Chapter Three
The next council meeting went better at the start.
No one arrived with bound attendants. No one had branded anybody.
Eogan even limited himself to one cutting remark in the first quarter hour, which Ina took as a sign that either peace was taking root across the courts or he had overslept and missed the part of the morning where he usually planned out his wit and his irritation alike.
They met in the same chamber as before, all having indicated appreciation for the new meeting location.
The round table had acquired a fresh scratch near Eogan’s place, which pleased Ina more than it should have.
It proved the room belonged to use now, not mere ceremony.
Papers lay spread before them in small, ordered stacks.
Jasenka had brought a roll of marsh records tied with reed-fiber cord.
Lugomir had a wax tablet and a stylus thick as his thumb.
Derran, who claimed he thought better while moving, had begun the meeting on his feet and only sat when Karai told him, with more than a hint of annoyance, that his pacing was making the entire chamber shake.
Now, near the middle of the agenda, Lugomir set down his stylus and said, “There is one matter the marsh court would like formally settled.”
Ina looked up from her notes. “Go on.”
He glanced toward Jasenka, then back to the table. “The regency has served its purpose. The court no longer needs a caretaker arrangement. The royal households have all sent their support. If the crown approves it, Jasenka and I would take the marsh court fully, as prince and princess.”
Ina was nodding before he finished. “Of course.”
Eogan leaned back in his chair. “You have the court’s support?”
“We do,” said Jasenka. “And before you ask, yes, Eggy darling, genuine support. Not the kind announced in back rooms.”
Every mouth twitched. Eogan decided not to answer. They could all tell he hated it when Jasenka called him that nickname, Eggy, but he also seemed to have an admiration for her that allowed it.
Derran folded his hands on the table. “Then I see no cause to delay it. Sky court agrees.”
“The burrow court agrees,” said Karai, almost bored.
“The canopy court agrees,” said Eogan, with the tone of a man being forced to behave in public and doing it correctly out of spite.
Ina looked at Lugomir and Jasenka. “Then it’s settled. We’ll have you crowned.”
Karai turned his head quickly. “That’s not tradition. Your Majesty.”
Ina looked at him in confusion. “A coronation is not tradition?”
“It’s not the custom of the marsh court,” he clarified. “Their rulers take the office of prince or princess. They are not crowned, not formally.”
Lugomir lifted one shoulder. “True enough.”
Ina sat back. “Then what do you do? Surely you celebrate?”
Jasenka answered this time. “Of course! We feed people and we dance and we have a grand party. Many grand parties.”
Derran brightened at once. “At last, a sensible court.”
Lugomir nodded. “There is no formal coronation. But when a new ruler takes the court throne, the marsh families gather for several days. Food, music, drinking, old songs, river games, speeches that go on too long, more drinking. If the season is kind, boats. If the season is not kind,
arguments about boats.”
“It lasts about a week,” said Jasenka, smiling with the kind of pride that came from discussing one’s customs. “By the end, everyone has either blessed the new ruler or insulted them to their face. Both are considered healthy signs.”
Ina smiled too. “That sounds very much like a coronation, only with more boats.”
“Perhaps,” acknowledged Lugomir. “In any case, we would hold it. Mostly for our own court. But one evening in the middle, we would like to invite all of you to a ball. All four courts, together.”
That caught the table’s attention.
“A ball?” chirped Derran, unable to hide his enthusiasm.
Jasenka nodded, equally excited. “A proper one. Music, formal dress, public dancing. We want the other courts there because it will be the first such gathering since...”
She left the rest unspoken. She did not need to name Aikento or the disorder he had helped bring about.
Everyone at the table knew what she meant.
“It would do the kingdom good to see the courts together for something other than crisis.”
Lugomir added, “And it would do the marsh court good to host the others in peace.”
Ina liked the idea instantly. “Then I accept on behalf of the crown. And unless anyone here objects, on behalf of the other courts as well.”
No one objected.
Derran looked especially pleased by the idea of a ball. Karai looked resigned to it. Eogan looked as though public celebration in mixed company was a burden he would endure and later criticize in private. Jasenka, noticing all this, seemed faintly satisfied.
“Good,” she said. Then she paused before adding, gently, “Though… there is one more point.”
Ina had been reaching for her pen again. She paused. “What point?”
Jasenka looked at Lugomir, who folded his hands. “The queen will be expected to arrive in style.”
Ina waited.
“In the marsh court,” he said, “when a ruler of higher station honors a great court occasion, they do not simply walk in through the front doors looking well turned out and hoping that will do. They make an entrance proper to the host court.”
Derran’s mouth twitched, as if already knowing what was coming next.
Ina narrowed her eyes. “What kind of entrance?”
“The queen,” said Jasenka, too calmly and sweetly, “should arrive transformed into a creature of the marsh. You are a new barley queen, so we thought you might not know. But it is very important to the court to see such a showing of acceptance and unity.”
Ina kept her face still by effort.
Across the table, Karai stopped looking at Lugomir and began watching her instead, his eyes glittering with enough amusement that she had half a mind to kick him under the table.
Lugomir picked up where Jasenka left off, either mercifully unaware or choosing not to notice. “A marsh bird would do well. Or something from the reeds or water. It need not be elaborate. But the expectation will be there.”
“I see,” Ina managed.
“And,” added Jasenka, “once you have arrived, of course, you will be expected to dance with his Highness, the new prince. My dear Lugo.” She waved a hand, beaming at him.
Ina nodded once, slowly, as if these were two perfectly ordinary things to hear over a council table.
“Of course,” she forced herself to say.
Derran coughed into his hand.
Eogan looked down at his papers so quickly that Ina knew, with her own deep irritation, that he was trying not to enjoy himself.
Lugomir, whose sense of danger often arrived a little later than other people’s, said, “It should be utterly splendid. The marsh court has been eager to see the full range of what their queen can do.”
Ina smiled at him with such steadiness that she deserved reward for it. “Then I shall endeavor not to disappoint them.”
“Graciously said, your Majesty,” Jasenka replied, and if there was any suspicion in her eyes, she was polite enough not to show it.
The rest of the meeting passed in one long stretch of practical matters for said ball.
Dates were suggested and moved. Routes for arrival were discussed.
The canopy court complained about travel time across the lower forest.
The marsh court pointed out that they all had the use of wings and ought not complain about distance to those who spent half the year hauling goods by boat through mud.
Karai and Eogan disagreed over the required guest list, and then their proposed quarters.
Derran made what he claimed was a serious proposal about arranging clouds above the marsh for dramatic effect and was told by three people at once to stop helping.
Ina wrote down everything she needed to remember while thinking of two things only.
Creature of the marsh.
Dance with the prince.
By the end of it, she had filled the margin of her notes with small, useless lines that meant nothing at all.
At last the meeting broke. Eogan departed first, taking his scoffing annoyance with him. Lugomir and Jasenka gathered up their papers more slowly.
Jasenka paused before leaving. “You will do well,” she said gently, this time more encouragingly than Ina felt was fully truthful.
Ina, who had no intention of confessing ignorance to anyone not already trapped by loyalty, answered, “I intend to.”
Jasenka only smiled. Then she and Lugomir were gone as well.
The door shut.
Ina remained seated for the space of a breath, staring at the page in front of her.
Then she looked up at Derran and Karai and said, “Well. We have work to do.”
Derran’s eyebrows rose. Karai did not move at all, which meant he had already guessed her plan.
“I can’t transform into anything on purpose,” Ina went on. “Or even on accident, as you both well know.”
Derran sat on the edge of the table. “I was going to say it’s at least good they asked for a marsh creature and not a cloud leopard or a whale.”
“There are no whales in the marsh,” muttered Karai.
“Which improves her chances.”
Ina rolled her eyes and pointed at Karai. “You. Library. Today.”
His gaze stayed on her a beat longer than it needed to. “Is that the extent of your Majesty’s order?”
“It’s enough to begin with. You are to teach me transformation magic,” she said. “Properly, and quickly. Not with all its bells and whistles. Just enough to get me into a shape for this ball without embarrassment.”
He inclined his head. “Very well.”
“And you,” she said, turning to Derran, “are to teach me to dance well enough that I do not step on the new marsh ruler in front of all four courts.”
Derran put a hand to his chest in mock solemnity. “A grave duty, but I accept it.”
“You will be serious.”
“I am serious.”
She looked at him.
He sighed. “I will be more serious than usual.”
“That’s the best I’m likely to get, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Karai with a smirk he couldn’t help.
Derran shot him a look. “You’re in a very lighthearted mood today.”
“It suits the occasion.”
Derran rolled his eyes, not finding an immediate retort.
Ina pushed back her chair and stood. “Good. Then it’s settled.”
Karai rose as well. “I’ll clear space in the library.”
“You’ll need more than space,” chuckled Derran. “If she turns into something with antlers, shelves may be lost.”
“I am not turning into something with antlers,” said Ina.
Karai looked at her. “You don’t yet know what you’re turning into.”
That shut her up for a moment, which Derran found hilarious. Before she could respond that there were no marsh creatures with antlers she could think of, he slid off the table and straightened. “Anyway, I need to return to the sky court this afternoon.”
Ina frowned. “For how long?”
“Two days, perhaps three. There are petitions waiting, and my steward has been sending messages with the tone of a man about to set fire to my household out of spite.”
“You cannot stay?”
His expression changed a little, as if he regretted missing the chance to spend more time with her, but knew duty called. “Not today.”
She nodded. She had no right to be disappointed by that, and was annoyed to find herself so anyway. “Then I’ll come to the sky court tomorrow. We can start dancing lessons there.”
His face brightened instantly. “You’ll be there?”
“Yes.”
“At what hour?”
“At a teaching hour,” she said. “Not a prince’s hour, where I arrive and find you still dressing.”
“I’ve never once kept you waiting while dressing.”
“You have, in fact, made a career of it,” she teased.
Derran grinned wolfishly at that, and she instantly regretted the words.
Both of them remembered moments in the bathing room when Derran had spent longer finding his clothing than she had, recovering from a round of passion in the water.
She had not meant to remind him, to tease him as he so enjoyed, but the words had come out before she had thought them all the way through.
Karai had already reached the door, blissfully unaware of the spark that had been lit. “If you two are done arranging the sky around your schedule, I’d like to prepare before the queen arrives and breaks my library.”
His joke broke the tension. Ina snatched up one of the jeweled paperweights and threw it at him. He caught it without looking.
“That,” she called, “is for insulting your queen.”
“The insult landed far better than your throw,” he quipped back.
Derran laughed.
Karai opened the door and smiled softly back at her. “Come when you are ready, Ina.”
He left before she could answer.
Derran lingered. He always did, a little. It was one of the things that made leaving him harder than it ought to have been.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, confirming again, perhaps worried she might have changed her mind in the last minute.
“Yes.”
He studied her face in that open way of his, as if he might have the courage to reach out for her after her earlier comment, though his expression did not hide that he was trying to keep himself in check. “Try not to turn into anything venomous before then.”
“No promises.”
He smiled, then came around the table. She thought to take a step back before he did something that would make her poise break, but he had reached her and pressed a brief kiss to her temple before she could make the decision final.
It was done so lightly that it might have passed for simple affection between close friends.
It did not pass for that in her body.
By the time she came up with anything clever to say, he had already stepped back.
“Tomorrow,” he said again, and was gone.
Ina stood alone in the council room with her notes in her hand and the shape of his parting still too present on her skin. After a moment she drew in a breath, let it out, and looked at her hands, wondering nonsensically how much use they’d be in the next few days of lessons.
Transformation first. Dancing after.
She gathered her papers into a stack, squared them against the table, and left the chamber.