Chapter 16: Routine
But she was, for the first time, profoundly, irrevocably occupied. She stayed there, her hand growing stiff, until the light faded from gold to grey. Only when Maren quietly lit a lamp did Eleanor gently extract her fingers. Lucien whimpered in his sleep, his face crumpling. Her heart did something strange and painful. She touched his cheek once, a fleeting brush of her knuckles, and he settled.
“Shall I fetch the nursemaid, Your Majesty?” Maren whispered.
Eleanor looked at the sleeping child, then at the closed door to her chambers. “No,” she said, the word foreign on her tongue. “Let him sleep. For a little while longer.”
She did not return to her maps. She sat in a chair by the cold fireplace, watching the dusk settle over the courtyard below. The ghost of his weight lingered in her arms, a phantom imprint that made her feel both more and less substantial. When he finally stirred with a soft cry an hour later, she was the one who lifted him. He blinked at her, confused in the dim lamplight, and said, “Mama?”
The word was a physical blow. It stole the air from the room.
“No,” she whispered, her voice raw. “It’s Eleanor.”
He just stared, his blue eyes sleepy and trusting. She carried him herself to the nursery, her steps silent on the cold stones. The nursemaid, Elara, was weeping with relief and fear by the door. “Your Majesty, I am so sorry, he’s just so quick—”
“It’s fine,” Eleanor said, passing the boy over. Her arms felt immediately, foolishly empty. “Bolts won’t work. He’ll just learn to pick them. Perhaps… perhaps just let him come. If he wishes.”
She left before she could see the woman’s stunned expression.
The next morning, the council chamber felt different. It was charged with a new, unspoken anticipation. The lords took their seats. Alistair’s gaze was speculative as it rested on her. Arguments began about tariffs on Dornish glass. The points were sharp, the numbers dry.
Everyone, even Garvin, seemed to be listening with one ear for the thump.
It didn’t come.
Ten minutes passed.Twenty. Eleanor’s focus, usually a honed blade, wavered. She found her eyes drifting to the door, her attention snagging on every distant sound from the corridor. A strange, hollow disappointment curled in her stomach. Had she frightened him? Had her cold correction the night before severed the instinct?
Alistair’s voice cut through her thoughts. “You seem distracted, Eleanor. Are the figures on Dornish import taxation not compelling enough?”
She snapped her gaze to him. “The figures are deliberately obfuscated. My distraction is wondering who taught our treasurer to count.”
Lord Beringer spluttered. The door remained shut.
An hour into the session, a different sound came. Not a thump, but a scratch. Then a persistent, quiet knocking at knee-level. All conversation ceased.
Alistair raised an eyebrow. “Enter.”
The door didn’t move. The low knocking continued, patient and rhythmic.
Eleanor stood and walked over. She pulled the heavy door inward. Lucien stood there, alone, his small fist raised mid-knock. He looked up at her, not with a joyful grin, but with a solemn, businesslike expression. In his other hand, he clutched the same wooden horse.
“S’loud,” he stated, pointing accusingly at the iron door handle. Then he walked past her into the room.
He didn’t run to her. He went to the empty space beside her chair, sat down on the floor with a soft thump, and began making his horse gallop across the grooves between the flagstones. He had, it seemed, formalized his attendance.
A beat of silence hung in the room. Garvin coughed, hiding a smile in his grizzled beard.
“It appears the heir finds our discussion of excise duties lacking in narrative drive,” Alistair said, his tone dry, but his eyes held a glint of pure, unadulterated victory. He had seen her watch the door. He had seen her get up. “Proceed, Lord Beringer. Ignore the… cavalry.”
Eleanor sat back down. Her skirt brushed against Lucien’s shoulder. He leaned into it, a faint warm pressure against her leg, and continued his silent equestrian campaign. She felt his warmth seep through the wool. She didn’t touch his head. She kept her hands on the table, but her entire awareness was tethered to that small point of contact.
She resumed her argument against the tariff, her voice finding its usual steel. “The proposed duty will be bypassed within a month. The Dornish will ship through Ravenswood instead, and we’ll lose the revenue entirely. We need a bilateral agreement, not a bully’s tax.”
As she spoke, one of her hands drifted below the table. Her fingers came to rest, not on his head, but lightly on his back, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath his tiny tunic. He didn’t look up. He just pushed his horse faster over the stone, a soft clicking sound accompanying her words.
The meeting ended with a decision to draft a trade envoy to Dorn. The lords rose, collecting their papers. They stepped carefully around the seated prince, as one might skirt a sleeping lion cub.
Alistair lingered as the room emptied. He watched as Eleanor finally looked down. Lucien was now lying on his stomach, the horse held tight in a slack hand, his eyes drooping. The relentless pace of statecraft had bored him to sleep.
“You’ve created a precedent,” Alistair said quietly, walking over. He stood looking down at the scene: the sleeping child, the queen’s hand resting protectively on his back.
“He created it,” she countered, but the fight was gone from her voice. It was just a fact.
Alistair crouched, his movements fluid. He studied his son’s face, then looked up at Eleanor, his blue eyes intent. “Do you know why I never stopped this? Why I let him break every protocol and interrupt the most serious councils of the realm?”
She held his gaze, saying nothing.
“Because I wanted to see what you would do,” he said, his voice low, meant only for her. “You, who have built walls of pure will. I wanted to see what, or who, could finally scale them.” He reached out, not for the boy, but to gently move a strand of her fiery hair that had fallen across her shoulder. His knuckles grazed her collarbone. “It seems the smallest of scouts has succeeded where entire armies would have failed.”
He stood then, leaving her breath caught in her throat. “The Baron of Cressa arrives tomorrow for his audit. He will be… displeased. The council will be tense. Perhaps our son should attend that one, too. Your tactical presence seems to be fortified by his.”
He left her there, with the sleeping boy and the dawning, terrifying realization. Her occupation was not a temporary state. It was a permanent surrender, and the flag now flying over her conquered walls was a simple, tiny one, stitched with the image of a wooden horse.