by C. E. Murphy
Amber flashed magnificent rich gold against the green of her gown, its chain so fine that it seemed to hover at her throat unsupported. The dressmaker—Pierre; he had never bothered to give Belinda his name—huffed a sound she took as approval, evidently satisfied that the jewel enhanced his creation.
“Thank you,” Belinda said a second time, peculiarly aware that those were not words that often crossed her lips. “It’s astonishing, and I shall indeed remember from whence it came.”
Akilina smiled with more pleasure than necessary, as if hearing more in the words than was obviously there. “You’re expected in the courtroom at the midday Angelus bells. I’d best go there myself; Her Majesty wants no one to distract from your arrival.”
Colour built in Belinda’s cheeks, less artifice than she might wish, and Akilina laughed as she excused herself, leaving Belinda alone with the dressmaker. “Thank you,” she said to him as well, and his customary dour expression reasserted itself. Belinda fought back another laugh and turned to look at herself a final time before drawing a careful deep breath. “I suppose I should go. I’m to wait in the audience chambers.”
“Wait here until the bells are closer to ringing,” Pierre said abruptly. “Had the woman not been a countess and bearing a gift, I wouldn’t have let her in. No one should see you, my lady. The effect is all the greater that way.”
Belinda blinked at him, startled and then not, at his sudden opinion. He’d had them by the bucketload when it came to her gown, that he should have them in how to best show it off should be no surprise. “All right.” She took another careful breath, dizziness spilling through her, and asked, “Could I perhaps have some wine, then? I’m light-headed.”
He fetched some, and, unexpectedly, a croissant with jam, then stood by with a napkin dangling from his fingertips and a glower set onto his face. “I won’t wipe my fingers on the dress,” Belinda promised, and he looked increasingly dour that she’d even spoken the idea aloud.
Food, more than the drink, helped to steady her head, though with having done no more than stand and turn, Belinda knew she would be desperately glad to rid herself of the corsets when the time came. The idea of curtseying before Sandalia made her dizzy all over again, and she walked carefully to a chair, leaning awkwardly against its cushions; the corsets had far too little give to allow her to bend at hip or waist so she might sit properly. Still, the change of weight seemed to help for a few moments, even if Pierre scowled at the possibility of his creation being wrinkled by her carelessness.
He could not have made a better dress if his plan had been to forbid her any chance of stealing Sandalia’s keys in the bare moments they would be that close to each other. Moving quickly enough, subtly enough, to pick the queen’s pocket was unlikely even if she’d been graced with the chance to wear one of Eliza’s gowns; doing it in the rigid contraption she now wore would be an impossibility.
She would have to risk the poisoned darts and damaging Sandalia’s desk. It lacked any degree of delicacy, but perhaps there was someone she could hang for it, some servant who could be made out as a spy. An Aulunian spy, no less, though the idea brought on a laugh so breathless it could be called a giggle, escaped her. Pierre, disapproving of levity, turned a ferocious glare on her, and Belinda subsided, nibbling her croissant and sipping at the wine. Her heartbeat was too quick, and stillness kept slipping away from her, even when she ought to have held it close and let it help her forget the discomfort of too-tight corsets. It had seen her through a day and a half of Pierre’s ministrations; to find it deserting her now was an irritation.
“The bells will ring the hour in some ten minutes.” Pierre’s voice cut through her reverie and Belinda shook herself, looking up. Her wine was finished, the croissant gone, and the napkin Pierre had offered was caught in her fingertips. She cast her thoughts back, recalling finishing the food and asking for the napkin, but it was a hazy memory, as if breathing shallowly had fogged her mind. She would be glad indeed to shed the dress, even if it made her regal.
“Thank you,” she said yet again, and took the dressmaker’s hand to let him help her rise; without it she feared she may well have been doomed to an afternoon of uncomfortable lounging, unable to rise or sit without some drastic change of state.
Breathing seemed to come more easily again once she stood; movement appeared to be the trigger, the changes of pressure tricking her into thinking she could draw more breath. She curtsied to Pierre, a small thing—the most she dared, and probably more than his station could ever aspire to—and left her chambers in a slow, stately glide that had far more to do with being unable to move more quickly than any particular need for the dramatically slow pace.
The corridors were empty, servants working to prepare a dinner feast and courtiers already in attendance in the audience hall. After five weeks of being watched, Belinda was finally alone in the palace, and completely unable to make use of that private time. Even if she dared slip through shadows to search Sandalia’s chambers again, there was no way to do it in the dress she wore. Better to follow what plan she had, and make her careful way to the audience hall to accept the gift Sandalia had in mind for her.
It was as well she was a woman, and not a man come to be knighted. Bad enough to have the chamber hall doors swung open slowly in front of her, ponderously, with the rush of wind they made heralding her arrival even before a crier could shout out her name. Not since childhood, not since she’d bowed for the first time before the queen of Aulun, had Belinda felt the weight of so many gazes upon her.
Then, they had been tolerant, disinterested, amused. Now they judged, and not kindly: she was their prince’s intended, she was backwater and without connections, and she was loathed by many for those things alone.
That she was also, this one day, beautiful, softened some hearts toward her and hardened others. Even uncalled for, the witchpower stretched out, tasting emotion and bringing it back to her in powerful waves. She was prepared for that, braced for it; the stillness held a cool calm centre against which admiration and dislike and envy broke and fell around her. Out of the cacophony she could pick out individuals whom she knew well: Marius, a bastion of regret, his pain a lonely note in the mass of broader sentiment. Sacha, full of smoldering rage tempered by a sense of intent that Belinda couldn’t define.
Sandalia, nearly as cool as Belinda herself, as if she, too, had drawn stillness around her and did only what she must. Viktor, unexpectedly, his hunger and lust pounding through Belinda’s control to bring the faintest heat to her cheeks. Akilina, whose easy laughter felt spiked, as if she had a delicious secret no one else shared. And Javier, whose pride in Belinda’s appearance was softened by a heart-filling joy that Belinda could not, or dared not, name.
Below it all she felt a rumbling anger so thick and murky it seemed familiar; a human predilection toward violence, perhaps, the thin line that kept a group from being a mob near to being crossed over. She was not loved here, though with the thought her gaze skittered back to Javier. She was not loved here, save, perhaps, by one. Her slow footsteps measured the length of the hall with ear-shattering sound, no voices raised in murmurs to discuss her, even after she’d passed.
She curtsied before Sandalia, dropping straight down and inclining her head; there would be no forward bow from the waist to deepen her obsequiescence, not in that dress. For the second time she thought it was as well she wasn’t a man coming to be knighted; the prospect of kneeling in the gown she’d been sewn into was absurd to the point of bringing a smile to her heart, though she didn’t dare let one curve her mouth. She held the pose an achingly long time, the breath gone from her body before Sandalia finally murmured, “You may rise.”
She may, Belinda thought, but whether she could was entirely another question. Concentrated effort pushed into her legs helped her to straighten, so slowly she knew others would call it grace, so long as they didn’t see the tremble that suffused her body. She flickered her glance up once in thanks, then lowered it again, wa
iting for Sandalia’s words.
They came, soaring over her head to reach the back of the audience hall; Belinda was merely a tool in a showcase; none of this was for her. “Today we have the pleasure of granting a noble title to one who has done this court great service. We have lands in Brittany to our north that are ripe and wooded, well-made for hunting and, we are told, for planting. We regret that there are no living quarters yet on these lands, but we have arranged for a generous allowance so suitable quarters might be built.”
Delight sparked off Javier, boyish excitement at the prospect of overseeing the creation of a new retreat suitable for royalty. Sandalia, in marked contrast, remained wonderfully neutral; Belinda thought she herself could not do better. “We shall recommend artisans,” the queen went on, “and perhaps it will be our honour to visit when building is complete.
“We shall provide a stipend for five years,” she continued, “long enough that the fertile earth should begin to give its return, so our new friend might earn a living from her lands and provide to the crown some small measure of appreciation for the gifts we offer. All of these things and more we are delighted to give to one who has done us such service.
“But first,” she said, and her attention finally came to focus directly on Belinda. “First, we must attend to the matter of Belinda Primrose.”
The core of stillness within her turned to ice, utterly frozen, even as blood thundered in her ears, washing away all other sound. It brought back memory, memory so old that others said it couldn’t be at all: a battlefield, red-tinged and rushing, but what had once been comforting now only emphasized the words that she had carried with her since her birth.
It cannot be found out.
It carried fear into her, intense and sharp, a part of her that could never be cut away. It cannot be found out. Somewhere, extraordinarily distant to where she now stood, Javier’s voice tickled through the centre of her being, bewilderment lifting it high: “Mother?”
Outside herself, she could feel her expression turning to polite puzzlement, eyebrows crinkling as she glanced around herself, looking for the woman Sandalia had named. “Your Majesty?” The external performance would be flawless; that was the purpose of Belinda’s very existence, of the lifetime’s training in hard-won stillness that wouldn’t allow her body or face to betray herself, even when turmoil shattered her insides. It was helped, unexpectedly, by the prison of a gown she wore: Beatrice Irvine, who laughed too easily and let emotion come too quickly, was hindered by the constricting corsets and high throat, but Belinda Primrose felt at home within such constraints: she had been born to a carefully stifled life, and knew well how to work within it.
“Forgive me, my lord prince.” Akilina’s voice, silky smooth, laden with such insolent smugness that a cat would envy it. Witchpower rage lit up Belinda’s mind, golden ferocity that she thought must bleed from her eyes and nose and ears, so overwhelming was its heat. She did not, would not, let it fly free; her only hope lay in absolute innocence, and even a hint of anger now would be her undoing.
“There are things you must know about your intended.”
“Beatrice?” Javier’s voice cracked a second time and Belinda lifted her gaze to his, wide-eyed with incomprehension and a touch of fear.
“I do not know, my lord,” she whispered. “I do not understand.” Her pulse fluttered in her throat, such a gentle admission of girlish alarm and confusion that she almost regretted the gown’s choking collar.
“Do you deny, then, that you are called Belinda Primrose?” Sandalia’s question cracked out over the assembly, echoing against the chamber walls. No one within the hall spoke, their tension clawing at Belinda and telling her that to a man, they feared a word spoken would have them banished from the audience hall and they might miss the drama unfolding. A part of her wanted to laugh at the sheer eager hunger for theatrics; the larger part put away acknowledgment of the emotions that rose up behind her in favour of focusing on those immediately around her. Sacha had stepped forward, his fists clenched as he leaned toward Belinda, as though his very presence might crush her to the earth. Marius, too, had broken away from the crowd, making himself one of the little party surrounding Sandalia’s dais and standing subtly closer to Belinda than to her accusers. Only Eliza’s presence was marked in its absence. A sting of regret touched Belinda for that, though she had no idea what side the beautiful street woman might have come down on.
“I am Beatrice Irvine, Your Majesty,” Belinda protested. “Born in Lanyarch in 1565, daughter of—”
Sandalia cut her off with a sharp movement of her hand, and Belinda caught her breath, staying her words even as she cast another frightened glance toward Javier.
“Mother, what is this jape?” The prince’s voice was so low as to barely carry to Belinda, much less the breathless mass behind her. “Beatrice is—”
“A whore who’d do anything to get the Red Bitch off the Aulunian throne, Jav.” Sacha grated the words out, vicious delight in them. “Know how I know that? I—”
“—fucked her?” Javier interrupted sharply. A whisper ran through the gathering and subsided again, even as Sacha gave his prince, then Belinda, a startled look. Javier’s anger and his will rolled toward Sacha with undeniable power, demanding an answer; more, demanding the answer that Javier himself wanted. “Is that your tale, Sacha? You had the prince’s woman and she was willing to take you for hopes of getting her voice heard in the name of war? It’s an ugly ploy, brother,” he said, voice dropping to a whisper. “Could you do no better than that?”
Quick triumph bloomed and faded in Belinda’s breast as Javier stole the sting from Sacha’s truth; even Asselin could see that he’d lost, that any protest he made claiming exactly that had happened would only make him look the part of a bitter fool. He turned a look of hate on Belinda, who lifted her chin to regard him coolly, as a woman insulted.
“Cleverly done, my lord prince,” Akilina said without a hint of mocking. “If only Lord Asselin were the only one who knew of Lady Irvine’s past. Viktor.” Her voice thickened on the man’s name, rich sounds of the Khazarian language filling that single word even when her Gallic was typically barely accented.
The stiff-bearded guard stepped out of the ranks, gaze torn between Akilina and Belinda. Frustrated laughter ripped a thread free of Belinda’s internal control, witchpower striking through that weakness with only her half-formed intent behind it: he could not be allowed to speak. Javier’s will had moments earlier dominated Sacha; now Belinda strove to do the same to Viktor, seeking the familiar lines of passion and desire to conquer him with. She was his queen; he ought not have been able to betray her. The newness of her powers, the training at Javier’s hands instead of Robert’s—fury at her father, for forbidding her the knowledge she needed to save her own life, shot through the ties she had to Viktor, strengthening them. She was not Rosa. She was his heart’s desire, his loins’ desire. He could not, would not, betray her. She sent hints of promises toward him, the rewards to be reaped from remaining silent, even as she cursed the frailty in her that had allowed him an avenue to tell Akilina what he knew. He clearly had; there could be no other reason for him to be called forward.
Belinda should have killed him when she’d had the chance. Frailty indeed, a woman’s weakness, shared with her queen mother after all. She could let none of her anger show, only watch Viktor with wide eyes as she hammered loyalty into the sexual bond they shared.
“Beatrice?” Javier again, the strength of will that had sustained him now faltering. Belinda jerked her eyes to his, tearing her gaze from Viktor to the prince, and shook her head helplessly.
“I do not know this man, my lord.” Whispered words, desperate with confusion; she could not afford to slip. Akilina laughed, a soft warm sound that ripped through the chamber’s silent air.
“I watched them together, my lord. Watched Viktor go into an alcove and heard their sounds of passion. He called her Rosa, and she spoke Khazarian to him. Your pretense at
mispronunciation was very good,” she added lightly, and repeated “Nyet” the way Belinda had, shortening the vowels to an i. “Viktor,” she said again, more heavily and in Khazarian, “tell them what you told me.”
Do not, Belinda willed, and turned her frightened gaze back to the guardsman. He hesitated, hands balling into fists, then finally shook his head. “She is not my Rosa,” he said thickly. “How could she be, so far from Khazar?”
Relief jabbed Belinda in the stomach and witchpower flared along the connection she had built to influence Viktor. Raw desire, pure delight, absolute pleasure: the guardsman made a deep sound at the back of his throat, shuddering as Belinda’s unspoken thanks caught him on a primal level. Marius, closer to her, made a similar sound, his cheeks darkening as he realised the connection between himself and Viktor. Belinda felt the merchant man’s heart spasm, the unwelcome pleasure found in submission suddenly making his pulse race. Belinda swallowed against a certain wicked mirth, seeing that the thing tying both men together was both having bent to her will. Javier, thank God, remained unaffected, the temptation she’d had to top the prince unacted upon and now a barrier to linking him into the domineering witchpower that ate at her veins.
White anger pooled around Akilina, though none of it reflected in her countenance. Admiration slipped through Belinda’s control; the countess was as skilled at hiding emotion as Belinda herself. They might have been friends, if the world had been utterly other than what it was.
“He lies,” a woman’s voice said in Khazarian, and the white of Akilina’s anger cooled. Belinda turned toward the new speaker as did the gathered throng, and among them she was the only one to know despair. Rationality gave way for an instant beneath a child’s furious protest: this woman, this piece of nothing from a remote Khazarian estate, could not be there. Ilyana could not be in Lutetia, her thick blond hair dressed as a wealthy woman’s might be, her clothes far finer than any servant might dream of wearing. She simply could not be there.