by Rebecca Ross
I let him help me down, trying to adjust to the ambitions of my petticoats. And when I looked up, I saw the decapitated heads, the pieces of bodies staked on the castle wall, rotting, blackening in the sun. I stopped short when I saw the head of a girl not much older than me on the closest spike, her eyes two holes, her mouth hanging open, her brown hair blowing like a pennant in the breeze. My gorge rose as I stumbled back, leaning against the coach, trying to take my eyes from the girl, trying to keep my panic from splitting a hole in my exterior.
“Those would be traitors, Lady,” my escort explained, seeing my shock. “Men and women who have offended King Lannon.”
I glanced to the man. He watched me with hard eyes, with no emotion. This must be a daily occurrence to him.
I turned away, leaned my forehead against the coach. “What . . . what did she do to . . . offend the king?”
“The one your age? I heard she refused the king’s advances two nights ago.”
Saints help me. . . . I could not do this. I was a fool to think I could ask a pardon for MacQuinn. My patron father had been right; he had tried to express this to me. I may walk into the royal hall, but I most likely would not emerge in one piece.
“Should I take you back to the inn?”
I drew in a ragged breath, felt my sweat run cold down my back. My eyes wandered to the coachman, and I saw the mockery in the lines of his face. Little Valenian coquette, his eyes seemed to say. Go back to your cushions and your parties. This is no place for you.
He was wrong. This was my place, by half. And if I fled, more girls would end up with their heads on spikes. So I gave myself only a moment more to breathe and calm my pulse. Then I pushed away from the coach, standing in the shadow of the wall.
“Will you wait for me here?”
He tipped his head and went to stand by his horses, stroking their manes with a chapped hand.
I trembled as I approached the main gate, where two guards in gleaming plate armor stood armed to the teeth with weapons.
“I am here to make a request before the king,” I announced in perfect Dairine, drawing forth my papers once again.
The guards only took in my tightly strung waist, the glistening blue of my gown, the poise and the grace of Valenia that softened my edges and abolished any semblance of a threat. The wind played with my long hair, drawing it over my shoulder as a shield of golden brown.
“He’s in the throne room,” one of them said, his eyes lingering on my décolletage. “I will escort you.”
I let him lead me through archways burnished with antlers and vines, through a bare courtyard, up the stairs to the royal hall. The doors were massive, carved with intricate knots and crosses and mythical beasts. I would have liked to stand and admire those carvings, listen to the quiet story they told, but the two other guards saw my approach and wordlessly opened the doors for me, the old iron and wood groaning in welcome.
I entered a pool of shadows, my dress whispering elegantly over the patterned tiles as my eyes adjusted to the light.
I felt the weight of the ancient dust as I approached that cavernous hall. There was the sound of voices, one pleading, one scathing, bouncing off the impressive height of the ceiling, which was upheld by crosshatched timber rafters. I rose up on my toes, trying to see over the heads of those gathered. I could just barely discern the dais, where the king sat on his throne of welded antler and iron, but more important . . . there was Lord Allenach. I caught the dark brown of his hair, the flash of his maroon doublet, as he stood by the throne. . . .
Relief rippled down my bones, that I would not have to delay. But before I could enter the hall, I had to stop before a white-haired man dressed in Lannon green, his eyes going wide at the unexpected sight of me.
“May I inquire why you are here, Lady of Valenia?” he whispered to me in heavily accented Middle Chantal, my mother tongue. He had a scroll before him, a quill in his veiny hand, a list of names and purposes scrawled on the paper.
“Yes,” I responded in Dairine. “I have a request for King Lannon.”
“And what might that request be?” the chamberlain asked, dipping his quill into the ink.
“That is for me to say, sire,” I answered as respectfully as I could.
“Lady, it is merely protocol that we announce your name with your purpose for seeking the king’s aid.”
“I understand. My name is Mistress Amadine Jourdain of Valenia. And the purpose must come from my tongue alone.”
He hefted a sigh but relented, writing my name out on the list. Then he wrote my name on a small scrap of paper, which he passed to me, instructing me to hand it to the herald when my time arrived.
A wake of quiet followed me as I entered the back of the hall, as I walked the aisle. I could feel the eyes of the audience rivet to me, drenching me like rain, and then threads of whispers as they wondered why I had come. Those whispers flowed all the way to the throne on the dais, where King Lannon sat with heavy-lidded eyes, blatantly bored as the man before him knelt, begging for an extension on his taxes.
I stopped, two men waiting to appeal between me and the king. That’s when Lannon saw me.
His eyes sharpened at once, taking me in. It felt like the point of a knife rushing over my body, testing the firmness of my skin, the layers of my gown, the nature of my forthcoming request.
Why, indeed, had a Valenian come to him?
I should not stare at him. I should lower my eyes, as a proper Valenian always does in the presence of royalty. But he was not royalty to me, and so I returned his stare.
He was not what I expected. Yes, I had seen his profile on a copper, which had depicted him as handsome, mythically godlike. And he truly might have been handsome for a man in his midfifties, had the scorn not soured the lines on his face, trapping his expressions in sneers and frowns. His nose was elegant, his eyes a vivid shade of green. His hair was pale, light blond melting amid the white of age, resting to the tops of his angular shoulders, a few Maevan braids beneath the twisted silver and glittering diamonds of his crown.
It was Liadan’s crown; I recognized it from the illustration I had once admired of her, the woven branches of silver and buds of diamonds, a crown that looked as if the stars had come about her. And he was wearing it. I almost frowned, angered at the sight.
Look away, my heart commanded when Lannon began to shift on his throne, his eyes suddenly assessing my pride as a threat.
I looked to the left, straight to Allenach.
Who was also staring at me.
The lord was elegant, well built and groomed, his maroon jerkin capturing his heraldic stag and laurels on his broad chest. His dark brown hair was tempered with a few threads of gray; two small braids framed his face, and a thin golden circlet sat on his forehead to denote his nobleness. His jaw was clean-shaven, and his eyes gleamed like coals—a flicker of blue light that made me shiver. Was he also seeing me as a threat?
“My lord king, this sigil was found among this man’s possessions.”
I looked away from Allenach to see what was unfolding at the footstool of the throne. The man in front of me was kneeling, bowing his head to Lannon. He looked to be somewhere in his sixties, weathered and worn and trembling. At the man’s side stood a guard dressed in Lannon green, accusing him of something before the king. I let my focus home in on them, especially when I saw a small square of blue fabric dangling from the guard’s fingers.
“Bring that to me,” Lannon requested.
The guard ascended the dais, bowed and then gave the king the blue fabric. I watched as Lannon sneered, as he held the fabric up for the court to see.
There was a horse, stitched in proud silver thread, over the blue fabric. At once, my face blanched, my heart began to pound, for I knew whose sigil that was. It was Lord Morgane’s mark. Lord Morgane, who was disguised as Theo d’Aramitz, who was currently at Damhan for the hunt. . . .
“Do you know the price for bearing the traitor’s sigil?” Lannon calmly asked the kneeling man.
> “My lord king, please,” the man rasped. “I am faithful to you, to Lord Burke!”
“The price is your head,” the king continued, his voice bored. “Gorman?”
From the shadows, a hulk of a man wearing a hood emerged, an axe in his hands. Another man brought forth the chopping block. I was crushed with shock, with horror, when I realized they were about to behead the man in front of me.
The hall had gone painfully quiet, and all I could hear was the memory of Jourdain’s words . . . I watched it, afraid to speak out. We were all afraid to speak out.
And so now I watched as the old man was forced to kneel, to lay his head upon the chopping block. I was one breath from stepping forward, from letting my entire façade shatter, when a voice broke the silence.
“My lord king.”
Our eyes shifted to the left of the hall, where a tall, gray-haired lord had stepped forward. He wore a golden circlet on his head, a bright red jerkin pressed with the heraldry of an owl.
“Quickly speak what ails you, Burke,” the king impatiently said.
Burke bowed, and then held up his hands. “This man is one of my best masons. It would hurt my household to lose him.”
“This man also harbors the traitor’s mark,” Lannon spouted, holding the blue fabric up again. “Do you mean to tell me how to dole my justice?”
“No, my king. But this man, long ago, once served the traitor before the rebellion. Since the victory of 1541, he has served under my House, and he has not once spoken the fallen name. It is, most likely, by accident that this sigil has endured.”
The king chuckled. “There are no accidents when it comes to traitors, Lord Burke. I would kindly remind you of that, and I will also say that if any more traitorous marks arise from your House, you will have to pay for it with blood.”
“It will not happen again, my lord king,” Burke promised.
Lannon propped his jaw on his fist, his eyes hooded as if he was bored again. “Very well. The man will be given thirty lashes in the courtyard.”
Burke bowed in gratitude as his mason was hauled up from the chopping block. The man wept his thanks, thanks that he was going to be scourged instead of beheaded, and I watched as they passed me, heading for the courtyard. Lord Burke’s face was ashen as he followed them, and he brushed my shoulder.
I took note of his expression, of his name. For he was bound to become an ally.
“Lady?” the herald was whispering to me, waiting for my name card.
I handed it to him, my mouth going dry, my pulse spiking through my mind. Saints, I could not do this. I could not do this. . . . It was folly to mention MacQuinn’s name right on the heels of Morgane’s. And yet . . . I was here. There was no going back.
“May I present Mistress Amadine Jourdain, of Valenia, to his royal Lordship, King Gilroy Lannon of Maevana.”
I stepped forward, my kneecaps turning to water, and presented him with a graceful, fluid bow. For once, I was grateful for the rigid stays about my waist; they kept me upright and transformed me from an uncertain girl to a very confident woman. I thought of Sibylle and her mask of wit; I let such a mask come over my face, over my body as I waited for him to address me, my hair flowing around my shoulders, wavy from the ocean breeze. I hid the worry deep within me, let assurance hold my expression and posture, just as Sibylle would do.
This encounter would not come unraveled, like the summer solstice had months ago. This encounter was made from my creation and plotting; I would not let the king steal it from me.
“Amadine Jourdain,” Lannon said with a dangerous little smile. He seemed to say my name only to taste it as he caught Morgane’s sigil on fire from a nearby candle. I watched as the blue and the silver horse burned, burned and became ash as he dropped it to the stone floor beside the throne. “Tell me, what do you think of Maevana?”
“Your land is beautiful, my lord king,” I answered. Perhaps the only truth I would ever speak to him.
“It has been a long time since a Valenian woman has come to make a request of me,” he continued, drawing a finger over his lips. “Tell me why you have come.”
I had woven these words together days ago, forged them in the warmth of my chest. I had carefully selected them, tasted them, practiced them. And then I had memorized them, spoken them facing a mirror to see how they should influence my expression.
Even so, my memory wilted when I needed it most, the fear like a spider crawling up my voluptuous skirts when all I could see was the girl on the spike, when all I could hear was the faint lash of the whip from the courtyard.
I linked my trembling hands together and said, “I have come to ask your graciousness to grant passage to Maevana.”
“For whom?” Lannon asked, that insolent smile still curling the ends of his mouth.
“My father.”
“And who is your father?”
I drew in a deep breath, my heart thundering through my veins. I looked up at the king beneath my lashes, and proclaimed loud enough so every ear in the hall could hear: “I know him as Aldéric Jourdain, but you will know him as the lord of the House of MacQuinn.”
I expected there would be silence when I spoke the fallen name, but I did not expect it to last so long or cut so deep. Or for the king to rise with slow, predatory grace, his pupils turning his eyes to a near black as he glared down at me.
I wondered if I was about to lose my head, right here at the footstool of the antler-and-wrought-iron throne that had once been Liadan’s. And there would be no Lord Burke to stop it.
“The name ‘MacQuinn’ has not been spoken here for twenty-five years, Amadine Jourdain,” Lannon said, the words twisting as a long vine of thorns throughout the hall. “In fact, I have cut out many tongues who dared to utter it.”
“My lord king, allow me to explain.”
“You have three minutes,” Lannon said, jerking his chin toward one of the scribes who sat further down the dais. The scribe’s eyes widened as he realized he was appointed to time how long I got to keep my tongue.
But I was calm, collected. I felt the pulse of the earth, buried deep beneath all of this stone and tile and fear and tyranny, the heartbeat of the land that once was. The Maevana that Liadan Kavanagh had created so long ago. One day, a queen will rise, Cartier had once said to me.
That day was coming on the horizon. That day gave me courage when I needed it most.
“Lord MacQuinn has spent twenty-five years in exile,” I began. “He once dared to defy you. He once dared to take the throne from your possession. But you were stronger, my lord king. You crushed him. And it has taken nearly a quarter of a century for him to strip his pride to its bones, for him to soften enough to recognize his mistake, his treachery. He has sent me to ask you to pardon him, that his exile and his loss have been a great price he has paid. He has sent me to ask you to allow him back into the land of his birth, to once more serve you, to show that while you are fierce, you are also merciful and good.”
Lannon stood so still and quiet he could have been carved from stone. But the diamonds in his crown sparkled with malicious glee. Slowly, I watched his leather jerkin rustle with his breathing, and he stepped down the dais, his boots hardly making noise on the tiles. He was coming—stalking—to me, and I held my ground, waiting.
Only when he was a handbreadth away, looming over me, did he ask, “And why has he sent you, Amadine? To tempt me?”
“I am his passion daughter,” I answered, helplessly looking at the broken blood vessels around his nose. “He has sent me to show his trust in you. He has sent me because I am of his family, and I have come alone, without an escort, to furthermore show his good faith in his king.”
“A passion, is it?” His eyes roved over me. “What sort?”
“I am a mistress of knowledge, my lord king.”
A muscle feathered along his jaw. I had no inkling as to what thoughts swarmed his mind, but he didn’t seem pleased. Knowledge, indeed, was dangerous. But he finally turned away, walkin
g back to his throne, his long royal robes of amber dragging behind him on the floor, rippling as liquid gold as he ascended the dais stairs.
“Tell me, Amadine Jourdain,” he said, resuming his seat on the grand throne. “What would your passion father do upon returning to the land of his birth?”
“He would serve you in whatever manner you would ask of him.”
“Ha! That is rather interesting. If I remember correctly, Davin MacQuinn was a very proud man. Do you recall, Lord Allenach?”
Allenach had not moved, not an inch. But his eyes were still on me, circumspectly. And that was when I remembered what Liam had said, the dynamic between the king and his councillor. That it was more important for me to get Allenach’s blessing, for Allenach influenced the king like no other.
“Yes, my lord king,” Allenach spoke, his voice a deep set baritone that moved through the hall like darkness. “Davin MacQuinn was once a very proud man. But his daughter speaks otherwise, that twenty-five years have finally cured him.”
“It does not strike you odd that he would send his passion daughter to come make atonement for him?” Lannon questioned, the amethyst ring on his forefinger catching the light that poured in through the windows overhead.
“No. Not at all,” Allenach eventually responded, those eyes still weighing me, trying to measure my depth. Was I a threat, or wasn’t I? “As Amadine has stated, he has sent his most precious resource, to exemplify the honesty of his request.”
“And what of the others, Amadine?” Lannon asked brusquely. “The other two lords, the two cowards who have slipped through my nets, just as your father? I just burned one of their sigils. Where are the others?”
“I know of no others, my lord king,” I answered.
“For your sake, I hope you speak truth,” the king said, leaning forward. “Because if I find out otherwise, you will regret ever stepping into my hall.”
I had not prepared to be threatened so many times. And my voice had fled, turning to dust in my throat, and so I gave him another curtsy, to acknowledge his cold statement.
“So you believe we should allow him to return home?” Lannon crossed his legs, glancing back to his councillor.