The Queen's Rising(59)
You are enough, my touch assured her. And when she smiled, I knew she felt my words, let them settle in the valleys of her heart.
But for all my encouragement, I was just as anxious as she was, my mind impatient for the first strategic meeting, when the plans to recover the stone and take back the crown would finally become tangible.
The last day of August finally arrived, and I helped Agnes set the table for seven people. It was to be Jourdain, Luc, me, Hector and Yseult Laurent, Liam the thane (who had remained with us, safely tucked away on the third floor), and Theo d’Aramitz, who was the last piece of our puzzle and the final rebelling lord I had yet to meet, his Maevan name being Aodhan Morgane.
The Laurents arrived, right on time, and Liam descended the stairs to enter the dining room. We gathered about the table, only one chair vacant: Theo d’Aramitz/Lord Morgane’s.
“Should we begin without him?” Jourdain asked from his place at the head of the table. The platters had been set down, the fragrance of the food taunting all of us as we waited for the third lord. Agnes was filling our goblets with ale, discreetly reaching between us.
“He’s coming from Théophile,” Hector Laurent commented. “That is not too far away, but perhaps there was trouble on the road.”
“Hmm,” Jourdain hummed, no doubt thinking of our own escapade with the thieves.
“He wouldn’t want us to wait,” Luc insisted, but probably because he was hungry, his eyes on the meat platter.
“Let us go ahead and eat, then,” Jourdain decided. “We shall hold off on planning until after the meal, until d’Aramitz arrives.”
The platters were passed about, and I filled my plate with far too much food. But Pierre had truly outdone himself with preparing the Maevan-inspired meal, and I couldn’t resist taking a little spoonful of everything. We were halfway through dinner when there was a knock on the door.
Luc stood instantly. “That would be d’Aramitz,” he said, disappearing down the hall to greet the lord.
Hector Laurent was in the middle of telling us the story of how he’d met his wife when Luc returned, alone. But a piece of paper was unfolded in his hands, and he paused on the threshold of the dining room, his eyes scanning the letter’s contents. Jourdain noticed this at once, the conversation dying at the table as my patron father demanded, “What is it?”
Luc glanced up. The tension had woven around us as a rope, cutting off our air as we all thought the worse, as we all imagined we were caught before we had even started.
“D’Aramitz has business in Théophile that he cannot abandon,” Luc explained. “He writes an apology, saying he can arrive in two weeks’ time.”
Jourdain relaxed, but there was still a deep furrow in his brow, his displeasure evident.
“Should we postpone the first meeting, then?” Hector inquired, his white hair gleaming in the candlelight.
“The question is,” Luc said, folding d’Aramitz’s letter, handing it to Jourdain. “Do we feel comfortable forging plans without him?”
Jourdain sighed, burdened, and read the letter for himself. I was sitting at my patron father’s left, Yseult beside me, and I exchanged a glance with the queen. This should be her call, I thought. And as if reading my mind, Yseult cleared her throat, drawing all the men’s gazes to her.
“The rest of us are here,” she said. “It is unfortunate d’Aramitz is absent, but since he is only one and we are six, let us begin with the plans.”
Jourdain nodded, pleased with her decision. We finished our dinner, and then Agnes quickly took up the plates and platters, and Jean David brought forth the map of Maevana. It was unrolled over the heart of the table, the land we were about to reclaim. A reverent quiet settled over the six of us as we studied that map.
And then, to my surprise, Yseult turned to look at me. “Amadine?”
I felt the men’s gazes, like sunlight, bright with curiosity. My hands were cold as I brought my right forefinger to the map, to the Mairenna Forest.
“My ancestor was Tristan Allenach, who took and buried the Stone of Eventide in 1430. I know the very tree he has buried the stone at, which would be in this segment of the forest, about two miles into the woods.”
The men and the queen looked to where I pointed.
“That is near Damhan,” Liam spoke up. He no longer looked like a bedraggled beggar. His hair was washed and slicked back, his beard trimmed, and his face had filled out from eating proper meals once more.
“Damhan?” I echoed, shivering as that name tickled my tongue. I had never heard the name, yet it pulled along my bones in recognition.
“Lord Allenach’s residence during summer and autumn,” Liam continued. His insight was about to be extremely valuable to us, as he had only been gone from Maevana for six years, as opposed to the twenty-five that Jourdain and Hector had experienced. “He should be there now, preparing for the annual hunt of the hart.”
Now that definitely caressed my memory. My mind searched furiously through the past few weeks, then months, wondering why this felt so familiar. I finally rested on the afternoon when Oriana had sketched me as a Maevan warrior, when Ciri had said something I never thought I would need again: My father used to visit once a year, in the fall, when some of the Maevan lords opened their castles for us Valenians to come stay for the hunt of the white hart.