Lucia novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Naming
Lucia wakes from a dream of a cold marriage on her birthday and uses an old law to name a border captain her husband before her father can name a prince; the prince from her dream walks in.
On the night before my twenty-fourth birthday, I dreamed ten years of my life in a single sleep.
In the dream my father announced my wedding at a feast, and I smiled and thanked him.
I rode north in a closed carriage for six days.
I was married in a stone chapel so cold that my breath showed in front of the priest.
My husband wore black with silver buttons, and he did not look at me when he said his vow.
Then I sat at a table thirty feet long and watched him read dispatches.
He read them at breakfast, at supper, and on the night I told him I was going to have his child.
He never once looked up.
I stopped talking in the third winter.
At thirty-four I stood at a window and nobody had touched me in six years.
The last thing I saw was my name cut into a stone with a date under it.
I woke with my own hand over my mouth and the sun just coming up behind the curtains.
My maid Pia was already in the room, laying out the blue gown I was supposed to wear to the morning audience.
"Happy birthday, Highness," she said. "Your father wants you in the throne hall early."
I got out of bed and put on my green riding coat instead.
Pia stared at me, then at the coat, and gave a small nod.
"The blue one can wait," she said.
The throne hall at Vellora was full.
Every petitioner in the city seemed to be there.
My father sat on the high chair with his grey beard on his chest.
The Chancellor, Orlo Montalban, stood at his right hand with his soft white fingers folded over his rings.
King Anselm lifted his hand, and the room went quiet.
"My daughter turns twenty-four today," he said. "Three days from now, Prince Corradin of Kaldmark arrives to sign the treaty that ends the border war."
The court murmured.
"The treaty requires a marriage," my father said. "I have chosen. She will be told the terms at the feast."
I had known every word of it before he said it.
That was the worst part.
Near the back, a man in a worn green wool coat was holding a rolled petition against his chest.
He was tall and broad, with light-brown hair tied at the nape and mud on his boots.
Yesterday I had watched him kneel in the castle yard and fix a servant girl's cart wheel.
The courtiers had laughed at him.
He had not laughed with them.
He had looked at the girl the whole time.
"Lord Chancellor," my father said. "The petitioners."
"Captain Tobin Garrick of Greywatch Fort," Montalban said in his gentle voice. "He asks again for his garrison's pay."
"The war has emptied the treasury, Captain," the king said, without a glance. "You will be paid when the treaty is signed."
The captain's jaw moved, but he bowed.
"Your Majesty," he said. "My men have not been paid in nine months."
"And you have been answered."
I stepped forward from the side of the hall.
My boots rang on the stone, and four hundred heads turned.
"Father," I said. "Before you say any more about my marriage, I have something to say about it."
He frowned.
"Lucia. Not now."
"There is a law in the book of Altavere," I said, loud enough for the back wall. "I read it when I was sixteen."
Montalban's hands went still.
"It is called the Right of First Naming," I said.
"A king's daughter not betrothed on her twenty-fourth birthday may name any free man her husband."
"She may do it before her father names one."
"The king cannot refuse it," a clerk said from the side, very quietly.
The hall went completely silent.
My father leaned forward on the throne.
"You would not."
"I would," I said. "And I do."
I walked down the hall, past the lords and the ladies, until I stood in front of the man in the green coat.
His eyes were hazel, and his nose had been broken once, and he looked at me with total confusion.
"Captain Garrick," I said. "I name you my husband."
A woman at the back made a small sound.
"Highness," he said slowly. "You don't know me."
"You fixed a cart wheel in the rain yesterday," I said. "You looked at the girl, not at the people laughing."
"That's all?"
"It is enough for me."
He glanced at the king, then at the court, then back to me.
His mouth moved at one corner.
"I don't have a fine house, Highness," he said. "I have a cold fort and eighty hungry men."
"Then I will see them fed," I said.
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
"Then yes," he said. "I'll marry you."
The hall exploded.
My father was on his feet, shouting, and Montalban was already moving toward him.
And over all of it, the herald at the main doors struck his staff on the floor.
"His Highness, Prince Corradin Vaskel of Kaldmark," he cried. "Arrived early."
I turned.
The man in the doorway wore black with silver buttons.
His hair was combed back, his face was pale, and his grey eyes were fixed on a paper in his hand.
I knew him before he lifted his head.
I had spent ten years of my life across a table from him.
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