by C. E. Murphy
“And insult Eliza? I’ll discuss it with her,” Belinda offered, and Marie, satisfied, ducked her head and backed out of the room. Belinda watched her go in the mirror, wondering, not for the first time, what kind of dragonish mistress had trained that particular obsequience into the girl. Only royalty expected such behavior, and even then it was usually only in the courtroom or private audiences. Servants were expected to be efficient, and backing through rooms wasted time.
Nina stood too near the coachman in the foyer, startling into a proper distance and blushing beyond her collarbones as Belinda entered the room. The coachman, only a few years her senior, held his expression steady, as though the flirtatiousness in it couldn’t be seen if he didn’t admit guilt in its being there. Belinda hid amusement as Nina helped her slip a cloak on, and watched the coachman as he led the way down to the street. He was young for the job, which meant he had talent that might be parlayed, in a few years’ time, to a position in the stables as a judge of horseflesh and a breeder. He could make Nina a good match, and she could be kept on as Beatrice’s servant as long as Belinda desired her.
A dark smile played her mouth as she stepped up into the carriage with the coachman’s hand in support. As long as Belinda desired her, or as long as Marius did. Nina’d lost none of her good nature or bidability in the weeks since she’d become their plaything, recollection swept away by the witchpower. She had not been taken advantage of since, out of fondness for the girl and out of no time or need to sate Marius, but Belinda was satisfied Nina’s memory and body were hers to manipulate. With the girl safely wed to the coachman, any child would be assumed legitimate. Belinda would discuss it with Javier over dinner.
The prince met her in the courtyard, dressed in blues that shaded toward purple in the rising moonlight. He took her hand as the carriage door was opened, breathing a sigh that shone silver in the cold air. “You’ve chosen a more conservative dress. Thank God.”
“My lord?” Belinda arched an eyebrow as she stepped down to the flagstones. “Have Eliza’s dresses fallen out of fashion already?”
“No, no, God, no, not with Mother looking fresh as spring in them. No, a contingency from the Khazarian court is here. They arrived without warning this afternoon, and they look to a man as if they’ve walked out of another century. All dark and dour and fur-covered. Do you have any Khazarian, Beatrice?”
The impulse to reply, blithely, “Oh, I’ve had several” nearly strangled Belinda, the expression she imagined on Javier’s face almost worth the cost of the answer. “None, my lord, except perhaps yes and no, which do me no good at a dinner. There is a dinner,” she half-asked, and Javier let go an explosive breath.
“There is, and I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. None of us had any warning, and all I could think was your presence would help to welcome her.”
“Her?”
“There’s a woman in charge of them all.” Javier escorted Belinda into the palace’s warmth as he spoke, keeping his voice low as he shared what he knew. “She speaks nearly flawless Gallic, and her hangers-on have words of it here and there. Eliza will be at the table as well. Her Khazarian’s not as good as mine, but—”
“Eliza speaks Khazarian?” Belinda couldn’t keep the astonishment from her voice, though even as she blurted the question she wished she hadn’t. Javier’s gaze darkened. “Of course she does,” Belinda said. “You taught her. I’m sorry, my lord. It just never occurred to me. I meant no slight toward Eliza.”
“I needed someone to practise with who would talk to me about something other than politics, so I made them all learn. Sacha and Marius are passable in Parnan, and Sacha’s Reinnish is quite good, but Eliza’s the best of them.”
“She would be,” Belinda murmured. Javier gave her a sharp look, eyebrows drawn down.
“What does that mean?”
“She had the most to gain from education, my lord.” Belinda left unsaid that a street rat in love with a prince might hope innumerable languages could elevate her toward a throne; if Javier wasn’t aware of that, there was no need to draw his attention to it. “Tell me about the Khazarian woman.”
“She’s a noblewoman of some sort. They call her dvoryanin, a lady’s rank. Something like a countess. Outside the line for the throne, should something happen to Irina or Ivanova, but close to it in politics and friendship. She’s the most dangerously beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Javier said, so frankly it made Belinda smile. “All sharp angles and dark eyes. She looks like a witch.”
Belinda’s eyebrows shot up and her hand tightened on Javier’s arm. He glanced at her and smiled, brief and faint. “I know,” he murmured. “Of all the people to say that. But I don’t know. I don’t feel anything from her, but you were the one who named us alike.”
“Is that why you really wanted me here?” Belinda asked, just as quietly. There was no censure in her question and after a moment to ascertain that, Javier dropped his head in a nod. “What’s her name?”
“Akilina Pankejeff. She goes through love—are you all right?” Javier caught Belinda’s weight as she stumbled, a moment of clumsiness, of losing control, unlike anything she’d felt in years. Her heartbeat soared and she fought down heat in her cheeks, knowing a blush could damn her. Golden witchpower seared through the back of her mind, seeking a channel for use. Belinda seized it, dominating it with her will and wrapping it around herself in stillness that shivered under the onslaught of shock.
“My ankle,” she said, the lie coming easily to lips numb with cold. “Forgive me. I’m all right now. Alikina…?”
“Akilina,” Javier corrected, but his description of the woman was lost beneath Belinda’s own knowledge.
She had only seen the woman once, briefly, in the early-morning hour before she escaped Count Gregori Kapnist’s country estates with the help of a lusty young coachman. Akilina Pankejeff had been the latest in Gregori’s stream of high-born lovers, just as he’d been the latest in hers. There was almost no chance Akilina would know her: she had not demanded to see the harlot serving girl whose sensuality had driven Gregori to his grave. Had Belinda stayed even an hour longer, with nasty-minded Ilyana waiting to make trouble, she might well have come face-to-face with the noblewoman, but as it was the raven-haired, hard beauty hadn’t so much as glanced at the help.
And Belinda was now Beatrice Irvine, a provincial noblewoman from Lanyarch, hundreds of miles away from Khazar. Lutetia was as far as Beatrice had ever travelled, or ever would; to connect her with the Rosa at Gregori’s estates was simply impossible. “I’ll do my best,” Belinda heard herself promising, and had to cast her mind back over Javier’s lecture to learn what she’d agreed to. Ah: overtures of friendship with Akilina. The Khazarian ambassador, if that’s what Akilina was, would have very little reason to be friends with Beatrice Irvine, but if Javier’s favour lay on the Lanyarchan girl, then friends Akilina would make. “Why is she here, my lord? Does Gallin treat with Khazar?” That, above all, was a question that needed answering: Gallin’s navy wasn’t well-endowed, but the Essandian navy to the south was. A treaty made with Sandalia could very easily sway Rodrigo, and that triumvirate was a dangerous combination for Aulunian prospects.
“Don’t worry about it,” Javier murmured. “Those are politics outside your concern, for now. We’ll discuss it later. For now, be charming, Beatrice. Be charming.”
A few steps ahead of them, doormen opened the way to the dining hall. Belinda, on Javier’s arm, swept into warmth and light and between a double-row of Khazarian honour guards, who, like everyone in the room, turned their gazes on the new arrivals. Training made her offer a brief, breathless smile at the guards; friends in low places were always good to have. None of them changed expression, save one, whose breath caught audibly beneath the sound of Belinda and Javier’s footsteps. Belinda’s curious gaze went to that one, and for the second time in as many minutes, a lifetime of control deserted her, sickness lurching in her belly. Vassily, Vlad, Valentine, sang through her mind.
She should have killed him.
The stress of running in tight corsets came back to her even now, breathlessness that had nothing to do with the rising illness in her belly. She had turned from the coachman, moving with decorum, and then gathered her skirts and run through the carefully laid-out halls of Gregori Kapnist’s estates as fast as she could. She was young and healthy and running for her life in any sense that mattered, and it had seemed mere moments before she burst into her cell, breast heaving with the effort of haste.
Viktor had not been there. There had been no sign of him; there never was once he left, except perhaps a handful of thick black hairs sticking to the pillow. But it was early, earlier than a guardsman often needed to be up, and so to find her mattress cold and the blankets rucked and empty was a shock.
Belinda put it away almost instantly. All that mattered, all that truly mattered, was that he not be found in her chamber. It would be best if he were dead, his tongue silenced for good, but it was not necessary, and she had no time for unnecessary things. She loosened her corsets and stuffed partlets beneath them, needing enough to give her clothes the look of having changed without the risk of packing a bag that might draw attention. The coachman intended to leave within the hour. There might be time to find Viktor, to slip a knife into his kidney or across his throat and leave him bleeding in a streambed.
But Gregori’s death and Belinda’s disappearance, coupled with Viktor’s murder, might well shine too much light on the serving girl whom Ilyana had accused of witchery. Better to leave Viktor alive, out of the picture, than to play the dangerous game of silencing him.
A touch of sentiment made her shoulders tighten. It was not that he’d asked her to marry him, or made the offer as if it were a love match. That kind of weakness would be her undoing, and so it could bear no relevance on the decision to leave him alive. It was not that which stayed her hand, but raw practicality.
Belinda looked through the Khazarian guard now with the same brief and meaningless smile she’d offered all the guards, and told herself again that it had been the right choice, at the time, to let him live.
She did not, could not, would not, let the sickness in her stomach betray itself with her expression. She forbade a blush to rise, forbade any hint of recognition to light her eyes. Disbelief beetled Viktor’s eyebrows, the outrageous impossibility of his onetime lover being in Lutetia and on a prince’s arm doing more to maintain Belinda’s cover than any action she might take could do. It was simply not possible, and in that lay her only chance at safety. It had been wise to let him live then.
It would be suicide to do so now.
They were past the guards, bowing, curtseying to the table; Belinda brought her curtsey low to Akilina, almost as deferential to her as to Sandalia. Both women noticed, Sandalia with a quirked mouth that hinted just barely more at humour than offense, and Akilina as if it were no more, and possibly less, than she was due. They were seated, Javier at Akilina’s right and Belinda farther down the table, as benefited her lesser status. Pleasantries were exchanged, all in Gallic, Akilina complimenting Belinda on her accent, Belinda demurring and insisting it had improved greatly in the months she’d lived in Lutetia, but Akilina, to Belinda’s ear, sounded as if she’d been born to the tongue. Polite, meaningless, charming; all the things that Beatrice Irvine should be in the face of so much nobility, so much greater than her own, and all the while with the weight of Viktor’s gaze on her slender shoulders.
Akilina said something that brought Beatrice’s laugh to the fore. Too easy, too easy; Beatrice laughed too easily, and in such free emotion there was, had always been, danger. Belinda’s grace was not in her singing voice, but in her laugh, as she had once told a dark-haired courtesan in Parna. Viktor would know that laugh, impossible as it was, and yet to choke it back was unthinkably rude. Belinda quieted it as best she could, leaving merriment in her eyes and trusting without fail that her gaze and smile would bury true emotion so deep no one but she would ever find it. Akilina smiled at her, an open predatory expression that Belinda knew too well, and this time it was she, not her assumed persona, who wanted to laugh, almost in despair. There was safety in being a serving girl. No one saw her as a servant, no one cared or noticed, no one bothered. Belinda kept her smile in place and coiled stillness around herself, reaching back to the first days of training and remembering Robert Drake riding away, his cloak golden in the sunlight. That cloak was a thing of protection, keeping her safe, making her untouchable.
Witchlight gathered in her mind, comforting, as if its presence had always been meant to be there, and now that it was, as if it were unthinkable that it might ever have been missing. It reached through candlelight and fire for the shadows, pulling them closer, darkness soft and comforting. The amber of Belinda’s gown seemed to fade and dim, and for a sweet moment Belinda felt panic bleed out of her. She had been raised to shadows, that was where servants belonged.
Serving girls did not make themselves part of burgeoning revolution.
The thought, sharp and clear, shattered the gathering witchlight and straightened Belinda’s spine. She reached for her wineglass too hastily, nearly knocked it over, and spat a curse in Aulunian that silenced the table.
This time she let a blush come, able to stop it but unable to command it to rise, and murmured an apology in Gallic. “I’ve forgotten my tongue. I beg of you, forgive me, my lords and ladies. I’m told appalling language is a Lanyarchan trait.”
“What did it mean?” Akilina asked after a moment, and laughter restored itself around the table as Belinda made a still-blushing confession to the mating habits of swine. She made a show of holding on to her wineglass too carefully from then on, earning amused looks and once, a mocking round of applause for managing to accept a newly poured cupful. None of the banter went beyond the surface, not only for Belinda, but at the table as a whole: it didn’t take the witchpower to see judgment beneath smiling eyes, or the thoughtful perusal of the high-born blood seating placement. Javier, at Akilina’s elbow, could easily be placed there as more than just a polite sop to a visiting guest; it could be read as potential, as a promise: the young prince might be wed to a powerful woman from the Khazarian empire, making an alliance there that would strengthen Gallin and alarm Aulun.
Unwilling to allow her body to betray herself again, Belinda didn’t shift positions at the idea, but memory of a thought stolen from Sacha rose: she intended to marry a king, not a prince. Belinda had thought he meant Eliza, but the possibility that the stocky young lord’s reach stretched beyond Gallin’s borders arose as she studied Akilina. There had been guilt and anger both in Asselin’s reaction to her pressure, and if his patron was making her way to Gallin, expecting results…the idea was intriguing.
From the distance down the table, even with her witchpower extended toward the black-haired Khazarian woman, Belinda caught no sense of plotting or turmoil. Nor should she, she thought; the fine meal and the company were intended for pleasure and the first forays into casual intimacy. That it also served to allow insight into some of Sandalia’s court alliances was inevitable, and that Akilina should pay attention to those alliances was only to be expected.
And it set Belinda herself firmly in her place: four or five men and women separated her from the head of the table and the guest of honour. Eliza was even farther down the table, and caught Belinda’s eye momentarily as Belinda looked over the gathering. They exchanged brief smiles, both aware of their positions literally and figuratively, and then Eliza turned her attention back to the heavily bearded Khazarian man beside her. He, like most of Akilina’s people, was a minor dignitary, part of an entourage that was intended as a show of support rather than any expectation that they would do anything. Belinda caught a murmur of Aria Magli from Eliza’s conversation, and turned to the man at her side, offering a smile of her own. “Do I understand that you travelled through Parna, then? You must have left Khazar early in the summer, to make so much travelling wort
hwhile.”
He stared at her as if she’d said something unpleasant, and stuffed a joint of lamb into his mouth, blood drooling down his beard. Belinda, repulsed and startled, drew back, earning Akilina’s laughter. “Forgive my men, Lady Irvine,” she said, loudly enough to be heard. “Their manners are cruder than even the worst tales of a Lanyarchan’s. I visited Aria Magli,” she acknowledged, “but only with a handful of retainers. This honour guard caught me on my journey east. It appears I was embarrassing my imperatrix by travelling as lightly as I did. Have you ever been to Aria Magli, Lady Irvine?”
“Lutetia is the farthest I’ve ever been from home.” Belinda let the Lanyarchan burr come through more strongly in her voice, then deliberately corrected it, trusting the show of provinciality to be considered charming. “I’ve heard that Aria Magli is the most beautiful city in Echon and the most vile. Is it possible that it could be both?”
“Oh, yes,” Akilina said without hesitation. “I think the smell would be appalling in the heat of summer, and yet the music on the canals and the life of the city is irresistible. And, of course, there are the courtesans, who may be the breaking point for villainousness or perfection, depending on your opinion of them. What is yours, Lady Irvine?”
Belinda dropped her eyes to hide a laugh, her evident shyness garnering amusement from Akilina. “Is that a terrible question to ask a young Ecumenic woman?” she asked without remorse. “Can you even imagine such a life, Lady Irvine? Trained in pleasure, educated on all manner of topics—is it freedom, do you think, or is it Hell?”
“I believe we should not be so bold as to define Hell as an earthly conceit,” Belinda murmured, and lifted her eyes. “Nor is freedom found in anything but walking God’s path and casting off our sins to be welcomed in Heaven at the end of our days. I cannot say that I approve of a woman selling her body for money, but I wouldn’t presume to say God had no reason for asking her to do so. My lady.”