The Queen's Bastard by C. E. Murphy

Author:C. E. Murphy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
Published: 2009-04-23T23:08:32+00:00

9

SANDALIA, QUEEN AND REGENT

19 October 1587

Lutetia, Gallin

The queen arrives back in Lutetia with neither pomp nor circumstance. She has the flags covered on her ship and slips into port late at night, meeting a prearranged and nondescript carriage to take her from the docks to a country cottage on the palace grounds. She sleeps under guard, and awakens in the morning to the smell of breakfast in the outer room. Pulling on a dressing gown, leaving her hair tousled and down, she steps through the bedroom door to smile at Javier. “How do you always know?”

“What kind of son would I be if I didn’t know when my mother came and left her home?” He stands, first to bow as benefits both their stations, then to step forward and kiss his mother’s cheeks. “I thought your business with Rodrigo was only supposed to take a month.”

“Petulant child.” Sandalia walks barefoot to the table, greedy for a croissant and rich salty butter. “I hadn’t seen my brother in two years. A visit was warranted.”

“You’ve written to him.” Javier retains the deliberately sulky tone, earning Sandalia’s laughter.

“And I wrote to you. You, however…” She points her butter knife at him and laughs again to catch his expression of guilt. “Who is she?”

Javier’s eyes widen. “She? She who?”

“Jav.” Sandalia speaks the nickname fondly. “Even if you didn’t write, my spies did. Don’t pretend there isn’t a woman.”

“If you know there’s a woman,” he says easily, “then you know everything about her already, and there’s nothing to tell.” He glanced at her for permission, then sprawled in a chair, gangliness of youth briefly still apparent in his form. “Her name is Beatrice Irvine, and she’s a minor Lanyarchan noble.”

“Yes. I don’t recall the Irvines, or her father. Roger, I think his name was?”

“Robert.” Exasperation fills Javier’s tone. “Mother, you lived in Lanyarch less than two years. For all the stories, I cannot believe you slept on every hearth in the godforsaken country. You can’t be expected to know every parent and every child birthed there since you were fourteen. Even,” he adds lightly, “if that was only a scant handful of years ago. How is Uncle Rodrigo?”

Sandalia laughs. “Handsome, but not as flattering as my son. Handsome,” she repeats thoughtfully, “and, perhaps, growing ambitious at long last.”

Quietude surrounds her son, an expectation that she’s learned to recognize as a moment when those things that he desires will come to him. He has extraordinary will, and she wonders if he realises how easily he influences others.

“Aulun.” He barely breathes the word, aware even in the privacy of her own small cottage how carefully watched he and his mother are. “Curiously,” he says an instant later, tone normal again, “Beatrice may be of some use there. She’s passionate, Mother.” He leaves words unsaid, words that Sandalia has no need to hear spoken. Passion is an excellent vice, easily shaped to foolish behavior. Passion can be used to set flames from embers that have been too-long untended.

“Irvine,” Sandalia repeats, and taps the flat of her knife against her mouth.

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