The Pretender's Crown

IVANOVA DUROVA, THE IMPERATOR'S HEIR

21 June 1588 † Brittany

Her mother is missing her by now. Will have been for weeks, indeed, because Ivanova Durova rode with her army when they left Khazar. She has watched pigeons race back from the generals' tents: pigeons carrying no-doubt frantic tales of how military men cannot find one young woman amongst the thousands of soldiers who march on Gallin. There have been inspections and spot checks; it even seemed, for a little while, that the entire army might be called back so the imperator's heir could be found. Ivanova wrote her mother a note of her own then, promising she was well and promising, equally, that she intended to go to Gallin and watch war happen whether the army continued on or not. Better, surely, to have her protected by the troops than to have her riding alone.

Do not, she had also written, send more men to try to find me. They will fail. Irina knew nothing of the power Ivanova commanded: not even the priest and counselor Dmitri, who had trained her thoughts to shape that power, realised how much she'd come in to what she privately thought of as magic. What else might it be, this influence that let her change men's minds or slip among them unseen? It was that talent that had permitted her to join the army; had even left an impression of herself behind, so her whirlwind maid and others about the palace had vague recollections of seeing her even in the days after her departure. That simulacrum had faded with the fourth day: she'd felt it, and not long after, messenger birds had begun winging their way back and forth between the capital city of Khazan and the generals leading the march.

Ivanova knows perfectly well she oughtn't be as bold or as gleeful as she is: the price for her daring will be high. But it will also not be paid today, and in very little time her army's long journey will be over. She stands in her stirrups as the regiment she rides with crests a hill, and suddenly there's a battlefield before her.

Aulun and Cordula clash in a broad valley between low hills: Ivanova can see glimpses of the straits beyond those hills; glimpses of the ships Aulun sailed on. They're resplendent, the Reformation soldiers, wearing their red coats as they rush in from the north. Ecumenic Cordula's soldiers are a rainbow of discord, uniformed in green and blue and mustard yellow as they ride from the east and south. There were more of them, before the armada: the Ecumenic church should have commanded enough bodies to overwhelm Lorraine's troops, but no more. They are close to evenly matched now, and for a breathless instant Ivanova sees patterns in the chaos of war, surging back and forth like a living creature. Her own army comes from the east, down the rolling hills and into the field, and Ivanova, like her brother soldiers, shouts with raw enthusiasm as they race to change the tide of war.