The Pretender_s Crown ic-2

by C. E. Murphy

  Someday she would have to learn whether it had indeed been her will that had destroyed the Khazarian count's health, or if it had been a bad summer sickness and Belinda's good fortune in bedding him to exhaustion that had bound together to reach the same ends. Dmitri, who roused power in her, who had taught her rudimentary healing skills, would know the answer. Either way would do, but if it had been her new-birthed witchpower, then no man or woman in Echon could be safe from the queen's bastard.

  Troublesome thoughts tucked aside, she allowed the tiniest catch of her breath as Dmitri's hand weighted itself in her hair. Submissive, fearful, excited, relieved: she could be all of those things without need of consideration, could use them to give herself into Dmitri's hands and see how he would mould her, without ever losing the core that was Belinda Primrose and belonged, at the end of it all, to no one but herself.

  JAVIER, KING OF GALLIN

  25 February 1588 † Isidro

  Tomas's terms had laid heavily on Javier the past three nights. He'd held his tongue in meetings with Rodrigo, had held his tongue because with each breath he took he could not believe that Tomas's ambiguous phrasing-“persuade your uncle to wed”-meant what it seemed it must. Tomas knew more clearly than most just how persuasive Javier could be, and the young king of Gallin could not imagine the priest was suggesting he bend Rodrigo's will to match the church's.

  Couldn't imagine, and yet could see no other possible way he might accomplish what Cordula and a dozen Echonian heads of state had failed to manage in Rodrigo's more than thirty years on the throne. The only wedding bed Rodrigo had ever seriously entertained had been Lorraine's, and that for the sole purpose of bringing Aulun back into the Ecumenic church. The Essandian prince's faith was all to him; for nothing less, not even for the certainty of his country's future, would he marry.

  And Tomas had said, if not blithely at least with no apparent care for the impossibility of it, persuade your uncle to wed.

  There was no witchpower practise tonight, as there had been every night for the month past. Javier had fought with Rodrigo over that, had finally thrown himself on God's own mercy: surely He could not want Javier squandering his gifts on unsuspecting forests and undeserving cattle. Better to accept what they now knew he could do, and save his strength for the coming war.

  His uncle had eventually relented, and tonight Javier came to his chambers with a bottle of fine wine and the need to pick another kind of battle. He would not, he told himself, would not use the witchpower on Rodrigo de Costa, not for any reason, and even that adamant refusal sent a thin line of seething silver through him, as if the magic raged against denial.

  Guards opened the door for him, ushered him into a warm room where an aging prince sat before an unbanked fire. Rodrigo twisted toward the doors, then chuckled and waved a hand toward a nearby seat. “You've a sour look about you, nephew. What's brought that on? We could burn off your temper with another bout of practise. Perhaps you've become accustomed to using your talents, and denying them sets the blood on fire?”

  Bumps chilled Javier's skin, discomfort of fearing Rodrigo'd come close to the mark. Witchpower bubbled in offence and flattened under his grim denial as he scooped up cups to pour generous glasses of wine. “It's marriage on my mind, not power.”

  Rodrigo gave him an amused look and got to his feet when it became clear Javier would not sit. “You say that as though they're two different things. You're not yet crowned, boy. A wedding bed can wait a year or two.”

  “I'm Gallin's only heir, and yours,” Javier said shortly. “If we're looking for delay, better to put off war, not weddings.”

  Rodrigo's eyebrows rose and he sipped his wine, trying poorly to hide amusement behind the glass. “Have you someone in mind, then? The Kaiser has daughters, if you've an eye for blondes, though the Parnan Caesar's girls follow the faith.”

  Silver-tinged exasperation flooded Javier. He tightened his fingers around the glass stem, obscurely certain that if he could keep himself from shattering fragile crystal, he could surely convince Rodrigo of what needed doing without witchpower coercion. “I'm not the only one who needs a wife, uncle.”

  Rodrigo went still, amusement draining away, then sipped again at his wine. “Don't tell me you've joined that harping chorus. I'm in my sixth decade, too old for such nonsense.”

  “You're in your sixth decade, and I'm your only heir, and you would have us all go to war.” Javier's voice fluted high and broke, a humiliating reminder of his comparative youth. A sip of wine fortified him and cleared his head, and for a clarion moment he realised that, witchpower or no, Tomas's demand or no, he, too, believed that a marriage for the prince of Essandia was necessary. Neither Essandia nor Gallin, nor the Ecumenic church, could afford to lose their monarchs, and he was too fragile a thread to hang all hopes on.

  Power flared, fueled by his sudden certainty. Javier grasped at it this time, not to roll Rodrigo's will, but to fill his own voice with passionate conviction. “I've never understood you or Lorraine in this matter, though in this one instance I grasp her motivations more clearly than yours. Marrying means putting a king above her, and losing control of what is now hers. You have no such excuse. No woman could wrest Essandia from you, and with this one exception, your piety has never made you foolish.” Anger, more than humour, creased his mouth. “You're even willing to set aside any question of whether my own gifts are God-granted or devil-born because they're useful to you and to the ends you desire. So is a wife, Rodrigo.”

  His uncle's gaze sharpened on him again, marking clearly that Javier had used his name with no honourifics at all. “Think you my equal now, lad?”

  “I think myself a crowned head of Echon. I have neither your wisdom nor your battlefield experiences, but I do have profound interest and concern over the Essandian succession.”

  “Do you not wish that throne yourself?”

  Stupefaction rose up in Javier, blinding him with silver. “Do you think one throne is not enough for most kings? Oh, aye, an empire's an appealing thought, but I would be stable on my own throne before looking to yours. Nevermind me: you are about to go to war, and you will leave behind a people very nervous about their kingdom if there is no hint that you intend to do well by them. A marriage, even, God forbid, an unconsummated one, gives them hope. Do you not like women?”

  Whether it was audacity or exasperation that drove the last question, Rodrigo's expression was worth any price Javier might pay for it. He might have been a cow, round-eyed and dull with witlessness, and despite his pique Javier laughed.

  A backhand blow, much the same as he'd dealt Marius a few days earlier, exploded white light behind his eyes, littering it moments later with the red throb of pain. Head turned to the side, though he had not staggered, Javier touched fingertips to his cheek and found it split open, a divot of flesh marked by Rodrigo's ring of state. Dumb-foundedness had left the prince's eyes, replaced by rage and insult.

  Javier found a thin smile and emphasised it with a mocking bow. “Forgive me, your majesty, my tongue has grown too bold.” Then, with no more regret than he'd felt in speaking in the first place, he added, “It's a common enough question, uncle. You've had no faithful male companions any more than women, but a man, a king, of your age, without a wife or children? It's what people wonder.”

  There had been less of the knife twist in Marius's telling of what people whispered about Eliza. Shame shot through him, leaving a channel for anger: he had no reason or need to apologise to one of his own subjects, and kings did not belittle themselves with such talk betwixt each other.

  “Are you through?” Rodrigo's voice was made of ice, colder and more distant than Javier had ever heard it. More ashamed than before, and angrier still, Javier bit his tongue, wondering how he'd become the wrongdoer when he had held back witchpower temptation and used only words to make his arguments. Rodrigo, exuding calm and confidence, with nothing of a sulk in his stride, walked past Javier to open the door.

  “What will
you do?” Javier threw the words after Rodrigo in a shout, hearing a plaintive note where there ought to have been challenge. Rodrigo turned a disinterested gaze on him, then lifted his eyebrows at the open door.

  Javier, witchpower rage boiling in his mind, stalked out.

  RODRIGO, PRINCE OF ESSANDIA

  26 February 1588 † Isidro; the small hours of the morning

  The thought that rides Rodrigo as he closes the door on his nephew is a simple one: it appears he's made a mistake.

  The admission's not a comfortable one for anybody, much less a prince of the realm. A king, in anyone else's terms, but old history keeps the Essandian royal line from naming themselves kings, though their women are queens. It's one part honouring ancient and pagan gods, and another part acknowledgment of the Maure peoples who conquered Essandia once upon a time. They have gone, for the most part, but they've left behind a racial memory of their ease in taking the westerly Primorismare country, and a recollection that, as rulers, they called themselves princes, not kings. Why solidarity with a conquering people seems important to Essandians, not even Rodrigo is certain, but he rather likes being the sole prince among the kings of this continent. No one doubts his equality, and in the end, that's all that matters.

  Javier, though, might discount tradition and name himself king when the Essandian crown passes to him. The boy is unexpectedly arrogant, an aspect Rodrigo doesn't remember from his childhood. It may be his damnable witchpower, or it could simply be youthful fear, but it will not earn him any followers, and a young king intending on a war needs his people to love him. A young king who may become a young emperor needs far more: he needs blind passion from most and clearheaded, dogged loyalty from a handful. Arrogance will not earn him either.

  And now, because the boy is arrogant, because he bears a cursed power, because his vision seems to end at the tip of his nose, because of all these things, for the first time in the thirty and more years he's reigned, Rodrigo finds himself genuinely considering the unpalatable possibility of marriage. There has always been Lorraine, yes; he would have married her out of duty to the church, but neither of them ever had any intention of stepping out that far. She has, in many ways, provided him with the perfect foil, for he couldn't seriously consider other offers while the endless negotiations with Aulun dragged on. But he'll no more marry the aging queen than he might marry beautiful young Tomas; neither could give him heirs, and if Javier has grown up a fool, Rodrigo may need an heir more than he believed.

  The truth is that of the two-Tomas and Lorraine-Rodrigo would prefer to bed the former. He's known since childhood that a man's clean lines are more appealing to his eye than a woman's curves, but he's known as well that to lie with men is a shocking sin. He knows a few men who have struggled with this, and others who have embraced their doom, but for himself it has never been an especial difficulty. He sleeps with neither, not for purity's sake, but to keep his lineage uncluttered on the one side and to avoid castigation and guilt on the other. Whether God has given him this bent to test him or to tempt him makes no difference: Rodrigo does not succumb.

  He is, for a moment, sharply aware of the parallel between his desires and Javier's magic. It stings him, stiletto pricks on his skin, and then fades. Such is the price for wielding power of any sort: it makes hypocrites of men, and Rodrigo prefers results over a consistency that cannot be maintained.

  That, in fact, is one of his beloved church's weaknesses. It's slow to change, unsurprising given its size and age, but it demands its followers cling to consistencies that fly in the face of fresher knowledge. God's power and mystery are not lessened by science, to Rodrigo's mind, but are instead deepened by it. Still, it's Cordula's faith he walks in step with, not university radicals.

  Irritable and temperamental, Rodrigo sends for Tomas del'Ab-bate. When the sleepy golden-eyed boy appears, it occurs to the Essandian prince that he might have waited until morning, but then, one of the benefits of being a monarch is arranging the world to his whim. Tonight he wants to talk to Cordula's young priest, and the only apology he'll make is pouring and offering the young man a glass of wine.

  Tomas has brought a narrow satchel, the sort that quill and paper might be kept in: he is prepared for whatever Rodrigo might want, but he sets that parcel aside to accept the wine and a seat by the fire, and to huddle over both drink and flames. Rodrigo gives him a few moments to wake up, though he himself strides around his rooms like a man twenty years younger than he is. When he judges Tomas has had time to gather himself, he says, “What do you think of Javier?”

  Whatever Tomas might have expected of a three o'clock rousal from bed, it's clear that question was not it. He straightens, momentarily agape, then visibly regains his centre, growing pensive. “He is troubled, your majesty, and if I may be bold…”

  “You may,” Rodrigo says, amused, because anyone who asks permission to be bold usually intends to be whether permission is granted or not. He rarely denies it, but once in a while there's entirely too much pleasure from an airy “You may not” and the chagrin on the applicant's face. Tomas, however, is Rodrigo's confessor, and a priest of the church, and might very well speak regardless of whether Rodrigo gave him leave.

  “He's troubled, and you're not helping. His talent frightens him, as it ought, and you well know he should turn his back on it. Instead you have him explore its boundaries with intent.”

  “We have a war to attend to, Tomas.” Rodrigo brushes off his own words and sets aside the royal persona for the singular; it is, after all, three of the morning, and these his own chambers, and this his confessor. Surely he may be himself now and here, if nowhere else. “I need what weapons I have. No, I meant what manner of man is he, to your mind? Will he make a good king?”

  “He would make a better one if he were not tormented by this demon power. Each time he uses it he succumbs a little more. By the time your war is finished, there may be nothing left of your nephew to repair.”

  “I see.” Rodrigo retires to his own chair by the fire, hands templed in front of his mouth and long legs spread out so his feet are close to the low flames. “And so we come to the matter of succession yet again.”

  Tomas doesn't move, but he seems to sharpen, as though only now coming fully awake. “Javier's indisposal puts two thrones at risk, majesty. Unless he weds now and fathers quickly, there's nothing to be done for Gallin, but you can still change Essandia's path.”

  Rodrigo's toe taps in the air, irritable twitch that ends when he asks, “And who does Cordula have in mind for me?”

  He knows the answer, has seen the lists, has turned a deaf ear to many pleas, including Tomas's, that he consider them seriously. But this is their plot, not his, and he's put no mind to remembering names or faces. Nor is he surprised when Tomas is prepared, drawing a parchment scroll from his satchel and offering it over without commentary. Rodrigo takes it and snaps his fingers; the same servant who fetched Tomas comes out of shadows and lights candles, so Rodrigo can read.

  An overwhelming number of the names are Parnan. Rodrigo lowers the parchment to eye Tomas over its top. “Could you find no Essandian noblewomen to litter my choices with?”

  “Your faith has always been such that the Pappas thought you would be honoured by closer ties to our church,” Tomas murmurs with a surprising lack of pomposity In another that statement would have been ludicrous; from Tomas it sounds sincere.

  Rodrigo says, “Mmf,” and raises the parchment again, skimming the names. There are likenesses drawn next to many of them, all lovely, dark-eyed women with a sameness to their faces that says more about the artist than about his subjects. “And what would Cordula say if I found myself a round peasant girl from an Isidrian field and made her Essandia's queen?”

  “Cordula would rejoice with the birth of your sons,” Tomas replies evenly, and Rodrigo grins at the parchment.

  “Beautiful and diplomatic. Your father must be proud, Tomas.” He sees a shadow of action as Tomas crosses himself and murmurs, “
I hope so.”

  “I'll consider them,” Rodrigo finally says, once the list is memorised. He'll consider one or two, at least; the rest he's already discarded for family reasons, and he's not happy that there are so few Essandian women on the list. He can do better, he believes; he's spent a lifetime in negotiations, and while he'd marry Lorraine for his church, he's less enamoured of marrying some slip of a girl for the same reason. If he must wed, then there will be something brilliant made of it; that, at least, he can give himself.

  “Send for my scribe,” he says, a dismissal, and Tomas rises, bows, and leaves to do as he is bidden, while Rodrigo sits alone with a parchment full of women who are meaningless to him.

  C.E. Murphy

  The Pretender's Crown

  AKILINA PANKEJEFF, DVORYANIN

  1 March 1588 † Lutetia, capital city of Gallin

  Nothing, not one thing in the past eight weeks, has gone as Akilina Pankejeff intended it to, not in its entirety. For others this is a matter of course, simply the way of the world, but she is dvoryanin, a grand duchess of Khazar, and she is accustomed to having things her own way She has the men she wants, when she wants, at least, until untimely death takes them. That's happened often enough in her thirty-three years of life that behind her back the servants and even some of the courtiers call her Baba Yaga, the black witch.

  There are worse fates than being a witch, as Akilina sees it.

  There is, for example, boredom. She is too high-ranking to be thrown in a dungeon cell, and so instead she sits in a tower with a single window, thirty feet above the ground, her only chance of escape. She has been six weeks in this room, and looks on the long drop with more favour every day, but not that much. Never that much.