The Pretender_s Crown ic-2

by C. E. Murphy

  A pigeon arrived in the night.

  Ivanova knows this almost before she's awake: there are sounds of bustle and hurry in the palace that only come when dire news has arrived. The last time was Gregori Kapnist's death, but only a coach had been sent then, not pigeons. Lying quietly amongst blankets, she wonders what it is that makes her certain of the birds. It's something in the rise and fall of voices, or perhaps she caught a word or two while still asleep.

  The palace courtiers consider her too young to be regarded with much import. They're wrong, of course: Ivanova is fourteen, and heir to the vast Khazarian empire. Whatever news has come in the night, she'll be apprised of it, either by her mother, the beautiful imperatrix, or by the hawk-nosed priest who is her mother's closest advisor. Ivanova likes Dmitri: he is cool and cutting and spares her none of his wit, and he seems to look on her with expectation and respect. He appears tremendously aware that she'll hold the throne, and so regards each day and every decision as a test for her to pass or fail.

  Ivanova is quite proud of the fact that she rarely fails. Her mother is even prouder. Dmitri, though, shows no pride, only a sort of innate satisfaction, as if she does precisely as he imagines she will, nothing more or less.

  There are moments when she is so pleased by this that she considers sharing her secrets with the priest, but of course she never does. She is young, not stupid.

  “My lady.” The door opens with a rush of cooler air from the hall, and a fussed maid scurries in, throwing back covers and stoking the fire and laying Ivanova's clothes out all in a mad dash of energy that leaves Ivanova hiding her giggles behind the blanket. She's been told tales of whirlwinds, gusts of twisting air, some so powerful as to pick up beasts of burden and throw them elsewhere. Ivanova thinks this woman must be a whirlwind personified. Even when the day is calm and steady, she believes everything must be done now, or better yet, the half hour past. She's Ivanova's favourite maid, and someday this whirlwind of a woman will become one of her ladies-in-waiting, the circle of women who advise an imperatrix whether the men around them realise it or not.

  So Ivanova is dressed and out the door with a piece of bread to tide her until the morning meal, having been told for certain that there was a pigeon, that the maid doesn't know its business for surely it's none of hers, and that the imperatrix would see her at the counsel chamber with all due haste.

  Truthfully, Irina doesn't expect to see her at all. Bread fisted in her hand as if she were a child, Ivanova scoops up her skirts and goes flying pell-mell through the palace halls, skidding around corners and shooting breathless smiles toward those she nearly overruns. There's a reason they think her unworthy, but her appearance as a knowledgeable player within the court will come as that much more of a surprise, take that many more people off-guard, and will allow both herself and her mother to see who adapts, who resists, and who becomes sycophantic. Ivanova's fifteen birthday is six months away, and she expects to enter the court a woman that day. Until then, she will make full advantage of sliding down banisters and taking corners like a racing hound.

  A few minutes later she nestles herself into the listening nook above the counsel chamber. Tapestries hide her from view, which is just as well: the cosy little space isn't supposed to be there, and is reachable only through Irina's own rooms. The imperatrix has long since given Ivanova a key, so she might learn the ways of court in a more subtle way than Irina herself did. She was married young to ferocious bearded Feodor, Ivanova's unlamented father; she learned the tricks and manners of politics in a public forum, finding herself holding the reins of the empire while Feodor raced off on horseback to expand it.

  Ivanova knows his portraits, paintings of a big barrel-chested man with little fierce black eyes and wild black hair. She thinks she resembles him more than she does her stunning mother, though Irina's delicacy has blunted the worst of Feodor's roughness. Ivanova's eyes are larger, and green instead of black, but she has the same impossible hair, always out of control, and she imagines that, bearded, she would be her father's slighter ghost. She is grateful the thickness of Feodor's nose had been tempered by Irina's fine features, and is too aware that the tempering has left more hawkishness to her face than she might have liked.

  On the other hand, she's seen portraits of herself, too, painted in anticipation of marriage negotiations, and if she grows into the girl the artists portrayed, she will count herself well-satisfied. It is not vanity, but practicality: her mother is beautiful, and Ivanova sees how men and women alike respond to that. Irina has held her throne for over a decade; a plain woman would have a harder time reigning unchallenged.

  Ivanova, of course, will marry, whether she wishes to or not. Lorraine, on Aulun's throne far to the west, makes example of why a monarch must wed: the woman called the Titian Bitch is old now, without an heir, and ravens circle her throne, waiting for her death and a chance to pick away at her kingdom. Ivanova has no intention of allowing the same to happen in Khazar.

  Voices lift in the room below, muffled by the tapestries that hide her, but Ivanova is accustomed to deciphering what's said through the heavy woven cloth. After a moment her mother cuts in, not so much loud as very firm, and male arguments fade away.

  “There is no treaty,” Irina says, calmly. Wonderfully calm: her unflappability as much as her beauty, helps keep her court in rein. “It was negotiated with Sandalia, and Sandalia is dead. There will be new negotiations with Javier.”

  “If he'll listen,” a man snaps. “The second pigeon says Akilina was found with Sandalia's body. He may well think her the murderer.”

  Ivanova's heart seizes and she realises she's crushing the unfortunate bread in her hand. She puts it aside and leans toward the chamber below, as though a few scant inches of closeness might fill in all the details she's missed so far.

  Sandalia is dead, murdered in Lutetia. Ivanova knows that Irina has offered cautious treaties to Gallin and Aulun alike, and that she negotiates with Rodrigo in Essandia through slow-carried missives and hints of flirtatiousness. Neither Rodrigo nor Irina wishes to marry, but a nod toward conventionality must be made to keep the people happy and in gossip, if nothing else. It's a lesson Ivanova intends to take to heart.

  If she's given the chance. Eyes closed, she listens to the discussion below; to Irina's dismissal of Akilina's potential hand in the Gallic queen's death; to the weight of what it means that there are papers missing, papers negotiated in Irina's name and signed by Sandalia and Irina's emissary Akilina Pankejeff. Those papers are a breath away from committing Khazarian troops to a war against Aulun, but that breath is what's important: Irina's hand has not signed them, and she is too astute a statesman to do other than express surprise should those papers come to light. It is well-known, after all, that Irina looks favourably on Aulun and its navy-

  It is not well-known, someone protests; barely a six-month ago Irina dismissed Robert Drake with apologies for fearing Cordula's strength and a refusal to ally herself with Aulun and its heathen Reformation church.

  A silence fills the chambers below, even Irina quieting at the reminder. Ivanova remembers the day; she discussed her mother's wardrobe with Irina that morning. Irina's words had said one thing to Robert, but her gown had been of Aulunian make and style, a gift from Lorraine on Ivanova's birth. On such subtleties were covert relationships built, details that hint of support without making it too obvious.

  The problem, of course, is that subtleties are rather overshadowed by pieces of actual paper promising troops to a rival kingdom.

  “Well,” Irina eventually says, “if we lose the game with Aulun, so be it. All we can offer Lorraine is troops. We can do rather better for Javier de Castille.”

  Nerves flutter in Ivanova's belly, making her both aware of her hunger and grateful she hasn't eaten the bread, for fear it might come back up again. Her heartbeat feels light and fast, as though it might wing its way out of her chest. She can anticipate the next words; can anticipate that they're why she's been summoned to liste
n in on this conversation between her mother and her advisers.

  “Your majesty-”

  “We know your objection already and understand it. Ivanova is our only heir, and we would not see her away from Khazar, sitting on another's throne while some regent or ambitious nobleman reached for imperial heights. Regardless of our intentions, however, she is a bargaining piece. She's young, pretty, and heir to an empire with inexhaustible resources. Javier would be a fool to refuse her, even if his own intentions go no further than the interim. What we have heard of him suggests he lacks ambition, not wit.”

  Ivanova hears every word clearly, but she is fourteen and cannot help herself: her imagination leaps forward to her wedding day. Khazarian wedding garb is splendid, so encrusted with gold and pearls as to be almost too heavy to stand in. Javier would wear a fashion of his own country, but perhaps they would find a way to make the two meet, some subtlety woven into the wear of two cultures. He is handsome, at least from his portraits, though very pale. In wedding white he might look a ghost at her side, but then, as Irina has pointed out, he's known to lack ambition.

  That is not a failure Ivanova shares. Even at fourteen, even chasing down fanciful futures, she does not object to the idea of a prince, a king, a husband, who can be shaped to her will. Indeed, it is best if he can be, because Ivanova intends to rule as her mother has done; as the great queens of Echon have done for far longer than the span of her own years.

  Breath held with anticipation, Ivanova settles back down against the tapestry to listen and dream while her mother sends envoys to Gallin, to Essandia, and to Aulun.

  RODRIGO, PRINCE OF ESSANDIA

  28 January 1588 † Isidro

  For nearly a week, Rodrigo has avoided his nephew.

  Not entirely, of course not; they have mourning in common, and grim futures to face, and they have spoken together as men and heads of state. They have looked toward war and glorious battle, ideals Rodrigo has attempted to forsake in his years on the throne, and which he now accepts must be pursued. Yes, they have been men together.

  But they have not been family. There have been no evenings sitting together over a glass of Essandian wine, bickering over whether it or Gallin's make is superior. No agreements that Parnan wine, at least, is clearly the inferior, and another glass poured to toast that. No teasing about women, no sorrow drowned in cups, no dreams spun across a dark January night.

  Instead, Rodrigo has sent Marius Poulin running back and forth as a messenger boy when he must speak with Javier outside the halls and chambers of business. Marius, either wiser than Rodrigo knows, or a fool indeed, does not fear Javier, and the Essandian prince, though he will never admit it aloud, is terrified. The devil has taken his nephew, and Rodrigo sees no way to take him back.

  In his life, in more than half a century of memories, he cannot recall the same witless white panic that shattered through him when his chamber doors erupted to expose Javier. Man is incapable of such power, but Javier's eyes had blazed with it as he entered. Rodrigo had believed, for a gut-wrenching moment, that his own life was at an end, only days apart from his beloved sister's. Never, not even when he had ridden to war as a youth, had he seen mortality so clearly; never had he been so grateful for his faith in God, and never had he realised how much he wished to continue living.

  Even now his heart is a fist in his chest, refusing breath for his body. His hands are cold, most particularly the fingertips, and when he looks to them they're bloodless, whorls standing out in dreadful relief, as though all the wet beneath his skin has been sucked away. Every part of him clinches with fear at the thought of the boy who is his heir.

  He has felt God's power, has Rodrigo de Costa. He has stood in church and chapel and courtyard and felt God's grace, His warmth and generosity, and seen the wonders of the world He has created and granted life. God has guided Rodrigo, to the best of his frail human ability to follow, through all the years of his princedom. He has tried to act with wisdom, with grace, with compassion; it is why he has avoided war as best he can, when other kings and queens of Echon have made or agitated for it.

  It's not that Rodrigo believes infidels and heathens will be spared Hell; it's that he doubts God would approve of murdering unlettered peasants and unwise children as a means of spreading His word and changing their minds. There are better ways; if there were not, men would not have been granted reason or free will, but would have been born to follow blindly. To Rodrigo, it is far more a triumph to bring one thinking man to God's path than to slaughter thousands of innocents who have been led astray. The dead, after all, cannot convert.

  Faced with Javier, Rodrigo wonders if it may be better, this once, to condemn a soul to Hell so that many more might live.

  Because Javier is not touched with God's power. What Rodrigo saw in his nephew was selfish hurt, lashing out. God has more mercy and more wisdom than that: His chosen few are not of a temperament to redress personal wrongs with the power He grants. Of this, Rodrigo is confident.

  And yet; and yet; and yet. There is the matter of Sandalia's death; there is the matter, perhaps even more pressing, of Sandalia's heir. Of his own heir. Yes, Rodrigo is afraid of the boy, but far worse than Javier's selfish use of power might lie ahead if neither Essandia nor Gallin has an heir to take their thrones. Aulun will sweep in and roll over the Ecumenic countries with its armies and its heretical faith, and while Lorraine has no heir of her blood to put on the throne, she has lackeys and hangers-on a-plenty, and no small willingness to back a pretender to the Gallic and Essandian thrones.

  Humour ghosts through him. It's only fair; he and Sandalia are happy enough to put their prince on Lorraine's throne.

  Were, he reminds himself. He and Sandalia were happy enough, and now that duty lies with him.

  Mouth thinned with determination, Rodrigo leaves the fire he's been contemplating and rings a bell. In moments a servant enters, and Rodrigo orders his nephew brought to him. Fears must be faced, and weapons must be forged.

  When Javier enters, Rodrigo's before the fire again, fingers steepled against his mouth, eyebrows drawn into a headache-causing crease. He has been thinking-thinking of the instinct that made him seize on Javier's devil's power as a gift in the first moments he saw it manifested. That's the pragmatic streak in him, stronger than the fear; it's to that which he must now turn. Ambition can be shaped, is what Rodrigo is thinking, and when Javier hesitates at the corner of his vision, the Essandian prince drops his hands and gestures to the other chair settled before the fire. He says “Nephew” gravely, and Javier sits with the wide-eyed expression of a child uncertain if he has been caught at some illicit activity.

  “Uncle.” Javier hesitates again, then makes a feeble smile. “You've had the door fixed.”

  Rodrigo's smile is much better than Javier's, but then, he has many years more practise at dissembling. “I thought you might be more comfortable returning to my chambers if everything appeared normal.”

  “I'd be more comfortable, or you would be?”

  “Some of both.” There's no sense in lying; he needs Javier's utter trust in order to guide him. He needs Javier to believe what Rodrigo does not: that his power is God's, and that God intends him to make war on Aulun.

  For the briefest moment Rodrigo looks at himself as though from the outside, as though he is another man listening to his own thoughts. They are contradictory and complicated, pulled one way and another, and yet from within they feel a steady course. He is not one who likes war, and yet when it must be made-and it must, because Sandalia is dead and there seems little doubt Aulun's throne struck the blow-he will use whatever weapon is at hand. If that weapon should be his nephew, bedamned with a power that no man should carry, then he will use it even without trusting it. He, who believes so strongly in God and faith that he has set aside certain earthly expectations of a king and has chosen not to wed, not to father children, will lie and corrupt in order to achieve the ends he must have.

  God, he thinks irreverently and unu
sually, might have done Man no favours in giving him free will.

  “Some of both,” he says again, hoping it will sound like a ruefully considered admission, and that it will warm Javier's heart to him a little. “I stand in awe, Jav, you know that.”

  “You sit, uncle,” Javier says, deadpan.

  “My legs are too weak with wonder to hold me,” Rodrigo says promptly, and Javier grins. He's a handsome lad when he smiles, brightness of expression bringing life to a pale, long-featured face. Javier has nothing of Sandalia in him, unless her nut-brown hair and Louis's washed-out blond somehow mixed to give Javier his ginger head. “I have questions, Javier. This godspower of yours, do you practise with it?”

  “No.” Javier's voice has gone as pale as his skin, all a-shudder and revulsion. “I did, but no longer.”

  “You must. Javier-” Rodrigo leans forward, but it's Javier who lifts a cutting hand this time, and bounds to his feet with the unconstrained energy of youth.

  “What would you have me do, uncle? I made the priest's will my own, took from him what God granted Man. I cannot continue that way. It makes me-”

  “Desperate,” Rodrigo interrupts, strongly. “Desperate, perhaps, and also perhaps guided by the hand of our Lord after all. The priest is pious, yes, but he's not the one granted this talent. You and I and Marius know that Tomas would see it as his duty to condemn you to the church, and we all know that you are not the devil's instrument. What cannot be permitted is Tomas's declamation, not when God has laid a clear path for us from here to Alunaer. It is a necessary measure, Javier.” Wisdom, compassion, age, passion: Rodrigo would believe himself, if only he were not obliged to live with his own contrasting thoughts.

  “I don't sleep for fear of it.” Javier sinks into his seat again. “For fear of what I might become.”

  “A king?” Rodrigo asks, arch as a woman. “Your crown is not meant to help you sleep more easily, Jav It carries responsibilities, often hard ones. More often hard than not.”