by E. J. Beaton
She set to distracting Jale with questions about the ball, instead, trying her hardest to draw him into discussing it. Officially, she had read in A History of Modern Elira, a Sapphire Ball was a celebration for the wedding of royalty in Lyria, dating back to the Classical Era; its role was enshrined as the final ceremony before a coronation. After listening to Sarelin talk of the most extravagant party in the realm, she had suspected that the Sapphire Ball was as much an expression of Lyrian identity. Quaffing of wine by the jug, dancing in elaborate costumes which unraveled in pace with the festivities, and carrying out of a wide range of liaisons in candlelight or in shadow: these all featured in Sarelin’s stories of the ball, which had been passed to her by her grandmother. Lysande had the impression that Queen Brettelin had not approved of Lyrian dancing, with its infamous pressing of body to body.
“Tell me more about your favorite parts of the . . . more colorful preparations,” she said.
“The courses must be symbolic, you see: milder dishes to start, before the dancing, and spiced food for when passions rise. And then, you know, we have some desserts in Lyria that are made with such a sweet blend of liquors and fruit, they are almost intoxicating.”
“That would certainly excite the guests from the capital.”
“All the better, I say. If one cannot read something salacious into the food, then what good is a banquet?”
“Indeed. Your stewards will be run off their feet, arranging things, no doubt.”
“Oh, I like to get involved myself when we welcome guests.” Jale’s expression turned a little bashful. “Uncle Vigarot says it is vulgar for a prince to be friends with the cooks and the Overseer of Wardrobe, but I do not give a leopard’s ar—that is to say, I have different views on the matter.”
As the minutes passed, he spoke more calmly. Lysande tried to remember what it was that silverbloods did at their marriage ceremonies: she had covered food, music, and vows. “You must tell me about the dancing, of course.”
Jale smiled. “You’re a good listener, Lysande. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Sarelin was too busy talking to notice, most of the time.”
“Well, I need not blather on to you any longer.”
“Blathering to a friend is an excellent cure for melancholy. Several texts concur.”
He shared another smile with her, this one unfurling gently, a southern water-rose. “You will see it all for yourself, soon. The Council must be in attendance at the Sapphire Ball, of course, to show the crowd that Elira and Bastillón stand together, and you will dance as well as any of us, I am sure.”
The word crowd hit her in the gut. She remembered what Sarelin had said of the last Sapphire Ball. All the most important people in the realm would be there, the queen had told her: poets and nobles and merchants of importance, artists and captains. They wouldn’t miss a Sapphire Ball if their fortunes depended on it, Sarelin had declared.
She stared at Jale for a moment. A public event . . . an attack in front of a crowd . . . her conversation with Three had not been so long ago that she had forgotten the White Queen’s new strategy. Visions of soldiers pouring into a palace were coming fast.
She excused herself and strode from the room. The others were still searching the rooms on the second floor. She was sketching out her response as she descended the stairs and walked into Derset. They dipped their heads to each other, and Lysande recognized that the veneer of politeness they had maintained since last night had fallen; she flushed and saw redness answer her in Derset’s cheeks. There was something in his gaze that was not just the awkwardness of their circumstances, something soft, and subtly welcoming, and she could not persuade herself that she disliked it.
She imparted Jale’s news without any personal remarks, and Derset took her lead, speaking only of the wedding’s implications, his eyes flicking between her and the floor. Quickly, they agreed to split up and call off the pursuit, and she hurried downstairs.
It should have taken some time to gather the Council, as the southerners were milling about, muttering darkly about the Valderrans’ lack of help, but Litany wove her way through the throng of guards, bowing left and right, her back straight and yet not overly stiff. “If you please,” Lysande heard her say to one guard, and “if I could trouble you,” to another, and “I believe something most pressing is about to happen” to yet another—couching her phrases in Axiumite formality, then slipping in a request to move. The guards complied without seeming to notice they were being manipulated. Lysande whispered a “thank you” in Litany’s ear as she passed by.
Jale locked the door of the tea-hall and faced the city-rulers.
“I do apologize for my sudden absence,” he said, “and for my sudden reappearance. I suppose I must cap the whole thing off with a sudden announcement. Unless anyone would prefer me to draw it out?” Catching the looks of his listeners, he heaved a breath. “Word from Vigarot. I’m to be married this month, in return for a new route between my delta and the capital of Bastillón. Traded for trade, you might say.” He drew another breath. “There’s to be a Sapphire Ball, too.”
“What?” Cassia shouted, just as Luca cried “Already?” Lysande suspected that she was the only one who heard Dante’s quiet “No.”
As a mêlée of voices broke out, Lysande stepped forward, stumbling through a response. “The forging of a bond between realms, in front of royalty, with the most notable people from each country watching? That would be a gift to the White Queen. By any measure, the opportunity would be too tempting for her not to take advantage. Think like a woman who is desperate to rule, Councillors. Think like a tyrant in the making.” She glanced at Cassia as she spoke, quickly enough that she might get away with searching for a sign of suppleness, looking for anything that had begun to soften since their last conversation. “We must cancel the ball. When we seek to show strength, she sees a chance to prove our weakness.”
“I can tell you that strength begets victory. I scared off a battalion just with the sight of my army in the last Pyrrhan war.” Cassia folded her arms. “I say let us join these Bastillonians, and we will meet the White Queen’s army with a gory embrace.”
“And if I had intelligence that the White Queen will attack the ball?” Lysande said.
“Intelligence from who?” Dante said.
“By all means, produce it, my friend.” Cassia returned her gaze.
Lysande glanced from one to the other. She was on the verge of sending for Litany to fetch the map-book and discussing the White Queen’s tactics, but as she took in their expressions, she knew that it would not be enough.
“Axium spies,” she said. “I would not ask for your support unless the circumstance was as dire as it is now. My sources believe she has both weapons and troops.”
Dante’s laugh told her how convincing her delivery was.
“Axium spies,” Cassia said. “Where did they get this evidence about the ball, when we’ve only just heard it’s to be held?”
“Perhaps we should consider the odds of a heightened risk,” she heard Luca saying, but Cassia argued on, and Dante and Jale, to her disappointment, sided with the Irriqi, even though Dante looked like a man wounded by a savage bull. She suspected that as far as Valderran opinion went, he had no choice. By all logic that could be openly declared, the city-rulers were in the right, she knew. Vigarot Chamboise had played his cards skillfully, with his hand concealed.
Yet he could not know that the White Queen had bought a weapon that cost several fortunes in gold.
She bit her lip. Gathering her determination, she shaped her fears into lists, marched them into formation. “Councillors, we cannot afford not to consider the risks of the wedding. I leave you to reevaluate your positions. Jale, it is your wedding, and your vote must carry the greatest weight. But I ask my friend from Pyrrha to consider my words and to take my concern as a gift—if she still bears me any good w
ill.” No one cut her off; they were all gazing at Cassia, who looked like a woman who had been readying herself to shoot at skylarks, only to find that the songbirds had been packed away and the sport abruptly called off.
Cassia watched her. She watched Cassia back. The silence stretched like skin, threatening to break but never quite giving way.
“I will not reconsider without evidence,” Cassia said.
Lysande pulled her gaze away and turned as she did, hiding her face so that the hurt written there could not be glimpsed. She left the other Councillors talking among themselves, signaling to Derset to remain with them. Litany was in the Painter’s Suite when she arrived, tidying her desk. The attendant looked up from brushing an ink-pot.
“Bring me the map, if you please,” Lysande said.
The parchment had been commissioned for Sarelin. It gave off a cloud of dust as she unfurled it, spreading it out to cover a good part of the floor. Naturally, Sarelin had never done anything on a small scale; the realm rolled out in detail, offering up the glaciers, the mountains, the great lakes around Valderos, the jungle that surrounded Pyrrha, the stretch of Axium Forest above the capital . . . everything was inked in, right down to the names of towns.
Lysande edged around the map. A thick line bisected the swathe of the Lyrian desert, branching out into the three prongs of the delta after it reached the city. She grimaced. The Grandfleuve seemed to her the quickest route, but it would also be full of ships and checkpoints, and for secrecy, it would help little.
There might be a way, provided there was a head start and orders were followed. She could not rely on others. It had become her own task to parry the White Queen.
“Stay there, Litany. I would have you take a letter.” She walked to the window, composing her thoughts. “Make it out to Captain Hartleigh in Axium Palace.” She willed her breathing to slow. “Dear Raden. Kindly bring two hundred of the best Axium Guards together for me; equip them for a long journey, disguise them, and assemble them in secret.”
A bird trilled outside while Litany’s quill scratched over the paper.
“You must make no mention of this to anyone. When this is done, you are to make preparations for the group to travel through the desert. I want them to leave as soon as they have their boots fastened.”
“The desert?” Litany looked up sharply as soon as the words had passed her lips. “I beg your pardon, Councillor—I didn’t mean to ask.”
“You might well ask. And when you hear the answer, you might well ask again. We will soon be going to Lyria, for a wedding that requires a Sapphire Ball. Put that in your letter.” She walked over to the girl. If Litany could tell that her whole person was tingling with the excitement of making the decision, she did not mind. “Tell Captain Hartleigh he is to spare no expense. My secret guard may have whatever weapons it can carry on muleback.”
Litany nodded, her hand flying, and Lysande waited a minute or so while the attendant caught up. She could feel her pulse galloping. She had a feeling that Three would approve of her plan. This was the most logical way. Luca might be less pleased, but he had said that trust was not a useful currency, so he could not blame her for failing to trust him with this. The way he had watched her from atop his horse . . . and the way he had stood so near to her on the cliff-edge, so deliberately close . . . and the way he had looked at her as he remarked: I like the way you stand out. She impelled herself, with difficulty, to push those thoughts aside.
In her mind, she called up other maps: drawings of the desert that she had copied into her booklets.
“When you’ve written that, ask Raden to come to me at once,” she added, glancing at Litany.
She waited while the girl fetched a dove. As the bird winged off from the window, she watched it arc up into the sky, a white shape against clouds pregnant with a storm. When the pale spot had disappeared, she turned back, arranging her countenance.
“Take my daggers, Litany, and have a guard sharpen them.” Lysande unfastened the sheaths from her belt and handed them over. “And retrieve your daggers. I know you have them here, probably wrapped in lace and packed in a chest of my softest tunics. You’re going to train with me.”
“It would be an honor to be your throwing partner.”
“I hope, in time, we may call each other friends. In the meantime, we work.” She pretended not to see Litany’s barely restrained smile. “There’s going to be an attack, unless I’m much mistaken. And I don’t mean for us to perish in it.” She folded Litany’s fingers over the daggers. “We are an ‘us,’ now, Litany. You, I, and Lord Derset. We face this with solidarity. And with adequately sharpened blades.”
The girl bowed, then saluted with one hand to her chest and hurried out, looking back once more from the doorway. As her footsteps died away, Lysande opened the window and stood facing the clouds. A gust of wind whipped through the frame. She dug her hands into her pockets, feeling something in one of them and pulling the object out. It was the golden quill, the one Sarelin had given her the day before she died.
She had forgotten that she had slipped it in there. She clutched the stem, feeling the jab of the tip into her palm.
The girl with the quill. It was impossible to count all the times Sarelin had called her that. A girl with a quill might yet have a place in the business of war. Could she really counter the enemy’s moves, trusting to her own deductions, though? What of military experience? Of battle planning?
She had known, in the Pavilion, that she wanted this. As she thought back to that moment, sitting at the table and raising her goblet to join the Council, it occurred to her that there was a different kind of knowledge, one which could only be acquired with experience. She had not known, in the Pavilion, what it meant to challenge a ruler. Now she knew the rush of zeal that accompanied the fear of failure; the way that fervor and determination entwined.
Experience was more than that, though. It was also the sound of your name shouted by a girl in Elsington, a girl who had tied her hair in a braid because she could not afford a pin.
Prior.
Her fingers touched something hard. The feather’s tip. She felt her chest rise and fall.
She was standing by the window and holding the quill, facing the clouds, when the northerly came in and painted her cheeks with rain.
Ten
The strings of the harp and viol sang out across the stones, accompanied by the warm thrum of the lute, the click-click of castanets, and the unwavering rhythms of the pipe and tabor. Laughter and chatter permeated the music. Above the courtyard, Lysande pulled her curtains open and peered down at the crowd of people in black doublets trimmed with scarlet.
“Did they give a reason for this refusal?” she said, turning back to the room. “Or are we simply to bow to their whims?”
“There was a reason, Councillor.” Lady Pelory stood by the writing desk, holding a thick, leather-bound book. Her fingers were encased in soft emerald gloves. “Lady Bowbray insisted that while they have restored Prexley Castle to your wishes, the advisors cannot make it into a jail. Quite impossible, she said. A former symbol of great nobility, fitted out, only to be given over to elementals—there might be a petition to remove you. The court would prefer that you use the existing jails, even though they are cold and cramped.”
Lysande moved away from the window. The laughter from outside reached her like a boot rubbing on a doorstep, muddying the newly swept stone of her mind. “And the accounts?” she said, walking over to the desk.
Pelory opened the book and flipped through the pages, before stopping at one. “It would seem that your suspicion was right, Councillor. I took the liberty of perusing Lady Bowbray’s private books and found several entries that indicate funds are being siphoned off. From the charities, you see.” She pointed to a string of numbers. “The Treasurer is restoring smaller castles with the money: decorating four properties.”
“Whose ca
stles?”
“That is the question, Councillor Prior.” Pelory smiled mirthlessly. “They belong, it seems, to the families of Bowbray, Addischild, Chackery, and Tuchester.”
The castanets began to click at a swifter pace and boots drummed on cobbles. Lysande had seen the Rhimese nobles dancing in pairs around the band, parting and rejoining, snaking back and forth. She blocked out their sound, thinking far beyond the castle, to the faces in the Oval in Axium Palace. She could picture Bowbray’s mouth pinched into a hard line. Time taught you some things later than you would have liked; only now, after conversations with city-rulers about borders and negotiations with elementals, did she see that Bowbray’s stiff smile had not been a stroke to end a phrase, but the beginning of a reply.
Was it treachery, to restore a castle for each of the advisors in Axium? Or should the author of An Ideal Queen call it clever politics?
“A lively tune, isn’t it?” Pelory gestured to the window. “I walked past that nest of snakes on my way here and asked Lady Freste if this was a celebration. Certainly, she said. When I asked what they were celebrating, she said that Prince Fontaine orders a concert every time he hangs conspirators.” Pelory paused. “How does a man reputed to be as cold as a Valderran floor manage to know everything going on his city? Does he have some special talent we might extract?”
“I assure you, Prince Fontaine is not entirely aloof.”
“Well, you may be right. I suppose it depends on who is standing next to him.”
Lysande said nothing but bent over the book, ignoring Pelory’s probing gaze.