The Pretender's Crown

ROBERT, LORD DRAKE

23 March 1588 † Aria Magli, in northern Parna

In Aria Magli, many miles to the north, hairs lift on Robert Drake's arms and he turns southward, frowning across a distance too great for eyes to see. After long moments, discomfort fades and he lowers his gaze, lips pursed as he finds himself wondering, wondering, wondering.

C.E. Murphy

The Pretender's Crown

23 March 1588 † Isidro; Rodrigo's private chapel

Every crowned head in Echon will be furious with him, but it's the young woman's mother Rodrigo is concerned about. The girl has not an ounce of cruelty-or sense-in her, and she will spend her life pampered and treated like a queen. Indeed, if Rodrigo were of Maurish faith, he might marry the girl as well, just to distract her mother from the insult she'll perceive.

He regrets that there was no other way, but diversion is an excellent tactic, whether in war, politics, or religion, and this matter combines all three. Cordula, nevermind the Kaiser in Ruessland or the warring kings of the Prussian confederation, would not have allowed him to do what he intends to do, and Rodrigo de Costa is not a man to be dictated to. If he must marry, he will by God do it on his own terms, and he will make a match worth mentioning of it.

He takes a moment, because he's in the chapel, to be somewhat apologetic for taking God's name in vain, but then footsteps echo on the floor behind him and there are more important things to attend to than the unlikelihood of an offended Lord.

To his relief, he's never seen the woman who stands backlit by morning sunlight streaming in the open doors. Amusement follows that thought; to his relief, but she's the woman he intends to marry. Still, he expected the girl's mother, and he'd rather face a political opponent than an insulted parent.

For that's what Akilina Pankejeff is: a political opponent, not an ally. Not yet, perhaps not ever, though wedding himself to her makes a bed their two countries will share, and that, in theory, means an alliance between lovers.

It's a long and interesting moment before Akilina curtsies, and he wonders what she's thinking as she does so. When she straightens he offers a bow in return: unnecessary by rank, but crucial in that it will smooth waters that are by their very definition troubled.

That, he suspects, was more or less what she was thinking, too, although as dvoryanin, a grand duchess of Khazar rather than royalty, she should, in fact, bend knee to a prince whether she likes it or not.

Because she stands in the light, she can see him, but he cannot see her clearly. He knows the picture he makes: aging, but well, with silver at his temples and brightening the small sharp beard he's taken to wearing. Long-legged and fit, he has taken some care in maintaining his shape, both from vanity and practicality. A man burdened with extra weight cannot go to war so easily, nor, should the need arise, fight off an assassin. Rodrigo likes to think he's a practical man.

And because he's practical, he won't make the Khazarian duchess come to him. Instead, he steps down from the altar and into her shadow, amused at the implications imagining Akilina is seizing on them, hoping she might also seize the upper hand in the marriage that is about to take place.

When he steps out of the light and shadows that she casts, what he sees first of all is that she wears a sheepskin around her shoulders for warmth, and what he says, all unintentionally, is, “Oh, well done, my lady. Well done indeed. Those who remember will remember well, thanks to you.”

She curtseys again, and her smile is, he thinks, meant to be demure, but to his eyes it only hides her teeth. Her eyes, though lowered, slide to follow him as he circles her, one shark waiting on another. There will be blood soon, of that Rodrigo is sure, and he intends the greater part of it will be hers.

She is, at a glance, all the things he has heard she is: beautiful in the way an obsidian dagger might be, black and dangerous and sharp. It is not her nature to stand and be circled, even when she wears, as she does now, a gown encrusted with gold and pearls; a gown intended for little more than to be looked at, for it weighs a woman down. No one travels with this kind of dress at hand, not without long preparation for an anticipated wedding. That she wears it means she has found strings to pull and favours to call in, not an easy thing to do with only two weeks' notice for impending nuptials, and with a long journey made in that time besides. She's clever, then, and drives a hard bargain, both of which are commonly believed.

But the sheepskin tells him that she's more than clever. She binds herself to Sandalia with that skin, intimates friendship with a dead woman, and tells him clearly that she understands politics and marriage beds and all the reasons for putting them together. It verges on brilliance, and he admires her for it.

When he's made a full circle he stops and says what he intended to say as his first words to her, before she surprised him into speaking unrehearsed: “I think we shall look well at the altar together, don't you?”

“Da, my lord.” Her voice, like her cleverness, pleases him. It's warmer than he expected, richer: a woman with her sharp beauty might easily have had a piercing voice. Curious to hear it again, he asks a question he knows the answer to, but then, hearing her response will tell him things, too.

“Irina is informed?”

Her eyes are black; this Khazarian raven's eyes are black, glittering, and intense. “Da,” she repeats, then gives over from any pretence at her native tongue to speak very good Essandian. “She's informed, and a bird should come to Isidro to tell you of her plea sure. This is an alliance that will free her from the necessity of marrying Ivanova to your nephew, and ends all risk of your pursuit of her hand.” There's a moment's hesitation in which it seems Akilina will say something else, but it passes and she simply concludes, “She will, I think, approve.”

Indeed, Irina has approved; the bird arrived two days ago, before Akilina herself did. But Rodrigo's interest is piqued again, and his eyebrows lift. “What did you not say, dvoryanin?” This time he speaks her language, a meeting of minds, or, at least, an affectation of it. Akilina quirks an eyebrow, too, and for an instant he thinks he sees humour in her gaze. That would bode well, though in the end it matters not at all whether they like each other in the least.

“I didn't say that I'm young enough to bear children, which Irina is not, or that the imperatrix will have considered that in this dance of alliances. She wouldn't give up her own reign to allow an imperator to sit over her again, or risk Ivanova's inheritance of the throne. A child of noble Khazarian blood in Essandia's royal family is the best outcome she could hope for.”

“And yet she did not bargain you away to this throne, or any other,” Rodrigo says thoughtfully, and Akilina, whose posture is already perfect, draws herself up further, insult and disdain written on her features. Able to see what she's about to say, Rodrigo makes a soft sound, hoping to dissuade her, and when she draws breath anyway, speaks before she does.

“Do not, Akilina. Don't make your protests, don't trade on the high road of your own pride. We are all of us slaves to our thrones, whether we serve by sitting on them or by bowing to them. Had Irina chosen to trade you away you would have gone, because that is the duty you owe your queen. I haven't chosen you because I need an obedient wife. I require a woman of wit and intelligence and boldness, and one who brings political alliances powerful enough to permit me to wage the battles that must be fought. We both know what is expected of us and we will both fulfill those roles.”

Colour mounts in Akilina's cheeks, reminding Rodrigo that although she's a woman grown, she is also half his age. A reprimand from him is very likely in the same vein as a scolding from her father, though if memory serves him, that man died when Akilina was only a child, not yet ten years old. Regardless, she's furious, and she's furious because he's right. It's not an ideal way to begin a marriage, but then marriage isn't an ideal Rodrigo holds to. Still, because he has no wish to enter a battlefield in the marriage bed, he does soften his voice and add, “The sheepskin truly is well done, my lady. You will be loved for it.”

Akilina nods, then wets her lips and glances the other way, more of a submissive act than Rodrigo expected of her. “By your leave, my lord, my women will want to finish preparing me for the wedding.” She sounds soft and compliant, and her game comes into focus for Rodrigo: it is an act, and she is playing the part of the chastened wife.

“Of course.” Rodrigo waits until she is nearly at the chapel door, framed by it, framed by sunlight that brings out the red and gold in her black hair, and then he says, “Akilina.”

She stops at the sound of his voice: that is good. He waits until she's turned back toward him, and that she does is also good. “Do not think me weak because I admire your wit, lady. You will be queen, but I am and will remain your prince. Do not forget that.”

Akilina goes still before dropping a tiny and very precise curtsey. Then-clearly dismissed by her own reckoning, if not by Rodrigo's explicit permission-she turns on her heel and stomps off in an obvious fury to prepare for her wedding vows.