The Pretender's Crown

BELINDA WALTER

4 July 1588 † Brittany; the Aulunian camp

In the last weeks Belinda had become, if not enured to, at least accustomed to the sounds of warfare: the screams of men and horses alike, the thunderous crash of bodies and metal; the louder-yet roar of cannon and the reports of muskets and pistols. Those last were the rarest of the cacophony, too unpredictable in comparison to sword and arrow and cannon.

But what she heard now, what she had been hearing an hour or more since, was a different thing entirely. Gunfire shattered the night repeatedly, manifesting as bursts of white fire in the distance when she peeled back the tent door to search for the sound's source. She'd closed the door again and settled back into her place, trying to let the noise disappear into the night while she focused on her preparations, but it invaded her hearing time and again. If a hundred men could be taught to shoot a hundred muskets in succession, no misfires ever heard, it might sound a little like what tore from the Ecumenic camp. Men, though, would never be so precise, each rattle snapping off in flawless succession, and when it would briefly stop she found herself straining to hear it again, waiting for whatever portents it brought to come clear.

It was easier, perhaps, to concentrate on that than to let stillness take her and make herself face the necessary choices she'd made. Without the stillness, without her usual certainty, she felt adrift. If an overwhelming love would take her, a compulsion to do whatever she must in order to preserve her child's life, then she might act more freely, but she had no softening of her heart, no dewy-eyed romance to hold herself to. The babe had to survive, not from love, but from pragmaticism. Robert's alien war was coming, and a witchpower child of her own birthing meant a small hope that there would be aspects of that war beyond Robert's control, aspects that might do her world some good. So the child must be preserved at any cost, even giving it up to Javier de Castille. She had no other choice, and the woman Belinda Primrose had been a year ago would not recognise that decision or the woman who made it at all.

A year. Gregori Kapnist had died barely more than a twelvemonth past, and Belinda's world had come unmoored in the time since. She would cut her last lashings today, and wondered what would be made of her in future days. Robert and Lorraine would never trust her again, and she might well pay for her decisions with the loss of her throne.

Dry humour curved her lips. So be it: she'd never sought the throne to begin with. Witchpower ambition itched with dismay at that, but settled again; it seemed that part of her was inclined to protect the unborn babe as well, and could ignore the middling detail of a throne until later.

“Belinda?” Ivanova spoke from her corner, quiet but fully alert. Belinda paused in collecting a soldier's uniform. She couldn't be ready to ride with the dawn, for fear Robert would visit before the battle began. Wisdom might have sent her from the tent an hour since, prepared to hide amongst the troops, but the sounds from the Gallic camp and her own need to sit a while and face the decisions she'd made had held her in place.

She turned to Irina Durova's daughter. “I'm about to cast myself to the wolves, and when I return I think I'll no longer be the favoured daughter. I wonder: will Khazar grant sanctuary should I require it?” The words were very soft, soft enough that listening ears wouldn't hear them, but she feared Robert's witchpower might reach forth to pluck her intentions from her thoughts. No quiet voice could stop him from doing that.

“Aulun and Khazar are allied,” Ivanova said after a long moment. “We would be pleased to offer you a place in our home should you require it.” She waited a moment, then sat up in the darkness. “Has something gone awry?”

“Robert intends on drawing this war out,” Belinda said steadily. “My thought to bring victory by leading the troops today has been refused.”

Ivanova caught her breath and Belinda lifted a hand against her concerns. “I'll ride, regardless. But Robert will know then that he doesn't control me, and-”

A new burst of gunfire rattled, drowning Belinda's voice even from the distance. Ivanova frowned, looking through the greying light as if she could see through the tent walls. “What is that? It woke me a while ago.”

“It's the changing of our plans.” The tent door flew open to admit an invigorated Robert, his eyes bright and actions full of energy. “Primrose, I'd almost dream you knew of this, with your plan for the morning. No,” he said almost instantly, as a confused frown marred Belinda's forehead. “No, I see you didn't. It's Seolfor,” he said with admiration. “It must be, after all this time. Forty years. He might have built enough to change the tide in that time, even without automation. They'll be enough to terrify the troops, at the least. Our men will run all the way back to Aulun without some kind of bolstering, and so you'll ride with them today after all, Primrose. You'll become the banner that denies their fear and drives them forward to capture the guns and win the day.”

For all his fine words, Robert didn't release Belinda to the battle until the sun reached its zenith. By then the new Cordulan weapons were clearly visible: half cannon, half gun, they rained devastation and men fell under their onslaught like bits of straw. Even the Khazarians, with so many men to throw against the rapid-fire guns, cowered and then finally refused orders, falling back in disarray.

Panic shot through the Aulunian troops as the Khazarians retreated. Belinda, still a far and safe distance from the front lines, knotted her fingers over a twisting stomach, her throat tight against the need to disgorge fear in sickness. Half a day: half a day's battle, and the Ecumenic army was wiping away the difference in numbers. More than two thousand men were newly dead, and easily twice that number injured or dying.

This, Belinda reminded herself with crystal precision, this was just the beginning of the future she intended to create. The part of her that was the assassin trained from childhood wanted to stand and watch and feel nothing, to envelop herself in stillness and become remote from death and destruction. For all its horror, it was a necessary horror: without these terrible weapons, without more like them, growing worse with each generation, when Robert's queen and her enemies came for Aulun and Echon, they would be left defenceless. This must be done, she whispered to herself, and let go a small bitter laugh at the echo it wakened in her mind: it cannot be found out.

That echo had the power to shatter her stillness, even if she had the strength to hold it in place. Oh, she had it: a grim, deep-set part of her knew that she could, if she must, draw untouchability around herself and care nothing for the men who died. But they deserved better than her cold calculations. They were dying for the choice she'd made, and she would do them as much honour as she could, by flinching and trembling and dreading each new burst of gunfire as they did.

When the Khazarians broke, Robert legged Belinda onto a tall solid mare and handed her the reins. Belinda gazed down at him a long moment, etching his features into her memory. It would be half a year or more before she saw him again, and the world itself might change in that time.

One side of Robert's mouth curled up in a smile, and he nodded, paternal indication of pride and love. Then he slapped the mare's hindquarters and sent Belinda into battle without a word spoken by either of them.

Witchpower lanced out as the mare leapt forward, a golden surge of light so brilliant it might have been born of the sun itself. It carried all of Belinda's needs: the need to act instead of watch, the need to keep a devil's promise with the red-haired king of Gallin, the need to survive at any cost, so her world could be shaped to fight a battle none of them was yet able to understand. Magic scoured the earth in front of her, tearing it up, and her own men fell back as if they were afraid the new Cordulan guns had come up from behind, as well. A path opened all the way to the front lines, and only there did it crash against Javier's shielding, and reverberate, golden play of power against silver in a familiar erotic thrill.

Belinda bared her teeth and her sword in one gesture, each as much a warning to herself as a rally to the troops. Fury at seduction's hideously easy path dampened any desire to pursue it, but she hadn't been wrong in telling Javier that because they knew that route better than any other, they would have to find a way to force themselves past it when using their witchpower in tandem.

For an instant her perspective twisted, magic playing between herself and Javier, until she stood behind silver shielding and watched a golden rod of power race toward her. She could see herself in the red coat of an Aulunian soldier but with her hair left loose and long and free, could see the strong slim lines of her legs clutching the mare's bellowing ribs, could see her sword lifted and her face contorted with the energy of war.

She was, she thought dispassionately, quite beautiful, in the way of ancient goddesses riding to battle. She'd never thought herself beautiful at all, only pretty; prettiness was safer for one such as herself, because beauty would be remembered. Just now, though, seeing herself blazing with witchpower, with God's power, beauty seemed a gift she was glad to accept.

Javier himself had a deeper and more visceral reaction, rage and lust and fear all tangled until they turned to loathing, and it was with that deep hatred the witchpower snapped back and returned her vision to normal. With it came an awareness that her troops were rallying, that men were screaming the Holy Mother's name and falling in behind her with an eagerness to protect her or die trying.

Her magic and Javier's slammed together again as she crashed into the front lines, sword suddenly no longer aloft to win hearts but swinging and splashed with crimson. The mare screamed and struck out with her hooves and Belinda fought in time with her, leaning to slash and stab and strike with strength that seemed beyond mortal. That was battle, that was witchpower, and together they made her feel unstoppable. No one near her fell to the rapid-fire guns: her shields were as strong as Javier's, and bullets shattered against them. Cannon roared, trying to bring her down, and then faded away as guns were pointed elsewhere, taking on targets who would die as they were meant to. Her sword arm turned to fire, then to lead, and finally passed into the dull ache that she recognised from practise as a child. She could fight forever this way, if she must, but instead she flung herself, time and again, at Javier's shield, golden surges of magic slivering sparks of silver. She would break through; she had to. The larger part of her no longer recalled why, except that she was at war, and that was what one did in war.

It seemed to her, then, that she was the last to notice that the fighting fell away; that men of both armies were taking their distance from her and looking elsewhere on the field. Belinda threw a weary look toward the sun, though at midsummer its place in the sky told her less about the time than it might have. Midafternoon, at the least; she had been fighting for some hours, and only with the breather that came on her now did she wonder if she could continue on. But the men around her weren't looking toward the sun or toward the fast-guns that had, unobserved, fallen silent. Their attention was turned to the Gallic camp, and Belinda, belatedly, saw what had arrested them.

Javier de Castille came to war at last. He rode a grey horse, making Belinda notice for the first time that her mare was a bay. It ought to have been gold, she thought then; that would make her and her brother as different on the field as they could be. Unlike herself, Javier wore armour, but then, in armour no one would have seen her for a woman, and the point of her presence was to be the queen of Heaven's avatar, while the point of Javier's was to be God's warrior. He'd forgone a helm and his hair was afire in the sunlight, grown long enough to edge over the armour's neckpiece. Belinda thought if a sword should clip a bit of those locks from his head, the red strands would become talismans as precious as the Son's blood to those who snatched them up. He rode slowly at the head of a small spear of men, coming to war as Belinda's opposite in every way.

Forgetting that he was the enemy, forgetting that she would have to lose to him, forgetting everything but admiration for showmanship, Belinda stood in her stirrups and raised her sword in a salute to the Gallic king. Even across the distance, she saw surprise filter over Javier's face, and he echoed her gesture, raising his blade. Silver witchpower shot up, bright against the blue sky, and the Ecumenic armies erupted in cheers.

Belinda, grinning, swept her sword in a broad half-circle above her horse's ears, and golden fire ripped across the distance toward Javier and his men. He shielded, magic splattering across the field, and war was on them again, the respite lost under screams and blood and passion.

Javier rode for her, as she knew he would. His arrowhead contingent of riders lost its shape to the press of battle, but others joined him as they picked up speed and came to crash against the Aulunian front lines with all the strength they had to muster. The shock reverberated through her, rattling her shields, but she urged her mare forward again and shouted out her own war cry as swords clashed and rang together. The fast-guns began firing again, spitting death more rapidly than any sword could deal it. Belinda let herself forget again that she was fighting to lose, and kicked and bludgeoned and struck her way toward the king of Gallin.

He answered well before she reached his side: silver power came to bear, hammering her until she slipped in her mare's saddle. An opportunistic fool seized her arm and she backhanded him with her sword's hilt and the mare's weight behind the blow. His neck snapped, but his fingers, tangled in her sleeve, didn't loosen, and Belinda, yelling, fell atop a dead man.

Witchpower kept her alive a few seconds, golden shields shattering swords as they drove down at her. Belinda scrambled to her feet, shoving men away with her arms and her power alike, and came up on the defensive and subtly dismayed to discover she was at the heart of a Gallic push: not one of the men around her wore the colours of Aulun or Khazar. Teeth bared in another grin, she called a vestige of stillness to herself, trying to hide in its shadow, but at least one armoured rider saw her fade away, and shouted out a warning that drew attention all around.

Breathless, swearing, shockingly high with enthusiasm, Belinda let him ride her down, and when he swung at her, stepped beneath the blade's arc and brought her own sword up in a sweeping circle of its own.

Its tip slashed a long deep line through the horse's shoulder, but momentum carried the blow through, her sword slamming into the knight's belly and rendering his armour as though it was soft meat. He was past her then, nearly wrenching the sword from her hands, but she dug her feet in and hauled the blade back, cutting even more deeply and earning a scream from the metal. Witchpower, Belinda thought: she hadn't the strength for that strike without magic's help. Blood splashed over her and the knight was wrenched around to face her. His head dropped and his fingers came to the cut before he lifted his head and his visor to meet Belinda's gaze.

Sacha Asselin stared at her, genuine astonishment in his hazel eyes before he shuddered and toppled silently from his horse. One foot caught in the stirrup and the animal tried to shake him off, then began to run. Belinda's sword slipped in her hand, fingers numb as her thoughts as Sacha's body crashed and slipped alongside the horse, then finally fell to the ground and disappeared beneath the feet of fighting men.

War raged on around her, and the loose grip she held on her blade was enough to send a part of her mind screaming that she was a target, vulnerable, an easy mark. But intellect had no hold on her: she stared at the place where Sacha had fallen with dull incomprehension, and her clearest thought was that a mistake had been made.

Not in Sacha's death: she'd intended that for months, had sharpened the tiny dagger she wore at the small of her back and promised it its first heart's blood from the young Lord Asselin's breast. It pressed there now, scolding her for promises broken. No, the mistake was in his death being done on a battlefield. It was supposed to be personal, a gift from the queen's bastard to the prince's friend, and done this way there was no surge of satisfaction, no wicked pleasure. Murder was an art, and this only a crude means of survival.

Witchpower swept around her, and Belinda, stupid with disbelief, turned toward it to greet Javier's armoured fist with the side of her head.

Nausea came with waking. Belinda kept her eyes closed, already certain she lay in a tent; the light was too dim to be outside. At least one other person was with her, but the witchpower wouldn't respond and let her ascertain her companion. Javier, probably; maybe Eliza. Belinda wet her lips. “I'm surprised to be alive.”

“You should be.” Javier, yes, his voice torn with pain. Belinda was abruptly glad the witchpower lay quiet, that she couldn't feel his anger and agony. Fresh sickness rose on the edge of that relief: he'd hit her hard, hard enough that she might be pleased to have survived it, though her surprise came from not waking with a dagger through her heart. Pain swam through her skull, looking for a release of laughter: she would not, of course, have woken with a dagger through her heart. Finding that funny made her head ache all the more.

“Why am I?” Safer words than a declamation of intent in killing Sacha Asselin; she'd meant to do that, either in the need to live on the battlefield or in doing murder at a later time. Javier would see through any facade she tried to weave, and so it was better not to try at all.

“Because not even I knew Sacha was riding the front line,” Javier said after a long time. “Because this is war, and a man in armour was about to kill you, and I think you could not have known who he was. Am I wrong?” His every word was precise, measured out in misery.

Belinda sagged against the cot she lay in, tension running from her shoulders and lessening the pain in her head a little. “You're not. I wouldn't have killed him that way, had I known.” Her tongue ran too free and she was unable to stop it even when Javier barked a rough sound and said, “You'd have killed him some other way.”

“In private, in intimacy. He deserved that. He'd earned as much.” Belinda bit her tongue, wondering which phrase would get her throat cut.

Javier breathed the name of God and got up silently enough to tell Belinda he'd shed his armour. She dared open her eyes and stared at the ceiling, nausea edging around her again. The Gallic king might have all the secrets of Aulun of her, if he knew what questions to ask. But instead of pursuing them he said, “There's the other matter, as well.”

The child fell heavily after those words, though it remained unspoken, and that, Belinda thought, was the truth of why she still lived. Had she not bargained the child away and had Javier and Eliza not already put in play their false pregnancy, she had little expectation that Javier de Castille would have stayed his hand over the matter of Sacha Asselin's death. He had lost too much too quickly, and that was a thought unusual to one such as Belinda Primrose. She sat up cautiously, vision swimming, and counted herself lucky she'd survived Javier's blow at all. “I'm your prisoner, as we intended. I'll do nothing to risk it. And I am… sorry for the cost it came at, Javier.”

“Are you,” Javier said, but not in a way that asked for her answer. He was grey in the dim lighting, his hair's lustre lost, his eyes hollow and face aged. Too many losses, Belinda thought again, and wondered if it was sympathy that spiked through her. “You will not be welcome at his graveside.”

Belinda bowed her head. “I wouldn't presume to ask.” Nor did the refusal dismay her, as it would have done over Marius; Marius had deserved better than his fate, but Sacha was a player in his own right. “What's happening?”

“Sacha will be buried at dawn.” Javier spoke so coolly Belinda knew he chose to misinterpret her question deliberately. Only a moment passed before he relented. Not, she thought, out of kindness to her, but out of a desire to remove himself from her presence as quickly as he could. There would be mourning to do, and a great deal else to face before Sacha's funeral rites.

“Aulun retreated with your fall. Your father's sent an envoy to negotiate your return. The return of the Holy Mother's avatar,” Javier corrected himself. “They don't admit to who you are. Perhaps it's to my advantage to flaunt the truth.”

“No.” Belinda winced at the sound of her own voice, too harsh and low. It scraped the inside of her head, shaking more sickness loose. “You hit me too damned hard,” she muttered, then pulled her thoughts back in order. “If you make noise about Aulun's heir being your captive, they'll parade the girl playing my part in Alunaer so your lies can be dismissed.”

“And of those who've seen your face? How will he fool them?”

Belinda shrugged. “They'll begin with the girl looking a great deal like me, but you can influence men against their will, and I can alter memories. Do you doubt Robert Drake can do these things, too? I'm his witchbreed daughter. He'll go far to bring me back under his control, and we need months in which to negotiate if this child is to be born yours. Don't rile him on this. Call me by whatever title he wants to give me and play at the game until we've finished this part of the bargain.”

“Is it so easy for you?” Javier turned her way, not quite looking at her. “Is it all nothing more than deaths and deceits? You're so cold, and it's worse when I think of the woman Beatrice Irvine was. How can you construct a character of that nature and be so ruthless yourself?”

“It's the only way I can construct such a character,” Belinda whispered. A dozen other comments came to her lips and didn't pass: Javier would neither believe nor care for the truths she'd come to face, that Beatrice had become too much a part of her, that what had once been easy was now matter for endless internal debate, that none of Beatrice's softness or Belinda's own questions took away from what must be done, regardless of the price. Out of all the things she might say, one wanted most to be spoken: I didn't drown Marius's ship. It would do no good; she'd drowned dozens of others, and Javier would have no pity or pleasure for the solitary act of compassion she'd engaged in that day. If Marius still lived, perhaps, but that she'd saved him only to see him die a few weeks later took the strength from a childish hope of absolution.

Javier gave her a hard look, then went to the tent door, not speaking until he'd reached it. “You'll be kept under watch, not because I think we can keep you from escaping, but for your protection, though God help the fool who comes at you toward any end. I go to treat with your father.” He stepped through the flaps, leaving a bar of sunshine across the floor, and after a moment Belinda gathered herself to cross the dim room and look at the world from within the Gallic camp.

Sunlight splashed hard and white into her vision, turning Javier into a blur as he strode away. A wobbling old man leaning on a staff crossed between them, cutting away brilliance, and turned his head to give Belinda a querulous glower. Her headache flared, and with it a spike of light burst around the old man.

More than burst: even with her temple throbbing and a fingertip touch telling her a bruise was purpling there, witchpower answered that burn of white, matching like for like. Belinda blocked the glare with her hand, squinting to get a clearer picture of the man.

There was more than an old man's height and breadth to him, though witchpower buzzed around him until it became a hiss almost indistinguishable from the sounds of the world. Within that cloak of power he was ageless and full of a mischievousness she'd never seen in her father or in Dmitri Leontyev. Unbidden, a name came to her lips, a name stolen from Robert, from Dmitri; not one she had known until this moment: “Seolfor.”

It was too soft a sound; it would never cross the distance between herself and the silver-haired witchlord. But he smiled and hefted his staff a few inches in greeting, then dropped a blue-eyed wink. Belinda took a step forward, and inside that step the burning afternoon sunlight took him away as thoroughly as it'd swallowed Javier only moments before.

There was nothing left in the air, no hint of power, no whisper that said he'd cloaked himself in magic: he was simply gone, and when her vision cleared again, one of the new guns stood where he'd been.