The Queens of Innis Lear

  “Her stars aren’t there anymore. What does this mean?” Lear sounded curious only, not panicked.

  “Dalat is dead,” Gaela said in a voice just as lifeless.

  Lear turned his head. “She isn’t supposed to die until your sixteenth birthday.”

  “That was twelve years ago, Lear.”

  “No, no, no,” he whispered.

  He seemed sane, despite the dark glint of this starless night in his eyes, despite the gnarled spray of his gray-and-brown mane. His gaze as he looked at his daughter was not wild, nor unfocused.

  That was worse, Gaela thought, than if he’d been clearly lost to madness. But sounding rational, sounding calm—how deep did that mean his mind had fallen? If she killed him, if the servants hadn’t been here, she could pry open the well and dump his body in. How would that be for a royal sacrifice to the rootwaters! She suspected even Regan would not argue.

  “I haven’t done it yet; the stars aren’t right,” he said. “So she can’t have died.”

  “Done what?” Gaela cried, gripping him by the shoulder and thrusting the knife under his chin. “What did you do?” She’d known, suspected so long! And her father had never denied it, never defended himself.

  Lear cringed away. Gaela held on, keeping him upright, as the servants rushed closer, one gasping, another rigid with censure. Let them be displeased or afraid. A king would not be judged. She slowly lowered the knife, dragging the cold blade against his neck.

  “You look like her sometimes, firstborn,” Lear said, frowning, in a voice of darker curiosity now. As if unaware of the knife, the danger to his person. “Except my Dalat was full of love; you’ve none.”

  “I loved my mother, and you destroyed that. If I have no love left, that is your doing.”

  “Yes, probably, mine, and our stars’. And these stars’…” Lear pulled free of her, and Gaela allowed it.

  The old king sighed hard enough it shrugged his bony shoulders. He turned from his daughter, shuffling away on bare white feet. The servants dashed after, one—the younger—glancing back at Gaela with mingled shock and sorrow.

  Gaela was left alone in the black courtyard. She sank onto the rim of the well. The rough black stone glinted with dampness, though the wooden lid was locked in place and it had not rained.

  Silence blanketed her, and darkness, and Gaela wondered if it had been a dream.

  ELIA

  THE QUEEN’S LIBRARY in Lionis took up the bottom three stories of the easternmost tower, a cheerful round room with more books, scrolls, and curiosities than should have been available in all the world. Three half-moon balconies jutted out of the shelves at the second-story level, complete with small tables and cushioned stools for taking coffee. Elegant ladders lent access to all the shelves, even those spreading up past the second story, though of course it would be inappropriate for a high-born lady in a gown to climb such a thing. Aefa, though, and the queen’s and princess’s ladies, were often sent scurrying up like squirrels to fetch certain items when necessary.

  Though many plush and low chairs were set about the main floor for reading, and several lounging sofas presented near the fire, all polished of light wood and pillowed with velvet, the Elder Queen Calepia and her daughter the Twice-Princess Ianta most often sat around the wooden table in the very center, casually discussing news and court dramas; sometimes with visitors or guests but most often alone, content in their familiar space. Sometimes they invited Elia to join them, but she preferred most mornings to perch instead with Aefa on one of the balconies, visible but not quite available.

  Elia cupped her coffee and breathed in the rich, bitter smell. Two days into her Aremore exile, she’d received a gift of it from a Third Kingdom trader who wished her to remember his name. To give you a taste of home, he’d written, not realizing it would hurt her to her core, because Innis Lear was her home, not the floodplains and deserts of the Third Kingdom.

  That was the seed of her disagreement now with Aefa: they argued with pointed whispers over how Elia should handle the constant deluge of notes and letters from Aremore people approaching her. Aefa could not see any reason to refuse a visit with the coalition of foreign traders taking place tomorrow at their meeting hall near the harbor. Elia did not see the point. She wanted to go home and couldn’t bring herself to care about anything else as much as everyone around her seemed to.

  “Only some of the traders are from the Third Kingdom,” Aefa said again.

  Elia gripped the delicate cup in her palms. “But they are the most dominant, you know it. It would be a meeting with so many of them. I’m not … them. And I am not ready for their expectations.”

  “They might be part of your mother’s family, you can’t know! What if they would help you? Broker something to convince Morimaros not to be rash? You said yourself he did not want to invade us.” Aefa spoke fast and harshly, to keep her voice from growing in pitch. It had happened yesterday: her inadvertent exclamation had drawn the Elder Queen and Twice-Princess’s attention, thus ending their ability to converse unwatched for the afternoon.

  “Aren’t you curious to meet them?” Aefa insisted.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes!” Aefa laughed in disbelief. “Wildly. I’ve never been closer to them than the time we rode past Port Comlack when one of their ships was at the docks.”

  Elia recalled that afternoon: her father had rushed them on, promising there was nothing but painful memories to be had in visiting with Dalat’s people. Merely the drop of her name hurt, and so Elia had believed him. Kayo did all the negotiating for Lear when it came to the Third Kingdom.

  “What of the Alsax then, will you see them?”

  “They are related to Errigal, involved in the iron trade,” Elia said rather darkly.

  Aefa heaved a sigh. “You aren’t shunned, Princess. You can have guests and friends. And family.”

  Elia bit her lip, thinking of how many Lionis courtiers treated her: as if they knew who she was only because of how she appeared. That her brown face marked her personality, marked her desires and humor. She’d never dealt with such things on Innis Lear. As silly as it sounded, at home she’d only been an oddity, an easily identified princess, a girl isolated, true—but by her family situation, not the people. She was their princess, and she desired what they desired, found amusing what they did. Here in Aremoria, a weight of political history had convinced the people they knew what she was before she acted or spoke, despite knowing nothing true about her except her name and looks.

  Aefa did not, quite, understand. Nobody looked at Aefa as they did Elia.

  Could she even imagine trying to be queen here?

  “My sisters would be furious, Aefa,” she said, her forever excuse.

  Aefa’s eyes narrowed, recognizing it.

  “I’m not ready to earn their ire.” Tentatively, she reached out and touched Aefa’s bony wrist. That quieted her friend, who was unused to such physical affection from Elia.

  She set down her coffee. It had been four days since her dinner with Morimaros, and three since she’d written to her sisters. They would be getting the letters today, or soon.

  Sister, she’d written, copying the same letter twice, careful not to alter a single word and set her sisters to thinking she schemed between them. I remain wife only to myself and to the stars, and negotiate with Morimaros of Aremoria for the independence of Innis Lear. He sees the fractured nature of our government as a weakness, and not one he necessarily wishes to exploit, but one that by nearness makes his own country vulnerable. He is convinced, for now, to peace, but it is only temporary: so long as our father runs mad and nothing is settled between us all, his threat will hang over us. I trust this king not to be overly combative or hawkish, unlike his council, but his patience toward the cracks our father created will not last forever.

  Send our father to me, here, to await Midwinter with me. Allow me to tend to his age and mind, while you both adjust to your new roles and strengthen Innis Lear. End the fighting
between your husbands, and force them into accord, either divided or together. Show me and this king there is hope for a strong, independent Innis Lear.

  Their answers would tell her much about their intentions.

  “Lady Elia!” called the Twice-Princess Ianta from below. “Come join us!”

  Grateful to put an end to this discussion, Elia nodded to Aefa, who bent over the balcony rail to wave affirmatively.

  Elia gathered herself and her cup of coffee, and followed Aefa into the narrow hall between bookshelves, to make their way down the even narrower spiral of stairs to the main floor.

  At the round table, the Elder Queen and Morimaros’s sister sat, drinking spiced, hot milk from their pearl-rimmed mugs.

  Calepia, like her son, presented an excellent example of straight shoulders and thoughtful, irrefutable authority. She wore the red and orange and white of Aremoria almost exclusively, with silver bracelets beaten wide, armorlike, to remind any who approached that she was yet a force of the law. Gray filtered through her rich saffron hair, and instead of covering it with veils or circlets as would most women, she had her ladies wind in white and silver ribbons, putting an accent on her age and making her hair all the crown she needed. Again like her son, her pink mouth was generous and soft when unperturbed.

  The daughter, Ianta, had not inherited that mouth, nor the smooth sun-kissed skin. She was paler and less gorgeous than her mother and brother, narrower in face and expression but also rounder in body, with a happiness and prosperity that spilled out of her in ready laughter and fleshy confidence. She seemed comfortable in her natal roles—mother, sister, daughter—as much as she had pacing the marble floors of the throne room. Ianta could defeat even Gaela in presence, Elia often thought, though it would be like a clash between natural seasons: smiling, full-petal summer against bloody, crisp, martial autumn.

  Elia bowed her head to Calepia, and smiled good morning to Ianta.

  They bade her sit, and she did. Aefa took up a maid’s position near the door.

  The Elder Queen began a charming story of her children when they were young, fighting over a single slim volume of animal poetry from the Rusrike. It had been a simple war of one hiding it from the other, until found and hidden from the opposite. Ianta had kept it the longest, for she hid it inside her dress, straight down the back, both to help her sit straight and because she knew her brother would never presume to search her clothing as she wore it. Finally, Mars had negotiated for the location, offering up the greatest prize of all: his willing defeat. In giving up, he’d regained the book, and though all the courtiers amused by their antics knew he’d admitted his loss, he held his chin up and tucked the book under his pillow. Calepia laughed lightly, nostalgic with love. “He always was the best strategist.”

  “Win the war, never the battle,” Ianta said, in the tone of one who’s heard it many times before.

  Elia hid the tightening of her smile behind a sip of coffee; the story seemed a threat, though Elia was certain if one looked constantly for such things, they would be found. She couldn’t tell if the Elder Queen meant her story as a warning, or only offered it up as a way for a potential daughter to learn more about her maybe-future husband.

  Likely, it was intentionally both. Everyone connected to a crown played games; that was the nature of it, she was learning, and so Elia needed only discern who played them for power, and who for love.

  “My Morimaros would say this, frequently,” Calepia explained to Elia.

  “Mars’s and my father,” Ianta added. She paused, then spoke again. “My brother told me you read his birth chart for him at the Summer Seat.”

  “I did.”

  “How delightful. We don’t have them done in Aremoria anymore. Or”—she winked—“we aren’t meant to.”

  The Elder Queen said, “Your father himself taught you prophecy and the stars?”

  “He did. My father was his father’s third son, and he spent his youth preparing to be a star priest. It was not his preference to leave the chapels and rule, but one does what one must for family and country.”

  “And then he used his influence to rebuild the domination of the stars under his crown,” Twice-Princess Ianta said. “To overthrow the earthly ways of your ancestors.”

  Calepia answered with a wry note, “There must be some benefits to becoming king.”

  Elia glanced up, wary of being tested. But Calepia’s attention was on her daughter, and the two Aremore ladies shared some private humor.

  “Tell me of my son’s stars,” Calepia said.

  Elia hesitated briefly. “His Lion of War is a glorious but lonely birth star.”

  Calepia made a strange purr of annoyance, then said, “My birth chart gathers dust in a corner of my treasury, inked in gold and set with some tiny rubies. It’s rather more worth its weight in jewels than usefulness, here.”

  “What were you born under, if I may ask?” Elia said.

  “The Elegance,” the queen said with a suggestion of hidden pride in the corner of her mouth.

  “A star of resolution,” Elia said, digging through her memory for more. “And diplomatic promise. Do you know what the moon was?”

  “I don’t remember.” Calepia sipped her spicy milk, eyeing Elia over the decorative pearls. Elia did not press.

  “I had my holy bones cast once, at a festival,” Ianta said. “Do you do that?”

  Elia shook her head. “The holy bones are the most direct connection to the wisdom of earth saints, and my father forbids them in his court.”

  “In Aremoria, girls will play spinning games where you turn in circles the same number of times as years you are old, then stop and pick out the first star you see, and that is the star of the boy you’re meant to marry.”

  Smiling, Elia said, “I have seen girls say a boy’s name the same number of times as it is days since the full moon, then toss stones to see what constellation they fall into, for the same outcome. It is not such things my father dislikes. He minds nothing that comes only from the stars. It is seeking signs in the shape of a flock of geese or in the scatter of autumn leaves that he believes … taints the perfection of star prophecy.” Once, Elia had been quite skilled at throwing the bones, thanks to Brona Hartfare, but she’d not owned a personal set since her father discovered her huddled in a corner of the winter residence at Dondubhan when she was twelve, giving secretive readings to a handful of his retainers. He’d forbidden her the bones because they were low and filthy, but the incident had begun their more serious star lessons together. She said, “Father disbelieves anything that is only a reflection of stars—like the cards—could offer true providence.”

  “And do you believe in the providence of star paths, Elia Lear?” Calepia of Aremoria asked evenly, without judgment.

  Elia opened her mouth; the answer was not forthcoming. She was wary of seeming a superstitious fool to these ladies. Though they were kind, they also were vetting her, since their son and brother clearly wanted her for a wife. They would wish to know if Elia could be convinced or compelled to give up the stars if she married Morimaros. There was no state religion in Aremoria any longer, none but king and country.

  But Ianta answered first, in a wistful tone. “It has always seemed to me that the moon is a powerful creature. When I look at her, no matter her shape, I feel something.” She touched a hand covered in rings over her heart. “Perhaps a power pulling me down my path.”

  “Perhaps,” the Elder Queen said, “you feel something born in your own self.”

  “That is what my brother would say. He thinks the sky too distant to know what’s best for us,” Ianta told Elia.

  Elia nodded. “I once knew someone who would argue that the roots of trees or the leavings of cows are closer to knowing our destinies than the cold stars.” She wondered where he was at that moment, what he was doing. How he worked to keep his promise.

  Ban.

  She could at least think his name now, surely, without suffering.

  Ianta lau
ghed bright and hard. “Ha! I should like to meet this friend who thinks of cow shit as a divining tool.”

  “I think…” Elia folded her hands. “I think that the stars might see farther than we can imagine. Maybe when we’re born they do see how we will die, or how, overall, we will conduct our lives. Like a shepherd on the top of a mountain can see how the flock turns in the valley below. But it is the hounds and children nipping at the heels of the sheep that determine the immediate way. So we must make our own choices, and consider the stars only advisors. Not judges or rulers.”

  “Wise, child,” Calepia said.

  From the door, Aefa said angrily, “Would that your father were wise before he was old.”

  All three ladies at the table glanced at Aefa, who stood with her fingers laced against evil prophecy. The girl raised her nose in the air unapologetically, but her defensive posture cut hard into Elia. Aefa was right. And Elia wanted to scream suddenly, to clutch her stomach and bend in half, to hit something. To shake her father until he took it all back.

  Elia gripped her cup of coffee so hard it trembled and spilled over onto the polished table.

  She gasped, and the women turned back to her; she wanted to scream even louder. Her face burned and her jaw ached from clenching. She thought she should apologize, but her voice would not agree.

  “Oh, saints, Elia,” Ianta said, thrusting herself to her feet and pointing at a boy in the orange lion tabard of the palace. “This calls for something stronger than milk. Fetch three—no, four—glasses, Searos.” With that, Ianta swept up her layers of red skirts and made for the nearest library shelf.

  Elia and Aefa stared, but Elder Queen Calepia only leaned against her straight-backed chair and drawled, “She’s thrilled, Elia. My daughter has been near bursting with wondering when you’d finally thin out that incredible armor you wear around your heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elia whispered, braced for disdain or disappointment.

  “Apologizing!” Ianta cried from the shelf, where she was moving piles of leather-bound books to dig behind them. “It’s been weeks! I didn’t know if I would have to fill you with wine and start asking terribly pointed questions. Mars has said many things, and all of them made me want to wrap you up in pillows and silk quilts to keep you from further harm.”