The Queens of Innis Lear
Burgun chatted with the King’s Fool, whose name Mars never had caught. The Fool wore ridiculous stripes and a toy sword in a sheath on his back; his hair was dyed unnatural red and he had paint on his lower lip and at the corners of his eyes. He clapped his hands and bowed extravagantly toward Mars. “Your bright Majesty, we’ve come to entertain you until the king arrives.”
Mars nodded, unwilling to address the man simply as Fool, and then said, “Ullo,” to the king of Burgun. If this invitation to Innis Lear had not come when it did, Burgun would be annexed to Aremoria by now, and in a different sort of political mess.
“Morimaros,” Ullo replied, wearing a vapid smile. Behind him came ten men in the maroon regalia of Burgun, all trimmed with fur or elaborate golden embroidery. They wore long knives, but no mail or armor or swords. It wasn’t from politeness, Mars was certain, but the belief that finery was more impressive than military accouterment would’ve been.
The Fool made directly for the only seat in the yard that was not a bench, and thrust himself into it with the urgency of a child. He draped across the arms, and said, “Wine not far behind, good fellows, would you like a song?”
Before Ullo could speak, Mars said, “I’d like the history of the table here.”
Ullo laughed, but the Fool’s smile was tinged with mystery. He said, “Only a table, great king, and a grave.”
“A grave?” Ullo said, recoiling.
To keep from rolling his eyes, Mars refused to make any expression at all. The imbecile still had not determined that the Fool spoke only in riddles. “For whom?” Mars asked. He folded his arms across his chest, knowing it broadened his shoulders, and glad to be taller than Ullo of Burgun.
“Or what?” asked the Fool.
Mars nodded. He understood: this was the effect of the ascendancy of stars. A grave for rootwater.
“So serious,” Ullo declared, patting his hand along the black stone table. He wore rings on all but one finger, weighing down his pale hand. “This is a celebration! We’re here to celebrate … one of us.”
Mars did not accept the volley. It was a weak charge, which would not even reach his defenses.
The Fool began to sing, and Mars considered departing. Surely it was not worth another meeting with the king of Innis Lear if Ullo was to be here as well. Perhaps courting her at all was a mistake. There were other ways to retake the island, other ways to secure better sea trade. But his father had insisted one of Lear’s daughters should be the next queen of Aremoria. It might’ve been the first or second daughter, and then with nothing more than a marriage, Mars could have reunited the island to Aremoria. But now that he was at last prepared to wed, the only unmarried daughter was a star priest, and likely too steeped in her father’s way.
He remembered Princess Elia only as a quiet girl who clutched her father’s hand as if nothing else kept her tethered to this world. In eleven years could she have changed so much? Her replies to his letters had been simple and brief, speculating upon the upcoming seasons and suggesting several small prophecies for his use. Ban had described to him a young girl of vivid personality, of curiosity and an earthly beauty. Such personality had not been present in her correspondence, though when he glanced over the letters again during the ocean crossing, he’d found some hints of humor he had overlooked before. But that might only have been wishful thinking. After all, he’d been forced to idleness on the ship, too, with nothing but the gray sea and unclear paths ahead of him. Too many possibilities, not enough information.
Mars reminded himself to be patient. The worst Ullo could do was irritate him, and young Elia Lear would be here at the Summer Seat soon. One of his men had been tasked since yesterday with alerting him immediately when her entourage arrived. It was Elia he needed to win over, not her father or this Fool, nor anyone else on Innis Lear.
He remained in the Rose Courtyard, taking position with his men. With one ear he listened to Burgun and the Fool chatter and flirt, to their rather inappropriate jokes—leave it to Ullo to understand nuance only if it was sexual in nature—and songs. The rest of Mars’s mind turned toward the future, and the variety of possibilities he foresaw, depending on what occurred at tomorrow’s Zenith Court.
He’d been promised an answer to his courtship, and all believed the king would finally name his eldest, Gaela, as his official heir, perhaps even step down immediately. But anything could happen, and Mars would do best to have thought through any number of outcomes and actions, so that when the moment arrived, he’d have a plan, and multiple backup plans.
So the Aremore king remained, a spider carefully poised, spinning several days of the future out again and again, asking himself silent questions and answering them, busy with webs of strategy.
Then Lear entered, with his youngest daughter at his side, her chin tucked down, a small, curious smile on her lovely face, an old leather book in her arms, and stars in her hair.
Mars forgot every single thread of his thoughts in an instant.
ELIA
ELIA WAS PLEASED to discover that her father was leading her toward the Rose Courtyard for their meeting; it had always been one of her favorite places at the Summer Seat, even since the well had been closed. She felt safe there, understood. It was a good sign for the introduction about to take place. Elia breathed carefully, practicing a cool expression, practicing being a star.
When she entered, the wind was tense, whispering little cries without words. She held tight against her chest the large tome of star charts she’d carried from her father’s rooms, and glanced up, curious.
Each king had, of course, claimed a side.
To the east Ullo of Burgun waited surrounded by his own retainers in bright maroon and gold, jeweled sheaths for long knives hung from leather belts. They clustered in a friendly group, and though a few eyed the Aremores, most chatted with each other and Ullo. Just as Lear and Elia entered, the king laughed, tossing back a head of thick brown hair so his teeth glinted whitely and well. He clapped a pale hand on the chest of the Burgundian lord beside him. Sweat glistened at the temples of both Ullo and this man, laden as they were with velvet and fur-lined finery. But Ullo was pretty, and his beard seemed soft around his full, smiling mouth.
Across from him, only six Aremores presented, each of them in quilted orange gambesons, with pauldrons fixed to their shield shoulders by a red leather strap diagonal across the chest. The steel pauldrons were round as a moon reflecting sunlight. One Aremore man stood out at the fore, though he held himself exactly as the soldiers did and his costume was the same but for a heavy ring of garnet and pearls on his thumb and a simple crown etched into the surface of his pauldron. This king’s head was shorn nearly bare, and a perfectly trimmed brown beard to match it spread over his hard jaw. He had blue eyes, and their long dark lashes were the only promise of softness from the king of Aremoria. And he had no love for Burgun; that was obvious from the analytic stare he cast toward the more relaxed Ullo.
With a pleased start, Elia recognized the final man in the courtyard, lounging in a chair with his leg tossed up over the arm, wearing a striped coat of several bright colors: Aefa’s father, Lear’s Fool. She smiled and nearly broke Lear’s game by calling out to him. But she remembered that this was a volatile moment, and she needed to maintain poised calm for her father’s sake—and for her own. Her smile stopped at slight.
The moment king and daughter entered, Ullo snapped to attention, and Morimaros of Aremoria bowed his head respectfully.
“Your Majesty of Innis Lear,” said Burgun, stepping forward. “What a charming garden this is, and a surprise on this cold, sharp cliff. It seems roses are a perfect flower for your island, as beautiful and hearty as they are.”
“And tangled,” Lear said, amused. “And sharp and treacherous.”
Ullo blinked, then smiled as if it were the only reaction he could think to have.
“Lear,” the king of Aremoria said only.
“Aremoria,” Lear returned.
Retaking attention, Ullo swept his hand toward the Fool. “Your Fool has kept us well entertained, sir, as we awaited you.”
“And you”—the Fool stood to offer an elaborate bow—“entertained me beyond well, king, verging toward ill, if all things are circles.” Taller and lankier than the king had ever been, he kept his hair short and spiky, dyed henna red, and dots of red painted the outer corners of his eyes and bottom lip, like a woman.
Lear embraced his Fool fondly, saying, “Your wit rarely comes full circle, friend.”
“More of a spiral, I’d say, beginning and ending only in your ability to comprehend.”
Lear laughed, and so did his Fool, their heads knocking together as if they were alone in all the world. Though Elia understood the joking, or so she thought, there seemed something still she could not catch.
“You’ve brought a star priest with you,” said the king of Aremoria lightly.
Elia met his gaze: Morimaros watched her dispassionately.
“Ah, no.” Ullo of Burgun bounded forward, his hand out to Elia. “This is the princess Elia of Lear. My lady, only a dullard could mistake your unique beauty for anyone else.”
Morimaros’s lips pulled into a line Elia could not read. She gave the charts over to one of Lear’s retainers and allowed Ullo her hand, saying, “But I am a star priest, my lord, and so it was no mistake.”
Ullo touched her fingers to his lips and smiled. “I am rather overwhelmed at meeting you, and apologize for any misspeaking.”
She squeezed his fingers, and he released her. His eyes trailed down her neck and across her breasts with open intimacy. As her flesh went cold, she turned her face to Morimaros. “My father did bring a star priest with him. You wished your birth chart analyzed.”
“We are to be honored by your very own prophecies?” Ullo said, hand over his heart.
The king of Aremoria did not react but to flick his eyes at Ullo. Elia hid another smile, believing Morimaros had stronger feelings for Burgun than for her. That should make remaining detached easier.
It was Lear who said, one arm about his Fool, the other waving at the retainers, “Here are the charts, if my dearest daughter obliges, and perhaps in your stars she’ll find some preference for her favors.”
“I would petition the jewels of heaven to tilt in their courses toward me,” Ullo said prettily.
Elia wished Morimaros would say, I need rely on no such petitioning, or some such, that might put the king of Burgun down, but Morimaros was silent.
She gestured for the charts to be placed upon the well’s tabletop and glanced between the two kings. “I must begin with knowing your times of birth, so we might choose the correct charts.”
Morimaros paused in consideration.
“Do you know it?” she prompted gently.
“I do, lady,” he said just as gently. “I only would not want to remove from Ullo the chance to be first.”
“Sporting of you,” Ullo snapped. “Perhaps there is some star sign now which of us should be preferred.”
Casting her gaze up at the blue sky, Elia said, “I’m afraid the afternoon stars have no signs for us, influencing instead beyond our means to see.”
“Perhaps a worm sign, then?”
She looked sharply to the speaker: it had been Morimaros.
“Do you listen to the language of trees?” the king of Aremoria continued. He held his expression as cool as ever, but Elia warmed at the question.
“Worm signs!” Lear cried, scrubbing the air with his arms. “None such in my court.”
Elia’s pulse jumped, and she forced her pleasure hard away. “Of course not, Father,” she soothed.
Ullo frowned sympathetically. “Only the purest prophecy for such as ourselves.”
“Indeed,” Lear said. “I will be the star of this afternoon and say Ullo will have his reading first.”
Elia glanced at Morimaros with slight apology, wishing she might say something to him, but in the end these kings mattered little to her.
Ullo was twenty-four years old, born under the Violet Moon of the Year of Past Shadows. Elia paged through the proper charts while Ullo leaned over her shoulder, smiling prettily in the corner of her eye, but not pressing near enough to touch or overwhelm her. He smelled of properly burnt sugar and a current of sweat, but not unpleasantly so.
The Year of Past Shadows had been full of repeating patterns in the dawn clouds, tied back to the year before, and thus given its name. Elia kept that in mind as she carefully marked a blank sky map with stars from the night of Ullo’s birth, counting everything forward, wishing she knew the clouds and very worm signs Morimaros had asked after. Or had a handful of holy bones to cast. But her father did not allow bones, or any such earthly predictions, in his records. Unlike bones and earth, Lear said, the stars see all, from their greater vantage point, and are not marred by subjectivity.
The king of Burgun’s birth star was the Rabbit’s Heart, rising under a crescent moon to inflict sharpness on an otherwise generous spirit. Perhaps the sharpness of a crown, she assured him, so long as he did not allow it to make him bitter.
“With so sweet a lady as you beside me, bitterness would be impossible,” he replied.
Elia demurred, but her father laughed approvingly, and the Fool pointed out that some bittersweet flavors remained longest in memory.
Morimaros of Aremoria would turn thirty in just over a month, several days before this year’s equinox. “But it was the equinox itself the night I was born,” he offered.
“Ah,” King Lear intoned excitedly, putting a sour tilt to Ullo of Burgun’s smile.
“That is helpful,” Elia said, repeating her charge of marking down stars and counting forward as she’d done first for Ullo. The Aremore king had been born in the Year of the Sixth Birds, and on that autumnal equinox, an hour before dawn in Aremoria, it was the Lion of War that crowned the sky. Elia glanced at her father, whose eyes narrowed on the chart. “That constellation holds your counter star, Elia,” he said testily.
“It is, my lord,” she agreed. “The Lion of War, rampant and constant as Calpurlugh, but instead of a stationary constant, it circles the same piece of sky, protecting or confining.”
Morimaros cleared his throat. He had not moved nearer to her for his reading, but maintained his stance at the fore of his retainers, shoulders back and hands folded behind him. “Is Calpurlugh not the Eye of the Lion? It has been years since my astronomy lessons, but I thought they were pieces of each other.”
“Pieces that never see one another, yes,” Elia said. “They are not in sequence together, but only one or the other. Depending on the stars around them, it is either Calpurlugh or the Lion that shines, never both.”
“Alas,” Ullo of Burgun said.
“But the Lion is bold, and on an equinox dawn as this is, he is isolated but surrounded by … possibility.” Elia felt an unusual urge to couch her reading, for this was a lonely one, and she could imagine it heartbreaking for a man already isolated within a crown. It was not a future she would choose for herself.
Morimaros did not seem affected, though, or particularly invested in the reading. His blue eyes remained calm, and he showed neither disappointment nor pleasure, as if none of this mattered at all.
Irritated to feel she’d wasted her time, when he had requested this reading in his letter—had it been his only way of flirtation? Appealing to her interest though he shared it not at all?—Elia straightened. “I am weary, sirs,” she said, “and my companion must have arrived by now. I must see her and rest after my travel down from the north.”
Immediately, Morimaros bowed, accepting her withdrawal.
The Fool clapped his hands. “I would go with you, to see Aefa.”
“Please,” Elia said.
Lear put a hand on Ullo’s shoulder, but said to both kings, “You will see my Elia again at tomorrow’s Zenith Court, where all I have promised will be decided.”
The king of Aremoria said, “I hope I may speak with you, Lear, further?”
Truly, Elia thought as she kissed her father’s cheek, it was her father that Morimaros had come to treat with, not her. He obviously wished alliance and dowry; not a queen, not herself.
Ullo offered his hand, and she took it, glad he at least bothered to pay her personal attention, even if his eyes lingered too long on her neck, on her wrists and the line from breast to waist. Tomorrow she would be rid of both these kings.
The king of Burgun escorted her out of the courtyard, the Fool following behind with a weird, affected gate. When they emerged into the inner yard, Elia angled toward the family keep. “Thank you,” she said.
“I hope we can continue our courtship, even beyond tomorrow.”
“I have … enjoyed your letters,” she acknowledged, thinking of Aefa’s recitations.
Drawing her nearer, Ullo said, “I would rather your good opinion than your father’s. Aremoria may be a great commander, but I rule from the heart, and I want only what is best for my people. I think you are it, and beautiful.”
Though uncomfortable at the touch of his hip to hers, Elia appreciated the honesty. “I will not favor Aremoria over Burgun based on these stars.”
His smile was radiant.
The Fool’s face appeared between hers and Ullo’s. He smiled madly, showing all his teeth. “I was born under a grinning moon, see?”
“I do,” Ullo said, laughing as though charmed. He took the hint, and stepped back from Elia, bowing over her hand. “Until tomorrow, princess.”
The king of Burgun and his maroon retinue passed beyond her, marching at a leisurely pace toward the guest tower. Elia wondered at the wisdom or folly of putting both kings in the same place. They clearly did not get on, and they had been at war for two consecutive summers. Had it been her father’s decision, and had he done so with a mischievous mind? Or merely at the suggestion of the stars?
“I think you would make a great queen,” the Fool said, touching her hair. She suspected he’d found one of the crystals pinned with the silver web. Elia turned her head. The Fool’s eyes were so like Aefa’s, though the white lids drooped heavier with age despite his being nearly two decades younger than Lear. She smelled spiced meat on his breath, and the earthy fresh henna in his hair.
Elia put her fingers on his red-stained bottom lip. She did not want to be any queen, nor did she feel suited to the job. “Hush, before the stars hear.”
“The vault of heaven does not listen to fools,” he said brightly, and danced her across the yard.
FIVE YEARS AGO,
ASTORA
THE STAR CHAPEL of Astora was built into the surrounding mountains, formed of heavy limestone and plaster, painted generations ago with gold flake and indigo to make the first chamber like the vault of heaven. Regan Lear passed through it, unconcerned with the public sanctuary. Heads turned as star-kissed priests and the prayerful noted the middle daughter of their king gliding through sharp and smooth as a galley in calm waters. Not since her elder sister’s wedding to their duke two years ago had Regan come into this chapel, but she was immediately recognizable. Against the martial Gaela Astore, who covered herself most days in armor and the raiment of men, it was perhaps a surprise to gaze upon such a sleek, feminine princess. Regan’s gown was voluminous and pale as the sky at dawn, dragging behind her in a perfect half-circle of oystered layers. She wore a veil of thin silver chains woven through her curls, and looped beneath her chin from delicate brooches at her temples. A dripping crown of rain.
And most startling of all, this princess smiled.
Today was the first day Regan had been truly happy since her mother died.
She reached the arched doorway leading to the Chapel of the Navel and heaved it open. The staircase was narrow and cold, and instantly she was assaulted by the damp air blowing down from the chapel above. This was the oldest chamber in the church, carved high into the side of the mountain long before any dukedoms, when the island welcomed people into its bleeding heart.
Regan lit no candles from the small storage alcoves. In violet darkness, she steadily ascended. Her thin-soled slippers tip-tapped against the stone, echoing forward like a gentle warning. She paused to toe them off at the top of the stairs, proceeding forward in bare feet. The passage was not long, but it narrowed in the center before widening again, like a birthing canal. Or that was how Regan imagined it, her smile brightening.
The Navel itself was merely a stone rectangle cut into the mountain, with a ledge carved along the walls for sitting. The entrance through which Regan had arrived looked directly across the twenty-foot length and through two narrow stone columns, outside into the dark valley below. Astora City was a warm glow, and beyond, velvet hills lifted gently away, before the stretch of purple sky.
A six-pointed star had been carved through the roof, allowing moonlight and starlight to shine dimly in. It was not the proper time of year or night to serve its greatest function, at the apex of the Longest Night Moon.
Regan moved directly below the skylight, where the slate floor had cracked with age, and knelt beside the only adornment: a stone water basin carved beside a deep, narrow well. The well was covered with a wooden lid, so Regan shoved it aside. She dipped her fingers into the stale, tired water, ruining the dull reflection of the night sky, and touched the wet blessing to her cheeks, her lips, and then the linen over her belly. Her hand remained there, cupping the only star Regan cared for: the new pinprick of light in the deep recess of her body.
She bowed her head, a smile continuing to play at her lips, and thought of the life in her, the dynamic, dangerous spark. Her breath was low and long, deep and content. Not a feeling Regan was accustomed to, being a woman of sharp, fierce ambition. She rarely experienced anything like peace in her heart. Satisfaction, however, was a thing she’d recently come to know quite intimately, and she was pleased to discover how the one could lead to the other.
The stars grew bolder as she waited, and color fled the sky until it was black as black could be.
Regan imagined the moments approaching again and again: her stern sister’s mouth falling open in surprise; their embrace; the tense, rough argument, followed by renewed dedication to each other. It was a thrill to anticipate the special, unique pleasure of being of one mind with Gaela, the most ferocious, the great pillar of her heart.
Of course she heard her sister approach.
A clatter and grunt, the oddly gentle ringing of metal, like a song.
Regan straightened her shoulders, held her penitent pose.
Behind her, Gaela burst into the room with a quiet curse.
“Sister,” Gaela said harshly. Not from anger or irritation, but for herself. Gaela wielded her words and movements like armor and war hammers. Regan preferred her own thorns to be small and precise and subtle, though no less deadly.
Settling back onto her heels, Regan sang out in the language of trees. Sister! One of the only such words Gaela understood.