The Pretender's Crown
Page 52
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.”
A hat-tip to Yei-Mei “Denyse” Chng, who came up with the title for The Pretender's Crown. I can't write a book until I've got the title, so that was a rather critically helpful bit. Thank you!
Similarly, thanks are due not only to my faithful beta reader Trent, but also to Rob, Deborah, Lisa, and especially my husband Ted, who all put up with my frustration when I broke two fingers during the writing of this book and was delayed for weeks in continuing. Further thanks to Judith Tarr, Anna Mazzoldi, and Kari Sperring for help with languages I don't speak, and, as usual, both my editor Betsy Mitchell and my agent Jennifer Jackson were full of insightful comments that improved the manuscript enormously.
I'd also like to pass on my thanks to the Del Rey art and production departments, who have given me books of genuine physical beauty. I'm a little bit of a font and layout geek myself, and I cannot tell you how happy I am with the way these books look.
Finally, I've always been a little dubious when writers thank their readers: do they really mean that? I can tell you now that they do, and I would like to particularly thank everybody who's left comments on my LiveJournal or taken a moment to email me and say they loved The Queen's Bastard and wanted to know when this book was coming out. Writing this series is a great adventure for me and I'm profoundly grateful that readers have embraced it.
C. E. MURPHY is the author of two urban fantasy series (The Walker Papers and The Negotiator Trilogy) as well as The Inheritors' Cycle and a monthly comic book titled Take a Chance. Her other hobbies include photography and travel, though she rarely pursues enough of either. She was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives in her ancestral home of Ireland with her husband and cats. More about C.E. and her work can be found at cemurphy.net.
The Pretender's Crown is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2009 by C. E. Murphy
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Murphy, C. E. (Catie E.)
The pretender's crown / C.E. Murphy.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51497-4
I. Queens—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.U726P74 2009
813′.6—dc22 2009005703
www.delreybooks.com
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