But all summers must end, and as emerald and sapphire turns to amber and garnet, messages start to arrive at the palace. Strange riders without sigils. There are even birds, though the form is archaic and unreliable, and the jerkins they bring are sewn in particular stitches, that only those who know what to look for will be able to imitate. Northern accents are heard around the queen, scant few, but in this place of friends and fellows they stand out. People do not like it. There are raised voices; the northmen leave, flushed and despairing. Their ambassador takes wing in the middle of the night and leaves his city dwelling empty and no note to excuse himself at court. Soon after him is a train of Lornwith men, armed, riding out under the queen's banner and waving up at those who have lined the walls to see them off. Masons are sent up after them, each one attached to a northern seat and with strict briefs to strengthen, add traps, defenses. Other men follow. The leaves begin to fall. Fealties are called in. Recruiting banners ride from castles west to east, sweeping up every able man they see along the way, and promising them glory and rich pickings and more than they have now. What common man could resist? What young lordling, what bitter bastard, hearing tales of knights of old, could decide to stay inside their cosy walls, hitting straw men with a wooden stick? No songs are written in practice yards.
By the end of the harvest - a strong one, a good sign for those who wish to see it - it is generally known that the kingdom is at war. It takes another few weeks for people to sort out the who and the where, and to feel relief that it is nowhere near them; their men may be taken, but their land is safe. The geese on the common, the water in the well, the fruit plucked from the boughs of trees going to sleep for the winter, all are and will remain in the hands of those they know. Better the tax collector you know than the one you don't, though they know that if things continue too long, the tax collectors will be gone too.
Queen Cerys frets. It has been seven generations since her family took the throne and those have, by and large, been peaceful ones, but she knows that in the high castles there are those who nurse grievances. Grudges have been passed down with the titles, stone and silverware. There are those who believe their claim to run stronger than her own. And war makes widows, widows who will complain, who will turn their men, who would wear her crown if the opportune moment to seize it comes. She is too gracious a woman to become paranoid, but she worries. Her complexion suffers. She is even beyond the help of her closest friend Lady Branwen; she closets herself away with her councillors and emerges only to eat, until one day she emerges with a declaration that she hopes will soothe her detractors and yet not usurp her own position.
The meat of it is this: that all highborn women have a moon's turn to present themselves before her and offer pleas for one man, that he may be kept from the war effort. It is the queen's right to refuse, and if she does so there are no appeals, nor any further pleas for that woman, so they must choose wisely and well.
The kingdom takes it well. The commoners, sensible of their place, sing the queen's praises: she is good, she is merciful, she is the most noble and gentle of women. There are highborns who grumble, but what else can a woman do, once she is past birthing age and her children no longer need her, but find her amusement in perceived faults and follies? When it comes to it they present themselves, just like the young wives and the sisters and the daughters. The queen sees each of them personally, greeting them from her throne, exchanging a few small words. For many it is the first time they have met her, and the impressions that they take away will carry across the kingdom and be passed down, so she makes them good. All who see her go away remembering her subtle jewels, her benevolent face, her willingness to listen. Perhaps they would wish her to have a little more steel too; well, she shows that to those whose requests she must deny. Her tone is soft and apologetic - if it were not so urgent, though it grieves me, all these little phrases that mean nothing and everything - but her judgement is quick and immoveable. If she must call on the master-of or any other of her councillors, two of whom always sit with her when she opens her halls, it is a brief whispered interlude, leaving them no time to try to sway her. It is not long before they give up trying.
The month rushes onwards in a flurry of men, women, arms, preparations. Lady Pallina Thorngrove pleads successfully for her youngest son, the bastard boy of the King Who Was. Her uncle takes five thousand of his men north. Alice Wagstaffe, youngest of the queen's ladies, puts in word for her betrothed and finds herself refused; she cries, but the other ladies dry her tears. "She has been betrothed - what, four years now?" Lady Clare remarks, after a fit of sorrow draws the girl from the room. "A good man would have married her by now." They sit in one of their cosy little chambers, their stools arranged by a fire to keep off the cold sticking its fingers into cracks, trying to find its way in. Alice comes back in. Her eyes are red raw and she takes up her sewing without another word, jabbing her needle through the cloth with vicious little movements, like a boy with a wooden sword taking his anger out on a straw doll.
The frosts are regular now. The ground is hard underfoot and the horses' breath mists the air. The month of pleas ends today, and already people are writing it as the Moon of Mercy. They call those who have been saved moonmen, some with admiration and jealousy, some with sneers and condescension. It is not always a blessing; more than one moonman finds he cannot take the looks of his fellows and rides off north anyway. Lady Pallina keeps her son tight in his tower. The pair of them argue about it, but Pallina has had a lifetime of dealing with stubborn men, and only increases his guard. The queen laughs when she hears. She is tired, but she still has a merry laugh, one that induces those watching to join her in it, and even Alice gives a little smile. They are at a pause in what will be the final session of pleas and already today the hall has seen all manner of human emotions: desperation, despair, hope, relief, anger, frustration, resignation, and one woman who wept with joy to hear her brother would be spared. The queen is attended by the master-of and her Lord Treasurer, a stick of a man who is some cousin of hers, and her ladies are the heartbroken Alice and bawdy, gossipy Eliyne Marr. She has the Marr hair, an incredible mass of red and copper and strawberry blonde, small twinkling grey eyes, and old lovers' tokens jammed onto her fingers where the flesh has grown around them. She is a naturally fleshy woman. Even with autumn blending into winter she wears high sleeves and low necklines, showing her plumpness for all to see. Her laughter shakes the ceiling. "He's a handsome boy, Euan Thorngrove," she booms to Alice, when she has collected herself. "And she would not be such a bad mother-by-law, would she?"
Alice scowls down at her hands. "My Thom is handsome enough for me."
"Your Thom is probably rutting with some farm girl in a hayloft as we speak."
Alice flushes, stands, ready to perform her regular exit regardless of whatever eyes are on her. Conferring with the master-of, the queen hears the commotion and half turns her head; when she sees them she sighs: this again? "My dear Alice," she begins. "Lady Marr only means to tease you. Be seated, please."
This leaves the girl no choice but to sit, red with anger and embarrassment, and wipe away her tears. She doesn't do it like a lady, with delicate dabs of a kerchief or sleeve, but like a child, with hands clenched into fists. The Wagstaffes are an old, proud, family, said to be descended from an ancient king of the west, and you can see it weighing on the girl's shoulders as she fixes her gaze on the far wall. Refreshments are brought in, which she refuses, so Eliyne helps herself to her share instead. Custard tarts, just set, and sprinkled with nutmeg and sugar. It is no wonder Lady Marr's teeth are yellowing.
The Lord Treasurer downs half a goblet in one huge gulp and slams it down on the arm of his chair, leering at Alice. "Don't take it to heart, child."
"But it's not true!" She almost starts crying again.
"Lady Eliyne has been north, I understand. It is cold up there. Rutting is one of the few ways they keep warm!"
Jests about northmen are the fashion at the moment, and this one is a success among the courtiers watching. They laugh. Alice tears up and her feet kick at her skirts, desperate to rush her off out of there, but the queen has spoken and so she stays put. Lord Treasurer downs the rest of his goblet and sits back, his spindly elbows resting on the arms of his chair, looking smug.
"Stonemont is hardly north," Eliyne says.
Drinks are offered around again. The queen takes a small cup of wine, from which she drinks only a few small sips before asking it to be sent away and calling for one of the ushers. They have to wait for him to make his way down the hall, which is designed to give plenty of time for the guest to be impressed and intimidated and for those in the gallery above to get the measure of them. But this is only one of those small useful palace men, of no interest to anybody, and so his passage goes unremarked. He kneels below the throne and waits.
"Is that all of them?" the queen asks him. No, it seems, there is one more lady waiting before the Moon of Mercy can end. The queen's face brightens. This month of emotional petitions is nearly over. You can see the relief shining from those sweet hazel eyes, and hear it in her voice when she calls: "Show her in, then!"
The women's entrances have said a lot about themselves. Over the past month they have seen twitching young maidens on their brothers' arms and attended by one or two household knights, old women in rigid hoods with trailing daughter and granddaughters, women surrounded by men-at-arms and women surrounded only by their travelling cloaks, woman who bring their own heralds and those who duck their heads and blush at the sound of their own names, those with relatives and those with none. Lady Hesta of the Golden Vale brought all of her lady's-maids, twenty knights, and five singers who followed her down the throne room singing songs of Valesmen in battles of old, and arrived in a furore fit for a queen; appropriate, as she is the main opposition to the crown as it is now, and is said to be keeping half her fighting men back in the Vale, where they can march on the capital if she is displeased. The queen had no choice but to grant her plea for her husband Lewin, though she would have happily seen him on the field, and it put her in a foul mood for the rest of the day. Lady Hesta left smiling, her singers behind her. Not all have been so fortunate. Some lords have got ahead of their ladies and sent the queen lists of those they would not spare. Some the queen knows herself. When she has not known, she has granted the plea; kindness never goes out of fashion, and one kindness here is one fewer enemy later.
This final lady is a familiar one, and not an enemy of any kind. While the others of the court are in red and orange and gold she has retreated into blues: kingfisher, ocean, indigo lace. Her hair is tied into a simple cluster of curls falling over one shoulder and fastened with a sapphire brooch. She enters alone, without even a girl to hold up her train, and looks as though if you offered her one she would only laugh and refuse. Still, her reverence is genuine and her expression, as she waits to be spoken to, only betrays the smallest signs of nerves, and nothing to worry the Lord Treasurer, nor anybody who may find themselves thinking that her influence is stronger than it ought to be.
"Lady Branwen." The queen inclines her head, smiling, and on cue, Lady Branwen dips another curtsey. "I was wondering if I'd see you here. You've left it late."
"I have been pondering my decision to do so at all, my queen. You know I can hardly bear to deny you even one good man, for the love I bear you and my kingdom. But time passes, drums beat in the north, and my conscience troubles me. Now I must speak."
This is not her usual way of speaking. Usually she is warm, intimate, informal, and would snigger at poets and mock their turns of phrase. But there is a time for these friendly manners and a time to embellish and elaborate, to turn a moment's thought into a month of torment, the impulse of a friend into the duty of a woman of the court. She is convincing enough to those who do not know her, but the ladies in the hall recognise a spark of humour, a sense of her laughing at herself, and the queen sees it more than anybody and meets it with her own:
"Then speak! But I warn you: I cannot spare the First Commander. Much as your family need him, the army needs him more."
Lady Branwen laughs. "My dear brother would never forgive me if I kept him from a chance to prove his prowess and loyalty to the whole kingdom. It is not him I ask for."
The queen stares at her for a long moment. Her lip twitches; is she stopping herself from chewing on it? It is a habit she had, as a child, when uncertain. But it only lasts a moment, and then she is a woman of six and twenty again, all grace and elegance and mercy, and the crown shimmers brightly on her head. "I know it will grieve you, but I cannot spare Lord Clare either. House Clare have the loyalty of the lushlands; I cannot risk a rebellion in my own ranks by sending thirty thousand men without their liege lord. As much I know you love him, I must take him from you, with the promise that I will return him in one piece!" She chuckles, so the room chuckles. Nobody points out that this is a promise that may be impossible to keep.
Lady Branwen does not laugh along, but she is still smiling lightly, as if there is a jest here for those who are privileged enough to recognise it. "You do Lord Clare an injustice, Your Grace," she accuses. "My husband would never send his men somewhere he cannot go himself. No, I do not ask for him either."
"Then who?"
"Gweon Delles."
"Gweon...?" The queen stumbles; this is not a name she knows. The master-of leans over the arm of the throne and mutters something in her ear. Branwen, who can guess the basis of it, holds herself still and steady, pretending that she cannot see the queen's face changing from curious to confused. That expression is the only one that matters. "A steward's son?"
"My father's steward's son," Lady Branwen says evenly. "He resides in Lawrin's Keep with my people, where he hoped to follow his father..." Even she does not sound wholly convinced by this, so with only the merest pause she continues: "Yet now we find ourselves at war and my father requests his presence in his column and on the field. House Harwood have so few men, you see. Father insists that he needs every one. And Gweon has been as loyal and as fond a friend to me as any lady could ever have hoped for. A steward's son would be no use to you in a war, my queen, and he would be a great comfort to me, with my brother and husband at risk, and of better use to my household here."
She is talking over mutters here, over a low ripple of shock that has caught the tongues of the court, and recognition of it has turned her back rigid. She has trapped her sleeves in her palm, a remnant of her childhood that belongs with the queen biting on her lip and Gweon scuffing his feet when bored, and forces herself to release them so that they spill down to the floor. They form a sheer blue pool bordered by pearls; the sort of pool from which nymphs rise, to trap the unwary.
"Lady Clare." The queen is no fool, and there is a reason she has switched address to her husband's name. Branwen looks up at her from underneath her eyelashes.
"Yes, Your Grace?"
"You are sure?"
She gives a wan smile. "Would I have thought about it so long, if I was not? Would I have come and spoken to you here, in front of us all, if I was not sure? You have known me too long, my queen. Answer your own question."
"I can." The queen turns to the master-of. He nods, ready, his face a studied act of neutrality, while next to him the Lord Treasurer appears about to boil over. He even starts a protest, but the queen stops it short with one look and turns back to Branwen. "Let it be recorded that, whatever the course of this war, Gweon Delles, son of...?"
"Garef Delles," Branwen supplies, above the rising whispers. The tips of her ears have turned red as the rubies trapped on Eliyne's fingers. Who are the Delles? Nobody anybody should care about, yet here she is. It seemed a good idea to present her plea in front of the whole court, as every other woman has, and she expected the shock, was energised by the very idea of it, but now she feels she ought to have cornered the queen in private, got the paper written and sealed without it seeing anybody's eyes but Cerys' and her own.
Too late now, though. She has dropped a stone in the sea; it is too late to wonder what damage the waves will cause.
Queen Cerys nods to the master-of.
"Gweon Delles, son of Garef Delles, steward in the service of House Harwood. Let it be recorded that no man is to summon him to arms or send him into any area of conflict, lest they answer to me. Record that this mercy was granted after a plea by Lady Branwen Clare." Branwen holds her chin up. "And that I am pleased to grant it too. Lady Branwen, I hope this pleases you."
"My queen. Of course this pleases me. Thank you." She dips gracefully to her knees, pinching up her sleeves so that the dusky lace lining shows. "If only goodness could defeat our enemies."
"We have swords for that," Lady Eliyne says, momentarily forgetting that they are not in one of their little chambers now. Lord Treasurer, incandescent, spots a target.
"Your silence, lady! These are affairs of state."
In private, Lady Eliyne calls the Lord Treasurer an unimaginative twig, a puffed-up little corn snake that imagines itself a viper, no good for anything but kindling. In public, she only bows her head and gives apology for the interruption.
Queen Cerys raises an eyebrow but ignores their little interlude. Branwen is still kneeling. "Rise, my lady. This is the smallest of dues I owe to you, for your friendship and service."
"If you would like to pay any of the others now, I will not protest!"
The queen hides a smile behind her hand. "Careful how you speak, Lady Branwen. Lord Treasurer's heart may give out."
"Well, we wouldn't want that." Branwen stands, her dress spilling behind her in a sleek satin waterfall frothing with pearls. Her smile is full and open and honest now; one could almost forget her freckles. "I know how much you value your council."
Lord Treasurer has wide, surprisingly handsome dark eyes, which are currently narrowed in suspicion. He is the sort of man who trusts no woman - it seems he makes an exception for Cerys, to whom he is as devoted as a dog - and especially not Lady Clare, who he feels married above her station and has no right to stand by his cousin, or to kneel in front of her and jest at his expense. "Your plea has been received, Lady Clare. Do feel free to leave."
"I will go when I am dismissed by the queen, my lord."
"How dare you-"
"Lord Treasurer!" He settles back, mottled and angry but, as with Alice, unable to continue his complaint. Perhaps behind closed doors there might be more of an argument, but not with eyes staring from the gallery, each one a message waiting to get out and ride north. There must be no word of division to reach their enemies. "Lady Branwen. I grant your request, and give you permission to leave me." Queen Cerys adds a secret, private smile. "I will send for you later."
"I look forward to it, Your Grace. Although...if I may ask one last due?"
"I highly doubt it will be the last," Lord Treasurer grumbles. Lady Eliyne lets out a beam-shaking laugh that gets her disapproving glances from all around, if people weren't already looking disapproving. A Delles! A nobody! Lady Branwen Clare! Silence can be as pointed as muttering, and this one is.
"That depends on the boon, my lady."
Lady Branwen smiles, settles her sleeves again. There is another flash of deep purple lace. "Only a small one. It will be no cost to you or to any of your council: I want the honour of telling Gweon for myself, Your Grace. He is most private, and will be best to hear it from me."
"Done. Now leave, before Lord Treasurer bursts into flames!"
The court laughs at this, too; when the queen jests, every sensible courtier knows to at least smile, no matter who else might be offended. There are men watching who owe money to the crown and who know that it now won't be long before one of the Treasury's men is knocking on their door and speaking softly through the cracks. He is not violent, the queen's cousin, though he makes up for it by employing men who are. For some this laughter will have painful consequences. Still, when the queen laughs, you laugh.
Lady Branwen, standing alone, takes her leave. She does so calmly, gently, though there is a spring in her step that wasn't there before and her expression shines. The laughter is dead long before she reaches the door. She keeps her chin up, her pride intact, despite the half-words that float down from the gallery, and assumes that it will blow away when the next scandal comes along; they are as regular as the sunrise, and the thought gives her hope that soon Gweon will be forgotten. So she bears herself tall and proud with her hands tucked inside her sleeves so that she can't ball them and crease the fabric, and as the door closes behind her she remembers the fury on Lord Treasurer's face, and laughs. Bright, sparkling, it sounds in the throne room like a bell before the door closing cuts it off, and leaves them only with whispers.
And with that sound the Moon of Mercy ends. But the stones are already cast, the waves already forming. The ballads are already being written. The future is set now, and, although they have been at war since the turn of autumn, when those who were there look back it will be this moment they remember: Lady Branwen Clare, standing in a pool of satin water, convincing the queen to spare a steward's son.