“Who did that to you?” Gaela demanded softly.
Osli kept her lips pressed shut.
Gaela admired the determination but would not allow it. She intended to utterly destroy whoever had hit Osli. “There are times for honor in silence,” Gaela said, standing near enough she could see the roots of Osli’s hair. “This is not such a time. I will know, and you will tell me.”
“My lady,” the captain said, brave enough to meet Gaela’s dark eyes. “It will do no good.”
The smile that spread on Gaela’s mouth was not kind. “I do not intend to try for good. Tell me.”
Osli’s jaw muscles shifted as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.
Gaela grasped Osli’s shoulder, squeezing the thin leather cap of the uniform sleeve. “None shall know you told me, none shall know I have discovered it at all. Your life will not be made harder in our own ranks, or in your command. You have my promise on that. But I will know.”
“Esric,” Osli snarled, suddenly alive with fury. “They—they cornered me, said they could fix me! There is nothing wrong with me. I told them that if they were men they’d not be threatened by my strength. That’s when he—I would’ve hit him back, but it was so vicious, and I was so full of rage. I’d have killed him if I started, and I would not have your retainer responsible for the death of your father’s.”
Such a swell of affection and pride filled Gaela that her grip became too ferocious, causing Osli to gasp.
“It was well done,” the prince said, releasing her young captain. “I will finish it for you.”
And Gaela strode toward the rear courtyard, where she knew Lear’s retainers could be found, lounging and lazing even at this early time of evening.
In the yard a ring had been built, messily formed of ropes, with retainers—half unjacketed—holding the corners, all while two shirtless, barefooted men wrestled in the middle. Gaela paused on the final stair as a cheer rose, the unmelodious noise made of half groans, and several voices calling new bets. Lear was seated close to the wall, and he clapped and tossed a handful of dull coins at the men. A cacophony of vulgar behavior.
Esric was her father’s commander, and Gaela did not doubt that Lear had witnessed the entire attack and done not a thing.
Gaela stepped down and called, “This game is over.”
She was ignored, and that would not stand.
The eldest daughter of Lear walked to the nearest corner, shoved the retainer aside, and grasped the rope he held. She jerked it, pulling the next man off balance hard enough so he fell to one knee.
Protests rang out at the interruption, before the men noticed who had ended their revelry.
“What, Gaela!” her father cried. “Why so full of frowns?”
“Your men are all insolence, sir.” She thrust the rope to the hard-packed dirt of the yard. “All hours, in all ways, and I am grown sick of it.”
“Insolent! For sporting with ourselves?” Lear giggled.
“I have spoken to you of their slovenly ways before, and yet you refuse to take them to task. I will do it for you now.” Gaela leveled a glare at the nearest man, then swept her gaze over them all, eyeing Esric especially. “Mend your lazy, arrogant, unbridled behavior, or be gone from Astora by morning.”
Lear flew at her. “You cannot order my men. These are mine, and my will shall order them.”
“Then order them better, as a commander, and not an old fool.”
It was too much; Gaela knew it the moment she spoke it, but she faced Lear proudly.
“Do you call your father a fool?” Lear said with stealthy anger.
From the benches, a voice called, “You so readily did give away all your other titles!”
For a moment silence struck the yard, but for the song of evening birds and the rustle of the city just beyond the wall. Gaela could not look away from Lear to identify the speaker, not until Lear himself slid his eyes that way, with a tattered slight smile.
It was his own Fool.
“What title would you regain for me, then?” asked Lear.
“Lear’s shadow?”
Gaela fought a shiver of foreboding.
“And who is this standing, then, here with us?” Lear flapped his hand at her, and she leveled the Fool with her dark gaze, daring him.
“Your daughter, Uncle, and the queen-in-waiting, if waiting be a battle.”
“That is right,” Gaela said to her father. “This Fool knows better than you what we are, and what we will be. Understand me: your retainers are not welcome here any longer, soaked in this dreadful behavior. Wrestling in mud and betting on themselves! Lusting after my maids and those living in the city! Think not that I am unaware. Striking my people, and making servants of their betters. A king would never have tolerated it before, nor shall I now. Get them gone if you cannot control them.”
Lear brought his fists up, trembling with exhaustion or rage or some mix of the two. “I will go with them, if they are to be tossed out with so little joy and care!”
“So be it!” Gaela yelled.
“What is this storm?”
All glared at the newcomer: Kay Oak, muddy from travel and stinking of horse. Gaela wished to welcome him, the uncle who shared her better blood. But the once-earl put his hands on his hips and very clearly turned a face of comfort to the king. “Your Majesty, my kin, what troubles you?”
“My wretched girl turns me out!” wailed the king, with no hint of his so-recent fury at the Oak Earl, nor even a hint of familial recognition.
“Patience, lord,” Kayo said, turning to Gaela with disbelief. He stripped off his heavy riding gloves.
She covered her annoyance with a shrug. “If he insists, so it must be.”
“Gaela.” Her name was all
