Page 19 of The Castle & the Cloister

If an empress walked, her people must walk too.

The Imperatrice swept over to Orden and held out a hand for him to bow over. In the past, she had always offered him a kiss of greeting—the formal gesture was an immediate signal of her displeasure over Orden’s new war.

“Imperatrice,” he said, with an attempt at warmth. “Welcome back to Inverlyn.”

She had already stepped away, her retinue fanning out behind her. Gileta was a tall woman with midnight-dark skin and hair gone gray, and she moved soundlessly across the courtyard cobbles. Her attendants were women to a one, dressed in night blues and charcoal grays and dark aubergines, their garments simple, floating things of silk. The Imperatrice’s followers stood in silence and moved in tandem, and Orden knew there was some complicated system of rank indicated by the knots in the gold or silver or copper cords they wore at the waist. He’d never bothered to learn it, but Ariana knew. She knew the name of every last Song attendant, and their proper mode of address. Ari greeted everyone from Song Royale or Caervallion or a visiting pan-oceanic nation with flawless courtesy, choosing only to snub Corrin’s summer delegates.

“You’re being very foolish, Orden,” Gileta said without preamble. “Let’s be clear on that straightaway. I would not have come to this summer’s council if your queen had not begged me to, as I believe there’s little to be done here besides sever our alliance, unless you’ve thought better of your planned war.”

Orden tamped down annoyance. Clearly Gileta intended to be as truculent as possible. The desire to lash back with some retort or threatened sanction gnawed at him. But if Ari was here, she’d placate the Imperatrice. It was what Honoria needed, so Orden swallowed back a sharp answer.

“I believe this is a conversation best reserved for the council table,” he said easily. “For the time being, perhaps I can convince you to set politics aside, and avail yourself of Honoria’s hospitality.”

“In that case, your hospitality thus far has been sorely lacking,” Gileta said relentlessly. “We found the roads here poorly maintained. My retinue was waylaid by bandits, and relieved of many valuables. Soria Sylene lost an opal bracelet which has been in her family for eight generations.”

“I’ll redouble my guard along the roads between Inverlyn and Song Royale,” Orden promised. “But you mustn’t hold it against us for too long, Gileta; every country has its bandits. I believe Caervallion is uniquely plagued by them.”

He meant the last as both a jest and a jibe—Gileta was infamous for the length and severity of her grudges, and Caervallion was known to sanction the raiding of Corrinian villages by renegades.

Rather than softening, Gileta shot him a stern look. “Not all nations are plagued by impeccably organized outlaws, who waylay their chosen targets with Vesperin tactics and wear the emblem of the drowned flame etched into their skin. They seemed especially irate, now that you’ve increased your impressment efforts in order to fuel fighting here on the Hand.”

Orden bit back a curse. Deserters, headed up by a Vesperin agent sent to be a pebble in the royal shoe. They’d even taken an emblem for themselves. The Inver flame, being snuffed out by an oncoming wave.

Tyrus take them all, Orden thought, and his mood grew markedly darker. Between Afon’s impending arrival, difficult friendships like Gileta’s, the insidious presence of Lucian, a two-hundred-year war inherited from his forefathers, and the pernicious influence of the deserters, it was a wonder Honoria didn’t crumble, or its king run mad.

He wanted Ariana at his side. Wanted her badly, but this time, just thinking about her cheered him.

“Bandits are nothing to me today,” Orden said to Gileta, his grin returning. “Whatever other troubles Honoria labors under, one is at an end—the queen has just delivered my son and heir.”

Gileta raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve finally secured the line of succession to your liking? I offer you congratulations on behalf of all Song Royale.”

Even that was half a barb.A succession to your liking. Gileta meant to cast the moon child up to Orden. He’d kept the girl safe and allowed her to live. What more did anyone want from him? His predecessors would have killed a goddess-marked child like Celina. They’d have cast her over the mountainside so that she was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. He had been far more merciful than most Invers.

“Did your apostate wife survive her childbirth?” a quiet voice asked curiously.

Behind Corrin’s retinue stood two figures who clearly did not belong to it. A man and a woman, dressed in drab Corrinian homespun. They were not nobles, nor even sworn to the goddess of stars. Corrin chose its civil representatives by lot from among the common people, referring to them as Arbiter and Arbitress. They mediated disputes and spoke for their beleaguered country as they saw fit. Every two years, the Arbiterand Arbitress were chosen anew. This pair, Orden had met at last summer’s council. He had not been favorably impressed by them, or by their attitude toward his queen.

“You mean,did the gods spare your queen, the mistress of all Honoria?” Orden growled, beginning to feel very much like a hapless bear who’d fallen prey to an unforeseen baiting. “Yes, they did, much as it will disappoint you. I made a blood sacrifice before dawn this morning to secure Her Majesty’s safety, and only a handful of hours later she delivered our child. She cannot reclaim her place at my side soon enough.”

A glint of defiance kindled in the eyes of Corrin’s Arbitress, and the Arbiter’s lip curled. In the past, Corrin’s representatives had been more like the daughters of stars—temperate, peaceable, meek. Over the years, those who spoke for Corrin had grown angrier, and less biddable. Oh, they did not dare to truly outrage either of the wolves that bordered them to the north and south, and which could rend them anew, but they made no secret of their hatred of Orden and Afon and all they stood for.

The feeling, Orden thought grimly, was mutual.

“Has Afon arrived yet?” Gileta asked, smoothly resuming control of the conversation. The Arbiter and Arbitress fell silent, ceding to her as their lone ally and source of official support on the Hand.

“No,” Orden said. “He’s whoring, down in the city. Doubtless someone will die of it. What a charming representative for your shared goddess he makes. Perhaps if Silith chose a Matria once more, Afon could be reined in by the moon’s true voice and hands.”

He meant the last to sting. Gileta was fond of acting the part of Silith’s chief emissary, but the moon’s followers staunchly refused to name a successor to Olienne, the Matria whom Orden’s predecessors had slaughtered.

The Imperatrice ignored his taunt and seemed unwilling or unable to hear any criticism of the Caervallin king. “Whatever Afon’s nature, it’s you who’s choosing unnecessary warmongering over the well-being of the Hand. You leave me with no recourse but to attempt to reason with Afon. We do indeed have a goddess in common, and if I must give Caervallion the incaendium that has previously been traded to Honoria in order to rob you of your fangs and preserve peace, I’ll gladly do so and wash my hands of any guilt concerning your people and your other war in Vesper.”

She might as well have said it outright.I will use your family’s sins, and their massacre of our innocents, as a cautionary tale to bring Afon in line, and then will build him up into an enemy you dare not engage.

“If you think a weapon like incaendium will go unused by Afon, you’re sorely mistaken,” Orden said. “Should you cede him so much as a grain, he will use it against Honoria, regardless of any agreement he strikes with you to uphold peace on the Hand. The man has no honor. If Tyrus bares his sword on my behalf, Afon will be vanquished soon, while fighting against me. That is the best outcome the Hand can hope for now.”

Gileta gave Orden a look, dark and fathomless as the new moon. “I forget sometimes how young your dynasty is. How brief your history, and how little you understand. I see no reason that we could not make a proper Silithien of Afon. Consider it your own fault if I am forced to look to Caervallion now for an ally.”

Having spoken her piece, Gileta and her retinue swept past Orden, for all the world as if they owned his castle.