The Queen's Gambit: Book One of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 1) (28 page)

Wil didn’t look at Eleanor’s face. “It was an honor to help Edythe,” he responded. “And a pleasure to serve you while I still can.” When he looked back at her, his eyes seemed distant. “I must confess, I’ll miss Ainsley Rise. It’s a place that does have a sense of home about it, doesn’t it?”

“As a small child, I was afraid of it,” Eleanor replied.

“You supposed it was haunted with one of your Aemogen ghosts?” he guessed.

“No.” Eleanor shook her head. “When I was younger I had nightmares the walls would fall and I would never be able to find my way back to my parents.”

As if what she had said was curious, Wil stared a moment at Eleanor, looking like he wanted to speak but then thought better of the idea.

“That was years ago,” Eleanor said, brushing it off lightly. “I’ve not had dreams of anything crumbling for some time. Now it is the dearest place in the world to me. I miss it terribly when I’m away.” She set her mouth in a line then asked, “And what of your home?”

Wil’s eyes froze, his hand moving toward his heart before it turned into a fist and dropped back to his side. “My relationships there are complicated, but—” Wil swallowed, “its beauty haunts nearly all my dreams, and waking is almost always a disappointment.”

“Then, I hope you return again,” Eleanor said, after a pause.

Wil would not look at her. “I should be getting back to the encampment.”

“Yes.”

He turned on his heel and left the garden. It was difficult for Eleanor to watch him, wondering if, when he left Aemogen altogether, he would be found in her dreams. Wondering if waking would be a disappointment.

***

“Have you spoken much with Wil?” Edythe asked later.

The question pulled Eleanor from her private thoughts, and she looked into the mirror, back at Edythe.

“No,” Eleanor said. “We are both endlessly occupied in separate directions.” Edythe watched Eleanor with obvious concern. “What?” Eleanor asked.

“Nothing,” Edythe said as she returned to the tuck she was altering in Eleanor’s gown for the dance. “The two of you have been so remote with each other, I was just wondering if you had quarreled.”

Eleanor opened her mouth, but no words came out. She brought her hand up to her chest, where, beneath her dress, the golden pendant hung. “Of course we haven’t quarreled,” she said.

“He watches you,” Edythe explained. “At every evening meal, when you’re busy speaking with those around you, he watches you.”

“I, we—he doesn’t watch me,” Eleanor said, turning around in her chair to face Edythe. “He spends the entire time speaking with Aedon or you or Sean or whoever else is sitting beside him at the far end of the table.”

“Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean—” Edythe began but stopped herself. “He looks at you,” Edythe insisted. Then she added more hesitantly, “The way Blaike watched me.”

Eleanor felt struck. “Nobody has ever looked at anyone the way Blaike looked at you.”

Her sister’s face paled, and Eleanor cursed herself for responding in such a way. Edythe pressed her pallid lips together and turned her attention back to Eleanor’s dress.

In the silence, Eleanor looked at the ethereal white gown spread over her sisters lap.

“I read,” Edythe had said a week ago, “that in the last battles, over one hundred years ago, the king rode out in all white as a symbol of his pure intent. And,” she had added, “so must you.” She had also insisted that Eleanor wear it at the dance.

So, here they sat, in silence, while Edythe made a small adjustment, helping Eleanor dress for the night ahead.

“I’m sorry, Edythe,” Eleanor said, moving her fingers along the chain that held Wil’s pendant.

“No,” Edythe replied, pulling hard on the thread. “I only think at least one of us should have happiness.” She looked up. “Don’t you?”

“And you think my happiness would be found with Wil?” Eleanor asked, not disbelieving her own words.

“You would tell me that it’s a premature thought,” Edythe admitted as she gathered the dress in her hands and stood. “But, Eleanor, I know you as well as anyone, and he suits you so perfectly that I hardly thought it possible. Now, turn around, so I can help you into your dress.”

Eleanor did as she was told, her cheeks so pink from embarrassment that Edythe actually laughed for the first time in weeks. Slipping her dress off, Edythe then helped Eleanor step into the white gown. If she noticed the chain Eleanor wore, she didn’t mention it. “You have complementary passions and humors,” Edythe continued, “different enough to balance one another—”

“Or throttle one another.”

“With—” Edythe continued, “enough similarities to understand where the other person is coming from.”

“I don’t understand where he comes from at all,” Eleanor disagreed. “I know nothing of him. Well, that is not quite true, but your thought certainly is premature. And I, for one,” Eleanor added, taking a gold belt from Edythe and cinching it around the waist of the white gown, “have never entertained the idea—seriously. More importantly, he only committed himself for the battle run. He is not planning to stay in Aemogen.”

“When is he leaving?” Edythe asked.

Eleanor sat down, leaning her elbows against the dressing table before her, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. “I haven’t asked,” she admitted as Edythe began to pin Eleanor’s hair. “You think I should ask him to stay?” Eleanor looked at her sister’s reflection, not certain she wanted to hear the answer.

Edythe sat down beside Eleanor. “Do what you will,” she said. “But, ask yourself if, when he is gone, you’ll wish you had.”

“I don’t know him, Edythe,” Eleanor said, voicing what she had thought multiple times. “Not who he really is. You can’t think I would ever put a foreigner on the throne without gaining the utmost confidence in his character and in his regard for Aemogen.”

“Then, begin tonight.”

***

It was a warm, almost humid late summer night, and Eleanor’s dress clung to her. She moved a strand of stray hair, which was stuck against her neck, back into place. Thayne appeared at her side. In just a few minutes, they would descend into the square.

“It’s a heartbreak to see Edythe in black,” was all Thayne said.

They’d all gathered: the people of Ainsley, the people of the northern most fens, and even many from the south. Thayne had returned again from Old Ainsley and would ride out with them in the morning. Eleanor asked if he would remain with her during the course of the evening. She amused him by claiming it was to keep her in line; she knew it was to underpin her courage.

“I saw Wil Traveler today,” Thayne said, dropping his voice as he spoke, standing close to Eleanor. “He greeted me, but appeared extremely agitated.”

“Did he?” Eleanor straightened the Battle Crown on her head, shifting it slightly for more comfort. “We’re all anxious for the coming days,” she said, giving a possible explanation.

“Well,” Thayne said, looking up as the doors opened. “You look lovely, in any case.”

Several layers of the ethereal fabric rested just above Eleanor’s feet, and the only adornments aside from the Battle Crown were the gold belt, tight about her waist, and Thayne’s diamond earrings, bright in the torchlight.

The people were packed into Ceiliuradh. Night was hovering just outside the light of the square, and only a sliver of moon graced the dark sky. Musicians were tuning their instruments, torches were lit, banners lifted up. Sounding somber and hopeful, a cheer rushed towards Eleanor as they saw her on the stairs. She leaned on Thayne, her arm through his, and searched the faces below as they descended. Crispin stood, waiting at the bottom, ready to escort Eleanor to her makeshift throne, flanked with chairs for her council and the fen lords.

He cleared the way before her. “They’ve all come, Eleanor, thousands of them,” Crispin yelled, over the noise, as he accompanied her to her throne. “Spilling down into the square in every direction,” he added. Eleanor stepped up and half turned, looking out at the endless mill of people before her. Crispin, when he saw Eleanor’s expression, rather unceremoniously kissed her on the cheek.

“You know you’ve just started a legion of rumors.” Eleanor kissed Crispin in return before sending him out into the crowd. Thayne settled himself at Eleanor’s right, while Edythe sat still in the chair to her left.

“Are you certain you want to lead out?” Eleanor asked her sister again.

“Yes,” Edythe said. “I have my role to play, just as you have yours.”

Eleanor swallowed and looked at the men and women taking their seats on the platform beside them—Gaulter Alden, Sean, Briant, and the fen lords—gathering and discussing. She caught Thistle Black’s eyes and gave him a somber nod.

Aedon had just come down the stairs, documents in hand, of course, reviewing something and paying little attention to the scene around him. Eleanor smiled, and then her eyes rested on Danth, Adams’ son, the new fen lord of Common Field. He was sweating and seemed nervous, pulling at his formal coat with uncertainty. Perhaps feeling her gaze, Danth glanced at Eleanor. She nodded, and he raised his eyebrows in return, shrugging and forcing an unhappy, half-hearted smile. Then Danth looked away, as if someone had called his name. A figure settled into the seat beside him, putting an arm around the young fen lord and bending in close to say something. It was Wil.

He was wearing clothing Eleanor had not seen before, perhaps brought along in his saddlebags and never worn: black—always black—but it was a jacket with a high, stiff collar and buttons running up the front, perfectly tailored to his form. His breeches matched, and the boots he wore were also black, well treated, and crafted better than any leather Eleanor had seen before. He was beautiful. As Wil moved, responding to something Danth had said, Eleanor saw that the high collar was trimmed in patterns of gold.

The music stopped, and the musicians, their instruments held at ready, turned to face Eleanor, waiting. Grabbing Edythe’s hand for just a moment, Eleanor stood, and the night was stripped of any noise.

“A good evening to you all,” Eleanor said, speaking loudly, brushing her fingers along the wood of her chair’s arm for support. “As you know, tomorrow we will march down the pass in the hope our plan will succeed. We have prepared well, but I have also feared that we will not be enough on our own.” A ripple of voices went through the crowd.

“I, as your queen, would call upon those ancestors who have lived in Aemogen, to be with us,” she continued. “I can only hope that they are aware. We also remember our fallen countrymen, our friends from Common Field,” Eleanor added, looking towards Danth. “And we dedicate our gathering this night to them.”

She felt Thayne take her shaking hand in his as she looked out across the crowd of people. “I cannot say what the coming days will bring, but, I can tell you this: I have loved my service to you as your queen, and I continue to pledge my life to your well being. May we all return home to the safety of those we love. May we secure Aemogen.”

Their voices called out with approbation, and Eleanor motioned towards the musicians.

“You are certain you can do this?” Eleanor asked again after she sat down, leaning towards Edythe, whose wide blue eyes looked frozen. A small, nervous series of nods was all Edythe gave before stepping down from the platform onto the square.

People cleared a way, and Edythe walked to the center. Eleanor watched, her heart constricted, wishing she could have convinced her sister not to lead the traditional dance. Edythe paused in place, and the square went silent. Then, a flute began to play the delicate Aemogen melody. Drums joined in, and, as another flute now rose with the first, Edythe began the lithe motions of Aemogen’s most common ceremonial dance. She was delicate, graceful, as perfect in her motions as were the stars in the sky.

Eleanor had watched Edythe dance before but never in the shadow of such sorrow. It was a relief when, one by one, young women joined Edythe in the square, following her lead, until hundreds of them filled the square. On a signal from the musicians, the women paused, mid-motion, waiting with anticipation on their faces.

The drums beat louder and faster until, with a whoop, all the young men ran onto the square and stood before a partner. Edythe was easy to spot, the only girl in black, and Eleanor sat straight and stiff until she saw that Crispin had found Edythe. The violins began to carry a merry tune, and the couples began to dance in perfect synchronicity, their laugher and calls spilling over the square, until finally, as the drums beat even louder, the women ran from the dance floor.

The men, left alone, began to dance in strong and decisive movements, calling out several times in unison. The intensity of their movements matched the music, the drums building as the young women again found their partners on the floor. Then, the melody broke above the drums, full and clear, and all the dancers turned their last and stopped.

The crowd of thousands cheered. The evening had officially begun.

“This is something you Aemogens do well,” Thayne told Eleanor after several dances had passed.

“What is that?” Eleanor asked over the noise.

“You dance, you gather, despite sorrow, despite what is ahead.” He waved a hand towards the festivities, and then added apropos of nothing, “I should have given them to you long ago, the earrings. They become you. To be honest, I’m not sure if you would have accepted them. I underestimated Wil’s ability to convince you.”