imagined Beatrice’s freedoms to be overwhelming-and they were, but in a different manner than she might have expected. Accustomed to a lifetime of hiding and going unnoticed, she had thought that playing an obvious role, one in the public eye, would alarm her; that a habit of circumspection would keep her from enjoying the part. Instead she’d taken to it, a truth that made her wonder, though only briefly, if Beatrice’s easy laugh might have been her own, had circumstances been different. It was a speculation to be let go unpondered; her life was what it was, and imagining it otherwise sent a shudder of confused revulsion down her spine.
Still, those small freedoms that she’d known were now gone, and she found herself resenting the fine life she lived. She picked at embroidery, surrounded by court ladies and under the watchful eyes of guards, until her fingers and her brain both seemed to bleed with weariness of it all. None of her discontent spilled outward; she kept it wrapped inside as thoroughly as she was caught under the guards’ gazes. It was far more difficult, she’d discovered, to call the witchpower stillness and disappear from view when someone was actively watching her. That she’d done it with Javier and Sacha in the room suggested to her that intimacy was key there, as well; whatever connection a joining of flesh offered seemed to provide inroads to the minds of the men around her. The guards, patient, unobtrusive, watching, turned their focus on her more pointedly when she called witchpower and tried to hide herself in the shadows of plain sight. Ultimately more concerned with secrecy than proving, if only to herself, her ability to fade away and escape her polite jailers, she gave up trying and resigned herself to the boredom of stitching.
Weeks. It had been weeks, and for once Belinda shared Asselin’s impatience. Her access to Javier had been whittled away, her ability to write freely to “dearest Jayne” compromised, and the thing that kept a stranglehold on her was that she could see no way to slip free the bonds that held her and escape into a different world for a while without threatening the position she now held.
For the first time in her life, Belinda thought she might understand, truly understand, the constraints that held Lorraine in place.
She, though, had advantages that Lorraine didn’t share. It was possible, not even difficult, to surround herself with shadow and escape the palace, escape the guards and the narrow definition of what a court lady was, at least at night. Daytime belonged to dull interactions with women Belinda had nothing in common with, but nighttime, at least, was her own.
She had not, in weeks of plying Viktor and prowling the palace at night, found where it was that Sandalia and Akilina met, nor learned their subjects of discussion. The handful of times she touched skin against either woman, she’d stolen thoughts of open disregard from Sandalia; unlike Javier, the queen regarded Belinda as no more than a means to an end, and perhaps as a test of loyalty for her own son. It was not that Sandalia disliked her; on the contrary, she seemed to be more amused by Beatrice’s inability to keep her tongue in her head than she let on, and she admitted to a personal weakness for Lanyarchans, whose king had been the first step on the path she now travelled.
Belinda closed her hand carefully around the edge of her embroidery hoop, turning the wood to more easily reach another set of stitches rather than flinging the whole mess away. Sandalia was as guarded in her thoughts as Belinda was, no more allowing herself active dreams of a pretender’s crown than Belinda permitting herself remembrances of her true heritage. Even if Sandalia had, thoughts couldn’t be proven, and Belinda required proof that was hard in the finding. That it would come through Akilina, she felt sure, but as yet there’d been no hint of it.
Nor was stealing thoughts from the Khazarian countess an easy task. Belinda had been raised to that tongue as much as any other, but her witchpower had been brought to life in Gallin. The precious instant lost in grasping understanding of one language over another clouded her ability to follow Akilina’s unspoken ambitions, though her flawless memory helped to bring back those things she feared she’d missed. That she appeared to be missing, in large part, Akilina’s vast amusement at a Lanyarchan provincial wedding a Gallic prince, only pricked her pride and made her that much more determined to pursue Akilina and Sandalia’s hidden agenda.
Weeks of slipping through the palace at night, searching for the two women and their conspiracies, had largely left Belinda tired and snappish during the day, and none the wiser for her efforts. Viktor, voice thick with desire, insisted that they met in the queen’s chambers, but even hidden by witchpower, Belinda had not dared those rooms, locked against visitors. She had learned passageways within the palace, searching for a back path to Sandalia’s rooms that way, but had met with no success, found neither queen nor countess nor hidden, private places in the palace where they might meet. It was not, she told herself, Viktor’s fault; he couldn’t be expected to stand guard within Sandalia’s chambers unless invited in, and no queen would lower herself, or grace an ordinary guardsman so.
She finished the last stitches on a rose and smoothed her thumb over the shining crimson thread. The delicacy of her position seemed absurd; she must push toward a battle for a crown without seeming to, without stepping over a nearly invisible line that made her treachery a gift worth handing over to another queen, and find proof of a plot that her own words were part of creating. It was a balancing act worthy of a theatrical troupe. Her latest missive from Robert-nearly a month old now-made it vividly clear that Lorraine wouldn’t act without written proof, and since then Belinda’s newly elevated place in the Gallic court had made corresponding with Aulun’s secret spymaster too dangerous. She didn’t know for certain that her letters home were opened and read, but there was no reason to suppose they weren’t, and she preferred to err on caution’s side.
Quiet rumblings had come out of Aulun at the news, officially carried, of Javier’s engagement to a Lanyarchan noble. Better still, raw delight had driven a clan of drunken Lanyarch men over the wall that defined their southern border and into a cattle raid on Aulunian territory. A Lanyarchan banner had been planted in the midst of a field and an entire herd of beefstock driven north. The outraged, frightened landowner had sent to Alunaer for help, and rumour whispered that Aulunian troops were amassing near the island nation’s northern border, though there weren’t yet stories of skirmishes fought along the border.
Still, troops encroaching on close-to-Lanyarchan-territory was excuse enough, even in the dead of winter. Stories flooded into Gallin, new tales every day. They said the clans gathered in Javier’s name, in Beatrice’s name, putting aside their own differences to come together and face the Reformation threat. They said that Lorraine grew agitated on her throne, unwilling to commit to battle in the middle of winter, but less willing still to lose her contentious northern neighbor from her empire. Even now, when Belinda turned her ear to the chatter shared by the embroidering women, they spoke of almost nothing else. She kept her tongue firmly between her teeth, resisting the urge to point out the unlikelihood of fresh news arriving from Aulun each morning. It didn’t matter: the point was to build confidence in the Gallic people and their monarchs that Lanyarch would stand up and fight for itself and Cordula given even a hint of support from the world across the channel. Gossip had its place in creating that confidence.
The worst danger of playing a Lanyarchan uprising was that someone might think to ask who Beatrice Irvine was, and wonder why no one remembered her. Belinda trusted that Robert would deal with that; that there would be a handful or more of men and women who remembered growing up with her, who remembered her marriage to some loyalist whose grounds were a gift from Lorraine. They would plant half-certain recollections in the minds of others, until Beatrice took on a life of her own, but it was still, always, a risk.
All the more reason, Belinda thought, to try to hurry the matter. The less time spent venerating a minor Lanyarchan noble who’d caught the eye of the Gallic prince, the better. She smoothed her embroidery out again and scowled faintly at it, reveling in the expression. Besides, never mind Beatrice’s history, Belinda was like to find herself bored to the very death if she had to stitch roses onto a tapestry for much longer.
“My lady Beatrice.” The voice was apologetic and unexpected; Belinda looked up to find Marius, elegant hat clenched in his hands, standing in the doorway. A titter arose from the women around her, sly looks exchanged as Marius bowed to all of them, perfunctory and polite, but left his gaze on Belinda. “May I speak with you, my lady?”
Genuine warmth lit Belinda’s smile. “It would be my pleasure, m’sieur.” She murmured an apology to the other women, leaving the room to a burst of laughter as the door closed. Marius, ever polite, offered his elbow, and Beatrice slipped her fingers through it. “It’s been weeks, Marius.” There was more question than reprimand in the statement, though Marius glanced at her to be certain of that. His dark eyes were mournful, as if he were an injured wild thing, not a man.
“I’ve been helping Sacha look for Eliza. It was…easier.”
Belinda let the confession go a moment, tightening her fingers against his arm. “Have you had any luck?”
“Of course not.” More realism coloured Marius’s voice than had touched either Asselin’s or Javier’s when it
