The Pretender's Crown

ROBERT, LORD DRAKE

26 June 1588 † Brittany; the Aulunian camp

Generals, messengers, soldiers; all are listless. It's not the aura Robert expected from an army with the size and strength to easily crush their enemy; he has come to Brittany expecting an enthusiastic victory and a tremendous welcome for the Khazarian ambassador who has given Aulun its overwhelming edge. They had the welcome, Dmitri uplifted by their effusive praise, but they've not had the crushing defeat Robert anticipated.

Instead he's watched a slow dance on the battlefields as the Cordulan army has worked its way back together, becoming a unified mass instead of huddled, disspirited troops. It's Javier de Castille's witchpower that's done it, and Robert has watched without interfering, almost too interested in the game to worry, for now, about the outcome.

But today the war's tenor has changed: today Aulun's army has lost its focus, seeming to no longer care that they've got an enemy on the field. Word has come through the troops that Javier has taken a bride, and Robert would think the audacity of marrying in the middle of a war might heat the Aulunian soldiers' blood. Instead they seem content to lay down arms for the day and let Gallin celebrate.

“It's Belinda,” Dmitri says beside him, and Robert startles.

“Who's married Javier?” That thought hadn't occurred to him, and for a moment it brightens his day.

Dmitri snorts. “Not in this or any other world, I think. No, it's Belinda dampening their spirits. Can't you feel it?”

“Oh,” Robert says, “that.” Now that Dmitri's put the words to it, he can, of course, feel that it's witchpower weighing down Aulun's troops. Belinda's dangerous to him, her witchpower too much like his own, perhaps, for him to notice properly, and that's a thing he doesn't dare admit to Dmitri. “I wonder why.”

“I suppose she harbours feelings for him still, though I'd think they'd drive her to send her army storming his when he showed a moment of weakness. Shall I clear it away?” Dmitri asks airily and in asking insinuates that Robert's incapable of it.

“Let them have their rest. Tomorrow will dawn another day.”

“You trust her implicitly even if she quells the army's fighting urge. What if she's turning against you, Robert?”

“What if all the stars should fall from the sky?” Robert gives back, with as much concern for the one as the other. “She's one of us, Dmitri. Loyalty bred in the bone. She's never reached beyond the limits she's been given. Not even now, when she's been made heir to a throne, has she striven beyond it. This is her duty and she'll follow it through. If sentiment's taken enough hold to make her soften our troops today, then tomorrow she'll have shaken it off, and will make war with the strongest heart of any of us.”

“How can you be so certain?”

Robert looks the scant distance down at Dmitri, bemused. “Because she's my daughter.”

Dmitri ducks his head, evidently satisfied, and after a moment leaves Robert alone to watch the quiet battlefields.