“I’ll be awaiting your letter,” Jourdain murmured, taking a step back.
The letter I was supposed to write when Lannon gave him admittance. The letter that would bring him and Luc over the waters to a dangerous homecoming.
“Yes, Father.” I turned to go, Jean David patiently waiting with the typical stern expression on his face, holding my trunk.
I made it four steps before Jourdain called me.
“Amadine.”
I paused, looked back at him. He was in the ribs of shadows, gazing at me with his mouth pressed in a tight line, the scar on his jaw stark against the paleness of his face.
“Please be careful,” he rasped.
I think he wanted to say something else, but I suppose fathers often struggle in saying what they truly want when it comes to farewells.
“You too, Father. I will see you soon.”
I walked to my ship, handed my papers to the Maevan sailors. They frowned at me but let me board, as I had paid quite a sum of money for passage on this ship and the borders were legally open.
Jean David set my trunk down in my cabin and then left without a word, although I did see the farewell in his eyes before he disembarked.
I stood at the bow of the ship, out of the way from the wine being loaded into the hold, and waited. The fog sat thick over the waters; my hands moved along the smooth oak of the rails as I began to prepare myself to see the king.
Somewhere, in the shadows of a side road, Jourdain stood and watched as my ship left the harbor, just as the sun burned away the fog.
I did not look back.
TWENTY
TO STAND BEFORE A KING
Lord Burke’s Territory, Royal City of Lyonesse, Maevana
October 1566
The legends claim that the fog was spun from Maevan magic, from the Kavanagh queens. That it was a protective cloak for Maevana, and only the foolish, bravest of men sailed through it. These legends still rang true; magic was dormant, but as soon as the Valenian mist blissfully burned away, the Maevan fog fell upon us as a pack of white wolves, growling as we sailed closer to the royal port at Lyonesse.
I spent most of the short voyage staring into it, this infuriating white void, feeling it gather on my face and bead in my hair. I didn’t sleep much in my cabin that night as we crossed the channel; the rocking of the ship made it feel as if I were being held in a stranger’s arms. I longed for land and sun and clear winds.
Finally, at dawn, I caught the first glimpse of Maevana through a hole in the fog, as if the misty clouds knew I was a daughter of the north.
The city of Lyonesse was built on a proud hill, the castle resting at the top like a sleeping dragon, scaled in gray stones, the turrets like the horns along a reptile’s formidable spine, draped in the green-and-yellow banners of Lannon.
I stared at those banners—green as envy, yellow as spite, emblazoned with a roaring lynx—and let my gaze trickle down through the streets that ran as little streams around stone houses with dark shingled roofs, around great big oaks that sprouted throughout the city, bright as rubies and topaz in their autumn splendor.
A sharp wind descended upon us, and I felt my eyes water and my cheeks redden as we eased into the harbor.
I paid one of the sailors to carry my trunk, and I disembarked with the sun on my shoulders, vengeance in my heart as my papers were cleared for admittance. The first place I went was the bank, to have my ducats exchanged for coppers. And then I went to the nearest inn and paid a servant girl to help me dress in one of my finest Valenian gowns.
I chose a gown the color of cornflowers—a blue that smoldered, a blue for knowledge—with intricate silver stitching along the hem and bodice. The kirtle was white, trimmed with tiny blue stones that glistened in the light. And beneath that, I wore petticoats and a corset, to hold me together, to blatantly define me as a Valenian woman.
I drew a star mole on my right cheek with a stick of kohl, the mark of a Valenian noblewoman, and closed my eyes as the servant girl carefully gathered half of my hair up with a blue ribbon, her fingers carefully pulling through my tangles. She hardly spoke a word to me, and I wondered what was flickering through her mind.
I paid her more than necessary and then began my ascent up the hill in a hired coach, my luggage in tow. We clattered beneath the oaks, through markets, passing men with thick beards and braided hair, women in armor, and children hardly clothed in tattered garments as they rushed to and fro with bare feet.
It seemed that everyone all wore some mark of their House, whether it was by the colors of their garments or the emblem stitched into their jerkins and cloaks. To proclaim which lord and lady they served, which House they were faithful to. There were many who wore Lannon’s colors, Lannon’s lynx. But then there were some who wore the orange and red of Burke, the maroon and silver of Allenach.
I closed my eyes again, breathing the earthen scent of horses, the smoke of forges, the aroma of warm bread. I listened to the children chanting a song, to women laughing, to a hammer striking an anvil. All the while, the coach trembled beneath me, higher, higher, up the hill to where the castle lay waiting.
I opened my eyes only when the coach stopped, when the man opened the door for me.
“Lady?”
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.