A Kiss for Queens

“Let it burn,” Rupert said on reflex. “Let it all burn.”

“You might mean that now,” Angelica said, “but soon, you’ll want it. And then, well, there’s a danger that they won’t let you have it.”

“Let me have my crown?” Rupert said. “I am king!”

“You are the heir,” Angelica said, “and we have built you support in the Assembly of Nobles, but that support could fade if you are not careful. The generals you are ignoring will wonder if one of them should rule. The nobles will ask questions about a king who puts his grief before their safety.”

“And you, Angelica?” Rupert asked. “What do you think? Are you loyal?”

His fingers went to the hilt of a knife almost automatically, feeling its comforting presence. Angelica’s covered them.

“I think that I have chosen my place in this,” she said, “and it is alongside you. I’ve sent someone to deal with some of the threat of the fleet. If a death can slow us, it can slow them just as easily. Afterwards, we can do everything that needs to be done, together.”

“Together,” Rupert said, taking Angelica’s hand.

“Are you ready?” Angelica asked him.

Rupert nodded, even though right then the ache inside him was too great to ever be subdued. He would never be ready for the moment to let his mother go.

They stepped into the temple together. It had been dressed for a state funeral with a haste that was almost unseemly, rich drapes in dark hues filling the space within, cut through here and there by the royal crest. The pews of the temple were full of mourners, every noble in Ashton and for miles around turning out, along with merchants and soldiers, clergy and more. Rupert had made sure of that.

“They’re all here,” he said, looking around.

“All who could come,” Angelica replied.

“The ones who didn’t are traitors,” Rupert snapped back. “I’ll have them killed.”

“Of course,” Angelica said. “After the invasion, though.”

It was strange that he’d found someone so ready to agree to all the things that needed doing. She was as ruthless as he was in her way, beautiful and intelligent. She was there for this, too, standing beside him and managing to make even funeral black look exquisite, there to support Rupert as he made his way through the temple, toward the spot where his mother’s coffin sat waiting for interment, her crown set atop it.

A choir started to sing a requiem as they proceeded, the high priestess droning her prayers to the goddess. None of it would be original. There had been no time for that. Still Rupert would have a composer employed once all this was done. He would raise statues to his mother. He would—

“We’re here, Rupert,” Angelica said, guiding him to his seat on the front row. There was more than enough space there, in spite of the crowded building. Perhaps the guardsmen standing there to enforce it had something to do with that.

“We are gathered to bear witness to the passing of a great figure among us,” the high priestess droned as Rupert took his place. “Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg is gone behind the mask of death, into the arms of the goddess there. We mourn her passing.”

Rupert mourned it, the grief rising up through him as the priestess spoke about what a great ruler his mother had been, how important her role had been in unifying the kingdom. The old priestess gave a long sermon about the virtues found in the holy texts that his mother had embodied, and then men and women started to come up to speak about her greatness, her kindness, her humility.

“It’s like they’re talking about someone else,” Rupert whispered across to Angelica.

“It’s the sort of thing that they’re expected to say at a funeral,” she replied.

Rupert shook his head. “No, it isn’t right. It isn’t right.”

He stood, moving to the front of the temple, not caring that some lord was still busy spinning out the one time he’d met the Dowager into a eulogy. The man backed away as Rupert approached, falling silent.

“You’re all talking nonsense,” Rupert said, his voice carrying easily. “You’re talking about my mother and ignoring the real her! You say that she was good, and kind, and generous? She was none of those things! She was hard. She was ruthless. She could be cruel.” His hand swept around. “Is there anyone here she didn’t hurt? She hurt me often enough. She treated me like I was barely worthy to be her son.”

He could hear the whispers among those there. Let them whisper. He was their king now. What they thought didn’t matter.

“But she was strong, though,” Rupert said. “It’s thanks to her that you have a country at all. Thanks to her that traitors to this land have been driven out, their magic suppressed.”

A thought came to him.

“I will be as strong. I will do what is needed.”

He strode over to the coffin, lifting the crown. He thought about what Angelica had said about the Assembly of Nobles, as if Rupert needed their permission. He took it, and he set it on his own brow, ignoring the gasps from those there.

“We will bury my mother as the person she was,” Rupert said, “not as your lies! I command it as your king!”

Angelica stood then, hurrying over to him and taking his hand. “Rupert, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he shot back. Another impulse came to him, and he looked out over the crowd. “You all know Milady d’Angelica,” Rupert said. “Well, I have an announcement for you. Tonight, I will take her as my wife. You are all required to attend. Anyone who does not will be hanged for it.”

There was no gasp this time. Perhaps they could no longer be shocked. Perhaps they’d gone past it all. Rupert walked over to the coffin.

“There, Mother,” he said. “I have your crown. I’m going to marry, and tomorrow, I’m going to save your kingdom. Is that enough for you? Is it?”

A part of Rupert expected some answer, some sign. There was nothing. Nothing but the silence of the watching crowd, and the deep guilt that somehow still wormed its way through him.

CHAPTER SIX

From the balcony of a house in Carrick, the Master of Crows watched the gathering armies, looking out through the eyes of his creatures. He smiled to himself as he did so, a sense of satisfaction creeping over him.

“The pieces are in place,” he said, as his crows showed him the gathering ships, the defenders rushing to build barricades. “Now to watch them fall.”

The bloody sunset matched his mood today, as did the screams coming from the courtyard below his balcony. The day’s executions were proceeding apace: two men caught trying to desert, a would-be thief, a woman who had stabbed her husband. They stood tied to posts while the executioners worked with swords and garroting rope.

The crows descended on them. There were probably those who thought that he enjoyed the violence of such moments. The truth was that it didn’t matter either way to him; only the power that such deaths brought through his pets.

The Master of Crows looked around at the commanders waiting for his instructions, seeing if any flinched or looked away from the scenes below. Most did not, because they’d learned what was expected of them. One younger officer swallowed as he watched though. He would probably need to be watched.

For a moment or two, the Master of Crows slipped his attention back to the creatures wheeling above Ashton. As they gyred and looped, they showed him the spread of the advancing fleet, the branching force that sought to land further up the coast. A rook on a city wall showed him a group of Ishjemme men in merchant clothes opening a hidden chest of weapons by the river. A raven near the city’s graveyard heard men talking of retreating when the attack came, leaving the nobles to fend for themselves.

It seemed like a combination that might leave his pets hungry. He could not have that.

“We have a task to perform,” he said to the waiting men as he brought his attention back to himself. “Follow me.”

He led the way down through the house, taking it for granted that the others would be in his wake. Servants scurried aside, eager not to be in the path of so many powerful men as they descended. The Master of Crows could feel their resentment and their fear, but it didn’t matter. It was only the inevitable consequence of ruling.

In the courtyard, the screams had faded to the silence that only death could bring. Even the quietest of living creatures had the soft sound of breath, the fluttering beating of a heart. Now, only the cawing of the crows cut through the silence as the bodies hung limp against their posts.

“Order must be maintained,” the Master of Crows said, looking over at the officer who had shown a flicker of distaste. “We are a machine of many parts, and each must play its role. Now that they have stepped beyond their bounds, the role of these three is to feed the carrion birds.”

Those were flying down in greater numbers now, settling on the still recent corpses as they started to feast. Already, the Master of Crows could feel the power starting to flow into his flock from the deaths, along with the hundreds more that spread around the New Army’s empire at any one time. There were even a few of his birds feeding in the Dowager’s kingdom.

“It is time to place a thumb upon the scales,” he said, drawing on that power and tracing silver lines of consequence within his mind. Each represented a possibility, a choice. The Master of Crows had no way of knowing which would come to pass; he was not the woman of the fountain, or another of the true seers. He could see enough, though, to know where to exert influence. Where to push for the effects he wanted.