The Pretender's Crown (21 page)

“As you already have done with me.” Tomas kept his voice to a murmur, but the words were sharp. “I must go to the Pappas with this. He's wiser than I, and will lay my concerns to rest.”

“Or take up your banner,” Javier said with low intensity. The back of his skull began to throb, every heartbeat pulsing incandescent light through it, molten blood turning to silver fire. He clenched his jaw, struggling to use reason over power. “Tomas, you trusted me this morning. I beg that you do so now.”

“You've become easier with begging, when it's your soul you fear for. Had you pled in Isidro instead of commanded, we might not be here now. I am sorry,” the priest said firmly. “I will visit with the Pappas in the morning.”

Javier whispered, “I can't let you.”

“If you stop me, then we'll both know that I'm right. That this power is the devil's, and that you're on a path to Hell.” Challenge lit Tomas's golden gaze. “Are you God's creature, king of Gallin, or are you the devil's spawn?”

Javier seized Tomas's arms, a grip hard enough to make his own hands hurt; harder, it felt, than any mortal should be able to hold something. There would be bruises left at the least, warning to the bold priest that he should not stand in the face of a king's will, much less the witchpower tide that surged within Javier. He twisted Tomas toward the small chapel's altar, forcing him over to it; the priest bent like a reed, awkwardly arched beneath Javier's weight. His expression, though, was calm as he gazed upward, beyond Javier. Incensed, Javier glanced up as well, searching for whatever gave Tomas such serenity.

The Madonna rose above them, babe in arms, her smile sweet and soft as she looked on her child and the light of all humanity's hope.

A strangled noise erupted from Javier's throat all unbidden, cutting off his witchpower will. He staggered back and Tomas straightened easily, smoothed his robes, and then lifted his gaze to Javier's, unspoken sorrows written in it.

Javier gasped, “Forgive me,” even knowing he deserved no forgiveness, and Tomas made the sign of the cross before leaving Javier to fall before the Madonna in prayer for his own soul.

24 March 1588
†
Cordula; the Lateran palace

He has put this meeting off too long, has Tomas; has done so out of misplaced loyalty to the witchbreed prince. He ought to have come to the Pappas's palace the day they arrived in Cordula, rather than steal long days of relaxation with Javier. With Javier and Marius, but it's the fiery-haired prince—now king—whose company Tomas has coveted, as though the willpower Javier wreaked on his mind has left a channel of weakness, like some men have for wine. No longer: even if he might have, Javier's struggles with his devil's gift are growing too uncontrolled; it is twice now that he has barely stopped himself from rolling Tomas's will, and the second time was quite truthfully through the grace of God alone.

An earnest-faced boy, younger by some years than Tomas, hurries toward him, and gestures eagerly when he sees he's gained the priest's attention. “The Pappas will see you. Please, come this way.”

Tomas is brought not to the audience hall, but to more private chambers, still grandiose and awe-inspiring, but less inclined to echo and carry voices. Tomas kisses the holy ring and is invited to sit, but worried energy keeps him on his feet. The Pappas himself does sit, and watches with beneficent amusement. When he's judged Tomas's fussing has gone on long enough, he says, “You have done well, in Essandia, my son. If this is your concern …”

“No.” The abruptness of the word brings Tomas to a stop, and he kneels in horrified apology. “I mean, yes, of course it's to my shame that I was unable to convince Rodrigo to wed one of the Pappas's choices, but that isn't what has brought me here. It's Javier, holy father. The king of Gallin,” he corrects himself. “It is the—It is what we saw yesterday, that brilliant light.”

“God's blessing,” the Pappas says with genial reverence. “We are fortunate to have a king so well loved by the Lord.”

“I fear it was not God's blessing, your holiness.” The words scrape Tomas's throat and it takes all his nerve to peek up at the Pappas to see how the holy man takes to being corrected.

He appears to take it with all the astonishment Tomas might expect, and not yet, at least, any of the offence. Tomas's explanation tumbles out, from Javier's impetuous arrival in Essandia to the overruling of Tomas's intention to bring the deadly power to the church's eyes; from the destruction Javier learned to wreak under Rodrigo's tutelage to what Tomas fears is the truth about Rodrigo's decision to marry: that Javier has stolen his will, too.

Here, the Pappas raises a hand and leans forward, a question on his lips: “This compulsion you say Javier placed on you has faded, though. Would it not have done the same with Rodrigo before he set foot in church to be wed?”

Miserable with uncertainty, Tomas replies, “I think my faith has protected me, Holy Father. I believe I may have been more difficult to convince to keep silent than he is accustomed to. I fear Rodrigo, who is his blood and bone, may not be as strong in his faith when it comes to family.”

The Pappas nods thoughtfully and gestures for Tomas to continue. The remaining story pours from his lips, his decision to trust Javier until that terrible burst of silver dominated the room; his fear that weaker minds, never implying that the Pappas himself might be
so affected, for such an idea is anathema, but weaker minds may have been led to believe a thing that was not true. He ends with the night before, with his free will saved only through the grace of God, and when he falls silent, so, too, does the Pappas for a long while.

“I am glad that you have told me of this,” the Pappas finally says, heavily. “It seems the road I thought lit by sunshine has darker shadows hanging on it. You say that the symbol of the Madonna broke his will, though?” He nods when Tomas does and goes on, more thoughtful now than weighty. “And it seems that he trusts you. I am loathe to put you in the devil's sight, my son, but I think Cordula needs you at Javier's side.”

“He has asked for me to accompany him,” Tomas whispers. He cannot, it seems, speak above a whisper: these are matters too large for his slender shoulders, too important for a youth of his years. “I have agreed already, if I have your leave.”

“My leave and my blessing. Do not worry, my son.” The Pappas leans forward and puts his fingertips against Tomas's forehead, soothing for all that his hands tremble with age. “God has shown us a path to reclaim our lost brothers and sisters in Aulun, and we must trust Him. Javier's power, if it is as extraordinary as you say, will stand us well in the war to come.”

Then, casually, as if intending to reassure, the Pappas smiles and adds, “We can always burn him later.”

1 April 1588
†
Aria Magli, in Parna

Javier, king of all Gallin, heir to the Essandian throne, child of the last Lanyarchan queen, and pretender to the Aulunian crown, leaned across a gondola seat, arms crossed to support himself, and, in utmost confidence, murmured, “I am looking for a woman,” to the gondola boy.

The boy, who was perhaps twelve and more probably ten, leaned on his pole, edging the boat along its busy canal, and offered a heartfelt sigh of sympathy “Sì, signor, so are we all. A beautiful woman, no? A woman with eyes like diamonds and hair like spun gold, with skin softer than silk and arms warm as the fire. Her touch may burn,” he said mournfully, “but for such a woman the pain is worth everything.”

Javier blinked, first at the boy, then over his shoulder at Tomas and Marius, neither of whom made even an attempt to control their laughter. Javier cleared his throat and turned back to the boy whose expression had been wiped entirely clear of theatrics in the moment Javier'd looked away, and who now looked cheerful and expectant. “This is the woman you seek, no? I will bring you to her. I know many fine ladies, and you are a man of wealth, I can see that in your clothes. You will be pleased with me, and I shall bring home a fat chicken to my father and my brothers and sisters with the payment you give me.”

“Ah,” Javier said, still half outwitted. “I'm looking for a specific woman, I'm afraid.”

“And you start by asking me because I am the finest gondola boy on the canals,” the boy said without hesitation, “which is wise, for I know many people, but there are many more people I do not know. But perhaps my people will know people who know your lady. She is a courtesan, sì?” he added in a tone that suggested they were the only women worth seeking out.

“Sì,” Marius said from behind them, though Javier'd shaken his head in disagreement. He looked back a second time to find the laughter gone from Marius's face. “A courtesan, a foreign woman, from Gallin, with black hair and brown eyes, and she wears an alabaster ring on this finger.” He lifted his left hand, touched his middle finger. “She would wear dresses of her own fashion, not the usual that you would see.”

“A courtesan, Marius?” Javier asked through his teeth, and in Gallic.

The look Marius turned on him was almost pitying. “That or a widow, Jav She's got some money, but she'll need more, and in Aria Magli the easiest way to be a woman of means is to be one of them.” He jerked his head toward a high window, where a woman much like the one the gondola boy had described leaned out, breasts on display as she waved and blew kisses at the passersby “Eliza has the beauty, the wit, and, thanks to you, the education for it. Why not?”

“I thought you thought her better than the prince's whore.”

“Here, she would be her own whore, and I would mark that higher, aye, my lord.”

“What kind of dresses does she wear, signor?” The gondola boy's voice broke over their argument in a clarion call, pure and utterly without awareness of growing tension. Javier, irritated, looked back at the child and found determination in his eyes, much older than his years. He wasn't unaware after all, but deliberately pulling them away from feuds, no doubt in concern over his payment. Anger faded beneath an appreciation for the boy's business sense, and Javier traced the shape of one of Eliza's flowing, high-waisted gowns in the air.

“Like this, with a band beneath the breasts that makes a false high waist, and the necks are scooped low.”

“Like her,” the boy said with a nod up the canal. Javier twisted to see a woman in just such a gown, who wore extravagantly coiffed black curls tumbling around her shoulders, accept a gypsy man's hand in helping her into a gondola, and leapt to his feet.

“Eliza!
Eliza!”

The gondola boy squawked “Signor!” in alarm, while Tomas and Marius both grabbed for Javier's hips, trying to pull him back to sitting. Men and women—women, particularly—passing on bridges and looking out windows paused to look first at Javier, then for the woman he called for, titters of romance and teasing floating over the brackish waters. The woman herself didn't look back, and Marius, tilting to examine her once Javier was seated again, said, “Not unless she's put on two stone since we saw her last. You're not going to endear yourself to her if she hears you're mistaking a barge for a sailing ship.”

“Catch up to them,” Javier snapped. “I need to know where she got the gown.”

“Oh, but it is dangerous, signor, to push and shove on the canals. If my boat capsizes my father will beat me—” His complaints stopped as he snatched the coin Javier threw to him. There was almost no break in his poling as he secreted the money away, and then his voice rang out in a song of emergency, unrequited love, and thwarted passion. That the details clashed and muddled, making no sense at all, bothered no one, and laughing gondoliers made way for the boy and his boatful of hopeful young men.

“You,” the child said to Javier as they approached the woman's gondola, “you hold your tongue, signor. I will talk.”

“He's got no faith in your romancing talents, Jav.” Marius, grinning, reached out to thump Javier's shoulder. “Perhaps he knows you better than we think.”

Javier scowled and the boy aimed a kick at him, unknowing and uncaring of his passenger's rank. “Look winsome, signor, or the lady will not care about your tale of woe.”

“My tale of what?” It was too late: the boy had leapt from his own boat to the neighbouring, causing a shriek of dismay and then of laughter as he knelt beseechingly at the woman's feet. Javier, hoping to look lovelorn, unwisely thought of Beatrice, and felt his
expression turn to rage. He dropped his face into his hands, and listened to the story of how he was a cloth merchant's son, wealthy enough to dress well but beggared when his father's silk shipment had been drowned in the Primorismare. Now all his hopes of love and happiness rested on wooing a beautiful girl who did not yet know of his misfortunes.

He had, according to the boy, promised her a gown of extraordinary beauty, of rare and subtle cut, and his heart was inspired by this woman's dress, though in truth even his beloved could never fill it so generously or well as this woman herself did. It was his fate to be unable to look so high as to this woman herself, but perhaps she might share the name of her dressmaker, and where to find her, so that the poor cloth merchant's son might take the last bolt of good fabric he had to his name and have a wedding gown made to change his destiny.