The Oracle Queen (Three Dark Crowns #0.1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,1

that other queens do. And she is still young. Still settling.”

“She’s had three years. And we are a young Black Council. Have we not settled?”

“You were settled to begin with,” Catherine said, and tossed her pretty brown curls.

Beside them, seated at the center of the table between war-gifted Sonia and sight-gifted Gilbert Lermont—the queen’s own foster brother—the poisoner Francesca Arron listened. Arrons were, as a rule, very good at listening. And waiting. And Francesca had waited for three years, since her appointment to the Black Council, to be named as its head.

“The queen arrives! Make way!”

Francesca stood with the others as Queen Elsabet and her party entered the room, their flushed cheeks and boisterous voices brightening it at once, even though the open, pillared walls of the summer court were already bathed in sunlight.

“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” Queen Elsabet announced. She was dressed in hunting clothes, her black skirt loose for riding and edged in dirt. She tugged her hands free of her riding gloves and passed them to her maid with a whisper, and the girl ran, no doubt to return with sweets and savories and good wine. Clever queen, to ply them with treats. Soon her lateness would be forgotten.

She walked through the crowd quickly, her legs long enough that most of her party had to jog to keep pace. All of them except her Commander of Queensguard, of course. War-gifted Rosamund Antere, of the Antere family of warriors, stood a head above even the queen.

“You have been hunting,” Francesca said as Queen Elsabet sat down.

“I have.” Her face still glowed from exertion, and her black eyes glittered. It was almost enough to make her appear beautiful. But not quite.

Sonia Beaulin cleared her throat. “Your attendants said you rode out before dawn.”

“Do you know a better time to hunt for grouse?” Elsabet smiled. “Now, if my council is finished interrogating me about my sport . . .” She turned away toward her subjects, and one by one the Black Council sank to their seats, Francesca the last.

Gilbert Lermont stood and read from his ledger the names of those who had arrived first, and they stepped forward. The queen listened with rapt attention as they gave her their news: reporting achievements of trade or crops or the birth of a new high-ranking daughter. It was true what Catherine Howe said: the queen was decisive of manner. Her comments were few but earnest. She was clever but spared little time for flattery, of herself or for those she spoke to.

It was a fine enough way to rule, Francesca noted, but it would not endear her to the people at large. And for someone so decisive, she was taking plenty of time to appoint Francesca to her deserved head of council seat.

She watched the queen laugh her throaty laugh, a deep laugh for a queen so young, still a girl, really, at barely twenty. Some said she was handsome, but they were only being kind. Queen Elsabet had an angled nose and a large mouth; she was no beauty. Not that beauty was required in queens, but a beautiful queen was easier to love.

When Elsabet’s laugh turned into a cough and she excused herself from court, Francesca masked a smile. She could wait for her head of council seat. But she would not wait forever.

THE QUEEN’S GARDEN

Later that day, Queen Elsabet, the Oracle Queen, sat in her green rectangular garden on the southwest side of the Volroy castle. She was reclined in a soft chair at a gray stone table, playing cards with her closest companions, shaded from the sun by a black cloth canopy.

“Gilbert, are you going to discard? Or wait until I simply forget what game it is we are playing?”

Gilbert’s thin lips drew together, thinning them still further, as he considered his hand. He lay a card, and she grinned and snatched it up.

“Just what I needed.”

“Blast.” He frowned and tousled his dark gold hair. “I’m out of practice. Few of these fools will take a card game with someone sight-gifted. As if that is how it works.”

“Indeed. One does not need the sight to beat play as bad as yours.” With a light laugh, Elsabet set her winning hand before him on the table.

“Blast.”

She smiled as he gathered up the cards and began to shuffle. Gilbert Lermont was her foster brother; they had grown up together in the white city of Sunpool, and she could count on one hand the number of times he had