by C. E. Murphy
Javier's army drives the Aulunians back to the channel after the Khazarian desertion: back to the channel, and then to Alunaer, as Rodrigo turns his attention to the production of rapid-fire guns. He begins there on the still-bloody fields, turning soldiers into smiths.
A brilliant young man has come out of the troops to offer his services. He's young, but silver-haired, and his blue eyes are perpetually amused. He calls Rodrigo a visionary, but it's his insight that builds the first factory, machinations leaping forward to build moulds and huge forges with which to pour bullets and barrels alike.
It's he, too, who has mad ideas of engines powered by steam and combustion; engines that will power their machines from within, and take vulnerable horses from the battlefield, so the war machines can continue forward against the worst onslaughts. Rodrigo stays up long nights with this young man, working out ways in which wind and water can be used to power the factories to build their new monstrosities.
Through it all a wide-eyed gondola boy runs their errands and thinks himself at the centre of things of great importance. He's right, of course, and there are moments during innovation and argument that both prince and inventor stop to watch the boy, and imagine him to be the shape of the world to come.
Then they all put their heads down, two dark and one bright, and go back to building the future.
Alunaer falls in ten days. Lorraine Walter is too proud to leave her city, and so watches it die. It falls under horse-drawn war machines, some bearing cannon mounts, others the repeating-fire guns she heard tell of through spies and couriers. All good sense would have her turn tail and run to safer grounds so she might fight again another day, and instead she stands on parapets and watches smoke and fire rise from the streets, and waits for the messenger who will explain more than she wants to know.
So when Belinda Primrose-for Lorraine will never learn to call the girl by the surname they both share-when Belinda Primrose comes to the palace, Lorraine gives her leave to enter, for all she knows that her daughter is the spearhead signalling her own fall. Belinda comes with an army behind her, but she herself comes not as a warrior, but as a novice. She's escorted by a handful of Javier de Castille's troops, and the grey robes she wears make her look fragile and lost. Everything about her is afraid, as it should be, if she's just been snatched from a convent to give the Red Bitch an ultimatum. Lorraine doubts there are more than five people in the city who know that's not at all what's happened, and turns a brief thought to history, wondering what story it will tell.
It doesn't matter; most history is lies anyway. Belinda climbs the guardsmen's stairs to where Lorraine stands, full skirts of her robes carefully clutched in both hands so she might not trip on them. Aside from making her look penitent, they also hide the signs of pregnancy. It's possible, even probable, that that's where Lorraine made her mistake. She bore an illegitimate child, but forbade Belinda that same luxurious risk. Had she done otherwise, perhaps it would now be Lorraine walking unafraid into the Lutetian palace to take its crown.
Because Belinda's no more afraid than the wind might be afraid. She looks the part, but for all the ways Lorraine doesn't know the girl, there are others in which she knows her intimately, and her talent for playacting is among those. She stops at Lorraine's side and doesn't so much bother to curtsey, which Lorraine would mind less if it weren't very likely the last time anyone might have cause to curtsey to her.
“This is where it began, for me,” Belinda says to the wind and the scent of smoke. “This is where du Roz died.”
“I believe down there is where he died,” Lorraine says with a droll look toward the flagstones below. She's surprised at herself: her sense of humour is not what she's best known for, and to find even the driest hint of it within herself now is unexpected. Perhaps that's the price of war: it takes everything, and leaves odd dredges behind. “Does it please you, to come full circle and end where you began?”
“None of this pleases me.” Belinda lifts her chin as if inviting a hit, and Lorraine, surprised again, studies her.
Belinda will never be beautiful, she thinks, not even the brief and unique beauty of Lorraine's youth, but there's a strength to her prettiness. There's less of Lorraine, and more of Robert, in her, but with her head held high and a regal set to her jaw, Lorraine can see traces of herself in the girl. Stubborn, independent, clever: they're traits Lorraine wanted in her heir, and now rues. But curiosity's stronger than even that, and she's lost the war already, so she may as well ask: “Then why have you done it? You've lost your throne, lost your power.”
Belinda turns a hand up and in the afternoon brightness, a flare of gold becomes visible in her palm before fading again. “No one can take my power, and I never wanted a throne. Do you believe in fate, Mother?”
Lorraine's heart goes still and aching in her chest, and for a long time she doesn't breathe. Mother: the word's a weapon and a gift, though the way Belinda said it suggests she meant it as neither. She's not one given to casual connections, is Belinda Primrose, and so Lorraine thinks she's building what bridges she can with such a poor tool as language at her disposal. Good sense says those bridges should already be afire, burning between them, but in the end, perhaps blood runs deeper than sense, after all. When she has her breath back Lorraine says “No,” and wonders if she should tell all the reasons why.
But it's not necessary: Belinda knows the Walter family history, and it's either fate directing that story or sheer caprice. For all that Lorraine rules by divine right, she has very little faith in God or paths set in stone.
And then, quite clearly, she understands everything Belinda has done, and whispers “Ah” before her daughter has time to speak. “So you're only rebellious.”
A corner of Belinda's mouth quirks. “Not that either. I think a fate was being written for us. I meant to rewrite it, and have utterly failed in what I intended. I don't know what happens next, but that may be enough. Perhaps now no one knows.”
“I know.” Lorraine smiles when Belinda looks askance at her, and lifts her chin in much the same way Belinda did a moment earlier. “Javier de Castille will be crowned king of Aulun. If you and I are fortunate, we'll be given the rest of our days to live in the Tower. But Sandalia is dead, and the pretender to our crown may be disinclined to generosity. We are uncertain if Robert will appear to rescue us,” she finishes in a whisper, and knows herself to be weak for allowing the hope.
“Robert fell in Brittany.” Belinda says carefully. “No one has seen him since.”
“No,” Lorraine agrees. “No one's seen him, not dead and not alive. I choose to have hope, Primrose. Grant me that, at least. A queen might have a final wish, after all.”
Belinda turns to her, and once again surprises Lorraine by studying her a long moment, then dipping a generous curtsey, her gaze lowered and her voice soft as she whispers, “Of course, your majesty.”
It is the last such honour ever accorded to Lorraine Walter, and she will savour it for the rest of her days.
No one, least of all Javier de Castille, can argue that Belinda Walter is the best person to crown him. She's the acknowledged Aulunian heir, and Lorraine, who is deposed and locked in the tower she spent a decade in as a girl, would die before she put a crown on Javier's head. Belinda's the next best choice; she may be able to sway the hearts of her people, and can encourage them not to rise against their new king. Perhaps she can even help lead them back to the Ecumenic fold. History weighs heavily there: Lorraine's sister Constance made a bloody mark across this country by trying to return it to Cordula's faith, and Javier has no illusions that it will be an easy or quick task. Rodrigo counsels leading by example rather than by burning, and Javier, who has a bone-deep horror of the cleansing fires, is inclined to agree. So it must be Belinda, for those reasons and more.
Good sense or not, as she approaches-still wearing novice robes, shapeless and hiding six months of pregnancy-Javier cannot help but remember his mother, and the poison cup she drank from. Cannot help
but think how easy it would be to paint the inside of the heavy Aulunian crown with a deadly toxin that will burn away his skin and leave him a monster in the days it takes him to die.
She would not live to gloat, should she do such a thing, but Javier's heart is in his mouth and his chest feels hollow and sick as Belinda lifts the crown over his head.
Her voice is clear and crisp, carrying over the courtroom as though she's accustomed to making speeches. There's no worry or nerves hiding in her tone, and Javier, sourly, thinks it's good one of them isn't concerned. “With this crown I declare Javier de Castille, son of Sandalia de Philip de Costa and Louis de Castille as the true king of Aulun. It is my divine right to offer him this crown: I am Lorraine Walter's daughter, once the Aulunian heir, and I renounce any claim to this throne; it is not a burden I wish to bear.”
The crown is very heavy, and Belinda settles it on his head as a priest-not Tomas, as it should be-begins the sonorous and extensive listing of Javier's qualifications, all of which come down to God's will, and God's will alone. He hears very little of it: he's staring at Belinda, and trying not to see the faces who are missing from around him. Sacha should be there; Marius should be there. Sandalia, too, though at least Rodrigo has come, and Eliza will be made queen of this wretched wet island in another ceremony later in the week. She sits at his side, resplendently pregnant with soft round rags, and watches Belinda with untrusting eyes. But there's no poison burning his face, and witchpower confidence begins to imbue him as he reaches toward Belinda with it, and finds no hint of resentment.
Then the priest is naming Javier something more than king of Aulun or king of Gallin: he's naming him emperor of the western lands, and Rodrigo is pursing his lips in a smile while Javier tries not to goggle in shock. He's had no ambition for such titles, and thinking that reminds him again of Sacha, who would be pleased, and so somehow Javier manages a smile. Marius would be proud, and Sacha satisfied, and Eliza will be queen to an empire. That, perhaps, is something; maybe it will salve wounds over the next months and years.
But beneath that proclamation, softly, so no one but Javier will hear it, Belinda whispers, “Javier de Castille, queen's bastard, wearing a pretender's crown though he's the rightful king of Aulun. Rule wisely, brother, for my blade's yet unblooded, and I'll not have my country ruined by your revenge.”
She waits a long moment, gaze fixed on his, as though to make certain her words have come home to him, and then she steps back from the throne and lifts her voice to call out “Long live the king!,” and all the court takes up her cry. As it gains strength, she nods once to Javier, a mark of respect less showy but no less potent than a bow.
Then witchpower whispers, and that's the last any of them ever see of Belinda Walter, heir to the Aulunian throne.
BELINDA, CALLED ROSA
8 January 1589 Brittany
Rosa, who has no last name and no husband to explain away her swollen belly, is grateful to have been taken on as a serving girl at an estate in Brittany She and her new masters, the king and queen of Gallin, know that this estate was once her grandfather's; that she herself was born here nearly a quarter-century ago. None of this gives her airs: at times even her lord and lady seem to forget she's other than a favoured servant.
They remember very clearly who she is when the first birthing pangs come on her. They remember who she is, and what, but Rosa has made a promise to them, and though she has in some ways broken all ties of loyalty, she is still a creature of her word. Not long after Rosa realises what the cramps mean, the queen of Gallin is tucked into a warm room with her husband and her favourite servant, the latter of whom will in truth do all the yelling for the next few hours.
No one else attends the birth: these three have enough secrets without adding to them, and the woman called Rosa will not let another game like the one Dmitri began come into play.
To her dismay, a lifetime of willing pain and emotion away is of no use at all against childbirth. A part of her is convinced it once would have been, but she's fallen too far, changed too much. Bellowing her way through the delivery is some sort of punishment for losing her way. That most women do the same makes no difference. The king is useless through all of it, and the queen's beautiful eyes are enormous with hope and dreams.
It seems an eternity later that pain fades into a child's squalling presence. Rosa, breathless, weary to the bone, sits up to see what manner of babe she's given birth to.
Eliza Beaulieu, once a guttersnipe and now the queen of all Gallin lifts the child-a girl; of course it would be a girl-in bloody hands. Javier de Castille, witch king of Gallin, comes to look at the child in some astonishment. A slow smile blooms over both their faces, and the woman who was once the Aulunian heir reaches a fingertip to the protesting baby and chuckles when the girl seizes it. Then she closes her eyes and for a moment lets herself become Belinda Primrose again as she sinks back into the blankets to whisper the words that have defined them, defined them all, for every day of their lives:
“It cannot be found out.”
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