Susan Wiggs - At The Queen's Summons

Pippa blew out a breath, and her shoulders sagged. A raven cackled raucously in the elm tree, then whirred off into the London sky. Of course she invented stories about who she was and where she had come from. To face the truth was unthinkable. And impossible.

Iago’s touch was soothing as he combed through her matted hair. He tilted her chin up and stared at her face-on for a long moment, intent as a sculptor. She stared back, rapt as a dreamer. What a remarkable person he was, with his lovely ebony skin and bell-toned voice, the fierce, inborn pride he wore like a mantle of silk.

He closed one eye; then he began to snip with his little crane-handled scissors, the very ones she had been tempted to steal from a side table in the kitchen.

As Iago worked, he said, “You tell the tales so well, pequeña, but they are just that—tales. I know this because I used to do the same. Used to lie awake at night trying to put together the face of my mother from fragments of memory. She became every good thing I knew about a mother, and before long she was more real to me than an actual woman. Only bigger. Better. Sweeter, kinder.”

“Yes,” she whispered past a sudden, unwelcome thickness in her throat. “Yes, I understand.”

He twisted a few curls into a soft fringe upon her brow. The breeze sifted lightly through them. “If you were an Englishman, you would be the very rage of fashion. They call these lovelocks. They look better on you.” He winked. “A dream mother. It was something I needed at a very dark time of my life.”

“Tell me about the dark time,” she said, fascinated by the deftness of his hands and the way they were so brown on one side, while the palms were sensitive and pale.

“Slavery,” he said. “Being made to work until I fell on my face from exhaustion, and then being beaten until I dragged myself up to work some more. You have a dream mother, too, eh?”

She closed her eyes. A lovely face smiled at her. She had spent a thousand nights and more painting her parents in her mind until they were perfect. Beautiful. All wise. Flawless, save for one minor detail. They had somehow managed to misplace their daughter.

“I have a dream mother,” she confessed. “A father, too. The stories might change, but that does not.” She opened her eyes to find him studying her critically again. “What about the O Donoghue?” she asked, pretending only idle curiosity.

“His father is dead, which is why Aidan is the lord. His mother is dead also, but his—” He cut himself off. “I have said too much already.”

“Why are you so loyal to the O Donoghue?”

“He gave me my freedom.”

“How was it his to give in the first place?”

Iago grinned, his face blossoming like an exotic flower. “It was not. I was put on a ship for transport from San Juan—that is on an island far across the Ocean Sea—to England. I was to be a gift for a great noblewoman. My master wished to impress her.”

“A gift?” Pippa was hard-pressed to sit still on her stool. “You mean like a drinking cup or a salt cellar or a pet ermine?”

“You have a blunt way of putting it, but yes. The ship wrecked off the coast of Ireland. I swam straightaway from my master even as he begged me to save him.”

Pippa sat forward, amazed. “Did he die?”

Iago nodded. “Drowned. I watched him. Does that shock you?”

“Yes! Was the water very cold?”

His chest-deep chuckle filled the air. “Close to freezing. I dragged myself to an island—I later found out it is called Skellig Michael—and there I met a pilgrim in sackcloth and ashes, climbing the great stairs to the shrine.”

“The O Donoghue Mór in sackcloth and ashes?” In Pippa’s mind, Aidan would always be swathed in flashing jewel tones, his jet hair gleaming in the sun; he was no drab pilgrim, but a prince from a fairy story.

“He was not the O Donoghue Mór then. He helped me get dry and warm, and he became my first and only true friend.” Black fury shadowed Iago’s eyes. “When Aidan’s father saw me, he declared himself my master, tried to make me a slave again. And Aidan let him.”

Pippa clutched the sides of the stool. “The jackdog! The bootlicker, the skainsmate—”

“It was a ruse. He claimed me on the grounds that he had found me. His father agreed, thinking it would enhance Aidan’s station to be the first Irishman to own a black slave.”

“The scullywarden!” she persisted. “The horse’s a—”

“And then he set me free,” Iago said, laughing at her. “He had a priest called Revelin draw up a paper. That day Aidan promised to help me return to my home when we were both grown. In fact, he promised to come with me across the Ocean Sea.”

“Why would you want to go back to a land where you were a slave? And why would Aidan want to go with you?”

“Because I love the islands, and I no longer have a master. There was a girl called Serafina….” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head as if to cast away the thought. “Aidan wanted to come because he loves Ireland too much to stay.” Iago fussed with more curls that tickled the nape of her neck.

“If he loves Ireland, why would he want to leave it?”

“When you come to know him better, you will understand. Have you ever been forced to watch a loved one die?”

She swallowed and nodded starkly, thinking of Mab. “I never felt so helpless in all my life.”

“So it is with Aidan and Ireland,” said Iago.

“Why is he here, in London?”

“Because the queen summoned him. Officially, he is here to sign treaties of surrender and regrant. He is styled Lord of Castleross. Unofficially, she is curious, I think, about Ross Castle. She wants to know why, after her interdict forbidding the construction of fortresses, it was completed.”

The idea that her patron had the power to decide the fate of nations was almost too large for Pippa to grasp. “Is she very angry with him?” It even felt odd referring to Queen Elizabeth as “she,” for Her Majesty had always been, to Pippa and others like her, a remote idea, more of an institution like a cathedral than a flesh-and-blood woman.

“She has kept him waiting here for a fortnight.” Iago lifted her from the stool to the ground. “You look as pretty as an okasa blossom.”

She touched her hair. Its shape felt different—softer, balanced, light as the breeze. She would have to go out to Hart Street Well and look at her reflection.

“You said when you met Aidan, he was not the O Donoghue Mór,” she said, thinking that the queen must enjoy having the power to summon handsome men to her side.

“His father, Ronan, was. Aidan became Lord Castleross after Ronan died.”

“And how did his father die?”

Iago went to the half door of the kitchen and held the lower part open. “Ask Aidan. It is not my place to say.”

“Iago said you killed your father.”

Aidan shot to his feet as if Pippa had touched a brand to his backside. “He said what?”

Hiding her apprehension, she strolled into the great hall of Lumley House and moved through gloomy evening shadows on the flagged floor. An ominous rumbling of thunder sounded in the distance. Aidan’s fists were clenched, his face stark and taut. Instinct told her to flee, but she forced herself to stay.

“You heard me, my lord. If you’re going to keep me, I want to make sure. Is it true? Did you kill your father?”

He grabbed an iron poker. A single Gaelic word burst from him as he stabbed at the fat log smoldering in the grate.

Pippa took a deep breath for courage. “It was Iago who—”

“Iago said nothing of the sort.”

She emerged from the shadows and joined him by the hearth, praying he would deny her suggestion. “Did you, my lord?” she whispered.