The Queen's Rising(43)

I shook my head. I had slept a scant two hours last night; my head was aching and my heart felt like it had tangled with my lungs. All I could think of was the Dowager, standing on the cobbles to bid me farewell, her gentle hand resting on my cheek.

Do not worry about Cartier. He will understand when all of this passes. I will do my best to ease his mind. . . .

“Brienna?”

I snapped from my reverie. “You can pick, Monsieur.”

He began to rub his jaw, mindlessly tracing his scar as he regarded me. “What about Amadine?”

I liked it. But I didn’t know how I was going to train myself to respond not only to the surname of Jourdain, but to Amadine as well. It felt like I was putting on clothes too small for me, trying to stretch the fabric until it fit, until it conformed to my body. I would either have to lose pieces of myself, or let out a few seams.

“You approve?” he prompted.

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Another thing. You must not call me Monsieur. I am your father.”

“Yes . . . Father.” The word rolled around my mouth like a marble, unfamiliar, uncomfortable.

We rode another half hour in silence; my eyes strayed to the window, watching the green hills gradually begin to flatten into fields of wheat as we traveled west. This was a quiet, pastoral piece of Valenia; we passed only a few simple stone houses, dwellings of solitary farmers and millers.

“Why do you want this?” I asked, the question rising before I could check it for politeness. My eyes returned to Jourdain, who was watching me with a calm, bemused expression. “Why do you want to rebel against a king who would kill you if he discovered your plans?”

“Why do you want this?” he countered.

“I asked first, Father.”

He looked away from me, as if he was weighing the words. And then his eyes returned to mine, darkly gleaming. “I have witnessed enough of Lannon’s cruelties in my lifetime. I want to see him obliterated.”

So he hated King Lannon. But why? That is what I wanted to know. What had Aldéric Jourdain seen, what had he witnessed, to elicit such a strong desire?

Father and daughter we may be now, but that didn’t mean he was going to divulge his secrets.

“Most would say this is not a Valenian’s fight,” I responded carefully, trying to encourage more out of him.

“But isn’t it?” he answered. “Was it not our glorious King Renaud the First who put the Lannons on the throne in 1430?”

I mulled on that, unsure if we were about to argue over Valenia’s past involvement or not. Rather, I shifted our conversation by saying, “So . . . we can obliterate Lannon’s power by the Stone of Eventide?”

“Yes.”

“What about the Queen’s Canon?”

He snorted. “Someone taught you thoroughly.”

“Is the stone enough? Don’t we need the law as well?”

He leaned back, hands resting on his knees. “Of course we need the law as well. Once magic is restored and Lannon has fallen, we will reestablish the Canon.”

“Where do you think the original is?”

He didn’t speak; he merely shook his head, as if he had wondered this so often it wearied him. “Now it is your turn to answer. Why do you want this, mistress of knowledge?”

I glanced down to my fingers laced together on my lap. “I once saw an illustration of Liadan Kavanagh, the first queen.” My gaze met his again. “Ever since then . . . I have wanted to see a queen rise, to take back what is hers.”

Jourdain smiled. “You are Maevan on your father’s side. That northern blood in you desires to bow to a queen.”

I thought of that as we rode a half hour in silence, until another question pulled my voice.

“Do you have a profession?”

Jourdain shifted on the cushion but gave me a sliver of a smile.

“I am a lawyer,” he began. “My home is Beaumont, a little river town that makes some of the finest wine in all of Valenia. I am a widower, but I live with my son.”

“You have a son?”

“Yes. Luc.”

So I was to have a brother as well? My hand rose to my neck, feeling the chain of Cartier’s pendant that hid beneath my dress, as if it were an anchor, or a charm for courage.

“Do not worry,” Jourdain said. “You will like him. He is . . . quite the opposite of me.”

If I had felt more comfortable, I might have teased Jourdain for his wry comment about not liking him. But my patron was still a stranger. And I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take for me to feel at ease with my new life. But then I dwelled on how this all came about—far from traditional roots of patronage—and I thought, No, I cannot expect to feel the least bit relaxed.

“Now then,” he said, once more breaking the depths of my reflections. “We need to flesh out your background. Because no one can know you come from Magnalia.”

“What do you suggest?”

He sniffed, glanced out the window.

“You passioned in knowledge beneath Mistress Sophia Bellerose, of Augustin House,” he said.

“Augustin House?”

“Have you heard of it?”

I shook my head in decline.

“Good. It’s rural and unknown to minds that would be too interested in you.” He frowned, as if he was still trying to weave together my story. Then he said, “Augustin House is an all-girls’ establishment, hosting all five of the passions, and is a ten-year program. You entered the House at the age of seven, when you were selected out of the Padrig Orphanage, based on your sharp mind.”