The Pretender_s Crown ic-2

by C. E. Murphy

  “People of Gallin!” Javier's voice, a roar of sound, cuts through Tomas's thoughts. No man can quiet a gathering such as this one, not with his voice alone, but all along the shore a quietude ripples out. Not silence, not with so many people, but the quality of the noise gentles, becoming a hiss rather than thunder. And it stretches far, much farther than a man's voice can carry, and that, Tomas knows, is the witchpower at work.

  Javier has released Sacha; the stocky lord, in fact, has reversed the king's show of bravado, and has leapt to the figurehead, and runs down it to crash gladly into Marius and Eliza's arms. If ordinary mortals might call up power through nothing more than their own will and emotion, then these three are, in this moment, a source for Javier to draw from. He glances down at them, a smile splitting his face wide, then flings his free hand up and shouts out again to the throngs.

  “People of Gallin, I am Javier, son of Louis de Castille and Sandalia de Costa, and I come before you to beg you cry me king!”

  Never, never in his life has Tomas heard voices rise with so much certainty, so much passion; never in his life has he thought he might find his own voice lifted in a shout so loud it tears at his throat. Thousands kneel on the shores; so, too, do those on deck, from the trio at the prow all the way to the stern, and the captain puts a fist over his heart.

  Javier's voice drops, almost to a whisper: Tomas should not be able to hear him, much less the straining masses on land. But he can, and they can, and for all that Tomas is afraid of the power that lets Javier share his words up and down a riverbank, he is also filled with an aching admiration, a desire to serve that he has only ever felt within the walls of a church. This man before him, this king, could be great, and he, humble priest that he is, could walk his path and be remembered, too. Tomas does not think of himself as wishing a place in history, but watching the fire-haired king leaning rakishly from the bridge above, he knows that he will struggle to stay at Javier's side, not just for Javier's soul, but for his own.

  “I come on the wings of sorrow,” Javier whispers, and then there's his own silence filled by the roar of his people, because the ship on whose deck he rode is called Cordoglio, “sorrow,” and he could not have chosen better had he meant to.

  “I come on the wings of sorrow,” the king calls again. “I come in the wake of our beloved queen, my darling mother, Sandalia's, death. I mourn with all of you, my people, but in Cordula the Pap-pas himself placed a crown on my head, and today, and for many days to come, I will not turn my eyes, blind with tears, to Sandalia's grave and weep and honour her as she deserves. I cannot bring myself to face her, even in death, while she lies unavenged, and Gallin will have its vengeance!”

  The faceless mass that had been on its knees is suddenly on its feet, hands flung into the air, screams of approval shaking the very boards of the Cordoglio. The gondola boy creeps to Tomas's side, eyes wide as he watches the dramatics that Javier commands. So softly as to be audible beneath the thundering noise, he whispers, “I was so wrong, Padre Tomas. He is good with words after all.”

  The crowd will never cease its cheering on its own. Javier lifts a hand and brings them down with his palm, acknowledging and grateful, but in command. “I come before you with my friends, these men and this woman whom I have known since childhood, who have taught me so much of the Gallic people. They are my heart and soul, these three, my Sacha, my Marius, my Eliza, and they are you.”

  Without bidding, the three have come forward, making themselves seen, making themselves a strong steady base upon which Javier stands. Dangling as he does from the bridge, not so very far above their heads, there is an obvious action to take, and Eliza, who Tomas may be forced to admit is clever, takes it: she raises her hands. Within a moment the other two have done so as well, and now Javier all but does stand on their support, the pauper and the merchant and the lord.

  By now the watching people are insensible, the noise they make so profound Tomas begins to wonder if it is simply the sound of the world itself, and this no more than a rare occasion in which he notices it. And still Javier's voice carries, not smooth, for there's too much emotion for ease of words, but strong and certain, up and down the banks of the River Sacrauna.

  “I must go to war, my people. I go on these shoulders, those of my friends, and I go with Cordula's blessing.” Javier's gaze falls to Tomas, sees the gondola boy at his side, and seizes the opportunity. Tomas propels the boy forward without thinking: responding to what's in Javier's eyes, and in a moment priest and child are standing with Eliza and the men. The air here is scalding, too hot to breathe, and its weight is terrible, laden with Javier's power as it rolls over the Cordoglio, over the river, over the thousands gathered to welcome their king home.

  As Tomas comes to the prow, Javier shouts, “Look you to my ship, my wings of sorrow, and see here my priest and confidant Tomas del'Abbate, who brought me to the Pappas to earn his favour. See the child who stands with him, who has come from the canals of Aria Magli to join in our holy war!”

  Marius, as clever as Eliza, or as caught up in breathless fervour as is Tomas, scoops the gondola boy up and sets him on his shoulders, putting a child in the eye of the world. Javier leans precariously far and catches the lad's hand, lifting it high as he calls, “This boy is the banner of Cordula, and he rides at my side! Will you join him?”

  Here, at the heart of it, standing within the circle of Javier's power and at the centre of Lutetia's attention, tears spill down Tomas's cheeks as Gallin answers its king's call. He is on his knees somehow, reaching toward Javier as though he bears God's light within him, and it is a terribly long time before Javier leaps back to the ship's deck and into the arms of his brothers and sister. A terribly long time before he comes to Tomas, and takes his face in his hands, rubbing tears away with his thumbs. The thunder of voices still crashes around them, but there's nothing in Tomas's world but Javier's warm hands, and the whisper of hope in the young king's voice: “Is this forgiveness, then, my priest? I have done you wrong, but I would have your love if you will give it.”

  Oh, God's sense of humour has grown perverse indeed, for Tomas del'Abbate turns his face against Javier's palm and lays a kiss there, benediction and absolution, and knows himself for a fool, for he would do anything for Javier of Gallin.

  JAVIER, KING OF GALLIN

  11 April 1588 † Lutetia, capital of Gallin

  Javier de Castille, son of Louis, son of Sandalia, new king of Gallin, lied to his people.

  Not out of maliciousness; that, at least, is something he can console himself with. Not in any way that will harm them, either, and the larger part of him knew that words spoken in the heat of political rhetoric were hardly to be relied upon. But guilt sparked in another part, scolding him for weakness.

  The reality was that should word of this weakness leak out, his people would probably love him for it all the more. Might: after the day that had passed, Javier was uncertain if he could command the fire of their ardour any higher. The morning's performance on the river had blurred into an afternoon of meeting with advisors, generals, counselors, priests, and two enterprising mothers who had laid out propositions of marriage with the same warlike determination the others had shown.

  It was almost impossible that any further pageantry could be staged after the river speech-that was they were calling it, le discours de la Sacrauna -and yet a little before sunset tailors had descended upon him, and carriages had taken him and a host of retainers to the cathedral, where he was crowned a second time under the greedy watchful eyes of the Lutetian people.

  When he exited the cathedral, cautious beneath the weight of his crown and his robes, it was to discover the entirety of the broad avenue before him had been turned into a feast table. Lutetia's wealthiest were closest to him, of course, there at the head of it all, on the cathedral steps. But burning torches by their hundreds lit the long street, showing him that the wealthy turned poorer as the feast went on, until it seemed every soul in the city must be there to eat a
t his crowning feast and to cry his name with a thunder that rattled his bones.

  Twelve hours had passed since his arrival in the city. Javier, thinking of the long list of accomplishments necessary to have brought him to that place with such grace and honour, wondered that one such as himself might need to be born, when ordinary humans with no witchpower magic could make so much out of so little, so quickly He had climbed onto the feast table and spoken to his people again, the words disappearing from his mind like quicksilver, but he knew he'd spoken of their skill, their ability, their proud hearts; and then he'd taken up a handful of meat and walked the length of the avenue on the tables, crouching every few feet to stop and talk. When tables became street, he walked among the poor, making certain the harried guards who followed him handed food out to those who had come to see and celebrate their new king.

  It was after midnight now, long after midnight, if his weary bones told him right. He hadn't seen his friends since the Cordoglio had put into dock; he'd been swept one way, and they another, though he was certain they would have been at the recrowning. Sacha would have seen to it, if nothing else, and no one would have refused the king's closest friends, not today. Javier would have welcomed them with him now, but even if they guessed where he'd gone, even if they might have made their way through crowds and guards, they might still have left him alone, out of respect, out of privacy, out of concern.

  Javier de Castille knelt before the effigy that sealed his mother's tomb, and did what he had sworn to his people he would not do: turned eyes blind with tears to her grave, and wept.

  Time passed; time enough that the cathedral bells far overhead rang away the small hours of the morning in favour of the large, and in that time Javier railed, and sobbed, and bargained, and threatened, begged forgiveness and warned of vengeance, and at the end of it all came to be sitting against the marble casket carved with a pale lifeless rendition of his mother. Exhaustion held him in its grip, and he was grateful for it: it washed away thought and feeling, leaving him staring across a little distance to the tomb that matched Sandalia's. Louis, his father, who had died six months before Javier's birth. He had never missed the man, had never been given the impression that Sandalia missed him. Louis was only a beautiful still carving to the two who might have been his family.

  Tears, which Javier had thought himself emptied of, burned his eyes and slid away from their corners as he leaned his head back against Sandalia's tomb. Family was inexplicable stuff: blood and bone, but more than that, heart and home. Rodrigo was family, aye, and so were Eliza and Marius and Sacha, but none of them had been Sandalia, centre of all Javier's youth. The world ought not go on without her; the world, it seemed, intended to.

  Footsteps finally sounded in the vault, light and long-expected. Javier left his eyes closed, his head back, too weary to care whether it was priest or assassin who came to find the king in mourning. With his eyes closed the world beyond them might not exist; he might go undisturbed if he refused to acknowledge another's presence.

  Fingers brushed his hair, an intimacy Eliza and no other would use, but the touch was not Eliza's. Javier opened his eyes, wishing their tearful itch away, and found Tomas standing above him, terrible gentleness in his gaze.

  “I've brought cool water, cloth to wash your face with, and new clothes to greet the morning in,” Tomas murmured when Javier remained silent. “They are waiting for you, king of Gallin.”

  “Who?” Javier's voice broke more hoarsely than he expected, still tight from sobs and too dry for words.

  “Your people.” Tomas knelt, slipping a satchel from his shoulder and withdrawing soft cloth and a wineskin. “Drink a little, my lord. Loosen your throat.” He put the wineskin down at Javier's side and took out a second skin, spilling water onto the cloth with it. Javier closed his eyes again, letting the priest press the damp cloth against his face; felt Tomas take one of his hands and clean it, too.

  “Would you wash my feet as well, priest? And nail me to a cross when this is done?”

  “Drink,” Tomas said again, steadily. “Wash away some bitterness with the wine, and if it rises again spill it on me if you must, but not your people. They gather in the street, Javier. All of Gallin knows you entered these halls last night to bid Sandalia farewell. They wait to see if you will exit a king or a broken man. You must be a king.”

  Javier made a broken sound, pretence at a laugh, and took up the wine to drain a long draught. “I thought I had my privacy.”

  “Royalty never does. A new shirt, Javier.”

  “No.” Javier knocked the offering away not hard. “Let them see me as I am, if they must see me.”

  Tomas echoed, “No,” more firmly, and put his hand to Javier's collar. “In mourning, yes; in despair, no. I'll not let them see that. You made a fine figure on the ship yesterday, king of Gallin, as a pirate and a prince. In the evening you showed them the king. Today you will be the warrior, whether you wish to or not. Strip off the doublet and wear the tunic and your unsheathed blade.” He unfurled the former with a snap, drawing Javier's unwilling eyes to it.

  The Gallic fleur-de-lis coat of arms shone in gold thread against a background of blue. “For another man black might have suited,” Tomas muttered, “but you're too pale. This will make the most of your eyes without washing out your skin. I didn't bring chain mail. I wonder now if I ought to have done.”

  “Why are you here, Tomas?” Javier knotted a fist over Tomas's hand, wrinkling the tunic. “Why are you not Sacha, or Marius, or even Eliza? Did your kiss offer forgiveness? I need the words, priest. For all my power I know not what's in your heart.”

  Tomas went still, but not with the wariness Javier'd grown accustomed to seeing in him. He looked at Javier's hand on his own, then gently shook it off, smoothing the tunic. “You're in the bowels of the church, majesty. The bishop preferred a man of the cloth to come after you than one of your vagabond friends.” He made a small impatient gesture and Javier, resigned, sat up to strip his doublet off and take the tunic. “And because they're your lay support, and as such belong in the public's eye, even now. I'm the church at your right hand, and to remind all of Echon of that, should always walk there. A sword on one side, Javier, and God on the other.”

  “So now you're God.” Javier found a faint smile and reached out, clapping his hand at Tomas's jaw and neck. “No wonder you have such a beautiful face.” He pulled Tomas closer, butting foreheads with him, and held the priest there for a few long moments. “I am stronger than the witchpower, Tomas. Your faith, if not in me, at least in God, helps me remember that. I am glad you stand at my side. I haven't fallen yet. Don't let me.”

  “My faith is in you, my lord king.” Tomas sounded strained. “I beg God's mercy on my soul, but my faith is in you. Keep me at your side always and I will not let you fall.”

  Javier tightened his hand, then released Tomas and took up the tunic, the wineskin, and, at the end, his sword. The wine he drained and set aside, then let Tomas tug the tunic over his head and belt his sword into place. “I will be king of Aulun if we win this war,” Javier said quietly. “Our coat of arms for that crown will be the sword and the cross over a penitent man, Tomas. Our coat of arms will be for what you have given us.”

  “My lord.” Tomas bowed deeply and fell into place beside Javier as they left the catacombs for a cathedral brilliant with colour, sunlight saturating stained-glass windows. Javier knelt at the altar and made the sign of God across his chest, then strode out massive doors into a dazzling spring morning.

  Into a roar of welcome that belittled the fracas from the day before; into a city of men rattling their swords, firing pistols, smashing together shield and blade, all to make greeting to their warrior king. Eliza and the two men, his best friends, stood at the front edges of the cathedral steps, their presence and Tomas's all the support he needed; their presence seeming to hold back the gathering through their will alone. Javier walked forward to join them, agog at the mass of humanity and refusing to let his
awe show on his face.

  Yesterday on shore they were a mob; last night in the boulevards, a crowd. Now, as he stands on the cathedral steps and looks out at the faces awaiting his command, Javier de Castille knows them for what they are.

  They are an army, and war is coming to Echon.

  IVANOVA, THE IMPERATOR'S HEIR

  16 April 1588 † Khazan, capital of Khazar

  War is coming to Echon.

  It is coming in the form of the Khazarian army, seventy thousand strong and guided by big-bearded generals who, in her youth, bounced Ivanova on their knee and gave her model horses and soldiers from their campaign tables as toys.

  She was seven, and playing at a game of cannons with those toys and a bread roll, when a General Chekov took note of her. He sat down on the floor as though she was one of his own grandchildren, and a boy at that, and with plates and boards and other foodstuff, taught her how to best use height and landscape to a cannon's advantage. Taught her, too, how a small group of soldiers, disguised to blend in, might successfully ambush a whole supply train. He told her then what she had already heard repeated in Irina's war chambers, and what she hears still today: an army marches on its stomach. Destroy its food source and you weaken, perhaps cripple, your soldiers.

  It made an impression on Ivanova, always hungry as a child. Chekov, sitting on the floor, taught her the danger and the necessity of pillaging the land her armies marched through in order to feed its ravenous stomach, and taught her the wisdom of keeping her men under control. There were two choices, he said: kill everyone in the army's path, or control the men, take only what they need, and do what can be done to make reparations to those whose lands have been sacked.