The Queen's Bastard

by C. E. Murphy

  “You will behave with decorum, Lord Asselin. Javier’s favour still rests with me. He won’t take lightly hearing you’ve manhandled me.”

  “Do you think that?” Sacha sneered. “You’re a tool to be used, Irvine, nothing more, and I’ll have my use of you as much as he will.” He caught her upper arm, pulling her close with a hard grip. “You’ve gotten no movement from him. Nothing. No whisper of ambition. What good are you if spreading your legs doesn’t make him jump to serve you?”

  “Why the hurry, Asselin?” Belinda breathed the question, making it light and mocking. She sympathized with Sacha’s impatience, eager for movement herself, but her life had taught her patience. The plot to create or kill a king was not a thing to happen swiftly in its beginning stages. Only when a certain critical momentum was reached did things begin to move at inevitable, unstoppable speed. They would all, in time, fall prey to the trap Belinda felt more and more certain was hers to build, a dangerous game to keep her own queen mother unchallenged on the Aulunian throne. “You’re young. Javier is young. Surely you’ve no personal stake in making the prince a king so quickly, have you? Is it your own desire agitating for Ecumenic domination in Aulun again, or does someone feed your ambition and your pocket? Does someone hunger for results and heap recriminations upon your head and your bank because they are not swift enough in arriving?”

  For all of Asselin’s skill in dissembling, that talent could not deny the touch of his hand against her arm or Belinda’s twist of witchpower, seeking his thoughts through that touch.

  Guilt and anger surged through the link, powerful enough to obscure words. His actions hid emotion beautifully, used the anger to bury guilt as he closed a powerful hand around Belinda’s throat. “Do not imagine I would hesitate to kill you for saying such things, Irvine. Javier is my prince and my loyalty is his. My impatience stems from a man in his prime dancing and dawdling on his mother’s weak will, when he should move forward and claim what is his under Cordula’s banner. Don’t think his favouritism will protect you from me if you fail to move him, or if you question my loyalty again.”

  Belinda, incongruously, thought of the small dagger tucked at her spine, and opened her mouth to let go a shaking laugh that told Asselin she was cowed. Eyes averted, she swallowed nervously against the pressure on her throat and dared a tiny nod. The corsets beneath Eliza’s fashions were looser, shaped more like a woman’s natural form, only tightening to shelve the breasts against the low-cut necklines. There was no easy way, of course, to get to the dagger, not so long as she remained clothed, but stripped to her undergarments she could slip her fingers under the corset and free the blade. It had never been bloodied in battle, only in practise.

  Someday, Belinda promised herself as she swallowed against the pressure on her throat, it would find Sacha Asselin’s heart’s blood.

  “Forgive me, my lord. I spoke in jest, nothing more.” As her laughter could be read as supplication, the quaver in her voice could be interpreted as fear, not the hard delight of an oath made. Triumph rose in him, obscuring anger and guilt, and words whispered through the grip he held on her arm:—does not wish to wed a prince, but a king—

  He released her with a spat curse, Belinda’s hand going to her throat as if she could massage breath back into her body, though eagerness for explanation behind the stolen thoughts overrode any discomfort she felt. Only one person she knew might dare to want a king instead of a prince, for all that the prince was far out of her grasp as it was.

  “Perhaps you need Eliza on your side.” Pragmatic Eliza’s ambitions couldn’t have risen so high, and yet it was far too easy to see how they might have. An ache of unfamiliar sympathy shot upward through Belinda’s chest, spiking in her throat. She quelled it with stillness: it was not her place to care for the pieces that were moved on the board, only to make certain of their alignment. It was easier not to care from the guise of a servant girl, though, removed from the intimate interactions of lifelong friends. This would be the only time in Belinda’s life that she played so public a role—indeed, to do so again would be to invite exposure—and she found that the larger part of her was glad. Caring made her vulnerable, and she was unaccustomed to and displeased with the sensation.

  Sacha answered her unspoken question with a sharp look. “She’s not to be any part of this. My name, Marius’s money, those might save us. Eliza’s got nothing. Not even the patronage of the queen could keep her safe if she were part of plans that went awry.”

  “How long have you protected her?” Belinda hesitated over the penultimate word, knowing Asselin would hear the pause and interpret it as hinting at another: loved. His lip curled, equal parts confession and dismissal.

  “Long enough to know what I’m about. She shares your roof, Irvine. Make sure she doesn’t share your secrets.” He turned on his heel and stalked away, slush splashing around his feet. Belinda held her hand at her throat, her lips pursed as she watched him go. Whether he’d finished with her or whether Eliza was a delicate enough topic to drive him away, she wasn’t certain. If it was the latter, that would be useful in the future, for all that the idea of using Javier’s friends against one another sent a shiver of regret over Belinda’s skin.

  “Weakness,” she murmured to herself. It was weakness to be concerned with any one of them. That thought fixed in mind, the stillness drawn around her like armour, she straightened her gown and her shoulders and stepped out of the shadows to climb her front steps. She would have to watch the mirror carefully for signs of bruising on her throat, and entreat Nina to find the best cosmetics to hide evidence of Sacha’s visit.

  JAVIER, PRINCE OF GALLIN

  10 November 1587 Lutetia

  Of all people, it is Marius he feels he must ask permission of. He, a prince of the realm—a prince of several, to hear Beatrice tell it, and the truth is, she’s right—finds himself at a merchant boy’s door somewhere past midnight, further in his cups than any sensible man should be, most especially one of his status.

  He cannot, for some reason, bring himself to knock. His carriage waits on the street, coachman patient or at least silent, and Javier de Castille, son of Louis IV and Sandalia de Costa, can’t bring himself to knock on the front door of his friend’s home. The coachman will wait all night. The coachman may have to. Javier sways, wine surging through his blood and making him dizzy. He reaches for the door to keep himself steady, and to his shock, it opens beneath his hand.

  Marius, tousle-headed and bleary-eyed, stands before him with an expression that Javier can’t decipher. He is not surprised, the dark-haired merchant’s son, not at all surprised for a man who’s appeared at his own front door for no obvious reason, somewhere after the small bells of the morning have begun to toll. He stands there, looking up at his prince—Marius is well-built, broad enough of shoulder and slim enough of hip, but has nothing of Javier’s height, or Sacha’s bulk, for that matter. He looks up at his prince, and his prince looks down at him, and finally Marius steps out of the door and says, “I expect you should come in, whatever it is.” There’s little doubt in his voice: he knows as clearly as Javier does that “whatever” is Beatrice. It’s merely a matter of discovering what particular hell being the prince’s friend will now cost.

  Javier does, because his other choice is to spill—or spew, given how much he’s drunk—his guts on the threshold. He asks, “What are you doing up?” as he steps in, and regards it as a stupid question. So, it seems, does Marius, who chuffs something like laughter and closes the door behind Javier. Darkness overwhelms them; Marius in his sleeping shirt and bare feet isn’t so much as carrying a candle to light his way, and the flickering streetlights outside are too distant to penetrate the curtained windows of the entrance gallery.

  “I heard the carriage, and then felt you pacing.” Marius says this as if it’s natural, and Javier wonders if it is. Suddenly the answer is important, and he grasps Marius’s shoulder.

  “Felt me?”

  “You’re a lead weight
to be around when you’ve got something on your mind, Jav. You always have been. It brings the rest of us down, like you’re a drowning man clinging to our ankles. You know that. No one comes out unscathed when you’re in a mood.”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t know.” Javier’s not precisely sure that’s true; he’s been careful for so many years not to influence his friends consciously with the witchpower, it’s never occurred to him that he might be doing so accidentally. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re soused,” Marius says, not unkindly. “Come on to the kitchen. Some bread will sop up some of that drink.” He guides Javier, who hasn’t released his shoulder, down the dark hall and down a short set of wooden stairs into a kitchen lit by the banked embers of a fire. Only when Javier is seated in front of the hearth does it come to him to demand, childishly, “How do you know I’m drunk?”

  “Two things.” Marius tears off a chunk of bread from a new loaf; the cook will be outraged come morning. “First, you smell like a brewery.” He hands Javier the bread and roots around for a knife, unwrapping cheese as he speaks. “And second, you never apologize for anything unless you’re too drunk to remember your position.” Now he brings his prince the cheese and pulls a stool closer to the fire, studying Javier in the red-tinted light. “Is she pregnant, then?”

  “Fuck,” Javier says, and for long moments can think of nothing else to say. “Fuck, Mar, you’re not even supposed to know I’m swivving her.”

  “My lord prince,” Marius says so diplomatically Javier knows the next words will be insulting. Nor does Marius disappoint. “Just how fucking stupid do you think I am?”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid,” Javier protests, and it’s true. “It’s only—”

  “Only that when our royal friend sees fit to pursue one of our women that we’re supposed to politely glance aside and notice nothing. Sometimes I envy Eliza, Jav. At least you don’t look to her paramours.”

  Javier, distracted, demands, “Liz has lovers?” and then, offense managing to work its way through wine, adds, “You’re cruel tonight, Marius. It’s not like you.”

  “I think I may have earned it, Jav,” Marius says, so softly that guilt burns hot through Javier’s blood. It’s an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation, and it’s the one that drove him first to an excess of drink, and ultimately to Marius’s doorstep.

  “I’m going to ask her to marry me.” There has to be a better way to couch it, but the words blurt themselves out, not out of viciousness but desperation. And Marius pales in the ruddy light, shock widening his pupils until there’s nothing but darkness in his eyes.

  “Oh, my lord prince.” The whisper has edges. “Do I not deserve better than that?”

  Javier closes his eyes against the pain in Marius’s question. “You deserve far better than I,” he replies, and can’t bring himself to look on his friend again. “So does she, and for being friend to a prince neither of you will get it. I won’t marry her. I can’t. But she’s Lanyarchan, and even the threat of a fresh alliance between my mother and that country—” It’s too much to tell the merchant’s son, but Javier can find it in himself to say no less. Marius does deserve better, and the only offering he can make is the hard truth. And Marius is silent in the face of Javier’s faltering, so quiet the prince is forced to open his eyes and gauge his friend’s expression.

  There is pain there. More than Javier ever wanted to cause the few people in his life whom he trusts implicitly. Pain and weariness and worst of all, acceptance. Wouldn’t it be better for Marius to rail and shout, to hit him and stand his ground against Javier’s desire?

  No. The answer comes too fast. For all the friendship shared, Javier is still a prince and Marius still a merchant’s son. He can’t throw himself on Javier in outrage even when Javier most richly deserves it. Worse still, the witchpower would never allow it to happen, even if Javier should steel himself to cower and brace against the blows he so richly deserves. His power would work to protect him instinctively, either through the shielding that he and Beatrice have discovered or through the part of Javier that is, and will always be, royalty. No one may lay a hand on a prince, and even if Javier might school his conscious mind to other ends, the core of him would lash out and bend Marius to his will. Better that Marius hold in his betrayal and let it show in smaller ways than clear insubordination and threats.

  “So you will act at last,” Marius finally whispers. Javier isn’t expecting that, and finds himself staring through the darkness at his friend. “Does she love you, Javier?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “Do you love her?”

  Only because he owes this man so much, in the form of Beatrice Irvine, will Javier answer that question. He closes his eyes, savoring the words as he speaks them: “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “I do,” Marius says steadily. “Love both of you, and see no way for this to end happily. But then, that’s not the point, is it?” He needs no more answer to that than he might need answer to the colour of the sky. He stands, gesturing toward the food Javier still holds. “Eat, my prince. You’ll need to be sober if you’re going to ask a woman to marry you.”

  Javier, unusually obedient, tears at the bread with his teeth, its aroma suddenly heady. For a few minutes he does nothing but gobble down the tender savory and the cheese. Marius hands him wine, so well-watered there’s only a glimmer of flavour, and waits for him to drink that before he speaks again. “Will you tell her that she’s only a mark to be used in a political game?”

  The thought quite literally hasn’t occurred to Javier. He scowls through the dimness, more at the fire than at his friend. “Should I?”

  Marius breathes a sound like laughter. “How many women would say yes to a proposal like that, Jav? But Beatrice might,” he adds more quietly. There is something indecipherable in his expression again. In another man Javier might call it subterfuge or canniness, but Marius has always worn his heart on his sleeve. The idea that he might now be trying to manipulate events is laughable. “Her passion for her country’s freedom is great,” Marius finishes, and Javier has to look away again.

  “And being engaged to royalty, however briefly, might make her an even more appealing wife,” he offers. Marius exhales again, another noise that resembles laughter.

  “To those who care about such things, yes. I don’t. I don’t even think my mother does. Now, if you were to elevate her to some duchy or something, Mother might care…” He’s joking, and his expression changes to startlement, then horror as he sees Javier considering the idea. “Jav, I don’t need—”

  “But it would make a magnificent bride-gift, wouldn’t it,” Javier murmurs. “So outrageous as to alarm Lorraine. Take a minor Lanyarchan noble, elevate her to a duchess, propose to marry her…short of slapping her face with a glove there could be no more obvious announcement of Gallin’s intentions toward Aulun.” He offers a smile that he knows is too weak. “And in the end my friend could become nobility, without me ever conferring the favour directly. It’s a pretty setup, isn’t it?”

  “And where does it leave Eliza?” Marius wonders.

  “Oh, hell,” Javier says recklessly. “I’ll marry her to Sacha and we’ll all be happy.”

  Marius barks laughter this time, so derisive Javier straightens in offense. “Yes, my prince” is all the merchant lad will say, though, and Javier climbs to his feet unsteadily. Puts his hand on Marius’s shoulder, gripping muscle as he leans heavily.

  “Will you forgive me, Marius?” The question’s asked thickly, more than just wine weighting it. Marius folds his hand over Javier’s on his shoulder, then reaches out to grasp the back of the prince’s neck, bringing his head in until they touch foreheads, an intimacy Javier would allow almost no one else. Marius holds them there a long time before his grip tightens and he sighs.

  His answer, the only answer he can give, will haunt Javier for the rest of his days: “Yes, my prince.”

  BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE

/>   10 November 1587 Lutetia

  “The prince has sent his carriage for you, my lady.” Nina bobbed a curtsey as she stepped into the sitting room with her announcement. Belinda glanced up with a faintly startled look toward the windows and the dimming afternoon sky. “The coachman says I’m to extend his invitation to dinner.”

  Amusement curled Belinda’s mouth. “How forward of the coachman. I don’t believe I’ve ever been invited to dinner by one before.”

  Exasperation flickered over Nina’s face and Belinda’s amusement turned to brief laughter. “I know. I have no propriety, have I? Have blankets brought out for the horses, invite the driver in to the foyer, and send Marie to my room. I’ll have to dress for him.”

  “For the coachman, my lady?” Nina looked down her nose in half-teasing mockery, then bobbed another curtsey and scurried to do as she was told. Belinda climbed the stairs to her room, laying out the amber gown she’d dismissed for the outing with Eliza months earlier, only to earn Marie’s cluck of disapproval as she swept into the room behind Belinda.

  “’Tisn’t the fashion, m’lady. Going to the palace you ought to wear the fashion you set.”

  “Eliza set it,” Belinda said absently. “And I haven’t any of her fashions warm enough for the weather tonight. The amber is flattering and warm. It will do.”

  Marie hummed, urgent little noise of dismay, but did as she was told, first settling her mistress into a chair so Belinda’s hair could be made suitable, then arranging petticoats and skirts and corsets until the amber overgown could be settled into place. It took longer than Belinda preferred—it always did—but the result looking back at her in an unwarped mirror seemed worth the time. Even Marie clucked again, this time in satisfaction. “M’lady should have a winter gown in the new style made up in this colour. It does m’lady’s eyes and hair good. Shall I have the dressmaker come round?”