“Did you go by the market?”
“Yes! I couldn’t very well present you with a loose bundle.”
Elsabet tried to smile. She gestured to the cards. “Shall we deal you in?”
“No.” William chewed his lip. “I crave some music. I think I’ll go and secure us a few musicians.” Then he was gone, with no more than a glance, and Elsabet half rose out of her chair to follow him. But he did not disappear completely. He lingered in the garden, chatting with a few of the people who had gathered near the queen’s party in small conversational parties of their own. Elsabet’s throat tightened as he touched the chin of a very pretty elemental girl with a bright blond bun.
“You know he has always been flirtatious,” Gilbert said quietly. “That was one of the qualities that drew you to him when he was only a suitor.”
Elsabet tore her eyes away from William and forced herself to play a card. “Gilbert, does your sight gift now extend to mind reading?”
“No, my queen.”
“I didn’t think so.” Gilbert’s gift was for visions in smoke, along with the uncanny ability to find things he sought, that manifested in a near-trance state and caused him to sway strangely back and forth. His sight gift did not extend to hearing the thoughts of others or sensing their emotions. Her gift did not extend to that either, and she was glad of it.
Forcing herself to ignore William, Elsabet leaned back to look up at the grandness of the castle. Or rather, the grandness that was to come. The great fortress of the Volroy had been under construction for a hundred years, and still the heights of the towers were not complete. For a hundred years, black stone had made its way across the island, over land and down river and around the sea to Bardon Harbor. A hundred years and countless changes of master builders and craftsmen and laborers. But under Elsabet, it would be finished. She knew it, because she had seen it. In the same vision that showed her she would best her sisters and become the Queen Crowned. She saw herself in a vision wandering the rooms of the completed West Tower, with a crown upon her head.
“There will be black spires atop them soon,” she said, and Bess followed her gaze upward. “Did you know, Bess, that it was the war queen, Aethiel, who began construction of the Volroy?”
“I know it,” Gilbert answered before Bess could reply. “Aethiel began it, and elemental Elo, the fire breather, continued it, and so did our last queen, the warrior Emmeline.”
“Of course you know that.” Elsabet shoved him playfully to knock the smugness out of his expression. “You are a historian. But make sure the commonfolk know it, too, will you? I think they are beginning to resent the expense.”
“Your reign is bound to be less expensive than those of the war queens,” Gilbert said, “with their constant raids and battles.”
At the mention of war, Rosamund spoke quickly, surprising them all that she had been bothering to listen. “The people understand war. They understand its costs. Its glory.” She shrugged. “And the spoils don’t hurt either.”
“Would you have me be a war queen, then, Rosamund?”
Rosamund turned her head and regarded the queen with steady green eyes. She smiled. “I would not have you be anything but what you are.”
“Good.” Elsabet smiled back, her gaze flitting past William, who was returning with his found musicians. “Because the time of the war queens is over. Now we shall have peace. The island has earned it.”
THE BLACK GREEN
In the summer months, it was not uncommon for the queen to hold court or entertain guests outdoors. She favored the garden known as the Black Green, a rectangular space bordered by hedges and a stone wall on the north, with soft, cropped green grass and few trees. Wide, gravel paths cut through from every corner and converged at a dark stone fountain. Inevitably, one of the foreigners would quip that the Black Green was not very black, and the queen would reply that they could not very well call it “the Green Green.” Everyone would laugh, and Francesca Arron would ball her hands into fists. Most people, even most of the Black Council, found the outdoor courts rather pleasant. But to Francesca Arron, it was yet another way that Elsabet bucked tradition.
Francesca stood apart from the others, watching as the queen entertained the ambassador from Valostra and his four companions. The queen having