The Pretender's Crown

ROBERT, LORD DRAKE

22 June 1588 † Alunaer, the queen's private chambers

Of all the things that should not be dancing through Robert Drake's mind, Irina Durova's beautiful face is high on the list. But the imperatrix's image is there, bringing with it a humour that Lorraine, queen of all Aulun, would not appreciate at all, which is why Robert is biting his tongue in an attempt to keep laughter at bay.

It is, as he's observed before, easier to be angry at a plain woman than a beautiful one, but Lorraine's wrath makes it quite clear that a woman of failing beauty is still very capable of being angry at a man. Any man, but most particularly himself in this time and place, and if he were asked, Robert would admit Lorraine has the right of him.

He, after all, taught Belinda Primrose to be a sneak.

Another girl has been wimpled and put on display for the moment, an event she should revel in as the most exciting of her brief life, because it will almost certainly be the culmination of it. Lorraine's brother, who died little more than a child, was so ruined by the disease that had wracked him that another pretty blond boy took his place as the funereal body, while the young king himself was buried in a shallow grave in the middens. A family of such pragmaticism is unlikely to allow Belinda's double to live long after Belinda's safe return.

A return, Robert hears, which he is expected to expedite. He brings his attention back to Lorraine, and against all wisdom smiles at her. “Forgive me,” he says, and though he's cheerful, there's honesty in the request. “I should say I expected this, but I didn't. Belinda's been a well-directed tool all her life, unaccustomed to taking her own rein. I didn't think she would.”

“My experiences with the girl say she's impetuous and-” Lorraine breaks off with a muttered curse. “And clever. But I thought her loyal, Robert. I thought her loyal beyond question.”

“She is.” Robert says that with easy confidence, and rises out of his kneel to emphasise it. “You set her a task, Lorraine.” He's made much freer with the queen's name since her revelation of their long-ago marriage, a stunt so well-considered and oft-discussed that even Robert barely remembers whether it happened in truth or in fiction. “You told her to keep her people safe. I've never, not since she was a child, given her the how of accomplishing her duties, only said they must be done. You may be her queen-”

“And her mother,” Lorraine snaps, but Robert shrugs dismissively.

“That, too, but the one holds more weight than the other, and it should, given how we chose to raise her. Either way, I think she's chosen her own path to fulfilling the job set to her.”

“We did not grant her permission-”

“How often,” Robert interrupts, greatly daring, “have you waited on permission, my queen?”

Lorraine stares at him, and stares hard. Robert smothers another smile, far too pleased with the girl-child he raised and feeling a little sorry for her mother. Belinda's presence in Gallin isn't something he counted on, but it, and her stormy relationship with Javier de Castille, will drive the war in dramatic waves. This is what Robert wants: the more passion and the less reason, the longer it will last, and the more room he'll have to push forward leaps in technology. These people have guns, they have metal workers, but they have no automation, and he requires a level of automation beyond what they can currently imagine. He admires their blue jewel of a planet, but he'll turn its skies grey and let its people forget the colour of the sun, if it will help to arm his own people for their long nights between the stars, and for the battles they find there.

“Are you suggesting,” Lorraine finally says, icily, “that your Primrose is…” She can't, it seems, finish the evidently appalling thought: Belinda may be her daughter, but Lorraine is unaccustomed to thinking of anyone as being like herself.

“You're a force unto yourself, my queen,” Robert says both smoothly and truthfully, but then he allows that smile to encroach. “And she's admired you her entire life, Lorraine. She will do anything for you and for this country. Don't worry. I'll go to Gallin and bring her back, but don't worry for her safety or her methods. If she's bold, she comes by it naturally.”

“For me,” Lorraine says, still coolly. “For me, for Aulun, and for you, Robert. Her loyalties don't begin and end with me.”

“But mine are yours to command.” A wash of foolishness heats Robert's jaw and creeps up his cheeks at the simple truth of those words. His other queen may wait beyond this world's moon, preparing for the time when humans break far enough away from their small planet to shuttle ore and minerals and fuel to her ships, but in the here and now, a very large part of Robert Drake is given over entirely to the red-haired queen of Aulun. Still flushed, he bows deeply and takes himself to the door, trying to shape his thoughts to a journey across the straits, and to finding a wayward daughter.

“Robert.” Lorraine waits until he's turned back, then says, “Take the Khazarian ambassador with you. I want one of Irina's chosen men on the front lines, as much to oversee her troops and report to her as to be seen and reported on. We are unified, Aulun and Khazar, and the world will see it in my lord consort and Irina's ambassador standing arm in arm.”

“Your will, my queen.” Robert, more than satisfied, bows again and leaves the chambers with a lightness in his step.

C.E. Murphy

The Pretender's Crown