Gaela grasped Osli’s shoulder, squeezing the thin leather cap of the uniform sleeve. “None shall know you told me, none shall know I have discovered it at all. Your life will not be made harder in our own ranks, or in your command. You have my promise on that. But I will know.”
“Esric,” Osli snarled, suddenly alive with fury. “They—they cornered me, said they could fix me! There is nothing wrong with me. I told them that if they were men they’d not be threatened by my strength. That’s when he—I would’ve hit him back, but it was so vicious, and I was so full of rage. I’d have killed him if I started, and I would not have your retainer responsible for the death of your father’s.”
Such a swell of affection and pride filled Gaela that her grip became too ferocious, causing Osli to gasp.
“It was well done,” the prince said, releasing her young captain. “I will finish it for you.”
And Gaela strode toward the rear courtyard, where she knew Lear’s retainers could be found, lounging and lazing even at this early time of evening.
In the yard a ring had been built, messily formed of ropes, with retainers—half unjacketed—holding the corners, all while two shirtless, barefooted men wrestled in the middle. Gaela paused on the final stair as a cheer rose, the unmelodious noise made of half groans, and several voices calling new bets. Lear was seated close to the wall, and he clapped and tossed a handful of dull coins at the men. A cacophony of vulgar behavior.
Esric was her father’s commander, and Gaela did not doubt that Lear had witnessed the entire attack and done not a thing.
Gaela stepped down and called, “This game is over.”
She was ignored, and that would not stand.
The eldest daughter of Lear walked to the nearest corner, shoved the retainer aside, and grasped the rope he held. She jerked it, pulling the next man off balance hard enough so he fell to one knee.
Protests rang out at the interruption, before the men noticed who had ended their revelry.
“What, Gaela!” her father cried. “Why so full of frowns?”
“Your men are all insolence, sir.” She thrust the rope to the hard-packed dirt of the yard. “All hours, in all ways, and I am grown sick of it.”
“Insolent! For sporting with ourselves?” Lear giggled.
“I have spoken to you of their slovenly ways before, and yet you refuse to take them to task. I will do it for you now.” Gaela leveled a glare at the nearest man, then swept her gaze over them all, eyeing Esric especially. “Mend your lazy, arrogant, unbridled behavior, or be gone from Astora by morning.”
Lear flew at her. “You cannot order my men. These are mine, and my will shall order them.”
“Then order them better, as a commander, and not an old fool.”
It was too much; Gaela knew it the moment she spoke it, but she faced Lear proudly.
“Do you call your father a fool?” Lear said with stealthy anger.
From the benches, a voice called, “You so readily did give away all your other titles!”
For a moment silence struck the yard, but for the song of evening birds and the rustle of the city just beyond the wall. Gaela could not look away from Lear to identify the speaker, not until Lear himself slid his eyes that way, with a tattered slight smile.
It was his own Fool.
“What title would you regain for me, then?” asked Lear.
“Lear’s shadow?”
Gaela fought a shiver of foreboding.
“And who is this standing, then, here with us?” Lear flapped his hand at her, and she leveled the Fool with her dark gaze, daring him.
“Your daughter, Uncle, and the queen-in-waiting, if waiting be a battle.”
“That is right,” Gaela said to her father. “This Fool knows better than you what we are, and what we will be. Understand me: your retainers are not welcome here any longer, soaked in this dreadful behavior. Wrestling in mud and betting on themselves! Lusting after my maids and those living in the city! Think not that I am unaware. Striking my people, and making servants of their betters. A king would never have tolerated it before, nor shall I now. Get them gone if you cannot control them.”
Lear brought his fists up, trembling with exhaustion or rage or some mix of the two. “I will go with them, if they are to be tossed out with so little joy and care!”
“So be it!” Gaela yelled.
“What is this storm?”
All glared at the newcomer: Kay Oak, muddy from travel and stinking of horse. Gaela wished to welcome him, the uncle who shared her better blood. But the once-earl put his hands on his hips and very clearly turned a face of comfort to the king. “Your Majesty, my kin, what troubles you?”
“My wretched girl turns me out!” wailed the king, with no hint of his so-recent fury at the Oak Earl, nor even a hint of familial recognition.
“Patience, lord,” Kayo said, turning to Gaela with disbelief. He stripped off his heavy riding gloves.
She covered her annoyance with a shrug. “If he insists, so it must be.”
“Gaela.” Her name was all exasperation in Kayo’s mouth. “You owe him a daughter’s fealty. See how unfit he is.”
“I owe him nothing but what he has already received. How do you stand here now, defending him, when he banished you, cast you aside, like there was nothing he owed to you? Like you were not brothers. What for?”
Lear blinked. He scrubbed at his eyes and dragged those offending hands into his wild hair. “Banished?” he murmured, and his mouth curled up into a sneer. “My betraying brother! Would he dare show himself?”
“Ah no, Lear! Ha!” the Fool danced up and between Lear and Kayo. “This is not your brother but mine, a darker Fool than me, but still a fool.”
Gaela laughed harshly. “He is at that.”
“Why are you turning your father out?” Kayo asked her.
“Lear has heard my accusations of misrule and chaos sown in my home, and does not defend himself or his men. So I judge them unfit for this place.”
Lear cackled, a child unattended, and aimed his words to the sky. “Regan will welcome me, and Connley!”
Kayo frowned. “Connley cannot be trusted, Your Highness.”
“But my other, brighter daughter Regan will take me in. Her love has always been true.”
“You are mad,” Gaela said wonderingly.
Lear fell silent. All around, retainers barely breathed.
Kayo’s frown encompassed the entire yard. “Be kind, Gaela, you see how it is with him. He needs you to be a daughter.”
“As I needed my mother?”
The Oak Earl said nothing, shattered—as he should have been—by the reminder.
Gaela held her hands out, uncaring now for her uncle’s opinion. He was as in love with inconstant Lear and as stupid as Elia. “If Lear needs my council, he should listen to me. Father, I care not where you go, but you will not stay here, not with all your rowdy men. Revel in kinship with the beasts of the field, or ask some poorer of your lands to house and feed you! Discover whether you are truly beloved of these people. I think you will be surprised.”
Kayo’s eyes were shadowed, so low and glaring was his brow. “Would your people shelter you, Gaela?”
“I will withdraw my protection of you, Kayo, if you do not watch your tongue.”
“They would shelter Elia.”
Gaela bared her teeth. “I will shelter my people, because I will be their king.”
Lear stepped nearer to his eldest daughter, peering into her face. “It is no wonder I find no comfort nor nurturing grace here; this daughter has none in her. She is dried up, barren of life, deprived of motherhood for being her own mother’s death omen.”
Gaela slapped him.
The king staggered back, and around him blades grated free of sheaths.
Kayo hauled at her arm, crying her name. She swung, knocking Kayo off her.