The Pretender's Crown (31 page)

4 June 1588
†
The Aulunian Straits

The sun rises red as blood over waters soon to be awash with it. Belinda Primrose is not a fool: she has not gone to battle on the sea. She could, if she must; her father taught her the sword, and her dancing master taught her the grace that stood her well in learning the blade. He would be horrified at the use his lessons had gone to. But she will not, today, make use of the rapier she wears; at least, she hopes not.

Because a storm is coming up the straits, black as hell on the horizon. It will fill the Essandian navy's sails and press them on to Aulun's shores; press them up the short cliff-lined distance between the straits and the palace at Alunaer's centre. Belinda has no doubt that this is what the generals and admirals of the encroaching army expect and hope for.

Any other day, they might be granted their desires. But this morning, Belinda Primrose is standing alone on a cliff-top, her hair bound so severely it looks short, and her breasts bound even more tightly: she is a man today, for the sake of making war. She wears pants, tall boots, a red coat; she might be any sentry, waiting for the first sign of conflict to be unleashed. A musket is held in one hand, loosely; Belinda does not like guns, though she understands their usefulness. A good general does not give up a weapon simply because he dislikes it.

The wind, always high on the cliffs, is coming up. It smells of seawater and gunpowder, and tastes of salt. Belinda quells the urge to fling herself into it: to trust its strength and hang above the cliff's edge, unfettered by the world's pull. She has seen soldiers try it, now and then, and has seen how the untrustworthy wind cuts out and sends men plummeting to their death. The impulse to fly is enticing, but the wish to live is stronger. There will be other ways to die today, and it is her purpose to make certain those ways are visited on her enemy.

The tide has changed in the minutes since she arrived on the crimson-lit cliffs. That will be the signal Javier's army is waiting for: water pulling toward Aulun's cliffs, not retreating from them. The first ships will be launching now, catching the storm's winds to drive themselves forward toward battle.

Aulun's small and aging fleet is already waiting in the straits. They're too distant to be seen, but the bindings that hold Belinda so tightly restrain only her body. Witchpower flows free in her mind, golden power strong enough to rival the bloody sunrise, and it is that magic which will tell her the ships are engaged, and that it's time to turn the storm.

Rodrigo told him not to risk himself on the sea, and Javier, cowlike, agreed. He lied, of course, but he agreed.

It is the
Cordoglio
whose wings he rides; the Maglian captain put a fist to his heart and offered the swift tidy vessel as the armada's flagship. Javier accepted out of symbolism and out of dramatics, and in no little part to remind his people that the army they make is Cordula's army: not just Gallin, not just Essandia, but those two countries and Parna as well, each equal in God's eyes and in the true faith.

The
Cordoglio
has been painted white, the better to be seen by the ships she leads and the better to catch the colour of the rising sun. The better, too, to be seen by her enemy: the colour is a calling-out, a bold statement that the armada is not afraid of Aulun's aging navy, that Javier de Castille mocks the Aulunian ability to harm him or his cause.

They left port before the tide turned, knowing Aulun would expect them to come with the tide, not ahead of it. The winds are high enough to make excellent time even against the tide; once it turns, the
Cordoglio
leaps forward with a speed that brings a jubilant yell from Javier's throat.

His shout is picked up among the sailors, and from them rolls through the navy at his back, until it feels as though he rides on the strength of their cry. Full of exuberance, he releases witchlight, a silver spray that turns the red waters around them to brilliance, then tears ahead with a will of its own, searching out their enemy. For a moment temptation is there, the impulse to see if he might simply smash through the Aulunian ships with his magic, but as he reaches for them, he feels a weakening of his strength: the distance is as yet too great, and there's no point in exhausting himself now when he knows in closer quarters he can deal devastating damage.

There's that, and there's another truth that has more to do with politics and morale: coming on the Aulunian navy already battered and broken, its ships nothing but empty hulls and weathered boards on the sea, will frighten his sailors, not encourage them. Javier may be Pappas-blessed, but his men expect a fight. A too-easy victory will leave them wary of what lies ahead; a navy of ghost ships will turn their bowels to liquid and sap their will. If they see Javier fight alongside them, see him call witchpower now and again, save their lives and take their enemies', they'll revere the gift, not fear it. No victory in the world is worth undermining his army's nerves.

Even now they're seeing the witchlight that guides them, awe and uncertainty turning to broad grins as Javier calls, “God's light guides us, my brothers. We cannot fail!”

It seems only moments later that they're on the Aulunian navy. It's not: battles at sea are not quick things, with tremendous time taken to close ships enough for combat, to turn and settle against the wind, to take the best advantage of weather and light. It is not fast, and yet it seems to Javier that one moment there is nothing but empty sea between himself and Aulun, and the next there is the uproar of battle, with cannon erupting from ship to ship; with terrible storm-born waves throwing them around when only seconds ago
the water was their friend. But the sea is no one's friend, and the Aulunian navy, with everything to lose, is even less so.

Javier is on the prow, hands clutching the rail, throat raw from screaming orders not even he can hear. They're not yet close enough to the Aulunians for man-to-man battle; all Javier is good for here is shouting and watching as cannon-fire digs holes in ships and the sea both. He is wet to the bone and freezing: the storm has come on them and rain falls in sheets that he should stagger under.

Only with that realisation does the shield of power glimmering around him come into his notice, though from the way his crew have slowed in their madcap rush to battle, they have already noticed. A sense of foolishness descends on the Gallic king: he's good for more than standing and screaming after all, and indeed that was why he came into battle in the first place.

He gathers witchlight, gathers strength, gathers his willpower, and turns toward the closest Aulunian ship, his hands a-glow with devastating magic. He practised this under Rodrigo's tutelage, destroyed forests and fields and beasts, and he can forgive himself for losing his head a few minutes, and forgetting what he has at his disposal. God's light was guiding them; remembering to turn it into a weapon takes some doing.

Javier de Castille volleys witchpower toward the Aulunian ship with all his will behind it.

And encounters, to his astonishment, resistance.

Marius Poulin is not a soldier.

He is not a coward, either, which is why he is there, but he is not a soldier and has never wanted to be one. He has wanted to serve his king and brother, Javier de Castille, that is all.

That is why he is now meeting blades with a wicked-looking, scarred Aulunian soldier whose confident swordwork says he's killed before and has no compunction against doing so again.

The ship lurches, a trough found in the water, and Marius, almost by accident, gains the upper hand and shoves his sword into the Aulunian's chest. They're both astounded, but it's Marius's surprise
that will last, because the Aulunian slides off the blade and into the ocean, never to rise again.

If he had time, Marius would be sick. Every part of his body feels in rebellion, his steps clumsy and his bladework ponderous. Men come at him with blinding speed and a few fall to his sword, many others to the soldiers around him. He thinks he lost his bladder when the Aulunian ship slammed into his, but he is so wet it makes no difference, not even in his opinion of himself. A braver man—Sacha, perhaps—would have held his water, would have died rather than humiliate himself in fear.

Sacha is a thought that helps keep Marius moving forward; Sacha and Eliza, and Javier. If he fights for them, he may do them proud, and that thought gives him some little heart. Not enough: he seems likely to die on this slippery ship deck, tripping over dead men and sliding in blood, and he would rather do them proud by living.

What Marius Poulin cannot see is himself from the outside. He was taught swordwork by the king's own swordmaster, and from the outside he's a whirlwind, leaping bodies and skewering men, using a blood-and-water-slick deck to slip behind enemy guard and come up again a savage-eyed beast standing over the dead.

He's flung to the side when something smashes into his ship. Through a daze of stars, he feels a wracking born from the bottom of the sea, and throws a panicked look around, afraid he'll see a kraken's tentacles capturing and crushing them.

Instead he sees another Gallic vessel has broadsided his. Eliza swings from the other ship's crow's nest, a knife held in her teeth and the gondola boy held in her arm. She is, for an instant, a wild thing, as unearthly as the kraken. Her eyes are bright with glee, and the gondola boy is laughing madly.

The mast comes crashing down behind them with a rip and shriek of wood, lying crosswise across Marius's deck. It barely misses their own mast, and for a moment everyone from both ships is arrested, staring, impressed, at the broad beam that has interrupted their fight.

Then the gondola boy screams and jumps on an Aulunian sailor, his slight weight enough to bring the man down on the wet decks.

Before the sailor can recover, before anyone else moves, the gondola boy slams two knives into the sailor's back: once, twice, thrice, before he leaps away, a demonic grin splashed over his young features.

Battle comes again. Eliza has Marius's back, and for a moment they're children again, fighting under Javier's disgruntled sword-master's tutelage. He had been willing to teach Sacha, and reluctantly agreeable to teaching the merchant son Marius, but Eliza he had taught only under high-handed and arrogant orders from a nine-year-old prince.

Eliza, of necessity, became the best of them.

Not in strength, no, though her lighter sword and lither body gave her an advantage in speed. It was her ruthlessness that set her apart, and their swordmaster had grown ever more bitter and ever more drawn-in as the little girl learnt, extrapolated, and defeated her playmates.

She stopped fighting when her family made her grow her hair again, and it became an encumbrance, long enough to grab. Marius has always supposed she gave up the blade for good at that time, an easy decade ago now.

With her at his back, with the flash of her blades in the rain, with the blood that sprays as they fight, he knows she has never stopped practising, and that until death claims her, she never will.

The gondola boy flings a dagger and it sticks in someone's eye. He shrieks delight and Eliza's approving shout echoes it.

The Gallic ship from whence Eliza and the boy came takes another cannonball, its shudder knocking their ship askew, and then it slides into the boiling sea, leaving them with a double-contingent of crew all thirsty for blood. The Aulunians retreat, slicing their grappling ropes as they go, and Marius hears an order bellowed from belowdecks. The Aulunian ship is barely thirty feet off their starboard when cannons send it to join Eliza's ship in sinking. The crew rush to the rail, drawing wet pistols to shoot the survivors and scream victory.

Marius, alone in blood and water, watches them, and knows he is not like these people.

Unlike his idiot nephew, Rodrigo doesn't find it necessary to be in the thick of battle. Perhaps because he's an old man and has seen his share of war; perhaps it's that a fight on land does not, at least, have the added danger of surviving a swordfight only to drown when the ship goes down.

Perhaps it's that he lacks Javier's witchpower, and the sense of immortality such a gift must carry. Or perhaps he lacks the sense of duty it might also bear, though Rodrigo would cut down anyone who dared suggest he lacks a dutiful nature.

“You can do nothing from here, Rodrigo. When the storm passes we'll learn what there is to know.”

Rodrigo, who is standing over the maps and toy ships in the same way Javier did last night, allows himself a moment with his eyes closed, and a thought that he would never allow to pass his lips: perhaps he remains behind because the idea of leaving Essandia to his newly wedded wife is so appalling.

Then he speaks in the language she used, Khazarian; she often speaks to him in her native tongue, and he hasn't asked if that's so she doesn't forget it, or because she imagines his spies might not number it among their languages. “I know, and yet can't stop myself from studying them and wondering.”

“Yours is not the hand of God. You can't direct the ships as you see fit. At best you can move them as they ought to move, and worry yourself sick over whether they do as you wish.”

“Javier is on one of those ships.” In the end, it's the only answer he has to give: Javier is his only living relative, and for all that the prince of Essandia can do nothing to protect him, nor can he sit and drink wine and eat sweetmeats waiting for an answer to come across storm-ridden waters. His nephew is an idiot, but he is something special as well, and Rodrigo wouldn't lose him for the world.

For the church, perhaps, and the world after, but not for this one.

Akilina sighs, nods, and comes forward to put a hand over Rodrigo's. It's a wifely gesture; it is, in his estimation, entirely calculated.
Rodrigo almost enjoys that; it gives him a different game to think about, one he has a little more chance of controlling.