C. Murphy - The Queen_s Bastard

She stepped forward again, catching his arm with more strength than she knew she had, her fingers digging into his biceps. He dropped his gaze to her grasp, then lifted it again to meet her eyes with cool expectation.

Belinda’s lip curled and she tightened her grip, rage and fear and witchpower boiling up in her. “Father.” Her throat ached from vehemence. “What am I?”

“You would not understand if I told you-”

Belinda let the parchment fall, clapping her freed hand to his face, almost a slap. Images, memories, words, all of them meaningless, shattered through her power: a creature vaster than any she’d ever imagined, sinuous and scaled, dangerous alien intelligence in its gaze. Respect beyond the profound for that monster; respect that was so inherent to her father that he literally could not live without it.

That respect, transferred in some peculiar fashion to Lorraine Walter, and wry amusement at human weakness.

A dragon in the stars, and a sleek silver thing that Robert’s mind called a ship, though it could no more sail on the seas than Belinda herself could. It rode on the wind, and in the black spaces of the sky above.

Pain, so incredible it could only mean death, and then the mewling, horrible weakness of an infant’s form.

A circle in the sky, like the moon, but blue and green and swirled with white. Ambition toward that sphere: clear focus, a deliberate plan.

Robert’s will roared up, white and hard as a blow, no comforting scent of chypre in it, but only intent to break the drain of thought and memory. Belinda staggered back under the strength of his desire, head pounding, witchpower subdued. “I told you,” he said gently, all the dominance and authority of his will disappeared, “that you would not understand. You have a purpose, Primrose. Let knowing that be enough for now.”

“It will not always be enough.” Belinda kept her voice low for fear rage would break through otherwise. Robert breathed a laugh, nodding.

“So I now see.” He crouched, gathering papers, then offered them up to her from the subordinate position, curious smile still shaping his mouth. “Answers will come, my Primrose. You have time. And you must return to Aulun now. Lorraine will need you, and better for you both to be far away from Lutetia when Sandalia dies. I’ll give you a week to be safely home before I act.”

“I already have.” Belinda looked toward Sandalia’s desk, then took the parchment Robert had collected. “She’ll sip from a poisoned cup soon enough, and Lorraine will see the papers that forgive her for condemning a sister-queen to death.”

Startled admiration wrinkled Robert’s forehead and he inclined his head after a moment, as much homage as she’d seen him pay any woman save a queen. “Then my journeys take me elsewhere, and you will learn to stand in my place at Lorraine’s side for a time, Primrose.” He straightened, then stepped forward to place a kiss on Belinda’s brow, looking down at her with amusement and pride. “You’ll do well,” he promised, and his voice lightened with mirth: “After all, your nurse taught you to be clever. Now go,” he murmured, and Belinda could not say if it was his will or her own that drew shadows around her, and propelled her toward escape.

13 January 1588 Lutetia Only one thing remains to be done, and she is waiting for him. Composed, standing above the city in a sumptous tower, wearing one of the flowing new gowns in an off-shade of red, too much orange licking it to look well on most women. On her, it is magnificent, and even with her back to him, the gown’s shape makes her look younger than she is. Robert knows why she’s done it, and part of him even admires her for it, but as he lets himself in to her bower, it doesn’t move him. Not enough.

She doesn’t turn away from the city view. Her hair, lush and dark and falling free, makes a cloak over her shoulders that he imagines wards off some of winter’s chill. If the circumstances were different, he might let himself bury his hands in it, inhale its scent, and be drowned in the pleasure of it all.

Instead, from the door, he says, “Why?” It’s not important, but he’s surprised at how badly he would like to know, surprised at how deeply these fragile, clever humans can touch him.

And she says, in a lighter voice than he’s heard her use before, “They offered me something you couldn’t.”

“Your life.” Oh, how he has fallen. He shouldn’t have said even so much. Rue, or perhaps some closer cousin to distress, curves Robert’s mouth, though he won’t let himself look down. That would be too much; too weak, and that he cannot, or will not, allow himself.

She turns then, amusement and wonder in her eyes, and he holds in a flinch, knowing far too well that he should not have spoken. It’s a long moment before she says, “That,” as if it doesn’t matter, and she’s right, for it doesn’t, and then lifts her left hand, where a heavy signet ring weights the third finger. “That, and this.”

There’s no guilt in the courtesan’s gaze, and Robert is quiet a while as he takes in what the ring means to him, and what it means to Ana. “A friend to the crown of Gallin,” he finally says, slowly. “What of Aulun, Ana?”

She shrugs, beautiful motion that ripples her hair and the light folds of her gown. “What of it? You’ve never really understood, Robert. I’m a courtesan, and a man came to me with an offer. Live like a duchess at Sandalia’s bidding, or die at his hands a whore. There’s no choice in that, my love. There’s no choice at all.”

Fog creeps over Robert’s thoughts, making them thick and dull and slow. He cannot recall-and his memory is excellent-that Ana has ever used those words before. My love. Too much has changed too quickly, and for the first time he wonders if Dmitri was right, and he, Robert, is losing control.

He is clearly losing control, for there’s the question of Javier, born to the power that Robert and Belinda and Dmitri all share, but born outside of Robert’s awareness, raised outside of certain schools of thought and indoctrination. Oh, yes, he is losing control, but that, that is a thing to be dealt with later. Tonight there is only one thing left to do, and she stands before him, waiting on his silence.

Which he breaks with a confession that is unlike him: voice grating and low, he says, “I do not understand.”

“Of course you do.” Ana has a deep voice, but tonight, still, it’s peculiarly light. Breathless, but not with ecstacy or laughter. More as though she dares not take too deep a breath, for fear it will cut her, and she does not want to spend her last hours in pain.

Then, suddenly, he does understand. Fog clears, his mind sharpening, and unexpected regret turns to a knife’s edge within him. “Which is it, then? That you wished not to die a whore, or wished not to die at his hands?”

“Oh,” Ana says, still lightly, “I wished neither, my love, but having had to choose, I chose not to die for him. It’s a small thing,” she says much more softly, and Robert suddenly realises they’re speaking Parnan; that they have been since he entered the room. There should be the sounds of the canals around them; there should be voices lifted in laughter and anger and life from the waterways. That’s how it should be, but it never will be, never again. “It’s a small thing,” Ana repeats, “but in the end, it seemed to be everything.”

Robert’s heart contracts. It’s only a few steps across the room, long hard steps, but only a few, and he takes them swiftly, catching the striking beauty in his arms. She cries out, a quiet shocked sound, and he covers her mouth with his just briefly, before kneeling with her.

Off-orange fabric settles around them slowly, darker now in places, wet and sticky. She’s silent, and he admires her for that even as she lifts fingertips to brush his lips, and then, strength spent, lets her hand fall again. He holds her, and at the last, breathes in the scent of her hair after all, and then rises, silently, to leave death behind.