discussed her mother's wardrobe with Irina that morning. Irina's words had said one thing to Robert, but her gown had been of Aulunian make and style, a gift from Lorraine on Ivanova's birth. On such subtleties were covert relationships built, details that hint of support without making it too obvious.
The problem, of course, is that subtleties are rather overshadowed by pieces of actual paper promising troops to a rival kingdom.
“Well,” Irina eventually says, “if we lose the game with Aulun, so be it. All we can offer Lorraine is troops. We can do rather better for Javier de Castille.”
Nerves flutter in Ivanova's belly, making her both aware of her hunger and grateful she hasn't eaten the bread, for fear it might come back up again. Her heartbeat feels light and fast, as though it might wing its way out of her chest. She can anticipate the next words; can anticipate that they're why she's been summoned to listen in on this conversation between her mother and her advisers.
“Your majesty-”
“We know your objection already and understand it. Ivanova is our only heir, and we would not see her away from Khazar, sitting on another's throne while some regent or ambitious nobleman reached for imperial heights. Regardless of our intentions, however, she is a bargaining piece. She's young, pretty, and heir to an empire with inexhaustible resources. Javier would be a fool to refuse her, even if his own intentions go no further than the interim. What we have heard of him suggests he lacks ambition, not wit.”
Ivanova hears every word clearly, but she is fourteen and cannot help herself: her imagination leaps forward to her wedding day. Khazarian wedding garb is splendid, so encrusted with gold and pearls as to be almost too heavy to stand in. Javier would wear a fashion of his own country, but perhaps they would find a way to make the two meet, some subtlety woven into the wear of two cultures. He is handsome, at least from his portraits, though very pale. In wedding white he might look a ghost at her side, but then, as Irina has pointed out, he's known to lack ambition.
That is not a failure Ivanova shares. Even at fourteen, even chasing down fanciful futures, she does not object to the idea of a prince, a king, a husband, who can be shaped to her will. Indeed, it is best if he can be, because Ivanova intends to rule as her mother has done; as the great queens of Echon have done for far longer than the span of her own years.
Breath held with anticipation, Ivanova settles back down against the tapestry to listen and dream while her mother sends envoys to Gallin, to Essandia, and to Aulun.
RODRIGO, PRINCE OF ESSANDIA
28 January 1588 † Isidro
For nearly a week, Rodrigo has avoided his nephew.
Not entirely, of course not; they have mourning in common, and grim futures to face, and they have spoken together as men and heads of state. They have looked toward war and glorious battle, ideals Rodrigo has attempted to forsake in his years on the throne, and which he now accepts must be pursued. Yes, they have been men together.
But they have not been family. There have been no evenings sitting together over a glass of Essandian wine, bickering over whether it or Gallin's make is superior. No agreements that Parnan wine, at least, is clearly the inferior, and another glass poured to toast that. No teasing about women, no sorrow drowned in cups, no dreams spun across a dark January night.
Instead, Rodrigo has sent Marius Poulin running back and forth as a messenger boy when he must speak with Javier outside the halls and chambers of business. Marius, either wiser than Rodrigo knows, or a fool indeed, does not fear Javier, and the Essandian prince, though he will never admit it aloud, is terrified. The devil has taken his nephew, and Rodrigo sees no way to take him back.
In his life, in more than half a century of memories, he cannot recall the same witless white panic that shattered through him when his chamber doors erupted to expose Javier. Man is incapable of such power, but Javier's eyes had blazed with it as he entered. Rodrigo had believed, for a gut-wrenching moment, that his own life was at an end, only days apart from his beloved sister's. Never, not even when he had ridden to war as a youth, had he seen mortality so clearly; never had he been so grateful for his faith in God, and never had he realised how much he wished to continue living.
Even now his heart is a fist in his chest, refusing breath for his body. His hands are cold, most particularly the fingertips, and when he looks to them they're bloodless, whorls standing out in dreadful relief, as though all the wet beneath his skin has been sucked away. Every part of him clinches with fear at the thought of the boy who is his heir.
He has felt God's power, has Rodrigo de Costa. He has stood in church and chapel and courtyard and felt God's grace, His warmth and generosity, and seen the wonders of the world He has created and granted life. God has guided Rodrigo, to the best of his frail human ability to follow, through all the years of his princedom. He has tried to act with wisdom, with grace, with compassion; it is why he has avoided war as best he can, when other kings and queens of Echon have made or agitated for it.
It's not that Rodrigo believes infidels and heathens will be spared Hell; it's that he doubts God would approve of murdering unlettered peasants and unwise children as a means of spreading His word and changing their minds. There are better ways; if there were not, men would not have been granted reason or free will, but would have been born to follow blindly. To Rodrigo, it is far more a triumph to bring one thinking man to God's path than to slaughter thousands of innocents who have been led astray. The dead, after all, cannot convert.
Faced with Javier, Rodrigo wonders if it may be better, this once, to condemn a soul to Hell so that many more might live.
Because Javier is not touched with God's power. What Rodrigo saw in his nephew was selfish hurt, lashing out. God has more mercy and more wisdom than that: His chosen few are not of a temperament to redress personal wrongs with the power He grants. Of this, Rodrigo is confident.
And yet; and yet; and yet. There is the matter of Sandalia's death; there is the matter, perhaps even more pressing, of Sandalia's heir. Of his own heir. Yes, Rodrigo is afraid of the boy, but far worse than Javier's selfish use of power might lie ahead if neither Essandia nor Gallin has an heir to take their thrones. Aulun will sweep in and roll over the Ecumenic countries with its armies and its heretical faith, and while Lorraine has no heir of her blood to put on the throne, she has lackeys and hangers-on a-plenty, and no small willingness to back a pretender to the Gallic and Essandian thrones.
Humour ghosts through him. It's only fair; he and Sandalia are happy enough to put their prince on Lorraine's throne.
Were, he reminds himself. He and Sandalia were happy enough, and now that duty lies with him.
Mouth thinned with determination, Rodrigo leaves the fire he's been contemplating and rings a bell. In moments a servant enters, and Rodrigo orders his nephew brought to him. Fears must be faced, and weapons must be forged.
When Javier enters, Rodrigo's before the fire again, fingers steepled against his mouth, eyebrows drawn into a headache-causing crease. He has been thinking-thinking of the instinct that made him seize on Javier's devil's power as a gift in the first moments he saw it manifested. That's the pragmatic streak in him, stronger than the fear; it's to that which he must now turn. Ambition can be shaped, is what Rodrigo is thinking, and when Javier hesitates at the corner of his vision, the Essandian prince drops his hands and gestures to the other chair settled before the fire. He says “Nephew” gravely, and Javier sits with the wide-eyed expression of a child uncertain if he has been caught at some illicit activity.
“Uncle.” Javier hesitates again, then makes a feeble smile. “You've had the door fixed.”
Rodrigo's smile is much better than Javier's, but then, he has many years more practise at dissembling. “I thought you might be more comfortable returning to my chambers if everything appeared normal.”
“I'd be more comfortable, or you would be?”
“Some of both.” There's no sense in lying; he needs Javier's utter trust in order to guide him. He needs Javier to believe what Rodrigo does not: that his power is God's, and that God intends him to make war on Aulun.
For the briefest moment Rodrigo looks at himself as though from the outside, as though he is another man
