September 1566
Two days before our second strategic meeting, I came down with a fever. Agnes commanded me to remain in bed, where in vain I drank every healing tonic, ate every nutritious root possible, and sipped copious amounts of slippery elm tea. But it was to no avail; I burned steadily off and on, as if I were a fallen star trapped on Earth.
Luc came and saw me, right before he, Jourdain, and Liam were to leave for the Laurents’ dinner. He laid his hand on my brow and frowned. “Saints. You’re still burning, Amadine.”
“I can go,” I panted, weakly attempting to push the heap of quilts away. “I can go to the meeting.”
I was worried Jourdain would try to upend my plans, and Luc saw it in my glassy eyes.
“You are not going anywhere,” he insisted, sitting beside me on the bed, tucking the blankets firmly about me. “Don’t worry; I will make sure your plans are upheld.”
“Jourdain will try to undo them,” I croaked, which prompted Luc to reach for my cup of lukewarm tea.
“He will try, but he will not go against the queen,” my brother said, tilting the cup to my lips. “And the queen is drawn to your ideas.”
I took one sip and then had to lie back on my pillows, my strength fading.
“Now rest,” Luc ordered, rising from the bed, setting my tea on the table. “It’s more vital that you heal from this so you are ready to cross the channel soon.”
He was right.
I didn’t even remember hearing him leave my room. I fell into a tangle of dark, feverish dreams. I was at Magnalia again, standing in the gardens, the fog thick on the ground, and a man was coming toward me. I wanted it to be Cartier; I nearly ran to him, my heart overflowing with the joy of seeing him again, until I realized it was Oran—Tristan’s older brother. He was coming to cut me down for stealing pieces of his brother’s memories. And I had no weapon but that of my two feet. I ran through a never-ending maze for what felt like hours and hours, until I was ragged and exhausted, until I was ready to kneel down and let Oran cut me in two, until light seeped into my eyes.
I woke, achy and drenched, but the sunlight that streamed in through my windows was pure and sweet.
“She’s woken!”
I turned my head to see Agnes there, her rosy, plump cheeks trembling as she jumped up from her chair. “Monsieur! She’s awake!”
I winced at her hollering, winced at the urgent creaking of the stairs as Jourdain appeared, halting on my threshold, as if he was too embarrassed to enter my room.
“Tell me,” I tried to say to him, but my voice cracked into pieces.
“I’ll go fetch you some water,” Agnes promised, touching my brow. “Ah, the fever has finally broken. Praise Ide.” She scurried from the room, which enabled Jourdain to ease inside, still a bit hesitant.
He finally settled in the chair Agnes had abdicated, at my bedside.
“What did I miss?” I croaked again, feeling as if coals had been raked down my throat.
“Shh, just listen,” Jourdain said. He acted like he wanted to reach for my hand, but was too shy to do it. “Everything you planned is going to occur. The invitation has been forged; we have the sum of money Allenach requires for the hunt. D’Aramitz is going to cross the channel next week. He will be staying at Damhan under the pretense of the hunt, but he is also there to quietly gather and ready my forces. In addition to that, I have requested that he keep an eye on you, that he be your shield, your protection, your ally should you need him.”
“But, Father,” I rasped, “I do not know what he looks like.”
“As I know. We prepared for this, though. The first night you are at Damhan, when you go into the hall for dinner, wear this in your hair.” Jourdain retrieved a delicate silver rose from his pocket, the edges crusted with tiny rubies. He set it into my palm. “This is how d’Aramitz will identify you, although you will likely be one of very few women there. He will be wearing a red jerkin with this emblem stitched over the center.” He withdrew a piece of parchment. I blinked, my vision still blurry from the illness, but I could see it was a drawing of a great oak, encompassed in a circle. “We discussed this at length, and everyone has come to the conclusion that it is best that once you make the acknowledging eye contact with him the first night, you avoid d’Aramitz the remainder of the time. Should he be caught, I do not want you to be caught with him. Do you understand?”
Ah, fatherly orders. He sounded so stern, so formidable. But that gleam was in his eyes again, that star of worry. I wished I could extinguish it somehow.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. Now, another conclusion we made the other night: when you go to Lyonesse, to appeal to Lannon . . . if Allenach is not present when you enter the royal hall, do not make the appeal for my admittance. You will have to wait until the following Thursday, and Liam has a list of safe houses we still need to get you. . . .” He patted his pocket, frowning. “All this has been decided because if you make the admission before Lannon, without Allenach’s presence, you will most likely be held in the keep of the castle. You understand? You move forward only if you see Allenach, and he stands to the left of the throne and will be wearing his coat of arms. You remember the Allenach coat of arms?”
I nodded, my voice too withered to try to speak, even though countless questions began to flood my mind.
“Good. Very good.” His gaze softened, as if he was seeing something in the distance, something I could not discern. “You will cross the channel the last day of September, which will have you reaching Lyonesse the first of October. A Thursday. The royal hearings typically take all day, but I would recommend you go early, because it is a six-hour trip from Lyonesse to Damhan.”
“Don’t worry,” I rasped, to which he gave me a wry look.
“That is like telling me not to breathe, Amadine. I will worry every moment you are away.”
“I can . . . handle a sword now.”
“So I hear. And I am glad you brought that up because . . .” He reached inside his doublet, brought forth a dagger in a leather sheath. “This is for you, what we Maevans call a dirk. To be worn about your thigh, beneath your dress. Wear it at all times. Do I need to tell you where the best places to stab are?” He set it in my other hand, so I now held a silver rose ornament and a dirk. Quite the contradiction, but a flame of anticipation warmed my chest.
“I know where,” I struggled to say. I could have pointed to all the vital blood flows of the body, the ones to cut to make a person bleed out, but I was too weak.
“Liam is going to plan a time to talk with you about the best ways to move in and out of Damhan,” Jourdain continued. “You will need to recover the stone at night, when the castle slumbers. We think it is best if you disguise yourself as a servant, and use the servant quarters to slip in and out.”
I didn’t let him see how the mere thought of this terrified me . . . the idea of wandering alone in unfamiliar woods at night . . . the threat of being caught trying to leave and enter the castle. Surely there was another way I could accomplish this. . . .
“I also hear your birthday was yesterday,” Jourdain said, which startled me.
How long had I been sleeping?
“You slept for two days,” he replied, reading my mind. “So how old are you now? Sixteen?”
Was he teasing me? I frowned at him and said, “Eighteen.”
“Well, I hear there is to be a party of some sorts, most likely tomorrow, after you have rested.”
“I don’t . . . want . . . a party.”
“Try telling that to Luc.” Jourdain stood just as Agnes returned with a bowl of broth and a jar of rosemary water. “Rest, Amadine. We can tell you the remaining plans when you have recovered.”
Indeed, I was very surprised that he had already told me so much, that my original plans had been honored.
After Jourdain left, Agnes helped me to a bath and clean clothes, and then stripped my linens. I sat by the window, the glass cracked open so I could breathe fresh air, my hair wondrously damp on my neck.
I thought of everything Jourdain had just told me. I thought of the Stone of Eventide, of Damhan, of what I should say when I stood before Lannon and made my request. There were so many unknown things, so many things that could go wrong.
I watched as the first golden leaves began to drop from the trees, one by one as gentle promises. My birthday marked summer’s end and autumn’s beginning, when warm days slowly faded and cold nights became longer and longer, when trees gave up their dreams and only the hardiest, most determined of flowers persisted to bloom from the earth.
Summer was over. Which meant Cartier had discovered my mysterious departure by now.
I let myself think on him, something I had not allowed my heart or mind to do since I had taken the mantle of Amadine. He would be at Magnalia, preparing to teach the next passion cycle, preparing for his next ten-year-old arden of knowledge to arrive. He would stand in the library and see half his books on the shelves, knowing I had put them there.
I closed my eyes. What constellation had he chosen for me? What stars had he plucked from the firmament? What stars had he captured with a bolt of the finest blue fabric, to caress my back?
I had to tell myself in that moment, that moment of in-between—in between seasons, in between missions, in between seventeen and eighteen—that I would be at peace even if I never received my cloak. That seven years at Magnalia was not in vain, because look where it had brought me.
“There’s someone downstairs waiting to see you.”
I opened my eyes and turned to see Luc standing in my room, that impish smile on his lips, his cinnamon hair standing up at all the wrong angles.
For one heady moment, I thought it was Cartier waiting downstairs. That he had found me somehow. And my heart danced up my throat, so wildly that I could not speak.
“What’s the matter?” Luc asked, that smile fading as he stepped closer to me. “Do you still feel unwell?”
I shook my head, forced a smile to my lips as I brushed the damp hair away from my eyes. “I’m fine. I . . . I was just thinking of what will happen if I fail,” I said, glancing back to the window, to the trees and the twirling descent of the leaves. “There is so much that can go wrong.”
Luc put his hand on my knee. “Amadine. None of us is going to fail. You cannot cross the channel with such shadows in your thoughts.” When he squeezed my knee, I relented to look back at him. “We all have doubts. Father does, I do, Yseult does. We all have worries, fears. But what we are about to do is going to carve our names into history. So we rise to the challenge knowing that the victory is already ours.”
He was so optimistic. And I could not help but smile at him, rest in the assurance he gave me.
“Now, do you want to come downstairs with me?” he inquired, holding out his hand.
“I hope it is not a party,” I said warily, letting him draw me to my feet.
“Who said anything about a party?” Luc scoffed, leading me down the stairs.
It was a party.
Or as much of a party as they could manage with our secret lives.
Pierre had made a grand Valenian cake, three layers deep with wispy butter icing, and Yseult had hung ribbons from the dining room chandelier. Agnes had cut the last of summer’s flowers and scattered them down the table. And they were all waiting: Jourdain, Agnes, Jean David, Liam, Pierre, Hector Laurent, and Yseult.
It was odd to see them gathered in honor of me. But it was even stranger how my heart affectionately tightened at the sight of them, this mismatched group of people who had become my family.
Luc played a lively tune on his violin as Pierre cut the cake. Yseult gave me a beautiful shawl, spun from midnight wool with threads of silver—just like stars—and Agnes gave me a box of ribbons, one for each color of passion. That was enough, I thought. I did not want any other gifts.
But then Jourdain came up behind me, next to my shoulder, and held out his palm. A shimmering silver chain rested there, waiting for me to claim.
“For your pendant,” he murmured.
I accepted it, felt the delicate silver in my fingers. It was beautiful and deceptively strong. This will not break, I thought and met Jourdain’s gaze.
He was thinking the very same.
Nine mornings later, I began my four-day journey in the coach to Isotta, Valenia’s northernmost harbor. Jourdain accompanied me, and he did not waste a minute of that trip. It seemed he had a mental checklist, and I listened as he moved from point to point, his dry lawyer tone emerging, which made me fight yawn after yawn.
He went through the plans, from start to finish, yet again, for each member of our group. I patiently soaked it in, thinking back to my pawns moving on the map, so I could know each person’s location. Then he gave me the list of safe houses that Liam had made, for me to memorize before he burned it.
There were five in Lyonesse—two bakers, a chandler, a silversmith, and a printmaker—and two yeomen on the way from the royal city to Damhan. All these people had once served beneath Jourdain’s House, and Liam swore they were still secretly loyal to their fallen lord.
Then Jourdain launched into his opinions of Lannon, of what I should and definitely should not say when I made the appeal. But as for the subject of Allenach, my patron father remained quiet.
“Was I right to call the two of you archenemies?” I dared to ask, weary of listening and bumping along in this coach.
“Hmm.”
I took that as a yes.
But then he surprised me by saying, “Under no circumstance should you tell him that your father, your real father, serves his House, Amadine. That you are actually an Allenach. Unless you are in a deadly situation and it is the only hope you have of getting out alive.
“For this mission, you are wholly Valenian. Stick to the history we gave you.”
I nodded and finished memorizing the safe houses.
“Now then,” Jourdain cleared his throat. “There is no telling what will happen when I cross the border. Allenach may insist on keeping you at Damhan, or he may bring you to me in Lyonesse. If he should hold you at Damhan, you need to leave with d’Aramitz on the third night after my arrival. That is when we are converging at Mistwood, to storm the throne. We will prepare for battle, but hopefully Lannon—coward that he is—will abdicate when he sees our banners rise and our people gather.”
Mistwood. That name was like a drop of wonder to my heart. “Why Mistwood?”
“Because it borders mine and Morgane’s lands, where most of our people still dwell, and it’s at the back gate of the royal castle,” he gruffly explained. But I saw how Jourdain glanced away from me with a sheen in his eyes.
“Was this the place . . . ?” My words died when he looked back at me.
“Yes, it is the place where we failed and were slaughtered twenty-five years ago. Where my wife died.”
We didn’t speak much after that, reaching the city of Isotta at dawn on the last day of September. I could smell the brine of the sea, the cold layers in the wind, the bittersweet smoke trickling from tall chimneys, and the damp patches of moss that grew between the cobblestones. I breathed it in, savored it, even if they did make me shiver, these final fragrances of Valenia.
My good-byes to Luc and Yseult had been built on hope, bound with embraces and poorly cracked jokes, crowned with smiles and thundering hearts. Because the next time we reunited, we would be storming the castle.
But my good-bye to Jourdain was a completely different experience. He refused to go all the way to the harbor with me, for fear of being recognized by some of the Maevan sailors who were unloading casks of ale and bundles of wool. So Jean David halted the coach in one of the quieter side streets, in view of the ship I was to leave on.
“Here is your boarding pass, and here are your Valenian papers,” Jourdain said briskly, handing me a carefully folded wad of forged papers that he had made. “Here is your cloak.” He handed me a dark red woolen cloak. “Here is the food Pierre insisted you take. And Jean David will carry your trunk to the docks.”
I nodded, quickly knotting my new cloak about my collar, pinning my travel papers beneath my elbow as I took the small knapsack of food.
We were standing on the road, shadowed by tall town houses, the echoes of Isotta’s fish market carrying on the sea gusts.
This was it, the moment when I finally crossed the channel, the moment I—at last—saw the land of my father. How many times had I imagined it, watching those green Maevan shores come into view through the channel’s notorious fog? And somehow, this felt like the summer solstice all over again . . . that sensation of time quickening, moving so quickly that I could scarcely catch my breath and absorb what was about to befall me.
I self-consciously felt for Cartier’s pendant beneath the high neck of my traveling gown, strung on Jourdain’s chain. I would think of Cartier, my master as he was my friend, the one who had taught me so much. The one who had granted me passion. And I would think of my patron father, who had accepted me for who I was, who loved me in his own gruff way, who was letting me go despite his better judgment. The one who was granting me courage.
My heart pounded; I drew in a shallow breath, the sort of breath one might take right before battle, and looked up at him.
“You have your dirk on you?” Jourdain asked.
I pressed my hand to my right thigh, feeling the dirk through the fabric of my skirts. “Yes.”
“You promise me that you will not hesitate to use it. That if a man so much as looks at you the wrong way, you won’t be afraid to show your steel.”
I nodded.
“I say this to you, Amadine, because some Maevan men look upon Valenian women as . . . coquettes. You must show such brutes otherwise.”
Again I nodded, but a horrible feeling had crept up my throat, nestled on my voice box. Was that what happened to my mother? Had she come to visit Maevana and been looked at as a coy, flirtatious woman who was eager to slip into a Maevan man’s bed? Had she been abused?
Suddenly, I realized why my grandfather might have hated my father so much. For I had always believed I had been conceived in love, even if it was forbidden. But perhaps it had been completely different. Perhaps she had been forced against her will.
My feet turned to lead.
“I’ll be awaiting your letter,” Jourdain murmured, taking a step back.
The letter I was supposed to write when Lannon gave him admittance. The letter that would bring him and Luc over the waters to a dangerous homecoming.
“Yes, Father.” I turned to go, Jean David patiently waiting with the typical stern expression on his face, holding my trunk.
I made it four steps before Jourdain called me.
“Amadine.”
I paused, looked back at him. He was in the ribs of shadows, gazing at me with his mouth pressed in a tight line, the scar on his jaw stark against the paleness of his face.
“Please be careful,” he rasped.
I think he wanted to say something else, but I suppose fathers often struggle in saying what they truly want when it comes to farewells.
“You too, Father. I will see you soon.”
I walked to my ship, handed my papers to the Maevan sailors. They frowned at me but let me board, as I had paid quite a sum of money for passage on this ship and the borders were legally open.
Jean David set my trunk down in my cabin and then left without a word, although I did see the farewell in his eyes before he disembarked.
I stood at the bow of the ship, out of the way from the wine being loaded into the hold, and waited. The fog sat thick over the waters; my hands moved along the smooth oak of the rails as I began to prepare myself to see the king.
Somewhere, in the shadows of a side road, Jourdain stood and watched as my ship left the harbor, just as the sun burned away the fog.
I did not look back.