The Queen's Bastard

BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE

9 November 1587 Lutetia “Whisper seditious promises in my ear, Irvine.” Asselin caught Belinda on her own street, dragging her toward evening-made shadows between houses. She protested, one sharp startled sound, and he curled a lip, crowding her into darkness roughly enough to make passersby studiously look away. Belinda put her hands against his chest, thrust him back, and for a moment imagined him falling many feet to a snow-covered courtyard below. There were damp patches of white stuck to the Lutetian streets even now, enough to make the momentary vision seem real, memory of a lifetime past overlaying the world in which she now lived. Irritation flashed through Asselin’s hazel eyes as Belinda fixed him with a steady gaze.

“You will behave with decorum, Lord Asselin. Javier’s favour still rests with me. He won’t take lightly hearing you’ve manhandled me.”

“Do you think that?” Sacha sneered. “You’re a tool to be used, Irvine, nothing more, and I’ll have my use of you as much as he will.” He caught her upper arm, pulling her close with a hard grip. “You’ve gotten no movement from him. Nothing. No whisper of ambition. What good are you if spreading your legs doesn’t make him jump to serve you?”

“Why the hurry, Asselin?” Belinda breathed the question, making it light and mocking. She sympathized with Sacha’s impatience, eager for movement herself, but her life had taught her patience. The plot to create or kill a king was not a thing to happen swiftly in its beginning stages. Only when a certain critical momentum was reached did things begin to move at inevitable, unstoppable speed. They would all, in time, fall prey to the trap Belinda felt more and more certain was hers to build, a dangerous game to keep her own queen mother unchallenged on the Aulunian throne. “You’re young. Javier is young. Surely you’ve no personal stake in making the prince a king so quickly, have you? Is it your own desire agitating for Ecumenic domination in Aulun again, or does someone feed your ambition and your pocket? Does someone hunger for results and heap recriminations upon your head and your bank because they are not swift enough in arriving?”

For all of Asselin’s skill in dissembling, that talent could not deny the touch of his hand against her arm or Belinda’s twist of witchpower, seeking his thoughts through that touch.

Guilt and anger surged through the link, powerful enough to obscure words. His actions hid emotion beautifully, used the anger to bury guilt as he closed a powerful hand around Belinda’s throat. “Do not imagine I would hesitate to kill you for saying such things, Irvine. Javier is my prince and my loyalty is his. My impatience stems from a man in his prime dancing and dawdling on his mother’s weak will, when he should move forward and claim what is his under Cordula’s banner. Don’t think his favouritism will protect you from me if you fail to move him, or if you question my loyalty again.”

Belinda, incongruously, thought of the small dagger tucked at her spine, and opened her mouth to let go a shaking laugh that told Asselin she was cowed. Eyes averted, she swallowed nervously against the pressure on her throat and dared a tiny nod. The corsets beneath Eliza’s fashions were looser, shaped more like a woman’s natural form, only tightening to shelve the breasts against the low-cut necklines. There was no easy way, of course, to get to the dagger, not so long as she remained clothed, but stripped to her undergarments she could slip her fingers under the corset and free the blade. It had never been bloodied in battle, only in practise.

Someday, Belinda promised herself as she swallowed against the pressure on her throat, it would find Sacha Asselin’s heart’s blood.

“Forgive me, my lord. I spoke in jest, nothing more.” As her laughter could be read as supplication, the quaver in her voice could be interpreted as fear, not the hard delight of an oath made. Triumph rose in him, obscuring anger and guilt, and words whispered through the grip he held on her arm:-does not wish to wed a prince, but a king-

He released her with a spat curse, Belinda’s hand going to her throat as if she could massage breath back into her body, though eagerness for explanation behind the stolen thoughts overrode any discomfort she felt. Only one person she knew might dare to want a king instead of a prince, for all that the prince was far out of her grasp as it was.

“Perhaps you need Eliza on your side.” Pragmatic Eliza’s ambitions couldn’t have risen so high, and yet it was far too easy to see how they might have. An ache of unfamiliar sympathy shot upward through Belinda’s chest, spiking in her throat. She quelled it with stillness: it was not her place to care for the pieces that were moved on the board, only to make certain of their alignment. It was easier not to care from the guise of a servant girl, though, removed from the intimate interactions of lifelong friends. This would be the only time in Belinda’s life that she played so public a role-indeed, to do so again would be to invite exposure-and she found that the larger part of her was glad. Caring made her vulnerable, and she was unaccustomed to and displeased with the sensation.

Sacha answered her unspoken question with a sharp look. “She’s not to be any part of this. My name, Marius’s money, those might save us. Eliza’s got nothing. Not even the patronage of the queen could keep her safe if she were part of plans that went awry.”

“How long have you protected her?” Belinda hesitated over the penultimate word, knowing Asselin would hear the pause and interpret it as hinting at another: loved. His lip curled, equal parts confession and dismissal.

“Long enough to know what I’m about. She shares your roof, Irvine. Make sure she doesn’t share your secrets.” He turned on his heel and stalked away, slush splashing around his feet. Belinda held her hand at her throat, her lips pursed as she watched him go. Whether he’d finished with her or whether Eliza was a delicate enough topic to drive him away, she wasn’t certain. If it was the latter, that would be useful in the future, for all that the idea of using Javier’s friends against one another sent a shiver of regret over Belinda’s skin.

“Weakness,” she murmured to herself. It was weakness to be concerned with any one of them. That thought fixed in mind, the stillness drawn around her like armour, she straightened her gown and her shoulders and stepped out of the shadows to climb her front steps. She would have to watch the mirror carefully for signs of bruising on her throat, and entreat Nina to find the best cosmetics to hide evidence of Sacha’s visit.