The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

  “Nothing in my life was real. Even the attempts to take my life were staged, designed to influence and manipulate me. But you, Ead—I believed you were different. I called Combe a liar when he told me you were not what you appeared. Now I wonder if everything between us was part of your act. Your assignment.”

  Ead searched for the right words.

  “Answer me,” Sabran said, voice straining. “I am your queen.”

  “You may be a queen, but you are not my queen. I am not your subject, Sabran.” Ead stepped inside and shut the doors. “And that is why you can be certain that what was between us was real.”

  Sabran gazed into the fire.

  “I showed you as much of myself as I could,” Ead told her. “Any more would have seen me executed.”

  “Do you think me a tyrant?”

  “I think you a self-righteous fool whose head is harder than a rock. And I would not change you for the world.”

  Sabran finally looked at her.

  “Tell me, Eadaz uq-Nāra,” she said softly, “am I a greater fool to want you still?”

  Ead crossed the space between them. “No more a fool than I,” she said, “to love you as I do.”

  She reached for Sabran, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. Sabran gazed into her eyes.

  They stood face to face, barely touching. At last, Sabran took Ead by the hands and placed them on her waist. Ead slid them to her front and set about unravelling her corset.

  Sabran watched her. Ead wanted this to be another candle dance, to savor the long climb of their intimacy, but she needed her too much. Her fingers looped beneath the laces and pulled them through the hooks, one after another, and at last the corset opened and fell, leaving Sabran in her shift. Ead slid the silk from her shoulders and held her by her hips.

  She stood naked in the shadows. Ead drank in her limbs, her hair, her eyes like foxfire.

  The space between them disappeared. Now it was Sabran who did the unlacing. Ead closed her eyes and let herself be stripped.

  They embraced like companions on the first night. When Sabran placed a kiss on her neck, just behind the shell of her ear, Ead let her head list to one side. Sabran glided her hands up her back.

  Ead lowered her to the bed. Hungry lips came against hers, and Sabran breathed her name. It seemed as if centuries had passed since they had last been here.

  They intertwined among the furs and sheets, breathless and fierce. Ead shivered with anticipation as she relearned every detail of the woman she had left behind. Her cheekbones and her tilted-up nose. Her smooth brow. The pillar of her throat and the little chalice at its base. The twin dents low down on her back, like the impressions of fingertips. Sabran unlocked her lips with her own, and Ead kissed her as if this were their last act on earth. As if this one embrace could keep the Nameless One at bay.

  Their tongues danced the same pavane as their hips. Ead bent her head and touched her lips to each fine-cut collarbone, the rosebuds at the tips of her breasts. She kissed her belly, where the bruising had at last faded away. The only trace of the truth was a seam beneath her navel.

  Sabran cradled her face. Ead looked into the eyes that had haunted her, and called to her still. Her fingers grazed over the scar that led along one thigh, found the dew where it met the other.

  Then Sabran rolled her over, mischief in her smile. Her hair eclipsed the candlelight. Ead slid her hands around the cruet of her waist, interlocked her fingers at the small of her back, and dragged her between her legs.

  Desire was a banked fire in her. Sabran smoothed a hand beneath her thigh and placed a light kiss on each breast.

  Surely this was an unquiet dream. She would throw herself on the mercy of the desert if it meant that she could have this woman.

  Sabran worked her way downward. Ead closed her eyes, breath netted in her chest. Her senses splintered to admit each luminous sensation. Fire-warmed skin. Creamgrail and clove. By the time a finger brushed her navel, she was drawn taut, shivering and glazed with sweat. As her hips rose in welcome, soft lips charted the crook of her thigh.

  Each sinew of her was a string on a virginal, aching for the stroke of the musician. Her senses wound tight about ever-smaller centers, tensed to the pitch of Sabran Berethnet, and every touch vibrated through her bones.

  “I am not your queen,” Sabran whispered over her skin, “but I am yours.” Ead raked her fingers through the dark of her hair. “And you will find that I can also be generous.”

  They slept only when they were too heavy-limbed and sated to keep their exhaustion at bay. Sometime in the small hours, they woke to the patter of rain against the window, and they sought each other out again, bodies echoing the ember light.

  After, they lay interlaced under the coverlets.

  “You must remain as my Lady of the Bedchamber,” Sabran murmured. “For this. For us.”

  Ead gazed at the ornate stonework on the ceiling.

  “I can play the part of Lady Nurtha,” she said, “but it will always be a part.”

  “I know.” Sabran looked into the darkness. “I fell in love with a part you played.”

  Ead tried not to let the words find her heart, but Sabran had a way of always reaching it.

  Chassar had fashioned Ead Duryan, and she had inhabited her so fully that everyone had fallen for the act. For the first time, she understood the depth of betrayal and confusion that Sabran must be feeling.

  Sabran took Ead by the hand and traced the underside of her finger. The one that held her sunstone ring.

  “You did not wear this before.”

  Ead was close to falling asleep. “It is the symbol of the Priory,” she said. “The ring of a slayer.”

  “You have slain a Draconic creature, then.”

  “Long ago. With my sister, Jondu. We killed a wyvern that had woken in the Godsblades.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  Sabran studied the ring for a time.

  “I long not to believe your tale of Galian and Cleolind. I prayed to them both all my life,” she murmured. “If your version of events is correct, then I never knew either of them.”

  Ead slid a hand to her back.

  “Do you believe me?” she asked. “You know I have no proof of it.”

  “I know,” Sabran said. Their noses touched. “It will take time for me to come to terms with this … but I will not close my mind to the notion that Galian Berethnet was only flesh.”

  Her breathing grew softer. For a time, Ead thought she had drifted back to sleep. Then Sabran said, “I fear the war Fýredel craves.” She entwined their fingers. “And the shadow of the Nameless One.”

  Ead only stroked her hair with one hand.

  “I will address my people soon. They must know that I will stand against the Draconic Army, and that there is a plan in place to end the threat once and for all. If you can find the True Sword, I will show it to them. To lift their spirits.” Sabran looked up. “Your ambition is to defeat the Nameless One. If you succeed, what then will you do?”

  Ead let her eyelids fall. It was a question she had tried her utmost not to ask herself.

  “The Priory was founded to keep the Nameless One at bay,” she said. “If I bind him . . . I suppose I could do anything.”

  A strange quiet grew between them. They lay in silence until Sabran shifted away and turned on to her other side.

  “Sabran.” Ead kept her distance. “What is it?”

  “I’m too warm.”

  Her voice was armored. Faced with the back of her shoulder, Ead tried her best to sleep. She had no right to ask for truth.

  It was not yet dawn when she woke. Sabran was asleep beside her, so still, she might have been dead.

  Careful not to disturb her, Ead rose. Sabran stirred as she kissed the top of her head. She ought to let her know she was leaving, but even sleeping she looked tired. At least now she was safe, surrounded by people who loved her.

  Ead left the Great Bedchamber
and returned to her own rooms, where she washed and dressed. Margret was already in the stables in a riding habit and a hat festooned with an ostrich feather, saddling a sleepy-eyed palfrey. When she smiled, Ead embraced her.

  “I am so happy for you, Meg Beck.” She kissed her cheek. “The soon-to-be Viscountess Morwe.”

  “I wish he had not needed to be Viscount Morwe to be deemed worthy of me, but things are as they are.” Margret withdrew and grasped her hands. “Ead, will you be my giver?”

  “It would be an honor. And now you can give your parents the good news.”

  Margret sighed. Her father sometimes did not know his children. “Aye. Mama will be overjoyed.” She smoothed the front of her cream jacket. “Do you think I look all right?”

  “I think you look like Lady Margret Beck. A paragon of fashion.”

  Margret blew out a breath. “Good. I thought I might look like the village fool in this hat.”

  They rode into the waking streets and crossed the Limber at the Bridge of Supplications, which was carved with the likenesses of every queen of the House of Berethnet. If they made good time, they could be in Summerport, which served the northern counties of Inys, by ten of the clock.

  “Your dance with Sab last night set tongues wagging.” Margret glanced at her. “Rumor is that the two of you are lovers.”

  “What would you say if that were true?”

  “I would say you and she can do as you please.”

  She could trust Margret. Mother knew, it would be good to have someone to talk to about her feelings for Sabran—yet something made her want to keep it secret, to keep their hours stolen.

  “Rumors are nothing new at court,” was all she said. “Come, tell me your plans for the wedding. I think you would look very fine in yellow. What say you?”

  The grounds of Ascalon Palace were draped in morning fog. A drench of rain had blown in and frozen overnight, turning the paths to frosted glass and dressing every windowsill with icicles.

  Loth stood before the ruins of the Marble Gallery, where he and Sabran had often sat and talked for hours. There was a haunting beauty in the way the stone wept to the ground like wax.

  No natural fire could have melted it. Only something retched up by the Dreadmount.

  “This is where I lost my daughter.”

  He looked over his shoulder. Sabran was close by, face cold-burned beneath a fur hat. Her Knights of the Body waited at a distance, all in the silver-plated armor of winter.

  “I called her Glorian. The grandest name of my lineage. Each of its three bearers were great queens.” Her gaze was in the past. “I often wonder what she would have been like. If her name would have been a burden, or if she would have become even more illustrious than the others.”

  “I think she would have been as fearless and virtuous as her mother.”

  Sabran managed a tired smile.

  “You would have liked Aubrecht.” She came to stand beside him. “He was kind and honorable. Like you.”

  “I am sorry I never met him,” Loth said.

  They watched the sun rise. Somewhere in the grounds, a lark began to chirrup.

  “I prayed this morning for Lord Kitston.” Sabran rested her head on his shoulder, and he drew her in close. “Ead does not believe that Halgalant awaits us after death. Perhaps she is right—but I still trust, and always will, that there is a life beyond this one. And I trust that he has found it.”

  “I must trust in that, too.” Loth thought of the tunnel. That lonesome tomb. “Thank you, Sab. Truly.”

  “I know his death must hurt you still, rightly,” Sabran said, “but you must not let it cloud your judgment.”

  “I know it.” He drew in a breath. “I must visit Combe.”

  “Very well. I will be in the Privy Library, attending to neglected matters of state.”

  “An invigorating day ahead of you, then.”

  “Indeed.” With another weary smile, Sabran turned back to the Queen Tower. “Good day to you, Lord Arteloth.”

  “Good day, Your Majesty.”

  In spite of it all, it was a fine thing to be back at court.

  In the Dearn Tower, Lord Seyton Combe was wrapped in a blanket, reading a prayer book with bloodshot eyes. He was shivering, and little wonder.

  “Lord Arteloth,” the Night Hawk said, when the jailer let Loth in. “How good to see you back at court.”

  “I wish I could feel as warmly toward you, Your Grace.”

  “Oh, I expect no warmth, my lord. I had good reasons for sending you away, but you will not like them.”

  Keeping his face clean of emotion, Loth took a seat.

  “For the time being, Queen Sabran has entrusted the investigation of the attempted usurpation of her throne to me,” he said. “I would hear everything you know about Crest.”

  Combe sat back. Loth had always found those eyes unnerving.

  “When Queen Sabran was confined to her sickbed,” Combe began, “I had no reason, at first, to suspect that anything was amiss with her care. She had agreed to keep to the Queen Tower to conceal her miscarriage, and Lady Roslain was willing to stay with her during her illness. Then, not long after Mistress Duryan left the capital—”

  “Fled,” Loth corrected. “In fear for her life. Banishing friends of the queen is something of a habit of yours, Your Grace.”

  “I make a habit of protecting her, my lord.”

  “You failed.”

  At this, Combe heaved a long sigh.

  “Yes.” He rubbed at the shadows under his eyes. “Yes, my lord, I did.”

  Loth felt, to his exasperation, a flicker of sympathy.

  “Continue,” he said.

  It was a moment before Combe did. “Doctor Bourn came to me,” he recounted. “He had been ordered out of the Queen Tower. He confessed his fear that, rather than being cared for, Her Majesty was being guarded. Only Lady Igrain and Lady Roslain were attending her.

  “I had long been . . . uneasy about Igrain. I misliked her rather pitiless species of piety.” Combe drew slow circles on his temple. “I had told her what I had learned from one of my spies. That Lady Nurtha, as she is known now, had carnal knowledge of the queen. Something changed in her eyes. She made a comment alluding to Queen Rosarian and her . . . marital conduct.”

  A memory, unbidden, of her portrait in Cárscaro, slashed in a fit of jealous rage.

  “I began to fit the pieces together, and I misliked the picture they formed,” Combe said. “I sensed Igrain was power-drunk on her own patron virtue. And that she was plotting to supplant her queen with someone else.”

  “Roslain.”

  Combe nodded. “The future head of the Crest family. When I attempted to enter the royal apartments, I found myself barred by retainers, who told me the queen was too unwell for visitors. I went away without demur, but that night, I, ah, apprehended Igrain’s secretary.

  “The duchess is a clever woman. She knew not to keep anything in her own office, but her secretary, under pressure, surrendered documents pertaining to her finances.” A grim smile. “I found recurring stipends from the Duchy of Askrdal. A vast payment from Cárscaro, paid after the death of the Queen Mother. Fine cloth and jewels for bribery. A significant number of crowns had been moved from her coffers to those of a merchant named Tam Atkin. I discovered that he is the half-brother of Bess Weald, who shot Lievelyn.”

  “A conspiracy more than a decade in the making,” Loth said, “and you saw none of it.” The corner of his mouth flinched. “A hawk has keen eyes. Perhaps they should name you the Night Mole instead. Nosing blindly in the dark.”

  Combe chuckled humorlessly, but it turned into a cough.

  “I would have earned it,” he rasped. “You see, Lord Arteloth, while my eyes are everywhere, I closed them to those of holy blood. I assumed the loyalty of the other Dukes Spiritual. And so, I did not watch.”

  He was shivering more than ever.

  “I had evidence against Igrain,” Combe went on, “but I had to tread
carefully. She had occupied the Queen Tower, you understand, and any rash move against her could have endangered Her Majesty. I conferred with Lady Nelda and Lord Lemand, and we decided that the best option would be to go to our estates, return with our retinues, and quench the spark of usurpation. Fortunate, my lord, that you arrived first, or there might have been a great deal more bloodshed.”

  There was a pause while Loth thought it over. Much as he disliked the man, it had the ring of truth.

  “I understand that Igrain grasped for power just as I banished Lady Nurtha, so I may appear complicit in her crimes,” Combe said while Loth digested this, “but I call the Saint to witness that I have done nothing unbeseeming an honest man. Nor have I done anything unworthy of my place beside the Queen of Inys.” His gaze held steady. “She may be the last Berethnet, but she is a Berethnet. And I mean for her to rule for a long time yet.”

  Loth considered the man who had exiled him to near-certain death. There was something in those eyes that spoke of sincerity, but Loth was no longer the trusting boy who had been sent away. He had seen too much.

  “Will you speak against Crest,” he finally said, “and surrender your physical evidence?”

  “I will.”

  “And will you send a sum of money to the Earl and Countess of Honeybrook?” Loth asked. “For the loss of their only heir, Kitston Glade. Their beloved son.” His throat clenched. “And the kindest friend who ever lived.”

  “I will. Of course.” Combe inclined his head. “May the Knight of Justice guide your hand, my lord. I pray you are kinder than her descendant.”

  54

  East

  The Sundance Sea was so crystal-clear that the sunset turned it to pure ruby. Niclays Roos stood at the prow of the Pursuit, watching the waves roll and swell.

  It was good to be on the move. The Pursuit had docked for weeks in the ruined city of Kawontay, where merchants and pirates who defied the sea ban had built a thriving shadow market. The crew had loaded the ship with enough provisions and sweet water for a return journey, and enough gunpowder and other ordnance to flatten a city.

  In the end, they had not sold Nayimathun. The Golden Empress had decided to keep her as leverage against the High Sea Guard.