The Pretender's Crown (19 page)

Indeed, Irina has approved; the bird arrived two days ago, before Akilina herself did. But Rodrigo's interest is piqued again, and his eyebrows lift. “What did you not say, dvoryanin?” This time he
speaks her language, a meeting of minds, or, at least, an affectation of it. Akilina quirks an eyebrow, too, and for an instant he thinks he sees humour in her gaze. That would bode well, though in the end it matters not at all whether they like each other in the least.

“I didn't say that I'm young enough to bear children, which Irina is not, or that the imperatrix will have considered that in this dance of alliances. She wouldn't give up her own reign to allow an imperator to sit over her again, or risk Ivanova's inheritance of the throne. A child of noble Khazarian blood in Essandia's royal family is the best outcome she could hope for.”

“And yet she did not bargain you away to this throne, or any other,” Rodrigo says thoughtfully, and Akilina, whose posture is already perfect, draws herself up further, insult and disdain written on her features. Able to see what she's about to say, Rodrigo makes a soft sound, hoping to dissuade her, and when she draws breath anyway, speaks before she does.

“Do not, Akilina. Don't make your protests, don't trade on the high road of your own pride. We are all of us slaves to our thrones, whether we serve by sitting on them or by bowing to them. Had Irina chosen to trade you away you would have gone, because that is the duty you owe your queen. I haven't chosen you because I need an obedient wife. I require a woman of wit and intelligence and boldness, and one who brings political alliances powerful enough to permit me to wage the battles that must be fought. We both know what is expected of us and we will both fulfill those roles.”

Colour mounts in Akilina's cheeks, reminding Rodrigo that although she's a woman grown, she is also half his age. A reprimand from him is very likely in the same vein as a scolding from her father, though if memory serves him, that man died when Akilina was only a child, not yet ten years old. Regardless, she's furious, and she's furious because he's right. It's not an ideal way to begin a marriage, but then marriage isn't an ideal Rodrigo holds to. Still, because he has no wish to enter a battlefield in the marriage bed, he does soften his voice and add, “The sheepskin truly is well done, my lady. You will be loved for it.”

Akilina nods, then wets her lips and glances the other way, more of a submissive act than Rodrigo expected of her. “By your leave,
my lord, my women will want to finish preparing me for the wedding.” She sounds soft and compliant, and her game comes into focus for Rodrigo: it
is
an act, and she is playing the part of the chastened wife.

“Of course.” Rodrigo waits until she is nearly at the chapel door, framed by it, framed by sunlight that brings out the red and gold in her black hair, and then he says, “Akilina.”

She stops at the sound of his voice: that is good. He waits until she's turned back toward him, and that she does is also good. “Do not think me weak because I admire your wit, lady. You will be queen, but I am and will remain your prince. Do not forget that.”

Akilina goes still before dropping a tiny and very precise curtsey. Then—clearly dismissed by her own reckoning, if not by Rodrigo's explicit permission—she turns on her heel and stomps off in an obvious fury to prepare for her wedding vows.

23 March 1588
†
Alunaer; the spymaster's office

“What news of Echon?” Impatience ill-suited Belinda: after weeks of tutelage and convent life, she ought to have been grateful that Cortes had called her to his offices.
Was
grateful, in most ways: being cut off from the spying and intrigue that had been her lifeblood for ten years and more made her feel displaced from the world. Still, impatience held her: impatience that she didn't already know the details of what she'd come to learn; impatience that whatever she might hear, it was unlikely that she'd be sent across the channel to once more involve herself in the machinations of continental politics.

Impatience, too, that she was kept in a cold grey box while Cortes sat in the comfort of his office with a healthy fire in the hearth and a cup of good wine at his elbow. The latter, at least, he offered some of, and Belinda took it with a wretched attempt at gratitude. Only after she'd sipped did he lean back in his chair and speak with unusual satisfaction. “Akilina Pankejeff has been ransomed from her Lutetian prison and has fled to Isidro under Rodrigo de Costa's banner. What think you of that?”

Belinda's poor temper fell away, and so, too—nearly—did the glass she held in her fingertips. She clutched the cup, sloshing wine over her hand, and for long seconds indulged in simply staring at Lorraine's erstwhile spymaster. He was second to Robert Drake in the network, but first in the eyes of the court: Belinda's father was merely meant to be a courtier, not a master of lies. “He means to marry her.”

Conflicted astonishment bubbled in her chest, wanting to turn both to laughter and horror. The idea of Rodrigo, so wedded to his faith that he'd never taken a wife, finally allying himself with anyone was too unexpected to be anything but laughable, but his choice was cold and calculated. Akilina was not, perhaps, a queen, but as a Khazarian dvoryanin was powerful enough to be sent as an ambassador, which meant she was important enough to be bargained in marriage. Her hand meant an alliance between the Ecumenic and Khazarian armies, and that was bitter dredges indeed for Aulun. Belinda murmured, “I should have killed her,” and was unsurprised at Cortes's nod. “What more?” she asked after a moment. “What else must I know?”

“That Javier de Castille has gone to Cordula,” Cortes said. “That in all likelihood he seeks the Pappas's blessing in a matter of war. You are here to tell me if he's an able leader, if we should fear his army on our border.”

“Not his army,” Belinda said without hesitation, “but his armada, or more rightfully, his uncle's. The Essandian navy is new and strong.”

“But Rodrigo's old, and it'll be to the pup that the people look. Is he a threat?”

Belinda rose, setting her wineglass aside as she went to stand before the fire. “He's been sore tested of late,” she eventually said. “His mother dead and his friends scattered. He's a king, Cortes, and he has a matter of vengeance to address. Of course he's a threat. But he fears himself and his own power, and that may cut the legs from under him.” She turned her head, giving her profile to the spymaster. “Do not tell her majesty that he's unworthy of attention; he is not. But neither is he of a nature to press forward when standing still might do. My counsel would be caution: give him no reason to
feel Aulun is moving toward war, and perhaps he'll talk himself out of it.”

All true enough, though if Javier had gone to Cordula, it was perhaps too late to stem a tide of battle. Not unless he betrayed his witchpower to the father of his church: they might burn him, then, and all of Echon would fall into chaos as Gallin became a prize for plucking. Belinda caught her breath, about to warn Cortes of the Gallic king's extraordinary magic, and let the impulse go again: he would not believe her unless she showed him her own hand, and that she'd never do.

Akilina Pankejeff, queen of Essandia.
Belinda turned her gaze back to the fire and indulged in the luxury of baring her teeth. Javier and his witchpower fears travelling to Cordula and seeking godly sanction was to be expected, next to Akilina's sudden rise. That Belinda was confined in a convent while the woman who had nearly destroyed her wed a king—she clenched a fist, then made herself relax, calling stillness to the fore. Lorraine would have a purpose in ensconcing her in the convent—that much she had to trust. In time whatever need drove her incarceration would pass, and she would be free to join the world again.

Until then, the meat of these matters would give her grist to chew on, and a queen's downfall would be a sweet plan to set in motion. Belinda, certain Cortes was done with her, dropped a curtsey and slipped back to her prison, the better to consider her rival's fate.

23 March 1588
†
Cordula; the Lateran palace

Tumultuous cries rose in the palace, roaring sound that Javier could barely distinguish from the magic surging through him. His vision was silver, witchpower throbbing in his veins. He had not looked for or controlled the terrible burst of power that had shattered through him at the Pappas's blessing. Now, as though it had scooped up the responses around him and dragged them back to settle within his bones, he could feel the awe and shock of the Primes.

He raised a hand to his eyes, pushing his thumb and middle fingers
over their lids. Silver squelched away, leaving ordinary mortal red and black spots swimming under the pressure he exerted. Some of the rushing left his ears as well, turning a din into distinguishable voices, all of them excited beyond what seemed appropriate for aged fathers of the church.

His hand fell away from his eyes of its own will, slow and graceful, as though he'd been granted some special gift of beauty for this brief moment in time. Uncertain of what he would see, he looked up at the Pappas, and found in that man's eyes wonder equal to that of a child's. As Javier watched, the Pappas crossed himself, then lifted his hands, lifted his gaze, and with that dramatic gesture quieted the hall.

“Javier de Castille has come to us a humble petitioner, seeking solace for his mother's soul, seeking blessings for his uncle's wedding, seeking, at last, God's ordinance in the wearing of his crown and in the duty of the church to win back those who have been led astray! I have anointed him king, but it is truly God's miracle that we, all unknowing, have gathered here to see. These old hands have crowned many heads, but never in my memory has God marked his chosen monarch so clearly. Witness he who is God's warrior and leader of our crusades!”

He drew Javier to his feet, turned him to face the Primes and many, many more: word of God's blessing had spread already, and people flooded into the Lateran hall, eyes alight with joy and hope and reverence. Astonished, a smile crept over Javier's face—small, he had the presence of mind to keep it small, and to lower his eyes in modest acceptance as the people began to chant his name. Over the din the Pappas shouted, “Cordula's armies are yours to command! We will win back our brothers and sisters in Aulun, and we shall turn God's chosen son and his warriors to all of Echon and beyond!”

Breathless, Javier took up the Pappas's hand and raised it high, then turned to the old man and knelt, receiving a new blessing in front of hundreds of believers. Power beat at his skin from the inside, shouting that he might reach out with his will and have all of these people as his own, to do with as he pleased. He quelled the impulse as he'd quelled it that morning facing Tomas. These masses
needed no coercion; they were his already, won over by what the Pappas, the
Pappas himself
, called a miracle. Surely, surely this man of God could not be wrong. Surely the witchpower was God's power, not deviltry, if it had been triggered by the Pappas's touch and if that holy man himself had not recognised and recoiled at it.

Tears scalded his face, and he brushed his fingers over them not with shame, but astonishment. Even with the relief of finding Belinda, whose magic and soul were like his own, he had not been moved to tears of joyful release. A lifetime's fears washed away as salt water slipped down his cheeks. The Pappas, standing above him, offered Javier an avuncular smile, perhaps mistaking his tears for awe at God's gift, almost certainly seeing them as a mark of unpretentious piety. Afraid the truth was visible in his eyes, Javier glanced down, then turned his head to search out Marius's gaze, and Tomas's, hoping for their faces to be as elated and accepting as he felt.

Marius, who had once been the merriest of their foursome, was solemn, but with the grave pleasure that often marked men of means. He inclined his head when Javier caught his eyes, a small gesture that seemed to Javier to hold all the promise of friendship in the world within it. Smiling, and no longer trying to hide it or seem demure, Javier turned his gaze to Tomas.

There was no pleasure at all in the priest's face, but instead, despair. Javier saw it in how he looked from Javier to the Pappas to the Primes; in how he glanced back at the throng of cheering faithful, and in how his eyes finally came back to Javier. He had lost his will to the young king of Gallin once, said his gaze; he has lost his will once, and did not at all trust that the same thing had not just happened now, in a flash of brilliance that stole men's wits from them all unknowing.
You are damned
, his golden eyes warned.
Javier, king of Gallin, is damned, and I will see this abomination ended.

Matters of state and religion separated Javier from those he called friends long before he might have stolen a moment to speak with them. Marius waved a wry good-bye as Javier was swept by him, but Tomas's lingering glance was grim. There would be time, Javier
judged; there had to be time for him to seek out the priest and speak with him before Tomas was granted an audience with the Pappas or with one of the other high princes of the church; before he sought out his own father. He could be made to see sense, if Javier swore on holy things that he had not acted with deliberation; Javier was sure of it. Had to be sure of it, for the alternative bore no consideration: Tomas could not be right, and his magic could not be devil-born. The priest was young and as fearful of evil as Javier himself, but Rodrigo was older and wiser and had seen God's will in Javier's talent, and the Pappas himself had named it a miracle. Tomas would see it, even if Javier had to bend knee and beg his forgiveness for the terrible things Javier had done to him. The idea stung, but not as badly as did the fear of losing what he'd been given, or the still-greater terror of burning.

Only later did he realise how well-suited he'd been, that day, for what transpired. He had been dressed in greys, shades that suited his pale skin and red hair; a cloak thrown over his shoulders turned him to a king in white, God's very banner thrown to the sky. He was carried, literally, lifted on shoulders and made high so all might see him clearly, and he called out thanks and blessings until his throat was sore from it, and someone thrust a glass of fine red wine into his hand. He gave the last sip to an old woman, and if she did not quite shed her skin and rise up a beauty in the flush of youth, she at least seemed to throw off the worst of her age in a flush of excitement, and voices around her cried out that she had been healed of cataracts and aching bones. Hands reached to touch his cloak, to brush his thigh or catch hold of his fingers as he was borne through the crowds, and with each caress an increasing benediction grew in him, filling him as full as the witchpower ever had. He thought he might burst with pride, as though light might rush from his body and scatter over all the Cordulan people, and for the first time he felt no fear at the thought.