Chapter Fourteen Cleves
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cleves
Cleves is dreaming of her again. They are dancing, eyes locked, beneath a dome of bordweal power conjured by their own bodies.
The tingling, powerful sensation that she had when she joined with Cnothan on her wedding day courses through her.
Courses through her and into Seymour and back again, between their eyes, their hands, Cleves’s fingers gloved in Seymour’s, music ephemeral and all around them like an embrace.
I think it must be quite something to be loved by you, Cleves had said on their first meeting. In her dreams, it isn’t something. It is everything.
As they dance beneath the bordweal dome in the hall at Brynd, Seymour’s hand moves up from Cleves’s waist and begins to untie the laces of her bodice.
Cleves looses Seymour’s hair from her hood.
Then they are kissing, Cleves’s hand pulling Seymour’s head to hers, the other hand running along that bone at the base of the neck that has always fascinated Cleves, always been her undoing.
She can never get past that point, always waking before the delicious ritual of the undressing begins.
So it is today. She wakes with the dawn, just before the sky lightens but with the birds chittering from their roosts in the castle roof.
The promise of Seymour’s nakedness is tantalisingly close, if only she could slip back into her dreams and manoeuvre them just so.
But once Cleves is awake, she can rarely return to sleep.
Still, it takes her a moment to realise that she has not woken naturally.
Someone is loitering outside her door – she can hear the shuffle of their footsteps.
She swings out of bed, pulling on a bodice and a pair of breeches, and retrieves a short dagger from one of her practical belts.
With the dagger in hand, she tiptoes to the door and pulls it open, hoping to take whoever is beyond by surprise.
The loiterer straightens, startled, and Cleves covers the jolt in her stomach with a stiff smile. “Clarice, is it not?” she says.
The Feorwan bows their head. “Your Majesty. My apologies for coming to you like this.”
Cleves ushers Clarice into her chamber. “Did any of my people see you?”
“No, I made sure of it.”
Seymour’s old servant is almost as hunted as Seymour herself, and the people of the Feorwan Isles have born the brunt of Henry’s anger over Seymour’s betrayal, suffering raid after raid and several punishing taxes that have brought the formerly prosperous isles to famine.
There is no shadow of starvation about Clarice, though: their face is round and healthy, their figure as sturdy as Cleves remembers.
“One of your butterflies found me,” Clarice says.
It has been a sennight or more since she sent her coded message into the void, care of her most innocuous carrier hawk.
“Where is your mistress?”
“Queen Seymour is in Perfugi. Or she was when I fled.”
Cleves goes very still.
“Fled?”
“The dowager queen of Capetia has her.”
Cleves swears, a long string of Ezzonidian words that have no direct translation to Elbenese.
“Quite,” Clarice says.
“Henry’s sister is holding her? You are certain?”
“I saw her taken. Her and the panther.”
“And you did not help them? I thought you were supposed to be her protector.”
Clarice flushes. “Seymour told me not to. She told me that if anything happened to her, I should inform Queen Howard. I was on my way to do so when your butterfly intercepted my ship.”
Cleves closes her eyes and rubs her face. It is too early, and her mind is not working as quickly as it should. She takes deep breaths: Clarice is an ally. Cleves must not lash out at them.
“You must be tired and hungry,” she says.
“I am fine.”
“Nevertheless.”
The servants always leave a jug of purple wine and a bowl of dried fruits in Cleves’s chamber so that she can break her fast in solitude. She pours some wine for Clarice, who finishes it in a few gulps.
Cleves swallows. “I am sorry to ask you this but—”
“How do we know she’s still alive?” Clarice says.
“Yes.”
“Because she must be.”
Clarice wipes their eyes on their sleeve, and Cleves turns away, pretending to look at the view from her window.
From here she can see a dozen courtyards.
The gryphon is dozing, its legs hanging from the tree branch it is balanced upon.
The other animals are holed up in their kennels or stables, and the servants are not yet awake.
All is still, but for the gentle sway of the trees in a silent wind.
“You should not allow your emotions to cloud your reason,” Cleves says.
“If I give in to reason then I will lose my mind entirely.”
Better not to have grown so fond in the first place, Cleves thinks. She pours Clarice another goblet of wine and makes them sit.
“If you will not help me, then I will go to Howard as Seymour instructed. And if Howard will not help me, I will return to Perfugi and destroy the city to get her back.”
Cleves smiles. “Yes, well, let us not resort to suicide just yet.”
Clarice looks at her so fiercely that she almost steps back. “Would you not do anything for the ones you love?”
Cleves laughs. “No one is worth risking your life for, Clarice.”
“She is.”
Silence falls between them. Cleves feels strangely humbled, even as she pities Clarice for such reckless emotion. She crosses her arms. “Well, before we invade a country, let us sit with reason a while. You saw Cecilia take your mistress and Haltrasc.”
Clarice takes another sip of wine. “Yes.”
“Did she injure them?”
“No. She had them both shackled and taken back to her palace.”
Cleves doesn’t ask if Clarice tried to rescue them from the palace. Of course they tried.
“I only know a little of Queen Cecilia, and have never met her. She was in Perfugi already by the time I left Ezzonid to marry Henry. I do know that she is reckless and prideful.”
“She’s ambitious,” Clarice almost spits, as though ambition is a sin.
“So is your mistress, Clarice. She did not become a Queen of Elben by doing nothing. Not if the stories I’ve heard are to be believed.”
It is Clarice’s turn to look away, their salt-sun-worn skin flushed.
“She has commissioned a ship,” Clarice says after a moment.
Cleves sits on the side of her bed, her elbows resting on her knees. “She is going to return Seymour to Elben.”
“To the king.”
What little Cleves does know of Cecilia is that she is loyal to nothing but herself and her brother. Such loyalty fascinates Cleves. The way clever people can toss aside their cunning for the sake of something as fragile as love.
“When did the ship leave Perfugi?” She asks.
Clarice smirks. “It had not left by the time I set sail.”
“And you had something to do with this?”
“I may have reminded some of the Perfugian sailors of the dowager queen’s temper.”
Cleves laughs. “Excellent. You have bought us time to think.”
“I cannot muster more than my own ship in her defence,” Clarice says. “My people …”
“They have endured much already for our cause. Yes, I know,” Cleves says. It is inconvenient, but she can hardly blame the Feorwans for wishing to protect themselves.
“My ship is fast, but it is not a battleship. And Cecilia was seeking to commission one with cannons. I cannot take it alone.”
“Ah, then I must arrange for my fleet of handy warships to storm to the rescue,” Cleves says. Clarice scowls: the queens of Elben do not own warships, and they know it.
“If you will not help—”
“When did I say I would not help?”
“You have not said you will.”
Cleves cannot help but laugh again. “You are as impetuous as your mistress. I repeat: let me think.”
She considers the options as Clarice stomps over to the side table and pours themself yet another cup of wine, downing it while they glower out of the window, as if their gaze could reach across the sea and splinter Cecilia’s ship apart.
The problem is that no matter which way she turns it, Cleves cannot think of a way to extract Seymour without implicating herself.
Without a flotilla at her disposal, the only point to do it would be when they docked or were on the road to High Hall, but that leaves so many variables: for all Cleves knows, Henry is aware that his sister is bringing his errant queen home and plans to be waiting for her on the shore.
At that point, Cleves has little hope of retrieving her without being discovered.
She has no intention of torching her security before she is ready: she is not Seymour, risking all for a woman who cannot return her love.
Clarice puts her goblet down with a crack, surges forward and kneels in front of Cleves. It is a jarring picture: this Feorwan is not used to supplication.
“If Seymour is going to be on that ship as we believe, then we must intercept it before it docks at Elben. My guess is that I have bought you a matter of weeks only. The winds of the Swegan Sea are in her favour. They will carry her quickly.”
Cleves takes Clarice’s hand. A pact. Doing as Clarice asks is the only course of action that will protect Cleves as well, but she can make it seem to Clarice that she does it out of affection for Seymour. To have this Feorwan in her debt is no small boon.
“Of course we will rescue her, Clarice.”
She stands, bringing Clarice to their feet with her.
“If you will excuse me for a moment, I must send a message to the other queens. They have been concerned for your mistress also,” she says. “When I return, we will discuss how to get you back to your ship without being noticed.”
As she reaches the door, Clarice says, “I heard something, before she was taken.”
Cleves turns, her hand resting on the handle. “What?”
“I was hidden nearby when Cecilia took her. Seymour was going to convince the Perfugian Hleaws to help you. They never opened their sanctuary to her, but there was a voice from inside that said something just before Cecilia’s doctrini attacked.”
“Do you remember what it said?”
“It was spoken in a strange language. It was not Perfugian.”
This makes sense to Cleves, even if it does not to Clarice. The Hleaws in Perfugi are refugees from Elben.
“Likely it was Old Elbenese,” she tells the Feorwan. “Can you remember any of the words?”
“I have memorised them as best I could.”
Clarice takes a deep breath and closes their eyes, as if summoning a deep spell. “Lidigarla g restavarla.”
Cleves wants to write it down, but knows she must not – the parchment might fall into the wrong hands.
She summons her own knowledge of Old Elbenese, from her early years on the island, when she sought to understand its traditions.
“Let me see. Garla means royal, if I understand. Maybe queen? Resta is from retten, which translates as to go back or return. And Varla …” Cleves knows she has heard the word before, but she cannot recall its meaning.
“Turret,” Clarice says suddenly. “Or – castle? My grandparent used to sing me an Old Elbenese song when I was a child. That was the only word they knew the meaning of. I should have remembered it and connected the two.”
“Good,” Cleves says. “The queen returns to the castle.”
She frowns.
“What is it?” Clarice says.
“There is one word I do not know. Lidi. I will consult my books.”
They lapse into silence again, both considering the strange voice’s instruction. The queen returns to the castle. It is so simple. Too simple. Why say it at all?
“Could it be a riddle? The devout are often fond of oblique statements,” Cleves says.
Clarice shakes their head. “It was said with urgency. I am sure they were trying to help.”
Cleves isn’t certain she agrees. For all that she believes in Medren and her divine powers, she refuses to put her whole trust in anyone other than herself. Even the rightly religious can be manipulated. All gods have their schemes. Has Cernunnos’s theft of Elben not proven that?
Without another word, she slips out of her chamber. The queen returns to the castle. That is a queen’s place: their home, their fortress. Cleves is already in hers, and she never intends to leave.