The Pretender_s Crown ic-2

by C. E. Murphy

  Javier lifted an arm, letting the boy do his job, and hissed a sharp breath before exhaling it with a shrug. “Then I should've left her in Aria Magli. I don't know how else I might have kept her from coming to war. Throw her in the dungeon?”

  “At least she'd have stayed safe.” Anger boiled off Sacha, a different flavour of it than drove him on the battlefield. There was glee in that rage, a revelling in battle lust with no room left for anything else. Out of fighting's heat, though, it was tainted with something else.

  Javier waved the gondola boy off and got to his feet, brow furrowed until the pinch of it made his head ache. The witchpower had done this to all of them, damnable stuff that it was. Useful, perhaps, but damnable, and not worth the price of friendship. “Sacha…”

  Sacha snapped his head up at the difference in Javier's tone, spraying water across the open tent they shared. Wet curls fell in his eyes, making him look the part of a youth. Javier smiled, suddenly hopeful, and felt that hope die at a spike of bitterness from his oldest friend. “Is it the crown or the witchpower?” he asked very softly. “Which of them has changed what we had?”

  “Neither.” Sacha snatched up a towel and rubbed his hair into a tangle, cutting off conversation, but Javier waited on him, bringing surprise and consternation to his face when he lowered the towel again. “Neither, Jav,” he repeated, then threw the towel away. “Neither, or both, or all of it. You woo Eliza,” he said abruptly, as though the words surprised him, and then in a smaller voice, an even tighter voice, added, “You'd have never done that, before.”

  “Because I was a fool. I've learned a little, perhaps. Someone was going to,” he said more softly. “Woo her, or wed you, or me, or Marius. We may have all denied it, but we were never going to go into our age unchanged.”

  “You must know she's barren.” Sacha's gaze sharpened on Javier, judging to see whether he did know, and when Javier inclined his head, angry triumph blazed in Asselin's eyes. “So she can be nothing more than a means to your ends. She deserves better, Javier.”

  “I have a little hope,” Javier whispered. “A little hope that the witchpower may heal what the fever took. One's no less God's will than the other, no? And you need heirs, too, Sacha, making her no more an easy choice for you than myself. Of all of us, Marius might have most logically gone to her, but I think he was the least likely.”

  “Clearly,” Sacha spat. “And she's only ever had use for me when she was drunk. Sober, she's never looked beyond you.”

  “Then be happy for us,” Javier said, still softly. Asked: to his own ears it was a plea, hardly given voice at all.

  Sacha lowered his eyes, murmuring “Yes, my lord” with such meaningless subservience as to light rage in Javier's breast. There was nowhere he could turn without engaging Sacha's anger, and his own temper lashed out, words low and harsh: “I could command you to be. I could shape your will to mine, so your heart was as happy as mine has been.”

  “And what a hollow victory that would be, my king.” Sacha lifted his eyes, hazel gaze cool with anger. “Because I might not know the difference, but there's no one to bend your memory to suit. You know I've always wanted you to pursue your birthright. Now you have, and these are the prices we all pay.”

  He turned without being dismissed and walked away, stopping at the tent's far edge to snarl a handful of words over his shoulder: “I'll send you your priest. He should ease your pain.”

  C.E. Murphy

  The Pretender's Crown

  TOMAS DEL'ABBATE

  15 June 1588 † Brittany, north of Gallin

  Tomas knows that he's watched as he goes to Javier's tent. Most of the gazes on him are friendly, seeing him as God's guiding hand on the young king's shoulder. It's what he'd like to imagine he is, though what hastens his footsteps isn't an interest in theological teachings, but a hunger for the fire that is Javier de Castille. He has not, he thinks, kept Javier on a righteous path, but has rather fallen from it himself; he has no other answer as to his eagerness to spend time in the king's burning presence.

  Other eyes are more judging and less kind. Sacha Asselin, who brought word that Javier bid him come; Marius Poulin, whose gentle heart has brought him to working the hospital tents rather than doing battle on the fields. Marius straightens from someone's sickbed to watch Tomas go, and if Sacha watched him with resentment, it seems Marius's gaze is full of sympathy and regret. He's the quiet one of their foursome, the one whose faith in Javier seems strongest, and he's lost his place at Javier's side to Tomas. He knows it, and so, too, does Tomas, who also knows he should relinquish that place to Marius again.

  It is the better, not the greater, part of him that knows that. He looks away, not wanting to meet Marius's eyes, and hurries past the field hospital to enter Javier's tent.

  The king is half-dressed and sprawled across a chair, blood seeping from a thin cut on one shoulder. Always pale, the blue undertones of his skin make him look hollowed now, as though whatever life once animated him has fled and left a still-breathing corpse behind. Tomas hesitates at the tent's open front, and glances back to where Sacha Asselin delivered a message with daggers in his voice.

  It's a moment before Tomas realises what the young lord has done. “You didn't ask for me.”

  “No. Sacha condemned you to me, or the other way around.” Javier lifts a hand, twirls his fingers against the setting sun, and Tomas, as though he were a servant boy, releases one of the ropes that holds the tent flaps open. Shadow falls across most of Javier's body, making him even paler, but the darker light is more flattering to him than sun: he looks less unwell, and the colour in his hair becomes richer. “He's growing to hate me, Tomas. Are they all?”

  “Not Eliza.” Tomas moves to let the second flap fall, then thinks again and leaves it as is: there's no need to spend candlelight while the sun can still brighten a room. Javier shifts until he's entirely free of sunlight. He seems healthier, taken out of direct light, and Tomas wonders how the sun was so kind to Javier when he sailed into Lutetia. All light is God's light, of course, but when one walks in God's light one walks in sunshine. It's curious to him that Javier seems so drained by it. But then, they're all drained by days of battle, even those who don't take up swords themselves, as Tomas does not, as Marius does not, as Eliza does not.

  “No, nor Marius,” he adds, because Javier seems to take neither hope nor extrapolation from what he's said, and for all his jealous dislike of sharing the king, Tomas also doesn't like to see him in despair. “They only worry for you,” he says in a rush, and wonders at his own pettiness, and what he imagines he'll gain if he steals all of Javier's time for himself. Whatever wish he might hang on a star, it will not come true: there are too many duties a king must see to, and Tomas's knowledge of the world too small to be a good counsellor in all matters secular. He wants Javier for himself, but not at the expense of the king's reputation.

  A blush curdles his cheeks at that thought, thick discomfort that he doesn't dare let himself follow through on. He's grateful the sun is at his back, so Javier won't see how his face has heated, if even he should care.

  “I threatened Sacha,” Javier says dully. “Threatened to make us what we'd been, to force my will on him so he remembered only what I wanted him to.”

  Tomas opens his mouth to condemn the idea, and instead says, “Can you do that? You only forbade my tongue from speaking that which you didn't want said, not took away my memories of your talent entirely.”

  Javier shrugs one shoulder. He might be a sculpture, so pale is he in the half-light, but his movements are fluid, and Tomas can see blue veins and a pulse in his wrist when Javier passes a hand in front of himself. “I've never tried, but yes, I think so. Shall I?” An eyebrow quirks up, small expression somehow made of cruelty. “Try resist me, priest, and I shall bend your will until it breaks, take secrets of you, and leave you with no memory of the violation.” He shudders, for which Tomas is grateful. Strengthened by that small show of revulsion, he pours Javier wine
, and then a cup for himself before settling beside a blood-and-grime-stained tub of water.

  “What is it you want of him?” he asks after several emboldening sips.

  Javier holds his cup in long fingertips, not drinking as he stares out the open tent flap toward a battlefield he seems not to see. “Faith, I suppose. His faith in me, but in the end it's you who shows it. You, whom I used most badly.”

  “Perhaps God's grace has helped me to forgive.”

  “Perhaps it's easier to forgive a near-stranger his trespasses, no matter how bitter they may be, than a brother.”

  “Your majesty, if you'll forgive me a certain brashness…”

  Javier waves his wine cup and turns a silver-eyed glower on Tomas, contradictory answers in his body's speech, but Tomas takes the first to be permission, for he has a thing to say and, having embarked on it, is of no mind to have it turned away. “Royalty is expected to be capricious, but none of those three see you as their king, not first. You're their brother, their friend, and only then their sovereign. You may never have forgotten your royal birth, but you've allowed them to. Everything has changed, from your position to your-” Tomas hitches over the word, hating it, but it's Javier's, and not his own: “To your witchpower. Lord Asselin may have thought he was prepared for those changes, but I think he wasn't.”

  “What should I do?” Javier drinks deeply of his cup and scowls when he comes to its base.

  “Nothing.” Tomas finds the hardness of his reply unexpected. “The choice must be his. He'll serve you because you're his king, but to hold on to friendship in the face of all these changes may be impossible, my lord.”

  “Have I asked too much of him?”

  Tomas wets his lips, sips his wine for courage, and dares an answer he's uncertain Javier will like: “I haven't the years of friendship, but you've not turned your witchpower on any of them in such a…” He draws a breath, searching for a word, and Javier lurches out of his chair to catch Tomas's wrist in a heated connection.

  “An intimate manner?” Grey eyes are gone entirely to silver, the weight of Javier's witchpower making the air leaden and hard to breathe. “I dream of that moment, Tomas. It disturbs and excites me, leaving me tangled in my sheets like a love-torn youth. The pleasure of your acquiescence, letting me fall into you as though I bed a woman. Do you dream of it, too?”

  He lets Tomas go as quickly as he caught him, breath coming short, and he makes a fist of his hand as he looks away. “It dances on my desires, this witchpower magic. Wakens them where I had none, hungers for them when I would have them lie in quietude. Too often I fear that it controls me, and not the other way around. Tell me again.” He reaches for Tomas's wrist again, but this time takes his hand, and turns a beseeching gaze on the priest. “Tell me again that this is God's gift, and that you've found it in your heart to forgive me what I've done to you. Tell me,” he whispers, and there's no weight of compulsion in the plea, only desperation. “Tell me that I will not be abandoned by all those I love.”

  Heartbeat riding in his chest too fast, heat rising in his cheeks again, Tomas whispers, “The Pappas has named your magic a gift from Heaven, Javier de Castille, and though I don't share the years of friendship you have with Sacha, you've turned your power on me more intimately than any of them. And still, I forgive you. If I can, then I dare say you haven't asked too much of him.” He crosses himself, and then Javier, and shivers when the young king kisses his knuckles.

  Shivers, and wonders if it's forgiveness he's granted the king of Gallin, or simply blind worship better due to God.

  “Stay,” Javier breathes. “Stay a while, and pray with me, Tomas. Help me keep to the light.”

  Tomas touches Javier's hair, then, with regret, loosens the king's hand from his own, and rises to draw back the tent flap he's closed. Sunlight floods the room and takes away all the secrecy of their meeting, but makes a symbol and a sign of hope. They go together to kneel in light, and all down the hill, across the fields of tents and open fires that make up the Cordulan army, Tomas can see that the soldiers, led by their king, make a knee to God.

  If Javier de Castille is truly damned, then God has a perverse sense of humour indeed, and is vastly more baffling than Tomas del' Abbate can ever hope to comprehend.

  MARIUS POULIN

  15 June 1588 † Brittany, north of Gallin

  Marius, like many others in the camp, joins Javier in prayer. Unlike most, as he bows his head he wonders if Beatrice Irvine-Belinda Primrose, or Belinda Walter; no, she has too many names, and he will think of her as Beatrice, for simplicity's sake. That was the facade he fell in love with, and though he knows she was nothing more than an act, there's still an aching fondness for her in his heart. He thinks, briefly, of Sarah Asselin, Sacha's sister, whom he was meant to wed three months past. He was in Isidro then, and when he returned Madame Asselin chose not to bind her daughter to a merchant boy going off to war. It's all right with Marius, who suffers a confusing blur of lust and disinterest when his thoughts fall to Sarah. But it's Beatrice, not Sarah, who might be on the battlefield somewhere, might be leading her own army in prayer, for they've heard stories of the new Aulunian heir, and how God has graced her.

  There's an exhausting irony in that, for surely God can't have graced both Gallin and Aulun. There's no clear victor if He has; no mandate that assures His chosen people they're in the right. Marius, who has always had at least a little faith, finds himself kneeling and wondering about the witchpower that both Beatrice and Javier share. Wondering, if God has offered it to both of them, whether there's not meant to be a victor; wondering if God intends them to find a brotherhood amongst themselves and put aside war for better things.

  Sacha would call Marius a fool for such sentiments on the best of days, and on the worst, which these seem to be despite their foursome being together again, his old friend would name Marius a coward, and Marius would flinch to hear it, but not argue the point. A braver man would take blade and armour and walk onto the battlefields with his brothers, but Marius has put aside his sword after the fight on the straits, and will not be convinced to pick it up again. He knows himself, now, to be unlike Sacha; unlike Javier, even, though the king lacks Sacha's ruthless ambition and willingness to make war. For Javier, Marius thinks, this is a necessity, perhaps a glorious one, but had Sandalia not died so badly he doubts very much that his king would have reached so far as Lorraine's throne.

  And now it seems to Marius that, with witchpower on both sides, either God intends they should annihilate each other or He intends they should be too evenly matched for either side to win. Either is a possibility that should be spoken in Javier's ear, for all that Marius is sure the king won't want to hear it.

  He can almost hear Javier's argument: that the Pappas has blessed Rodrigo's marriage to the Khazarian dvoryanin Akilina, and in so doing has shown them all that it's God's wish that the Khazarian army join with Cordula. Their numbers, Javier will say, are the mandate Marius is looking for; they're the deciding factor for two armies otherwise well-matched. And Marius, who is only a merchant's son, and knows little of war, will have to agree or find himself feeling the fool. He's sure of it, and yet he climbs to his feet, brushes his knees free of dirt and grass, and makes his way toward Javier's tent. There is, after all, always the chance that his king will listen.

  Sacha's voice cuts across his path before he gets there, sharp and disillusioned: “Don't bother. He won't hear a word you've got to say, not with the priest there.”

  “A priest you sent to him,” Marius says mildly, but comes and sits beside Sacha at a campfire made of little more than embers. The night doesn't need heat: the fire is only for roasting a rabbit over. Marius gives the beast a poke to see how close it is to done, and upon burning his finger and getting a noseful of stomach-rumbling scent, decides to wait a while before calling on Javier. “He still hears us, Sacha. He's the king now. He was always going to turn to advisors other than we three.”

  “Advisors are one th
ing. Priests are something else.”

  “What,” Marius asks, suddenly droll, “men with their own agendas? Not that, Sacha; certainly not that. If we're to surround him with folk who've nothing more than his welfare on their mind we'll have to retreat to the farthest reaches of the Norselands and hide amongst the reindeer.” He picks up a stick to poke the rabbit with as he speaks. “Even we have agendas.”

  “What's yours?” Sacha demands, and Marius looks up from the rabbit in genuine surprise. The truth is, when he said “we” he was thinking most of Sacha, and he finds himself without an answer.

  “To keep us strong, I suppose,” he says after a moment. “To keep us stable, so Javier has someone to turn to when needs be.”

  “He doesn't need us anymore. He's got that pri-”

  “For pity's sake, Sacha, let up. My God, man, what if we'd taken such offence every time you found a woman to dally with? If one of my hopeless romances had turned my head for longer than a week, or if Liz had found a confidant outside of our foursome? Through childhood we were all things to one another, perhaps, but we're adults now, and Javier is king. Are you really so jealous as all this? What are you afraid of? A family such as ours is less easily broken than this, Sacha.”

  “And if it's not? If he's too besotted with his priest and his power and his crown to look to us anymore?”

  “Then we accept it.” Marius stares across the fire at his old friend. Disbelief and dismay flutter through his chest, knocked about with each heartbeat. The idea that Javier's outgrown them is unfathomable. Yet even if it's true, it hardly matters. That much, if nothing else, is blindingly obvious to Marius, and he can't imagine how it's anything less to Sacha. “He's our friend. He's our king. We give him what he needs, whatever that may be.”

  “Why? If he turns from us, why should we stand by him?”