“Not that I can tell. Tower folk are open-minded about such things, caring more about a person’s talents than whether their parents wore wedding bracelets. Edric would have married me then, but I was not sure it was safe. I may be overly cautious, but a man of his stature cannot take a wife and keep it a secret. Gossip spreads fast in the Hellers, where folk are always hungry for news of their neighbors. No matter what we did, Scathfell would hear, and at that time, we had little prospect of better relations. I did not want to risk our marriage igniting the old feud. Now I hope things will be different.”
“Still,” Alayna said with a sigh, “it is a poor thing to think of my own sister as a rich lord’s barragana. Great-Aunt Aliciane was enough scandal for one family.”
“It is not important to me whether I wear the catenas.” Kyria looked so well and happy, Alayna could not criticize her choices. “Yes, I know, Papa would be shocked, and I do not even want to guess what Ellimira would say.”
“So your Edric would marry you, but you will not agree?” Alayna said. “What a strange turn of events. It’s usually the other way around.”
“Lady Renata is still determined to see us wed, and now the situation has changed, we may as well marry. If a wedding cannot be kept secret, then neither can twin sons.” Kyria spread her hands over her belly. “Now that I know they will be healthy, I can stop being so noble and stubborn. And ridiculous. I have given in, much to Edric’s delight and Lady Renata’s approval.”
“And we can visit and be together—”
“Not yet, dearest. Let us make sure of the friendship between Aldaran and Scathfell first. There have been so many misunderstandings in the past, I do not want to risk another one. Promise me that you will keep the secret until the right time.”
Why did the world have to be this way? Why must women choose between their sisters and their husbands? “I do not like it, but if you feel so strongly, I will promise. Just to please you.”
“Ah, do not look so downcast,” Kyria said. “All may yet be well, if not at this Midsummer Festival season, then at some future one. Let us give the king’s diplomacy and Edric’s overtures a chance to mend things between our husbands.”
“Well, if we have anything to do with it, they will soon be friends. I really am looking forward to being an auntie.” Alayna felt a yawn bubble up. “Was it your idea for Edric to send a wedding gift?”
“It seemed a gods-given opening for a friendly gesture. The choice of gift, however, was mine.”
“I wondered . . .” Alayna stifled another yawn. “It seemed made for my hands alone.”
As Alayna’s lids fluttered closed, she remembered her joy at making music on the beautiful harp. Images formed in her mind, of herself playing in a firelit room, and she and Kyria singing, and their two husbands easy with one another.
The mattress shifted, and she felt the covers drawn around her shoulders and a butterfly kiss on her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m just . . . so sleepy.”
“Then dream sweetly, my Layna. Edric and I will be leaving tomorrow, but I hope it will not be too long before we can be together again.”
26
No sooner had Arielle given Alayna permission to resume normal activities then Alayna leapt from her bed, dressed without asking for—or, indeed, needing—assistance from Sadhi, and found her way into the public spaces of the castle. She had not gone far before she encountered one of the younger ladies from court, Felisanne MacAran, who greeted her with squeals of delight.
“It’s just too wonderful to see you! We were all so dreadfully worried! You did not think of us at all, I am sure, or of all the dreadful parties and balls we were forced to endure without you. Even the queen seemed downcast, and as you know she is never out of countenance. But not one of us knew exactly what was wrong with you, only that you were not permitted visitors. We all thought you must be at death’s door! But you sly thing, here you are, as radiant as ever.”
From this speech, Alayna understood that Felisanne wanted juicy details that she would undoubtedly swear would never pass her lips but which would be all over the castle before the day was out. She gazed at the pink cheeks—undoubtedly rouged—the slightly pinched eyes, and the hint of greed in the pouting lips—and wondered what she had been thinking, to take pleasure in the company of such creatures as this. Kyria was worth a hundred such court women—no, a hundred hundreds.
“I recovered somewhat more rapidly than expected,” Alayna murmured just as Felisanne drew breath to ask more questions. “And now you say I have missed all the fun?” She gave an exaggerated sigh and slipped her arm through Felisanne’s with what she hoped was a suitably confiding air. “Tell me, is there no further amusement to be had? Not even the teensiest party?”
“The season is not entirely over, although many have already departed. The Valeron folk, you know,” Felisanne rattled off a string of titles and estates, including Lord Aldaran’s party, “—so only the Lowland Comyn are left, since they have not so far to travel before the first snows of autumn.” Felisanne went on and on, taking no apparent notice of Alayna’s reactions. “—and those who are not married are as tedious as anyone with whom one has been forced to dance a thousand times. But I have just remembered!” Felisanne stopped in her tracks. “There is to be an intimate gathering in the queen’s private courtyard. I was just on my way there. Listen, I have the most delicious idea. Why don’t you accompany me? This being a garden event, it does not require formal attire. Your sweet little dress will be perfectly adequate, and as you know, the queen does not stand on ceremony when entertaining her closest friends.”
As she prattled on, Felisanne smoothed the skirts of her gown. The pale rose fabric had been embroidered with darker pink blossoms and trimmed with lace and ribbons so that it resembled an elaborate gift package rather than a garment one could reasonably do anything useful in.
Alayna pretended she believed every word uttered by Felisanne, although it took an effort to not burst out laughing. “I would be so grateful for an invitation.”
“Then it’s settled. You shall come as my guest.” Felisanne continued down the corridor. She did not so much walk as totter. Alayna could not get a good look at Felisanne’s shoes, but suspected they were extremely stylish and even more uncomfortable.
Cassandra sat on a wicker chair underneath an arbor of vines laden with tiny yellow blossoms that gave off a spicy scent. Arielle was not there, but several of the ladies Alayna had met on the night of the ball were. Heads turned as Felisanne made her entrance, gazes sliding over to Alayna. Felisanne lifted her chin and strutted forward, clearly certain that the attention was for her. She halted before the queen and performed an elaborate curtsy, which Cassandra acknowledged with a nod.
“Come here, dear child,” Cassandra said, gesturing to Alayna. She indicated that the lady seated at her right was to vacate her bench and that Alayna should sit there. “We are so pleased you are well enough to enjoy this fine weather. The leronis Arielle brought us news that you were out of danger, but we had not expected so swift a recovery.”
Everyone seems to want to know why, Alayna reflected. She couldn’t very well say it was gladness that her sister was alive. “I’m happy to be here, Your Majesty.”
“And are you well enough to play a tune for us, do you think? We’ve had no entertainment but gossip this afternoon, and since everyone in Thendara already knows everyone else’s business, I fear we are a dreary lot.”
“I will be most happy to oblige, if someone will lend me a rryl. I left mine at home, rather than expose it to the hazards of the trail. It was a wedding gift.”
“Very wise. Perdita, go fetch one from my music room.” With a neat curtsy, the young lady hurried off. “What amusement shall we have, while waiting for the instrument? Felisanne, will you sing for us?”
Felisanne executed another of her elaborate curtsies, murmuring, “If my poor voice
can give pleasure, I am at Your Majesty’s command.”
With a mild expression, Cassandra said, “We are all friends here, at least I assume we are. No one expects a professional performance, only the desire to do one’s best.”
Felisanne took a deep breath, shoulders lifting almost to her ears, and sang in a warbling voice,
Come all ye maidens young and fair
Who are blooming in your prime
Beware and keep your garden fair . . .
When she was done, everyone applauded politely. The queen indicated that Felisanne might take the seat nearest where she stood, which meant that for a moment at least, there was a little circle of quiet around the queen.
“You are looking pensive,” Cassandra said to Alayna. “Has the entertainment overtaxed you? Will you feel up to playing for us? If you are at all fatigued, you need not exert yourself.”
“I am well enough, Your Majesty. It just feels strange to be outdoors. So much must have happened during my illness. I had scarcely arrived and had not seen anything of the city or the delights of the season, except for the ball and the sword dancers, of course, and now Damisela Felisanne tells me many of the nobles and their retinues have already departed. The season is almost over, and I missed my only chance to enjoy it.”
“Ah! Here is Perdita with the rryl. Now we will have the pleasure of hearing you play.”
Alayna settled the harp on her lap. As she expected of any instrument owned by the queen, it was well made, its frame skillfully carved in the form of a dancer. The strings were in good repair but tuned oddly, so that Alayna had to adjust several of them.
“I see you have found out my secret,” Cassandra said, leaning closer to Alayna and extending one of her hands.
“Oh!” Alayna tried not to stare at the queen’s fingers, long and slender as they were, and also six in number.
“We are all different, some in large ways and some in small,” Cassandra said. “When I was very young I used to fear what others thought of me because I was not exactly like them. Yes, my hands are not the same as theirs, but it does not follow that they are deformed. As you can see, having an extra finger can be an advantage when it comes to playing the rryl.”
“I see that you have tuned it to play chords that I, with only five fingers, cannot achieve.” Yet something in the queen’s manner suggested that she meant more than just the ability to pluck a greater number of strings.
Alayna glanced up from tuning the rryl, studied the queen’s features, and saw not only a woman of influence who had been kind to her, but someone who had looked deeply into her own character. Someone who knew what it was like to be lonely and frightened. Someone who, had circumstances allowed, might have become a friend.
I could have told her about Kyria. She would have kept my secret, and more than that, she would have understood. But I made a promise and I intend to keep it.
Cassandra gazed back with a serene, almost motherly expression. “I regret that time does not allow for a deeper conversation. I suspect that we share a love of more than music. Alas, the change of the seasons is upon us, and you have a long journey through the mountains to reach your home. But do not be downcast, child. If our husbands have managed their affairs as they ought, we may celebrate another Midsummer Festival together ’ere long.”
Next summer, they might sit in this very garden. Kyria, too.
“I hope so, Your Majesty,” Alayna replied.
She bent over the retuned harp, set her fingers to the strings in the ordinary manner, and plucked a chord. The tone was so sweet and clear, the instrument seemed to be singing—which was just as well, for she could not have uttered a note. At that moment, thinking of the harp Kyria had arranged for her, Alayna’s heart was too full to sing. She began playing a simple air, a lullaby from the hill people around Rockraven that their nurse had sung to her and Kyria. Perdita hummed along with the chorus. By the time it ended, Alayna had settled into the music. She no longer gave a thought to Felisanne, listening with a sulky expression, or to her impending farewells with Cassandra and Arielle and Ylethia and everyone else who had been gracious to her during this time. A reel danced its way out of her fingers on to the strings, setting several of the ladies clapping in rhythm. Even the queen looked as if she would like to get up and dance. Another lively tune followed, and then a courting dance, and then one of Kyria’s favorites, “River of Stars.”
“Sailing, sailing across the sky . . .” went the refrain, echoed as Alayna repeated the closing cadence, slower and slower, until the music died away into a hush.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The silence soaked into Alayna, washing away the pain of separation from her sister, her anxieties about the simmering feud with Aldaran. And then she felt a lessening of her grief at the loss of her babes, and the loss she was only slowly beginning to comprehend—the loss of the dream of ever holding a child in her arms. She felt no sense of forgetting but rather of acceptance without flinching, without remorse.
Every time I play Kyria’s harp, I will feel how we are connected and always will be. Our line will continue through her sons, and Ellimira’s children, blood of my blood, as they say. Bone of my bone.
When they each returned to their suite near the end of the afternoon, Gwynn inquired how she fared but would not touch her except for the fleeting brush of his lips on the back of her hand. Alayna accepted his withdrawal as a reflection of his own disappointment and not as a repudiation. Kyria’s visit had given Alayna such hope that she could look with compassion on her husband’s grief, firm in the belief that he would make his own peace with it.
“I spent the afternoon with the queen and her ladies,” she said, settling in one of the chairs before the fire.
“Good. Then you have not entirely wanted for amusement. Do you think you will be fit to travel in three days’ time? Or should I inquire of the Tower healers—?”
She remembered the days of packing and preparation before they left Scathfell. “Is this not sudden?”
He began pacing in front of the fireplace. “My business here is finished, the first snow is already falling in the Hellers, and I have been absent from Scathfell for long enough. If you had not—if circumstances were different, we would be already on the road.”
“Then I apologize for having delayed you,” she replied, stung. “It was not my intention to inconvenience anyone.” Then she took a breath and went on in the gentlest tone she could manage, “This has been a difficult time, with Scathfell’s future at stake. Here I am, prattling about a garden party when you have been negotiating with the king.”
“It’s this place, and never a moment alone. Every word spoken in this city has three meanings.” Gwynn threw himself in the second chair. Alayna, greatly daring, took one of his hands in her own. He did not pull away. “Nest of snakes, the lot of them! All but the king, and he means to broker a peace.”
“Are we to have peace with Aldaran?” Alayna asked, her heart beating very fast.
“We are not to have war, at least not for now. Edric Aldaran appears to be a more reasonable man than his father, but it remains to be seen whether treachery runs in this generation, too.”
“He did send a wedding gift . . .” At his sharp look, she abandoned that train of thought. Friendship purchased with a rryl, no matter how splendid, would not withstand the slightest test. She shifted her tone. “If the Sword Dance meant anything, you have nothing to fear from him.”
That elicited a hint of a smile, the quirk in one corner of his mouth that she had come to love. “Forgive me, my love. All my life, I have thought of Aldaran as an implacable enemy. When I am with you, however, I begin to hope that things can be different. That you and I, and our heirs, need not live in the shadows of past tragedy. I wonder if this would be a better world if men resolved their differences in contests of dance instead of by drenching each other’s lands in blood.”
They talked for a time longer. Gwynn was perfectly serious about departing, and most of the preparations had already been made. “I’m sorry there won’t be time to order those new gowns, as I’d promised,” he said.
“Then Sadhi will have less to pack for me. Besides, what occasion would I have to wear such things at home? My own clothes will serve me as well as ever. I have seen little of the city and the royal court, but I will be sorry for the loss of female companionship. At home, I have no friends of my own age and station. I suppose it is too late to ask if any of the other young noblewomen might visit with us at Scathfell . . . ?”
“Of course, you may invite what guests you choose, if they will make you happy. Shall I speak to the king about a companion for you?”
“Rather, it is the queen who should be asked, and I will do that myself. I would rather have someone who wants to come, and not some poor soul being sent away for the expedience of her family or some such nonsense.”
The next morning Gwynn spent with his captain and a professional travel organizer, making sure they had sufficient food and other supplies, and that the horses and mules were fit for travel. Alayna waited until a suitably polite hour, and then sent a message to the queen, asking if she might be granted a visit. The response came back much more quickly than Alayna had expected; the queen would be delighted to see her in the solarium.
When Alayna arrived at the appointed hour, she found the queen attended by only a single elderly lady-in-waiting and Arielle. She breathed a sigh of relief as she curtsied, grateful that she would not have to make her request before Felisanne and the others still at court who would turn it into the worst sort of gossip. Poor thing, she has no friends, all alone in that awful castle at the back of nowhere. Did you see her gowns—no fashion to them at all. Or should I say gown, for I never saw her in more than one.