Belinda wondered what they would say to learning of her existence, and how she gave lie to the pure and untouched image Lorraine had worked so hard to create.
Robert brought her to the palace, but through the servants' entrance, and held his tongue until they reached chambers that Belinda knew were his own, a gift from a doting queen. They were sumptuous, more so than Belinda would expect from her father, but then, it would have been Lorraine's decree that had decorated them. Not even Robert would dare to refinish the room against Lorraine's tastes. Belinda's gaze went to heavy tapestries and old paintings that could easily cover spy-holes, and, half mocking, murmured, “We are unobserved?”
Thickness filled the air, turning it to a kind of hiss: the same off-kilter feeling and sound she might have gotten from stuffing bits of cloth into her ears. Robert, drily, said, “We are now,” and Belinda was surprised to hear him. He said, “Sit, Primrose,” and gestured her to a chair before a low-banked fire. Belinda threw off her cloak and did so, looking for wine; Robert poured a glass and brought it to her before sitting as well.
“Do you know that Belinda Primrose is dead?” he asked after a sip. “Beheaded by Sandalia, while Robert Drake was ransomed?”
“I had heard.” Belinda stilled her fingers, not allowing them to touch her throat. She had imagined more than once that her life might end on a headman's block, and for a few brief hours in a Lutetian prison, had thought it would be sooner rather than later. But some other unfortunate girl with similar colouring had met Belinda's fate that day, and she could find no guilt within her for surviving. “I envy your escape.”
“As well you might, but the whole of it may give us an opportunity.” Robert tapped a finger against his wineglass, then set the glass aside and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded together. “Heed me well, Primrose, for this is how it shall go.”
BELINDA PRIMROSE
4 June 1588 † Alunaer; the queen's court
She had come to court twice as a child: once to murder du Roz, and a second time some seventeen months later to observe the way courtiers danced around one another, manipulating and pressing advantages, falling back and regrouping. It wasn't until she was older that she saw the parallels to battle in their interactions, but at thirteen she hadn't needed to. She had come to learn, so she might be able to participate in those dances herself, should the day come when it proved necessary.
Lorraine had been on holiday during the six weeks Belinda was at court, and not many, if any, would remember the ordinary girl in the unremarkable gowns. She dressed better than a servant, as she required access to the upper classes, but for a girl who was the adopted daughter of the queen's favourite, she drew surprisingly little attention. Only now did Belinda wonder if Robert's witch-power had had a hand in that. She wouldn't ask: to her mind, doing so would give her father a subtle edge in their own game, and she was already too many steps behind.
This, then, was the third time she'd come to the Aulunian court, and only the second with Lorraine in attendance. The first time she'd been dressed fashionably but modestly, wearing brown velvet that looked well with her hair and skin tones, but which didn't draw the eye as a more sumptuous outfit might.
This afternoon she blended in in a different way, wearing a dress so much like those half the court women wore that she wasn't certain she'd have picked herself out of a group, much less expected anyone else to. It reminded her vividly of the last gown she'd worn to court, the magnificent, binding green dress Sandalia's best tailor had sewn her into only a little while before all her plots and planning in the Gallic court had come to a disastrous end. There were no similarities at all between the one gown and the other; this one had the broad boxy skirts and puffed sleeves that Lorraine favoured, rather than the impossibly thin lines of the Gallic dress, and was a variety of bejeweled and embroidered colours, making the fabric stiff and heavy. No, there were no similarities save they were both prisons in which she was caught, making escape from inexorable fate virtually impossible.
She had been positioned barely ten feet from Lorraine's throne, manoeuvred there by Cortes, the thin middling man who played the part of the queen's spymaster. Lorraine was, of course, not yet present, and beneath the brocaded gown Belinda's skin itched with awareness of curious eyes on her. Courtiers tended toward their own subtle ranking system, with those who fancied themselves the most important-or who could convince others they were-nearest the throne. A scant handful of the most ambitious put themselves at the other end of the long hall, that they might catch the queen's eye in the first moment she entered, but aside from them, the gathered court went from most powerful to least down the length of the room.
Belinda, unknown, not astonishingly beautiful, not extraordinarily dressed, broke all protocol in standing where she did. She could feel animosity gathering and preparing to break over her, and for a moment considered welcoming it: lifting her gaze and meeting accusing eyes with the untouchable centre of witchpower. She would win any such battle of will.
And she would lose any friends she might have within the Aulunian court. Whether dressed in servant's garb or the finest gown, it was of no use to make deliberate enemies where friends might be had instead. Belinda dropped her eyes, caught her lower lip in her teeth, and sent a shy glance to the nearest handful of glowering courtiers before looking down again. Yes, that look was meant to say, I know my place and it isn't here. But I've been put here, and what else might I do but stay? Forgive me: I mean you no harm.
One of them-an earl of some renown, born to the Branson household and a likely contender for Lorraine's throne after her death-relented in his glare. Belinda was, after all, only a woman, and a young one, probably some cocky courtier's wife, being used to draw the man himself closer to Lorraine's attention. She was pretty, Branson thought, and his thoughts ran to Belinda, clear as a mountain-fed stream: she was pretty, her shy glance bespeaking an easy mark for bedding. He'd welcome her, all right, and her cuckolded husband wouldn't dare protest, not if he wanted to gain access to inner circles. Then when Branson had used her to his satisfaction, both she and her hapless lord would be dropped, shut out as thoroughly as though they'd never been given leave to enter.
Belinda, her eyes still lowered in a show of proper modesty, thought she might kill this one for herself, in the name of all the times she'd been used that way, and, piously, in the name of all women who were so used. Her small dagger lay bound against her spine, unusable but symbolic: she would use violence if Branson had the audacity to lay a forceful hand on her.
Cortes had left to carry messages while wolves circled the woman he'd left behind. Belinda kept her eyes downcast, only daring glances at the courtroom, which was aggravating. Well over a hundred men and women littered it, and she wanted to see who they were, what kinds of power they wielded and what kinds they imagined they did. A sting of witchpower entered the room and Belinda's heart clenched as she forbade herself the luxury of looking up sharply and searching out her father.
No, not Robert. Dmitri, her own witchpower senses told her an instant later, and then she glanced up after all, curiosity stronger than wisdom.
A bearded Khazarian dressed in the rich colours of his countrymen stood in the place she expected to see Dmitri. He had more breadth to him, more width of face and perhaps less height than the witchlord, though his hawkish nose and deep-set eyes were similar to Dmitri's. Confusion cascaded through Belinda, a frown marring her forehead. She turned her gaze down before her consternation became obvious, then smoothed her brow and made calmness the sum of what she felt.
The second time she looked his way she did it with witchpower and witchpower alone, her gaze still turned to the floor. Dmitri's thick black power, as mutable as his eyes, was unmistakable: she could taste the channels she'd left in his mind, places where her power had subverted his and made it her own. It was active, that magic, active in a way that felt like the stillness and yet didn't: it drew attention to certain of his features and sent attention away from others, a whirling, constant flow of power that said notice this, do not notice that. The stillness asked only that no notice be taken; Belinda hadn't imagined it could be mirrored and used in another way.
She lifted her gaze again carefully, focusing on what his witchpower said not to see: the narrower cheekbones, the prominence of his nose in comparison; the slender height that seemed redistributed into bulk. Her vision protested, sending a spike of pain through her head: she could see two men standing in one space, one Dmitri's familiar form, the other what he wanted others to see. Eyes closed again, Belinda turned her face away,
