by Jasmine Walt
I commend to you Her Grace, the queen, Lorelai. She is more than a queen, she is my Queen. She has a pure heart and not only my love, but the love of the people of the courts, and she deserves your love. The man who sits upon the throne now and calls himself king is a usurper I give my life to rid the kingdom of. Guntram does not deserve the throne of Valliere. Please care for the queen as you have cared so greatly for me my entire life.
I know you will be cheerless at the loss of me, but understand I do everything for our family, our honor, and happiness. I love you and may my memory live on in the banner of my Queen Lorelai.
Ever your loving daughter, Cateline.
The room was silent as the lord’s voice died out.
“Tell me, Your Grace, is this your wish?” Lady Perigord asked, her tone startlingly clear for a woman who had just discovered her daughter was deceased. “To overthrow the self-proclaimed king of Valliere?”
Bruno held his breath on behalf of the queen. He knew it was a loaded question and would require a keen and direct answer. This would be one of her first efforts in claiming position with the lords. It was an easy way to test their situation with the lower-ranking lord, but there were still many people in the room. Though many were children, there were still enough older boys and young men to carry swords here. Many bodies, if they were armed. And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt his mother had weapons.
This could be a very good win for Lorelai and their cause.
“I have a great love for the people of Valliere,” Lorelai said. “We are strong. We are brave. And we have a great many enemies amassed around us who wish to corrupt and destroy our fair land. But the depravity has started in the castle itself. The center of all we hold dear and the death of chivalry is upon us should King Guntram be left on the throne. I would gladly stand aside if there was a more suitable king or queen to take my place and lead Valliere as a kingdom we can all be proud of. A kingdom that truly represents the honor, valor, and family we are. I will honor Cateline’s memory and stand for any who will follow me to take the throne back for the people of Valliere. We will not bow to a murderer.”
Lorelai’s words were strong as they rang out across the room. Bruno’s chest filled with pride, even as her voice fell into a silent cavern.
A child let out a brief cry in the back of the hall but was quickly silenced.
Lorelai stood, regal and ready for refusal.
Bruno wanted to push the old man down on his knee himself. And then, just when it seemed he would refuse the queen, a single tear dropped from Lord Perigord’s eye and he slipped down onto one knee. Immediately, everyone in the room followed suit. Lord Perigord lowered his chin, and everyone else did the same. A blond field of bowed heads lay before them.
“House du Perigord is yours to rule,” Lord Perigord said.
The queen held out her hand above their heads. “I accept your fealty and that of your house.”
Bruno let out a cheer and everyone followed suit. He tried to ignore that Taron stood next to Lorelai. Taron and the queen had always been close. The lead knight had been the king’s most trusted advisor and had a strong connection with the queen. Bruno squared his shoulders. She was meant to be his. Nothing could happen to stop this. It was the truest direction of his heart.
“What was your agreement with King Peverell?” Bruno spoke loudly to Taron in the anteroom. All the knights’ conversation stopped.
“Excuse me?” Taron glanced at the other three knights.
“You and the king were constantly together. He was your best friend, we understand that. But now that he’s gone, it’s best you tell us what your agreement was.” Bruno was firm in his stance and clear in his heart.
Taron knew what he was asking.
The other three knights looked to each other and stood back, waiting to see what the outcome would be. None would intercept what appeared to be some sort of a challenge from Bruno.
“He was dying, and I told him I would serve him and his house loyally until the day I died,” Taron said.
Bruno metered out his words carefully. “I saw you speaking with the queen last night,” he said. “Whatever passed between you, there can be no secrets between us. We have all sworn our lives to her as well. We are a group, brothers united in the same goal, and yet you have secrets.”
“You ask I share a lady’s secrets with you?” Taron asked, eyebrow raised.
“Are you asking Taron if he is the queen’s lover?” Reyn frowned at Bruno.
Bruno’s jaw clenched, but he nodded.
“I want to know what goes on between the two of them,” Bruno said.
All four knights stared steadfastly at Taron.
Taron took a breath and closed his eyes.
“Before the king died, both he and the queen believed it best if Lorelai held the throne. Lorelai believed there was an easier and more effective way to keep it than the civil war we may now find ourselves embroiled in.”
“A child?” Marrok asked, cocking his head at Taron.
Every knight in the room stiffened. Andre twisted towards Taron, glaring at him. “Have you lain with the queen?”
“No!” Taron exclaimed. The four knights exhaled in unison. “She asked if I would consider it. And I said no.”
Reyn laughed out loud. “Are you insane? You said no to Queen Lorelai?”
Bruno punched Reyn in the arm. “Next time it’ll be your face if you speak of her so.”
“I mean no disrespect to the queen. I was simply conveying my admiration of Taron’s willpower.” Reyn rubbed his arm.
“It was a stupid mistake,” Taron said. “If Lorelai were pregnant, none of this would’ve happened. She would be the queen regent, safe in the castle, and we would all be sworn to her. The unborn child would be considered the child of King Peverell.”
“You made the right choice,” Marrok said. “She said tonight we should not be a country based on lies and deceit. We are a kingdom living on our own valor.”
“I have endangered everyone’s lives, including hers,” Taron said, his voice strained with anguish. “I have delivered the kingdom into the hands of a murderer.”
“But why did you say no?” Bruno asked. “I see the way you look at her. You do not look at her simply as a knight looks at his lady queen. You look at her as a man in love.”
Taron’s sturdy face flared red and his jaw tightened as he stared Bruno down. “You are my brothers and you see my heart. I have long been in love with Lorelai. I saw her before the king did. But it was not my place to try to win the affections of a woman the king had set his crown on. I stood down eight years ago, and the king took her as his bride. I could not stand in when the king was still living.”
“And now?” Andre asked cautiously. His tone brought a raised eyebrow from Bruno.
“Now she is a widow and single,” Taron said. “She needs a protector.”
“We all protect her,” Bruno insisted.
“Sounds like you are not alone in your admiration of the queen,” Marrok commented.
Andre stepped forward. “It has been apparent since I joined the Order that you four knights were not only sworn to the queen but also carried her in your hearts. Deeply.” Andre’s gaze moved over his four brother knights. It was a revelation to see the same feelings in each other’s eyes that they carried in their own hearts.
A toothy smile broke out across Marrok’s dark features. “Of course,” he said, as if everything was just starting to make sense.
“At first, I thought it was silly,” Andre continued. “I thought you were all enchanted by the idea of chivalry and being champions of the queen. But then I realized your feelings for her were sincere. Taron, you live in celibacy. Marrok, you only pleasure yourself with paid women. Reyn and Bruno, you fuck your way across the castle and down the city streets but never stay with one woman because you have already decided. You have settled on the queen. I didn’t understand how no other woman in Valliere caught such valiant knights’ attentions. But then I
grew to know her. Her gentleness. Her kindness. Her sweetness. And her shape. There is something in her shape…well, it’s more than I can express with all the metal work I have ever done.”
“Great,” Bruno said with a groan. “You are for the queen, too?”
The five knights stood in a circle, their arms across their chests.
“There can be only one,” Bruno said. “We all understand she is newly widowed and now unmarried, but we must play fairly in love as in all things.”
“May the best man win.” Reyn smiled.
“We are not safely at court”—Bruno glared at Reyn and Marrok—“trying to bed a random widow. This is the queen of our country. Whoever wins must be deserving of the throne and tender with her heart.”
“We have made a vow already to the Order of the Regent,” Taron said. “Our oath does not change. Whoever wins the queen, if one of us does, and whoever sits on the throne beside her as king consort, will still be a member of the Order of the Regent.”
The others nodded.
“Though we may all love the same woman,” Andre said, “we cannot love her so much it breaks us apart. Nothing can destroy our brotherhood, nothing can destroy the Order. Queen and country come first. Our love for Lorelai comes second.”
The knights looked around the circle at each other.
“The Order comes first,” Taron said.
“Are we agreed on this?” Marrok asked.
“Yes,” Reyn said.
Bruno hesitated. Would he forsake Lorelai for the Order? Could he live in the Order, close with these men, if one of them was bedding her and he was not? His fingers clenched his signet ring. It was his life-blood. The only home he truly had. If he had lived here his entire adult life while she was married to another, could he not do the same if she was happily married to a brother? He nodded. He thought he could.
Together, they held out their hands with the rings of the Order shining upwards and stacked them.
“We are sworn to the Order of the Regent.” Their voices rang out clear in the small room in unison. “We are sworn to the regency and to each other.”
Bruno looked around at the others with a nod of agreement. “I daresay one of us will win the queen.” And he fully intended for that man to be him.
15
Lorelai sat on the precipice overlooking the ravine. The jagged rocks of the cliff angled sharply away. It felt like her future. A dangerous drop she would either soar over or fall into.
Crunching steps on the hard gravel drew her attention past the shade of the tall spreading oak tree to where Cateline’s mother approached. Lorelai kept her face plain and still, but inside she retreated. What do you say to a woman who has just lost her child? When she lost her family to the Grosse Obscurite, she knew people had the same thoughts when she passed. They didn’t know what to say, other than vague platitudes like, “It’s all going to be all right,” or, “It is the saints’ will.” Things that meant nothing when your heart was falling out of your body and being crushed under the weight of a thousand stones. But still, so many times people tried to say something. And Lorelai was no different. Despite the stiffness in her heart, she forced a smile as she looked up at Lady Perigord. Her long, gray hair was pulled back, and she wore a stunning turquoise gown draped a little lower than was seemly for a woman her age. The ornate stitched sleeves stroked the ground. The color would’ve been brilliant on Cateline, who was truly the spitting image of her mother.
“Your dress is lovely,” Lorelai said, moving over on the bench to allow Lady Perigord to sit down.
The older woman smiled slightly, stroking the skirts and rubbing the silk between her fingers. “It belonged to Cateline.” Her smile slipped awkwardly away as she stared at the skirt. “It looked so lovely on her. You know, she had it taken out a bit. When she was with child.”
“She was with child? Cateline had a child?”
“No,” Lady Perigord responded. “She was pregnant before she was married. It caused quite a fuss for her father, of course. But I don’t think anyone was more devastated when she lost the child than he was.”
Lorelai stared across the gorge. Her hands rubbed unconsciously against her abdomen. What would it be like to be pregnant? And then, even worse, to lose the child? “I’m sorry,” she said.
“There is nothing one can do for this. It is irreversible. Immutable.”
The warm breeze tugged at Lorelai’s red locks and wafted the scent of oak, rich and warm, over her.
“The tree we sit beneath is the symbol of my family, before I became a Perigord,” the lady said. “It shows the branches as the extension, but we are only leaves. We are not the roots, we are not the trunk or the branches. Those are the family. The individuals are leaves, and we fall and fertilize the earth, feed the roots, and in the spring new leaves are born. We are a cycle of a single family, ever returning to the great unknown and journeying back time and time again.”
“I have lost my family. There is but one leaf on my tree,” Lorelai said.
“Yes.” Lady Perigord nodded. “We know your family was consumed by the dark mist.”
“They roam as monsters in the Grosse Obscurite.” Lorelai’s skin felt raw and cold as she said the words that haunted her. “They live as demons in the dark, doing inhuman things.”
“There are fates worse than death,” Lady Perigord said softly, clasping Lorelai’s hand in hers. Silence filled the women, bringing them some comfort. While there was no reprieve from the sadness, there was commune in their grief.
“Your Majesty.”
Reyn’s clear voice startled Lorelai from her reverie. She smiled despite herself. The sun behind him created a golden halo around his already fair head.
She wondered at the rapid speed of her heart at the sight of him, her fingers splayed across her neck. What was it about these knights that made her blood race and skin blaze? Each one called to a different part of her. She took a deep breath, secretly enjoying how his gaze found her cleavage and watched her chest rise and fall.
“I have brought you a gift,” he said.
“A what?” She frowned.
“A gift.” He smiled as he sat, his arm draped across the back of the bench.
Lady Perigord smiled, her chin lowering. “How quickly the courtships begin.”
“I—I am not being courted,” Lorelai stammered. Was he really courting her? So quickly? So soon? Was she ready?
“You are young, Your Grace.” She leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper. “And they are handsome. All of them. Life is too fleeting. You must grab the moments of happiness when they arrive and live them fully.”
“But I—” Lorelai didn’t know what to do. Her husband had just died, and her position was unclarified. Was it unseemly?
The older lady stood. “I will see about supper,” she said, smiling as she curtsied.
Reyn watched Lady Perigord depart before turning the shining light of his full attention on Lorelai. She felt like the sun itself had stopped to notice her. He unlaced his shirt, the corner of his mouth tilting upward.
This man knew exactly what he was doing, she thought as she sucked in her lower lip. She had to be very careful around him. He was a knight of the realm and had a reputation bigger than Bruno’s. While he had always been incredibly respectful of her when she was married to his liege lord, he might simply be seeing her as a feather in his cap now that she was fair game. She swallowed. None of her knights had ever given any indication they were interested in being wed. She would have to guard her steps carefully.
Very, very carefully.
Reyn’s fingers reached inside the unlaced collar of his pristine white shirt, and despite her self-admonishment, Lorelai noticed the thick, golden curls on his chest. She ripped her gaze away and stared back out to the ravine. It was completely inappropriate for the queen to be gaping at this golden knight as if he were the latest dessert laid bare on the table.
And she had only seen a few inches of his chest.
T
his didn’t bode well. From the way Reyn leaned towards her, he knew exactly what effect he was having.
“Can you unlatch it?” he asked.
“What?” She whipped around so fast, she knocked her head against his. He pulled back laughing, and his hand stretched out to cover hers, which clutched her temple.
“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
“Yes!” She laughed self-consciously, her skin heating with mortification. How could she be so clumsy?
“I would like to give you this necklace,” he said, lifting a gold necklace from his neck. “I just can’t unclasp it.”
“Oh, of course.” Without stopping to think, she stretched forward and reached around his neck. She was sure he could feel the warmth of her burning skin as she twisted the necklace around to move the clasp to the front. She exhaled carefully, trying to cool her brain as she fumbled with the hook.
“It’s a fish offering.” Reyn smiled at the carefully crafted bundle of fish on a line. His skin smelled of saltwater and sunlight.
“A fish offering?” Lorelai parroted. Grateful to the saints as the necklace came loose, she leaned back to gain some breathing space. Being close to Reyn was like stepping into the fire. She turned the delicate gold charm over in her fingers.
“It’s an oddity of my duchy,” he said, bending his head down close to her. “For hundreds of years, the fishermen have made offerings to San Gaelle at the start of each month for a plentiful catch.”
“The saint of prosperity,” Lorelai said.
He grinned. “They tie fish tails together and throw them into the water. In more recent years, they started making these charms, and all the men of Argeles-sur-Mer wear them.”
“And does it help?” Lorelai looked up, her stomach doing back flips. “Do you believe the saint listens and provides a good catch?”
Reyn shrugged. “I have seen too much death to believe there is a sentient being creating all this chaos we live in. I think the idea was important hundreds of years ago, but I believe it is…passé now.” Reyn was without guile or malice.