The Pretender's Crown

ROBERT, LORD DRAKE

Of the things that might have gone wrong, Belinda's capture by the Gallic king had not so much as entered Robert's mind. She was too quick, too clever, too bold, and Javier's intimate awareness of her person, both figuratively and literally, too much a danger to her. That they would clash on the battlefield, yes-that much Robert anticipated-but not that she would fall.

Now, sitting on a bored warhorse, Robert wonders if he allowed himself to be blind in this matter. Belinda did, after all, collapse beneath Javier's power in Lutetia a few months ago, but her training beneath Dmitri-and, Robert thinks with a dour kind of humour, no doubt above and before him as well-strengthened her. She shouldn't have fallen, and should now be able to walk free easily. He had watched it all, the distance as nothing to his witchpower. She'd gutted a man and then stood numbed from it, bewildering when he thought of the innumerable deaths she'd brought just that day, nevermind in the course of her young life. Javier'd ridden up to her as she stood unawares, and hit her hard enough that Robert, a mile away, had winced.

So, though there are no doubt a hundred other things he ought to say, when Javier de Castille rides up, what Robert can't help asking is “Who was it she killed, before you captured her?”

“Sacha,” Javier says in a flat voice, and says it as though he expects Robert to take meaning from the name.

Indeed, Robert does, and Ana di Meo's whispered warning flashes back to him across the months and across her death: Belinda is lonely, my lord, and almost nothing else matters. Belinda was lonely, and Sacha Asselin was a friend to Beatrice Irvine. That, then, explains it all, and gives Robert a measure of horror: Belinda has become soft, if that young lord's death drew her up that badly. “I'm sorry for your loss,” he says aloud, and Javier smirks, ugly expression on his thin features.

“As are we all. My lord Drake, we have captured your holy avatar, and we are inclined to keep her as our guest until Aulun surrenders. We are,” the young king says, and manages to sound as dry as Lorraine, “willing to accept that surrender now, and save ourselves the trouble of riding back and forth under truce.”

“Perhaps your majesty would be willing to consider a ransom instead,” Robert says, but his heart isn't in the negotiation. In fact, he has no real idea of what he's just said, because the king's vocal inflections have opened a window in Robert's mind. He stares at Javier de Castille and sees in him the young Aulunian queen, her titian hair long and loose over her shoulders and her thin grey eyes full of pride and wit. Javier hasn't the widow's peak that graces Lorraine's hairline, or Robert might have seen it immediately, but the truth is, Lorraine's features sit better on a man's face than on her own: he's a more handsome boy than she ever was a woman.

If it were within Robert Drake's power, he would retrieve Dmitri Leontyev from the grave so he might take the pleasure of killing him again. Heat stains his face, and Robert doesn't remember the last time he blushed. His hands are cold on the warhorse's reins, and it's only a lifetime's worth of habit that keeps him calm and solid in his seat. He can -just -forgive himself for not seeing it, because he's only met Javier once, and that under unfortuitous circumstances. But he should have known. He should have known, and he did not, and that means Robert Drake has been out-played.

Javier has dismissed the idea of a ransom and is waiting for Robert to name an outrageous ransom fee that Javier will take under consideration and ride back to the Ecumenic camp with. Right now, though, Robert can't name a price he wouldn't pay just for the chance to face Belinda and learn how much of this game she was aware of when she came to war. For a rash moment he actually considers surrendering just to achieve that end.

But no, Lorraine would stare incredulously if he did capitulate, and it would in no way serve his queen beyond the stars, and so what he says is ill-considered, but at least it's not a surrender: “I think my Primrose knows, but do you, or has she kept that secret from you, king of Gallin?”

The skin around Javier's eyes tightens, so fine a wrinkling that if Robert had not spent thirty years and more bedding the queen of Aulun he might not have seen or recognised it at all. These mortals learn much from their surroundings, but can do nothing about the form they're given. Though it's stretched across an unknown mind, this face is so familiar it cannot lie: Javier knows that he's Robert's son and Belinda's brother, and if Javier knows, Belinda's the one who's told him.

And that, Robert should think, means they've built an alliance in the shadows, and her capture is not a capture at all, but a deliberate retreat on her part. Only one reason carries enough weight: the child Belinda's carrying, which she has not yet confided in her father about.

Oh, yes, he's been out-played, and to his surprise, he's delighted.

He's known Belinda is clever, but he never imagined she might be a worthy opponent. She was meant to be a tool, not to put pieces on the board herself and set them into action.

Javier has expressed some sort of polite incomprehension, but Robert's no longer listening. Lorraine gave Belinda a cryptic order before sending the girl away, to take care of the matter they discussed. The Titian queen-the Red Bitch, Robert thinks both ruefully and lovingly-would have meant the pregnancy, would not have accepted a daughter with an illegitimate child. This, then, is Belinda's way of protecting the babe, and moreover, she intends on giving it over to Javier de Castille and his new bride, whom Robert would now wager is not pregnant and indeed can never be so.

It's a brilliantly insidious plan to gain the Gallic throne, and Robert is astonished Javier agreed to it. The child isn't his: that much Robert's sure of; Belinda's not round enough to be carrying Javier's child. The king must love her, Robert thinks, and the idea takes him aback. The Gallic king must love the girl he's married, if he's willing to go to this length to get a child with her and keep his throne.

He will have to send Seolfor, Robert decides; will have to put Seolfor into play at the Gallic court, so the witchpower child will be under some vestige of control. His other choice is to snatch Belinda back and keep her hidden from Lorraine until the baby's born, but in truth, Belinda's done a fine job of manipulating events herself. He'd applaud her for it if she were here, but he doubts he'll see his daughter again until the new year, when some kind of truce in the war will be negotiated in exchange for her return. That will do, even if he might personally want to face Belinda down; he needs the war to go on, and personal wishes must be subsumed beneath the greater plan.

His mouth is running without his thoughts behind it; he and Javier are snipping over surrenders and ransom, neither of them with any intention of giving in to the other. Robert raises his hand suddenly, cutting off the discussion. “Our beloved daughter remains safe in Alunaer,” he says coldly. “Keep this avatar if you wish. All of Aulun has faith that the queen of Heaven rides with us, and if one girl is captured by the damnable Cordulan forces, then when Belinda is called to host the holy spirit again, another woman shall become her avatar here in Brittany.”

He wheels his horse, leaving a gaping Javier behind, and gallops back to the Aulunian camp grinning with delight.