Her heart beat too hard as Elia took it back from him. His hands were calloused and the knuckles pinked and rough. A warrior’s hands, but for the pearl and garnet ring. That ring had anchored her to the earth, when her father cast her away.
“What in heaven is that?” Kayo asked.
Elia glanced at the small scrap. Scratched in the hash-marks of the language of trees, it read:
I keep my promises. B.
“Oh,” Elia said.
“My turn,” her uncle said, gently taking the paper. “But what is the meaning? I never learned to read these ancient marks.”
Elia did not have to glance again to translate, “I keep my promises. From Ban.”
Morimaros said, his chin tucked down and brows together, “The Fox?”
Elia shook her head, but Kayo said, “Yes, though he is most known in Lear as the bastard of Errigal.”
“We were friends when we were children,” Elia murmured, more nervous to open Earl Errigal’s letter itself now than before. Then the king’s inquiry struck her. She looked at him, startled. “You know Ban Errigal?”
“I do. He served in my army for years, and earned his epithet well. What promise?”
The last line was so evenly slipped in, Elia hardly noticed it at first, and nearly spoke unfettered truth. Ban had promised to tear her father down. I will prove it to you, how easy it is to ruin a father’s heart.
The full truth was that Elia was not certain exactly what Ban had so furiously sworn. Heat grew in her neck, in her cheeks, and Elia was glad it could barely be seen, not in the same indecorous way she could see the gentle pink flush reaching up from Morimaros’s beard, the longer it took her to answer his question.
Elia said, “He promised to do what he could for me, from Innis Lear.” Truth, but not all of it.
“To fight for you?” Morimaros said quietly. A tension pained his voice, and Elia remembered what her sisters had said, that this Aremore king would take Lear for himself if he was allowed to. Elia stared at Morimaros and realized it was not nations or war at the fore of the king’s mind.
An answer stuck in her mouth as her eyes stuck on his.
Kayo broke the silence. “The young man is angry at the world, sir. I’ve spoken with Ban, and he carries a fire that will burn down whatever he sets it upon. If he will put it to Elia’s cause, she would benefit.”
The king did not look away from Elia. “You need your friends,” he said.
Though Elia was not entirely sure what had passed in Morimaros’s heart, unbidden relief cooled her own. She did not take the scrawled note back from Kayo; instead she broke the seal on Errigal’s letter to finally read for her uncle, in concession to the king of Aremoria.
But she did not need to be holding the note to feel its weight, or to remember perfectly the fast, flawed lines of Ban’s writing, the deep cuts in the paper where he’d pressed too hard. Only a few words of the ancient language, and yet they might as well have been cut into her skin.
I keep my promises.
AEFA
THE ROYAL KENNEL was tucked into the northeastern curve of the secondary wall of the palace. A two-story structure built with pale wood and shingles, with a round grassy yard, it was warm all the time and smelled of hay, hairy beasts, mud, and the leavings of hectic but well-trained dogs. Aefa loved it, for kennels were the same in Aremoria and Innis Lear, so she found homesickness alleviated. And besides, dogs were a refuge of loyalty, love, and honesty in a world that nurtured the opposite.
Though Morimaros kept his raches and bloodhounds comfortably, as befitting their status as the king’s dogs, it was his nephew, Isarnos, who adored the animals. And as Isarnos was the reason the king could delay marriage as long as he had, Morimaros gave his heir almost complete run of the kennels.
It had been Aefa’s flirtation with one of the young prince’s tutors that led her to the knowledge that there was a litter of puppies, and Aefa’s considerable charm applied to royal grooms gained her access to the whelps. She’d visited every other day this past week.
The litter’s arrival was one of several pieces of intelligence Aefa had collected, with nothing more than the casual acquisition of friends. Another week in Aremoria and she’d determine who to pursue for more dedicated personal cultivation, based on a prioritized list of Elia’s needs. After all, Aefa understood charm to be her best tool for acquiring a web of allies and informants, as she’d learned last winter at the Dondubhan barracks. She’d let the adorable legitimate Errigal son seduce her, and in return she pinned him to his pillows to interrogate him on how he made everybody like him so rotting much. He was good looking, and so was Aefa; he was charismatic, and so could she be. Therefore, what could he teach her?
Plenty about sex, it turned out, and then even more about Lear’s retainers and the state of politics under the king. But he had been unable to teach her how to gain access where she was lacking. Rory Earlson had never had to learn. He simply had access; he’d been born with it, and he rarely noticed its effectiveness as a tool or a weapon. Aefa was not an earl’s son, or even an earl’s daughter. Her parents had been seasonal servants at Dondubhan until her father’s humor caught Lear’s attention; because of that and the lucky virtue of sharing a rare birth star with the king, the Fool was raised high. Though the king himself promptly forgot his Fool had ever been less than the equal of, say, a valued, honored retainer, the vast majority of the king’s household certainly remembered. Here in Aremoria, Aefa was again fettered by status, even elevated as a princess’s most trusted companion.
Aefa shook her head, hoping to shed the bitter taste in her mouth. She crouched down in a pool of her own skirts, surrounded by fluffy, slithering puppies, each large enough now to argue and snap over space on the girl’s lap. Aefa smiled and teased them, rotating the little creatures as fairly as she could manage: they each got a verse of poetry along with some scratching. The mother of the litter, a beautiful chestnut dog, leaned nearby, watching with sleepy brown eyes, her feathery tail thumping slowly against the wooden floor. She was sleek and long-legged, with a wide head but a longer snout, and not nearly so rangy and shaggy as the deerhounds preferred for hunting on Innis Lear. A little page boy swept the length of the smooth wooden floor, humming along with Aefa’s hushed rhymes. The windows were grated, but open to the afternoon, and a fine cool cross-breeze blew through smelling of river and crisp city fires.
The only two things marring Aefa’s happiness were missing the island under her feet and her inability to decide how—and who to use—to best curry favor for Elia. In terms of pleasurable seduction, La Far would have been Aefa’s personal choice, though he was more than ten years her elder. The way he moved, and the vast heaviness peering out of his eyes, intrigued her to the point of distraction. Consequently, he was a poor choice, if her purpose was Elia’s benefit, not merely that of her own loins.
Then there was Ianta, the Twice-Princess and King Morimaros’s sister. The woman was fat and delightful, and she’d winked at Aefa three days ago, and she was rich and in a perfect position to influence the king. But she, too, was old, and a widow, and the way she flirted with the lord of Perseria gave Aefa pause. Her sights, perhaps, should be set lower.
One of the younger sons of the Lady Marshal, maybe, or that cousin of Lord Ariacos who worked so closely with the Third Kingdom trade commander. Or the Alsax heir, if he was as unencumbered as his Errigal cousin. Any of them could provide valuable intelligence to aid Elia’s cause first in Aremoria, and then on Innis Lear.
Aefa only needed to narrow down exactly what that cause might be. Elia herself would not say, which was usual. Though, her companion thought, it had to be one of two things: return home alone, or marry Morimaros and establish herself outside Lear. Aefa’s instincts told her Elia would never agree to marriage before settling her father, before returning home to see everything on the island put right. Though marrying the king here might be the safer choice, it would not allow Elia to pursue what had before seemed her only goal:
a life of contemplation and peace, close to the stars.
Aefa could not put down the gut feeling that Elia had to go home. That her fate could not be found here, but only submerged in the rootwaters of Innis Lear.
“Aefa?”
“Elia!” Aefa said, lifting a dun-colored puppy in both hands so its round little paws flailed like it might run through the air. “Come sit with me, and tell me what the king wanted.”
The princess climbed the rest of the way onto the second floor. She nudged aside the puppies, allowed their mother a good long sniff at her skirts, and settled beside Aefa, legs curled beneath her. Elia snuggled a smooth, dusty puppy to her neck, and while it pawed at her breast and nuzzled her earlobe, Elia told Aefa about Kayo’s arrival, his news, and the letters he’d brought. She read aloud the letter from Errigal first (“Patronizing old dog!” Aefa spat), then Gaela’s (“Terrible as always, and you cannot marry Rory Errigal, for so many reasons!”) and Regan’s (“Pitiless and yet almost kind; she must be pregnant again!”), and finally they read together Aefa’s own letter from her father.
“Oh, Dada,” Aefa moaned softly.
Elia set the Fool’s letter into her lap with the others. “He means that my father truly believes I betrayed him; either that or the stars did. The stars showed him I would do one thing, and I did another, therefore one or the other of us must be false.”
“How can he think that it’s you?” Aefa asked, viciously enough the mother dog lifted her long head.
“Because the sun sets every day and rises again at the proper time. The tides sway and shift in exact patterns; the moon and the stars do not vary. So of course it must be his daughter, because daughters—and sons, and fathers, and all men—have inconstant hearts.” Elia said the last sadly.
“Not you, not Elia Lear.”
The princess offered a restrained shrug.
Aefa huffed, her entire body jerking as she clenched her fists and tried not to shove the puppies away so she could stand, offended on her mistress’s behalf. With exaggerated care she removed several puppies and got to her feet, allowing the last two to roll off the hem of her skirt. “Aren’t you angry?”
Elia glanced at her hand, fingers dug into the silky ruff of a puppy. It wiggled, and she released it, drawing her hand more gently down its short spine. “What good will anger do?” she asked quietly, eyes down.
“It’s something! Get you on your feet and fighting!”
“Fight? Fight what?” She raised her gaze to Aefa, whose cheeks were round, flushed cherries. “My frightening sisters? My father’s madness?”
“I can’t tell you what to do. A princess outranks her maid.”
“There’s no such difference between us any longer, Aefa.”
The Fool’s daughter planted her fists to keep from flinging them up or tearing at her hair. “Don’t pity yourself, Elia. I won’t tolerate that.”
Elia’s brow tightened, then she said, “It’s only the truth, which you hold so dear. I’m not a princess. My father, who was the king, said so.”
“Do you truly believe that? And would it matter? Your father could tell me that I’m not my own father’s daughter, but nobody can change my birth. He can strip my name away, perhaps in Innis Lear at least, but he can’t change me.”
“I am changed, though,” Elia murmured, hardly moving her lips.
“How?”
“I … I’ve lost something. Something that made me know myself.”
“You hardly smile anymore.” Aefa dropped suddenly to her knees, scattering the pups. She gripped one of Elia’s hands, pinching rings and knuckles together.
Elia put her other hand over Aefa’s. She pulled a simple ring of silver and amber off her thumb and slid it onto Aefa’s first finger. “Faith,” she said, not looking up to meet her friend’s eyes. “Trust? I thought my father was the truest star in the sky—strange and capricious, but true. Years ago I chose him, Aefa. I chose to be his, against my sisters, because he was so very broken by my mother’s death. I made myself into his perfect star, believing him to be true. But he isn’t! If not that, then what? What can I believe in if I can’t believe the stars will rise? How can I trust myself or you or Morimaros or my sisters or Ban Errigal or anyone?” Her voice was tight, high, and fast.
Aefa jerked on their grasped hands. “You can trust me because I tell you so. Because I have no agenda other than you and me and our families, our country.”
Finally Elia met Aefa’s green gaze. “I don’t know how. I believe you, and yet … after all these years, how do I let you in? How have I never done so, before? What if I lose you, too, Aefa, as soon as I let myself love you?”
“Then you’ll survive.” Aefa leaned in swiftly to kiss Elia’s lips. “You’ll mourn, and you’ll survive. That’s what love is. It shouldn’t break you, not like your father broke, but make you stronger.”
Elia stared. She touched her lips. “Maybe it’s me,” the princess whispered. “I’m broken somewhere inside, in a place that used to be—that I thought always had been—solid and strong. This is what he’s feeling too, my father. Even if everyone hates it, he and I were there together. I was his star, the beacon leading through the storm of his loss. Now I am gone, and he has lost his way again. He lost me.”
“He threw you away!” Aefa tugged on a free strand of Elia’s hair, fierce and hissing. “You did nothing!”
“I never do anything, it’s as you said. I’m always the buffer, the balm and comfort! A bridge, perhaps. But the bridge doesn’t soar or even move; it never even sees the end of the river. I thought the stars were enough, that choosing them for him was enough, but I’ve spent my entire life doing nothing. Studying what others do, what the stars say we should do. Reacting. Being what I’m supposed to be. I held the course, tried to be kind and listen, but did you know? Even the trees do not speak to me now. I spent myself with the silent stars and forgot the language of trees.”
“You can relearn,” Aefa murmured, stunned.
Elia shook her head. “I should have refused my father’s decree. I could have stayed, and gone with Gaela or Regan to hold my place against him until he saw me again. I should not have let his mad dismissal push me away or their disdain and exclusion intimidate me. I should have done something. But I don’t know how to act, Aefa. I only … am still.” She paused, then whispered, “I should have run away with Ban.”
Aefa pulled away and lowered her chin to stare suspiciously. “You should have done what with whom? The bastard of Errigal? The Fox of Aremoria?”
Elia fluttered her lashes and glanced down. “There was a fifth note,” she confessed. “From Ban Errigal, yes.”
Aefa made a strangled gasp.
“The king has it now. It said, I keep my promises, marked in the language of trees. At least I can still read it.” Elia added the latter quickly, as if it might cover up the first part.
“What promise?!” Aefa shrieked.
“He promised to show me how easily changed a father’s love can be. To prove somehow this was not my fault, but a fault of weakness in our fathers.”
Aefa narrowed her eyes and mouth. “I can’t decide if that sounds brilliant or dangerous. Very likely both, then.”
“That describes him, Aefa. Brilliant and dangerous.”
“Oh? Oh?” It excited Aefa: she’d been hunting for signs of attraction or desire in Elia for over a year. Why wait for such things to be decided for you? She’d always asked. Elia always replied, I will be what I am.
Aefa touched her princess’s back.
Shaking her head that she was all right, Elia took a deep breath.
“We can fix this,” Aefa said. “What do you want to do?”
“Be bold.” Elia lifted her face and gripped Aefa’s hand. “Aefa,” she whispered, holding tight to her friend, “I don’t know how.”
“Elia,” Aefa said back, strong and firm. “Choose.”
“Act. Yes. I’m going to—to do what Regan says.”
The Fool’s daughter
laughed, once, loudly and with disbelief. “You are.”
Elia roused herself to her feet. “Come with me.”
They went quickly down from the kennel loft, then swept across the courtyard and back into the palace proper. Without allowing Aefa a moment to pick the straw out of her hair, Elia marched them into the castle proper. She asked a guard where the king was, twice. Aefa hurried behind, until they reached the wide polished doors leading into Morimaros’s grand throne room where the king was holding a hastily assembled council session.
Aefa bit her inner cheek, knowing that meant some news had come, or something disrupted the usual calm order of the Aremore court. She hoped it was nothing to grieve Elia further, and Aefa wished she could go inside with her princess, a living shield or at least support.
In their path was a small boy, his ear pressed to the throne room doors, his eyes squeezed closed in concentration. Isarnos, the king’s nephew and current heir. At seven, Isarnos was already a magnanimous charmer who spread his attention to every living creature in Aremoria, based on the menagerie often trailing behind him. Today two bright green-and-yellow birds with hooked beaks perched on the sconces over his head, and a trio of cats stalked them in circles like slender, furred vultures. A harried-looking nurse and an animal handler with thick leather gloves and a pail of waste waited several paces from the doors. There was no sign of Aefa’s friendly tutor.
Aefa wondered what they’d find inside, to compete with the spectacle facing them out here.
“Isarnos?” Elia said gently.
His eyes flashed open. “Elia! That is, my lady. Princess. Have you come for the council? They began without you, but, oh! Your cousin is inside.”
“My cousin?”
Isarnos said, “The man from Innis Lear but who looks like he’s from the Third Kingdom.”
“Kayo,” Elia said, frowning.
Isarnos’s eyes widened at both of them, as if worried now he’d misbehaved. The boy was slender and pale, paler than Morimaros or the Elder Queen, paler than his own mother, Ianta. His father had been from the north, a warrior prince from the winter countries, and had died in battle three years ago. A terrible year that had been for Aremoria, perhaps like this one was shaping into for Innis Lear.
The Queens of Innis Lear Page 22