“I do not flatter. And I do not lie.”
The queen’s mouth tipped up very slightly, very briefly.
Katarina went on. “But I have been favored in smaller ways, my lady, with more haunting gifts. Ireland is a wild and windswept place. I love it,” she said simply. “It is like a dart that has been laid in my heart. It is sharp and shines like steel, and if you tried to pluck it from me, I would die.”
The queen took all this in, then laughed. “I well know the feeling.”
“And I know Ireland too, by your leave. I have much experience in knowing what is needed beyond the Pale. And in my most humble opinion, Ireland needs…”
The queen’s eyebrows tipped up. “Yes?”
“Aodh,” Katarina said simply, and looked at the queen, pale and penitent. “You have no idea how well it will go for you if he is there, my lady. As for myself…” She bent her head again. “I am sorry for all the trouble I have caused you.”
“You should be.” The queen’s voice was tart, but somehow less sharp for all that.
“And I…I was going to send word this summer, but the flock has been rebuilt such that we can send wool to market. And next year…it will be even better.”
The queen, ever alert to ways to enhance her treasury, and thereby the security of her realm, straightened with interest. “Better?”
Katarina nodded. “The wool, it is beyond compare, I swear to you.”
“I believe you,” the queen said, and smiled.
Katarina smiled too. Giving gifts was something she had learned from Aodh.
For a moment, the queen examined Katarina. “Ireland has ever been a dangerous postern gate into England.”
“Then it must be guarded,” she replied firmly.
“By rebels?”
“By those who have been received back into the fold and know the power of forgiveness.” She transmitted a fierce, quelling look in Aodh’s direction.
The queen looked at Aodh too. “I do not think your husband believes he has done anything to be forgiven for, mistress, making it exceptionally difficult to see how such a state would exert any power at all. What say you, sir? Think you ‘a forgiven man’ describes you well?”
Aodh moved his gaze to Elizabeth and slowly shook his head. “Nay. Fortunately for you, my lady, you do not need men who know the value of forgiveness. You need a storm on your Irish horizons. Your very own storm.”
And then, then the queen smiled.
Katarina, who’d been holding her breath, revised the plan that had swiftly developed in her mind, to launch herself over the table and knock Aodh into a state of senselessness so he could not push ever harder at things already precariously balanced in the first place.
But as she was learning, perhaps the balance must be upset, to proceed to the next thing. Perhaps the balance was of sickness, or lethargy, or darkness, and while the fall was indeed frightening, it might well be worth the shock of impact.
“And you, Katarina, think you this is true?” The queen’s penetrating eye fell on her. “Oft have I relied upon your counsel in matters of Ireland. What say you to his assessment?”
“I say he is right.”
The queen turned and looked her over thoughtfully. “You would have Aodh, then, and all these doubtful boons of Ireland?”
“I would have him above all else.”
“Above Rardove?
The queen looked between them, and saw how they looked at each other. This one thing she could not have, but could keep them from having.
“We are at your mercy,” Katarina said quietly.
“And if my mercy sends you back to Ireland?”