So Yvanne rode to the prince’s seat at Cavallon and asked his people to swear new oaths to her service and to God-the-Savior. This they did gladly, because they saw Yvanne’s grace and wisdom—and because some of them knew the name of the sword the girl carried across her back, and knew they bore witness to the birth of a new legend.
But there is no such thing as a bloodless birth.
Before they had even laid the anchor stone for the Queen’s Keep, the first of the False Kings came calling.
He rode up the hill with ten knights at his back and demanded that Yvanne give up her title and bow before him.
‘Certainly I will,’ the queen said, ‘if you can best my champion.’
The False King looked about him and saw no one but peasants and children, wielding staves and rusted axes. The only sword was held by a ragged girl wearing armor that did not fit her. The False King laughed.
They say he was still laughing when Valiance slid neatly between his ribs.
The second of the False Kings fell the same way, full of hubris, but the third was canny enough to be afraid. He held a tournament and offered a prize—his own weight in silver!—to the man who could best the Queen’s Champion.
It was Ancel of Ulwin who won the tournament, who rode with the last of the False Kings to Cavallon and challenged the Red Knight to a duel. And, for the first time since she drew the sword from the yew, Una faced a worthy foe.
Ancel was young and fast and beautiful. He moved like a needle through cloth, diving and rising in a perfect rhythm. Una was taller and stronger, but for a long time, she could not best him. They fought untiltheir lungs ached, until their blood had turned the earth to slick mud beneath their boots and their shadows stretched long at their backs.
Later, those who saw the fight would agree that Ancel was the best swordsman in the land. But in the end, he was only a man. What is a man, against a legend?
The end, when it came, came quickly. Valiance caught neatly beneath Ancel’s cross guard and sent his blade flying from his hand. Una drew back for the final blow. Ancel closed his eyes.
And a voice called, softly, ‘Mercy, my love.’
Una wrenched her sword aside at the last moment.
Ancel opened his eyes and beheld the queen, looking down at him with such gentility that his knees buckled.
Distantly he heard his False King braying, urging him to rise and fight, but Ancel found he did not care; nor did he care when the king’s voice went abruptly quiet.
He cared only about the queen, smiling wryly down at him. ‘Would you like to know why she won?’ When Ancel did not answer, Yvanne went on, ‘Because you fought for yourself. For glory, for silver. But she…’ Her eyes found Una, who was cleaning the False King’s blood from her blade. ‘She fought for Dominion.’
Ancel asked, ‘What is Dominion?’
Yvanne answered, ‘One nation united under one God. One kingdom, from the Slant Sea to the Northern Fallows, prosperous and peaceful. Just a dream, for now, but one worth dying for.’ She might have been a saint or a seer, she spoke with such perfect faith.
And Ancel, who had only ever served himself and other men who served themselves, felt an aching, helpless love take root in his chest.
Humbly, head bowed, he said, ‘I know nothing of dreams, my lady, but I would fight for you.’
There was a considering pause. Then he felt the flat of a blade fall heavy on his right shoulder. ‘Good enough,’ said Yvanne, and she swore a second knight to her service.
Later, they would come to call him Ancel the Good, the Knight of Hearts, for he collected so many, though he took neither wife nor lover. Later, Ancel and Una would come to trust each other as brothers, fighting side by side for crown and country.
But as Una watched Ancel take his oath in the bloodied earth of the courtyard, she felt nothing but uneasy envy. The False Kings werecast down. Ancel had joined the court of Cavallon, and he would not be the last. What purpose, then, did she serve?
She went to the queen that very night and took Yvanne’s soft white hands in hers. ‘Tell me what else I may win you, lady. Only name it, and it will be yours.’
And the queen answered, as if she had been waiting for the question, ‘A crown worthy of Dominion.’
The following morning, Sir Una rode out on her first quest. It would be three years before she returned.
She journeyed deep into the wild reaches of Dominion, chasing legends of a crown fit for her queen, and wherever she rode she left new stories in her wake. Some of these you have heard, I’m sure: the Duel of the Stone Keep, in which she bested Bodrow the Giant; the great dragon hunt, when all save one of those unnatural creatures were slain, and their ivory scales sewn into a white mantle for the queen; the Ballad of Morvain, in which a wicked sorceress beguiled Una for seven days and seven nights, until Una recited holy prayers and caused Morvain to forsake her sorcery and take the veil instead.
It is only the final story that matters, anyway, when Una took to the Slant Sea in a humble fisherman’s boat.
She was following the tale of Sinclair, the Saint of Smiths, who had long ago crafted a crown of such surpassing beauty that he had buried it on a hidden isle rather than see it sit on an unworthy brow.
