Lilith Saintcrow - The Red Plague Affair

Sometimes a man’s fear was a woman’s only defence.

The Duchess was pale too. The lace of her cap quivered on either side of her face – she had affected a truly matronly headgear for the occasion. “I do not believe I have had the pleasure, my dearest.” Not so vivacious now.

“I have not either, of late.” Victrix’s gaze swung away, roving over the few of the peerage who remained in the room – and her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Craighley. The last Chancellor but one, Grayson, had vanished in mysterious circumstances; some whispered of embezzlement and of a retreat to the Continent. Others, very softly, whispered of sorcery.

It was Emma Bannon who saw to it they did not whisper overly loudly, or for very long. Sometimes it did not do to have the truth bruited about.

“I have not either,” Victrix repeated, her tone sharpening. “But I think upon it often, Mother. The Sellwyths were treacherous worms of old, were they not?”

The Duchess of Kent trembled. It took a sharp eye to see, but Emma Bannon’s gaze was indeed pointed, and she saw the quiver in the older woman’s skirts. Very well done, Your Majesty.

“Alexandrina…” The Duchess’s lips shaped a bloodless whisper.

“You may remove yourself from Our sight, Duchess.” Victrix’s tone took on new weight, and the shadows in the Throne Room thickened. Each gem on her chair or her person was a point of hurtful brilliance. “Thou’rt confirmed in thy titles and estates. But We shall not suffer thee in Our presence.”

Emma loosened her fists, deliberately, one finger at a time. Had she truly doubted Victrix’s ability to handle this confrontation? And so neatly, too.

The Duchess, to give her credit, paid a most steady courtesy to Britannia. It was odd – the pale drawn look she wore now suited her, lending a shadow of slender youth to her features. Her dark eyes burned as live coals, and Emma wished she were more visible, so she could catch the lady’s gaze. It was no doubt overweening pride… but she wished the Duchess knew she was witnessing this embarrassment.

The Queen’s mother took the prescribed three steps backwards, her skirts swaying drunkenly. The shadow of Britannia retreated, pearly rain-washed morning light filling the vast glass-roofed expanse again. Victrix’s gaze was no longer starred with the speckles of infinite night. No, it was human again, and her eyes were dark with very human pain.

“Mother,” she said, suddenly and very clearly. “ I am reconciled to thee. But We are not.”

Well, Lady Gossip and Lord Tale-A-Plenty will spread that far and wide. Good.

Victrix rose, and there was a great rustling as all courtesied or bowed, and the Queen swept from the Throne Room on her Consort’s arm. He murmured something to her, and Victrix’s pained sigh was audible in the heavy silence.

Emma found herself smiling. It was, she suspected, not a pleasant smile, and she composed her features before allowing the glamour to fold itself away. There was no reason to remain in shadow now. It was against the spirit of Victrix’s commands, and yet…

She needn’t have bothered. The Duchess stalked from the Throne Room with her head held high, amid a wash of tittering whispers and buzzes. The morning’s event would be digested and re-chewed in drawing rooms around Londinium by lunchtime, and halfway across the Continent by supper. Those who paid court to Kent, believing she had some influence, would fall away.

This will only make her next gambit more subtle and hence, possibly more dangerous. And where is her hangman? Is he about?

It was unlike Conroy to let an opportunity pass, and Emma had made certain that a delicate insinuation of the restoration of royal favour had dropped in his ear – and thus in the Duchess’s. An effective feint, and satisfaction was had.

But he had not shown, which made the satisfaction tarnish slightly.

A tingle ran along her nerves. She raised her chin slightly, her gaze taking in the entire columned expanse of the Throne Room in one sweep. The brush of ætheric force retreated hastily, and her attention snagged on the opposite side of the room, where a gleam pierced another shadowed corner.

Another player, or merely an onlooker? Interesting. She was now, after witnessing this exchange, to attend the Queen in private. There were other matters than a mother put firmly in her place requiring the attention of a Sorceress Prime in Britannia’s service. Still, she lingered, allowing herself to become still and receptive, her consciousness dilating.

It was no use. The other sorcerer had felt her attention shift, and was already gone. There was a side door close by, a twin to the one Emma stood near, and probably chosen for the very same reason she had selected this spot.

Something about such precaution did not quite sit well.

Bother . It mattered little; if there were another player at the table, soon enough he – or she – would slip and show a hand. Emma shelved the question and gathered her skirts, Mikal’s step leaf-light behind her as she set a course for the door.

With a murmur of thanks, Emma lowered herself into the wide, heavy chair Victrix indicated with a wave of one jewelled hand.

“ Do sit, Miss Bannon, that was quite …” Quite what, the Queen paused, as if unable to just yet define. Now, she clasped her hands over her rounded belly, wincing slightly. She had just begun to show, and so soon after the last. At least there was no shortage of prospective heirs, though Britannia had shown little interest in any of them to date. “Quite…”

Uncomfortable? Liberating, and yet terrifying? I can only imagine. Emma contented herself with a simple, “Thank you, Your Majesty.” After all, I have no mother or father, merely the Collegia. I cannot imagine.

The Prince Consort, his features pale and mournful behind the fine moustache, busied himself at a rather graceless mahogany sideboard. The hefty apple-figured drapes, overstuffed brocaded sophas and spindly gilt chairs were overdone, rather in the manner of a royal idea of what a respectable country gentleman’s drawing room would contain, albeit envisioned without any proper visit to such a space to discern its peculiarities.

In short, it was very much like the doomed Queen Marette Antoinette’s faux farm-village. The ruling spirit of France had not recovered from the bloody end its last vessel had undergone, and there were whispers that the freebooters first of the Révolution and then of the thrice-damned Corsican had slaughtered every child of the royal lines, both ancillary and direct, to keep Gallica from rising again.

Such things could happen without those strong, cunning, and yes, brutal enough to safeguard the vessel’s person. No doubt another ruling spirit would rise, or Gallica would resurface eventually.

There were even whispers that some of the Corsican’s line were showing… signs. Emma was still undecided whether judicious assassination should be suggested – oh, very delicately indeed. Victrix had certain regrettable qualms that would hopefully fade with the passage of time – and the lessons of ruling an Empire.

A weakened France was a help to Britannia, but not overly weak. Used as a shield and balanced against the Germans, not to mention Austro-Angary, she was a useful tool. A Gallican vessel sympathetic – or beholden – to Britannia, within reason, was an asset to be considered and planned for.

Emma folded her hands sedately. Victrix’s long glittering earrings trembled as their wearer shook, and the sorceress averted her eyes, studying the curtains, counting the gold threads worked in stylised apple-shapes. The room was windowless, the drapes only softening bare stone walls. It was an apt metaphor for the illusion of absolute power. Trammelled in a stone cube, the ruling spirit of an Empire the sun never set upon was no more than a daughter reeling with helpless frustration and quite possibly a measure of despair.