The Pretender's Crown (9 page)

“I am not!” Javier's cry is as plaintive as a child's. “This isn't God's gift I own. How could God do other than approve if I walk away from it?”

“Because you are His chosen son for the Gallic throne, aye, and for mine. Who would you pass it to, if you walked away, Javier? You have no sons, nor do I. Would you let Gallin be swept away by Aulun or Ruessland, left as nothing more than a memory of a place that once was?”

“No.” The answer is dull now, no longer plaintive, no longer sullen. “I have no other answer.”

“Then accept it.” Rodrigo comes to crouch before his nephew, putting his hands on the youth's shoulders; making himself small before the king of Gallin. His stomach churns as he does it, all the warrior in him cringing from the weakness of his stance, but he is not on a battlefield now; at least, not one of swords and archers. “Come with me. We'll go to one of the lower halls, and we'll see
what can be done with this talent of yours. I'll guide you when I can, Javier. I have faith you'll stay on God's path and make use of this gift as He intends. Do not be afraid.”

Javier nods slowly and both men come to their feet together, Rodrigo making a playful light gesture that Javier should precede him. Javier echoes it in response, and smiling, they walk shoulder to shoulder from Rodrigo's chambers.

Shoulder to shoulder, both pretending not to be afraid.

14 February 1588
†
Alunaer, capital city of Aulun

She had no last name, not properly. Robert had always called her Primrose, for his imaginary sister who was supposedly Belinda's mother. But if she had taken her adopted father's name, she might have been Belinda Drake, who had been sent to a convent at age twelve, and who had never returned from it.

Belinda Primrose wore those shackles now. For nearly a month she'd slept in a dull grey cell and said her devotions five times or more a day; had worn a scratchy woollen shift and knelt on cold stone, and had heard achingly little of the world beyond sturdy convent walls.

The nuns were kind to their new ward, whom they'd been told had come from another convent. Belinda, when she spoke of her past, murmured obediently of a poor but pious abbey in the Aulunian west. She knew the names of her wimpled sisters, details of her mother superior's life, and could sketch a fair layout of the buildings if asked. Belinda had no doubt at all that such an abbey and such a woman and such sisters existed: she had no doubt, in fact, that a hazel-eyed, brown-eyed girl had played her role for ten years and more at that quiet western convent, and she had very little doubt as to what fate had greeted that woman when Belinda entered the convent in Alunaer.

She tossed restlessly, sleep evading her more thoroughly tonight
than it had in weeks past. If she were not obliged by Lorraine's orders to remain hidden, she would climb over the walls and explore Alunaer, seeking out whatever trifle it was that disturbed her dreams.

A month ought to have been more than enough time to reestablish control over her actions and behaviour, but instead curiosity plagued her, a wondering to what purpose Lorraine had had her ensconced amongst religious women; to what purpose she was wearing the mantle that had been created for Robert Drake's adopted daughter over a decade earlier. It had been a lifetime since Belinda had been required to wait, and in that time she had become accustomed to performing one duty or another. For eleven years, since the day she had watched Rodney du Roz fall to his death and lie twitching on snow-covered stone, she had had purpose, and had known the purpose even of waiting. As a child, not knowing why she was put aside, ignored and hidden, had chafed; now she had come full circle, and once more suffered the frustration of being uninformed.

Eleven years. Her eyes opened and she sat up, blind gaze across the darkened cell. The sisters had spoken of it, but she'd paid no heed, assigning no meaning to the preparations for the feast of Saint Valentine that so occupied the others.

Du Roz had died this day, eleven years ago.

There would be no more rest found this night. Belinda flung her blanket back and slipped her feet into unpadded slippers, hurrying to pull her novice's robe on over the shift she slept in. More mundane clothes might be found in the laundry: there were often visitors to the abbey, rich or widowed women in need of time away from families or troubles, and from time to time they left behind gifts. Anything other than a robe would do, and she could escape the convent walls to—

To go to the palace, and look down from the steps at the place where du Roz had died. Belinda stopped in the middle of her room, motionless, wondering at the thought; wondering what good it might do, or what doors in her mind it might open.

That, then, was how the abbess found her moments later: standing frozen in a dark room, dressed to face the day, her face turned
up toward the ceiling and sky as though God might offer an answer to some unknown question.

Impulse had left Belinda by then, had left her cold and appalled. There were no answers in du Roz's death, not even if she knew what questions to ask. She knew why he had died: he, and all those who had crossed her path whose graves were now filled with rotting memories. He had presented a danger to Aulun and its queen, and there was nothing else to be taken from his short life or her hand in ending it.

“Forgive me, mother,” she said in the quiet, cultured voice Belinda Drake had been given. “My dreams have disturbed me, and I thought to visit the chapel and find comfort in God's presence. Did I cry out in my sleep?”

“You did not,” the woman said crisply. Everything about her was crisp, from her soprano to the parchment-fine lines around her eyes. Had Belinda not been so hideously bored, she might have liked her. “I came to wake you,” the abbess said. “Your father is here.”

The abbess here—perhaps even the one in western Aulun—would not know Robert, Lord Drake, the queen's favourite courtier, for her ward's father. Drake was an uncommon enough name, though more expected in the western counties where she was meant to be from, but last names were rarely used in the convent. It was a mark of worldliness that Belinda used her given name at all; she would have been better suited by a saint's name, and that she was not might mean there was a fate for her beyond the convent walls.

And there was: that, at least, Belinda was certain of. Her heart sang, thrill of joy entangled with wholly genuine befuddlement. Robert had no place coming to the abbey, nor had there been any word of his return to Alunaer. Sequestered as Belinda was from Cortes's spies, she might not have heard, but for a good and godly group of nuns, the sisters knew and shared a fair bit of gossip about the world beyond. Robert Drake's return might have warranted discussion.

Belinda spoke over the rush of her own thoughts, asking, “My father, my lady?” with shy confusion.

The abbess came forward and took Belinda by the upper arms, an offer of strength. “I suppose you must be used to thinking of yourself as alone in this world, child. Your mother in the west wrote to say you've heard nothing from your family since becoming a novice, but he is still your father.”

“Yes, I-I suppose.” A high soft voice, trembling with uncertainty and a hint of hurt to come. Belinda admired her own performance, though astonishment still whirled in her mind. Even if Robert had returned, visiting her here seemed unlikely in the extreme. There would be some desperate task for her to accomplish, if he was willing to breach Lorraine's orders to see her. Excitement fluttered up, though it remained tightly bound within her, coming nowhere near her face.

The abbess drew Belinda into an unexpected hug, all her crispness melting away into the gentleness of the embrace. “It must be shocking to choose this life so young, and to only now discover the outside world may still want a part of you, too.” She stepped back an arm's length, still holding Belinda. No one, Belinda thought, had shown her such unstinting compassion since she'd been a child; since before the queen had come to Robert's estates, and the life she'd known made her wonder at the cost of such generosity. There was nothing of price in the abbess's quick reassuring words, though: “You need not see him tonight, child, or any night, if you wish me to send him away.”

“No!” Belinda's voice broke as she tried to modify the command in it. The abbess's eyes widened, then wrinkled again with sympathy as she squeezed Belinda's shoulders. “Forgive me,” Belinda whispered. “I didn't mean to be brash, mother. I only—I think I must see him.”

“Yes.” Sympathy deepened in the abbess's eyes. “You may be right, child. Come.” She took Belinda by the hand as though she were a much younger girl, and guided her from the cell and through the dark quiet abbey halls. Belinda kept her breathing smooth and even, forbidding the rushed beat her heart wanted to seek out, and allowed herself to cling to the abbess's hand, a child indeed. It didn't matter how or why: Robert was alive, safe back in Aulun, and once more the waiting was over.

The abbess stopped outside the visitor's hall. The cessation of footsteps let silence leap up all around them, a creature with its own presence. “Were he any other man I would insist on joining you, child, but because he is your father the choice is yours. Would you like me to be there?”

“No.” Belinda cleared her throat to put more strength into the word, and offered a tentative smile as she shook her head. “I think I can be bold. But you'll be nearby if I need you?”

Pride bloomed in the old woman's face. “I will. Only pull the bell and I'll be there in a moment.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Belinda caught the abbess's hand and pressed her lips to the ring the woman wore. Then with a quick flash of a nervous smile, she pushed open the hall door and stepped inside.

A rug lay over the stone floor, rare luxury in the abbey, and meant only to help welcome guests. Cushioned chairs and a sturdy table sat beside a well-built fire, and tapestries hung on the walls, holding in heat and making the hall the only truly warm place within the abbey. That, Belinda told herself, accounted for the sudden flush in her cheeks, the excitement that suffused her. She kept her gaze downcast, hands folded in front of her, a picture of modesty while the door swung shut and closed away the abbess from hearing their conversation. Only when she heard it latch did Belinda whisper a single word, the double-edged blade she always permitted herself once each time she remet Robert Drake: “Father.”

“Hardly.” Dry word, familiar voice, not at all expected in this place or time. Belinda jerked her gaze from the floor, surprise too great to hold in check with the stillness. Better that way, perhaps: he would expect her to be surprised, and with a man like this it was safer to play to his expectations.

Like Robert, he'd changed little in the years since Belinda had first seen him. Thick black hair was fashionably cropped, and a sharply trimmed beard enhanced his hawkish features and thin sensual mouth. Deep-set eyes were dark enough to reflect firelight, and his figure was as slim and well-dressed as any courtier in Lorraine's court.

But he was not of Lorraine's court, no more than Sandalia herself might have been. He had been in Khazar at Irina's side; had fathered a child on the imperatrix if Belinda did not miss her guess. He had the
witchpower
that Belinda shared with Javier de Castille, the new king of Gallin, and with her own father, Robert Drake. They were alike, all of them, and nothing at all of things she understood.

“Dmitri.”

His pupils contracted, surprise bleeding darkness from his eyes and turning them hazel. Only then did Belinda remember she wasn't supposed to know this man, certainly not by name. He had not given it the once she'd seen him in adulthood, nor had Robert offered it up when Belinda had mentioned the man who'd come to her in Khazar and set her on the road to kill a queen. It was childhood memory that gave her his name, and that memory was one she had not been intended to possess. Even now, thinking back, she could feel the waterwheel rush of power draining into her mind, trying to lock Dmitri's presence into an unreachable place within her; even now she could recall the sting of certainty upon waking; the knowledge that Robert had tried to alter her memory and had failed. She'd kept that secret, as she'd kept many others, well-hidden until now, when a careless slip told the black-haired Khazarian consort that she knew him better than she was meant to.

But there were ways she might know him besides her own faultless memory. Robert might have told her his name; studies of the Khazarian court would have mentioned this man, with his intense eyes and sensual hands. She could know him without betraying herself, and at the heart of it, she no longer cared too dearly if she had given herself away. Dmitri belonged to the secret circle of witchpowered folk her father seemed to head, and as such would have answers.

More than answers; sudden recognition spilled through her. Her unusual restlessness harkened back to the summer night in Khazar when she had awakened, prickling with awareness that some unknowable game was afoot. Then, as now, it had seemed that Dmitri had drawn her from sleep, his very presence sparking things in her that had never before existed.