The Pretender's Crown

TOMAS DEL'ABBATE

10 April 1588 † Lutetia, capital of Gallin

Tomas is beginning to think God has a cruel sense of humour.

A storm came over the sea yesterday, but this morning dawned clear and bright over a sailing ship washed clean of all visible signs of sin. The captain might have painted it white to make it gleam more, but he could have done nothing else. God might have commanded the sun to rise in the west so the light would be behind the new king of Gallin, but not even He could have done much else to trumpet Javier's return so beautifully.

It is on calm waters with a westerly wind that the ship sails into Lutetia, and Tomas the priest has no idea how the city knows to turn out for this particular ship at this particular time, but they do, and they have.

They're gathered by their thousands, lining the docks, lining the riverbanks, their voices raised in a cheer so solid that it seems a wonder that the wind is enough to push the ship forward against it. Javier's hair, which has grown long, is fire in the morning light, red and gold, and he stands at the ship's prow a pale aesthete thing of power. He is not clad in royal finery, but wears the simple rough shirt of a sailor, breeches buckled with a broad belt, and long boots that make a fine line of his slender legs. A naked sword hangs at his hip and catches sunlight, making silver streaks bounce in the crew's eyes and sending bolts of light into the shore-bound crowd.

He is, in these clothes, of the people, and is, by the wearing of a sword unsheathed, an open declaration of war. He's a thing of beauty, and this without even a hint of the magic Tomas knows he can command. Tomas has learned to feel that power, a weight in the air and a thickness in his own chest, and it is not yet present in the young king. This is pure humanity graced by divine right, and if Javier can command orgasmic screams with nothing more than his arrival, then if God has granted him the witchpower as well, it must be out of a perverse, inhuman sense of satisfaction at Tomas's discomfort.

It's a sign of how far he's fallen that Tomas doesn't even chide himself for the arrogance of that thought. Instead, like everyone else, his full attention is for Javier, and then for the two whom he gestures to join him.

Tomas has become accustomed to seeing Eliza Beaulieu in men's clothes, though his eyes twist away from the shadows of her body within that inappropriate garb. But this morning she is playing a different part, and even Tomas, who neither likes nor approves of the cheapside woman, finds it hard to look away from her.

She has taken the fine black wig of her own hair from safekeeping, and shining locks are bound up with a handful of curls to cascade free. It doesn't lend her the height that so many hairstyles offer women, but Eliza is tall, and perhaps the added extravagance of a dramatic hairstyle would detract from Javier. Her gown already does, to some degree: it is one of the loose floating things of her own creation, shelving her breasts high against a low scooped neck, and the layers upon layers of fabric are so light as to be easily caught in the wind; it billows and presses against her body, as provocative in its way as the men's clothes she likes to wear.

Eliza is beautiful in repose, almost icy, unapproachable. But when she smiles something happens to nearly perfect features, and she becomes, if not ordinary, at least mortal. She is smiling now, and with that smile and her soft hair and softer dress, she's captivating. The city knows this woman, and from Tomas's understanding, many of them despise her, but not now. Now she is the king's left hand, a creature of unearthly beauty and delicacy, and that she comes from the streets and has risen so high is, in this moment, a triumph. Javier is right, in his way: marrying her would be a coup. But Tomas is also right, and it's a step the young king can't afford to take.

At Javier's right hand is Marius, who looks terribly earth-born beside the other two. Tomas has not known the merchant man without Javier, not in any meaningful way; Marius arrived to tell Rodrigo of Sandalia's death literally within a few hours of Javier's impetuous Isidrian entrance. Marius had been sombre, as might be expected, and then their lives had all been shattered with the advent of Javier's witchpower. Of all of them, Marius had accepted that power the most easily, his heart still given unquestioningly to Javier. Now, in his darker clothes and with his feet spread wide as he stands at Javier's side, the look of him is trustworthy and solid. He looks like a man to be depended upon for practical matters, and as such helps to ground the fiery-haired king and the astonishing woman at his side.

All of this in their presentation of themselves, and not a word yet spoken. Thronged viewers along the shores call out and applaud. With their will to embrace Javier already so strong, Tomas cannot imagine that they will refuse him his war, or that they could grow more fervoured in their enthusiasm for him.

A drawbridge pulls up in front of them, shuddering ropes straining with water and weight as men kick oxen to a higher speed. A young man dangles himself from the bridge as it rises, waving like a fool, and Javier's unexpected laugh breaks over the sounds of the crowd. Eliza shouts with delight and runs forward, but Javier waves her back, then lifts his hand higher and calls out a halt to the astonished bridge-keepers, who haul their beasts of burden to a standstill.

Marius turns on a heel, snapping, “Drop anchor, drop anchor!” to the captain as Javier, lithe and light as a boy, swings himself over the ship's prow and runs the length of the figurehead. He should fall: the maiden who breaks the seas is soaking and slippery with seaweed, but watching him, Tomas never doubts he will succeed.

Frantic, the captain bellows orders to drop anchor, and chains rattle and scream, water splashing as iron weight slams into it. The bridge is drawn barely far enough to allow the ship's body to scrape through; the sails catch and twist, eliciting a gasp of horrified expectation from the watching crowds, and a heartfelt curse from the captain.

Javier, with the confidence of a young goat, flings himself from the figurehead and toward the youth dangling on the bridge.

There is an instant where this is not going to work. There is too much distance, too much movement from the ship, too much give in the bridge. Tomas's bowels clench in sympathy for a king about to be half-drowned and entirely humiliated.

But the man on the bridge finds an extra inch or two of reach, and seizes Javier's wrist with surety, as though they've practised this a hundred times. Javier bellows with delight and swings upward, the man's arms bulging with muscle and his neck straining with effort. Then Javier is on the bridge and the two of them are howling like fools, pounding each other on the back and shouting nonsense that is lost to the greater screams from the viewers. Eliza and Marius do a madcap dance on the deck, swinging each other around and shrieking with laughter, and Tomas can hear none of it over the uproarious joy roaring from the throats of the Gallic people.

The man on the bridge with Javier is sandy-haired, stocky, dressed more beautifully than his king, and must, therefore, be Sacha Asselin, the last in Javier's family of friends. Javier looks slight beside the other man, though he's taller; with both Sacha and Marius at his side, he will be flanked by muscle that most would think twice before rushing. It could not have been deliberate; all the world knows that these four have been friends since childhood, and there is no way Javier could have selected two strong men and one beautiful woman deliberately.

Javier could not have; God, perhaps, might have. Uncertainty blooms in Tomas's chest, making his breath come shallow. His faith is shaken; this, he knows. The Pappas didn't experience what Tomas has, didn't suffer the loss of will, and it does not disturb that great man to use a king and discard him.

Tomas realises he is glad he will never be the Pappas himself, and this is a revelation: he had supposed it might be a dream of his. Now he knows he isn't made for such pragmatic and hard decisions as the Pappas faces. And the Pappas, perhaps, cannot risk a crisis of faith, which Tomas struggles with even now. He believes a man who stole his will must be a man guided by the devil's hand, but looking at the formidable gathering of friends capering with joy, he wonders if God has put them together for a reason, and if his own arrogance and fear is blinding him to a truth that the Pappas can see.

“People of Gallin!” Javier's voice, a roar of sound, cuts through Tomas's thoughts. No man can quiet a gathering such as this one, not with his voice alone, but all along the shore a quietude ripples out. Not silence, not with so many people, but the quality of the noise gentles, becoming a hiss rather than thunder. And it stretches far, much farther than a man's voice can carry, and that, Tomas knows, is the witchpower at work.

Javier has released Sacha; the stocky lord, in fact, has reversed the king's show of bravado, and has leapt to the figurehead, and runs down it to crash gladly into Marius and Eliza's arms. If ordinary mortals might call up power through nothing more than their own will and emotion, then these three are, in this moment, a source for Javier to draw from. He glances down at them, a smile splitting his face wide, then flings his free hand up and shouts out again to the throngs.

“People of Gallin, I am Javier, son of Louis de Castille and Sandalia de Costa, and I come before you to beg you cry me king!”

Never, never in his life has Tomas heard voices rise with so much certainty, so much passion; never in his life has he thought he might find his own voice lifted in a shout so loud it tears at his throat. Thousands kneel on the shores; so, too, do those on deck, from the trio at the prow all the way to the stern, and the captain puts a fist over his heart.

Javier's voice drops, almost to a whisper: Tomas should not be able to hear him, much less the straining masses on land. But he can, and they can, and for all that Tomas is afraid of the power that lets Javier share his words up and down a riverbank, he is also filled with an aching admiration, a desire to serve that he has only ever felt within the walls of a church. This man before him, this king, could be great, and he, humble priest that he is, could walk his path and be remembered, too. Tomas does not think of himself as wishing a place in history, but watching the fire-haired king leaning rakishly from the bridge above, he knows that he will struggle to stay at Javier's side, not just for Javier's soul, but for his own.

“I come on the wings of sorrow,” Javier whispers, and then there's his own silence filled by the roar of his people, because the ship on whose deck he rode is called Cordoglio, “sorrow,” and he could not have chosen better had he meant to.

“I come on the wings of sorrow,” the king calls again. “I come in the wake of our beloved queen, my darling mother, Sandalia's, death. I mourn with all of you, my people, but in Cordula the Pap-pas himself placed a crown on my head, and today, and for many days to come, I will not turn my eyes, blind with tears, to Sandalia's grave and weep and honour her as she deserves. I cannot bring myself to face her, even in death, while she lies unavenged, and Gallin will have its vengeance!”

The faceless mass that had been on its knees is suddenly on its feet, hands flung into the air, screams of approval shaking the very boards of the Cordoglio. The gondola boy creeps to Tomas's side, eyes wide as he watches the dramatics that Javier commands. So softly as to be audible beneath the thundering noise, he whispers, “I was so wrong, Padre Tomas. He is good with words after all.”

The crowd will never cease its cheering on its own. Javier lifts a hand and brings them down with his palm, acknowledging and grateful, but in command. “I come before you with my friends, these men and this woman whom I have known since childhood, who have taught me so much of the Gallic people. They are my heart and soul, these three, my Sacha, my Marius, my Eliza, and they are you.”

Without bidding, the three have come forward, making themselves seen, making themselves a strong steady base upon which Javier stands. Dangling as he does from the bridge, not so very far above their heads, there is an obvious action to take, and Eliza, who Tomas may be forced to admit is clever, takes it: she raises her hands. Within a moment the other two have done so as well, and now Javier all but does stand on their support, the pauper and the merchant and the lord.

By now the watching people are insensible, the noise they make so profound Tomas begins to wonder if it is simply the sound of the world itself, and this no more than a rare occasion in which he notices it. And still Javier's voice carries, not smooth, for there's too much emotion for ease of words, but strong and certain, up and down the banks of the River Sacrauna.

“I must go to war, my people. I go on these shoulders, those of my friends, and I go with Cordula's blessing.” Javier's gaze falls to Tomas, sees the gondola boy at his side, and seizes the opportunity. Tomas propels the boy forward without thinking: responding to what's in Javier's eyes, and in a moment priest and child are standing with Eliza and the men. The air here is scalding, too hot to breathe, and its weight is terrible, laden with Javier's power as it rolls over the Cordoglio, over the river, over the thousands gathered to welcome their king home.

As Tomas comes to the prow, Javier shouts, “Look you to my ship, my wings of sorrow, and see here my priest and confidant Tomas del'Abbate, who brought me to the Pappas to earn his favour. See the child who stands with him, who has come from the canals of Aria Magli to join in our holy war!”

Marius, as clever as Eliza, or as caught up in breathless fervour as is Tomas, scoops the gondola boy up and sets him on his shoulders, putting a child in the eye of the world. Javier leans precariously far and catches the lad's hand, lifting it high as he calls, “This boy is the banner of Cordula, and he rides at my side! Will you join him?”

Here, at the heart of it, standing within the circle of Javier's power and at the centre of Lutetia's attention, tears spill down Tomas's cheeks as Gallin answers its king's call. He is on his knees somehow, reaching toward Javier as though he bears God's light within him, and it is a terribly long time before Javier leaps back to the ship's deck and into the arms of his brothers and sister. A terribly long time before he comes to Tomas, and takes his face in his hands, rubbing tears away with his thumbs. The thunder of voices still crashes around them, but there's nothing in Tomas's world but Javier's warm hands, and the whisper of hope in the young king's voice: “Is this forgiveness, then, my priest? I have done you wrong, but I would have your love if you will give it.”

Oh, God's sense of humour has grown perverse indeed, for Tomas del'Abbate turns his face against Javier's palm and lays a kiss there, benediction and absolution, and knows himself for a fool, for he would do anything for Javier of Gallin.