The Pretender's Crown

BELINDA PRIMROSE

4 June 1588 † Alunaer; the queen's court

She had come to court twice as a child: once to murder du Roz, and a second time some seventeen months later to observe the way courtiers danced around one another, manipulating and pressing advantages, falling back and regrouping. It wasn't until she was older that she saw the parallels to battle in their interactions, but at thirteen she hadn't needed to. She had come to learn, so she might be able to participate in those dances herself, should the day come when it proved necessary.

Lorraine had been on holiday during the six weeks Belinda was at court, and not many, if any, would remember the ordinary girl in the unremarkable gowns. She dressed better than a servant, as she required access to the upper classes, but for a girl who was the adopted daughter of the queen's favourite, she drew surprisingly little attention. Only now did Belinda wonder if Robert's witch-power had had a hand in that. She wouldn't ask: to her mind, doing so would give her father a subtle edge in their own game, and she was already too many steps behind.

This, then, was the third time she'd come to the Aulunian court, and only the second with Lorraine in attendance. The first time she'd been dressed fashionably but modestly, wearing brown velvet that looked well with her hair and skin tones, but which didn't draw the eye as a more sumptuous outfit might.

This afternoon she blended in in a different way, wearing a dress so much like those half the court women wore that she wasn't certain she'd have picked herself out of a group, much less expected anyone else to. It reminded her vividly of the last gown she'd worn to court, the magnificent, binding green dress Sandalia's best tailor had sewn her into only a little while before all her plots and planning in the Gallic court had come to a disastrous end. There were no similarities at all between the one gown and the other; this one had the broad boxy skirts and puffed sleeves that Lorraine favoured, rather than the impossibly thin lines of the Gallic dress, and was a variety of bejeweled and embroidered colours, making the fabric stiff and heavy. No, there were no similarities save they were both prisons in which she was caught, making escape from inexorable fate virtually impossible.

She had been positioned barely ten feet from Lorraine's throne, manoeuvred there by Cortes, the thin middling man who played the part of the queen's spymaster. Lorraine was, of course, not yet present, and beneath the brocaded gown Belinda's skin itched with awareness of curious eyes on her. Courtiers tended toward their own subtle ranking system, with those who fancied themselves the most important-or who could convince others they were-nearest the throne. A scant handful of the most ambitious put themselves at the other end of the long hall, that they might catch the queen's eye in the first moment she entered, but aside from them, the gathered court went from most powerful to least down the length of the room.

Belinda, unknown, not astonishingly beautiful, not extraordinarily dressed, broke all protocol in standing where she did. She could feel animosity gathering and preparing to break over her, and for a moment considered welcoming it: lifting her gaze and meeting accusing eyes with the untouchable centre of witchpower. She would win any such battle of will.

And she would lose any friends she might have within the Aulunian court. Whether dressed in servant's garb or the finest gown, it was of no use to make deliberate enemies where friends might be had instead. Belinda dropped her eyes, caught her lower lip in her teeth, and sent a shy glance to the nearest handful of glowering courtiers before looking down again. Yes, that look was meant to say, I know my place and it isn't here. But I've been put here, and what else might I do but stay? Forgive me: I mean you no harm.

One of them-an earl of some renown, born to the Branson household and a likely contender for Lorraine's throne after her death-relented in his glare. Belinda was, after all, only a woman, and a young one, probably some cocky courtier's wife, being used to draw the man himself closer to Lorraine's attention. She was pretty, Branson thought, and his thoughts ran to Belinda, clear as a mountain-fed stream: she was pretty, her shy glance bespeaking an easy mark for bedding. He'd welcome her, all right, and her cuckolded husband wouldn't dare protest, not if he wanted to gain access to inner circles. Then when Branson had used her to his satisfaction, both she and her hapless lord would be dropped, shut out as thoroughly as though they'd never been given leave to enter.

Belinda, her eyes still lowered in a show of proper modesty, thought she might kill this one for herself, in the name of all the times she'd been used that way, and, piously, in the name of all women who were so used. Her small dagger lay bound against her spine, unusable but symbolic: she would use violence if Branson had the audacity to lay a forceful hand on her.

Cortes had left to carry messages while wolves circled the woman he'd left behind. Belinda kept her eyes downcast, only daring glances at the courtroom, which was aggravating. Well over a hundred men and women littered it, and she wanted to see who they were, what kinds of power they wielded and what kinds they imagined they did. A sting of witchpower entered the room and Belinda's heart clenched as she forbade herself the luxury of looking up sharply and searching out her father.

No, not Robert. Dmitri, her own witchpower senses told her an instant later, and then she glanced up after all, curiosity stronger than wisdom.

A bearded Khazarian dressed in the rich colours of his countrymen stood in the place she expected to see Dmitri. He had more breadth to him, more width of face and perhaps less height than the witchlord, though his hawkish nose and deep-set eyes were similar to Dmitri's. Confusion cascaded through Belinda, a frown marring her forehead. She turned her gaze down before her consternation became obvious, then smoothed her brow and made calmness the sum of what she felt.

The second time she looked his way she did it with witchpower and witchpower alone, her gaze still turned to the floor. Dmitri's thick black power, as mutable as his eyes, was unmistakable: she could taste the channels she'd left in his mind, places where her power had subverted his and made it her own. It was active, that magic, active in a way that felt like the stillness and yet didn't: it drew attention to certain of his features and sent attention away from others, a whirling, constant flow of power that said notice this, do not notice that. The stillness asked only that no notice be taken; Belinda hadn't imagined it could be mirrored and used in another way.

She lifted her gaze again carefully, focusing on what his witchpower said not to see: the narrower cheekbones, the prominence of his nose in comparison; the slender height that seemed redistributed into bulk. Her vision protested, sending a spike of pain through her head: she could see two men standing in one space, one Dmitri's familiar form, the other what he wanted others to see. Eyes closed again, Belinda turned her face away, both in awe of his power and unsure why he used it so.

Trumpets blared and Belinda started, an embarrassing lapse of control as she faced the long hall's end. Her skirts rustled in the silence that hung after the trumpets, whispers of fabric all along the hall the only sound. Even breathing seemed on hold for the moments it took Lorraine Walter, queen of all Aulun, to enter from darkness into light, the same pageantry she always used to draw her court's attention.

She wore white today, brocaded in silver, with bloody curls piled high and a tiara of diamonds sparkling amongst them: even aging, she was regal. She paused within the portal of dark to light, tall and slim and commanding, and then with grace and poise, did something that she had never done before.

She put out her left hand, and Robert, Lord Drake, her longtime consort and oft-rumoured lover, put his hand beneath it and stepped forward with her, squiring her through the door.

Shock rippled through the courtiers, a wave so palpable that it slammed into Belinda and all but sent her staggering. She dipped a curtsey with the others, but her breath was gone and her heart churned sickness into her belly. Emotion burned her cheeks-her own, the court's; even Lorraine, a brilliant distinct spark amongst the rest-all too high to call colour back; too high to allow her to be the cool, collected creature she had been shaped into being. Her hands clenched in her skirts and Belinda couldn't make herself release them.

Whispers followed hard on Lorraine and Robert's heels, astonishment so profound it couldn't be held back. He escorted her to her throne, guided her to sit, then stepped back with a bow so deep it bordered on insult, though no one watching believed it was meant as such. Robert stepped aside, not far: he took up a stance to Lorraine's left, just out of reach, the most unsubtle position of support and power a man had ever taken in the queen's court.

The courtiers were moving now, positioning themselves, jostling to see better, managing to whisper and wait with bated silence all at the same time. Dmitri, heading a small contingent of Khazarians, came forward, and grumbling courtiers let them. Other dignitaries from foreign lands joined him, making themselves a presence near the throne. Of them all, only Dmitri was flushed with witchpower, a magic Belinda could feel making points between herself and the two men. It was constrained in all of them, but potent, and for a fleeting moment Belinda wondered what would happen if they, Javier, and the imperator's heir were all to unite as comrades with a single will.

It was a fancy not to be pursued; she could hardly imagine what might bring them together in such a way. The thought dismissed, Belinda unknotted her hands one finger at a time, heart still slamming so loudly she thought it must be audible to those around her. No one displaced her, surprise in itself, and just as well: fighting to retain her spot seemed like an insurmountable effort.

Lorraine, as though utterly unaware of the stir she'd caused, put out her right hand expectantly. A wide-eyed scribe placed a parchment browning with age into her white fingers, the contrast burning a vivid picture into Belinda's memory.

“We are of a mind to share secrets today.” Lorraine's voice was wonderfully cool, so full of disdain as to wipe away the import of any secrets she might tell. She brought the scroll up and tapped it against her cheek as she glanced over the gathered court. Belinda, witchpower under wraps or no, felt a hint of amusement from the icy redhead, amusement at how her people held their breath and leaned in, ready to dance at her whim so they might hear whatever hidden thing she intended on sharing.

Lorraine dropped her voice to a murmur, leaning forward a scant inch herself, the better to draw her audience in with. “We set a game in motion twenty-five years ago, a secret and silent game that we have decided must come to fruition today, as Aulun stands on the brink of war.”

Belinda's too-hard heartbeat slowed to a more regular pace as her own amusement at the queen's theatrics burgeoned, then jolted high again as Lorraine sat back, her voice suddenly full of thunder and power. “We stand on the brink of war and are faced with a young rival who is a pretender to our crown. We know that our people are concerned that we have no heir, and that is the matter which we will now address.”

Excitement erupted over the courtroom, sharp babble of voices too astonished to leave the queen her say. Branson, still no more than a few feet away from Belinda, said nothing, but ambition shot through him, brilliant as a blazing arrow. Belinda kept her eyes on Lorraine, not wanting to give in to the emotion soaring through the room. Robert was a bastion against it, but Dmitri smouldered with ambition.

Lorraine waited for the first edge to fall off, then spoke again, clear and crisp with an expectation of respect. “Lord Branson, come forward.”

Blinding triumph poured through Branson as he first bowed, then came forward to kneel before Lorraine. She smiled, winsome as a girl, then offered him the aging scroll. “We would ask you to rise and read what is written here, my lord.”

“Your servant, majesty.” Branson had a good voice, soft, but with enough depth that said softness overlaid steel. He accepted the scroll, then stood as he unwound it, taking a few steps to the left so he might not block the court's view of their queen. It was well done, except it blocked Belinda's view of Robert. Not that she needed to see Robert to read him: his presence remained steady, touched with his own amusement as Branson moved between him and the court.

“Let it be writ that on this day, the fourth of May in the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and sixty two, that-” Branson faltered, eyes darting ahead of his speech. Faltered, then fell silent entirely, a dangerous crimson rising along his jaw before he read on. “-that Lorraine Walter was wed in secret by myself, Father Christopher Moore, a priest of the true faith, to Robert, Lord Drake, who…” His voice fell away again, colour climbing higher into his face as he repeated what had been made obvious: “These are marriage writs, my queen.”

“Yes,” Lorraine all but drawled, clearly enjoying herself. She put out a hand and the wide-eyed scribe dropped another scroll into it. The queen leaned forward to offer it to the earl, her smile that of a shark's. “And these, sir, are writs declaring the birth of our true and legitimate heir.”

C.E. Murphy

The Pretender's Crown

Heed me well, Primrose, for this is how it shall go.

They were not words that had ever preceded anything but truth; each time Robert had said them to her, things had gone as he declared they would. After a lifetime of such promises playing out as commanded, Belinda might have believed that this one, too, would come to pass.

Somehow, she had not.

The earl read out the name, Belinda Walter, in a voice shaking with rage. Belinda trembled, too, though more from disbelieving astonishment as she sank into a curtsey that brought all eyes to her. She had been exposed once in Sandalia's court, but this was declaration, not exposure. Her heart fluttered too fast, and she remained bowed a long time.

Robert, if he'd had his way, would have kept her behind a curtain, gowned in white and made to look fragile and innocent. Lorraine overruled him, insisting that Belinda look the part of one of the people, that she seem one of the courtiers. She intended to levy the illusion that Belinda had always been there, invisible, unnoticed, uninteresting, and yet a desperately important part of the court.

Of course, had she been there, someone would have noticed her, and so while she looked the part of an ordinary courtier, Belinda also finally understood why Lorraine had sent her to the convent. There was no better or more obvious place for a daughter of the throne to be raised in secret, to be educated and taught politics while kept safe from the harsh world her mother belonged to. No better place for an heir whose presence meant the queen could no longer dance beaus on a string, hinting at promises that came to nothing. For a woman and a queen like Lorraine Walter, a convent was the perfect place to hide a daughter until she became convenient.

Belinda Drake, Robert's adopted daughter, was known to have joined a convent at age thirteen: a decade later, Belinda Walter had emerged from one. It was a game so long in motion she could barely fathom the foresight it took to prepare for this day, for this move, unfolding so very many years after it was set in motion. The fraction of her that was still given over to calm stillness wanted to raise a toast in admiration of the woman who had birthed her, but she remained where she was, bent in a deep curtsey, and wondered a little at the chill in her hands and her shortness of breath.

She rose at the queen's subtle command, took the steps toward the throne slowly, as much for effect as barely trusting her feet. Tumultuous emotion filled the room, disbelief and excitement, utter belief and near-worship, ambition thwarted and ambition honed, rage and delight, all of it pounding at Belinda like a living tide intent on bringing her down. It exhausted her, and she tightened her belly, not wanting to rely on witchpower but unwilling to flag under the onslaught. Lorraine's voice cut through it, giving Belinda something to focus on, and for the second time, though she'd been told how it would be, she hardly credited what she heard.

“You all know that Sandalia, our lamented sister-queen in Lutetia, was for a brief time our own Lord Drake's host,” Lorraine said. A smirk ran through the court at her polite language, but the queen's cool expression brought ugly humour to stillness, and into the silence she said, “You will have heard stories of why our beloved Robert travelled to unfriendly lands unescorted. You will have heard he went to rescue a daughter, even that he was made to participate in a mockery of a trial where a young woman of comely aspect was put forth as his child.

“That is nonsense.” Lorraine's voice cracked over the gathered courtiers and garnered flinches from even the most resolute. “The woman on trial was a Lanyarchan noble called Beatrice Irvine, though Sandalia's clever prosecutor named her Belinda Primrose as well, knowing that was the name Robert had once used for his own daughter.

“They are both dead, Beatrice Irvine and Belinda Primrose.”

A gasp ran through the court at Lorraine's cold claim, and despite her own heady connection to the story, Belinda felt a rush of horror as well. She was dead, very suddenly, with that statement: hearing it from Cortes had nothing like the strength of hearing it said in the queen's voice, and every new word that fell from Lorraine's lips further ended the life she'd known.

“Beatrice died a traitor to our Aulunian crown,” Lorraine said softly. “Our spies now tell us she went to Lutetia to wed Javier de Castille and so to strengthen his claim on the Lanyarchan throne and on our own. But more, she incited rebellion against Sandalia herself, agitating for Javier to come to the Gallic throne, and so died for it. A traitor to one crown and a threat to another,” Lorraine murmured. “Few of us have such lofty things said when we have passed away.”

In the silence, Belinda heard breath being drawn in and held: no one wanted to stir the queen from her melancholic thoughts, for fear she would cease telling tales when she awoke from them. The instant before time had stretched too far, Lorraine raised grey eyes to the gathered courtiers and continued as though she'd never paused: “Belinda Primrose, beloved adopted daughter of Robert, Lord Drake, is dead because Belinda Walter now stands in her place. Secrets and protective fallicies have been set aside now, that we might introduce to you our heir, and that we might hope you will embrace her as we have so often longed to do over the years we have been apart.”

Tentative cheers rose up, but Lorraine hushed them again, with a gesture of begging indulgence. “There is one more tale we must share with you. You know now that our daughter has spent these past ten years in the sanctuary of a convent, giving herself to God until the secular world sounded its call. What we have not yet told you is what came to pass three days ago, when the Essandian fleet sailed toward our shores.”

Anticipation lashed the courtiers, whispers again: they had all heard talk of the holy Mother on the cliffs; they all, like the soldiers and sailors, believed God had intervened on Aulun's behalf, and if they didn't believe it, they had no better explanation. Now they leaned in hungrily, waiting on Lorraine's words, their gazes hot and heavy on Belinda herself They knew: to a man they had dreams of what the queen would say, the shape of it if not the particular words, and their desire for their dreams confirmed was enough to stir well-dampened witchpower to waking. Knowing she shouldn't, Belinda reached out with tendrils of magic, seeking thoughts and tasting emotion.

Hope: so much hope it took her breath, and disbelief just as powerful, but begging to be given the lie. Stymied ambition, still, but in the moment there was more of a wish for God's hand gracing Aulun than there was of hatred focused on the young woman who had dashed many aspirations. Even that hatred waited in some to become love. Belinda held her breath and waited, too, to see whether Lorraine Walter could turn the tide.

“They had three ships to our one, five men to our one, for their ships were newer, larger, faster. We feared for our navy, sailing into the stormy straits, and so in the days before battle we called Belinda to our side, that we might pray together for God's mercy on our brave soldiers. I am a queen,” Lorraine said, and her voice throbbed with sorrow as she slipped, all too deliberately, Belinda thought, into the singular. “I was unable to spend each waking moment on my knees, as I might have wished to do, but Belinda's steadfast faith never wavered. Never came I to my chambers but to find her in prayer, her head lowered, her hands clasped, entreating God to give our men safe passage. I was with her when the battle met.”

Lorraine was on her feet suddenly, a creature of theatrics. The courtiers caught their breath and swayed back, then leaned forward, eager for her story, and the queen of Aulun reached out her hands and gathered them in. “‘There are so many!’ she cried, and my heart tore to hear it, watching my tender child struggle under the weight of knowledge God granted her. ‘So many! Mother-Mother, I must-’

“-and then she was silent,” Lorraine whispered into a courtroom so quiet it might have been empty. “She fell in a swoon, and when I laid her on the bed I saw her eyes were golden with the light of God's power. For hours she thrashed, not awake and yet not sleeping, with sweat on her brow and terrible wracking sobs in her throat. Not until the storm broke did she quiet and my heart beat more easily.”

The queen fell silent, turning a gentle gaze to, it seemed, each and every face in her audience. Even Belinda waited nervously on the story's end, no less taken by it than were the courtiers. “She lay insensible for two days,” Lorraine finally breathed, “and when she wakened, it was with confusion in her eyes. ‘Mother,’ she said. ‘How came I here? I am certain I stood on the cliffs, with God guiding me to protect our fleet.’

“ ‘Our fleet,’ I said back to her, and said it with humour. ‘Your fleet, child, for with His guidance you have brought them safely home, and devastated the armada Cordula brought against us. They are yours, and you are their banner of hope, of light, of life, my child. I am only a vessel made to bring you into this world, so in the hour of our greatest need you might stand atop those cliffs and save us all.’”

It was as well a roar came up from the courtiers, hailing Belinda, hailing Lorraine, hailing God, for without it Belinda thought she might have lost all sense and laughed aloud at Lorraine's maternal modesty. Witchpower told her what the shouts and cheers would have anyway: the people believed. They'd heard stories of the Madonna on the cliff-tops, how she had appeared and disappeared; they'd embraced her as their saviour, and now were willing to embrace Belinda, raised as godly as a woman could be, as the embodiment of that saviour. It didn't matter whether it was true, not even to the cynical: it was wondrous, and that was better than truth.

Smug satisfaction bubbled beneath Lorraine's white-painted facade. She turned to Belinda and offered an embrace, shocking in its warmth. Twice, Belinda thought: twice before her royal mother had touched her, and now they held each other in a mockery of family compassion. It was not where she had ever imagined her road would end, the day she'd looked on Lorraine Walter and known herself for the queen's bastard.

“Where is the priest?” Branson's voice grated through the cheering, asking a question that should have been expected. Witchpower warned Belinda of Lorraine's alarm, though none of it showed on her mother's face as she looked at the earl. Looked down at him, perhaps with a hint of impatience, as though he were a bit of unpleasantness likely to stain her dress.

“Are you in need of one, Lord Branson? Have you sins to repent? A sin of greed, perhaps? A sin of pride?”

Mockery failed her: Branson's face twisted, but he refused to let it alone. “The same name witnessed wedding and birth. I think it not outside the realm of reason to ask that he come forward so we might hear these pages confirmed by the man who wrote them. Or is he conveniently dead, majesty? Dead, like your pretender daughter, so usefully murdered by a rival queen.”

Before Lorraine could speak again, before she might give in to the anger and alarm Belinda felt boiling in her, another voice interrupted, soft and sorrowful: “He is dead, my lord. He died when I was seventeen.”

Long moments passed before she realised, with surprise, that the voice was her own.

She extended the witchpower, unfurling it toward Branson with all the gentleness of a lover's touch. Doing so heightened her awareness of the rest of the court's high-running emotion, of their breath-holding anticipation that there would be war made here today, the Aulunian palace a new sort of battleground. What Belinda and Lorraine faced now would only be the first skirmish of many. The people and the army of Aulun would love the mythic story Lorraine had concocted out of half-truths, but there would always be men like Branson, hungry for a crown and unwilling to believe the word of a queen.

Defiance flowed from the man, prickly and determined. Robert remained a rock, steady and calm, but surprise piqued in both Dmitri and Lorraine, the latter tinged with relief. Lorraine had no easy explanation as to the priest, casting more of Belinda's doubt on the legitimacy of the papers her mother had produced.

Balance hung in the silence as Belinda took a few steps down toward Branson. She had never looked for the burden and gift she was being given; this was the moment in which she might make a lie of it all and free herself from its weight. A part of her wanted to: she had been raised in shadow, and even now her heart flew out of time, unregulated, terrified at being under the weight of so many eyes. Beatrice Irvine had been this exposed, and Beatrice Irvine was dead. It would be easy to draw the extended witchpower around herself and disappear, to avoid the life being thrust on her and become no more than she had been.

Duty, sharp and agonising, cut into her, and then witchpower ambition, and Belinda knew she would never retreat.

“His name was Christopher, after the patron saint of lost children,” she murmured, “and he was the closest thing to a father I knew in my sequestered years. I would see him of a Sunday, when he was allowed to visit the abbey chapel and bend an ear to hearing the labours of my studies each week. In the summer and on fine winter days we would walk and argue doctrine, both religious and political.” She wove the fiction from the life she had known, growing up under Robert's fond and distant tutelage, and from a dream of what might have been. That dream, laced with witchpower, drifted toward Branson, wrapping around him gently so it might settle against his skin and become comfortable before Belinda exerted her will behind it. It reminded her of Javier's casual expectation of obedience. She'd never imagined she might one day command the same influence.

And it was a different thing than she had done to Marius or Viktor; then, she had relied on the sexual link she shared with each man, able to control through it and it alone. But she was stronger now, much stronger, and breaking Branson would be too obvious, especially in front of so many witnesses. He required seduction; they all did. They required the vulnerability of a young woman raised away from the world, telling a story about death: about the death of the only person she'd thought loved her. They needed to believe it would never occur to her to lie-and they needed to trust that despite honesty, despite vulnerability, that she was not an easy target, ready for crushing and throwing away. Impatience swam over her, a sudden disdain for politics and an impulse to simply dominate, force them all to her will. Too much danger lay in that desire; despite Lorraine's promises, witchcraft would see Belinda burnt, and such a demonstration of power would be seen as witchcraft, not the Madonna's generous influence.

“He was tall,” she said, and felt her own gaze grow distant, as though she looked back through memory. Indeed, she felt as though she did, while Lorraine's concern still spiked at the corners of her mind, and Dmitri's curiosity washed over her. “Tall, at least, to a child,” Belinda added with a brief smile, then passed a hand over her eyes. “No, tall in fact: as a girl I often had to run to keep pace with him, and even when I reached my growth I looked up to him. Sharp-featured, with black hair, and he told me of the monastery where he'd studied.”

Belinda had no doubt that, by the time Branson got a man there, there would be records of her imaginary priest, brothers who remembered him, a story of how he enjoyed gardening, their regret at his passing; all the things that made up a life, real or not. The world seemed a cruel place, that a man who had never been could take on more permanence than many who had been born, lived, and died without regard.

Lorraine, who had in all the brief times Belinda had enjoyed her presence, been a master of control, emotionless to Belinda's witch-breed senses, was now, beneath her painted face, full of disbelief; full of a growing concern that bordered on terror. It rattled Belinda, distracting her from the spell she tried to weave, and in a moment of inquisitiveness, she turned a few degrees back toward the throne.

“He told me of my mother, not of the queen, but of the woman. She who had wed and created life in secret, knowing herself to be the most valuable piece she had to broker, yet knowing she couldn't risk leaving her throne empty after years of playing suitors against one another. He called her bold and clever, and”-Belinda smiled quickly-“and apologised for it, for who was he, a humble priest, to pass such comment on a queen? But he gave me what he could of the mother who had to hide me.”

Belinda reached out, trusting, sweet, hopeful, toward that mother, and wondered if there might have been a time when she would have done so and have it be less than the act of showmanship it was now.

Lorraine, even knotted with fear, was a consummate actress: when the daughter she had long been separated from reached for her, it was instinctive to take her hand, creating a line of compassion, of family, and of new beginnings between them.

Creating the link of touch that had always made stealing thoughts easy for Belinda Primrose, ever since she had awakened to her witchpower under Javier de Castille's guidance.

The girl knows was the underlying thought in Lorraine's touch, half incoherent with confusion. A flinch ran under Belinda's skin, an unexpected wound opening at how Lorraine thought of her: the girl. She had no name in her mother's mind, and that cut unfairly deep. Only in the past few days had Belinda often allowed herself the luxury of thinking of Lorraine as her mother; those were thoughts too dangerous to be reflected, even in her own mind. She was Lorraine, or the queen , and despite her skill in weaving stories, Belinda could hardly imagine a day might come when she would call the queen Mother. It ought not hurt that Lorraine thought of her similarly, rather than by dangerous words like daughter, or by her name.

Ought not, and yet it did. Belinda put the hurt away: there would be time to nurse it later, and she had only a few brief seconds in which to steal Lorraine's thoughts and find the source of her consternation.

Words came clear again within the constraints of Lorraine's mind: the queen was disciplined, her mouth curved in a gentle smile as she looked on Belinda, her gaze tender, with no hint of the rushing, bewildered thoughts behind her eyes. How can she know, but then how could she know that I was her mother, and she knew that as well. Knew herself for the queen's bastard and made nothing of it, so perhaps she'll make nothing of this, either, that the priest who oversaw her birth-

An image came into sharp focus: a hawk-faced man with black hair and deep-set eyes, with a sensual mouth and long hands. The kind of man Lorraine might have considered for a lover when she was young and not yet a queen. By the time she took the throne she knew better than to dally with the church. She was head and heart of her religion, and would allow no churchman above her.

All of that, all of it and more came with the picture of Dmitri Leontyev in Belinda's mind. For all her control, for all the life she'd spent honing discipline, when Belinda smiled shyly and turned from Lorraine to once more address Branson, her gaze went first to the disguised witchlord in the courtroom.

There was nothing of concern in Dmitri's eyes, nothing of the amusement she could feel beneath his surface. He knew himself a stranger here, an envoy of Irina Durova's court, there for no other reason than to make polite of the failed attempt to build an alliance between Aulun and Khazar. Lorraine couldn't recognise him; the witchpower saw to that, misdirected both her eyes with the changes it had worked on his countenance and her memory, so that even if a hint of suspicion came into her mind, it would fade away again. As ever, Belinda had no words from Dmitri, only smug satisfaction that allowed her to understand the direction of his thoughts.

He'd been there at her birth, and Lorraine thought him dead.

“I can't speak to his age,” Belinda said to Branson. She trusted the life she'd led to give her voice the right timbre, to show youthful uncertainty and sorrow even when she herself barely attended the words she spoke. “His hair was dark, but not all men lose their colour as they age, and he seemed old to me. That winter a cough took him, and he grew frail.” Tears filled her eyes and she glanced to the side so she might brush them away in a semblance of privacy; a semblance watched by all the court. She would believe her, if she were they; such performance was what she was made for. “When he died I was alone.”

A single thread of her attention was taken up by awareness of rising sympathy: the courtiers were half in love with her, in love with a romantic idea of a lonely girl destined for a throne; in love with the thought that they might now warm her and make her welcome. Mothers with marriageable sons plotted how a convent-raised princess might be best seduced; mothers with daughters considered how a crowned novice might need friends and guidance within the court. Younger women sighed in melodramatic compassion, imagining if only they had been the secret heir, and so it went, all through the court, all making a place for Belinda within their hearts. The romance would fade soon enough, leaving politics and manoeuvrings behind, but now, as she stood on the throne dais beside Lorraine, they warmed to her.

And she all but ignored them, her gaze on Branson but her thoughts on the two witchlords and the Aulunian queen. An energy crackled between them, nearly a quarter century of secrets kept. Belinda had no need to look over her shoulder at Robert to feel that he, too, was remembering the day of her birth, and the priest who had overseen it.

Bloody curls over translucent skin: that was the easiest memory for Belinda herself to draw up. The warmth of Robert's hands enveloping her, and the command: it cannot be found out. Robert's voice replying, promising that it would not be found out. And another command: attend her. Another response, a man's voice agreeing, and in the present, in the courtroom, hairs rippled on Belinda's arms, bringing a chill.

Dmitri, agreeing. Dmitri, promising to attend the queen who had just birthed Belinda, whose memories stretched all the way back to the moment of her birth. He had, so often in her life, awakened witchpower magic; she wondered now if his presence all those years earlier had helped shape the strength of her recollection, even before she could form coherent thoughts.

Lorraine, outside the weight of memory that burdened Belinda, but carrying her own fears, still performed the show they'd set in motion. Belinda had reached toward her once; now the queen reversed the offer, putting a hand out toward Belinda, and Belinda, as much the actor as her mother, took it.

“Not alone,” Lorraine murmured. “Though it may have seemed you were for all those years after Christopher's death, you remained in our hearts. Our greatest regret is that we have been unable to know you, and we hope that God will grace us with at least a few more years in which we might become family.”

For the second time, she drew Belinda into an embrace, and while courtiers shouted cheers and threw their hats into the air, clear memory, stolen from the queen's touch, thundered into Belinda's mind.

Afterbirth still rippling her belly: that, Belinda remembered herself, in the moments before Robert turned away and took her from the first and last glimpse of her mother for over a decade. But what Lorraine remembered and Belinda did not, that Robert did not, was the unexpected pain of another labour contraction, more violent than she thought to expect with passing the afterbirth. She had gasped with it, and the priest, rightfully concerned, came to her side.

It was he who delivered the second child almost an hour later. A boy, noisier in his entrance to the world than Belinda had been, and a source of appalled horror to the woman who'd birthed him. Robert was gone with the girl; with the bastard heir upon whom Lorraine had decided to risk everything. Lorraine had been pleased the child was female; she, after all, had done well enough as a woman alone, and fancied the idea of a daughter coming after her.

A son threatened everything, on every level. One bastard child was risk enough; a bastard son, should he learn his parentage, would consider himself rightful heir to a throne Lorraine intended on being Belinda's, if it should come to that. And the people would support him: no matter how fond they were of their virgin queen, a woman on the throne sat badly with many of them, and they would raise a banner to her son.

It was maternal instinct, oh yes, but not the instinct so lauded by men, which made Lorraine Walter thrust the squalling babe into her priest's arms and say, flatly, “Drown him, stone him, leave him to die in the forest, but do not let him see the dawn, priest. It cannot be found out. More than the girl, this cannot be found out.”

In memory, Dmitri took the child and silenced his cries with a rag dribbled in water so the boy had something to suckle, and left the queen of Aulun to attend to herself.

Minutes later, pale, regal, trembling, she came barefoot to her guardsmen's door, and from there commanded them ride after the priest in secret until the ninth hour, and then to put him to death. They, without question, saluted agreement and left Lorraine alone again for the second time.

Alone, exhausted, but confident it would not be found out, she returned to her chambers, and with the ninth bell of the morning murmured a prayer for the priest's soul and for that of the dead boy then emerged from the shadow of her father's death to take up her crown and sceptre again as an uncontested queen.

Lorraine released Belinda from their embrace and smiled; Belinda returned the expression without hesitation, and heard nothing of what Lorraine said next. The queen was wise to be afraid: should it be known she sent a son to his death, her people would never forgive her.

A curious spot of emptiness grew in Belinda's belly at the thought of a brother she hadn't known, chilling her in a way the stillness never had. She knew regret well enough to recognise it, but this was something else, a calmer and steadier aspect to that emotion, if such a thing was to be had. Not sorrow that needed regret, and she had too little attachment to a befuddling idea to regret it as of yet. Disbelief, maybe; a simple thing, that she might not have been so alone as she'd always been, had the world been just a little different. Yes: there, she knew it now. The coolness inside her was that same thick wavering glass through which she'd always seen the other side of her life, the one where she'd been born legitimate heir to the Aulunian throne. It was a curiosity, barely worth considering in one part for its unattainability and in the other, for the rage she might have felt if she permitted herself to dwell on it. That was the shape of her dead brother inside her, and all wisdom said it should be left that way, impossible to touch.

Instead she sent an unfelt smile over the courtiers, catching gazes for an instant here and a moment there, until with witchpowered precision, her eyes met Dmitri's.

She had stolen only snatches of emotion from him, no clear thoughts or memories the way she could from one who wasn't witchbred himself. But the satisfaction beneath his changed demeanour lay in parallel to Lorraine's thoughts: they shared a source, one that inspired fear in the titian queen and smugness in Dmitri. His mind was guarded against hers, too familiar already with Belinda's ability to subsume his will and demand his power be used to her satisfaction. But she'd changed yet again, not only in holding the power of the storm, but in riding the high emotion that now lashed the court. If it could affect her, she could draw it in and make a needle point of it.

Suddenly impatient with half-answers and untruths, Belinda gathered her will, gathered the overwhelming support of the courtiers, and slammed through the feeble walls of darkness that Dmitri threw in her path.