The Oracle Queen Read online

  Francesca stood apart from the others, watching as the queen entertained the ambassador from Valostra and his four companions. The queen having chosen a king-consort from the rival nation of Centra, there was not much for the Valostrans to do there. The bulk of Fennbirn’s trade and resources were reserved for the country of the king-consort. But the Valostrans had no shortage of coin and continued to send representatives regardless, in the hopes of maintaining good relations until the next Ascension began.

  “Well done, Queen Elsabet!” The ambassador clapped when the queen’s ball struck the painted pole they had stuck into the ground. It was a game played with the feet, and to do it well, Elsabet had drawn her skirts up nearly to the knee.

  “Careful,” Sonia Beaulin said as she approached to offer Francesca a bundle of poison berries. She held up a small dish of honey to dip them in. “Your scowl is beginning to show through your artfully constructed expression.”

  “Humph.” Francesca stuffed a sweetened berry into her mouth. “Look at her. Just look at her. Playing their games with her dress hiked up to her head.”

  “It’s nowhere near her head. And her legs are not bare. Nothing that could be considered inappropriate.”

  “Not inappropriate here. But in their country? They will return to Valostra and say the queen is indecent. A harlot.”

  “Then let them return,” Sonia said, her war gift bristling, “with their tongues cut out.”

  “Once again, you miss the point. I care not for their opinion and have no respect for their ridiculous standards of conduct. But reports like that are what bring the soldiers to our shores. War, to root out our indecency and corruption. To save our souls.” Francesca spat a berry seed upon the ground. “There is nothing I hate more than an attack and slaughter meant to save us from ourselves.”

  At the mention of battle, Sonia’s eyes glittered. “Surely Queen Elsabet’s sight gift would give us plenty of warning should that come to pass.”

  “The sight gift is unreliable. And hers is waning.”

  “How do you know?”

  Francesca raised her eyes to Sonia’s. “I just do.”

  A collective gasp rose as the queen, attempting to make another kick, tripped when her skirt came loose and fell to her knees. An embarrassment to be sure, but Elsabet only laughed. She brayed, really, her mouth too wide and her teeth too large. And the Valostrans were quick to help her to her feet, crowding around her in their garish striped tunics and feathered hats. It was a good thing she was a queen. Any other girl that plain they would have left in the dirt.

  “Look,” Francesca said. “Even the king-consort knows she is allowing too many liberties.” William was smiling, but as the game went on, his smile became more and more doubtful. “He knows they will talk.”

  “Well, what are we to do?” asked Sonia. “We are her advisers, but she takes very little advice. Catherine says to let her settle into the crown more. Then she’ll stop striving always to do things her own way. Then she’ll tire of trying to make her mark.”

  “Catherine Howe has been smitten with the queen since before the crowning. Just like your rival.” She nodded toward the Commander of Queensguard, standing ever at the ready, monitoring her soldiers placed at each entrance.

  Pleasure bloomed in Francesca’s chest as Sonia bared her teeth. Such a strong hatred. Francesca liked strong emotions. Strong emotions she could use.

  THE QUEEN’S CHAMBER

  Queen Elsabet stared into her crystal mirror. After a long day of entertaining the Valostrans, she found herself alone again, with only Bess, her favorite maid, who made the queen ready for bed. Alone, the queen’s mood often became depressed, and the reflection staring back from the mirror did nothing to raise her spirits. Bess had already removed Elsabet’s carefully applied makeup, and the face the queen saw was clean, unadorned.

  She straightened her back and took a breath. Handsome, they called her. She was a queen of presence, they said. She hoped it was true. With such a homely face, it was all she could aspire to.

  “Do you think pretty queens have an easier time of it?” Elsabet asked as Bess brushed out the queen’s long, black hair. “Or must we all prance about like prized horses to impress?”

  “Easier. Who wants easier? The Elsabet I know chases challenges. She relishes them.”

  Elsabet sighed. So she did. When she had her first vision of the Ascension and in it saw that her youngest sister would kill their eldest sister for her, she was slightly disappointed. One less task between her and the crown. She felt like she should have done it all.

  “Sweet Bess.” Elsabet reached back and touched the girl’s hand. She and Bess were practically the same age, but beautiful girls always seemed infinitely younger, and Bess was one of the most beautiful girls on the island, all red-gold curls and deep pink lips. “Will you stay on with me here even after you wed?”

  “I am in no hurry to wed, my queen.”

  “Having too much fun enjoying your freedoms?”

  Bess blushed. “I always thought it was one of the heaviest burdens for a queen to bear . . . that you are forced to wed so young. So soon. With so little . . . sampling.”

  “I didn’t need to sample.” Elsabet smiled. “I found William.”

  Someone knocked at the chamber door, and Bess set down her brush. “There he is now,” she whispered into the queen’s ear, and Elsabet’s skin prickled. Even after three years of marriage, the arrival of her king-consort still made her shiver.

  But Bess returned only with a tray.

  “What’s this?”

  “More tonic from Gilbert.” Bess set it on the bedside table and stirred a spoonful of honey into the bitter liquid. Elsabet gestured for another spoonful, and grimacing, another after that.

  “Is your cough still so bad?” Bess asked as the queen sipped. “You have been taking the tonic for weeks now and even during the day.”

  “It is not bad. The headaches, mainly. The tonic does not do much. What could any tonic do against the stress of the crown? But you know Gilbert. He is always looking after me, always overcautious. So I will drink this bitter stuff until he is satisfied.” Her eyes wandered back toward the hall. “Did you see any sign of my king-consort?”

  “No, my queen.”

  Elsabet frowned. “Do you remember when he used to run to me every night? How he used to stand outside hopping while you dressed me for bed, complaining about the draughts in this blasted, unfinished castle?”

  Bess did not reply, but Elsabet caught her reflection in the mirror. An expression of pity.

  “Have you seen him with someone?”

  “No, my queen,” Bess said, and went quickly to add logs to the fire.

  “But he has been flirting. The whole court has seen him flirting.”

  “The king-consort has always been flirtatious. Especially with you, Elsabet.”

  Especially with her. But it had been months since he had sought her out during the day so they could secret themselves off somewhere, in an unused room or an empty corridor. And if it was no longer her in the corridors with him, then it would be someone else.

  “Has he made . . . advances toward you, Bess?”

  Bess turned and stood up straight. The fire blazed behind her. “No. And if he did, I would strike him in the face. I would bruise him black and blue and then I would tell you at once.” Elsabet did not reply right away, and Bess hurried back to the queen’s side. “You do believe me?”

  “Of course I do. I just wish you would have said that he would never. That my William would never do such a thing. But that would be a lie. And you will never lie to me.”

  Bess stroked the queen’s hair gently and kissed the top of her head. “They say it is normal for a Centran man . . . and it would not be the first time that a king-consort went outside the marriage bed.”

  True, though normally he waited for permission first. Or at least for the queen to take a lover.

  “Normal,” Elsabet said. “I do not want normal. I want g
reatness. That’s what I want my reign to be. When, Bess, have I ever been satisfied with normal?”

  That night, Elsabet tossed and turned in her bed until she finally gave up and pulled on a robe. She dragged a chair across the rug and onto the stone floor beside her window and pushed it open, letting a cool breeze in to accost the fire. It was high summer, but as near as the capital was to Bardon Harbor, nights could still turn cold, and she drew her feet up to tuck her toes beneath her dressing gown.

  William had never come. He was drunk somewhere or busy with some Centran matter. Perhaps caught in a late game of cards or resting for an early hunt he neglected to inform her of. Any of those excuses would be better than the truth she feared.

  She rested her elbows on the sill and looked out over the sleeping city, over the calm waters of the harbor and up toward the moon. When she was a girl, it seemed to her that the Goddess was there, in the moon. In that bright, glowing light in the sky. The Goddess was everywhere, of course. In the land and in the crops, in the fish that swam upriver. In the people. And most of all, in Elsabet, her chosen queen.

  “There was a time when my gift was so strong I had only to ask you for a vision and you would send one. But then there had been purpose. The Quickening. My Ascension. Do all oracle queens’ gifts abandon them after they are in the crown, or is it only mine?” She waited, but the moon made no reply. It was silly, she supposed, to ask the moon for answers. But there was no one else to ask. The High Priestess was away on pilgrimage, wandering the mountains as she had for many years. And the accounts of the oracle queens who came before related only their grandest visions. Their most important prophecies. There was almost no mention of their daily governance, and certainly no passages offering advice on king-consorts who would not stay put.

  “William, my William,” she muttered. “I am strong in everything, except for him. One little weakness. But how it seems to overcome all else.”

  Elsabet waited by the window a while longer. She did not truly know what she was waiting for. A vision from the Goddess? William to walk through her door? Her thoughts were clouded, and the moon, lovely as it was, offered no answers. So she returned to bed and, finally, slept.

  And when she slept, she dreamed. A bright dream, clear and real, from the sunlight on his hair to the crunch of dirt beneath his shoes. He was a boy, a young man, in common clothes and paint-smudged fingers. He had a broad smile, a little crooked, and the dimple in his right cheek was deeper than in his left. He was not handsome like William was handsome. But his eyes were warm. He did nothing more extraordinary in the dream than smile at her, and when he spoke, it was only her name.

  “Elsabet.”

  THE QUEEN’S COURT

  The next day, Elsabet tried to pay attention to what Gilbert was saying. It was some matter of coin, which normally she was quite involved in, much to the rest of the Black Council’s chagrin. She gathered that the previous queen was rather hands-off when it came to the day-to-day ruling, preferring instead to focus on the grander, broader strokes of war raids and quests. When Elsabet came into the crown, she thought that the Black Council would welcome her interest. But instead they seemed to resent it. Even the young members she appointed herself: Sonia Beaulin and Francesca Arron. Not Catherine Howe, though. Kind, level-headed Catherine Howe could probably not be resentful of anything.

  Today, though, the council could have its way. All through the morning session, Elsabet’s answers had been clipped and passionless. Her eyes flitted across papers presented to her without seeing them. She was distracted, and the reason was clear to everyone in the room.

  Her king-consort had been seated at a table with a dark-haired beauty for the last hour. Except he was not quite sitting. He was leaning so far across toward her that he was less at the table than he was mounting it.

  “Elsie.”

  Elsabet blinked. Gilbert called her that only in private. How many times had she ignored him, she wondered, to get him to resort to it before the court?

  “Yes, Gilbert.”

  “Are you with us?”

  “Of course.” She motioned with her hand. “Go on.” She ignored their doubtful expressions and refocused. It was not a complicated matter; she could catch up on what she had missed. Or she could if her ears were not filled with her king-consort’s laughter, a sound made all the louder by the fact that he was clearly trying to muffle it.

  Elsabet turned and stared at William. At her movement, the rest of the court froze. All but the king-consort and the girl whose dark curls were twirled around his fingers. The room went so silent that when Elsabet spoke, it rang through the air like a shout.

  “What is so funny?”

  William’s and the girl’s laughter cut off abruptly, and they broke apart. His hand slid back to his side of the table like a guilty snake. “Darling?” he asked, and Elsabet smiled broadly.

  “What is so funny? You have been quite merry there in your little corner. Will you not share the joke with us?”

  “Ah . . .” William’s mouth hung agape. “We were discussing the state of fashion. How . . . how many layers and ties and time it takes to get one properly dressed.”

  Properly dressed. Or quickly undressed.

  “Of course.” Elsabet forced a laugh. In the court, a few scared or sympathetic folk joined in. “A very funny subject indeed.”

  For a moment, it seemed that Elsabet would return to the matter of coin. She sat there for several long, slow breaths, her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap as she tried to master herself. But in the end, she could not. She stood and pushed away from the Black Council table, her long legs sweeping her quickly down the aisle.

  “Queen Elsabet! Elsie!” Gilbert sputtered, and shuffled papers, hastening to follow her.

  “That is all for today,” Elsabet announced as she left. “I thank you for your attendance.”

  As soon as she quit the room, Bess was at her side without needing to be summoned, as was Rosamund Antere, who swung her spear in a broad circle to pave the queen’s way.

  “Bess, my gloves, if you please. And a carriage.”

  “Ready the queen’s carriage!” Rosamund bellowed, and ten queensguard soldiers jumped to do her bidding.

  “No,” Elsabet called out. “I have changed my mind. Not the carriage. A horse. And horses for the commander and Bess.”

  “Elsabet.” Gilbert caught up to her and took her by the elbow. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Gilbert. I am just going to take some air at the river market.”

  He frowned. The Black Council did not like the queen frequenting the markets like a commoner. But that is precisely why she did it: to be like her people, to be out among them. To mix with them and hear their troubles firsthand. And today, it would give her distance from William and his girl, so let the council grumble. She could never seem to please them anyway.

  Sonia Beaulin appeared at the door and lifted her chin. “The river market?” She sniffed and turned her gaze on Rosamund. “You shouldn’t take the queen there with such a small detail of soldiers.”

  “I know the layout well, Beaulin,” Rosamund replied. “A small detail is plenty of protection.”

  “Forgive me if I do not trust the judgment of an Antere.”

  Rosamund stepped forward. So did Sonia, though Rosamund towered over her by a head.

  “Enough, enough.” Gilbert pressed them apart. “You are like dogs, you two. Snarling and snapping and your hackles always up. We ought to have appointed a naturalist to the Black Council so they could bring you to heel.”

  “Thank you, Gilbert,” the queen said, and began to walk before anyone else could pose an objection. “I will not be gone overlong.”

  After the queen had left, her party following in her shadow, Sonia returned to the throne room and made her way to her friend, the poisoner Francesca Arron.

  “That is the first time she has spoken against his behavior in public,” she said. Then she snorted. “Look at him. How dejected hi
s handsome face looks. He won’t be able to muster the nerve to climb into a strange bed tonight.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow,” Francesca replied. But she was not even looking at the king-consort. She was looking at the gathered people, watching them whisper. Registering the surprise on their faces at their usually composed queen’s small outburst. No doubt Francesca would be devising a way to use that gossip to her advantage. Arrons were always like that. “Have the girl banished from attending court for a season,” Francesca said. “And make sure you are seen doing it. The queen will appreciate that favor.”

  INDRID DOWN

  By the time Elsabet reached the river market, the jolting pace of her horse had almost shaken off the feelings of jealousy and shame. The nerve of William, to flaunt his pursuit right before her eyes. And what a fool she had been, to succumb to such an embarrassing outburst. The people would whisper now, Elsabet thought as she dismounted. But let them. They had already been whispering for months. Let them see that she would not simply accept his behavior. Let them talk about that.

  She took a deep breath as Bess dismounted and came to her side and Rosamund to the other. The river market was her favorite to frequent in the summer, as it was cooler, less crowded than the Bardon Harbor market, and smelled less of fish. Today it was bustling, the stalls full with merchants selling fresh and dried meats, newly dyed cloth, jewelry, and any manner of trinket the heart could desire. They smiled and doffed their hats to the queen, and she smiled back. They had not witnessed her shame. And she vowed that her behavior at the market would be so carefree that none of them would believe it when they heard the gossip later.