On the last day of August, the first planning meeting was to be held over dinner at Jourdain’s, an exact fortnight since the most crucial of memories had manifested at my first sword lesson. As that date drew near, I continued to meet with Yseult every other day, to broaden my swordsmanship. Jourdain permitted it, thinking another memory might jar forward. But I knew that Tristan Allenach had not been fond of spars or his sword lessons, at least as a ten-year-old boy.
So I continued my sword lessons to improve my skill and to learn more of the queen.
Yseult was older than I’d first thought her to be, ten years my senior. She was friendly and talkative, patient, and graceful, but every now and then, I could see her eyes dim, as if she battled worry and fear, as if she was overcome with the feeling of inadequacy.
She opened up to me during our fifth lesson, when the chamberlain brought us our usual refreshments. We were sitting face-to-face, just the queen and me, sharing ale and mutton pies and sweating in the heat, when she said, “It should be my sister. Not me.”
I knew what she was implying, that she was thinking of her older sister, who had ridden beside her father the day of the massacre, who had been slain on the royal castle’s lawn.
So I said, very gently, “Your sister would want you to do this, Yseult.”
Yseult sighed, a sound inspired from loneliness, from inherited regrets. “I was three the day of the massacre. I should have been killed with my mother and sister. After the slaughter in the field, Lannon sent his men door to door of those who had rebelled. The only reason I was spared was because I was at the estate with my nurse, who hid me when Lannon’s men came for me. They killed her when she would not give me over. And when my father finally arrived, thinking I was dead . . . he said he followed the sound of a child weeping, believing he was hallucinating in his distress, until he found me hidden in an empty cask outside the alehouse. I don’t remember any of it. I suppose that is a good thing.”
I rested in all she had just revealed to me, wanting to speak and yet wanting to remain silent.
Yseult traced a fingertip through the dust coating her boots and said, “In this time of day, it is dangerous to be a daughter of Maevana. My father has spent the past decade preparing me for that moment when I will finally stand before Lannon, to take back the crown and the throne and the land. And yet . . . I do not know if I can do it.”
“You will not stand alone, Isolde,” I whispered, using her Maevan name.
Her eyes flickered to mine, dark with fear, with anxious longing. “In order for us to be victorious, we need the other Houses to follow us, to stand with us. But why would the other lords gather behind a girl who is more Valenian than she is Maevan?”
“You are two in one,” I replied, thinking of Merei, of how my arden-sister had known my heart so thoroughly. “You are Valenia as you are Maevana. And that will shape you into an exquisite queen.”
Yseult mulled on that, and I prayed my words would find their mark. Eventually, she said with a smile, “You must think me weak.”
“No, Lady. I think you everything you ought to be.”
“I grew up here without friends,” she continued. “My father was too paranoid to let me get close to anyone else. You are the first girlfriend I have truly ever had.”
Again, I thought of my arden-sisters, thought of how much my life was enriched because of them. And I understood her loneliness then, felt it as if I had been socked in the stomach.
I reached out my hand, let my fingers link with hers.
You are enough, my touch assured her. And when she smiled, I knew she felt my words, let them settle in the valleys of her heart.
But for all my encouragement, I was just as anxious as she was, my mind impatient for the first strategic meeting, when the plans to recover the stone and take back the crown would finally become tangible.
The last day of August finally arrived, and I helped Agnes set the table for seven people. It was to be Jourdain, Luc, me, Hector and Yseult Laurent, Liam the thane (who had remained with us, safely tucked away on the third floor), and Theo d’Aramitz, who was the last piece of our puzzle and the final rebelling lord I had yet to meet, his Maevan name being Aodhan Morgane.
The Laurents arrived, right on time, and Liam descended the stairs to enter the dining room. We gathered about the table, only one chair vacant: Theo d’Aramitz/Lord Morgane’s.
“Should we begin without him?” Jourdain asked from his place at the head of the table. The platters had been set down, the fragrance of the food taunting all of us as we waited for the third lord. Agnes was filling our goblets with ale, discreetly reaching between us.
“He’s coming from Théophile,” Hector Laurent commented. “That is not too far away, but perhaps there was trouble on the road.”
“Hmm,” Jourdain hummed, no doubt thinking of our own escapade with the thieves.
“He wouldn’t want us to wait,” Luc insisted, but probably because he was hungry, his eyes on the meat platter.
“Let us go ahead and eat, then,” Jourdain decided. “We shall hold off on planning until after the meal, until d’Aramitz arrives.”
The platters were passed about, and I filled my plate with far too much food. But Pierre had truly outdone himself with preparing the Maevan-inspired meal, and I couldn’t resist taking a little spoonful of everything. We were halfway through dinner when there was a knock on the door.
Luc stood instantly. “That would be d’Aramitz,” he said, disappearing down the hall to greet the lord.
Hector Laurent was in the middle of telling us the story of how he’d met his wife when Luc returned, alone. But a piece of paper was unfolded in his hands, and he paused on the threshold of the dining room, his eyes scanning the letter’s contents. Jourdain noticed this at once, the conversation dying at the table as my patron father demanded, “What is it?”
Luc glanced up. The tension had woven around us as a rope, cutting off our air as we all thought the worse, as we all imagined we were caught before we had even started.
“D’Aramitz has business in Théophile that he cannot abandon,” Luc explained. “He writes an apology, saying he can arrive in two weeks’ time.”
Jourdain relaxed, but there was still a deep furrow in his brow, his displeasure evident.
“Should we postpone the first meeting, then?” Hector inquired, his white hair gleaming in the candlelight.
“The question is,” Luc said, folding d’Aramitz’s letter, handing it to Jourdain. “Do we feel comfortable forging plans without him?”
Jourdain sighed, burdened, and read the letter for himself. I was sitting at my patron father’s left, Yseult beside me, and I exchanged a glance with the queen. This should be her call, I thought. And as if reading my mind, Yseult cleared her throat, drawing all the men’s gazes to her.
“The rest of us are here,” she said. “It is unfortunate d’Aramitz is absent, but since he is only one and we are six, let us begin with the plans.”
Jourdain nodded, pleased with her decision. We finished our dinner, and then Agnes quickly took up the plates and platters, and Jean David brought forth the map of Maevana. It was unrolled over the heart of the table, the land we were about to reclaim. A reverent quiet settled over the six of us as we studied that map.
And then, to my surprise, Yseult turned to look at me. “Amadine?”
I felt the men’s gazes, like sunlight, bright with curiosity. My hands were cold as I brought my right forefinger to the map, to the Mairenna Forest.
“My ancestor was Tristan Allenach, who took and buried the Stone of Eventide in 1430. I know the very tree he has buried the stone at, which would be in this segment of the forest, about two miles into the woods.”
The men and the queen looked to where I pointed.
“That is near Damhan,” Liam spoke up. He no longer looked like a bedraggled beggar. His hair was washed and slicked back, his beard trimmed, and his face had filled out from eating proper meals once more.
“Damhan?” I echoed, shivering as that name tickled my tongue. I had never heard the name, yet it pulled along my bones in recognition.
“Lord Allenach’s residence during summer and autumn,” Liam continued. His insight was about to be extremely valuable to us, as he had only been gone from Maevana for six years, as opposed to the twenty-five that Jourdain and Hector had experienced. “He should be there now, preparing for the annual hunt of the hart.”
Now that definitely caressed my memory. My mind searched furiously through the past few weeks, then months, wondering why this felt so familiar. I finally rested on the afternoon when Oriana had sketched me as a Maevan warrior, when Ciri had said something I never thought I would need again: My father used to visit once a year, in the fall, when some of the Maevan lords opened their castles for us Valenians to come stay for the hunt of the white hart.
“Wait . . .” I said, my eyes fastened to the forest, to where my finger still rested. “Lord Allenach invites Valenians to partake in the hunt, does he not?”
Liam nodded, his eyes sparkling with something that looked like vengeance. “He does. Makes quite a fuss over it. One year he invited as many as sixty Valenian nobles, all who paid a hefty price to hunt his forest, all who needed a letter of invitation.”
“Which means they will be hunting in the Mairenna,” Luc said, his fingers trailing through his hair.
“Which means the door into Maevana is about to be open,” Liam added, glancing to Luc. “Lannon keeps the borders closed, save for a few occasions. This is one of them.”
“When would be the next?” Jourdain asked.
Liam sighed, his eyes wandering back to the map. “The spring equinox, maybe. Many Valenians like to go to watch the jousting, and Lannon welcomes them, if only to shock southerners with our bloody sports.”
I did not want to wait for spring. The thought of it made it seem like bricks were hanging from the eaves of my shoulders. But autumn was so close . . . just a few weeks away. . . .
“Yseult?” I murmured, eager to hear her thoughts.
Her face was placid, but her eyes were also glittering with something that looked hungry, vicious. “Allenach’s hunt sets us right where we need to be. At Damhan, on the edge of the Mairenna.”
She was right. We fell silent, wondering and fearing. Could we move so quickly?
“And how would we solicit an invitation?” Hector Laurent asked quietly. “We cannot simply go and knock on Damhan’s door, expected to be let in.”
“No. We will need a forged invitation,” Yseult stated.
“I can forge one for you,” Liam offered. “I wrote plenty of the invitations when I was held under Allenach’s House.”
I was hung on what Liam had said—when he was held under Allenach’s House?—but the conversation kept moving.
“We forge an invitation,” Jourdain said, linking his fingers. “We pay the hefty sum. We send one of our men into Damhan. He partakes in the hunt; he recovers the stone.”
“Father,” I interrupted, as pleasantly as I could. “I need to be the one to recover the stone.”
“Amadine, I am not sending you to Maevana.”
“Jourdain,” Yseult said, also as pleasantly as she could. “The stone is Amadine’s to find and reclaim. None of us will be able to locate the tree as swiftly as she can.”
“But we cannot send Amadine to the hunt,” Luc protested. “These are Valenian men who are invited, not women. She would undoubtedly raise suspicions.”
“One of you men will go to partake in the hunt,” I said. “I shall arrive after you.”
“How?” Jourdain responded, a bit sharply. But I saw the fear haunting his eyes when he looked at me.
“I want you to hear this with an open mind,” I said, my mouth going dry. I was nervous to share my scheme, which I was spinning as the evening deepened. This was not one of Abree’s lighthearted plays; I was not plotting a way out of a dungeon. I was conspiring against a king; multiple lives were about to be involved and put at risk.
With an ache in my stomach, I remembered that old skit of mine, the one where every character perished save for one. But I felt Yseult close at my side, knowing the queen was my ally. And Jean David had set down a small purse of cheques by the map, which would help me illustrate my plans with pawns.
I opened the purse and took out the first pawn, inevitably thinking of Merei and all the evenings we had played each other in cheques and marques. You never protect your side, Bri. It’s your one true weakness, she had once said to me. She only defeated me when she took me by surprise, when she made the oblique move—distracting me with one obvious, powerful pawn and championing me with a stealthier, lesser pawn.
Drawing in a deep breath, I took my obsidian pawn and set it on Damhan.
“One of our men goes to Damhan as a Valenian noble, under the pretense of enjoying the hunt.” I took the next pawn, carved from blue marble. “I arrive to Lyonesse, as a Valenian noblewoman. I go directly to the royal hall, to make a request to King Lannon.” I set my pawn down on Lyonesse, the royal city. “I ask the king to pardon MacQuinn and grant him admittance to the country, that my patron father would like to return to the land of his birth and pay the penance for his past rebellion.”
Luc sat back in his chair, as if his stomach had melted down to the floor. Yseult didn’t move, didn’t even blink as she stared at my pawn. But Jourdain’s hand curled in a fist and I heard him draw in a long, conflicted breath.
“Daughter,” he growled. “We have already discussed this. Asking for a pardon will not work.”
“We discussed what would happen if you asked for the pardon, not me.” Our gazes locked—his was that of a father who knew his daughter was about to defy him. My fingers still held to my pawn, and I looked back to the map. “I make a request before a royal hearing, before the soon-to-be-dethroned king. I speak the name MacQuinn, a name that has haunted Lannon for twenty-five years. I make it known that I am his passion daughter, under MacQuinn’s protection. Lannon will be so fixated on MacQuinn’s return that he will not see the Kavanaghs sneak over his border.” I took a red pawn, which represented Yseult and her father, and moved them over the channel, into Maevana, into Lyonesse.
“An oblique move,” Yseult said with a hint of a smile. So she had played cheques and marques before, and she recognized my bold, risky strategy.
“Yes,” I agreed. “It will raise Lannon’s suspicions, but he will not think we are so foolish to announce our presence before a revolt. We play into his beliefs.”
“But how does that get you to Damhan, sister?” Luc gently asked, his face pale.
I looked to Liam. The next phase of my plans was contingent on whatever the thane could tell me. “If I am making a request in the royal hall, would Lord Allenach be present?”
Liam’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose, but he finally understood where my plans were heading. “Yes. Lord Allenach is Lannon’s councillor. He stands to the left of the throne, hears everything the king hears. Royal hearings take place every Thursday.”
“So I arrive on Thursday,” I said, daring to look at Jourdain. He was all but glaring at me. “I speak your name before the king and before Lord Allenach. Lord Allenach will be unable to resist offering me sanctuary while I wait for you to cross the channel, since the two of you are archenemies. The lord takes me to Damhan.” I slid my pawn to where the castle sat on the edge of the forest, next to the black pawn. “I recover the stone. MacQuinn and Luc,” I said and drew forth a purple pawn, moving it over the water, into Maevana, “cross the channel and arrive to Lyonesse. We are all in Maevana at this point, ready to storm the castle.”
“And what if Lannon kills you on the spot, Amadine?” my patron father demanded. “Because as soon as my name flies from your mouth, he will want to behead you.”
“I think what Amadine says is truth, my lord,” Liam cautiously spoke up. “She is right when she says that Lord Allenach—who has overtaken your House and your people—will want to host her until you arrive. And while Lannon is paranoid these days, he does not kill unless Allenach blesses it.”
“So we are gambling on Allenach having a gracious day?” Luc spurted.
“We are gambling on the fact that Lannon and Allenach will be so absorbed with MacQuinn’s reckless return that they will never see the Kavanaghs and Morgane coming,” I said, trying to keep the heat from rising in my voice.
“There is another advantage to this,” Hector Laurent spoke, his eyes on the pawns I had arranged. “If Amadine announces MacQuinn’s name at court, his return will spread like wildfire. And we need our people to be alert, to rise at a moment’s notice.”
“Yes, my lord,” Liam agreed with a nod. “And your Houses have been scattered for twenty-five years. Allenach took MacQuinn’s House, Burke took Morgane’s, and Lannon, of course, took Kavanagh’s. Your lands have been divided, your men and women dispersed. But if they so much as hear the name of MacQuinn spoken again . . . it would be the spark to a dry pasture.”
My patron father groaned, knowing this was a very good argument in favor of my plan. He covered his face and leaned back, as if the last thing he wanted to do was acknowledge this. But he did not have the final say. The queen did.
“Once we have all returned home,” Hector Laurent spoke up, his eyes fastened to something on the map. “We gather our people and converge at Mistwood. We storm the castle from there.”
The mood in the room changed at the sound of that name. I cast my eyes to the map, searching for the place he spoke of. I finally found it, a slender strip of woods on the Morgane, MacQuinn, and Allenach border, a forest that stood in the royal castle’s shadow.
“I think this is a good start,” Yseult said, the trance of Mistwood broken. “It’s very risky, but it’s also bold, and we need to move bravely if we are going to do this. What Amadine is offering is selfless and invaluable. And the plans cannot move forward without her.” She drummed her fingers on the tables, staring at my pawns. “I say Liam needs to begin the forgery of the invitation. As to which man will go under pretense of the hunt . . . that can be decided later, although I have a good inkling as to who it should be.”
I looked helplessly across the table at Luc. It obviously would have to be him, since the three lords would be easily recognized. Again, Luc looked ill, like his dinner wanted to come back up.
“Liam, we also need to arrange a list of safe houses, should something go wrong after we cross the channel,” the queen continued, and Liam nodded. “All of us need to be aware of Maevans who would be ready to house us—to hide us at a moment’s notice—if plans are uncovered and pursuit is employed. Let’s plan to meet two weeks from now, when d’Aramitz will be present, and we can finalize the plans.”
Because autumn was on the horizon. We would have to weave our plans together and strike quickly.
A chill danced down my spine as I met Yseult’s gaze. There was a question in her eyes, solemn as it was desperate. Are you certain, Amadine? Are you certain that you desire to do this?
Was I certain that I was brave enough to stand before a corrupt king and speak the name of MacQuinn, a name that would undoubtedly bear a cost? Was I certain that I wanted to go stay at Lord Allenach’s castle, knowing my father might be one of his thanes, one of his servants, one of his cronies? Knowing that my heritage was rooted in that land?
But I was ready, ready to find the stone and redeem my ancestor’s past transgressions. To set a queen upon the throne. To return to Cartier and gain my cloak.
And so I whispered, “Let it be done, Lady.”