful girls always seemed infinitely younger, and Bess was one of the most beautiful girls on the island, all red-gold curls and deep pink lips. “Will you stay on with me here even after you wed?”
“I am in no hurry to wed, my queen.”
“Having too much fun enjoying your freedoms?”
Bess blushed. “I always thought it was one of the heaviest burdens for a queen to bear . . . that you are forced to wed so young. So soon. With so little . . . sampling.”
“I didn’t need to sample.” Elsabet smiled. “I found William.”
Someone knocked at the chamber door, and Bess set down her brush. “There he is now,” she whispered into the queen’s ear, and Elsabet’s skin prickled. Even after three years of marriage, the arrival of her king-consort still made her shiver.
But Bess returned only with a tray.
“What’s this?”
“More tonic from Gilbert.” Bess set it on the bedside table and stirred a spoonful of honey into the bitter liquid. Elsabet gestured for another spoonful, and grimacing, another after that.
“Is your cough still so bad?” Bess asked as the queen sipped. “You have been taking the tonic for weeks now and even during the day.”
“It is not bad. The headaches, mainly. The tonic does not do much. What could any tonic do against the stress of the crown? But you know Gilbert. He is always looking after me, always overcautious. So I will drink this bitter stuff until he is satisfied.” Her eyes wandered back toward the hall. “Did you see any sign of my king-consort?”
“No, my queen.”
Elsabet frowned. “Do you remember when he used to run to me every night? How he used to stand outside hopping while you dressed me for bed, complaining about the draughts in this blasted, unfinished castle?”
Bess did not reply, but Elsabet caught her reflection in the mirror. An expression of pity.
“Have you seen him with someone?”
“No, my queen,” Bess said, and went quickly to add logs to the fire.
“But he has been flirting. The whole court has seen him flirting.”
“The king-consort has always been flirtatious. Especially with you, Elsabet.”
Especially with her. But it had been months since he had sought her out during the day so they could secret themselves off somewhere, in an unused room or an empty corridor. And if it was no longer her in the corridors with him, then it would be someone else.
“Has he made . . . advances toward you, Bess?”
Bess turned and stood up straight. The fire blazed behind her. “No. And if he did, I would strike him in the face. I would bruise him black and blue and then I would tell you at once.” Elsabet did not reply right away, and Bess hurried back to the queen’s side. “You do believe me?”
“Of course I do. I just wish you would have said that he would never. That my William would never do such a thing. But that would be a lie. And you will never lie to me.”
Bess stroked the queen’s hair gently and kissed the top of her head. “They say it is normal for a Centran man . . . and it would not be the first time that a king-consort went outside the marriage bed.”
True, though normally he waited for permission first. Or at least for the queen to take a lover.
“Normal,” Elsabet said. “I do not want normal. I want greatness. That’s what I want my reign to be. When, B
ess, have I ever been satisfied with normal?”
That night, Elsabet tossed and turned in her bed until she finally gave up and pulled on a robe. She dragged a chair across the rug and onto the stone floor beside her window and pushed it open, letting a cool breeze in to accost the fire. It was high summer, but as near as the capital was to Bardon Harbor, nights could still turn cold, and she drew her feet up to tuck her toes beneath her dressing gown.
William had never come. He was drunk somewhere or busy with some Centran matter. Perhaps caught in a late game of cards or resting for an early hunt he neglected to inform her of. Any of those excuses would be better than the truth she feared.
She rested her elbows on the sill and looked out over the sleeping city, over the calm waters of the harbor and up toward the moon. When she was a girl, it seemed to her that the Goddess was there, in the moon. In that bright, glowing light in the sky. The Goddess was everywhere, of course. In the land and in the crops, in the fish that swam upriver. In the people. And most of all, in Elsabet, her chosen queen.
“There was a time when my gift was so strong I had only to ask you for a vision and you would send one. But then there had been purpose. The Quickening. My Ascension. Do all oracle queens’ gifts abandon them after they are in the crown, or is it only mine?” She waited, but the moon made no reply. It was silly, she supposed, to ask the moon for answers. But there was no one else to ask. The High Priestess was away on pilgrimage, wandering the mountains as she had for many years. And the accounts of the oracle queens who came before related only their grandest visions. Their most important prophecies. There was almost no mention of their daily governance, and certainly no passages offering advice on king-consorts who would not stay put.
“William, my William,” she muttered. “I am strong in everything, except for him. One little weakness. But how it seems to overcome all else.”
Elsabet waited by the window a while longer. She did not truly know what she was waiting for. A vision from the Goddess? William to walk through her door? Her thoughts were clouded, and the moon, lovely as it was, offered no answers. So she returned to bed and, finally, slept.
Queens of Fennbirn Page 9
