“And Regan’s claim?”
Gaela glanced sharply at Osli. “She will not challenge me, but will be my royal sister, as ever. Her word, too, shall be law. Our husbands will accustom themselves to this arrangement, or kill each other trying.”
Osli said nothing, and Gaela peered at the young woman’s face: oval-shaped with a small nose, with the sort of skin that pinked if the sun but glanced at her. Brown hair short as a boy’s. Those thin lips turned down.
It was five years ago Osli had presented herself to Gaela in the shift and apron of one of the house staff. The girl had lifted her chin and met Gaela’s eyes proudly. She’d said, “I do not want to serve you in this fashion.”
Gaela, well acquainted with communicating without clearly voicing her needs, had heard the message behind the words, and smiled. “How would you serve me instead, girl?”
Osli did not return the smile. “As a warrior, like you.”
After a brief study of Osli’s hands (strong and big) and posture (solid though skinny), Gaela jerked her chin toward the door. “Take your things to the barracks, then, and if you can make your way back to me by that route, you will get your wish.”
It took only eighteen months before Gaela saw her again, beaten to the dust of the arena, but learning. A year after that, Gaela made her a captain, both for the girl’s sake as well as to stir up Gaela’s own ranks. Not once had Osli asked for help or expected special treatment for being a woman. She followed Gaela’s example as best she could, served well and without complaint, and for that Gaela now spoke. “Ask me what you will, Osli.”
“Folks are saying the bad harvests are because the king stopped taking rootwater, and stopped giving his blood to the island.”
Gaela shut her eyes and leaned in to the house girl’s massage. “Who? Who are you listening to that says such things? My retainers? My husband’s?”
“My father,” Osli confessed.
“Your father wants the wells open again.”
“Yes. He’s lost more sheep this year, and it could be coincidence, but those who still hear the voices of the trees … the things they say of the king … my lady, I only wonder what you intend.”
Gaela sat up swiftly, sending waves of hot water lapping over the wooden edge of the tub. “Do I not give my blood to this island?”
“You do.”
“Was I not born under a conqueror’s sky?”
“You were.”
“Do you doubt I am fit for the crown of Innis Lear?”
“Never!” Osli grasped the rim of the tub. “Never, my lady. It is only your father, and he is here now. What should I say of him, what should we say to him?”
“Say nothing of him, and nothing to him. He is old, and I am his heir. The time of witches and wizards is passing, Osli. We will be as great as Aremoria one day, as great as the Third Kingdom itself. They do not need magic, but only strength in their rulers and unity in their people. I’ll keep this island unified, under my rule, with my sister at my side. With me, you shall see it.”
Gaela held Osli’s steady gaze, willing the captain to let go of hundreds of years of superstition, to see how star prophecy was only a tool, and the rootwater just water. The island was an island, and earth saints, if they’d ever been real, had left long ago.
The young woman nodded eagerly. Gaela smiled.
A knock at the door jolted Osli to her feet. She answered it, fetching back a message from Astore that he would see his wife before they joined the king at a feast.
Gaela resigned herself to it, though she told Osli to pour a cup of wine for both of them to enjoy as she finished her bath. She drank deeply, imagining how it would feel when she wore the crown of Lear, when she sat on the throne at Dondubhan. How many days after the Longest Night would she wait before Lear died? An hour, or a week? Perhaps if Gaela chose to be merciful, she would grant Elia the goodbye none of them had been allowed with their mother.
When she drained the wine, she stood. “The split gown,” she ordered, “with that dark blue underneath.”
Stepping out of the bathtub, she was rubbed down with cloth, and then another girl spread cinnamon oil along Gaela’s spine and arms and belly; it stung every tiny open scratch, and Gaela relished it. That was why she preferred cinnamon. And that it cost her husband.
These were the small prices he paid for ever having loved her, for thinking she was his.
The dark blue wool underdress slithered over her loose and long, its hem curling about her bare ankles. The girls tied the cream gown on over it, arranging the split skirt carefully with ribbons that tied it in place. Laces pulled it against Gaela’s breasts, leaving her collar and shoulders bare for a thick silver necklace that pretended to plate mail. Her hair they twisted wet and bound low at her nape, with tiny silver combs tucked around the thick knot.
With fine fresh lady’s boots tied onto her feet and her Astore ring on her right thumb, she left her rooms and sought out her husband. A satisfying hour since he’d sent for her.
Astore waited in his study, a bright room just off the great hall that should’ve been a solar but that he’d cluttered with scrolls, maps, dusty books of war philosophy, and his own journals. South-facing windows were thrown open to the early evening sun, for Astore preferred to write by daylight.
Gaela did not knock before entering. Her husband sat behind his desk. Letters were scattered about, and several ink pots. A dagger for
