The Pretender's Crown (61 page)

“To what end? Marius is dead at Sacha's hand and I have no stomach for any horror beyond that. My sins are so compleat as to beg no forgiveness.” Belinda's face—and more—flashed in his vision, soft warmth and witchpower and the devil's own damnation. Oh, he had loved: how could he not, when met with a creature so
much like himself. Disgustingly like himself, and done without wilful intent or no, God couldn't forgive that sin. Lust: he ought to have known not to fall for that most deadly of temptations, as Sacha ought not have fallen to green-eyed envy. Eliza, thus far, seemed unscarred by any of those terrible seven; if he could keep her clear, that, perhaps, might be a small salve to his soul.

“There is nothing God cannot forgive if you come to him truly penitent,” Tomas whispered, but without the serene confidence he'd once had. Javier looked to him, curiosity piqued over self-doubt and flagellation, and more welcome.

“What have you learnt of unforgiveable sin, priest?”

“I've learnt that even man can forgive that which we might call unthinkable. My intellect tells me time and again that I should revile and fear a man who's stolen my will from me, and yet my heart harbours no resentment. If I, who am weak with mortality, can forgive, how can God, in His infinite compassion, see any darkness which He can't forgive?”

“You've forgiven what I can't,” Javier said harshly. “Leave me alone with my sins, priest.”

“Your sins and your betrayals? Are you certain you spoke of the Holy Mother, and not one closer to you?”

“What?”

“Eliza caught quickly,” Tomas murmured. “Are you certain you've married a woman who's bearing your child, Javier, and not one who's taking advantage of some by-blow of a Maglian lover?”

Laughter seemed the wrong response, but it was the one that burst from Javier, wholly derisive. “If only you knew how certain I am.”

“How can you be? Came she a virgin to your bed? A woman of such beauty, living in a city of whores?”

Javier slammed his hand out and caught a fistful of Tomas's robes, all of his laughter gone. “If you value the tongue in your head, priest, you will silence yourself now and no such further words will ever pass your lips. The time to voice your doubts was before we were wed, and I will have your respect now.” Witch-power boiled, hoping for argument, for any excuse to overwhelm the priest and use him as it would. For once Javier had no urge to
temper it, as eager himself to embrace furious insult as his magic was. It would be a release unlike anything on the battlefield, all intimacy and personal need. He fought for his troops out of duty, but Tomas would serve his pleasure.

“Forgive me.” Tomas's voice came low, no hint of resistance in it. Frustration twisted in Javier, witchpower thwarted by acquiescence. “I should have spoken earlier,” Tomas went on, still soft, still light; a lover's voice, all wrong in the thin moonlight. “I should have, but in the chaos of the day did not. Forgive me, my king.”

Javier released him with a curse, turning futile witchpowered anger toward the distant hills, where it could unfurl itself without harm. “What choice have I, when you plead so prettily? But don't test me, Tomas. Don't let your thoughts or your tongue wander down those roads again.”

“My lord.” Tomas sat silent a moment or two, then got to his feet. “I'll leave you, my king. I hope your thoughts turn to happier things.”

“Aye,” Javier muttered to his departing steps. “So do I.”

“Would it make you happier to know the Aulunian heir hasn't betrayed you?” A woman's voice, marked with a Khazarian accent, came out of the air, and for the second time Javier startled, this time jolting to his feet.

“Forgive
me,”
the voice went on, and with it a girl's form came clear, only a few feet away. Witchpower tainted the air around her, a cold iron weight more implacable than Belinda's, or even Javier's own. Her magic had a feeling of certainty to it, like Robert Drake's: like she'd spent a lifetime ensconsed in it, practising with no fear for her soul. “Forgive me,” she said again, cheerfully, and without a hint of the repentance Tomas had voiced when he'd said those words. “I'd intended to show myself earlier, but your lovely priest arrived. I'm meant to go virgin to my wedding bed, but for a face such as that…”

A fist clenched around Javier's heart and pulled it askew in his chest, knocking breath away into dull sickness. For an instant his mind flew to the impossible, that witchbreed men and women were all around, and that not a soul in Echon was safe from their interferences. A cry knotted itself in his chest at the relief and despair
borne with that idea, but it was another thing entirely that he said aloud: “You would be Ivanova. There is rumour in the camps that you are with the Aulunians, and Akilina has had a letter from your mother. She's worried about you, princess.”

The artfully carefree expression on the girl's face spasmed into guilt. “My mother wouldn't have allowed me to ride to war.”

“With good reason, and yet it seems she couldn't stop you.” Javier made a short gesture at the night she'd faded out of. “I must learn to do that, to hide in the shadows. It seems a knack the witch-women around me have learned. What are you doing here?” His heart's beat had steadied, though shock still swam through him. Belinda had said she couldn't shape their future alone.
It needs both of us
, she had said,
and it needs Ivanova if we can get her, and it needs Dmitri Leontyev dead
.

All the armies knew Leontyev was dead, and now Ivanova Durova stood at the heart of his own camp, as if conjured by Belinda's will. It was not possible: the Aulunian heir had only said those words a week ago, and she could not have brought Ivanova here in that time. The girl had to have moved on her own in order to be in this place now, and Javier de Castille suddenly wondered if God's hand was in this after all. Men could orchestrate war across a continent—that, he believed. But for the scant handful of children who might stand against that war to gather through their own will and no other guidance—that smacked of destiny. Javier turned a slow astonished look on the girl before him, and she, standing under flattering moonlight that gave hint of the legendary woman she would become, answered him with a shrug.

“I've come as Belinda's voice, because Lord Drake holds her too close for her to slip away. There's no betrayal, king of Gallin, but the Ecumenic army should lose whether she intends it or not. You're too few, and we too many.” She sat abruptly, graceless as a colt and wiping away the promise of beauty her youthful form held. Javier sat more slowly as Ivanova spoke, her words measured. “We'll come to war tomorrow, Belinda and myself, but most especially Belinda. We'll ride hard on you, coming to break your army's back, and at the height of it you'll do battle with Belinda herself. And you'll win, king of Gallin. This will be your chance to take the Aulunian heir prisoner, and turn the tide to your call.”

“So easily,” Javier muttered. “Will Belinda play her part?”

Ivanova shrugged again, loose and comfortable in her body “Belinda acts out of duty, serving Aulun more faithfully than I'd have wagered possible. She sees this war and this gamble for the future as doing that. Aulun is perhaps subsumed by the needs of the world, but that's too big a thought for her, and so she serves Aulun and in so doing serves the world. She'll do what she must to those ends.” Compleat confidence filled the girl's answer, enough so that Javier's eyebrows rose.

“Dare I ask what prompts me to act?”

Challenge lit Ivanova's black eyes. “I don't know. Dare you?”

Intrigue caught him out, for all that a quiet rush of wisdom said he might be happier ignorant. Still, Javier nodded, and Ivanova flashed a pointed smile.

“You're a king afraid of his power, a boy with only a few friends who's desperately afraid of losing them. One's dead, another betrayed you, and the third's become your wife, but the duty you owe your throne will force you to put her away unless there's a child. You'll make any bargain and forgive all sins so you might not be left alone.”

Anger sharp enough to tell him the girl spoke truth shot through Javier, making his speech short. “You see very clearly.”

Ivanova lifted a shoulder and let it fall, then turned her palm up. A ball of dull iron witchlight formed and blinked away. “The magic lets us see as clearly as we choose. We have little time for prevarication and pretty lies.”

Javier stared at where her power had disappeared, then met her eyes. “And what drives you?”

She smiled, suddenly full of a child's wickedness. “I don't like being told what to do.” Both smile and smugness faded. “You know royal lives are not ours to do with as we please. I've taken this chance to see war before I'm confirmed heir, and it will likely be the last truly free act of my life. I think it was necessary, but my mother will not agree. So this is the mark I'll leave, no matter what becomes of my life: I'll do what I can to help steal this world back from those who would take it from us. I don't like that they think they can make us unknowing slaves to their intentions, and if I can play the contrary and do a part to prove them wrong, then my life's
well spent, even before I take a throne.” She waited a moment, then arched an eyebrow. “Do you read me with your magic, king of Gallin? Do I speak the truth?”

Javier's mouth thinned, inadvertent admission that she did. Ivanova nodded, then leaned forward to put a hand over Javier's. Her fingers were warm, much warmer than his own, as if she burned with internal fire. The passion of youth, he thought, then smirked; he'd not reached an age himself that would be called anything but youth, and yet Ivanova seemed young to him. “Are you so certain this is a war we can win?”

Ivanova looked down her nose at him. Beakish nose, almost too sharp: it should've taken away from her beauty, but instead it added to it, giving her unexpected strength. Her smile, though, which came after that scolding look, was entirely a thing of ease and enjoyment with no worries for strength at all. “Unless you choose to fail on the battlefield tomorrow, yes. I don't know, king of Gallin. Are you content to be defeated by women?”

“Go away,” Javier said as severely as he could. The girl had made him want to laugh, and he thought laughter should no longer be his companion. Not after the last week. Not, in truth, after this past six-month. “Go away,” he said again, and got to his feet. “I'll bring you your battle come daybreak.”

4 July 1588
†
Brittany; the Aulunian camp

Wisdom should have sent Belinda to sleep hours since, but she sat in shadows, watching the distant Gallic campfires through a still-dark night. The sky would begin to grey with dawn in less than an hour, but for now she was alone with her thoughts and plans, more alone than she'd been in a week.

Robert had turned avuncular with Dmitri's death, suddenly making her his confidante and yet somehow conveying almost nothing to her. Curiosity had her in its grip, her tremulous understanding of Robert's world burgeoning into a desire to know more. It seemed to her that she'd tucked away what he was until a part of her mind had grown accustomed to the strangeness, and could
make some rough sense of it. Struggling for words with Javier had helped: it had torn away her reluctance to face what little she'd learned, and Ivanova's ruthless, childish practicality had done its part as well.

Her father, though, would have no truck with furthering her comprehension. He'd asked for time and she'd agreed, afraid he might see through her plans if she pressed too far. Even so, witch-power ran in slow tendrils around her mind, pushing her thoughts, examining what she knew, and she was unsurprised when Robert crested a nearby hillock and came to sit at her side. He looked well-rested, as if he'd awakened from a comfortable bed at his estate, rather than being one man among thousands sleeping on a hillside under summer stars.

Feeling like a child, Belinda tilted against his side and murmured “Papa,” which garnered a laugh from the big man.

“If you were eight, that trick might still work, my Primrose.” Still, he put an arm around her and kissed her hair, playing the role of father he'd abandoned years ago. “Your thoughts are heavy enough to stir the air. What's amiss?”

Belinda ducked her head against Robert's shoulder. “We're a hard day's battle from victory, Papa. Give me the chance, and I think I can rout Gallin and its ambitions with a single blow.” It had taken a week to lead Robert to this opening. Played too hard, she would lose the game, and neither she nor Javier would forgive her the slip.

“Can you?” Robert sounded amused; felt amused, through the vestiges of witchpower that danced around them both. Belinda wound hers more tightly, keeping it close and hoping she didn't seem to retreat by doing so. “What would you do, Primrose?”

“Rumours of my presence fly about the camp,” she whispered. “The fight with Dmitri was unsubtle, but no one quite imagines the queen's heir is on the battlefield. There are stories that her spirit, imbued with the Holy Mother, is so bright and great as to have settled on a camp follower when the Khazarian ambassador took it in his head to end the alliance. They even say the Holy Mother brought Ivanova here, to protect Belinda Walter's spirit from that attack.”

“That,” Robert said in scolding amusement, “is inconsistent, my
girl. Why would the Madonna choose a camp follower for Dmitri to attack, only to then send another champion to protect her?”

Belinda put her elbow in his ribs, comfortable action of the little girl she'd once been. “You, of all people, whose life is made up of spreading and starting and quelling rumours, should know that consistency is not gossip's strength.”

“True enough,” Robert said contentedly. “Go on.”

“The army believes the Holy Mother rides with them. I think that come tomorrow's battle, she should. Let me become a banner for a few hours, to inspire them. My witchpower, unleashed, is gold as sunlight, pure as God's love. The troops will cross mountains to fight for the Madonna.”

Robert pulled away as she spoke, turning an expression of astonishment on her. “You would propose putting yourself into the midst of battle? Need I remind you that you
are
the Aulunian heir, Primrose? What would we do if we lost you?”