The Queen’s Resistance

I heard the whisper again, rising from the shadows in the corner. I heard it over the cheers and clamor as dinner began, as I was led to the dais.

Where are you, Aodhan?

Who are you? I inwardly growled back to it, my mind tensing as I sat in my chair.

It faded, as if it had never been. I wondered if I was hearing things, if I was beginning to lose my wits with exhaustion.

But then Aileen set the finest mutton chop on my plate, and I watched the red juices begin to pearl on the plate. And I knew.

Those words had once been spoken in this castle, twenty-five years ago. They had come from the person who had ripped this castle apart, trying to find my sister, trying to find me.

Declan Lannon.

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Lord MacQuinn’s Territory, Castle Fionn

Brienna

The last thing I expected was for one of the weavers to come knocking at my door that evening.

I had managed to take down a few grievances among the women-at-arms, those who I had fought alongside during the battle. But after overhearing the conversation at the loom house, I did not approach any others. I spent the remainder of the day trying to appear useful, trying not to compare my scant list of grievances with the great tome that Luc had accumulated.

I was more than ready to retire for bed after dinner.

I sat before the fire with woolen stockings pulled up to my knees and two letters perched on my lap. One letter was from Merei, but the other was from my half brother, Sean, who I was supposed to persuade to alliance with Isolde Kavanagh. Both letters had arrived that afternoon, surprising me; Merei’s because she must have written it the day after she departed Maevana, and Sean’s because it was entirely unexpected. The question of the Allenachs’ allegiance was a constant simmer in the back of my mind, but I had not yet determined a way to address it. So why was Sean writing me, of his own accord?

October 9, 1566

Brienna,

I am sorry to be writing you so soon after the battle, because I know that you are still trying to adjust to your new home and family. But I wanted to thank you—for remaining with me when I was injured, for sitting with me despite what others might have thought of you. Your bravery to defy our father has inspired me in many measures, the first being to do my best to redeem the House of Allenach. I believe there are good people here, but I am overwhelmed with how to begin purging the corruption and cruelty that has been encouraged for decades. I do not think I can do this on my own, and I wondered if you would be willing to at least write to me for now, to pass some ideas and thoughts on how I should begin to right the wrongs committed by this House …

There was a hesitant rap on my door. Startled, I quickly folded my brother’s letter and hid it within one of my books.

So the Allenachs, as far as my brother was concerned, would not be too difficult to persuade.

I pushed the relief aside as I opened the door, perplexed to see a young girl.

“Mistress Brienna?” she whispered, and I recognized her voice. It was sweet and musical, the voice that had remarked I was pretty when I eavesdropped on the weavers’ hall.

“Yes?”

“May I come in?” She cast a glance down the corridor, as if she was worried she would be discovered here.

I took a step back, wordlessly inviting her inside. I shut the door behind her, and the two of us returned to sit before the fire, awkward and adjacent to each other.

She was wringing her pale hands, her mouth quirked to the side as she stared at the fire, as I tried not to stare at her. She was thin and angular with wispy blond hair, and her face was scarred by the pox—tiny white flecks dotted her cheeks like snow.

Just as I was drawing breath to speak, she brought her eyes to mine and said, “I must apologize for what you overhead today. I saw you through the window leaving in a hurry. And I felt horrible that you had come to us and we were speaking of you in such a way.”

“I must be the one to apologize,” I said. “I should have announced myself. It was wrong for me to linger at the door without your knowledge.”

But the girl shook her head. “No, Mistress. That does not excuse our words.”

But you were the only one to speak well of me, and yet you are the one to come and ask for forgiveness, I thought.

“May I ask why you came to see us today?” she inquired.

I hesitated before saying, “Yes, of course. Lord MacQuinn has asked me to help gather grievances of the people. To take to the Lannon trial next week.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. Her hand fluttered up to her hair, and she absently wrapped the ends around her finger, a slight frown on her face. “I am sixteen, so Allenach was the only lord I ever knew. But the other women … they remember what it was like before Lord MacQuinn fled. Most of their grievances are held against Lord Allenach, not the Lannons.”

I looked to the fire, a poor attempt to hide how much this conversation rattled me.

“But you are not Allenach’s daughter,” she said, and I had no choice but to meet her gaze. “You are Davin MacQuinn’s daughter. I have only thought of you as such.”

“I am glad to hear that,” I said. “I know that it is difficult for others here to regard me that way.”

Again, I was overcome with the cowardly urge to flee, to leave this place, to cross the channel and sink into Valenia, where no one knew whose daughter I was. Forget about establishing a House of Knowledge here; I could easily do such in Valenia.

“My name is Neeve,” she said after a moment, extending a beacon of friendship to me.

It nearly brought tears to my eyes. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Neeve.”

“I do not have a grievance for you to write down,” Neeve said. “But there is something else. I wanted to see if you could write down a few of my memories from the dark years, so one day I can pass them down to my daughter. I want her to know the history of this land, what it was like before the queen returned.”

I smiled. “I would be more than happy to do that for you, Neeve.” I rose to gather my supplies, dragging my writing table before the fire. “What would you like me to record?”

“I suppose I should start at the beginning. My name is Neeve MacQuinn. I was born to Lara the weaver and Ian the cooper in the spring of 1550, the year of storms and darkness …”

I began to transcribe, word for word, pressing her memories into ink on the page. I soaked in her stories, for I longed to understand what life had been like during “the dark years,” as the people here referred to the time of Jourdain’s absence. And I found that I was grieved as well as relieved, for while Neeve was forbidden some things, she was protected from others. Not once had Lord Allenach physically harmed her, or allowed his men to do so. In fact, he never once looked at her or spoke to her. It was the older women and men who were given the harsher punishments, to make them bend and cower and submit, to make them forget MacQuinn.

“I suppose I should stop for now,” she said after a while. “I’m sure that is more than enough for you to have written down.”

My hand was cramped and my neck was beginning to tighten from stooping over the desk. I realized she had talked beyond an hour, and we had accumulated twenty pages of her life. I set down my quill and bent my fingers back and dared to say, “Neeve? Would you like to learn how to read and write?”

She blinked, astonished. “Oh, I don’t think I would have the time, Mistress.”

“We can make time.”

She smiled, as if I had lit a flame within her. “Yes, yes, I would like that very much! Only …” Her delight faded. “Could we keep the lessons secret? At least for now?”

I couldn’t deny that I was saddened by her query, knowing that she would not want others learning of our time together. But I thought again on ways I could prove myself to the MacQuinns—I needed to be patient with them, to let them come into their trust of me in their own time—and I smiled, stacking the pages together, handing them to her. “Why don’t we begin tomorrow night? After dinner? And yes, we can keep it a secret.”

Neeve nodded. Her eyes widened as she took the pages, as she gazed down at my handwriting, tracing it with her fingertip.

And as I regarded her, I helplessly thought back to what I had overheard that morning. I believe she is part Valenian, one of the weavers had said of me. They were seeing me as either southern or as an Allenach. I worried this would always set me apart from the MacQuinns no matter how much I might attempt to prove myself to them.