Wind blew at her face and she crouched in the saddle, urging the horse faster and faster. Behind her thundered her hunting party. Gaela no longer cared whether they caught their prey; this flight mattered more, the connection and movement of her body and her horse and the earth below, hard-hitting and wild.
She pulled up at the edge of the woods, where her scout Agar bowed in his saddle, and the trees clicked and whispered. Agar said, “It’s a young buck; we should pause and look elsewhere.”
Gaela frowned and barely skimmed a glance up at the layers of greenery and edging yellow leaves.
“What’s this?” called Lear from behind. “Why end the charge?’
“A young buck, Father,” Gaela said. “We will turn back.”
“But the morning stars were full of firsts, and this is our first deer sighted, so it must be our first kill.” Lear threw out his arm, pointing the way into the forest.
Agar said, “It’s too young, my lady.”
“We look elsewhere, Father,” Gaela said. “To maintain the health of the forest.”
“Bah!” Lear laughed through a scowl, as if he himself could not locate the most pressing emotion. “Bartol! Clarify the star sign for me. Was that not the Star of Sixes and the Eye of the Arrow Saint this morning, hanging on to brightness as we must now hang on to our prey?”
A pale-bearded retainer with burn scars and the white dots of a priest bowed in his saddle, just behind Lear. “Yes, my king.”
Lear glanced triumphantly at Gaela. “We go!”
“Father,” she growled, holding her horse still with one hand, placing the other with hard-fought calm upon her wool-clad thigh, “a too-young buck has not bred, and will not even have prize antlers for you, this time of year. Go for another; I will not bless this charge.”
“I bless it myself,” Lear reminded her, raising his hand to turn his men onward, waving them into the forest.
Gaela argued no further, but she lifted her chin and flattened her hand toward her own people. In all the years she’d learned the hunt at her father’s knee, he had taught her to care for the forest’s needs. To never play such an ignorant, reckless gambit with a herd, only for the pleasure of the moment. The stars, he’d said then, approved of a careful hunt, blessed the relationship between hunter and prey. The stars, the stars, the blasted stars.
“Lady?” Osli murmured, hardly moving her lips.
The prince turned dark eyes on her captain, then shook her head. “I return to Astora. Have the picnic if you like, but tend my father, and hope that young stag keeps itself alive.”
Gaela spun her horse and urged it to run back up the rocky slope of moor. Though aware of Osli commanding a set of retainers to go with their queen, Gaela ignored them. She bared her teeth and leaned over her horse’s neck. Lear’s retainers should’ve known better, especially the ones who’d been with him for years. Especially that blasted Fool, though the gangly, ridiculous man had not come a-hunting; he fit poorly on a horse with all those long limbs.
They should have defied Lear when he got like this; they should’ve known that serving him was not about giving in to his every lazy, irresponsible whim, but helping him be a strong king. If he wasn’t capable of it—which he was not!—they should serve Gaela. They should serve Innis Lear. The crown. Gaela would not want her men to ignore reason should she give a mad order. She wanted Osli to speak to her, to be honest with her opinions, to be strong. Gaela would surround herself with retainers and counselors as strong as she was. That foundation would make her rule greater! What were sycophants and cowards but a sign of rot and sickness?
Gaela nearly reared her horse with the vehemence of her sudden stop. Were there tears on her face, so much colder than the sweat of her fury? She blinked hard, commanding them to fall and be gone.
Chuffing and shaking its head, the horse beneath her danced in place. Gaela hissed soothing words, patting its neck, hunching over it. What madness were these raw, impulsive emotions? Today was but a single act of disrespect in the long story of her father’s bad deeds; why should it enrage and upset her so? He’d disrespected her before. He’d taught his retainers to be just like him. She already knew all of this. She ought to have been over the hurt by now.
In a few short months, Gaela would be king of all Innis Lear, she and Regan both, anointed and blessed at Midwinter, and their father could never do such things as this again. The stars would cease to carry any weight at all under the crown.
Gaela rolled her shoulders and sat, her face hard as iron.
Four soldiers, including Dig, had caught up to her frantic ride and arrayed themselves behind her. She met each pair of eyes; all responded with naught but well-displayed control, and perhaps slight concern for her. Gaela nodded her head slowly, and the soldiers returned the gesture.
She turned her horse and started on again, now at a smooth jog, neither urgent nor at ease. As the horse’s hooves pounded evenly over the earth, she breathed and refreshed her own irritation, but at a calmer pace. Gaela did not allow stray thoughts, but concentrated on the path ahead, the return to Astora.
The city finally appeared as they rode over the crest of a foothill, filling the valley with color and noise, thin streams of smoke slipping up and up like silver ribbons. Gaela sat high and tall as she led her soldiers down to the city wall and beneath the crenelated gate. Through the city, then, nodding when she thought to at the few citizens who waved or called out; Gaela was a welcome and usual sight here.
Gaela said nothing to Dig or the rest as they reached the keep, only thrusting herself off her horse and tossing the reins to a groom. Without comment or command, she stormed through the narrow front door of the new castle and up the high stone stairs, her pace speeding into nearly a run through the claustrophobic hallway, lit only by fired sconces and thin arrow slits. Finally she slammed through the door of her private chambers.
Heaving a breath, she shoved the wooden door shut and fumbled at the hard ties of her hunting jacket, eager to be free of the confining leather.
“Gaela.”
It was her husband’s voice, loud and surprised.
Her head flew up; Astore was in the process of coming around her desk, dropping some letters.
“What do you do in my room?” she snarled, striding toward him.
Astore caught her shoulders and shook her once. “Gaela. What is wrong?”
“Are you reading my correspondence?” she demanded.
Her husband shocked her into silence with his kiss.
For a moment Gaela did not respond, too surprised at his bold theft, and Astore clearly took it as acquiescence; he softened his mouth and moved his hands to her face, cupping her jaw tenderly.
Gaela pulled away. “What are you about, Col?”
The Duke Astore’s lips were crushed, so quickly drawn in pink. “You seem distressed, wife,” he said, using the title pointedly, as if admonishing her to remember she’d entered into this relationship willingly.
She knew very well the choices she’d made. Gaela lifted one hand to carefully wipe her bottom lip with her thumb, then said, “My father insisted upon hunting a deer the scouts called too young, too new. He has no concern for the health of the forest.”
Astore’s hands slid down to settle at her hips, as they were wont to do. “I too worry on his mind.”
“You rather understate the issue, Col. He is mad. And his behavior makes everyone around him so, too. He should be released of obligations to retainers. I should send them all away. A break would do them good.”
“And better to win them to us.”
“So long as they listen to my father, they will not join me. So we stand.” Gaela shrugged free of her husband’s grip. “Tell me now, husband, what you did at my desk, here in my own rooms without me.”
The duke met her gaze. “I was writing you a note. I leave immediately for Dondubhan.”
“What has happened?”