trouble. That's for Irina, whose backstabbing and double-crossing treaties and alliances have become difficulties, to deal with. Essandia has its own plans for Aulun, and Akilina is more concerned with them than with Khazar's. Essandia, after all, has made her a queen, and that is a title she could never have aspired to at home.
The women come to dress her and she manages that without another bout of illness; it is, for her, the worst immediately after awakening, and only triggered again by overpowering scents. Things she once enjoyed now make her nauseous, and cautious ladies-in-waiting have learned already to offer treats slowly, so Akilina might thrust them away should they unexpectedly offend. It's a delicate dance, all done in Essandian, though Akilina hopes a few of them are learning Khazarian. Once summer comes she'll send for servants of her own household to join her here in Isidro, but until then a little talk would be a welcoming gesture for the new queen.
And they are welcoming of her indeed, with pregnancy coming so soon after marriage. Akilina lets the women go and stands on her own, still fighting sickness, but one stops at the doorway to offer a shy curtsey. “Forgive me, your majesty-”
Akilina almost doesn't hear what the girl says after that; she is still too taken with hearing those words, “your majesty,” spoken to her. It's an indulgence, but one she has no intention of letting go of soon: there's nothing more worth savouring. Her thoughts catch up to the servant's question, and she nods agreement, then shoos the woman out.
Not much later, Sacha Asselin enters. Akilina is arranged at the window, much as she was when he took her from the Gallic prison, but she's forgone any pretence of embroidery and only looks out over Isidro. This, after all, is her city now, and she its queen. Sacha bows deeply and without irony; she likes that in him, that he can hide all signs of mockery as he comes to sit near her, once she's granted leave with a wave of her fingers. “How do you find Isidro, my lord Asselin?”
“The wine is sweet, the women are willing, and I have my queen to command me,” Sacha says lightly, as he has said every day when she's put that question to him. “Though I fear I'll need to return to Lutetia soon, my lady. Javier intends war.”
“And you intend to guide him in it.”
“I'm of more use there than here,” Sacha says, which doesn't answer the implied question. “I've done my duty by you and Rod-the prince.”
There's a self-satisfied smugness in his voice, the cockiness of youth. Akilina supposes she, too, would be smug were she in his shoes, having cuckolded the prince of Essandia. Only for a few nights; what might have become a dalliance over the length of the journey to Essandia ended early, in part because Akilina is cautious. True caution would have refused Sacha her bed at all, but true caution would never have offered her the chance of a child close enough in conception to be Rodrigo's, but no part of him. Perhaps it's a woman's thought: that a child begat by a man not her husband is somehow a thing entirely of her own, but it's a thought Akilina holds to. She'll have the shaping of the babe in her womb, with its true father unacknowledged and the man who claims it not bound by blood. Women have only what they take in this world, and Akilina intends on taking all she can.
Sacha shifts, her silence going on too long, and she brings her attention back to him. The other reason she sent him from her bed is one she will never admit to: boredom. He can be creative, but he's more often coarse and hurrying for his own pleasure. Rodrigo is the better lover, for all that Akilina doubts very much that the prince bedded any women before herself. There were those he'd kept company with, and whom he'd assiduously set aside and watched over to make certain there were no by-blows. Those few women are all wealthy now, well- kept in glorious homes. Royal castoffs often do well in society, but not all of them; not each and every one with the degree of success Rodrigo's former paramours have seen. They're too talented, too witty, too wise; Akilina has met them, and they are all, to a woman, perfect consorts. No man can choose so wisely each time his heart leads him, and so Akilina is certain Rodrigo's has never led him. These women are contrivances, selected to create a discreet reputation.
She approves, actually, not that her approval makes the slightest difference. Still, it tells her things about his cleverness, and tells her, too, that if they should find themselves on the same side, they could be a devastating force.
Akilina Pankejeff does not, for one moment, believe she and Rodrigo de Costa are on the same side.
“More than your duty” is what she murmurs aloud. Sacha suspects, but does not know, that the child she carries is his; they were not lovers long enough for him to know the march of her red army. But the chance that it might be will keep Sacha on a long string, ready to dance for her when she whistles. She'll let him wonder as long as he's useful, and will dispose of him when he ceases to be. For now, he's her nearest man to Javier de Castille's ear, and that's worth keeping him alive for.
Avarice and interest flash in his eyes at her words as he takes them to be a hint of her child's father. Akilina indulges in a dismissive thought: Men. So easily manipulated. That, of course, is entirely unfair: women are just as easy to shape and lead. “You have brought Khazar and Essandia together,” she says, more than a little sanctimoniously, and rather enjoying it. “You've helped forge a great alliance between the east and west, and have strengthened your faith's military arm considerably. I should think your name will be written in history books, Lord Asselin, as harbinger of a new era.”
Colour burns Sacha's cheeks, making him look younger than he is. Akilina thinks of him as a boy even without such reminders, though he's less than a decade her junior. “Word from Cordula says Javier returns to Lutetia by sea. Will he stop here?”
Still ruddy with imagined pride, Sacha shakes his head. “He spent too much time in Isidro already, and spring is all but on us. He'll need to rally an army and move on Alunaer by June, so he's got no more time to lose. He'll go straight to Lutetia.”
“There to meet his oldest friend.” Akilina lifts her fingers, a welcoming soft gesture toward the young lord, and he catches them with a light gallantry that would stand him well if he'd learn to use it at all times. “Guide him well, Sacha,” and this she says with all seriousness, because an empty Gallic throne is not to Khazar's advantage, not with her new marriage to a Cordulan king. Rodrigo and Javier are tied by blood, and present a unified front that no other contender for Lutetia's crown could offer her. Or Khazar, she reminds herself fastidiously. After all, she does what she does for Khazar, not herself.
Irina wouldn't believe that, either, and that may well be part of why the imperatrix has permitted this marriage. Akilina sniffs, making a mockery of insult in her thoughts. She aimed for a power behind the throne by choosing a lover in Gregori Kapnist, not the throne itself. Of course, had the handsome count managed to wed Irina, then as his lover Akilina might have seen herself just one step from the imperial crown. A pity Belinda Primrose had thwarted that chain of events by murdering poor Gregori. That he most likely would have met the same end should he have taken the throne and taken Akilina to wife is utterly beside the point.
Akilina's sniff turns to a smile full of unexpected and genuine good nature. The web is a tangled one, and rarely spins in any predictable manner. Machinations for one throne have gotten her another, and when all is said and done, Akilina intends on being mistress to an empire that will rival Irina's. She turns her thoughts from conquering and her smile to Sacha, and finishes her plea to him: “Guide Javier wisely, and we'll all of us profit from Alunaer's fall.”
JAVIER DE CASTILLE, KING OF GALLIN
7 April 1588 † The Western Ocean, off the coast of Gallin
Javier suspected Eliza's complicity in the matter of the gondola boy. The child had been hauled from belowdecks on the fourth day from Aria Magli looking suspiciously well-fed and not even slightly repentant.
A tremendous argument followed his discovery, the captain offended that anyone should stow away on his ship and determined to put the boy off on the coast. Eliza refused, and since then tensions had been high. Bad enough that she was a woman on board, but far worse that she dared cross the captain, and insult doubled when Javier indicated she should have her own way. Marius cracked a smile and elbowed Javier in approval of his errant wisdom. The king of Gallin could afford to anger a sea captain or two, but not the woman he intended to wed.
Tomas had refused, thus far, to perform the ceremony. Not for the first time Javier eyed the captain, and not for the first time, put the thought away. First, the man was irritated with him, and second, a shipboard wedding
