The Pretender's Crown (4 page)

And that future, had it come to pass, might well have seen Lorraine married, or not queen, or both, and with heirs born to pomp and circumstance rather than silence and secrecy. That, as Belinda said, was a world seen through ancient glass, too warped and misshapen to truly consider.

The wine is warming in her hand. Lorraine sips at it and sets her second sweet aside, less hungry for delicacies than answers. Robert should be here; Robert has always been here, offering advice when it was sought and silence as full of commentary as his words when it was not. Of all her courtiers, of all her advisers, indeed, of all her lovers, Robert Drake has been the most faithful and least likely to pressure her. Men accept that she is queen and do her bidding because they can do nothing else. Robert does it because he believes in her, and if that's a caprice a queen ought not indulge in, well, on this one topic she permits herself to do so regardless.

If he ever betrays her, she will be destroyed. Oh, so, too, will he, more visibly and quickly than Lorraine, but the handsome bearded lord's devotion is the one thing she truly believes she cannot do without.

Then again, as lines work their way into her face and take heavier paint to fill, it begins to seem there may be one other thing she cannot do without, and that is a legitimate heir. Lorraine has always understood, in a way her half-sister Constance did not, that their father
Henry's desperation for a son drove him to the extraordinary ends that begot half a dozen marriages and a new church in Aulun. It's easier, perhaps, for Lorraine to be forgiving, for she's the daughter of the second marriage, and Constance was born of the first. Of course, Constance's mother survived, and Lorraine's did not; maybe Lorraine should be less understanding than Constance was.

But this is an old cycle of thought, as useless now as it was when she was a girl. Then, she'd understood well enough; now, as an adult, as a woman, as a queen without an heir, Henry's concern is no longer a thing to be imagined. Lorraine lives it every day, hiding panic behind a regal aspect. It's easy enough to do when she is looked on as God's vessel on earth; she is not expected to have weaknesses, and so she simply does not allow them to show. An impassive face, white makeup, elaborate gowns, all go far in disguising a knot of sick worry that disturbs the heartbeat with its intensity. Without an heir Aulun faces the all-too-real possibility of civil war on Lorraine's death, and though she is so very loathe to admit it, Lorraine is not a young woman any longer. She is, in fact,
old
, and it's God's grace that has kept her in health and wits these many years. God, however, has not granted the miracle necessary for her to bear a child should she wed at this late hour, and Lorraine's own disposition does not incline her to do that anyway.

Even if she should,
who
she might wed is a difficulty. Rodrigo has no children of his own, which means marrying him does not solve the problem of an heir. Or rather, it does, in the most bitter way possible: it sets the crown toward Javier de Castille, Sandalia's redheaded son, and Lorraine will be damned before she hands her kingdom to that family. Sandalia held the Lanyarchan throne in Northern Aulun for two short years and thinks it makes her heir to Aulun's; Lorraine has no intention at all of making a pretender's crown legitimate.

That leaves, then, in any practical sense, Ruessland or the Prussian confederation, which is made up of principalities headed by young bucks whose ultimate allegiance slips between sprawling Prussia and smaller westerly Ruessland as quickly as the wind changes. In their favour, they've begun to embrace the Reformation church; that, at least, helps to reduce the chance of war within Aulun.

But it also means, should she wed a young man, that when she dies her young king will marry again and make children for his throne who have no tie at all to Aulun, which is hardly an appealing thought. No: the time to marry was twenty years ago, and she had no more desire to do so then than she does now.

And so she is brought back, again, to Belinda.

Twice. Twice in twenty-three years she's laid eyes on her daughter. Lorraine remembers the first time clearly: the child was pretty, self-contained, with wide hazel eyes bending toward green and thick brown hair. She looked nothing like Lorraine, a blessing to them all. She curtsied, then lifted her gaze, and even now, more than a decade later, Lorraine recalls the shock of meeting the girl's eyes, whose fathomless depths said, without apology or explanation, that Belinda Primrose
knew
.

How, Lorraine has no idea. Robert had not told her; of that, Lorraine was, and is, certain. It was as though the girl recognised her, and more, recognised that neither of them could ever admit the truth. There was acceptance so forthright it was challenge in the twelve-year-old's eyes, and Lorraine had been well-pleased, though she trusted herself not to have shown it.

Exactly the same expression had been in Belinda's eyes today. So bold, so calm, that Lorraine tread on topics she has rarely had occasion or desire to voice. Had thrown Belinda's brief engagement to Javier de Castille at the girl, and under that cover demanded to know if the daughter she had borne had any ambition toward the throne she has more than half a claim to.

Unless Lorraine is a fool, and she is not, Belinda meant it when she'd said her aspirations didn't reach so high. Unless Lorraine is drowning in sentiment and fear, Belinda spoke truth, and while Lorraine admits to herself—and only to herself-—that fear exists, it does not rule her. No one can retain a throne for thirty years and by ruled by fear; no
woman
can retain a throne for thirty minutes if fear holds the upper hand. And sentiment is something the queen of Aulun excised from her life long ago, except, perhaps, in the matter of Robert Drake. But if he is her weakness, so be it: Lorraine may be God's vessel on earth, but only the Heavenly Father himself is without flaw, and Lorraine might have done far worse than to
find her own vulnerability in Robert. He has, after all, held the most dangerous piece of knowledge about her close to his heart, utterly secret, for nearly a quarter of a century.

She recalls clearly what her thoughts were, when she realised her pregnancy. She had been thirty-two, queen for a handful of years and already determined never to marry. Wisdom dictated ending the pregnancy, and it was not sentiment that had stopped her. It was this far-off day that she'd known she must eventually face: a day when she was old, and her country in danger of being left without a sovereign. The risk had been tremendous, but she had been young, and already in the habit of taking a long holiday every year or two. For many months corsets and heavy gowns and the fact that it was a first child helped to keep her body to the slender tall lines she was known for. The maidservants who saw to her were allowed to on pain of death, and when they disappeared, one by one, Lorraine had allowed herself to look the other way and ask no questions.

The last few months of her pregnancy coincided with the fifteenth anniversary of her father's death. Lorraine, deeply affected by his memory, retreated from the public eye for a time, and when she emerged a little heavier, a little paler, her people loved her for it. They loved her even more dearly when she discovered Robert Drake had dallied with another woman while she had been in mourning, and blasted him for it. She sent him from her side for almost a year, and they loved her best of all when she relented and began to be seen with him again.

Politics, Lorraine thinks now as she thought then, is showmanship and misdirection, and a child born and bred under those two stars, a child whose ambitions are to serve loyally and whose heart is undisturbed by being unknown, is a child who might, at the end of it all, serve as a suitable heir.

For the first time since her courses stopped, giving lie to the story she might one day wed and bear children for Aulun, the knot in Lorraine Walter's stomach loosens a little, and, alone with her wine and sweets, she smiles at the fire.

22 January 1588
†
Isidro, capital city of Essandia

Typically, an honour guard was just that: men sent to lend importance to a visitor's arrival. Oft-times that importance lay primarily in the caller's mind, but not when it was the heir to the throne who came to visit.

It was wrong, then, that Javier's escort bristled the way they did, blocking his view of the city more thoroughly than he might have expected. They were not ungentle with him; that would be too much rudeness to show a prince, but neither were they deferent. Their loyalty lay with another monarch, his uncle. It had been years since Javier had visited Isidro, but it seemed that his younger self had been made far more welcome. Perhaps it was the difference between being a man and a child: one might be expected to lunge for a throne where the other would not. There was irony in that; Javier had never demanded his mother's throne, much less succumbed to the lunacy of pursuing his uncle's, hundreds of miles to the south. He was heir to both already; time would bring both the Essandian and Gallic crowns to his head without any impatient action on his part.

His recollections of Isidro were of a vivacious city, warmer and friendlier than his native Lutetia, but too much silence filled the streets now. He ought to have demanded a horse that he might see better; that he might ride as befitted a prince, rather than walk as
the lowly sailor whose part he'd played the last fortnight. A glance at his grim-faced guard, though, told him his demands would have gone unheeded, and that it was as well he'd not made them, for the cost would've been his own embarrassment at being refused. Chagrined at the realisation, he took a few light steps on his toes, peering beyond the tall helmed guardsmen surrounding him.

Black banners fluttered far ahead of them, dancing from windows where nobility and the wealthy made their homes near the palace. Rippling fabric slashed against creamy buildings—Isidro was built of pale stone, a city of brilliance against the day's blue sky—and danced out toward the sky so lightly it took long moments for their import to settle in Javier's thoughts.

Then, with witchlight clarity, he saw, silver-streaked horror lighting all the crevasses of his mind. It set him to running, shouldering past the guards with youthful strength and the advantage of surprise. A shout came after him and he ignored it, fear rabbiting his heart as he careened through the streets, slamming into passersby and sending up desperate prayers with each slap of his feet against cobblestones. He had not meant to come to Isidro to find a throne, but to seek advice; he could not fathom Rodrigo's death, or what it might mean. Rodrigo was aging, yes, in his fifties, but fit and strong, and Javier's world became an unrecogniseable place without the idea of his uncle on the Essandian throne.

New banners unfurled above his head as he ran, telling him the news of death was fresh, so fresh the people were still whispering it to one another. There were cries in the street now, voices lifted in sorrow, but power drove him forward and washed away any sense he might have made of their words. He had never run so fast, not even as a child unburdened by anything but a desire for speed; it was as though the magic within him hastened his feet, and shot out before him to clear a path. No longer did he smash into people on the street; instead they staggered aside as if rudely shoved, and all he could be was glad for it. Behind him, the honour guard gave chase, but they were encumbered by armour and swords, and Javier ran, if not for his own life, at least for word of a life dear to him.

Black-banded guards crossed spears at the closed palace gates, blocking his way. Fury rose up that he should be denied, and he
neither knew nor cared whether it was boiling witchpower or the guard running to catch him that gave strength to his roared, “I am the prince of Gallin and you will
let me pass!”

The guardsmen faltered, then scrambled to fling the gates open. He heard a curse from his escort, but he was already gone, racing through halls his feet recalled with more certainty than his mind did.

They brought him not to the throne room or council chambers, but instead to Rodrigo's private rooms, where surely his uncle's body would lie attended by doctors. Sandalia had seen Rodrigo only a few months earlier and had said nothing of illness; had said that the prince of Essandia seemed to be growing bold at last. Only now did Javier wonder if that had been a sign of Rodrigo's health faltering, an indication that he, like any man, wished to leave behind a legacy for the ages, and thought himself running short of time to do so.

Guards stood outside Rodrigo's doors. Impatient fear seized Javier and witchpower shot out, a concussion blast like the ones he and Belinda, oh, damn her, Belinda, had discovered together. His silver magic slammed into the men, knocking them against the wall so hard he doubted they'd rise again, and could not bring himself to care.

The doors to Rodrigo's rooms blew off with the same force that had downed the men. Shards exploded inward. Terror of disfiguring his uncle's body sent a shield of silver ahead of the blast, catching splinters and sending them to the floor in a rain of wood. Javier burst through behind them, and took in the incomprehensible.