The Pretender's Crown

JAVIER, KING OF GALLIN

25 February 1588 † Isidro

Tomas's terms had laid heavily on Javier the past three nights. He'd held his tongue in meetings with Rodrigo, had held his tongue because with each breath he took he could not believe that Tomas's ambiguous phrasing-“persuade your uncle to wed”-meant what it seemed it must. Tomas knew more clearly than most just how persuasive Javier could be, and the young king of Gallin could not imagine the priest was suggesting he bend Rodrigo's will to match the church's.

Couldn't imagine, and yet could see no other possible way he might accomplish what Cordula and a dozen Echonian heads of state had failed to manage in Rodrigo's more than thirty years on the throne. The only wedding bed Rodrigo had ever seriously entertained had been Lorraine's, and that for the sole purpose of bringing Aulun back into the Ecumenic church. The Essandian prince's faith was all to him; for nothing less, not even for the certainty of his country's future, would he marry.

And Tomas had said, if not blithely at least with no apparent care for the impossibility of it, persuade your uncle to wed.

There was no witchpower practise tonight, as there had been every night for the month past. Javier had fought with Rodrigo over that, had finally thrown himself on God's own mercy: surely He could not want Javier squandering his gifts on unsuspecting forests and undeserving cattle. Better to accept what they now knew he could do, and save his strength for the coming war.

His uncle had eventually relented, and tonight Javier came to his chambers with a bottle of fine wine and the need to pick another kind of battle. He would not, he told himself, would not use the witchpower on Rodrigo de Costa, not for any reason, and even that adamant refusal sent a thin line of seething silver through him, as if the magic raged against denial.

Guards opened the door for him, ushered him into a warm room where an aging prince sat before an unbanked fire. Rodrigo twisted toward the doors, then chuckled and waved a hand toward a nearby seat. “You've a sour look about you, nephew. What's brought that on? We could burn off your temper with another bout of practise. Perhaps you've become accustomed to using your talents, and denying them sets the blood on fire?”

Bumps chilled Javier's skin, discomfort of fearing Rodrigo'd come close to the mark. Witchpower bubbled in offence and flattened under his grim denial as he scooped up cups to pour generous glasses of wine. “It's marriage on my mind, not power.”

Rodrigo gave him an amused look and got to his feet when it became clear Javier would not sit. “You say that as though they're two different things. You're not yet crowned, boy. A wedding bed can wait a year or two.”

“I'm Gallin's only heir, and yours,” Javier said shortly. “If we're looking for delay, better to put off war, not weddings.”

Rodrigo's eyebrows rose and he sipped his wine, trying poorly to hide amusement behind the glass. “Have you someone in mind, then? The Kaiser has daughters, if you've an eye for blondes, though the Parnan Caesar's girls follow the faith.”

Silver-tinged exasperation flooded Javier. He tightened his fingers around the glass stem, obscurely certain that if he could keep himself from shattering fragile crystal, he could surely convince Rodrigo of what needed doing without witchpower coercion. “I'm not the only one who needs a wife, uncle.”

Rodrigo went still, amusement draining away, then sipped again at his wine. “Don't tell me you've joined that harping chorus. I'm in my sixth decade, too old for such nonsense.”

“You're in your sixth decade, and I'm your only heir, and you would have us all go to war.” Javier's voice fluted high and broke, a humiliating reminder of his comparative youth. A sip of wine fortified him and cleared his head, and for a clarion moment he realised that, witchpower or no, Tomas's demand or no, he, too, believed that a marriage for the prince of Essandia was necessary. Neither Essandia nor Gallin, nor the Ecumenic church, could afford to lose their monarchs, and he was too fragile a thread to hang all hopes on.

Power flared, fueled by his sudden certainty. Javier grasped at it this time, not to roll Rodrigo's will, but to fill his own voice with passionate conviction. “I've never understood you or Lorraine in this matter, though in this one instance I grasp her motivations more clearly than yours. Marrying means putting a king above her, and losing control of what is now hers. You have no such excuse. No woman could wrest Essandia from you, and with this one exception, your piety has never made you foolish.” Anger, more than humour, creased his mouth. “You're even willing to set aside any question of whether my own gifts are God-granted or devil-born because they're useful to you and to the ends you desire. So is a wife, Rodrigo.”

His uncle's gaze sharpened on him again, marking clearly that Javier had used his name with no honourifics at all. “Think you my equal now, lad?”

“I think myself a crowned head of Echon. I have neither your wisdom nor your battlefield experiences, but I do have profound interest and concern over the Essandian succession.”

“Do you not wish that throne yourself?”

Stupefaction rose up in Javier, blinding him with silver. “Do you think one throne is not enough for most kings? Oh, aye, an empire's an appealing thought, but I would be stable on my own throne before looking to yours. Nevermind me: you are about to go to war, and you will leave behind a people very nervous about their kingdom if there is no hint that you intend to do well by them. A marriage, even, God forbid, an unconsummated one, gives them hope. Do you not like women?”

Whether it was audacity or exasperation that drove the last question, Rodrigo's expression was worth any price Javier might pay for it. He might have been a cow, round-eyed and dull with witlessness, and despite his pique Javier laughed.

A backhand blow, much the same as he'd dealt Marius a few days earlier, exploded white light behind his eyes, littering it moments later with the red throb of pain. Head turned to the side, though he had not staggered, Javier touched fingertips to his cheek and found it split open, a divot of flesh marked by Rodrigo's ring of state. Dumb-foundedness had left the prince's eyes, replaced by rage and insult.

Javier found a thin smile and emphasised it with a mocking bow. “Forgive me, your majesty, my tongue has grown too bold.” Then, with no more regret than he'd felt in speaking in the first place, he added, “It's a common enough question, uncle. You've had no faithful male companions any more than women, but a man, a king, of your age, without a wife or children? It's what people wonder.”

There had been less of the knife twist in Marius's telling of what people whispered about Eliza. Shame shot through him, leaving a channel for anger: he had no reason or need to apologise to one of his own subjects, and kings did not belittle themselves with such talk betwixt each other.

“Are you through?” Rodrigo's voice was made of ice, colder and more distant than Javier had ever heard it. More ashamed than before, and angrier still, Javier bit his tongue, wondering how he'd become the wrongdoer when he had held back witchpower temptation and used only words to make his arguments. Rodrigo, exuding calm and confidence, with nothing of a sulk in his stride, walked past Javier to open the door.

“What will you do?” Javier threw the words after Rodrigo in a shout, hearing a plaintive note where there ought to have been challenge. Rodrigo turned a disinterested gaze on him, then lifted his eyebrows at the open door.

Javier, witchpower rage boiling in his mind, stalked out.