The Pretender's Crown

by C. E. Murphy

  “Pah.” The old man turns his head and spits. “We in the mountains bow our heads to no one. What do I care if you choose a king or a queen, when what matters is you honour a crown.” His gaze, rheumy indeed, narrows. “But a queen's man here means war's on the way.”

  “Does it?” Robert is accustomed to the people of this world unfolding their thoughts to him all unknowing. A few do not: royalty, largely; people who have learned to protect themselves in every aspect, for betrayal is so easy to invite. Children hurt very young: he has met a handful of those who are walled up and whose thoughts are not his to sip. They have perfect counterparts, others hurt in just the same ways, who bleed all their thoughts and hopes and fears over everything, emotionally exhausting. Most, though, most humans, are easy to steal a thought from here and there. Even Belinda, unexpectedly, has learned that trick.

  This village elder is one who cannot be easily read. It's age that's done it in him, age and practise and guile, Robert would say; this is an old man who has learned charm and cleverness and can still flirt with the young girls without making them cringe, for what he's after is a bit of cheese or some fresh cream, and he's willing to barter it with a story or a pretty word. He's the sort of man Robert thinks he'd like, if he were given to the luxury of liking people. Mostly, though, he doesn't allow himself that indulgence, because human lives are brief, and his purpose much longer and greater than any of their transient appearances on this world.

  And when he fails, when he learns to like and to love, it is almost always a woman who is his weakness. The titian queen of Aulun is one such, but in this moment it's Ana di Meo's dark eyes and rich colouring that comes to mind. There was a too-dear price paid for that fondness, too dear for all involved. Robert is not a man made for regrets, but a deep cut lies across his heart in that matter.

  He puts the thought away deliberately, bringing his full attention back to the elder, whose head is now bobbling as he produces a toothless grin and waits on Robert's mindfulness. “It does,” he says when he's sure he's got it. “You carry war on your wide shoulders and in your heart.” He leans forward and taps Robert on the chest, confirming Robert's thought that there's strength in him yet. “I can see it,” the old man proclaims, then cants a suspicious eye. “Do you think I'm mad?”

  “I think when the eyes cloud the mind learns other ways to see,” Robert says with utter honesty. When the eyes cloud, or when the body is weak, needs must, and while the people of this world rarely have such need, Robert believes in those few who have the second sight and avoids them. He places a hand on the old man's shoulder, a comrade's touch, then straightens so that his shadow falls and blocks sunlight from the man's eyes. “You're too old for war, grandfather. It'll be your grandson's children who go to fight. Let its thought pass you by.”

  Acerbically the old man says, “Said like a man with no grandchildren. Leave our village, and take your war with you. Your white friend left before the winter. Went west and south, he said, to go north and east. Follow him, and leave us be.”

  Half-bidden by the old man's words, Robert turns west and south, looking beyond mountains and plains toward a river he cannot see, and further still toward the ocean that river leads to. “West and south to go north and east. Did he say where in the north and east?”

  “The city of canals,” the old man says, and now there's irritation in his sharp old voice. “There, and Cordula, to see the prince of God. You're in my sunshine.” He's become querulous, age and temper making him a child. “Get out of my sunshine, boy.”

  Robert does so with a quiet smile. “Forgive me, old father, and thank you for your guiding words. I hope you have many more days of sunshine, and that war never reaches your doorstep.”

  “Pah!” The old man, sulky and sullen, waves his staff and hunches back against the wall, arms folded and eyes defiantly closed, denying any stranger in his village's midst.

  Not until he's halfway to Aria Magli does Robert realise the old man was Seolfor.

  JAVIER, KING OF GALLIN

  22 February 1588 † Isidro, capital of Essandia

  Wind caught Javier's hair and blew it into his mouth, warning that it had grown far too long. Rodrigo had given him a dour look or two; another such and Javier would make an outrageous claim, insist no blade would touch his head until Sandalia was avenged, Aulun's Reformation yoke was broken, and Belinda Primrose was dead. Might, less dramatically, claim that he intended to set a new fashion, as was his right and even his people's expectation, as their new king. Besides, he thought it suited him: his face was long and narrow, and he imagined the fullness of longer hair gave him more presence.

  Black banners still fluttered in Isidro's streets, blocking out the city's clean white lines. Javier tried not to see them: they might have been painted with his mother's face, so clearly did their presence bring it to mind. Emptiness tore his chest apart, breath too little to fill it when he thought that she was gone. He was a man grown, but he'd stood in her shadow without complaint or ambition, and to know he would never again see her was a fist squeezed around his heart. Tears blurring his vision, he tried to look beyond the banners, all the way to Lutetia, so many hundreds of miles to the north. He should be there; he should have long since left his uncle's palace and returned home, a king in mourning, to guide his country toward inexorable war. Sandalia had been loved, and the Gallic people would rise under Javier's banner. Still, he lingered, more afraid—despite the priest—to go than to stay. Lutetia was not home, not with his mother dead, and in Essandia at least he could make believe that all was as it should be in the country of his birth.

  “Jav?” Marius, speaking quietly, as though he knew he would be unwelcome. Javier bit down on a cutting reply, miserably aware that of all people, Marius should be most welcome at his side now. They were all but brothers, and Javier had no one else so close to him in this foreign land, not even Rodrigo. Marius had not turned away when his witchpower had been exposed, had not condemned him as did the priest, nor encouraged use of that power as a weapon, as did his uncle. He remained what he had always been, steady, loving, gentle; a pillar whose strength could not be whittled away. Javier should be grateful, and turn his confidences to Marius's ears, and no others.

  Instead he saw promises broken and hopes shattered in Marius's face, and could hardly bear to look on him. The very ability to forgive which made a man like Marius so vital to a man like himself seemed a cruelty, for Javier couldn't absolve himself. Not for taking Belinda from Marius; not for loving Belinda himself; not for allowing that love to make him so blind as to cost his mother's life. There were terrible moments when Javier thought he must hate his old friend, and if he could hate Marius, surely there was no place or person in the world whom he might love, not even himself.

  Not until he was certain all of those thoughts were schooled out of his expression did Javier turn, smiling, toward Marius. “You look out of place here, Marius. Isidro's architecture swoops and soars, and you're so very solid.”

  “Grace has cast me amongst the stars, my lord. I should look out of place. I came only to bear news of your mother's death, and should have returned to Lutetia long since.” So, too, came the unspoken conclusion, should Javier have, and his lingering presence in Isidro was all that kept Marius there. Guilt twisted Javier's belly and he faced the city again, unwilling to meet Marius's eyes.

  “I'll go home soon.” The promise sounded sullen and childish. Javier heard Marius's footsteps, then felt the weight of his friend's hand on his shoulder. Unusual, that; Marius, of his three lifelong friends, had always been the most formal. Sacha was nearer in rank to Javier, so less concerned about niceties, and Eliza had never given a damn, not from the moment she'd tumbled from the palace garden's walls and broken both her fall and Javier's arm by landing on her prince.

  “You hear nagging in my words, my lord, but I mean none. Javier, so much has changed this past six-month, and not the least of it you.”

  “I've only been exposed, not changed.”
<
br />   “No, my lord,” Marius said with unexpected firmness. Javier, surprised enough to glance Marius's way after all, found resolution in his brown eyes. Resolution and worse, compassion. “Beatri—Belinda—changed us all, in ways for better and worse.”

  “Better?” Javier demanded. “What did she make better? We're scattered to the winds, the four of us, and my mother is dead, and Gallin's treaties with Khazar are laid bare. In what manner did she improve any of our lots?”

  “Eliza unbent far enough to accept a hand in turning her dressmaking skills to a profitable business,” Marius replied without hesitation.

  “Out of jealous rivalry.”

  Marius ignored him, admitting, “I can see no especial good she did Sacha, but no matter how it ended, she gave you joy for a little while, my prince. She gave you joy and she gave you a confidence that none of us had ever seen in you before. You've always been easy with power,” he said more swiftly, when Javier would have spoken. “It's a prince's right and his domain. But with Belinda at your side you shifted toward action. With all the years we've known each other I think it's safe to say you had not often shown an impulse to act. I hadn't understood why, but I do now. I can't imagine the weight of your witchpower burden, nor the relief you must have felt at finding you were no longer alone. It would have given me strength as well.”

  “And you, Marius? What good did she do you?”

  Marius gave a little sigh and let his hand slip from Javier's shoulder. “I suppose she stole some of my innocence. My belief in happy endings. Perhaps that's not a gift, but then again, it may well be. I've always been the young one amongst us,” he said without heat. “In experience if not in years. Sacha's more cynical and Eliza was born poor, and you've had the weight of a kingdom on your shoulders all your life. I've been the frivolous one, but all children must grow up one day.”

  “And what if I need that innocence at my side?”

  A beat or two passed, Marius catching his breath and holding silence, so clearly an indication of searching for words that Javier smiled. “Go on, Marius. We've been friends long enough that whatever you have to say won't break the bridges. You've been rude to me a time or two before.”

  “It's not rudeness that stays my tongue, my lord, but fear.”

  A cold blade sliced deep into Javier's chest, the contraction of his heart lurching and faltering around it. His breath cut short, knife slicing his lungs into pieces and leaving black spots dancing in his vision. He reached for power instinctively, wanting the soothing silver moonlight to make things right, wanting Marius to buckle under its weight and say only the things Javier wanted to hear.

  Shame gurgled in his belly as he recognised the impulse. A lifetime of trying so hard not to influence his friends, and yet when they spoke words that sparked alarm, he acted, without thought, to dominate.

  He ought not have scoffed at Belinda for her terrors.

  Only when he was certain the witchpower was controlled, no longer desiring Marius's acquiescence, did Javier dare speak. “Fear? Of me?”

  “Fear that you have found that necessary innocence in another.” Marius's voice was soft, so soft it could betray nothing of envy, of doubt; not even of fear: so soft it revealed all of those things in its attempts to keep them hidden.

  “Tomas,” Javier said, and in the saying knew he should have said “the priest.” A quirk ran over Marius's mouth, commentary enough, and Javier pressed his eyes shut, reveling for a moment in denying the world.

  But doing so brought Tomas's golden gaze to his mind's eye. Forthright, honest, faithful, full of challenge and confidence that only became murky when Javier exerted his will and bent the priest's thoughts away from the thing they both held to be true: that Javier was devilspawn, and his gifts a danger that ought to be turned away from, not embraced.

  “He's my confessor, Marius, nothing more.” Javier had no strength to put behind the assurance, his answer as soft as Marius's own voiced fears.

  “What he is,” Marius said unexpectedly, “is beautiful. And he bends beneath your power, Javier, but he doesn't break. I saw it in that first moment in your uncle's chambers. He doesn't have Beatr—Belinda's strength to stand before you and hold her own, but he has some of that, and it draws you. I suppose if I was certain everyone would bow to my whim I, too, would hunger for those few who didn't.”

  “He cannot replace what you are to me.”

  “Nor can I be what he is to you,” Marius murmured all too insightfully. “Will you take him with you when you go, Jav?”

  “Yes.” The answer came too easily, and with it came regrets for how his certainty would make Marius feel. “When I go, it will be to call an army. I'll need Cordula's support, and I can find little better assurance of that than Primo Abbate's son, a priest of the church, riding at my side. I'll still need you,” Javier added more quietly. “If Sacha has always tried to be my impetus, you, Marius, have always been my steady right hand.”

  “And Eliza your heart?” Marius wondered aloud. A note in his voice said he knew he treaded dangerous ground, and said as surely that he'd cast caution to the wind for these few moments of time stolen with his prince.

  “Eliza is Gallin, Marius. She is of the people, and if she is my heart, if I am hers, then I have the people behind me and we cannot fail in Aulun.” Sudden clarity rang in the words, making a path through torpor and reluctance. “I have to find her.”

  “My lord?”

  “I have to find Eliza.” Understanding came in bursts, clarion calls that brought the first vestiges of joy and enthusiasm back to his life. “With her at my side, Gallin will support me and we'll take Aulun before winter. It hinges on her, Marius. I'm a fool for not seeing it before.” Javier turned to his friend, seizing the merchant's broad shoulders. “I let Belinda turn me from pursuing Liz as fast and far as I needed. She'll be my angel, my icon. I cannot do this without her.”

  Something dark filled Marius's eyes, so rare as to be unrecogniseable. “Your angel and your icon, standing at your side. That's a queen's role, Javier, not a friend's. Will you marry her?”

  Javier swayed, regret taking the strength from his body. “I can't, Marius. I can't, even if I would. She's barren. A king must have heirs.”

  Darkness deepened in Marius's eyes, finally making a name for itself: bitterness—and that was not an emotion Javier's friend was given to. Incongruously, Tomas's golden gaze leapt to Javier's mind, washing over Marius's familiar features and wiping away disillusion. Repelled, Javier released Marius and stepped back, struggling to understand whether his revulsion was born from putting Tomas in Marius's place, or from the acid look in his friend's face. “Do not look at me so, Marius. I cannot help being what I am.”

  “A king, or cruel?” Discontent marked Marius's features a few more long seconds. “She deserves better, Jav If you'll make her an icon, make her a queen as well. Get a bastard child on some serving wench and give him the throne, if you must, but let Eliza have her due.”

  “You would make me Henry of Aulun?” Javier snapped.

  Exasperation flickered over Marius's face. “Yes, my lord. I would have you bed and wed half a dozen women, get girl children or sickly boys on all of them, and give up Cordula and Ecumenic faith for the Reformation. I would have your only strong heir be a woman as redheaded as yourself, and I would watch her rule Gallin and Essandia both for thirty years with her iron fist. Javier, forgive me. I love you, but I wonder if this witchpower isn't addling your mind. Henry had one strong son out of marriage, and would have made that son king had the lad not died a-hunting. Eliza would understand that decision. I don't know that she'd be willing to play the part of your angel of battle without a taste of something sweeter to carry her along. You know they already call her the prince's whore.”

  A fist flashed out and knocked Marius aside, so fast his cry was as much astonished as pained. He fell back with his hand against a bleeding lip and stared at Javier, who stared at his own betraying hand in turn. “Marius, I …”


  “It is of no matter, majesty. I spoke too boldly, and beg your pardon.” With grace powered by infinite hurt, Marius knelt.

  “Don't. Please, Mar, don't.” Javier reached out to draw Marius upward, but the merchant man offered no extended hand, no gesture of peace. Nor did Javier deserve one, but Marius's refusal sparked infantile pique. Grinding his teeth against doing further damage, he muttered, “I didn't know, and had never dreamt of hearing such vile words come from your lips, even in the form of reporting them. My hand flew quicker than my thoughts. It doesn't matter anyway,” he added desperately. “Liz has been gone for weeks, and no one knows where she is.”

  “I know.” Marius spoke to the flagstones, a wonderful precision in his words. Cutting precision, Javier thought: damning precision. That was the price, then, of Javier's thoughtless action: he would be mocked with knowledge he didn't share, mocked with the end of innocence, for once upon a time Marius knew nothing of keeping secrets.

  Anger flared again, this time with less physical intent, but far greater heat. “How can you know? Did she tell you where she was going? Why have you not said so?”

  Marius, still with exquisite precision, said, “No one asked me, my king.”

  “I shouldn't have had to ask!”

  Marius looked up, careful picture of mild surprise. “One friend's confidences ought not be broken at the unspoken whim of another's, my king.”

  Javier, through his teeth, said, “Stop calling me that.”

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  He had learned, Javier thought through a hazy tide of silver fury. Marius had, in the last weeks or months, learned to play a game of politics that had been beyond him. Had learned to use words as weapons, and not the blunt heavy ones that Javier might have expected, but subtle as a blade slipping between the ribs. And if his once-sweet Marius could make such a play on words now … suspicion snagged him, bursting forth in a demand: “Did you bed Belinda?”