The Queen’s Resistance

I tapped my fingers along my knees, anxious. “So we cannot outright deny them. But I still need to give Pierce Halloran an answer.”

Jourdain went very still, staring at me. “All I ask—if you would heed me as your father—is that you would not play games with him. Do not do anything that would put yourself at risk, daughter.”

“I would not assume to play Pierce in a romantic way. But as I just said, I need to answer him.”

“Can you not simply tell him you are with Aodhan Morgane?” Jourdain spouted.

“Cartier needs to appear as a lord with no weakness.” It almost sounded harsh, but the words hovered in the air between my father and me as truth; the people we loved were always a weakness. “And the fact that Cartier, essentially, has nothing—no living family, no spouse, no children—sets him higher than us in this game of politics.”

I watched Jourdain as his eyes glazed for a moment. I worried that he was thinking of himself, of his wife, Sive, of how he had lost her.

“I simply want for you to be happy, Brienna,” he eventually whispered, and his confession nearly wrung my heart.

I reached forward to take his hands in mine. “And I thank you for that, Father. After the trial—after Isolde is crowned and we have a better understanding of how everything is going to settle—Cartier and I will make it known.”

Jourdain nodded, looking down at our linked hands. “So, daughter. How will you answer Pierce Halloran tonight?”

“How I will begin to answer every man beyond this House who wishes to earn my favor as a suitor.”

Jourdain went still, soaking in my words, slowly understanding. His eyes lifted, meeting mine, and I saw the surprise within him.

“Oh? And how is that?” But he already knew.

A smile warmed my voice. “I will ask Pierce Halloran to bring me the golden ribbon from a tapestry.”

Every MacQuinn showed up for dinner that night in the hall.

There was hardly an empty space at the tables, and the great room soon grew stifling from the fire in the hearth, from the inspirations of so many curious people, from the fact that I was sitting beside Pierce Halloran at the lord’s table.

He was exactly as I expected: handsome in a sharp, unforgiving way, with eyes that flickered with deceptive languidness. And he liked to set that ruthless gaze on me, I soon found. He traced the braids in my hair, the neckline of my dress, the curves of my body. He was weighing my physical attractiveness, as if that were all to me.

You are a fool, I thought halfway through the meal as I took a steady sip of my ale, his eyes resting on me again. He was too preoccupied to entertain the thought that I might be plotting something detrimental to him.

I smiled into my goblet, just for a moment.

“And what is humoring you, Brienna MacQuinn?” Pierce asked, noticing.

I set down my ale and looked at him. “Oh, I just remembered that the tailor is sewing a new dress for me on the morrow, one with white fur on the trim. I am excited to see its design, of course.”

From his place two chairs down, Luc snorted and then hastily tried to cover it up by pounding on his chest, like he was choking. Pierce glanced at my brother, brow arched. Luc finally quieted, waving in apology, and Pierce set his focus on me again, wolfishly grinning.

“I should like to see you in white fur.”

To which a second coughing fit began, this time from Jourdain, who was on my other side. Poor Father, I thought, his knuckles white as he gripped his fork.

Jourdain spared me a swift glace, and I saw the spark of warning in his eyes. I was playing Pierce too well, then.

I reached for the plate of bread. Pierce reached for it as well, our fingers bumping.

“Shall I cut you another slice?” he asked with feigned politeness, his eyes, unsurprisingly, on my décolletage.

But my eyes were on something else entirely. His sleeve had ridden slightly up his wrist, and there was a dark tattoo on his pale skin, just over the faint blue shadows of his veins. It looked like a D with the center filled in. An odd thing to permanently etch on one’s skin.

“Yes, thank you,” I said, forcing my gaze to shift before he saw that I noticed his strange mark.

Pierce set a slice of rye bread on my plate, and I knew it was almost time, that I had let this dinner drag on long enough.

“May I ask why you have come to visit us, Pierce Halloran?”

Pierce took a long sip of ale; I saw the gleam of perspiration on his brow, and I tried not to revel in the fact that he was barely concealing his worry and nerves.

“I brought you a gift,” he said, setting his goblet down. His hand swept to the other side of the table, where two broad swords sat on the oak, resting in gilded sheaths. They were, perhaps, two of the most beautiful swords I had ever beheld, and it had taken all of my restraint not to touch them, not to unsheathe one of the blades. “I also brought one for your father.”

Jourdain made no reply. He was doing a rather poor job of hiding his annoyance with Pierce.

“And why have you brought us such magnanimous gifts?” I inquired, my heart beginning to beat faster. I saw from the corner of my eye that Neeve was rising from the table, a few other weavers following her. They were preparing to bring the tapestry into the hall as we had planned.

Can you find me a tapestry whose golden ribbon can never be found? I had asked Neeve after scheming with Jourdain.

Neeve had looked surprised. Yes, of course I can. You need the tapestry so soon, then?

As soon as dinner tonight.

“I hope to win your favor, Brienna,” Pierce answered, finally looking me in the eye.

I merely stared at him; that minute dragged on for what felt like a year, and I tried not to squirm with discomfort.

He broke the stare first, because there was a commotion sprouting on the other side of the hall.

I didn’t have to look; I knew the weavers were bringing in the tapestry, that the men were aiding them in hanging it up so that both sides could be seen.

“And what is this?” Pierce asked, a sly smile at the corners of his mouth. “A gift for me, Brienna?”

I rose, not realizing that I was trembling until I walked around to the other side of the table, to stand between Pierce and the tapestry on the dais. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly going dry, and the hall grew oppressively quiet. I could feel the weight of all the gazes gathering upon me. The tapestry Neeve had chosen for me was exquisite: a maiden in the thrall of a garden, a sword resting over her knees as she sat among the flowers, her face tilted upward to the sky. She was haloed in light as if the gods were blessing her. Neeve could not have chosen a more suitable depiction.

“Lord Pierce,” I began. “First, let me thank you for troubling yourself by coming all the way to Castle Fionn, so soon after battle. You obviously had us on your mind this week.”

Pierce was still smiling, but his eyes narrowed on me. “I will make no more pretenses. I have come to seek your hand, Brienna MacQuinn, to win your favor as my wife. Do you accept my gift of the sword?”

He had certainly brought the best of his House, I thought, resisting the urge to admire the swords. And yet how dull his character was in comparison to the steel.

“I will assume that you do not know one of the traditions of our House,” I continued.

“What tradition?” Pierce ground out.

“That marrying beyond the MacQuinn House requires a challenge.”

He laughed, to cover up his uneasiness. “Very well. I shall play along with your games.”