The Broken Throne

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily raised her eyebrows. “It’s a boy?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Alassa said. She leaned against the chair for a moment, catching her breath. “I haven’t pressed the healers to tell me. They might even refuse to tell me, if I asked. I just think it might be a boy.”

  Emily nodded. Healers – most Healers – refused to tell expectant parents their child’s gender until the baby was actually born. It was common sense on a world where most parents wanted sons, rather than daughters, although Alassa would hardly abort a child simply because it was the wrong gender. The whole issue had always struck Emily as silly. If everyone had boys, there would be no girls; if there were no girls, there would be no more children of either sex. But she understood the logic behind the taboo. Too many people would put their own interests first, in the confident belief that the remainder of the population wouldn’t. Emily rather doubted that belief was justified. Everyone tended to put their interests first.

  Alassa could hardly complain about having a female heir, Emily thought, wryly. She is a female heir herself.

  She met her friend’s eyes. “What do you want?”

  Alassa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “But the law says that male children always come first.”

  “Then change the law,” Emily suggested.

  “That will upset a lot of apple carts,” Alassa said. She started to walk towards her bedroom, motioning for Emily to follow her. “How many heirs would be displaced if we changed the rules?”

  Emily nodded, sourly. The system wasn’t particularly fair, but it was well-understood. Everyone knew their place in the line of succession. But if the rules were changed... even with the changes grandfathered in, which they would have to be to stave off an immediate revolt, a great many people would be discomforted. There would be trouble for decades before things finally started to settle down. Alassa would make more enemies for herself if she pressed ahead too fast.

  “You can change the rules for the monarchy,” she said, as they walked through the door and into the princess’s suite. “You and your child are the only ones who will be affected.”

  “Alexis the Bastard will also be affected,” Alassa said. Her voice hardened. “If his paternity ever comes out...”

  “His mother will keep it a secret,” Emily assured her. “If Alexis’s true parentage was ever to be revealed, he’d be removed from Winter Flower’s line of succession. Right?”

  Alassa lay down on the bed, resting her hands behind her head. “Right,” she said. An ugly smile spread across her face. “If, of course, I chose to return the barony to his mother.”

  Emily sat down by the bed. “Alicia is being quite helpful.”

  “For a given value of helpful,” Alassa countered. “She hasn’t told us anything we can really use.”

  Emily let out a long breath. “What would you have her do? She’s not a spy. She’s not an officer in the king’s armies. Randor does not take her into his confidence, which means she’s very limited in what she can see and hear. She spends most of her time in the castle, under what might as well be house arrest. We’re lucky she’s sending us anything.”

  “I know,” Alassa said. “But that child is a dangerous liability.”

  Emily had her doubts. Illegitimate children were specifically excluded from the line of succession unless their father made special provisions for them. Emily had no doubt that Randor would have made provisions for Alexis if the child had been born a few years earlier, before Alassa became old and powerful enough to fight for her rights. Now... Randor couldn’t legitimise Alexis without destroying the child’s claim to Winter Flower. And Alicia had quite a few relatives who would be more than happy to press their claim to the barony. The baroness had every reason to keep her son’s true parentage a secret.

  She changed the subject. “What’s it like? Being pregnant, I mean.”

  Alassa gave her a sidelong look. “You do realize you’re going to have to have a child soon?”

  Emily scowled. King Randor had made it clear that, as a baroness, she was expected to marry and have at least one child to secure her position. He’d even offered to arrange something for her. Emily had turned him down. The idea of someone arranging a marriage for her was creepy. She simply didn’t understand how Alassa could take it so calmly. And, even if she’d been open to the idea of marrying a stranger, she wouldn’t have trusted Randor to find her a match. He would have looked for someone who could control her, not someone who would support her.

  “I don’t want to think about it,” she said. God! Was Alassa going to press her to get married now? “What’s it like being pregnant?”

  Alassa looked thoughtful. “Strange,” she said. “I knew that... something had changed, back when I was visiting the barons for my father, but... it wasn’t until the healers confirmed I was pregnant that I was sure. Since then... I had mood swings and morning sickness and moments when I just couldn’t do anything. And then the baby started to kick inside me.”

  She touched her chest. “It feels so strange and yet... wonderful.”

  “You’re doing very well,” Emily said.

  “I don’t know,” Alassa said. “When my mother was pregnant, they put her somewhere safe and treated her like... like a potion that could explode if you made the slightest mistake. I don’t have that option. The war won’t run itself.”

  “You should take it easy,” Emily said, although she knew Alassa wouldn’t do anything of the sort. “You don’t have to be with the army.”

  “Yes, I do,” Alassa said, sharply. “And you know it.”

  “I understand the logic,” Emily said. “I just don’t agree with it.”

  Alassa smiled, rather wanly. “And that’s how we know you’re not from here,” she said, dryly. “You just don’t think like us.”

  Emily nodded. There was no need for the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Great Britain to lead their forces into battle. No one would think any less of them if they commanded from the rear. Indeed, they didn’t really command at all. But a king or a queen had to show personal bravery and martial prowess if they wanted to remain on their throne. Alassa had to show more bravery and prowess if she wanted to earn her throne. She couldn’t afford to delegate command to a man. That man would eventually be seen as the power behind the throne.

  Randor has the same problem, she reminded herself, although the king had been fighting long enough for his personal bravery and martial prowess to be well-established. He could put half his forces under someone else’s command, secure in the faith they wouldn’t undermine his position simply by existing. But there was no way he could completely eliminate the possibility of treachery. Someone might turn on him at any moment.

  She frowned as she considered the possibilities. Randor’s captains were all junior noblemen, all high-ranking enough to lead armies, but too low-ranking to mount a coup and take the throne for themselves. The barons would never take orders from a former viscount, let alone an esquire, yet... her frown deepened as she realized the barons had been broken. Apart from Jade and Emily herself, they were all in Randor’s hands. They might not be able to resist if a viscount captured Alexis and claimed the throne for himself.

  “You’re thinking,” Alassa charged. “What are you thinking?”

  “Someone could overthrow your father,” Emily mused. “Perhaps even someone quite low-ranking.”

  Alassa scowled as Emily explained her reasoning. “I doubt they’d be able to secure a power base,” she said, when Emily had finished. “They wouldn’t have a large array of clients to take control, which would force them to rely on the people already in place. The entire country would come apart. And we would just walk in and take over.”

  “That would be good,” Emily said. “Right?”

  “Perhaps,” Alassa said, looking pensive. “And it would certainly solve one of our problems.”

  She shook her head. “Stay a while, please?”

  “You get some sleep,” Em
ily said. “I’ll be here until morning.”

  “Don’t let them wake me too early,” Alassa said. “I don’t have a meeting until ten.”

  Emily looked at the clock on the wall. “You only have three or so hours before you have to wake up,” she said. “You’d better go to sleep now.”

  Alassa nodded. “Do you want to lie down too?”

  Emily shook her head. “I can sit here,” she said. “I’ll be reading your books.”

  “They’re not my books,” Alassa said. “They probably belong to Alicia.”

  Emily looked around with considerable interest. They’d given Alassa Alicia’s rooms? She kicked herself a moment later. Of course the castle’s staff would have given Alassa Alicia’s rooms. They were the most important rooms in the building. To give the princess any less would be seen as a grave insult, all the more so when there was no guarantee that Alicia would ever be coming back. The staff wanted – needed – to stay on Alassa’s good side.

  “Sleep,” Emily said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She rose and walked over to the bookshelf. Most of the titles looked to be genealogy books, but there were a couple of volumes on law and a handful of poorly-bound fiction books. The latter had been produced with a printing press, she noted. She’d never figured Alicia for a reader.

  She isn’t stupid, Emily reminded herself. And that is something we have to bear in mind.

  Chapter Thirty

  “WELL,” CAT SAID. “THE RAT IS out of the bag.”

  Jade smirked at him. “Don’t you mean the cat is out of the bag?”

  “No, I mean the rat,” Cat said. He lifted one hand in a casting pose. “And I can turn you into a rat if you want.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Jade said. “I got higher marks in charms than you.”

  “And then Master Storm refused to feed me until I earned higher marks,” Cat said. “Are you sure I can’t worm a spell through your wards?”

  “And while you’re trying, I’ll be blasting a spell of my own through your wards.” Jade stuck out his tongue. “There’s a reason people don’t try to turn the enemy army into rats.”

  “Of course not,” Cat said, dryly. “Rats can bite. You want to turn them into slugs instead.”

  Emily looked from one to the other, then shook her head. “We don’t have time to get sidetracked,” she said sharply, resisting the urge to make a snide remark about testosterone poisoning. She honestly didn’t understand Jade and Cat’s relationship. They seemed to spend half their time insulting each other. “What do you mean?”

  “I was out on the streets,” Cat said. “The people know that King Randor thrashed the Noblest. And they’re in two minds about it.”

  “Yeah,” Jade growled. “Half of them are happy the Noblest got it in the neck. And the other half are smart enough to know that we’re about to get it in the neck.”

  He stood and started to pace the war room. “It’s been five days since Castle Harkness was destroyed. Not taken by storm, not starved into surrender... destroyed. The king’s cannons tore the castle apart. Nowhere is safe now.”

  “There has to be a defense,” Emily said. “Even without magic, there has to be a way to limit the impact.”

  She forced herself to think. Cannons had changed the face of warfare, but they hadn’t changed it that much. There had been sieges during the English Civil War, if she recalled correctly, and forts had played a major role in American warfare for years. But Fort Sumter had been on an island... she thought. There had to have been a reason the Confederates couldn’t simply storm the fort.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Right now, the king has proven that he can bring a nobleman to heel any time he likes.

  “Yes,” Jade said. “There has to be a defense. But what?”

  “Magic,” Cat said. “We can reinforce the walls.”

  “It wouldn’t last,” Jade said. “Not without a vast source of power. And the closest nexus point is miles away.”

  Cat met Emily’s eyes. “What about the batteries?”

  Emily hesitated. “I’m charging two now,” she said. “It’s a slow process, because I don’t want to leave myself defenseless, but” – she shook her head – “there won’t be enough power to ward the castle permanently, even if we could solve the other problems. The batteries are still single-shot devices.”

  She considered the problem for a long moment. The batteries might be able to funnel power into a network of spells, much like the proto-mimic she’d been devising, but there would be limits. Too little power and the network would collapse, too much power and the network would be torn asunder. She didn’t think there was any way to gauge it properly. The only alternative was to use magicians as a power source, as Mountaintop had done before she’d brought the entire system crashing down, and she doubted they’d get any volunteers. The process was almost always fatal.

  “I don’t know,” she said, finally. “We may not be able to keep the king from storming the city.”

  “Then we meet him outside the city.” Jade tapped a position on the map. “He’ll have to ford the river here, unless he wants to go quite some distance out of his way. We can meet him there and stop him.”

  Cat frowned. “Match our army against his?”

  “Our army, our magicians, our people,” Jade said. “And we do have better weapons.”

  “We hope,” Emily said. Randor had been running his own R&D programs, once he’d realized what cannons and flintlocks could do. She doubted his craftsmen were any better than the craftsmen in Cockatrice or Beneficence, but they might have stumbled across something useful. Randor would certainly have promised the sun and the moon to anyone who came up with a new weapon. “We would be gambling.”

  “The alternative is to retreat back to Swanhaven,” Jade said. “And that would give him all the time he needs to raise the forces to crush us utterly.”

  “True,” Cat agreed. “I...”

  There was a sharp knock on the door. Jade looked up. “Come!”

  Emily turned to see a nervous-looking messenger step into the room. “My Lords, My Lady, the Princess Regnant...”

  “... Demands our urgent presence,” Jade finished. “Correct?”

  The messenger seemed to freeze, just for a second. “Yes, My Lord,” he said. “She awaits you in the drawing room.”

  “Then we are on our way,” Jade said. He rolled up a parchment scroll and passed it to the messenger. “Take this to Lord Ruthven, if you please.”

  The messenger bowed. “Yes, My Lord.”

  Emily exchanged glances with Cat. “Who’s come to call now?”

  “No one was scheduled to arrive,” Jade said, before Cat could answer. “But I’d bet on a messenger from the king.”

  Cat snorted. “What makes you say that?”

  “The drawing room is for private conferences,” Jade said. “If Alassa decided to hold the interview there, it means she doesn’t want word of what was said getting out.”

  Emily nodded as they walked along the corridor and down a flight of stairs. King Randor could easily have sent a message to his daughter, although Emily had no idea what he might want to say to her. It wasn’t as if Alassa was going to disband her army and surrender on her father’s say-so. Perhaps he wanted to arrange something... she shook her head, tiredly. It was unlikely that one side could offer concessions the other side could – let alone would – accept. And then she entered the room and sucked in her breath. Jade had been wrong. It wasn’t a messenger from the king.

  “You,” Jade said, flatly.

  Emily stared. Simon Harkness was kneeling in the middle of the room, his head bowed. His tunic was stained with blood, his face was tired and beaten... Emily sensed powerful spells hovering around him, just waiting for Simon to do something stupid. Alassa’s face was unreadable, but Emily could tell she was angry. Simon Harkness was a reminder that the aristocracy simply couldn’t be trusted.

  Alassa motioned for Jade to take his place besid
e the throne, then leaned forward. Emily could sense her casting a truth spell – and another to make the victim a little more talkative – without moving a muscle. “Tell us why you came here.”

  “My father’s castle was destroyed,” Simon said. His voice was broken. He didn’t seem to notice the spells. “I...”

  “Your adopted mother’s castle.” Alassa’s voice was icy cold. She had every reason to detest someone who was a walking, talking precedent in favor of putting female heirs aside. “Be precise.”

  Emily frowned. She’d expected anger, but Simon was too broken to be angry. He looked... desperate. How had he escaped? King Randor wanted him dead. It had been Simon, after all, who’d broken Duke Traduceus out of his comfortable imprisonment, allowing the Noblest to declare him the true king. Simon might not be right at the top of the list of people the king wanted dead, but Emily would be surprised if he wasn’t in the top ten. Besides, a number of the king’s other enemies were already dead.

  Simon took a breath. “They thrashed us. We retreated back into the castle, skirmishing with their advance elements while preserving what we could. We thought... we thought we could hold the castle indefinitely, while our allies gathered their forces to lift the siege. Instead, the king’s heavy guns systematically blasted the castle into rubble. We couldn’t even fire back!”

  No, Emily thought. You had no idea what you were facing.

  She shook her head. No wonder the remainder of the Noblest had surrendered. Baroness Harkness had done everything right, according to long-standing military doctrine, and still lost. But she hadn’t understood just how destructive cannons could be when aimed at a target big enough to be difficult to miss. She’d thought her castle could withstand a siege for weeks, if not months. She’d been spectacularly wrong.

  “So, you lost,” Alassa said. “How did you escape?”

  “My mother had a plan for escaping the castle,” Simon said. “She ordered me to go first, so I could make contact with our outside forces and bring them back to cover her escape. But the castle fell – it had to surrender – before I could get back to her. And then the king executed her.”