The Queen's Bastard

BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE

25 November 1587 Lutetia Belinda curtsied deeply enough to border on the absurd, keeping her eyes lowered and the deferential pose until Sandalia flickered her fingers, a gesture Javier had surely learned from her. And Eliza had learned it in turn, Belinda thought as she rose. The bruise on her jaw had faded-avoiding Javier’s mother for the days it took to heal had been a challenge-and Belinda had taken care in dressing that morning, knowing Sandalia would insist on seeing her. Her gown was flattering, though not one of Eliza’s new fashions; whether she chose to dress as Eliza had set fashion or not, it would remind the queen of her son’s missing friend, and Belinda found she preferred the more familiar armour of an older style.

Sandalia, in contrast, wore one of Eliza’s high-waisted gowns, and looked ravishing-or ravishable. She wore her nearly forty years well, but with the costume’s soft lines and attention drawn to her bosom, she seemed some sort of Madonna, full of beauty and grace. Belinda curled the tiniest of smiles as she straightened, pleased beyond expectation that she’d been correct in the style suiting the Gallic regent. “Do we amuse you, Lady Irvine?” Sandalia’s voice was cool; she knew as well as Belinda did that Belinda had been avoiding her, and a queen did not like to be treated thus.

“Not at all,” Belinda said, then gambled on Beatrice’s impetuosity and added, “It’s just that Your Majesty is lovelier than I’d even imagined. Forgive me for being so bold, but the fashion suits you wonderfully.”

Sandalia’s mouth thinned momentarily, dry humour infusing her voice. “As you suggested it might. Will you now go to the Aulunian queen and mock her for the same dress?”

Belinda bobbed another curtsey and dared a brief, brilliant smile. “As Your Majesty commands. I would beg leave to bring a court artist with me, that he might sketch her expression when I do so.”

Sandalia’s mouth twitched again and she rose in a swirl of gossamer skirts. “We cannot decide if our son likes you for your tongue, Lady Beatrice, or if he likes you despite it. Walk with us.” She stepped down from the throne dais to Belinda’s side, startling the younger woman with her diminutive size. Even crowned-not heavily; the crowns of state were left for formal affairs, and Sandalia’s daily tiara was a delicate thing of gold and jewels-even crowned, Belinda could easily see over the top of the regent’s head, and heard herself ask, impertinently, “Was my lord’s father a tall man, Your Majesty?”

Astonishing silence fled out around them, the courtiers who caught the question falling quiet so quickly it made others do the same, craning to see what they’d missed. Sandalia turned her head to look up the few inches at Belinda so slowly that for long seconds it barely seemed the queen moved. Her expression, when their eyes met, went beyond outrage into incredulity, and Belinda wished desperately for the ability to call a blush on command. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I have no idea what came into me.”

“You have no sense at all, girl,” Sandalia said. “If Javier doesn’t teach you to control that tongue he’d best cut it out. You cannot say such things.”

“Your Majesty.” Belinda put mortification into her voice, though that same impertinent part of her wanted to insist that she certainly could, though she clearly should not. God in Heaven, if this was what the witchpower brought out in her, Robert had been righter than he knew. A lifetime would be too soon to unleash the foolishness she found herself playing at.

And yet the question pricked her curiosity. Louis had not, from description, been an especially tall man, and paintings showed him as pale and aesthete, with none of Javier’s height or colour. Belinda had no way to determine whether witchpower burned inside someone from a portrait, but looking on Louis’s image, she would far more imagine his tiny, once-widowed bride to carry magic within her blood, and knew that Sandalia did not. It was far from proof, but it whet her appetite for the truth, and so she laid the question out and hoped, despite her appalling rudeness, that Sandalia might say something indiscreet in response.

“Louis was taller than I” was Sandalia’s reply, after a frosty silence that brought them both out of the courtroom and toward Sandalia’s more private meeting chambers. Surprise curdled in Belinda’s stomach as she realised the queen had dropped formality; whether it was a sign of liking Belinda despite her unfortunate tendency to speak her mind, or whether she intended to appear soft until bitter hardness was necessary, Belinda was unsure. “As you so rudely implied, however, most people are. Perhaps Javier’s length is from his uncle; Rodrigo, whom you have not met, is quite tall.”

“And dark,” Belinda said. “I’ve seen a portrait. He’s extremely handsome.”

Sandalia smiled unexpectedly. “He is. I would that he had wed and had children of his own. But there’s always Lorraine,” she added, dryness returning to her tone again. “Do you understand the political situation there, Beatrice? You give lip service to Lanyarch’s freedom, but do you understand?”

For a moment Belinda imagined herself flanked by Sandalia on one side and her father on the other. It took effort to not glance to the side, looking for Robert, and she schooled her voice to show no amusement as she replied. “Henry of Aulun’s first wife was sister to your father. There is no surviving Walter heir from that union; Constance, their one daughter, is dead these thirty-some years. Lorraine’s a bastard child begotten through desperation that severed Aulun from Cordula and birthed the Reformation Church, and she, too, is without an heir.” Belinda drew a breath. “She’s run Lanyarch’s royal blood into the earth, leaving you the wedded queen to the throne, but without a child of Lanyarchan blood. Rodrigo woos Lorraine still, more in Cordula’s name than his own, though if he should succeed, such a marriage might legitimize Javier’s claim to any throne on the islands. In her eyes you and Javier, who are not of Aulunian blood, but who can trace line of descent to her throne, are pretenders to her crown, and dangerous.”

“And it is your opinion…?” Sandalia’s voice was so steady she might have respected the opinion Belinda offered, though in contrast to her vocal quality, humour sparked around her to Belinda’s witchpower senses.

“That with no legitimate Walter heirs, Aulun should be ruled by the royal family closest to it. There are those in Aulun who would make themselves kings,” Belinda admitted with a shrug, “but the de Costas already bear God’s seal of approval, and through Catherine you and Rodrigo are…” Too late, far, far too late, she recognized the injudiciousness of being so free with her opinions. She had, for a terrible moment, shared Beatrice’s naive beliefs, that faith and rightness and God’s will would protect her. That as a woman engaged to a prince, she might speak frankly to that prince’s mother and have her opinions respected and considered. That Javier would protect her, even when she spoke sedition to a queen.

Her stomach knotted, knocking upward so hard as to make her teeth set with the impact; it took sudden and frantic control to not let that reaction complete itself. She spoke without swallowing down sickness, forcing herself to remain untouched visibly by raging alarm, and finished, “possibilities.” If it was a trap, it was neatly set, and she was all the more a fool for stepping into it. If it was a trap, she richly deserved its jaws closing around her.

“You are a fool,” Sandalia said. “Either a fool or so trusting as to be one, and I can afford neither. You’re a political tool, Beatrice.” The tiny queen turned to face Belinda, eyes large and dark and utterly without mercy in her heart-shaped face. “You’ll help us to see if Lorraine can be shaken loose from her throne, but you will not marry my son, even if he should insist on it.”

“Your Majesty-” It took appallingly little effort to put the quaver in her voice, Belinda’s hands cold with dismay. She knew better, had been trained better, and had still let herself be led. Witchpower danced golden and warm through her mind, uncaring of the danger she danced with. “Yes, Your Majesty, of course, but how-”

Sandalia offered a smile that laid her open to the bone. “You’ll find a way to make him hate you, my dear.”

“Oh…oh, no, I couldn’t, I…I lo-” The words stuck in her throat, bringing warmth to her cheeks. Belinda clenched her hands in her skirts, allowing Beatrice’s distress to override the coldness pounding within her. Denying the desperation with which she wished to wrap herself in stillness and forbid anything to touch her. The words that finished her protest were the emotions of a silly noblewoman, not of Belinda Primrose. Her heart fluttered and beat against her ribs, a wild thing trying to escape the sickness inside her. She was Belinda Primrose, the queen’s bastard, an assassin and a spy, and she could not love a prince.

Sandalia’s smile turned positively radiant, bringing a beautiful glow of youth and good health to the pretty queen. “You will,” she said implacably. “You will, Lady Irvine, because our solution would be far less pleasant than that. We are finished with this discussion.” She flickered her fingers, shared language of the body from queen to gutter rat, and said, pleasantly, “You’re dismissed.”

Belinda, uncaring of her dignity, of her lifetime of trained untouchability, uncaring of anything but the bewildering, consuming ache that rattled her bones and took her breath, gathered her skirts, dipped a clumsy curtsey, and fled.