The Pretender's Crown

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The Pretender's Crown Page 19

by C. E. Murphy


  Akilina raised a look full of daggers to the prince lounging in her bed, and his amusement turned to a full-out laugh. He rose, damnably lithe and well-formed for a man twice her age, and pulled on a robe that gave him a bit of decency as the maids came running. “My queen is indisposed,” he said with due formality. “Attend her.”

  Admiration for his virility had spread through the capital city by noon, and, Akilina imagines now, as she did then, had reached the coast and the northern mountains alike by sunfall. She has spent weeks feeble with sickness while he has accepted congratulations and hearty smiles; it is not at all how she imagined her first month as a monarch. Still, she staggers to her window and looks out over Isidro, a hand over her still-flat stomach, and she smiles. Events have spun out more rapidly than she might have expected, but not badly. Pigeons have winged back and forth between herself and Irina, and the imperatrix is satisfied with Akilina's new position. More than satisfied: Ivanova is no longer a necessary bargaining chip, but the alliances with Essandia and therefore Gallin are now solid.

  There is the matter of what is to be done about Aulun, from a Khazarian standpoint, but that is not Akilina's trouble. That's for Irina, whose backstabbing and double-crossing treaties and alliances have become difficulties, to deal with. Essandia has its own plans for Aulun, and Akilina is more concerned with them than with Khazar's. Essandia, after all, has made her a queen, and that is a title she could never have aspired to at home.

  The women come to dress her and she manages that without another bout of illness; it is, for her, the worst immediately after awakening, and only triggered again by overpowering scents. Things she once enjoyed now make her nauseous, and cautious ladies-in-waiting have learned already to offer treats slowly, so Akilina might thrust them away should they unexpectedly offend. It's a delicate dance, all done in Essandian, though Akilina hopes a few of them are learning Khazarian. Once summer comes she'll send for servants of her own household to join her here in Isidro, but until then a little talk would be a welcoming gesture for the new queen.

  And they are welcoming of her indeed, with pregnancy coming so soon after marriage. Akilina lets the women go and stands on her own, still fighting sickness, but one stops at the doorway to offer a shy curtsey. “Forgive me, your majesty—”

  Akilina almost doesn't hear what the girl says after that; she is still too taken with hearing those words, “your majesty,” spoken to her. It's an indulgence, but one she has no intention of letting go of soon: there's nothing more worth savouring. Her thoughts catch up to the servant's question, and she nods agreement, then shoos the woman out.

  Not much later, Sacha Asselin enters. Akilina is arranged at the window, much as she was when he took her from the Gallic prison, but she's forgone any pretence of embroidery and only looks out over Isidro. This, after all, is her city now, and she its queen. Sacha bows deeply and without irony; she likes that in him, that he can hide all signs of mockery as he comes to sit near her, once she's granted leave with a wave of her fingers. “How do you find Isidro, my lord Asselin?”

  “The wine is sweet, the women are willing, and I have my queen to command me,” Sacha says lightly, as he has said every day when she's put that question to him. “Though I fear I'll need to return to Lutetia soon, my lady. Javier intends war.”

  “And you intend to guide him in it.”

  “I'm of more use there than here,” Sacha says, which doesn't answer the implied question. “I've done my duty by you and Rod—the prince.”

  There's a self-satisfied smugness in his voice, the cockiness of youth. Akilina supposes she, too, would be smug were she in his shoes, having cuckolded the prince of Essandia. Only for a few nights; what might have become a dalliance over the length of the journey to Essandia ended early, in part because Akilina is cautious. True caution would have refused Sacha her bed at all, but true caution would never have offered her the chance of a child close enough in conception to be Rodrigo's, but no part of him. Perhaps it's a woman's thought: that a child begat by a man not her husband is somehow a thing entirely of her own, but it's a thought Akilina holds to. She'll have the shaping of the babe in her womb, with its true father unacknowledged and the man who claims it not bound by blood. Women have only what they take in this world, and Akilina intends on taking all she can.

  Sacha shifts, her silence going on too long, and she brings her attention back to him. The other reason she sent him from her bed is one she will never admit to: boredom. He can be creative, but he's more often coarse and hurrying for his own pleasure. Rodrigo is the better lover, for all that Akilina doubts very much that the prince bedded any women before herself. There were those he'd kept company with, and whom he'd assiduously set aside and watched over to make certain there were no by-blows. Those few women are all wealthy now, well-kept in glorious homes. Royal castoffs often do well in society, but not all of them; not each and every one with the degree of success Rodrigo's former paramours have seen. They're too talented, too witty, too wise; Akilina has met them, and they are all, to a woman, perfect consorts. No man can choose so wisely each time his heart leads him, and so Akilina is certain Rodrigo's has never led him. These women are contrivances, selected to create a discreet reputation.

  She approves, actually, not that her approval makes the slightest difference. Still, it tells her things about his cleverness, and tells her, too, that if they should find themselves on the same side, they could be a devastating force.

  Akilina Pankejeff does not, for one moment, believe she and Rodrigo de Costa are on the same side.

  “More than your duty” is what she murmurs aloud. Sacha suspects, but does not know, that the child she carries is his; they were not lovers long enough for him to know the march of her red army. But the chance that it might be will keep Sacha on a long string, ready to dance for her when she whistles. She'll let him wonder as long as he's useful, and will dispose of him when he ceases to be. For now, he's her nearest man to Javier de Castille's ear, and that's worth keeping him alive for.

  Avarice and interest flash in his eyes at her words as he takes them to be a hint of her child's father. Akilina indulges in a dismissive thought: Men. So easily manipulated. That, of course, is entirely unfair: women are just as easy to shape and lead. “You have brought Khazar and Essandia together,” she says, more than a little sanctimoniously, and rather enjoying it. “You've helped forge a great alliance between the east and west, and have strengthened your faith's military arm considerably. I should think your name will be written in history books, Lord Asselin, as harbinger of a new era.”

  Colour burns Sacha's cheeks, making him look younger than he is. Akilina thinks of him as a boy even without such reminders, though he's less than a decade her junior. “Word from Cordula says Javier returns to Lutetia by sea. Will he stop here?”

  Still ruddy with imagined pride, Sacha shakes his head. “He spent too much time in Isidro already, and spring is all but on us. He'll need to rally an army and move on Alunaer by June, so he's got no more time to lose. He'll go straight to Lutetia.”

  “There to meet his oldest friend.” Akilina lifts her fingers, a welcoming soft gesture toward the young lord, and he catches them with a light gallantry that would stand him well if he'd learn to use it at all times. “Guide him well, Sacha,” and this she says with all seriousness, because an empty Gallic throne is not to Khazar's advantage, not with her new marriage to a Cordulan king. Rodrigo and Javier are tied by blood, and present a unified front that no other contender for Lutetia's crown could offer her. Or Khazar, she reminds herself fastidiously. After all, she does what she does for Khazar, not herself.

  Irina wouldn't believe that, either, and that may well be part of why the imperatrix has permitted this marriage. Akilina sniffs, making a mockery of insult in her thoughts. She aimed for a power behind the throne by choosing a lover in Gregori Kapnist, not the throne itself. Of course, had the handsome count managed to wed Irina, then as his lover Akilina might have seen herself just
one step from the imperial crown. A pity Belinda Primrose had thwarted that chain of events by murdering poor Gregori. That he most likely would have met the same end should he have taken the throne and taken Akilina to wife is utterly beside the point.

  Akilina's sniff turns to a smile full of unexpected and genuine good nature. The web is a tangled one, and rarely spins in any predictable manner. Machinations for one throne have gotten her another, and when all is said and done, Akilina intends on being mistress to an empire that will rival Irina's. She turns her thoughts from conquering and her smile to Sacha, and finishes her plea to him: “Guide Javier wisely, and we'll all of us profit from Alunaer's fall.”

  JAVIER DE CASTILLE, KING OF GALLIN

  7 April 1588 † The Western Ocean, off the coast of Gallin

  Javier suspected Eliza's complicity in the matter of the gondola boy. The child had been hauled from belowdecks on the fourth day from Aria Magli looking suspiciously well-fed and not even slightly repentant.

  A tremendous argument followed his discovery, the captain offended that anyone should stow away on his ship and determined to put the boy off on the coast. Eliza refused, and since then tensions had been high. Bad enough that she was a woman on board, but far worse that she dared cross the captain, and insult doubled when Javier indicated she should have her own way. Marius cracked a smile and elbowed Javier in approval of his errant wisdom. The king of Gallin could afford to anger a sea captain or two, but not the woman he intended to wed.

  Tomas had refused, thus far, to perform the ceremony. Not for the first time Javier eyed the captain, and not for the first time, put the thought away. First, the man was irritated with him, and second, a shipboard wedding presided over by a merchant sailor lacked both pomp and circumstance, both of which should attend a royal wedding.

  Third, the disconcerting realisation that Eliza had agreed to bed him, but hadn't as yet said she'd wed him, had crept up through Javier's haze of lusty good cheer. She could refuse him nothing, but somehow had thus far refused him this, or avoided him in it. Twice he'd approached her; twice the gondola boy had deflected him, standing arms akimbo and boisterously proclaiming his own worthiness as the light of Eliza's heart. Twice the child had nearly gone over the boat's edge by Javier's hand, but Eliza's mirth had stayed him both times, and left him ever more impotent. Thwarted ambition bubbled under his skin, silver warm beneath the grey April skies, but words and wits seemed to leave him at night when he might have spoken privately to the dark-eyed beauty he meant to make his queen.

  During the increasingly long days he found ways to convince himself that that was for the better: it meant the impulse to command her with his witchpower was under his control. But with Gallin's coast growing steadily darker by the hour, he wondered—

  “What did you promise the Caesar, my lord?” Tomas's murmur interrupted Javier's thoughts, earning a flinch, then a frown.

  “How do you know I promised anything?”

  “Because we saw the Parnan navy gathering when we sailed back around the peninsula, and because the Caesar will only bend so far for the Pappas.” Tomas put his hands on the rail, a light balancing touch that made him look as though he belonged on a ship. “I grew up in Cordula, Javier. I grew up watching the interplay between the Pappas and the Caesar. The Caesar is a devout man, but unlike your uncle he's always in a power struggle, back and forth with the Pappas and the Primes. He'll rise to the church's call because his faithful heart demands it, but he'll not commit full resources without a certainty of stability from outside Parna. He needs his army and his navy to hold his own country So if the navy is gathering, you've made a promise he believes you'll keep. What was it?”

  “Marriage. In a year if the war goes badly, in two if it goes well, but no longer than that or he'll withdraw his support.”

  “And yet you've romanced that woman.”

  A near-silent bark burst in the roof of Javier's mouth. “Ah. This is what you really wanted to talk about.”

  “Am I wrong, your majesty? You have an alliance built on a promise you seem to have no intention of keeping, and you would throw it away for a guttersnipe?”

  “Watch yourself, priest,” Javier said mildly. “That guttersnipe is as well-educated as you are, and dear to a king.”

  “I understand that,” Tomas grated, “but I also understand that we are near to Lutetia and that the king must not be allowed to make a foolish public statement that could shatter his alliances before his war has begun.”

  Javier pushed away from the rail, eyebrows lifted. “The priest has grown teeth.”

  “The priest was asked to join you as a moral compass, majesty, and finds himself—” Tomas broke off, gold eyes flashing irritation, and began again. “I find myself unable to hold my tongue on political matters, either, Javier, because your imperative is greater by far than pleasing your libido.”

  “I need Eliza. She's of the Gallic people. They'll love me for loving her.”

  “You're their king. They'll love you anyway. You need Parna, and Khazar if you can get it.”

  Javier sucked his cheeks in, gaze gone to the shore again. “So you would have me make her nothing more than a symbol to be set aside. I have no way out, Tomas. Marius will have nowhere left in his heart for me if I use her so.”

  “Marius has always been too gentle.” Eliza's voice came from behind them, rising and falling on the ocean wind. Javier turned to find her gaze hard as agates, and cursed that he'd not noticed her scent on the air. “They'll love you for loving me, Javier? Surely even a guttersnipe might aim higher than being a tool to funnel emotion through. All you had to do was ask. The game of love was unnecessary. Go away, priest. The king and I have things to discuss.”

  Tomas's eyes flickered to Javier's. Javier waved him away and the priest's nostrils flared before he bowed, sharply, and strode across the ship's deck to disappear below. Eliza watched him go, and Javier watched her: long body, rich curves, clothes dampened by seawater pressed against her skin, and he said, “It's not only a matter of politics, Liz.”

  “Isn't it?” She came to his side, a finger-length of hair tucked behind her ear where the wind couldn't snatch it away. “Then your timing is convenient, my lord.”

  Javier's voice dropped. “Please don't call me that.”

  “What other weapons do I have against you? My king, my brother, my love, my life. I would have played the part you need me to, Javier. You must know that.”

  “Yes.” The word came slowly, torn away by rising winds. Unless their direction changed, they'd not be putting in at Lutetia tonight; the coast would be too dangerous to navigate, open seas less likely to shatter a fragile hull. “And yet when Marius said you deserved better than that, I thought him right.”

  “You thought him right, but do you love me?”

  Heaviness pulled Javier's heartbeats into slow measures. “Belinda answered something in me that I thought couldn't be answered. She has witchpower, and showed me I wasn't alone. I would have thrown my crown away for her.” His eyebrows pinched, words coming hard. “That was passion. It was desperation. Perhaps it was love. But none of it was as terrifying as standing on your doorstep, with that idiot child spinning sonnets to charm you, while I struggled for the boldness to keep my crown for you. Belinda was right. I'd grown inured to true beauty, because you were always at my side. I think perhaps I've always loved you, and have never been wise enough to see it.”

  “You've always loved Sacha and Marius, too.”

  Javier gave her a sharp look that twisted into humour. “Aye, but never enough to bed them. The balance between the four of us was fragile, wasn't it? It would have been easy to tip into something that would have changed us all, and I never wanted to risk it. Easier to see you as a sister, until Belinda came and upset it all. Now I find myself here with you, and … Liz, do you not want to be queen?”

  “I want to be a mother, Javier, and neither dream is within my grasp. Turn your magic to my womb and give me my blood back, and aye, I
'll want to be your queen, but I will not watch you father a bastard on some serving girl of no higher birth but greater fertility. You have what you need in all of us, Jav The poor and guttersnipes in me, the merchants in Marius, and the young lordlings eager for war in Sacha. You're our king,” she said softly. “Use us as you must. Perhaps we all deserve better, but this is the price of befriending a prince.

  “Come, now,” she added into his pained silence. “Belowdecks, to tell your priest he'll have his way, and then you've a speech to practise for, king of Gallin. Lutetia awaits.”

  TOMAS DEL'ABBATE

  10 April 1588 † Lutetia, capital of Gallin

  Tomas is beginning to think God has a cruel sense of humour.

  A storm came over the sea yesterday, but this morning dawned clear and bright over a sailing ship washed clean of all visible signs of sin. The captain might have painted it white to make it gleam more, but he could have done nothing else. God might have commanded the sun to rise in the west so the light would be behind the new king of Gallin, but not even He could have done much else to trumpet Javier's return so beautifully.

  It is on calm waters with a westerly wind that the ship sails into Lutetia, and Tomas the priest has no idea how the city knows to turn out for this particular ship at this particular time, but they do, and they have.

  They're gathered by their thousands, lining the docks, lining the riverbanks, their voices raised in a cheer so solid that it seems a wonder that the wind is enough to push the ship forward against it. Javier's hair, which has grown long, is fire in the morning light, red and gold, and he stands at the ship's prow a pale aesthete thing of power. He is not clad in royal finery, but wears the simple rough shirt of a sailor, breeches buckled with a broad belt, and long boots that make a fine line of his slender legs. A naked sword hangs at his hip and catches sunlight, making silver streaks bounce in the crew's eyes and sending bolts of light into the shore-bound crowd.

 

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