by Morgan Rice
“Very magnanimous, your highness,” Sir Audley Vilens, a prominent merchant, said.
“That was before Sebastian attempted to kill me when I was bringing him back home,” Rupert said. “And before he started spreading rumors that he had been selected as our mother’s heir.” He gave it a moment before he said the next part. “Gentlemen, I believe my brother means to seize power.”
Again, uproar, but again, Rupert had expected it. He stood back and let it wash over him, picking up key hints of it.
“…would restart the civil war…”
“…goes against everything we stand for…”
“…would leave us vulnerable…”
Rupert listened for a little while, and then decided that the moment had come.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I think we all agree that this thing cannot happen. That is why I am asking for your support. Sebastian has tried to get rid of me, and I have no doubt that his next move will be to arrange the death of our mother. We must seek to protect the Dowager, to secure Ashton, and the kingdom, against any threat of attack from within or without.”
“What you’re asking is dangerous,” Sir Audley pointed out. “Those outside this might call this treason. Your mother—”
“Is that the same mother who has never given you lands of your own regardless of the amount of coin that goes into the royal coffers through your efforts?” Rupert asked. He turned to one of the soldiers there. “Is that the same mother who passed you over for promotion?”
He looked around them. “Who here has not been overlooked or put down by my mother?” he asked. “Whereas I am known to be generous to my friends. Help me do this, and the kingdom will be secure, while all of you will benefit. Allow Sebastian to tear it apart, and who knows what we all might lose?”
He watched them carefully, knowing that this was fragile, in spite of all he’d said. The men here didn’t have any reason to like him. Indeed, many probably had reasons to hate him. They knew enough of him to know that his reputation wasn’t entirely down to Sebastian’s work. Ultimately, though, they were men of self-interest, and what had his mother ever done for them? For him?
Rupert waited as they came to their decisions. Lord Jarsborough was the first to speak, breaking the silence as he stepped forward.
“Very well,” he said, with a bow. “I will aid you in this.”
“And I,” Sir Audley said, essaying a bow of his own. Neither man sounded excited by the prospect, but Rupert didn’t need them excited. He needed them to obey, as they should do.
From there, it was a cascade of the others, none of them wanting to be the last to sign up for this grand conspiracy. Rupert waited until the last of them had bowed, trying to look the image of a dignified monarch in waiting, before he spoke.
“It is settled then,” he said. “We act. For the crown!”
“For the crown!” the men repeated.
Rupert nodded. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are things I must do, preparations I must make.”
***
Rupert went down into the cellar, sliding aside the barrels that served as a false door. Normally, when he went down here, he felt a frisson of excitement at what he might do to those who had angered him, or made the mistake of catching his eye in the wrong ways. Today, he felt… strangely nostalgic.
“They tell me that you tried to escape,” Rupert said. “You hurt one of my men quite badly, little brother.”
He stared down at Sebastian. To his annoyance, his brother didn’t look quite as broken and pathetic as he should have right then. Sebastian just wasn’t good at playing the role that he was supposed to. Somehow, he managed to maintain a sense of dignity even in a cell.
“Do you care?” Sebastian shot back. “Do you actually care about anyone except yourself, Rupert?”
Rupert stood there, considering that question. As a general rule, he suspected that he didn’t care about others in the way they professed to care for one another. He’d always seen that as a kind of lie people told themselves, or a game they played to fit in with the world. He’d never felt the need for it.
“Do you remember when we were little?” he asked Sebastian. “We would play at being soldiers together, out on the lawns of the country estates we visited.”
“I remember that you took it as an excuse to thrash me,” Sebastian said.
“Well, the idea was to win,” Rupert shot back. He couldn’t imagine playing a game like that and standing there, willingly letting his brother win. That would have meant a beating for him. “Do you remember the time Lord Greengage’s children took it upon themselves to attack you?”
“I remember,” Sebastian said.
“They’d surrounded you, I think,” Rupert said. “Probably they were carried away with the game, or maybe they just saw a chance to hurt someone. People do, when they can.”
“Not everyone,” Sebastian insisted. He’d always been sentimental about that kind of thing.
“Do you remember that I stepped in?” Rupert asked. He could still remember charging toward them like some heroic knight out of history.
“You beat them senseless, you mean,” Sebastian said. “I remember that. Are you going to tell me that I should overlook the part where you’ve locked me up because you saved me from some children, Rupert? Are you going to say that it shows how kind you are?”
Rupert shook his head. “It wasn’t kindness. It was because you were my brother, and they didn’t get to do that to you. You were mine. You used to run around, doing what I told you, but now you and Mother have gone and made things complicated. I’ll have to deal with that, little brother.”
“What are you going to do, Rupert?” Sebastian demanded, as if Rupert had any obligation to give him answers.
“For now,” Rupert said, “I’m going to keep you here. It will be safer that way.”
“Why not just kill me?” Sebastian asked.
Rupert cocked his head to one side. “Why would I do that? You can’t do any harm here, and… well, it will give us a chance to talk.”
To Rupert’s surprise, he found that he quite liked that prospect. Rupert would go out and take a kingdom for himself while his brother would be here, waiting for him, whenever he wanted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sophia wasn’t sure what to do. She’d never set out to be the queen of anywhere, but now that her cousins were telling her that she couldn’t be, that Lucas should be king instead, she felt the pain of losing it.
For his part, her newfound brother watched her intently.
Are you all right?
His voice sounded in her head, sure and strong. Even that was a reminder, in its way, that he deserved this as much as she did. He had the same blood that Sophia and Kate did, and if he’d been the eldest, Sophia would have had no problem stepping aside.
I guess I don’t like being passed over just because I’m a woman, she sent back.
Nor should you, Lucas replied. I told you before how I stand on it.
“I have no wish to be a king,” he said, aloud so that her cousins could hear it. “Of the Dowager’s kingdom, or anywhere else.”
“But you are the oldest male heir,” Oli said. Now that he’d been reminded of the rules, he didn’t seem willing to let them go. Sophia didn’t blame him for that; she knew how much her cousin doted on the rules of the past. She didn’t even blame Endi, who she knew was only interested in protecting Ishjemme from the divisions that it might cause.
“But I am not the eldest,” Lucas said, “and Sophia is the one who is suited to this.”
“But you were raised to do this,” Hans pointed out, “whereas Sophia… was not.”
That annoyed Sophia a little. She turned to her cousin.
“I was brought up in a place that showed me what happens to the weakest in society when the strong do not defend them, Hans. Since then, I’ve seen the Dowager’s court, and most of her land.”
“In any case,” Lucas said, “if there is one thing that learning with Off
icial Ko taught me, it is that it is not enough to learn the five virtues and the sayings of the philosophers. I have the skills to aid a ruler, not to be one, whereas Sophia…”
He went down on his knee, offering up his sword in a movement so smooth it might have been rehearsed.
“I said this after I arrived,” he said. “But I will say it again so that you can all hear. I do not wish to be king. Sophia will be queen, and I will serve her. I will defend her against all who would harm her… or try to take her throne from her.”
“So will I,” Jan said, from the side of the hall.
They came forward one by one, even Endi and Oli, who had raised it in the first place.
“Then the question becomes one of how we give Sophia back her throne,” Hans said, when they were done. “Our army has been drilling, and now, when all the reports say that they are recovering from an attack, might be the perfect moment.”
“Our armies are strong,” Sophia’s uncle said. He gave her a questioning look. “If this is the moment, then we could do a lot.”
“This is one thing I could do for you,” Lucas said. “I might not be cut out to sit on a throne, but I could take one for you.”
Sophia could see how sincere they all were. Even Rika, whose mind seemed to be filled with fear at the thought, still didn’t want to leave the Dowager on her throne when it could be Sophia instead. Looking at her, Sophia found herself thinking of the moment when a would-be assassin had almost killed her cousin while Rika tried to save Sophia.
She thought of all the people who would die in a war for the throne, on both sides. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that her army would sweep through Ashton without doing harm, or that there would be no risk to her family if they fought. What if she woke up one morning to find reports waiting for her that Lucas had been killed, so soon after finding him, or Kate…
…or Sebastian?
That was a thought that seemed like far too real a possibility. If there was an invasion, then Sebastian would be a target as one of the Dowager’s sons. Sophia didn’t want him having to run the way she’d run as a child. She didn’t want him killed, just so that she could have a throne.
“I think you’re all getting ahead of yourselves,” Sophia said. “Why should we invade at all? You have a home that you love, and people to keep safe. I am more interested in finding my parents. Let’s leave war to other people.”
She wasn’t sure if she was convincing them or not. That was the strange thing about talking to her cousins, where Rika was the only one whose thoughts she could read. The big difficulty was that Sophia knew this was an old argument, which they’d been having since before she arrived in Ishjemme. Most of the people of the dukedom had already decided what they thought.
“I still think—” Hans began, but he didn’t finish it, because the doors to the great hall flew open. Sophia saw messengers rush in, and initially she thought that they might be bringing news of Kate, since riders had gone to look for her. Then she saw images in their thoughts of ships, and she knew the truth was far worse.
“We came… as fast as we could,” one panted. “Ishjemme… I think we’re under attack!”
***
Sophia could have waited safely within the walls of the castle, but some instinct told her that it was wrong to hide away while men were fighting, and maybe dying, for her. She didn’t want to be the one who sat there scared in the middle of an attack. Instead, she hurried from the hall, her cousins trailing in her wake. Hans was shouting orders, gathering soldiers. Jan went to collect a sword and pistol. Her Uncle Lars was like the calm heart of it all, readying for war with the heavy certainty of experience.
“Tell me again what’s happening,” Sophia said to one of the messengers. “Tell me about the ships.”
“They just arrived, your highness,” one of the men said. “I don’t see how they can have, though. They’d need to pick their way through the shallows, and to avoid being seen doing that… a man would have to know exactly where all the watchers were.”
“Could they have been killed before they got a message back?” Lucas asked.
That was a worrying thought, and not just because Sophia hated the thought of men dying to try to protect their home. She hated the thought that they might have failed, and that, at any minute, enemies might descend on them.
“To do that,” Hans said, “men would still have to sneak in without being seen. If even one were spotted, the towers would have lit their watch lights.”
Still, Sophia couldn’t think of another way for ships to just arrive in Ishjemme’s harbor. With the amount of effort that it must have taken, she found herself wondering why they weren’t already overwhelmed with enemies. Shouldn’t the streets have been thick with them by now?
As they left the castle, Sophia could see the fjord spread out before Ishjemme, and she could see the dark ribbon of ships that sat there in it. Some of them looked battered, as if they’d just come from another fight, but there were enough of them that it didn’t make a difference, especially not when they were turned broadside to bring their cannon to bear on the shore. Above them, dark specks circled.
“Crows,” Uncle Lars said, in a tone that made it clear how much he hated the sight of them. “The New Army has come calling.”
“Can we hold them back?” Sophia asked.
The hesitation before her uncle answered told its own story. They couldn’t, and they knew it. Not like this.
“We’ve thought ourselves safe because the mountains make it hard to approach by land, and the watchers see those who approach by sea,” he said. “Our armies are strong, but they aren’t mustered for a battle. We could hold them back long enough to evacuate some of the population, and get them into the hills.”
“Where they would starve,” Sophia guessed.
Her uncle nodded. “Still, it may be the only option that we have.”
Sophia wasn’t so sure about that. There was something wrong about this situation, something that made no sense. This enemy was in a position to attack them, had made it past Ishjemme’s defenses without effort, and yet they weren’t pressing their advantage. The artillery that could flatten wooden buildings with ease wasn’t firing. Soldiers weren’t storming onto the docks.
The only sign of any advance from the forces was in the form of a trio of long rowing boats, out on the water. As Sophia watched, they rowed closer, though only one landed on the shore. Sophia was more interested in what the other two held.
“They have our men,” Sophia said.
Ishjemme’s watchers sat, hands bound, in the boats. Soldiers of the New Army surrounded them, armed and obviously ready to cut them down. The threat was clear.
“If we attack, they’ll kill them,” Lucas said, putting it into words.
Sophia looked around, half expecting to see Kate there, working through some plan to free them. But there was no sign of her sister. Where was she?
A man stepped from the boat that had landed. He did it alone, or almost alone. Crows came with him, riding on his shoulders as if they were pets, in numbers so thick they could have been a cloak. He was tall and slender, wearing a long frock coat that made him look a little like a particularly gentrified scarecrow.
“The Master of Crows,” Lucas said. “It must be.”
Uncle Lars had a stony expression. “A man with a musket could bring him down.”
“And then our men would die, and his boats would attack,” Sophia said. She heard his voice then, whispering in her mind like the rustle of wings.
Come to me. Speak with me alone, or your men will die one by one.
Sophia had no doubt that he would do it. She knew from Kate what he was capable of. Maybe it was just as well that her sister wasn’t there, because there was no telling what she might have done in that situation. Actually, she suspected that she knew. Kate would have charged.
“He says that he wants to speak with me alone,” Sophia said. As if on cue, the Master of Crows beckoned to her as if summoning
her.
“Not alone,” Lars said. “He’ll kill you.”
“If that were his plan, he’d just attack,” Sophia pointed out. Sophia looked across to where the boats held Ishjemme’s soldiers. “Besides, I won’t ask them to die for me just because I’m too scared to risk this.”
“Then we should all go down,” Lucas said. “At least let me go with you.”
“Or we attack,” her uncle said.
Sophia shook her head. “You think a man who can guide ships here without being seen won’t have planned for betrayal? You think those cannon of his won’t fire? No, I have to do this. I want to do this.”
She did. She wanted to meet this man who had fought with her sister, and whose army had caused so much misery. She wanted to know the enemy she might have to face.
“If I am your queen,” she said, “then I have the right to choose to do this. If I am not, then I am not important enough to keep from doing it. Wait here. I’m going to talk with the Master of Crows.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Angelica arranged herself carefully in the chambers of Rupert’s townhouse, considering how she would look from the door as precisely as possible, because she knew that she would only have one chance to make an impression. She sat carefully on the edge of a chair before his great bed, balanced in that very precise space between demure and desirable. She’d changed from her wedding dress, wearing a brand new affair taken from a dressmaker purely on the strength of her word. She hadn’t dared to go back to her house yet, just in case the Dowager’s men were waiting for her.
“She expects me to run and hide,” Angelica whispered. “Well, I’ll do neither.”
“Talking to yourself, milady?” Rupert said as he entered. “You make a very poor burglar.”
Angelica had to admit that he was handsome in his way. Perhaps more classically so than his brother, looking the way a prince was meant to. It didn’t change anything about what lay underneath that exterior, of course, but it did potentially make some parts of this… easier. It was worth reminding herself of that.