The War of Queens

Chapter 2

Elizabeth

 A breeze blew through the curtains, making them move around lightly, like living things. The sounds that they made against the floor and when they rippled together was like the faintest of waves and they purified the sunlight into white, stoic light that made her feel like in a dream. The bed beneath her with its silk sheets did nothing to help her wake up.

 When Junus had handed her the letter, sadness had gleamed in his kind eyes. Her mentor – and the mentor of many others – was a kind man with a heart too big for his own good. Yet for him to bear that look, she should have known something grave had happened.

 Her heart had sunk when she read the letter, but then she had been lowered into a state of dreaminess and time seemed to pass by her effortlessly. The words on the letter were few and to the point. Philip was dead.

 Though she had cared for the man she had called Father – but not Papa, not even when she was a child – it was not the sadness of loss that cursed through her veins. No, it was a quite different thing that filled her blood.

 She shook herself from her dreaminess and pulled herself from the bed. When she opened the door to her chambers, Junus was waiting. “I’m sorry,” he told her.

 She offered him a small smile. “Please, don’t be.” Her hand found his. Now that she thought of it, Junus was much more her father than Philip had ever been. Perhaps that was why he had sent her here – a last kindness. “However, I will have to leave, just for a little while. Angelique will be devastated.”

 “Where is your sister now?”

 “God only knows,” Elizabeth said in an attempt at a joke. It seemed it was hard to make anyone laugh when you had just lost someone. “But if I follow the drunks, then I am sure I will find her soon.”

 Junus sighed. “She was such a bright girl.”

 “She still is,” Elizabeth commented. “Just… in slightly different areas.”

 This time he laughed. “Will you need help packing? I can call for a handmaiden.”

 “No, no. I will not need much.” She did not have much, either. She had two dresses for the travel and if she packed two more for the time she would be spending in Quoros, she would have more than enough. It was only a small town and no one would blame her for leaving quickly. She had her studies.

 She was ready to leave the day after she had received the letter. Junus had insisted that she bring someone with her – “A fine lady should not travel alone.” – and she had insisted he was not a soldier. When she saw Ishmael enter the gates, a rucksack thrown over his shoulder, she could not help but beam with happiness.

 He was a young man, thin in build and not particularly tall either. His hair was dark brown and thick with a bit of curls to it and he had magnificent green eyes that seemed strange with his dark skin – and, he was her best friend and truest confidant.

 “I heard,” he said as soon as he had reached her in his solemn voice. It came from reciting Holy Scriptures all his days. His parents had given him to the priory of Asheen before he had even reached his tenth summer. When she met him for the first time after she came to Junus to learn the art of philosophy, he had been but a young man, just a year older than her. “I am sorry.”

 “You will be, when Angelique sees I brought you with me.” Angelique had expressed how dull she found Ishmael. Secretly, though, Elizabeth suspected that she quite liked him, if only because it was so easy to make fun of him.

 Junus gave them bread, cheese and wine and a bit of fruit for the journey. Last time Elizabeth had heard from her sister, she had been by the coast in Lyros by the sea, but her sister was unruly and easily bored and last time Elizabeth had heard from her was a long time ago. However, she had expressed her happiness with the coastal town. Sailors made for good customers, as she had said.