The Queen's Bastard

by C. E. Murphy

  “Nothing, my lord. Only a woman’s fear. Only my fancy. Forgive me,” she whispered again. “I couldn’t ask it of you.”

  “It,” he murmured. “To allow you to escape.”

  She cast her gaze up, full of desperation, and reached one hand toward him, fully aware of her nudity and of the affect cold air had on her body, her nipples tight as if in sexual arousal. Javier’s focus slid from her face down to her throat, then to her breasts, where it lingered as she caught her breath. Desire pricked in him, fed back to her and heating the witchpower she stretched toward him; pink suffused her cheeks and spilled downward, unmistakable excitement to a man whose eyes wanted to see it. She looked to him as her savior, herself a helpless, dominable creature in a position of supplication; she had been his, was his, should be his and could be again through his choosing.

  That she lifted only one hand, the other still holding and hiding her knife, was a detail she willed him to ignore. When he hesitated she let herself laugh, a sound of tears, and looked away, fingers curling in despair. “I am a fool.”

  “No.” The word was strangled. “Beatrice—is it Beatrice?” Javier asked, half desperate himself. “Or are you Belinda, as they named you? It hardly matters,” he added in a whisper. “How can I let the only woman like myself die?” He moved abruptly, stretching flat on his stomach to reach a hand into Belinda’s prison. “Come. This will not be comfortable, but I can ask no one for help.”

  Belinda scrambled to her feet, shaking off cold as she grasped Javier’s hand and almost cried out with its warmth. “Hold tight,” he said. “Both hands.”

  She bit her lip and dropped her knife into the bits of straw. The blade struck stone at her feet, sharp metallic clang cutting into her heart: it may have betrayed her, but it was one of the few tangible things her father had ever given her. To lose it in the depths of a Lutetian prison was more bitter than she could imagine.

  Less bitter than losing herself to those same depths. She clasped Javier’s hand and wrist with both of hers with all the strength cold muscle could muster. Javier braced himself against the pit’s edge with his free hand, eyes dark and serious on hers. “Are you ready?”

  She only nodded, not trusting words. Javier surged upward, jaw clenched against strain. Belinda’s feet left the ground and she cut off a shriek, caught somewhere between surprise and delight at his strength. It took effort not to kick, even realizing extra movement on her part would make her weight more difficult to manoeuver. He breathed hard, fingers white around her wrist, and she felt the determination of witchpower flare, as if it lent him the strength to draw her up. He went to hand and knees, the arm that held her still dropped with her weight, then opened his mouth in a silent roar as he dragged her halfway over the precipice’s edge, falling backward as he did. She scraped over rough stone and swallowed pain, then pulled herself the rest of the way free, crawling forward to collapse against Javier’s chest. Both heaved for air, Javier more than she, though he sat up within seconds, pushing her onto her heels with his hands hot on her shoulders. Questions fired in his gaze and she drew breath as if she might answer them before they were so much as spoken.

  His eyes dropped to her breasts again, and desire, irrational and beyond thought, crashed through the hold he had on her. Belinda caught it with her own witchpower, stroking it and feeding it back to him hungrier than it came to her, then reached inside his grip to pull his shirt open. His warmth bled toward her, drawing her close, and she moved forward, hands dropping to loosen his breeches.

  “Beatrice—” A dungeon floor was not Javier’s idea of an idyllic romancing spot, that much was clear from his thoughts. Belinda stopped his mouth with a kiss, sliding cold fingers into his pants to curl her fingers about him, earning a quiet gasp and a thrust up into her hand. He said nothing else as she crawled atop him, wrapping her arms under his shirt and melding her body to his. His body was hot against hers, painful relief from the cold, and she rocked against him, letting herself whimper as the chill began to recede from her limbs. Witchpower responded to the heat, coursing through her and demanding satisfaction, but she held it off, burying her nose in the prince’s throat as Marius’s words haunted her: we have not shared physical love.

  Love was too dangerous a word for one such as she, even before Akilina had moved to expose her. It left vulnerabilities that she couldn’t afford; she had understood that since her childhood, watching Rodney du Roz fall to his death; watching her father so deliberately whittle away at the emotional structure he’d provided when she was very young. Belinda Primrose was not meant to know love, and she had not until lately felt its lack in the life that she’d led.

  Javier slipped his arms around her, holding her as close as she held him. She could taste his thoughts, running free beneath the surface of passion, and shivered at them: they spoke too much of freedom and an escape from responsibility, ideas only whispered at in night’s darkest hours; they were not daylight thoughts, no more for the prince than the assassin. It made commonality between them and flavoured Belinda’s need with a kind of despair. All, all she could offer was what she did: her body, her mouth, her gentleness in place of coupling whose enthusiasm often touched on violence.

  “Come away with me.” She spoke against his mouth, knowing even as she said the words that even if he agreed she could never allow it to happen. Javier breathed laughter, breaking away far enough to look questioningly into her eyes. “Come away with me,” she said again. Witchpower surged, rash agreement; whether it was her own or Javier’s she couldn’t tell. “Tonight. You and I are alike, Javier. Let us be together. Forget the rest of the world.” She echoed the thoughts that he did not dare speak, could barely imagine speaking, and for the few seconds that they hung in the air she reveled in them, using them as her only way to offer in words what she hoped to say with shared bodies.

  The thrill of the idea peaked and passed, reluctance flooding in its place, and her frustration rose, sudden and sharp. “Come away with me.” She tore at his reluctance, weakening it, searching for a core that wanted to do as she proposed. “Do you not wish to? They could never find us, Javier, not if we didn’t want them to. Perhaps you’d no more be a prince, but you would be free. Come away with me.” She rolled her hips into his, offering physical gratification as pleasing at the dangerous thought she suggested, and Javier’s resistance faded. It was a fairy tale, a dream for playing at, and for a few moments she lost herself in it as they came together in love.

  He held her, gasping roughly against her shoulder, after, then drew a ragged breath. “If we’re to go we should go now, Beatrice. Time must not be wasted.”

  “You have duties today, do you not?” she whispered. He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly, and she tightened her arms around him. “You must be seen attending them, Javier. I’ll go to the docks and secure a ship to leave on the late tide. You’ll leave the palace after supper—can you lose your guards?”

  He laughed, low raw sound. “Sometimes. Yes, I will.”

  “Then meet me under moonlight.” Belinda called witchlight to her fingertips, soft and golden, tracing it over his skin. He shuddered beneath the touch, eyes turning dark with desire, and a thrill of delight spasmed through Belinda’s belly. Even a prince could be conquered, it seemed, if only she took the right path to it. “Come to the docks and I’ll meet you there tonight, bring you to our ship, and we’ll go away together.”

  She meant it. A jolt of astonishment cut through stillness imposed by habit. She meant it. Her heartbeat leapt, rabbit-quick, and she found an incredulous laugh bubbling deep inside herself. For those brief moments she meant her words with everything she had in her. If it were at all possible, she would make her promise of We’ll be together real.

  It was not in the least possible. Her spike of hope and excitement was already dying, larger purposes reminding her of her place and her duties. Desire twisted at her and faded beneath a curdling in her belly, a bone-deep revulsion of abandoning her mother’s cause. It could be no
other way, but she could never whisper that truth to Javier. Her life and freedom depended on his agreeing to her scheme; he must believe her, even when she herself could not.

  She brushed her mouth against Javier’s and rose from his lap, arms wrapped around herself again to ward off the chill. “Tonight, Javier.”

  He closed his breeches as he came to his feet, putting warm hands on her shoulders again. “And until then will you run around Lutetia naked?” he asked, a trace of wry concern in his voice. He released her to close a hand in his shirt and Belinda stopped him with a touch.

  “I can get to the laundry and find clothing there without being seen, I think. The prince of the realm cannot be discovered walking the palace halls half naked, my lord. It would not go without comment.”

  “Prince no more after tonight,” Javier said quietly. Steadfast emotion came through, no regret in it at all. He had never lived a life uncoddled by warmth and comfort; Belinda felt a bitter note that her lies would spare him learning regret for his decision. Eliza, she thought, would understand. “Are you certain, Beatrice? Your skin is still clammy.”

  She offered a weak smile. “Then perhaps we should leave the dungeons, my lord. If we can. The guards…?”

  “Dismissed.” Javier’s voice scraped low and raw. “Reluctantly, but dismissed. There is some good to being Sandalia’s son. They aren’t bold enough to forbid me a last while with my lover, even if I saw the laughter behind their eyes as they left. Help me put the lid back on the oubliette. No one will look for you until tomorrow dawn. You’re to have no food, no water. Nothing until the priest comes to hear your confession, and then the axman.”

  “So that I’m weak and can’t fight.” Horror crept over Belinda’s skin, chilling her more deeply, and she moved to the oubliette’s far side, helping Javier to wrench the lid back into place. Stone boomed, and beneath the reverberations, Javier offered her his hand. Belinda shook her head, catching his fingers to kiss their tips, then whispered, “You can’t be seen with me, my love. This cannot be found out. Go ahead, and I’ll make my own way behind you. How long did you send the guards away for?”

  “Until I seek them and send them back to duty. I’ll give you a few minutes to slip away. Be careful, Beatrice.” He hesitated, words caught in his gaze, then brushed his thumb over her bottom lip and left her knowing that things remained unspoken. Belinda watched until he was out of sight and his footsteps were faded before she drew shadows around herself, using her cloak of stillness to push away echoes of the things he hadn’t said. Even so, they followed her as she slipped through the palace halls naked and unseen, until resolve faltered and she dropped into a corner, hands clutched over her head as she keened, all but silent, through her teeth.

  Duty lay on her like weights, pressing down into the corners of her mind. Never in her life had it seemed onerous, never something to be shied from, and yet the heart of her wanted to keep the promise she’d made to the prince. Wanted to bolt from the palace and book passage on a ship to somewhere mad; on a ship to the Columbias, where no one could ever find them. Attending dreams had never been her station in life, was not now her station, and still the wish to follow them crashed through her with every heartbeat, pulling her body apart joint by joint, as the cold had done in the oubliette, sinking deeper and deeper into her. Her breath came raw in her throat, hurting, dry sobs accompanied burning eyes. Sickness roiled up, sharp and bitter, and she rolled onto her hands and knees to hack sour mouthfuls onto the floor.

  Her fingertips found the seams of tightly placed flagstones. Belinda dug her nails down and inched forward, dragging herself from crack to crack. Duty lay ahead of her. Loyalty to her queen, to Aulun, to her mother, to the throne: all the things she had ever been. Somehow there was blood on her fingers, beneath the nails, but she crept onward, knees scraping, eyes dry, mind screaming protest and duty trumping all.

  Steam bathed the laundry hall, comforting to muscles strained with the effort of continuing on. Teeth gritted with anger at her weakness, Belinda pulled herself into a pile of rough warm cloth, undisturbed by the sharp smell of sweat and work clinging to the unwashed clothing.

  She was not meant to lose control like that: she ought to have been stronger than the cold that had invaded her core; ought to have been far stronger than the inexplicable war between loyalty and—even then she shied from the word, unwilling, perhaps unable, to name the emotion Javier had awakened in her. It was damnable, whatever it was: Belinda Primrose had spent a lifetime making herself stronger than the things around her; to find herself fallible now was an outrage. To find herself longing for a life other than the one she’d known was inconceivable. There was work to be done, and everything she was, everything she had ever been, everything she would ever be, was bound to that work.

  And yet she could not stop trembling: her muscles ached with the tremors and her jaw locked from keeping her teeth from clattering together. Laundry maids hauled clothing from around her, cursing at the cloth’s unaccountable weight. Desperate, she crawled further into the pile of fabric, burying herself in it and releasing witchpower for more conventional methods of hiding. She had slept in the oubliette, but rest had evaded her; that she could not afford to give into the fresh weakness of warmth and darkness was her last clear thought.

  She didn’t awaken until weight left her body and cold air brushed over her. She came out of the laundry before a maid’s gasp became a scream, one hand slapped over the girl’s mouth and her other arm wrapped around her neck, cutting off air. “Scream and you die. What time is it?” She loosened her fingers and the maid caught a tiny, terrified breath of air.

  “S-supper, my lady.” The appellation made Belinda want to laugh: such deference was so well-bred into the serving classes as to come through even under the most absurd of circumstances. Had she been caught as the poor girl in her arms was, she, too, would have been as polite.

  Supper. The day was gone, then, and her chances to make right most everything were slipping away. Sleep had cleared her mind: there were so few things that truly needed doing, and all of them were to be done in the name of duty, not desire. “Has Robert Drake been executed yet?”

  The girl shook her head, frantic little motion. Belinda exhaled in quiet relief, then brushed her lips against the girl’s cheek. “Do you know who I am, girl?”

  She nodded this time, and Belinda clucked her tongue, soft sound of dismay. “You ought to have said no.”

  Witchpower roared with satisfaction as Belinda cast the girl’s naked body away minutes later, blood on her thighs staining the laundry, knotted fabric at her throat hiding any marks Belinda’s small hands may have left. She smoothed the dress she’d taken from the girl—it fit well enough—and tucked her hair back, then slipped out of the laundry rooms as a faceless one of many.

  AKILINA PANKEJEFF, DVORYANIN

  12 January 1588 Lutetia

  Akilina descends into the dungeons with her mouth pursed distastefully; it isn’t that she fails to understand the necessity of such places, or, indeed, that she’s above making use of them. It’s that the floors stain the hem of her gown, and the scent seems to linger in her skin for days, even when she bathes with perfumed soaps and has a woman to carefully wash her hair. Still, she believes it wiser to do her own bargaining, and she has an offer in hand that it seems Robert Drake cannot possibly refuse.

  She is followed by two strong men, one her own guard, Viktor, and the other some broad-shouldered creature put in place by Sandalia, so that Akilina’s polite house arrest might not be slipped. Viktor she does not object to, but the other man irritates her. It’s all right; he won’t for long.

  There are four passageways in the dungeons. One leads deeper down, to where the ordinary dissonants and problem-makers are thrown—literally: the stairs simply stop some ten or fifteen feet below her, a gaping pit beneath them. It’s crude, but extremely effective. Many are killed or broken simply by being tossed in, and those who survive turn on one another within a matter of hours. Suc
h is the fate of petty men; it requires intelligence and planning to survive games of treason.

  The other three passages lead to oubliettes, a particularly Gallic manner of isolation. Akilina snaps her fingers, sending Viktor and the other guard into the right-hand passage, where the scrape of stone on stone sounds, and then a crashing thud of heavy rock falling back into place. The floor beneath her feet vibrates, and she wonders if Robert Drake and Belinda Primrose can feel the shaking within their prisons.

  Viktor exits with a shake of his head; Akilina nods toward the second passage. Moments later he calls, “Here,” and she walks delicately into the passage.

  Drake squints up at her from the bottom of his pit, and, unexpectedly, chuckles. It looks and sounds painful, though he manages a bow as well, and says, drolly, “Lady Akilina. To what do I owe the pleasure?” He cranes his head again, peering up at her, and she feels a surge of delight at how vulnerable he seems. It’s an illusion built by their locations, but that makes it no less appealing.

  “I have a proposal for you,” she says in Khazarian. Viktor she trusts, but the Gallic guard will run to his queen with word of her intentions, if she lets him. Robert flicks an eyebrow upward and spreads his hands.

  “I’m listening.”

  “You’re to die at dawn,” she says, which garners a nod from him. No surprise, no dismay, just agreement. She finds that she likes that in him; perhaps it’s the same quality she finds delightful in his daughter. “I can save you.”

  “In exchange for?” His voice is steady; whatever he fears, it’s not the threat of being left to die. Akilina crouches, though it means more of her skirt touches the filthy floor, and smiles down at him before murmuring secrets of state and treason into the dark.

  BELINDA PRIMROSE

  12 January 1588 Lutetia

  She had no poison of choice. Such things couldn’t be kept in her bedchambers within the palace, and she had no time left to hurry into Lutetia and obtain arsenic or even something less subtle. It ate at her, being unable to leave that final gift in certainty; a healthy pinch would spell Sandalia’s death, and leave Belinda free to tear herself from Gallic shores.