That really was something to think about! Rupert tried very hard to do it.
What if Cortova used to be rich but then something happened, and now they weren’t? Just suppose: What would King Gonzalo do? He’d need to get himself some more money, that’s what. And how would he do that? Well, the usual way was to make war: take land and treasure from some other kingdom. But war was famously expensive. You might get away with cheating the entertainers, but you’d bloody well better pay your army. And also there were the horses and the wagons, the catapults and cannons—they cost money too.
So wouldn’t it be easier to find two kings who hated each other and were afraid of each other, and who wanted to ally themselves with you—and bring them together at your summer palace and let them compete, like jousters in the lists? Let them fight it out to see who wins, with each one offering a better deal than the other till . . .
Bloody hell—could that be it?
The soldiers were coming back now. And as Rupert had predicted, they’d gone for reinforcements. Quite a lot of them, actually. A small army, in fact. And though the dancers trembled with outrage at the injustice, they saw that they were beaten and allowed themselves to be escorted—three knights to a man—out of the summer palace.
Rupert was disappointed that there hadn’t been any beheadings, but his mind was on bigger things now. Long after the dancers and soldiers had disappeared from sight and there was nothing to look at but slaves carrying baggage, Rupert stayed where he was, in his shady spot, thinking.
If his father had nothing to gain—that is, if King Gonzalo really had been leading them on, trying to trick one or the other of them into giving him piles of money in exchange for a worthless alliance—then what should they do? Go home, that’s what! Let Alaric pay Cortova’s debts.
But suppose Rupert was mistaken? If he was, then to leave Cortova would be a very, very bad idea. Because Alaric and Gonzalo would then form an alliance and combine their armies, and that would be the end of it for Austlind. The problem was, you couldn’t be sure.
But wait, he thought. Hold on. Why were they in Cortova in the first place? To get an alliance . . . because King Alaric was building up his army, and that was a threat to Austlind; and if Alaric got the alliance first, their goose was cooked. Rupert covered his face with his hands, deep in concentration. His brain had never worked this hard before in all his life.
What if you took Gonzalo, and the whole question of whether Cortova was rich or poor, out of the story entirely? Gonzalo wasn’t the problem—Alaric was!
Oh! This was good. He was almost there!
And since Alaric wasn’t married and didn’t have an heir, and since Rupert’s father was next in line for the throne, why not just kill Alaric, blame it on Gonzalo, and go home to rule both kingdoms?
Rupert lay back on the grass, gripping his head in his hands. By all the saints in heaven, he was brilliant, absolutely brilliant! He couldn’t wait to tell his father!
14
Three Kings, Two Negotiations
Morning session,
King Alaric:
Gonzalo’s council chamber was uncommonly small. The rulers of ancient Cortova did not hold great audiences with vast numbers of their subjects. They only needed a space appropriate for meeting with their generals to plan campaigns of conquest, or for discussing matters of state with important senators, or occasionally for negotiating terms with visiting monarchs—as Gonzalo was doing now.
At the far end of the chamber was a dais, in the center of which sat a handsome throne in the antique style. But Gonzalo had chosen not to use it today. Instead, he and Alaric sat companionably together in the middle of the room, their chairs set at the precise angle that allowed them to look at each other without being forced to stare face-to-face. Between them, on a small, round table, sat a bowl of fruit and two antique glasses filled with honey-colored wine.
Two kings, meeting as equals—that was the desired effect.
“I hope you enjoyed last night’s dinner,” Gonzalo began.
“Yes, it was quite astonishing.” In so many ways.
“Good, good! We do our best under the circumstances.”
“No great hall, you mean?” Alaric said with a wry smile.
“Yes. Alas.”
He paused then, and Alaric expected Gonzalo to move on to the business at hand. But in this he was disappointed.
“So how goes it in Westria?” he asked. “Settling in nicely on your throne?”
“Yes,” Alaric replied, quite aware that King Gonzalo knew exactly how things had been going in Westria: the unrest among his nobles, the plots, and the threat of war with his cousin. “Very nicely.”
“Glad to hear it! Such a lot of responsibility for a young lad like yourself, and so sudden, too—why, you never even got to finish your training as a knight. Or do I misremember?”
Alaric smiled. “No, my lord Gonzalo. Your memory is perfect.”
“What a shame.”
“Indeed.”
“Well!” Gonzalo said, leaning into the word for emphasis so it would be clear that he was changing the subject. “You and I have important business to discuss, do we not? And as I have an appointment with King Reynard this afternoon, our time is limited. But we can at least make a beginning. You know, get the old stone rolling down the hill? Then we can go chasing after it tomorrow. What do you say?”
Alaric nodded. Then, in case that wasn’t clear enough, he said, “Yes, Gonzalo, let’s get started.”
“Won’t you try one of the apricots? They’re exceptionally sweet this year.”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, suit yourself.” He settled back in his chair, gave a great, significant sigh, and began, as promised, to “make a beginning.”
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think it would be best if I went first—just to make everything clear, you know. Put it out there where the cows can get at it, as the farmers like to say.” He waited for Alaric to nod in agreement, then smiled in that now all-too-familiar way that generally preceded something unpleasant.
“You are aware, of course, that Cortova is blessed with an extensive coastline on the Southern Sea, and the wealth of my kingdom has always come from trade. That was true in the Golden Age of Emperors; but it’s even more so now, as we have no ambitions to build an empire, as my ancestors did. We depend entirely on commerce.
“And so, for many years, going back to my great-great-grandfather’s time, Cortova has chosen to remain neutral. I’m sure you can understand why. If we were to ally ourselves with, say, Gronnigstadt and you were at war with them, you would not want to do business with us—now would you?”
Alaric didn’t like the direction this was tending, and he was more than a little tired of being toyed with. So he left Gonzalo’s obvious question unanswered. He just sat in silence and waited for him to answer it himself.
“Of course you wouldn’t! Worse still, I would be obliged to send troops and money to help Gronnigstadt defeat you—which would be of no conceivable advantage to Cortova. With this in mind, you can surely see that an alliance with Westria would be of no interest to me whatsoever.”
Alaric started and caught his breath. . . .
Afternoon session,
King Reynard:
Reynard and Gonzalo sat together informally, like two old friends, cups of wine and a bowl of fruit ready at hand. The late-afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, turning the marble floors to gold.
“Did you enjoy our humble little dinner last night? I hope you and Rupert were pleased.”
“It was splendid. Thank you.”
“Food not too spicy?”
“Not at all.”
“Excellent!”
A tantalizing moment of silence followed, then, “What a handsome lad your Rupert is—sturdy, you know. Manly.”
“Yes, well, he’s grown up among boys. Rough and tumble.”
“You have three sons, I believe.”
Reynard agreed t
hat he did, quite aware that Gonzalo didn’t believe he had three sons; he knew it for a positive fact, along with their names, their ages, the color of their eyes, and what they liked to have for breakfast. For some reason, Reynard found this ongoing pretense of ignorance particularly hard to bear.
“And all of them still at home,” Gonzalo continued. “Unusual. You don’t hold with the old thinking that boys learn better if they’re sent away to some other noble house, where they can be trained up for knighthood without their mothers hovering over them and their nursemaids drying their tears?”
Reynard opened his mouth to respond but was too angry to find the words; and by the time he’d thought of a few, Gonzalo had moved on.
“I believe your cousin Alaric was fostered with you, was he not? Though of course he didn’t finish his training—what with the tragedy and all, and his needing to step up and rule the kingdom in his brother’s place.” He stopped at this point, apparently feeling he had goaded Reynard quite enough. Now he smiled as if they’d just been discussing the weather and waited.
“I’m astonished that you should ask me that,” Reynard said. “About my boys—considering that you have kept young Castor home as well.”
“So I have, so I have! What a fine pair we are, you and I, such overfond parents. But then, one has to consider who would be the right person to take a boy in hand, you know, and train him up properly. And while some run-of-the-mill prince would probably do well wherever you put him, the heir to a great throne must be handled with special care.”
Reynard said not a word. He just stared at his host, wondering what in blazes had been the point of all that. Was Gonzalo hoping that he might foster Prince Castor himself? Well, he certainly hoped not, because even on brief acquaintance, that child had struck him as right peculiar. . . .
Morning session, continued,
King Alaric:
“As for my daughter,” Gonzalo said to the dumbstruck Alaric, “she was married to the prince of Slovarno when they were both just children and widowed shortly thereafter. Then, of course, she was betrothed to your brother. In neither case did I seek—or allow—any kind of treaty or alliance to be part of the marriage contract, just the usual financial arrangements.
“Both matches ended poorly. The young prince died of the pox before he even came of age, and then there was that dreadful business in Westria. Sorry to bring it up. I know it must be painful for you. But so it was for my daughter, too. And not surprisingly, after that she expressed the wish to remain a maiden all her life.
“So you see, Alaric, she doesn’t really want to marry—you or anyone else.”
King Gonzalo now folded his hands, smiled, fluttered his lashes, and shrugged.
“That’s it?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
Afternoon session, continued,
King Reynard:
“She doesn’t want to marry?”
“As I just said.”
“And you cannot persuade her?”
“But that would be unkind, and I am such a fond parent—weren’t we just discussing that?”
“And you have no interest in an alliance without a marriage?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Then,” Reynard said through clenched teeth, “may I ask why you allowed me—no, demanded that I travel all this way to discuss a marriage and an alliance that you now inform me you do not want? Is it ‘in the interest of Cortova’ to house, feed, and entertain two royal parties for a week? Or were you just feeling lonely and bored out here in the country and longing for a bit of amusement?”
“Ah,” said Gonzalo, taking an apricot and nibbling at it thoughtfully, then making a show of wiping the juice from his beard with a linen napkin. “I believe we have reached the heart of it now.”
“I believe we have reached the end of it, my lord king. I believe it’s time for me to go.”
“Oh, do sit down, Reynard! Don’t be so hasty. And you really must try one of these apricots.”
“I didn’t come to Cortova for the bloody fruit!”
“No, you’re right. You didn’t. But won’t you please sit down? Thank you!
“Now, your question is fair: Why did I allow you to come all this way for nothing? Because, you see, you were so very eager, Reynard, so pressing; and I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret that.”
“How to interpret it? I want a match for my son, and I hoped to ally myself with Cortova. What else could it possibly have meant?”
“Nonsense! A subtle man like you? It might have meant any number of things—a veiled threat, for example: join with me or I’ll bring my army across your border and take what I want.”
Reynard was stupefied. “You can’t be serious!”
“Oh, but I am. And I just thought I could get a better feel for the situation if we were to meet together in person.”
“Bloody hell!”
“But also . . .”
Morning session, continued,
King Alaric:
“Oh come, my dear Alaric—don’t look at me like that!”
“How am I supposed to look? We’ve been discussing this matter since last winter, messengers running back and forth. And now you’ve put me to a great deal of trouble and expense by insisting that I come here in person to discuss the terms of the alliance and the marriage contract. Not to mention the fact that you’ve been secretly corresponding with my cousin at the same time so as to pit us against each other—which was not gentlemanly, Gonzalo, not at all. And now, to top it all, you claim no interest in either a marriage or an alliance? What was that all about?”
“Now, now, don’t be angry, young Alaric. Your question is fair: Why did I allow you to come all this way for nothing? Because, you see, you were so very eager, so pressing; and I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret that.”
Afternoon session, continued,
King Reynard:
The king of Austlind was on his feet again. His face was flushed with anger, and he was breathing hard. “Also what, Gonzalo?”
“Also, I began to wonder whether—seeing as you were, as I said, so eager and so pressing—you might perhaps be willing to make it worth my while, and in my interest, to change the way I have heretofore looked upon the subject of alliances. In which case I might—the incentive being great enough—convince my daughter (whom you will surely have noticed is exceedingly beautiful and charming and quite strong enough to bear any number of little princes without giving you the trouble of dying in the process) to marry your son.”
Morning session, continued,
King Alaric:
“And though my daughter’s betrothal to your brother ended quite tragically and was most unsettling to the delicate feelings of a young girl, she is also an obedient daughter, and she will do her duty . . . if, of course, you make it worth my while. To my advantage, you see.”
“You’re a bloody wonder—you know that, Gonzalo? Were you nursed in your cradle by a viper?”
“Come now, young Alaric! There’s no need to get personal about it.”
“Of course not. This is just business.”
“Exactly! I’m so glad you understand.”
15
An Impossible Decision
MOLLY SAT ON A bench under a tree, waiting for Alaric to come back. She could have waited for him in his villa, but that would have meant braving Lord Brochton. Besides, it was quiet and peaceful in the dappled shade of the garden.
She heard him before she saw him, his quick, heavy footfalls as expressive as the thunder on his face. When he saw Molly, he sent his escort away and joined her on the bench without a word.
“That bad?” she asked.
“Worse.”
“He’s chosen Reynard already?”
“No. It seems Gonzalo doesn’t actually want an alliance—never has wanted one; it would be bad for business.”
“What? Then why would he drag you—”
“As for the princess, she’s not inclined to marry, me or anybody else.”
“But—”
“By the saints, will you stop interrupting?”
Molly shut her mouth.
“This was just the opening gambit, you see. It seems he might bring himself to rethink the alliance, and he might be able to persuade the princess to do her duty—if I’m willing to make it worth his while.”
She waited until she was absolutely sure that Alaric had finished speaking. Then, “Just adding some more kindling to the fire? First Reynard pops up unexpected and unwelcome. Now he’s playing the reluctant maiden.”
“It was insufferable. I almost strangled him.”
“It’s well that you didn’t.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Do you think he’ll say the same things to Reynard this afternoon?”
“Undoubtedly. Maybe Reynard will strangle Gonzalo for me. He’s always had a hot temper.”
“Alaric,” she said softly, “do you still want the alliance?”
“Not really. Not at all. But if I leave Cortova, Reynard will get it for himself—and on more advantageous terms. I can’t let that happen.”
“Do you still want the princess?”
“I have nothing against the princess, except that Gonzalo is her father.”
“You’ve told me countless times that you must marry soon and get yourself an heir.”
“It’s still true.”
“Then, Alaric, it’s time you gave her the cup. It’s the only advantage you have over Reynard. And if she’s truly reluctant to marry—though I don’t believe she is; I think that was just Gonzalo playing you along—a sip from the cup will change her mind and make sure she chooses you and not Prince Rupert.”
“I doubt she’ll get to choose. She’s nothing but a pawn in Gonzalo’s little game. And if Reynard wins, then like it or not she’ll marry Prince Rupert. And if I’ve already given her the cup, she’ll spend the rest of her life pining for me and I for her. I don’t dare risk it.”
“Everything you say is true and well thought out—except for one. Whatever else Elizabetta may be, she is not anyone’s pawn.”
The Princess of Cortova Page 9