The Queen's Rising (Untitled Trilogy #1)(65)

I nodded, quickly knotting my new cloak about my collar, pinning my travel papers beneath my elbow as I took the small knapsack of food.

We were standing on the road, shadowed by tall town houses, the echoes of Isotta’s fish market carrying on the sea gusts.

This was it, the moment when I finally crossed the channel, the moment I—at last—saw the land of my father. How many times had I imagined it, watching those green Maevan shores come into view through the channel’s notorious fog? And somehow, this felt like the summer solstice all over again . . . that sensation of time quickening, moving so quickly that I could scarcely catch my breath and absorb what was about to befall me.

I self-consciously felt for Cartier’s pendant beneath the high neck of my traveling gown, strung on Jourdain’s chain. I would think of Cartier, my master as he was my friend, the one who had taught me so much. The one who had granted me passion. And I would think of my patron father, who had accepted me for who I was, who loved me in his own gruff way, who was letting me go despite his better judgment. The one who was granting me courage.

My heart pounded; I drew in a shallow breath, the sort of breath one might take right before battle, and looked up at him.

“You have your dirk on you?” Jourdain asked.

I pressed my hand to my right thigh, feeling the dirk through the fabric of my skirts. “Yes.”

“You promise me that you will not hesitate to use it. That if a man so much as looks at you the wrong way, you won’t be afraid to show your steel.”

I nodded.

“I say this to you, Amadine, because some Maevan men look upon Valenian women as . . . coquettes. You must show such brutes otherwise.”

Again I nodded, but a horrible feeling had crept up my throat, nestled on my voice box. Was that what happened to my mother? Had she come to visit Maevana and been looked at as a coy, flirtatious woman who was eager to slip into a Maevan man’s bed? Had she been abused?

Suddenly, I realized why my grandfather might have hated my father so much. For I had always believed I had been conceived in love, even if it was forbidden. But perhaps it had been completely different. Perhaps she had been forced against her will.

My feet turned to lead.

“I’ll be awaiting your letter,” Jourdain murmured, taking a step back.

The letter I was supposed to write when Lannon gave him admittance. The letter that would bring him and Luc over the waters to a dangerous homecoming.

“Yes, Father.” I turned to go, Jean David patiently waiting with the typical stern expression on his face, holding my trunk.

I made it four steps before Jourdain called me.

“Amadine.”

I paused, looked back at him. He was in the ribs of shadows, gazing at me with his mouth pressed in a tight line, the scar on his jaw stark against the paleness of his face.

“Please be careful,” he rasped.

I think he wanted to say something else, but I suppose fathers often struggle in saying what they truly want when it comes to farewells.

“You too, Father. I will see you soon.”

I walked to my ship, handed my papers to the Maevan sailors. They frowned at me but let me board, as I had paid quite a sum of money for passage on this ship and the borders were legally open.

Jean David set my trunk down in my cabin and then left without a word, although I did see the farewell in his eyes before he disembarked.

I stood at the bow of the ship, out of the way from the wine being loaded into the hold, and waited. The fog sat thick over the waters; my hands moved along the smooth oak of the rails as I began to prepare myself to see the king.

Somewhere, in the shadows of a side road, Jourdain stood and watched as my ship left the harbor, just as the sun burned away the fog.

I did not look back.





TWENTY


TO STAND BEFORE A KING


Lord Burke’s Territory, Royal City of Lyonesse, Maevana

October 1566


The legends claim that the fog was spun from Maevan magic, from the Kavanagh queens. That it was a protective cloak for Maevana, and only the foolish, bravest of men sailed through it. These legends still rang true; magic was dormant, but as soon as the Valenian mist blissfully burned away, the Maevan fog fell upon us as a pack of white wolves, growling as we sailed closer to the royal port at Lyonesse.

I spent most of the short voyage staring into it, this infuriating white void, feeling it gather on my face and bead in my hair. I didn’t sleep much in my cabin that night as we crossed the channel; the rocking of the ship made it feel as if I were being held in a stranger’s arms. I longed for land and sun and clear winds.

Finally, at dawn, I caught the first glimpse of Maevana through a hole in the fog, as if the misty clouds knew I was a daughter of the north.

The city of Lyonesse was built on a proud hill, the castle resting at the top like a sleeping dragon, scaled in gray stones, the turrets like the horns along a reptile’s formidable spine, draped in the green-and-yellow banners of Lannon.

I stared at those banners—green as envy, yellow as spite, emblazoned with a roaring lynx—and let my gaze trickle down through the streets that ran as little streams around stone houses with dark shingled roofs, around great big oaks that sprouted throughout the city, bright as rubies and topaz in their autumn splendor.

A sharp wind descended upon us, and I felt my eyes water and my cheeks redden as we eased into the harbor.