The Queens of Innis Lear

The king smiled magnanimously at Regan, then Gaela. The sisters glanced at each other, as if they could sharpen their smiles against each other’s teeth.

“Well said, daughters,” said the king of Innis Lear, before looking to his youngest.

She stared back.

“Elia, our joy?” the king said tenderly. “What will you say?”

Silence thundered throughout the great hall.

Courtiers leaned in, to hear the first breath she took in answer. All she had to do was be honest, and the island would be hers. All she had to do was tell the world what it already knew: she loved her father, and always had.

But when Elia Lear spoke, she said, “Nothing, my lord.”

“What?”

Lear’s calm demand echoed in the mouths of others. What had the princess said? Why? What was this game? Did the king and his daughter play it together, or was it a trap?

Elia spoke up. “Nothing, my lord.”

Lear smiled as to an errant puppy. “Nothing will come from nothing. Try again, daughter.”

“I cannot heave my heart into my mouth, Father. I love you … as I should love you, being your daughter, and always have. You know this.” Elia’s voice shook.

“If you do not mend your speech, Elia,” the king said, glowering, “you will mar your fortunes.”

Swallowing, Elia finally took a very deep breath. She smoothed hands down her skirts, and said, “If I speak, I will mar everything else.”

Lear leaned toward her. A wild thing scattered in his usually warm blue eyes. Wild and terrifying. “So untender?”

“So true,” she whispered.

“Then let truth be your only dowry, ungrateful girl,” he rasped.

Elia stepped away in shock.

The king’s demeanor transformed like a rising phoenix, hot and blasting and fast. He pointed at Elia, finger shaking as if she were a terrible specter or spirit to be feared. “You false child. You said you understood me, you saw the stars with me …” Lear threw his arms up, catching fingers in his silver-striped hair. “This is not Elia! Where is my daughter, for you are not she. No princess, no daughter! Replaced by earth saints, cursed creatures!” He shook his head as if appalled, eyes wide and spooked.

“Father,” Elia said, but before anyone else could react, the king cried out:

“Where are Aremoria and Burgun? Come forward, kings!”

Elia did not move, rooted to the rushes and rugs, trembling, as if holding back something so great, that to move would be to unleash it.

“Here, sir,” spoke Ullo of Burgun. “What now?”

Lear smiled into the stunned silence, and it was clear where Regan had gotten her dangerous expressions. “My good king Burgun, you have been on a quest for this once-daughter of mine’s love, and you now see the course of it. Would you have her still?”

Ullo stood to one side of Elia. He bowed and glanced at her. She gave nothing in return; her specialty today. When Ullo straightened he said, “Your Highness, I crave only what was promised to me: your daughter and the price of her dowry.”

“My daughter came with that dowry. This girl is … not she.” The last was said in a hush of awe or fear; it was impossible for any to tell.

Ullo took the princess’s rigid hand in his, drawing her attention up to his overly sad expression. “I am sorry, lovely Elia, that in losing a father today you also lose a husband.”

Elia choked on a laugh, and the great hall finally saw anger press through the cracks of her composure: “Be at peace with it, and not sorry, Ullo of Burgun. Since fortune and dowry are what you love, ours would not have been a good union anyway.”

Far to the left, the Earl Errigal sputtered to hide a great laugh.

Ullo snatched his hand away and, with a pinched face, snapped for his retainers and took his leave.

A half-emptier great hall remained.

“And you, Aremoria?” Lear intoned with all the drama he was able. “Would you have her? As I’ve nothing but honor and respect for you, great king, I advise you against it. I could not tell you to partake of a thing I hate.”

The youngest princess faltered back from the vitriol, knocking into a wall of leather and muscle: the king of Aremoria. His even, shrewd gaze leveled over her head and landed fully on her father.

“It seems, Lear,” Morimaros said, calm and clear, “Quite strange that this girl to whom you previously vowed the greatest of affections should in the course of not even an hour strip away every layer of love you once felt. What incredible power she has to erase a lifetime of feeling in one rather quiet moment.”

“When she was my daughter, I thought her power was that of the moon when it darkens the sun, as her mother’s was,” Lear said, sour and sad. “I thought she would be my comfort and queen, as her mother was. Now she is nothing, worth nothing.”

Morimaros turned his gaze off the king and put the full weight of it onto the daughter. “This woman is her own dowry.”

“Take her, then,” Lear said nastily. “She is yours, mine no longer or ever again.”

“Father,” said Elia.

“No!” The king covered his eyes, clawed his face. “No father to you, for you cannot be my daughter Elia. My daughter Elia should have been queen, but she is nothing!”

“No!” Elia cried. It was the loudest she had ever been.

Even Gaela and Regan seemed surprised: the one grimacing, the other with her lips coolly parted.

Kayo said, “Lear, you cannot be—”

“Silence, Oak Earl. I loved her most, yet when I need her, she turns on me. She should have been queen!” Lear flung himself back onto his throne so hard it shifted with a groan.

Kayo strode forward and went to his knees before the throne. “My king, whom I have ever loved and respected as both my liege and my brother, do not be hasty.”

“Would you put yourself in my furious sights now, Kayo?” demanded Lear. He turned to Connley and Astore. “You two, divide this island between yourselves, in equal parts. All of it to you and your issue with my daughters. Gaela and Regan both be all the queens of Lear! There are no others!”

“Lear!” yelled the Oak Earl, slowly stretching to his feet. “I will challenge this, I will speak. Even if you tear at my heart, too. I chose this island and your family—our family!—long ago. I have defended your countenance against rumors and detractors, but now you are acting the madman all say you’ve become. My service to you—and to Dalat—insists I speak against this wildness. You are rash! Giving two crowns will destroy this island, and for God’s sake, Elia does not love you least.”

“On your life, be quiet.” The king closed his eyes as if in pain.

“My life is meant to be used against your enemies, Lear, and right now you are your own enemy.” Kayo ground out the last between his teeth.

“Get out of my sight, both of you—go together if you must, but do not be here.”

“Let me remain, Brother Lear.”