Page 25 of The Castle & the Cloister

As if the goddess mocked her exhaustion, a voice sounded from the door.

“Your Majesty.”

“Come in.” Ariana glanced quickly at the steel-and-glass water clock on her nightstand. Only three hours since Fia had left her. She wondered, briefly, if you could die of weariness—if the aching weight of her body could bear her all the way to the grave. It certainly felt as if it could. Every inch of her hurt, both without and within. Both the body and the soul.

“Majesty.” It was Glora, standing over her, and there was an almost unrecognizable look on the chatelaine’s stern face. It took Ariana a moment before she could place it.

Pity.

“The summer council representatives have all arrived, but they’re off to a bad start. The king sends his apologies and requests your presence in the audience hall.”

Ariana’s heart sank.

“But I…” She swallowed past a tightening in her throat. The councils which Orden held to further trade and commerce between nations had been an idea put forward by Ariana herself, and she had always scrupulously managed them. It would be dangerous to leave Orden to his own devices in such a setting for long—bringing together the leaders of the Hand had always been an idealist’s undertaking. Now, with Afon present at Ariana’s own request, Inverlyn was a witchsmoke vial, waiting to be shattered into a billow of killing fumes. She needed to be there. Orden was right.

“Will you help me dress?” Ariana asked Glora, and the chatelaine nodded.

“Yes, Majesty,” she said, with more deference than was her habit.

“Imperatrice Gileta is here already?” Ariana said foggily, shifting herself to the side of the bed and taking care not to wake the sleepingprince. She could feel a rush of blood slip out of her at the movement, and knew she’d need fresh linens soon. Ariana always lost more blood in the aftermath of a childbirth than she ought. Occasional tremors took her, too, and she would have to find a way to still them before she entered the audience hall.

“Yes, Gileta arrived first. The problem downstairs is between her and Afon—he wants to commence the council with a blood sacrifice, and Gileta’s refusing to allow it, saying it’s heresy and that Afon ought to learn Silith’s ways better. She’s come with her back up—tried picking a fight withourking almost at once, but he wouldn’t be baited. That’s your hand on him, I think. He’d never have been so tolerant before you.”

Ariana could not tell if Glora meant the last as a compliment or a reproach.

“Silith’s children will be the death of me,” Ariana murmured, getting to her feet. “There’s a pale blue taffeta in the wardrobe, trimmed with a bit of lace but quite plain. Bring that, Glora, and a length of white ribbon for my hair. Orden prefers a spectacle, but Gileta favors austerity, and it’s her we need to please just now.”

Glora returned from the wardrobe with an armful of garments and held out a new pair of short cotton breeches padded with extra linens for the birthing blood. Ariana only looked at them for a moment, warring within herself, before shaking her head.

“No. I won’t be needing those.”

“But, Majesty, you’ve already bled more than—” Glora began with a frown.

“No,” Ariana repeated firmly. “Now help me with the rest.”

There was little of a queen about Ariana by the time Glora had finished with her. In her simple garb, with her hair bound up, she could have been the daughter of a lesser merchant. A shy young plains farmer, even, heading to harvesthome at Raea’s cloister in her best gown. But not the mistress of all Honoria. The single peculiarity of the gown, and a nod to Ariana’s position in Inverlyn, was that the back had been cut unfashionably low. It dipped to the bottom of the queen’s shoulder blades, so that all could see the expanse of fair skin between them, marred by a healed brand in the shape of the royal flame.

“Well, you don’t look like an Inver, I’ll say that much.” A familiar note of disapproval had crept into Glora’s voice as she stood back and surveyed her handiwork.

“And what does an Inver look like?” Ariana asked. Her exhaustion had calcified into what felt like splinters of broken glass, cutting at her insides, making her shorter-tempered and more brazen than was her wont. Making her indiscreet, undevout, a creature that would bring shame to the perfect goddess she adored. Ariana tried to breathe through the uncharacteristic spike of temper and found she could not. She’d breathed through too much already—through days of heat and fire and anguish, and could not manage another pacific breath.

“Proud,” Glora said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Undaunted. Powerful.”

Ariana took her hours-old son from where he lay on the bed, still sleeping soundly, and settled him into the crook of her arm.

“You understand what will happen to Honoria and to the Inver line if Gileta and Song Royale turn their back on us, yes?” Ariana pressed. “Our one staunch ally on the Hand? We will fail on every front in Vesper. Our armies will die weaponless without the incaendium we purchase from Song Royale. In seeking to return home, they’d find our ships burned and no new ones arrived in their stead, because the pitch that seals their timbers is brought in from Song Royale. And here? Caervallion will make a meal of us. It is only the fact that Song Royale stands with Honoria that grants us more might than Afon. Should Gileta move her favor to the north, we would not be equally matched but weaker, thanks to the burden of our other war. Afon’s citizenry would call it liberation if he conquered Honoria and put every Inver to the sword, and half of Song Royale would agree. So please, tell me that I don’t look like an Inver. Tell me that I know nothing of battle or war or power—that I’m foolish and weak and too gentle for this great house, because I see the need to defend what we already have, as well as to strive for what we wish to acquire. Tell me that I am unworthy. I should like to hear you speak the words.”

The queen’s voice had not risen at all. She’d said everything quietly, but there’d been bitterness in it—greater bitterness than she’d ever let herself vent before. Guilt closed around her heart like an iron band. It wasshameful that she should let herself falter so because of mere weariness. Lyria deserved more, and better.

“I’m sorry,” Ariana offered at once, anguish behind the words. “Glora, I should never have spoken to you so. Please forgive me.”

“No,” Glora said with a troubled frown. “I won’t. Not when the fault is mine.”

Something new and uncertain lay between the women. Ariana had never chastised Glora before, and the chatelaine had never admitted a shortcoming. The difference nagged at Ariana. She did not like the unknown—for seven years she’d made it her business to understand just how every member of the court felt about her, and how they might be swayed, one way or the other, to serve her purposes. Any shift could be dangerous, any misunderstanding a disaster. But there was nothing she could do, with the king waiting, but gather up her skirts and leave the room with Glora following in her wake.

From the corridor outside the audience hall, Ariana could already hear raised voices, the sounds of chaos and dissent. Walking faster, she stepped into the room, and tension struck her like a great wave. Orden stood nearby, among his guard beside the dais. He was imperious and irritable in a cloth-of-gold doublet, and undoubtedly a moment away from some sort of outburst. The Priest was at his side, for once out of his sanctuary and engaged in an affair of state.

To one side of the hall, a bevy of Song courtiers had gathered. Gileta stood at their center, poised and confident, her expression watchful. The Imperatrice had governed Song Royale for more than forty years, during which time she’d known three Inver kings. She’d not held power for so long without learning statecraft to rival anyone else’s on the Hand. Her choices were sometimes surprising, but never rash or ill-considered, and always in the best interests of Song Royale before all else.