The Queens of Innis Lear

ELIA WAS PLEASED to discover that her father was leading her toward the Rose Courtyard for their meeting; it had always been one of her favorite places at the Summer Seat, even since the well had been closed. She felt safe there, understood. It was a good sign for the introduction about to take place. Elia breathed carefully, practicing a cool expression, practicing being a star.

When she entered, the wind was tense, whispering little cries without words. She held tight against her chest the large tome of star charts she’d carried from her father’s rooms, and glanced up, curious.

Each king had, of course, claimed a side.

To the east Ullo of Burgun waited surrounded by his own retainers in bright maroon and gold, jeweled sheaths for long knives hung from leather belts. They clustered in a friendly group, and though a few eyed the Aremores, most chatted with each other and Ullo. Just as Lear and Elia entered, the king laughed, tossing back a head of thick brown hair so his teeth glinted whitely and well. He clapped a pale hand on the chest of the Burgundian lord beside him. Sweat glistened at the temples of both Ullo and this man, laden as they were with velvet and fur-lined finery. But Ullo was pretty, and his beard seemed soft around his full, smiling mouth.

Across from him, only six Aremores presented, each of them in quilted orange gambesons, with pauldrons fixed to their shield shoulders by a red leather strap diagonal across the chest. The steel pauldrons were round as a moon reflecting sunlight. One Aremore man stood out at the fore, though he held himself exactly as the soldiers did and his costume was the same but for a heavy ring of garnet and pearls on his thumb and a simple crown etched into the surface of his pauldron. This king’s head was shorn nearly bare, and a perfectly trimmed brown beard to match it spread over his hard jaw. He had blue eyes, and their long dark lashes were the only promise of softness from the king of Aremoria. And he had no love for Burgun; that was obvious from the analytic stare he cast toward the more relaxed Ullo.

With a pleased start, Elia recognized the final man in the courtyard, lounging in a chair with his leg tossed up over the arm, wearing a striped coat of several bright colors: Aefa’s father, Lear’s Fool. She smiled and nearly broke Lear’s game by calling out to him. But she remembered that this was a volatile moment, and she needed to maintain poised calm for her father’s sake—and for her own. Her smile stopped at slight.

The moment king and daughter entered, Ullo snapped to attention, and Morimaros of Aremoria bowed his head respectfully.

“Your Majesty of Innis Lear,” said Burgun, stepping forward. “What a charming garden this is, and a surprise on this cold, sharp cliff. It seems roses are a perfect flower for your island, as beautiful and hearty as they are.”

“And tangled,” Lear said, amused. “And sharp and treacherous.”

Ullo blinked, then smiled as if it were the only reaction he could think to have.

“Lear,” the king of Aremoria said only.

“Aremoria,” Lear returned.

Retaking attention, Ullo swept his hand toward the Fool. “Your Fool has kept us well entertained, sir, as we awaited you.”

“And you”—the Fool stood to offer an elaborate bow—“entertained me beyond well, king, verging toward ill, if all things are circles.” Taller and lankier than the king had ever been, he kept his hair short and spiky, dyed henna red, and dots of red painted the outer corners of his eyes and bottom lip, like a woman.

Lear embraced his Fool fondly, saying, “Your wit rarely comes full circle, friend.”

“More of a spiral, I’d say, beginning and ending only in your ability to comprehend.”

Lear laughed, and so did his Fool, their heads knocking together as if they were alone in all the world. Though Elia understood the joking, or so she thought, there seemed something still she could not catch.

“You’ve brought a star priest with you,” said the king of Aremoria lightly.

Elia met his gaze: Morimaros watched her dispassionately.

“Ah, no.” Ullo of Burgun bounded forward, his hand out to Elia. “This is the princess Elia of Lear. My lady, only a dullard could mistake your unique beauty for anyone else.”

Morimaros’s lips pulled into a line Elia could not read. She gave the charts over to one of Lear’s retainers and allowed Ullo her hand, saying, “But I am a star priest, my lord, and so it was no mistake.”

Ullo touched her fingers to his lips and smiled. “I am rather overwhelmed at meeting you, and apologize for any misspeaking.”

She squeezed his fingers, and he released her. His eyes trailed down her neck and across her breasts with open intimacy. As her flesh went cold, she turned her face to Morimaros. “My father did bring a star priest with him. You wished your birth chart analyzed.”

“We are to be honored by your very own prophecies?” Ullo said, hand over his heart.

The king of Aremoria did not react but to flick his eyes at Ullo. Elia hid another smile, believing Morimaros had stronger feelings for Burgun than for her. That should make remaining detached easier.

It was Lear who said, one arm about his Fool, the other waving at the retainers, “Here are the charts, if my dearest daughter obliges, and perhaps in your stars she’ll find some preference for her favors.”

“I would petition the jewels of heaven to tilt in their courses toward me,” Ullo said prettily.

Elia wished Morimaros would say, I need rely on no such petitioning, or some such, that might put the king of Burgun down, but Morimaros was silent.

She gestured for the charts to be placed upon the well’s tabletop and glanced between the two kings. “I must begin with knowing your times of birth, so we might choose the correct charts.”

Morimaros paused in consideration.

“Do you know it?” she prompted gently.

“I do, lady,” he said just as gently. “I only would not want to remove from Ullo the chance to be first.”

“Sporting of you,” Ullo snapped. “Perhaps there is some star sign now which of us should be preferred.”

Casting her gaze up at the blue sky, Elia said, “I’m afraid the afternoon stars have no signs for us, influencing instead beyond our means to see.”

“Perhaps a worm sign, then?”

She looked sharply to the speaker: it had been Morimaros.

“Do you listen to the language of trees?” the king of Aremoria continued. He held his expression as cool as ever, but Elia warmed at the question.

“Worm signs!” Lear cried, scrubbing the air with his arms. “None such in my court.”

Elia’s pulse jumped, and she forced her pleasure hard away. “Of course not, Father,” she soothed.

Ullo frowned sympathetically. “Only the purest prophecy for such as ourselves.”

“Indeed,” Lear said. “I will be the star of this afternoon and say Ullo will have his reading first.”

Elia glanced at Morimaros with slight apology, wishing she might say something to him, but in the end these kings mattered little to her.

Ullo was twenty-four years old, born under the Violet Moon of the Year of Past Shadows. Elia paged through the proper charts while Ullo leaned over her shoulder, smiling prettily in the corner of her eye, but not pressing near enough to touch or overwhelm her. He smelled of properly burnt sugar and a current of sweat, but not unpleasantly so.

The Year of Past Shadows had been full of repeating patterns in the dawn clouds, tied back to the year before, and thus given its name. Elia kept that in mind as she carefully marked a blank sky map with stars from the night of Ullo’s birth, counting everything forward, wishing she knew the clouds and very worm signs Morimaros had asked after. Or had a handful of holy bones to cast. But her father did not allow bones, or any such earthly predictions, in his records. Unlike bones and earth, Lear said, the stars see all, from their greater vantage point, and are not marred by subjectivity.

The king of Burgun’s birth star was the Rabbit’s Heart, rising under a crescent moon to inflict sharpness on an otherwise generous spirit. Perhaps the sharpness of a crown, she assured him, so long as he did not allow it to make him bitter.

“With so sweet a lady as you beside me, bitterness would be impossible,” he replied.

Elia demurred, but her father laughed approvingly, and the Fool pointed out that some bittersweet flavors remained longest in memory.

Morimaros of Aremoria would turn thirty in just over a month, several days before this year’s equinox. “But it was the equinox itself the night I was born,” he offered.

“Ah,” King Lear intoned excitedly, putting a sour tilt to Ullo of Burgun’s smile.

“That is helpful,” Elia said, repeating her charge of marking down stars and counting forward as she’d done first for Ullo. The Aremore king had been born in the Year of the Sixth Birds, and on that autumnal equinox, an hour before dawn in Aremoria, it was the Lion of War that crowned the sky. Elia glanced at her father, whose eyes narrowed on the chart. “That constellation holds your counter star, Elia,” he said testily.