by C. E. Murphy
And unless Javier learned to not trust those around him to employ such tactics, he, unlike his merchant friend, would never follow well in his father’s trade.
Belinda allowed herself a quick smile at the floor, expression hidden by habit even when shadows concealed her. Not in his reputed father’s trade, at least; she was still curious as to his true heritage, but in the weeks she’d been half-imprisoned in the palace, she’d not yet found a way to direct Sandalia’s thoughts to a lie told a lifetime ago when she could touch the queen’s hand and steal the truth from her. It would come in time; truth always did.
“What would you have me do, Javier? Take Akilina aside and explain I can no longer listen to her counsel, because my son’s jealous heart has taken a dislike to her?” Belinda heard teasing in Sandalia’s voice, though Javier’s tight expression said he was having none of it.
“You’re the queen,” he said petulantly. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
Sandalia laughed aloud, a thing rare enough that Belinda couldn’t remember having heard her do so before. She had a much deeper laugh than expected, in contrast to her sweet soprano voice. It coloured Belinda’s viewpoint of her, enriching her into sudden humanity as her smile carved lines around her mouth and bent her toward likability. It was a striking thought: Belinda had never conceived of queens as being likable or not; that was a thing reserved for ordinary human affairs. Lorraine was a creature for veneration, and Sandalia was her rival and therefore the enemy; that was all that mattered.
Unexpectedly, unpleasantly, Belinda wondered if she wanted Sandalia to die, and the idea rained chaos in her mind, breaking cold sweat on her skin. Within an instant she drew stillness to her, beyond the witchpower she used to hide herself from the room’s other occupants. This was her childhood game, the one of not hurting and not fearing; it could be used as well to not think. Duty and desire lay on opposite sides of a vast divide; it was not her blessing or her curse to consider her own wishes as she served her queen. Duty made her the queen’s secret blade; desire, as she lifted her eyes to look at Sandalia again, seemed a foreign conceit, and as quickly as she’d wondered whether she wanted the petite Gallic queen dead, she wondered why she would not want her dead.
Javier’s sullenness had grown in the instant Belinda’s thoughts were turned aside. He cared for being laughed at no more than anyone, and perhaps less: his royal mantle saved him from it often enough. “A queen,” Sandalia told him, “can do far less as she likes than you might imagine. I will not put Akilina aside, Javier, so draw in your lip and cease your pouting. It ill becomes anyone over the age of three, especially a prince.”
Javier did as he was told, though the emotions that pooled around him and crept toward Belinda were still black. “Why won’t you rid us of her? We asked for no Khazarian contingent.”
“Nor,” Sandalia said after long moments, “did we ask for the support of Khazarian troops that Akilina and I have negotiated, to be ratified by Irina’s own hand.”
Javier’s sulk fell away as abruptly as Belinda’s interest piqued. Impulse again edged her forward, as though she might miss something if she remained more safely sequestered by the door, and she made her hands into fists, leaning toward the royal pair by the fire, but not moving further. “Mother?” Belinda could all but taste the leap of Javier’s heart, excitement suddenly pounding through him where a breath earlier there had been a childish whinge. Sandalia regarded her son another long moment before standing and gesturing for him to follow. Belinda bit her lower lip and pursued them, matching her steps to Javier’s and moving close enough to pass through the door Sandalia opened.
Sandalia paused, holding the door, forehead wrinkled at Javier as he passed in front of her and Belinda stepped to the side, holding her breath and keeping well out of the way. Javier turned back to his mother when he realised she was still at the door, curiosity tilting an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should consider rubbing up to Beatrice only at night, Javier,” Sandalia said drily. “You smell of her perfume.”
Red scalded Javier’s cheeks and Belinda pressed a hand against her stomach, caught between horrified laughter and nausea. She had thought to trick the eye, but never to try fooling the nose. She would pour out her perfumes the instant she returned to her rooms. Javier mumbled an apology that Sandalia brushed off, closing the door behind her and locking it before crossing to a writing desk that dominated the private chamber. The rest of the room was equally businesslike, the windows too small to be looked through from the outside, the chairs arranged in such a fashion as to focus on the desk; here, Sandalia could hold court among counselors, herself sitting amidst the scribes as they scribbled and sketched out treaties as voiced by the men who advised a queen.
It took more than one key to open a heavy drawer within the desk. Sandalia tucked the keys back into her bodice, a location sufficiently secure that Belinda briefly despaired of acquiring them herself, and withdrew a stack of parchment, spreading the top pages out as Javier joined her behind the desk. Belinda held herself still again, heart crashing against her ribs while Javier traced a fingertip down one sheet of parchment, murmuring written words aloud: “‘…commitment of troops toward the administration of open water passages from Khazar’s port town of Nvskya to the Essandian Straits.’ ‘Administration,’” he repeated. “A delicate word for indelicate intentions. This has your signature already, Mother. Yours and Akilina’s. Can you be certain you ally yourself with Irina, and not her duchess?”
“Would you have me use seizure and control? We tread dangerous enough waters as it is,” Sandalia said shortly. “The details of ratification are at the top. Read carefully, Javier. Akilina acts in Irina’s name or not at all.”
“Does my uncle Rodrigo know?”
A lance of guilt spiked from Sandalia, though her words didn’t betray it: “Irina still dances with him on a treaty. Their sexes suggest treaties should be made by marriage, and Irina wants that no more than any of us.” Belinda knew she spoke of the reigning queens of Echon, an unusual sisterhood endlessly threatened by the men around them. Javier allowed himself a brief laugh.
“Does something make the imperatrix think that Rodrigo’s eager for marriage? He’s managed to avoid it for thirty years.”
“My brother prefers to make his conquests peacefully,” Sandalia said. “It’s why he still treats with Lorraine, and why Irina should be cautious.”
“Lorraine will die before she gives her hand and throne in marriage,” Javier said. Sandalia lifted her eyes, pretty face carved with an animal smile.
“Yes. She will.”
The threat’s weight settled over Belinda’s skin like a cloak, wrapping her tightly in it. Her fingers drifted to the small of her back, where her tiny dagger lay hidden beneath clothes and corsets. It would be very easy to end it now, to slip forward unseen and drive the blade into Sandalia’s throat. Javier would not be able to save her, or raise an alarm quickly enough to save his own life. There was no other choice, if she were to kill the queen now: it must be both of them, so no one was left for a pretender’s crown. She could take the papers that Sandalia and Javier now gloated over and return to Aulun; the treaty would prove her right to have acted as she did. Lorraine’s reluctance to put another regent to death would be mitigated by proof positive of plots against her, and with the witchpower helping her, no one would ever know Belinda had done the deed that saved her queen.
She found her skirts already gathered high, a hand twisted behind her back to snake its way beneath her corset in search of the blade she was never without.
“Akilina came as an ambassador in truth, then,” Javier half-asked, still studying the treaty. “A woman.”
Sandalia let a shoulder rise and fall. “Who better to trust than another woman, rather than the men who insist we are too weak to rule in our own right? There’s a price, Javier.” She turned a page, parchment whispering against itself. “This treaty has a price.”
“They all do,” Javier said mildly. His finger
tips stopped their wandering, pressed against the sheet Sandalia had uncovered, and he read for a few seconds before breathing, “Ah. This cannot be what Akilina wanted, Mother. She came to Gallin in search of a throne.” He chuckled, another soft sound, as Sandalia glanced at him in surprise. “I’m not that blind to reality, Mother, even with this match made to Beatrice.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Steel crept into the queen’s voice, then faded again as she touched the papers above Javier’s hand. “And you’re right, it isn’t. But she cannot protest overmuch, or she’ll lose her standing as an ambassador. And it benefits her, if not as thoroughly as she might like.”
“She wants public adoration. But failing that, yes, standing behind the throne might do.” Javier took a breath. “So you’ll wed me to the Khazarian heir after all.”
Cold sluiced through Belinda, chilling her fingers against the small of her back. Ivanova Durova, Irina’s daughter. Dmitri’s daughter. Belinda clenched her hand and let her skirts fall again, heart hammering once more. Neither Dmitri nor Robert would allow the engagement of Khazar to Gallin if they did not tacitly approve; Belinda’s hasty action in taking Javier’s life along with his mother’s could easily disrupt Robert’s plans. She set her teeth together, a new flush of anger running over her. Hers had been a lifetime of servitude, never asking why, but this once, set loose in the Lutetian court, understanding her father’s ultimate purpose might have been useful. Securing Lorraine’s throne was the obvious end game, but allying the massive eastern country of Khazar to tiny Gallin had to go beyond that. Perhaps that alliance might end in a victory for Aulun that Belinda couldn’t yet see. She would have to risk a letter to Robert, seek his guidance. Nothing else could clear her way.
“How will you secure the troops?” Javier asked softly. Sandalia dimpled at him, suddenly youthful.
“Your plot with Beatrice is proving to be the perfect foil. Troubles stir on Lanyarch’s border. We need only push it far enough for Lorraine to risk invading, and then Lanyarch, under my banner, can call to Cordula for help in repelling the Reformation soldiers.”
“Khazan is a long way from Cordula, Mother. We don’t so much as share a religion with them.”
“Irina treats with Cordula as well.” Sandalia’s voice was full of the same casual arrogance that her son’s often carried. “The Pappas and his patriarchs see her overtures as a softening toward the Ecumenic faith, and intend, in time, to use them to convert Khazan. Until missionaries are sent, though, Cordula is happy to accept troops willing to fight where Cordula decrees.”
“In Lanyarch and Aulun.”
“And Alunaer,” Sandalia finished, savage light of fanaticism suddenly bright in her voice. “We’ll take the battle to the Titian Bitch’s doorstep, Javier, and when it’s done you’ll sit on the island throne with a queen at your side.”
“And what of Beatrice?” Javier’s voice softened, deceptive in comparison to the resolve Belinda felt stiffening within him. “She and I have spoken of the need to put her aside, but we both believed there would be a match waiting for her. Marius is…no longer available. What of Beatrice?”
Sandalia touched his arm, a mother’s reassuring gesture, and smiled. “She’s come to mean a great deal to you, hasn’t she, Javier? You spoke of giving her lands; I’ll have papers drawn up for some small holding in Brittany. Marius may be consigned to another’s wedding bed, but your Beatrice is young and pretty enough. Another man will come along. I promise to take care of her,” she said, and Belinda could see in her eyes, and in Javier’s, that once more, they both took what they wanted from her words. Sandalia felt of honey-coated steel, and Javier struggled with shards of hope and belief fighting against his determination to not release the witchbreed woman he’d found. It was he who acquiesced, though, lowering his gaze and his head to murmur, “Thank you, Mother,” as a dutiful son should.
Belinda, slipping out behind them many long minutes later, wondered if such promises were what a noose tightening around a slender neck felt like.
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
11 January 1588 Lutetia
Five long days of watching had not managed to provide Belinda with the opportunity to steal the keys that Sandalia kept on her person. She had, once, made her way back into Sandalia’s private chambers with lock-picks in hand, only to narrowly avoid a tiny, vicious needle, its tip stained dark, popping out from the lock. Belinda had sworn under her breath, searching her skin for marks, and used a blotter to press the needle back into place. The lock required keys: they needed, it seemed, to be turned simultaneously, and two hands were simply not enough to hold in place two separate locks and turn them together. The witchlight couldn’t be formed into something solid enough to manipulate the locks with her will, and after over an hour of attempting the job, she had reluctantly given up and let herself back out of Sandalia’s rooms.
That had been one of the few times she’d successfully escaped watching eyes in the past several days. Much as she’d chafed at her guards in the previous month, they seemed ever-more ubiquitous now, perhaps the vestiges of Javier’s uncertainty about her faithfulness. She saw no one and went nowhere without armed accompaniment unless she was with Javier in his chambers.
The morning previous, she’d been awakened by a dour-faced dressmaker, who stripped her to the skin—Belinda palmed her tiny knife frantically and threw it into the bedclothes as she was hauled toward the centre of the room—then stood her up and kept her there, corsets bound tight, while he built a dress on her, regardless of the pleas she made on her bladder’s behalf.
He had none of Eliza’s wild imagination when it came to fashion, but if his purpose was to turn Belinda from a provincial Lanyarchan into a Gallic noble to be reckoned with within thirty-six hours, he succeeded admirably. Belinda had been permitted two breaks from standing as a dressmaker’s dummy to eat and relieve herself, and her peevish costumer had eventually deigned to let her sleep, warning he would be still earlier the next morning. Belinda shook off nobility’s habits for the servant she was accustomed to playing, and at least managed to eat and use the necessary before he arrived again to sew her into a gown that rivaled not just Sandalia’s wear, but even her own mother’s.
His one concession to time was that he allowed her a long while to stand in front of a mirror, barely able to believe it was herself she saw there. Some of the sourness left his face as she stood, hardly breathing while she gazed at the woman reflected back at her.
Belinda Primrose did not look like her royal mother. She had none of Lorraine’s dramatic colouring or, most especially, the widow’s peak that all eyes were drawn to, whether they met Lorraine in person or saw her portraits. Belinda thought her own face rounder than Lorraine’s, her eyes larger, her mouth more full; these were things she’d taken from Robert.
But bedecked royally, skin pale with powder and perhaps shaped more by maturity than she recalled it, looking at herself, she saw Lorraine in her for the first time. The gown was a shade the Titian Queen would wear: the green of young leaves, too bright for a winter day and yet utterly fitting for Belinda’s youth and skin tones. Moreover, it brought forth the green in her eyes, making them far brighter and more challenging than she thought them to be. Lorraine’s eyes were grey and narrow; cosmetics did something that hinted at her mother’s eyes in Belinda’s reflection. Even her hair, upswept and bejeweled with emeralds and rubies made, she trusted, of paste, looked lusher than usual, as if the firelight had taken up residence in it. She was by no means the redhead that Lorraine was, or even Javier, but there was golden warmth in what had always seemed to her an ordinary brown.
The gown itself was high-collared, stiff lace and gold threads itching furiously even through a wrap of soft old muslin. It thrust her chin high, making her neck long and elegantly slender. The shoulders were demure in their cut, sleeves coming to points over her hands. There was little of the puffed nonsense that could send a woman to walking through doors sideways in order to fit; that narrowne
ss served to make her look delicate, a thought which Belinda might have laughed at, had she been able to catch breath to do so. She was a worker, strong and trained; to find herself looking fragile was all but beyond comprehension.
The bodice fit with appalling tightness, gold and white worked into the fabric to make a subtle pattern of roses. When the skirts finally flared at her hips, they, too, were far less extravagant than fashion dictated, but considerable enough to create a distinctively feminine shape to her form. Tall shoes lent her height, and only when Belinda finally turned from the mirror in astonishment did her chamber door open to allow Akilina Pankejeff entrance.
To Belinda’s surprise, and even more to her gratitude, the Khazarian countess stopped a few feet from the door to look her over with admiration that bordered on amazement. “The queen told me Pierre was her best dressmaker, even above Javier’s young friend and her radical designs. I believe it now. My lady Beatrice, you are exquisite.”
“Thank you.” Belinda’s voice sounded faint to her own ears and she took a careful breath, straining against the corsets to Akilina’s visible amusement.
“Let’s hope you don’t need to run anywhere today, my lady. I’ve brought you a gift.” She stepped forward, offering Belinda a necklace that caught gold light in its pendant, a thumbnail-size piece of amber, carved as a rose. Belinda gaped at the jewel, heart seized as though she were still a child, offered not one, but two new gowns for the queen’s visit. Akilina remained silent a few moments, long enough to let Belinda admire it, then asked, teasingly, “Do you like it?”
Belinda lifted her eyes, wide with unfeigned astonishment. “How could I not? My lady, I mean no disrespect, but why—?”
“It seems a suitable gift for a queen-to-be,” Akilina replied, and dropped a wink that would better suit a lecherous old man. “And perhaps you’ll recall someday who gave it to you. May I?” She took the jewel back and stepped behind Belinda, sending a thrill of nervous caution down Belinda’s spine. Her touch was light as she fastened the necklace, the stone settling against the hollow of Belinda’s throat, and both women turned to look at her in the mirror.