The Queen's Bastard (44 page)

She found her skirts already gathered high, a hand twisted behind her back to snake its way beneath her corset in search of the blade she was never without.

“Akilina came as an ambassador in truth, then,” Javier half-asked, still studying the treaty. “A woman.”

Sandalia let a shoulder rise and fall. “Who better to trust than another woman, rather than the men who insist we are too weak to rule in our own right? There’s a price, Javier.” She turned a page, parchment whispering against itself. “This treaty has a price.”

“They all do,” Javier said mildly. His fingertips stopped their wandering, pressed against the sheet Sandalia had uncovered, and he read for a few seconds before breathing, “Ah. This cannot be what Akilina wanted, Mother. She came to Gallin in search of a throne.” He chuckled, another soft sound, as Sandalia glanced at him in surprise. “I’m not that blind to reality, Mother, even with this match made to Beatrice.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Steel crept into the queen’s voice, then faded again as she touched the papers above Javier’s hand. “And you’re right, it isn’t. But she cannot protest overmuch, or she’ll lose her standing as an ambassador. And it benefits her, if not as thoroughly as she might like.”

“She wants public adoration. But failing that, yes, standing behind the throne might do.” Javier took a breath. “So you’ll wed me to the Khazarian heir after all.”

Cold sluiced through Belinda, chilling her fingers against the small of her back. Ivanova Durova, Irina’s daughter. Dmitri’s daughter. Belinda clenched her hand and let her skirts fall again, heart hammering once more. Neither Dmitri nor Robert would allow the engagement of Khazar to Gallin if they did not tacitly approve; Belinda’s hasty action in taking Javier’s life along with his mother’s could easily disrupt Robert’s plans. She set her teeth together, a new flush of anger running over her. Hers had been a lifetime of servitude, never asking why, but this once, set loose in the Lutetian court, understanding her father’s ultimate purpose might have been useful. Securing Lorraine’s throne was the obvious end game, but allying the massive eastern country of Khazar to tiny Gallin had to go beyond that. Perhaps that alliance might end in a victory for Aulun that Belinda couldn’t yet see. She would have to risk a letter to Robert, seek his guidance. Nothing else could clear her way.

“How will you secure the troops?” Javier asked softly. Sandalia dimpled at him, suddenly youthful.

“Your plot with Beatrice is proving to be the perfect foil. Troubles stir on Lanyarch’s border. We need only push it far enough for Lorraine to risk invading, and then Lanyarch, under my banner, can call to Cordula for help in repelling the Reformation soldiers.”

“Khazan is a long way from Cordula, Mother. We don’t so much as share a religion with them.”

“Irina treats with Cordula as well.” Sandalia’s voice was full of the same casual arrogance that her son’s often carried. “The
Pappas
and his patriarchs see her overtures as a softening toward the Ecumenic faith, and intend, in time, to use them to convert Khazan. Until missionaries are sent, though, Cordula is happy to accept troops willing to fight where Cordula decrees.”

“In Lanyarch and Aulun.”

“And Alunaer,” Sandalia finished, savage light of fanaticism suddenly bright in her voice. “We’ll take the battle to the Titian Bitch’s doorstep, Javier, and when it’s done you’ll sit on the island throne with a queen at your side.”

“And what of Beatrice?” Javier’s voice softened, deceptive in comparison to the resolve Belinda felt stiffening within him. “She and I have spoken of the need to put her aside, but we both believed there would be a match waiting for her. Marius is…no longer available. What of Beatrice?”

Sandalia touched his arm, a mother’s reassuring gesture, and smiled. “She’s come to mean a great deal to you, hasn’t she, Javier? You spoke of giving her lands; I’ll have papers drawn up for some small holding in Brittany. Marius may be consigned to another’s wedding bed, but your Beatrice is young and pretty enough. Another man will come along. I promise to take care of her,” she said, and Belinda could see in her eyes, and in Javier’s, that once more, they both took what they wanted from her words. Sandalia felt of honey-coated steel, and Javier struggled with shards of hope and belief fighting against his determination to not release the witchbreed woman he’d found. It was he who acquiesced, though, lowering his gaze and his head to murmur, “Thank you, Mother,” as a dutiful son should.

Belinda, slipping out behind them many long minutes later, wondered if such promises were what a noose tightening around a slender neck felt like.

B
ELINDA
P
RIMROSE
/ B
EATRICE
I
RVINE
11 January 1588         
         Lutetia

Five long days of watching had not managed to provide Belinda with the opportunity to steal the keys that Sandalia kept on her person. She had, once, made her way back into Sandalia’s private chambers with lock-picks in hand, only to narrowly avoid a tiny, vicious needle, its tip stained dark, popping out from the lock. Belinda had sworn under her breath, searching her skin for marks, and used a blotter to press the needle back into place. The lock required keys: they needed, it seemed, to be turned simultaneously, and two hands were simply not enough to hold in place two separate locks and turn them together. The witchlight couldn’t be formed into something solid enough to manipulate the locks with her will, and after over an hour of attempting the job, she had reluctantly given up and let herself back out of Sandalia’s rooms.

That had been one of the few times she’d successfully escaped watching eyes in the past several days. Much as she’d chafed at her guards in the previous month, they seemed ever-more ubiquitous now, perhaps the vestiges of Javier’s uncertainty about her faithfulness. She saw no one and went nowhere without armed accompaniment unless she was with Javier in his chambers.

The morning previous, she’d been awakened by a dour-faced dressmaker, who stripped her to the skin—Belinda palmed her tiny knife frantically and threw it into the bedclothes as she was hauled toward the centre of the room—then stood her up and kept her there, corsets bound tight, while he built a dress on her, regardless of the pleas she made on her bladder’s behalf.

He had none of Eliza’s wild imagination when it came to fashion, but if his purpose was to turn Belinda from a provincial Lanyarchan into a Gallic noble to be reckoned with within thirty-six hours, he succeeded admirably. Belinda had been permitted two breaks from standing as a dressmaker’s dummy to eat and relieve herself, and her peevish costumer had eventually deigned to let her sleep, warning he would be still earlier the next morning. Belinda shook off nobility’s habits for the servant she was accustomed to playing, and at least managed to eat and use the necessary before he arrived again to sew her into a gown that rivaled not just Sandalia’s wear, but even her own mother’s.

His one concession to time was that he allowed her a long while to stand in front of a mirror, barely able to believe it was herself she saw there. Some of the sourness left his face as she stood, hardly breathing while she gazed at the woman reflected back at her.

Belinda Primrose did not look like her royal mother. She had none of Lorraine’s dramatic colouring or, most especially, the widow’s peak that all eyes were drawn to, whether they met Lorraine in person or saw her portraits. Belinda thought her own face rounder than Lorraine’s, her eyes larger, her mouth more full; these were things she’d taken from Robert.

But bedecked royally, skin pale with powder and perhaps shaped more by maturity than she recalled it, looking at herself, she saw Lorraine in her for the first time. The gown was a shade the Titian Queen would wear: the green of young leaves, too bright for a winter day and yet utterly fitting for Belinda’s youth and skin tones. Moreover, it brought forth the green in her eyes, making them far brighter and more challenging than she thought them to be. Lorraine’s eyes were grey and narrow; cosmetics did something that hinted at her mother’s eyes in Belinda’s reflection. Even her hair, upswept and bejeweled with emeralds and rubies made, she trusted, of paste, looked lusher than usual, as if the firelight had taken up residence in it. She was by no means the redhead that Lorraine was, or even Javier, but there was golden warmth in what had always seemed to her an ordinary brown.

The gown itself was high-collared, stiff lace and gold threads itching furiously even through a wrap of soft old muslin. It thrust her chin high, making her neck long and elegantly slender. The shoulders were demure in their cut, sleeves coming to points over her hands. There was little of the puffed nonsense that could send a woman to walking through doors sideways in order to fit; that narrowness served to make her look delicate, a thought which Belinda might have laughed at, had she been able to catch breath to do so. She was a worker, strong and trained; to find herself looking fragile was all but beyond comprehension.

The bodice fit with appalling tightness, gold and white worked into the fabric to make a subtle pattern of roses. When the skirts finally flared at her hips, they, too, were far less extravagant than fashion dictated, but considerable enough to create a distinctively feminine shape to her form. Tall shoes lent her height, and only when Belinda finally turned from the mirror in astonishment did her chamber door open to allow Akilina Pankejeff entrance.

To Belinda’s surprise, and even more to her gratitude, the Khazarian countess stopped a few feet from the door to look her over with admiration that bordered on amazement. “The queen told me Pierre was her best dressmaker, even above Javier’s young friend and her radical designs. I believe it now. My lady Beatrice, you are exquisite.”

“Thank you.” Belinda’s voice sounded faint to her own ears and she took a careful breath, straining against the corsets to Akilina’s visible amusement.

“Let’s hope you don’t need to run anywhere today, my lady. I’ve brought you a gift.” She stepped forward, offering Belinda a necklace that caught gold light in its pendant, a thumbnail-size piece of amber, carved as a rose. Belinda gaped at the jewel, heart seized as though she were still a child, offered not one, but two new gowns for the queen’s visit. Akilina remained silent a few moments, long enough to let Belinda admire it, then asked, teasingly, “Do you like it?”

Belinda lifted her eyes, wide with unfeigned astonishment. “How could I not? My lady, I mean no disrespect, but
why
—?”

“It seems a suitable gift for a queen-to-be,” Akilina replied, and dropped a wink that would better suit a lecherous old man. “And perhaps you’ll recall someday who gave it to you. May I?” She took the jewel back and stepped behind Belinda, sending a thrill of nervous caution down Belinda’s spine. Her touch was light as she fastened the necklace, the stone settling against the hollow of Belinda’s throat, and both women turned to look at her in the mirror.

Amber flashed magnificent rich gold against the green of her gown, its chain so fine that it seemed to hover at her throat unsupported. The dressmaker—Pierre; he had never bothered to give Belinda his name—huffed a sound she took as approval, evidently satisfied that the jewel enhanced his creation.

“Thank you,” Belinda said a second time, peculiarly aware that those were not words that often crossed her lips. “It’s astonishing, and I shall indeed remember from whence it came.”

Akilina smiled with more pleasure than necessary, as if hearing more in the words than was obviously there. “You’re expected in the courtroom at the midday Angelus bells. I’d best go there myself; Her Majesty wants no one to distract from your arrival.”

Colour built in Belinda’s cheeks, less artifice than she might wish, and Akilina laughed as she excused herself, leaving Belinda alone with the dressmaker. “Thank you,” she said to him as well, and his customary dour expression reasserted itself. Belinda fought back another laugh and turned to look at herself a final time before drawing a careful deep breath. “I suppose I should go. I’m to wait in the audience chambers.”

“Wait here until the bells are closer to ringing,” Pierre said abruptly. “Had the woman not been a countess and bearing a gift, I wouldn’t have let her in. No one should see you, my lady. The effect is all the greater that way.”

Belinda blinked at him, startled and then not, at his sudden opinion. He’d had them by the bucketload when it came to her gown, that he should have them in how to best show it off should be no surprise. “All right.” She took another careful breath, dizziness spilling through her, and asked, “Could I perhaps have some wine, then? I’m light-headed.”

He fetched some, and, unexpectedly, a croissant with jam, then stood by with a napkin dangling from his fingertips and a glower set onto his face. “I won’t wipe my fingers on the dress,” Belinda promised, and he looked increasingly dour that she’d even spoken the idea aloud.

Food, more than the drink, helped to steady her head, though with having done no more than stand and turn, Belinda knew she would be desperately glad to rid herself of the corsets when the time came. The idea of curtseying before Sandalia made her dizzy all over again, and she walked carefully to a chair, leaning awkwardly against its cushions; the corsets had far too little give to allow her to bend at hip or waist so she might sit properly. Still, the change of weight seemed to help for a few moments, even if Pierre scowled at the possibility of his creation being wrinkled by her carelessness.