The Pretender's Crown

by C. E. Murphy

  The man with the mules puts paid to thoughts of his own long life so abruptly that Rodrigo's grin broadens. He's silver-haired and rheumy-eyed, carries a stick taller than he is, and leans heavily on a donkey who slurps at a trough full of pale pink water. He—the man, not the donkey, though the donkey's seen innumerable years himself—looks to be ninety if he's a day, and seems to have been carved out of already-gnarled wood over which a brightly-coloured sackcloth has been thrown. It's possible that not even Rodrigo would have stopped him from trodding through camp, because despite the gondola boy's warnings of thumpings, the visitor looks as though he's unlikely to keep his feet without the support of both staff and beast.

  Indeed, he leans toward Rodrigo with a wobble bordering on the dramatic, and squints at him with those blue rheumy eyes. “King's man,” he says unexpectedly, and in such a heavy mountain dialect it takes Rodrigo a few seconds to translate it into clear Essandian.

  Then he blinks, too nonplussed to take offence. “Prince's man if any, grandfather. I—”

  “Pah!” The old man waves his stick like it carries a banner; indeed, Rodrigo's gaze snaps to its top for an instant, looking for the flag that would give this old man such confidence. “Prince's man, sure enough, but ‘king's man’ has more strength in its sound. King's man, man's king, doesn't matter anyway, you're losing this war, king's man.”

  Now offence does win out, bitter ashy taste in Rodrigo's mouth. It's not that the old man's wrong; it's that admitting it openly in front of a gathering crowd of curious, sleepy-eyed troops is not to be done. But before he can give a diplomatic answer—before, thankfully, the gondola boy can give a less diplomatic response—the old man waves his stick again, this time all but under Rodrigo's nose. “I've brought you a gift, king's man. I've brought you a toy to turn the tide.”

  While Rodrigo is still looking for something to say, the old man steps back and with a flourish, tears the canvas from his wine-drinking mule's cart to expose the new way of the world.

  That's what Rodrigo thinks when the canvas comes back to reveal a shining gun on heavy wheels: this is the new way of the world. It is clearly a weapon, and clearly not a cannon, though it's the size of one. But rather than a large barrel it has many smaller ones set in a circle, and at its arse-end, where a cannon fuse might be lit, there's a large box with slanted sides. Rodrigo's moving, climbing the cart wheel, staring at the gleaming monstrosity with an excitement that turns his knees weak and makes his breath come short. In a half-century of life, he's never met a woman or a man who had such an effect on him: if he had, he might have fallen prey to a marriage bed or mortal sin long since. But his eyes are for the weapon, and there's a crank within reaching distance; Rodrigo spins it, sending the barrels rattling in a circle.

  Now he understands the box on top, or almost: he feels like a child exploring a hidden passageway as he climbs inside the cart and looks into the angled box; into the hopper that will feed bullets into a half-dozen barrels. His heartbeat is so fast his vision swims, and it's all he can do to stop from crowing as he spins the crank again and listens to the empty barrels chatter. “How quickly does it fire?” Oh, God is listening, God is concerned for the Ecumenic army's fate after all, and has sent an angel of war to Gallin in the form of this rickety inventor and his drunken donkey.

  “Six hundred rounds in a minute,” the old man says, “and there are five more like it. The trouble is making enough bullets, king's man. Set your men to it, if you want to win this war. A single man can only do so much.”

  “We'll need a whole new way of making them.” Rodrigo kneels by his terrible gun, smoothing a hand down one of its long thick barrels, and when he looks along its line, he sees a future that didn't exist only minutes ago. He feels as though his mind's been opened, as if curtains he never knew were there have been drawn back to let sunlight in, and it makes him giddy. He's an embarrassment to himself, and he doesn't care. “Men can't keep up with that rate. Perhaps if we build a line to pour moulds, to quench the shells in water and have men pour gunpowder in at the end. The line could be run on a waterwheel and by men with bellows to heat the metal. Yes.”

  He might have done as much to make any bullet: that thought strikes him, and fades away without rancour. This opening of his mind is a gift, and if he looks backward there's no shame in having only thought as ordinary men did. But now, faced with a mechanised gun, the possibility of its components being created with the same efficiency as it would fire them seemed vivid and obvious. “How did you think of it?” he whispers.

  The old man snorts dismissively and in so doing shows his plea sure. “Old doesn't mean foolish, king's man. A cannon's slow to load and gets too hot to use, and pistols are worse. But the two together, and put on a crank to keep the barrels cool, now that was a bit of cleverness.” He leans on his staff, age-lumped hands wrapped around it, and looks satisfied. “A forge and patience in the mountains, that's what it took, and a few dead cattle when I was wrong about how far the bullets would go.”

  “I'll make reparations,” Rodrigo says drily, and straightens from his inspection of the gun to smile at the old man. “So? Will you show us how it's used?”

  BELINDA WALTER

  4 July 1588 † Brittany; the Aulunian camp

  In the last weeks Belinda had become, if not enured to, at least accustomed to the sounds of warfare: the screams of men and horses alike, the thunderous crash of bodies and metal; the louder-yet roar of cannon and the reports of muskets and pistols. Those last were the rarest of the cacophony, too unpredictable in comparison to sword and arrow and cannon.

  But what she heard now, what she had been hearing an hour or more since, was a different thing entirely. Gunfire shattered the night repeatedly, manifesting as bursts of white fire in the distance when she peeled back the tent door to search for the sound's source. She'd closed the door again and settled back into her place, trying to let the noise disappear into the night while she focused on her preparations, but it invaded her hearing time and again. If a hundred men could be taught to shoot a hundred muskets in succession, no misfires ever heard, it might sound a little like what tore from the Ecumenic camp. Men, though, would never be so precise, each rattle snapping off in flawless succession, and when it would briefly stop she found herself straining to hear it again, waiting for whatever portents it brought to come clear.

  It was easier, perhaps, to concentrate on that than to let stillness take her and make herself face the necessary choices she'd made. Without the stillness, without her usual certainty, she felt adrift. If an overwhelming love would take her, a compulsion to do whatever she must in order to preserve her child's life, then she might act more freely, but she had no softening of her heart, no dewy-eyed romance to hold herself to. The babe had to survive, not from love, but from pragmaticism. Robert's alien war was coming, and a witchpower child of her own birthing meant a small hope that there would be aspects of that war beyond Robert's control, aspects that might do her world some good. So the child must be preserved at any cost, even giving it up to Javier de Castille. She had no other choice, and the woman Belinda Primrose had been a year ago would not recognise that decision or the woman who made it at all.

  A year. Gregori Kapnist had died barely more than a twelvemonth past, and Belinda's world had come unmoored in the time since. She would cut her last lashings today, and wondered what would be made of her in future days. Robert and Lorraine would never trust her again, and she might well pay for her decisions with the loss of her throne.

  Dry humour curved her lips. So be it: she'd never sought the throne to begin with. Witchpower ambition itched with dismay at that, but settled again; it seemed that part of her was inclined to protect the unborn babe as well, and could ignore the middling detail of a throne until later.

  “Belinda?” Ivanova spoke from her corner, quiet but fully alert. Belinda paused in collecting a soldier's uniform. She couldn't be ready to ride with the dawn, for fear Robert would visit before the battle began. Wisdom might
have sent her from the tent an hour since, prepared to hide amongst the troops, but the sounds from the Gallic camp and her own need to sit a while and face the decisions she'd made had held her in place.

  She turned to Irina Durova's daughter. “I'm about to cast myself to the wolves, and when I return I think I'll no longer be the favoured daughter. I wonder: will Khazar grant sanctuary should I require it?” The words were very soft, soft enough that listening ears wouldn't hear them, but she feared Robert's witchpower might reach forth to pluck her intentions from her thoughts. No quiet voice could stop him from doing that.

  “Aulun and Khazar are allied,” Ivanova said after a long moment. “We would be pleased to offer you a place in our home should you require it.” She waited a moment, then sat up in the darkness. “Has something gone awry?”

  “Robert intends on drawing this war out,” Belinda said steadily. “My thought to bring victory by leading the troops today has been refused.”

  Ivanova caught her breath and Belinda lifted a hand against her concerns. “I'll ride, regardless. But Robert will know then that he doesn't control me, and—”

  A new burst of gunfire rattled, drowning Belinda's voice even from the distance. Ivanova frowned, looking through the greying light as if she could see through the tent walls. “What is that? It woke me a while ago.”

  “It's the changing of our plans.” The tent door flew open to admit an invigorated Robert, his eyes bright and actions full of energy. “Primrose, I'd almost dream you knew of this, with your plan for the morning. No,” he said almost instantly, as a confused frown marred Belinda's forehead. “No, I see you didn't. It's Seolfor,” he said with admiration. “It must be, after all this time. Forty years. He might have built enough to change the tide in that time, even without automation. They'll be enough to terrify the troops, at the least. Our men will run all the way back to Aulun without some kind of bolstering, and so you'll ride with them today after all, Primrose. You'll become the banner that denies their fear and drives them forward to capture the guns and win the day.”

  For all his fine words, Robert didn't release Belinda to the battle until the sun reached its zenith. By then the new Cordulan weapons were clearly visible: half cannon, half gun, they rained devastation and men fell under their onslaught like bits of straw. Even the Khazarians, with so many men to throw against the rapid-fire guns, cowered and then finally refused orders, falling back in disarray.

  Panic shot through the Aulunian troops as the Khazarians retreated. Belinda, still a far and safe distance from the front lines, knotted her fingers over a twisting stomach, her throat tight against the need to disgorge fear in sickness. Half a day: half a day's battle, and the Ecumenic army was wiping away the difference in numbers. More than two thousand men were newly dead, and easily twice that number injured or dying.

  This, Belinda reminded herself with crystal precision, this was just the beginning of the future she intended to create. The part of her that was the assassin trained from childhood wanted to stand and watch and feel nothing, to envelop herself in stillness and become remote from death and destruction. For all its horror, it was a necessary horror: without these terrible weapons, without more like them, growing worse with each generation, when Robert's queen and her enemies came for Aulun and Echon, they would be left defenceless. This must be done, she whispered to herself, and let go a small bitter laugh at the echo it wakened in her mind: it cannot be found out.

  That echo had the power to shatter her stillness, even if she had the strength to hold it in place. Oh, she had it: a grim, deep-set part of her knew that she could, if she must, draw untouchability around herself and care nothing for the men who died. But they deserved better than her cold calculations. They were dying for the choice she'd made, and she would do them as much honour as she could, by flinching and trembling and dreading each new burst of gunfire as they did.

  When the Khazarians broke, Robert legged Belinda onto a tall solid mare and handed her the reins. Belinda gazed down at him a long moment, etching his features into her memory. It would be half a year or more before she saw him again, and the world itself might change in that time.

  One side of Robert's mouth curled up in a smile, and he nodded, paternal indication of pride and love. Then he slapped the mare's hindquarters and sent Belinda into battle without a word spoken by either of them.

  Witchpower lanced out as the mare leapt forward, a golden surge of light so brilliant it might have been born of the sun itself. It carried all of Belinda's needs: the need to act instead of watch, the need to keep a devil's promise with the red-haired king of Gallin, the need to survive at any cost, so her world could be shaped to fight a battle none of them was yet able to understand. Magic scoured the earth in front of her, tearing it up, and her own men fell back as if they were afraid the new Cordulan guns had come up from behind, as well. A path opened all the way to the front lines, and only there did it crash against Javier's shielding, and reverberate, golden play of power against silver in a familiar erotic thrill.

  Belinda bared her teeth and her sword in one gesture, each as much a warning to herself as a rally to the troops. Fury at seduction's hideously easy path dampened any desire to pursue it, but she hadn't been wrong in telling Javier that because they knew that route better than any other, they would have to find a way to force themselves past it when using their witchpower in tandem.

  For an instant her perspective twisted, magic playing between herself and Javier, until she stood behind silver shielding and watched a golden rod of power race toward her. She could see herself in the red coat of an Aulunian soldier but with her hair left loose and long and free, could see the strong slim lines of her legs clutching the mare's bellowing ribs, could see her sword lifted and her face contorted with the energy of war.

  She was, she thought dispassionately, quite beautiful, in the way of ancient goddesses riding to battle. She'd never thought herself beautiful at all, only pretty; prettiness was safer for one such as herself, because beauty would be remembered. Just now, though, seeing herself blazing with witchpower, with God's power, beauty seemed a gift she was glad to accept.

  Javier himself had a deeper and more visceral reaction, rage and lust and fear all tangled until they turned to loathing, and it was with that deep hatred the witchpower snapped back and returned her vision to normal. With it came an awareness that her troops were rallying, that men were screaming the Holy Mother's name and falling in behind her with an eagerness to protect her or die trying.

  Her magic and Javier's slammed together again as she crashed into the front lines, sword suddenly no longer aloft to win hearts but swinging and splashed with crimson. The mare screamed and struck out with her hooves and Belinda fought in time with her, leaning to slash and stab and strike with strength that seemed beyond mortal. That was battle, that was witchpower, and together they made her feel unstoppable. No one near her fell to the rapid-fire guns: her shields were as strong as Javier's, and bullets shattered against them. Cannon roared, trying to bring her down, and then faded away as guns were pointed elsewhere, taking on targets who would die as they were meant to. Her sword arm turned to fire, then to lead, and finally passed into the dull ache that she recognised from practise as a child. She could fight forever this way, if she must, but instead she flung herself, time and again, at Javier's shield, golden surges of magic slivering sparks of silver. She would break through; she had to. The larger part of her no longer recalled why, except that she was at war, and that was what one did in war.

  It seemed to her, then, that she was the last to notice that the fighting fell away; that men of both armies were taking their distance from her and looking elsewhere on the field. Belinda threw a weary look toward the sun, though at midsummer its place in the sky told her less about the time than it might have. Midafternoon, at the least; she had been fighting for some hours, and only with the breather that came on her now did she wonder if she could continue on. But the men around her weren't looking toward t
he sun or toward the fast-guns that had, unobserved, fallen silent. Their attention was turned to the Gallic camp, and Belinda, belatedly, saw what had arrested them.

  Javier de Castille came to war at last. He rode a grey horse, making Belinda notice for the first time that her mare was a bay. It ought to have been gold, she thought then; that would make her and her brother as different on the field as they could be. Unlike herself, Javier wore armour, but then, in armour no one would have seen her for a woman, and the point of her presence was to be the queen of Heaven's avatar, while the point of Javier's was to be God's warrior. He'd forgone a helm and his hair was afire in the sunlight, grown long enough to edge over the armour's neckpiece. Belinda thought if a sword should clip a bit of those locks from his head, the red strands would become talismans as precious as the Son's blood to those who snatched them up. He rode slowly at the head of a small spear of men, coming to war as Belinda's opposite in every way.

  Forgetting that he was the enemy, forgetting that she would have to lose to him, forgetting everything but admiration for showmanship, Belinda stood in her stirrups and raised her sword in a salute to the Gallic king. Even across the distance, she saw surprise filter over Javier's face, and he echoed her gesture, raising his blade. Silver witchpower shot up, bright against the blue sky, and the Ecumenic armies erupted in cheers.

  Belinda, grinning, swept her sword in a broad half-circle above her horse's ears, and golden fire ripped across the distance toward Javier and his men. He shielded, magic splattering across the field, and war was on them again, the respite lost under screams and blood and passion.

  Javier rode for her, as she knew he would. His arrowhead contingent of riders lost its shape to the press of battle, but others joined him as they picked up speed and came to crash against the Aulunian front lines with all the strength they had to muster. The shock reverberated through her, rattling her shields, but she urged her mare forward again and shouted out her own war cry as swords clashed and rang together. The fast-guns began firing again, spitting death more rapidly than any sword could deal it. Belinda let herself forget again that she was fighting to lose, and kicked and bludgeoned and struck her way toward the king of Gallin.