The Pretender_s Crown ic-2

by C. E. Murphy

  Belinda bowed her head and let herself be hauled to her feet by two guards, who jostled her roughly, perhaps trying to make up for having failed Javier already today. Pins and needles stung her feet as she was taken away, and the last she heard from the king of Gallin was a weary, miserable question: “Where has Sacha gone?”

  AKILINA DE COSTA, QUEEN OF ESSANDIA

  Screams from the near distance drive Akilina from the tent she shares with Rodrigo, and good sense kept her from plunging headlong into the chaos erupting in Javier's tent. She is alone, then, as alone as a woman can be in a camp full of soldiers, when Sacha, weeping with blood, staggers from Javier's tent and breaks into a shuffling run, taking himself away from the noise and terror within that tent.

  Akilina snaps “Stay here” to her guards, and because one of them is Viktor, they'll listen; Viktor has done nothing but obey the most direct and simple of orders the last six months, and will permit no one within an arm's reach to do otherwise themselves. Her second guard, an Essandian, inhales to protest, looks at the big Khazarian, and, with a sigh, lets Akilina go.

  She's already gathered her skirts and begun to run, moving more lithely and quickly than Sacha. Still, they're well beyond the boundaries of the camp when she catches him; the royal tents are set up on the back edge of the line, at the greatest height, so generals and kings alike can watch the battles as they go on below. Forest backs them up, and if it were not for the thin moon in the sky, Akilina might lose Sacha entirely.

  But she comes on him in a clearing, fallen to his knees and muttering in words so broken that even her excellent grasp of Gallic is frustrated by them. She breathes, “Sacha?” and touches a hand to his shoulder, as if he's a horse in need of gentling.

  He flinches, and she comes around him, kneeling a few feet away, where he can't fall forward and smear blood over her. “Tell me, Sacha,” she whispers. “Tell me what's happened.”

  “It was supposed to be the priest.” Sacha's words come clear, and send a sick thrill of worry into Akilina's belly. There are two people it cannot be: it cannot be Javier, and it cannot be Rodrigo. News of their deaths would have flown to her ears even while the screams still went on. The blood is beginning to dry on Sacha's sleeves and chest, and so it is neither king of Gallin nor prince of Essandia. Her heart hangs between beats, unwilling to contract again for fear the sound of doing so will overwhelm Sacha's whispers. “It was supposed to be the priest,” he says again, and impatience slams through Akilina.

  Her hands claw in front of his chest as though she could pull the words from him, but she tries to keep her voice soothing and soft. “Who is it?”

  “Marius,” Sacha whispers, and crumbles on himself, sobs wracking his body.

  Relief sags Akilina. Marius is no one, except a king's friend. His death means nothing to her. All she needs is a certainty that Sacha won't compromise her when he confesses to the reasons behind attacking the priest.

  More's the pity that she's unarmed. She might easily have made a story of how she saw Javier's oldest friend running from the chaos and out of concern followed him, only to face his killing rage and be forced to defend herself. But she reminds herself that it's better that the Essandian queen should have no blood on her hands, and instead takes another tactic in silencing his tongue. “Sacha. Sacha, listen to me. My heart aches for your loss, Sacha. I wish it had gone as we meant. But you must run or you must be prepared to face their wrath.”

  “I.” Sacha spits the word through his tears. “Why not we, lady? Why should I not condemn you when I face Javier? Had you not whispered treachery against the priest in my ear-”

  Akilina whispers, “Because the babe is yours, Sacha, and condemning me means your son won't sit on the Essandian throne.”

  Sacha Asselin's every movement stops: he doesn't breathe, he doesn't blink, he doesn't sway where he kneels in the soft earth. He only stares at Akilina, utterly arrested, and for a moment she wonders if apoplexy will take him and he'll collapse.

  Then the pulse in his throat flutters, so hard that she can see it even in the moonlight, and he draws a breath that sounds sharp as knives. “How do I know this isn't a trick to save your own neck?” Despair's gone from his voice, replaced with something so harsh that Akilina thinks her skin might disintegrate under the sound.

  “You don't,” she says, trusting a raw show of truth to score him more deeply than charm or dissembling. “You don't, but you've suspected since the beginning, and the chance that I'm telling the truth is too high for you to risk damning me. You're Javier's oldest friend, and you drew on a priest, not on him. He won't have you put to death, not even if Cordula demands it. You may lose stature, but in the worst of all worlds you can become an ambassador to Essandia, and play uncle to your son. He'll love you,” she whispers, “and he'll be born to a throne. Is my denunciation worth that price?”

  Sacha's shoulders slump and his expression turns dull with hatred for a moment. “Are you a witch, Akilina? Does the devil guide your steps and leave you unscathed in the worst of moments? Sandalia dead at your feet, and a crown to wear for it. Marius dead by my hand, and an heir to pay for him. Javier's power makes him weak and needy of a priest, but I wonder now if that's not a safer bargain to make than dealing with you.”

  Akilina gathers her skirts and stands, wishing Sacha were not covered in blood. She would have him, otherwise, let him bury himself in her in despair and shame and desperation, and with that passion bind him to her ever more strongly. She is not a witch, not in the way of folklore, but she's a woman of strength and ambition, and that, in the end, may be the same thing. “Plead a madness of jealousy,” she says, rather than answer his questions. “You've been Javier's friend all his life, and many will sympathise with a displacement that drove you wild. Javier's guilt will hold him more closely to your side, and the priest will lose some of his hold. In the end you'll guide Javier and in time you'll guide your son, and hold power behind two Echonian thrones. Come back to the camp before dawn, Sacha. I'm sure they'll bury your friend at sunrise, and he deserves for you to be there. But tell no one I found you tonight; what we have, you and I, must be kept a secret.”

  She turns and walks back through the forest, leaving Sacha Asselin alone with his thoughts.

  C.E. Murphy

  The Pretender's Crown

  JAVIER DE CASTILLE, KING OF GALLIN

  25 June 1588 † Brittany; the Gallic camp

  Cannon roared with the first light of dawn, lead balls smashing through troops on both sides of the war, and for the first time in days, Javier did nothing to mitigate their strength or damage.

  He had slept, but only because his body was weak: his heart wanted to stay awake, as if refusing sleep would somehow refuse the truth of Marius's death. As if, if he faced the morning without rest, he would be rewarded for vigilance by Marius's return. But neither had happened; he'd slumped over Marius's body, tears staining the shroud until exhaustion claimed him, and when he woke it was to his friend's cold, unmoving form, and to his own lack of stomach for further war.

  A pity, that, and he knew it, for what he'd set in motion wasn't going to end with an easy suit for peace. It would go on until either the Aulunian crown sat on his head, or he was dead. A numb place sat inside him where ambition had burned: nothing was worth this cost, not even Sandalia's vengeance, and yet now the price was paid, and nothing could be done but to carry on.

  Eliza was curled at his side, a weary ball of heat, like a kitten searching for comfort, but he had none to offer her. He'd wakened her with a touch to her hair, and before he earned so much as an early-morning smile, tears filled her eyes and she put her nose into his ribs, each of them holding on as though answers or relief might be found in clinging to each other.

  Tomas found them that way when he came for Marius. They three and Rodrigo, who joined them as the sun broke the horizon, lifted the shrouded body together, and went a silent, heartbroken trudge to the hilltop grave that had been dug in the night. Akilina waited there at
a respectful distance, present but not intruding on a grief she wasn't fool enough to pretend was her own. The gondola boy, unexpectedly, was nearby as well, unrelenting misery twisting his features, though he'd clearly forbidden himself permission to cry. Javier's heart knocked as though he'd been hit, suddenly close to coming undone by a child determined to be a man in the face of sorrow.

  He looked away from the boy to find Tomas waiting on him, waiting for a signal that Javier couldn't yet give. He turned half-blind eyes to the hills and the horizon, waiting himself, waiting for a thing he wasn't certain would come to pass.

  “There.” Eliza's voice came softly, little in it but grief and exhaustion. Javier looked for the shadow she saw and found it: Sacha, whose arrival tore at Javier's heart. He should be there; he should be there because Marius was his friend and for penance, and at the same time a black rage rose up in Javier that he dared to attend. Eliza touched his hand, and he loosened the fist it had made. Loosened it, because he feared what a fist might do when Sacha got too close, and because Marius wouldn't want them fighting over his grave. Marius wouldn't harbour the rage that clenched Javier's own heart; Marius would call it all a mistake, and find a way to forgive. Javier couldn't bring that much kindness to the fore, and only gave Tomas a fractured nod, inviting, commanding, him to begin.

  There was no comfort in ancient words of ritual, or in the quiet recitation of the things that had made up Marius Poulin's life. Tears burned Javier's eyes and made his stomach sick, but wouldn't fall; he could not, it seemed, allow himself that weakness in face of morning's light. Marius would have cried; Marius had always been softer. Eliza stood beside him silently; only her quick gasps for steady breaths told him her tears fell. Sacha, standing a little distance away, was dry-eyed and haunted, and that, Javier thought, was as it should be. And Rodrigo, well, Rodrigo was there out of respect, and his expression was steady and grim. No one else attended; no one else had the right, so far as Javier was concerned.

  He bent to cast the first handful of dirt into the grave himself, its thump and rattle the most final and dreadful sound he'd ever encountered. They worked together then, two monarchs and a priest and a guttersnipe, to fill in Marius's grave, and all the while Javier felt Sacha's aching gaze on his back. Even if Javier'd made the offer, there weren't enough shovels: this was not a duty their friendship's fourth would be allowed to participate in. That was a cost of what he'd done, and Javier counted it low enough indeed.

  When the grave was fresh earth mounded high, Rodrigo put a hand on Javier's shoulder, not trying to make words fit a space where silence said enough. Then he called Tomas to him and walked away, joining Akilina before taking their leave of the three remaining friends. The gondola boy walked a few steps with them, head lifted as if he were royalty's equal, then took himself in another direction. Only when they were gone did Sacha edge forward, uncertain of his welcome.

  “You should have been with us last night, to sit vigil.” Javier spoke to the raw dirt, and barely knew his own voice, strain making him sound like an old man.

  Sacha turned his face away as though he'd been hit, eyes closed and his answer dull. “I was afraid.”

  “You should have been,” Javier said again, and this time wasn't sure if he meant to repeat his first sentiment, or if he was in agreement with Sacha's fear. “Go away, Sacha. I'm telling myself Marius would want us to drink to his memory together, that he'd consider what has happened to be nothing more than a terrible, forgivable mistake, but I am not Marius. I am not that good. Go away, fight in this war, and when I have the stomach for it I'll see you again. You are forbidden to die valiantly,” he added in a whisper. “You will live, Sacha Asselin. You will survive, because death is too easy a path for you.”

  “Javier-”

  “Do you think it makes it better?” Javier thundered, all too sure of what protest his oldest friend would make. “Is it all right that you meant that knife for Tomas and not for me? That Marius died to save my faith rather than my life? You attempted one murder and accomplished another, Sacha, and do you think that's acceptable? You live, and live free, because you are my oldest friend, and for no other reason. Any other man would be arrested, would be hanged or beheaded as fitted his rank, for what you have done. Do not test me with your explanations and your excuses. I'll have Madame Poulin to answer to,” he finished in a whisper. “Give me no reason, no reason at all, Sacha, to hand her the vengeance she'll rightfully demand.”

  Sacha bowed, the deepest and most honest genuflection Javier had ever seen from him, then spun and ran, rough long steps taking him toward the battlefields. Eliza, silent, came to Javier's side to put her hand in his, and he flinched. “Don't. Don't tell me I was too harsh, Liz, don't-”

  “No.” She tightened her fingers around his until they both trembled from her grip. “I wouldn't even if you were, not with Marius d-” A gasp swallowed her last word and she began again elsewhere, rather than give voice and therefore a kind of acceptance to the matter. “If he was anyone else I'd have seen him dead before dawn. But because it's Sacha it would only make it all the worse. We'll find no justice in this.”

  “Did I…” Javier swallowed, wanting to unask the question before it had more than begun. But it was too late: giving it any voice at all had let it form fully in his mind, and it would gnaw at him if it went unspoken. “Did I do this, Eliza? Is this my fault?”

  He wanted her no to come quickly enough to absolve him. Instead she stood quiet, looking at Marius's grave, and finally sighed. “Part of me wants to say yes, Jav To lay the blame somewhere. But I'm not sure you did. We've been together so long that it's not easy for any of us to watch you need another. You must know that. I only bore Beatrice out of love for you and at your explicit request. Marius… felt displaced by Tomas, but he was kinder than I am. Than Sacha is. He saw, perhaps, that Tomas offered you something that we secular three couldn't, and I think he didn't…”

  “Hate me for it?” Javier asked thickly.

  Eliza nodded. “He understood. His loyalty to you was unshakable.”

  “I thought Sacha's was, too.”

  “Sacha's always been more jealous.” Eliza's fingers were cold in Javier's. “Jealous of me, jealous of your crown, jealous of Marius's money, for all that he's noble-born.”

  “I'd think you'd have been jealous of Marius's wealth, if any of us were,” Javier whispered, more to keep his mind from burgeoning guilt than conviction of his words' truth.

  Eliza chuckled, soft sound made mostly of sorrow. “I had so little that there was no room for envy when you gave me so much. If anything haunted me, it was the fear it would prove as my father thought it would, too good and with too high a price. I had nothing to lose. Sacha saw himself as having everything to lose. Sees himself, perhaps, and so seeing a fifth come into our friendship… Beatrice was easier. She was only a woman. But Tomas is a man, and worse, awakened the ambition, or the will, in you, to do the things that Sacha's long since agitated for. No,” she finally said, quietly. “I don't think you did this, Javier. You might have been able to stop it, but…”

  “But?”

  Eliza straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, small signs that told Javier he would have been better pleased had he not asked, because she would answer with a truth he wouldn't like. And she did, after taking a measured breath. “You have blindnesses, Jav Maybe born of your rank, maybe born of your power, I don't know. There's an arrogance about you, an assumption of your infallibility, and a-”

  “I am not perfect, Eliza.” Javier's voice cracked in horror. “I've spent a lifetime afraid of my fallibility-”

  “You've spent a lifetime afraid the witchpower was the devil's gift, and afraid that giving in to it was the path to damnation. I'm talking about something else. You're self-centered, my love, and it makes you bad at reading the hearts of those around you. You asked,” she added even more gently, then shook her head. “Maybe you could have seen this thing being shaped, maybe you could have stopped it, but maybe an
y of us could have and none of us did. I wouldn't lay the blame at your feet, but at Sacha's, if it must be laid. I think you would come back to us,” Eliza whispered. “I believe that in the end you will always come back to us, because we know you better than anyone else. Sacha's jealousies and fears took that belief away from him, until Tomas's death seemed the only possible course. We've all paid.” She closed her eyes and put her temple against Javier's shoulder as she drew a tired breath. “We've all paid. There's no use salting the wounds.”

  “Aren't you angry Liz?”

  “Of course I am.” She turned her face into his shoulder. “But I'm more afraid of what becomes of us if we let the anger eat us whole. I don't want to become what Sacha's become.”

  “You're good for me, Liz.” Javier put his arm around her and buried his nose in her hair, willing tears not to fall at the familiar scent of her. “It took me too long to see it, but you're good for me.”

  “I know.” Eliza tipped her chin up to give him a watery smile, then wrapped her fingers at his elbow and gave him a heartless tug. “Come away for a little while. You promised one other the chance to say good-bye.”

  BELINDA WALTER

  Given that she was in essence a prisoner of war, Belinda spent the night in surprising comfort. Better by far than the last time she'd been a guest of the Castille family: then she'd huddled in the darkness of an oubliette, stripped naked and awaiting a dawn that would surely see her dead. By comparison the small guarded tent and bedroll she'd been given were luxury, and she made no attempt to escape or slip away from her tent to listen and learn what she could of the Cordulan camps. War rarely offered the chance for uninterrupted rest, and yet she slept soundly as a child while in the heart of an enemy camp.