‘That’s the thing. It’s … well …’
‘Have you fallen for someone unsuitable, Savine?’ Wine gurgled out into the glass. ‘Marrying down isn’t the worst thing in the world, you know, your father did it—’
‘It’s Crown Prince Orso!’ Her mother’s head jerked up, her glass, for once, forgotten in her hand. Savine had to admit it sounded absurd. The most unlikely part of some unlikely fantasy. She cleared her throat and looked at the floor, went halting on. ‘It seems that … in due course … I’m going to be Queen of the Union.’
And she had to admit it felt fine to say it. Perhaps the snake of ambition twisted around her innards had not died in the uprising after all, only slept through it. At so heady a sniff of power, it jerked awake with twice its old hunger.
But when she looked up, her mother had the strangest expression. Certainly not joy. Not even surprise. One would have had to call it horror. The base of her wine glass rattled as she slid it onto the table, as if she could hardly hold its weight any more. ‘Savine, tell me you’re joking.’
‘I’m not. He asked me to marry him. A lady of taste never answers right away, of course, but I’m going to say yes—’
‘No! Savine, no! He’s not … he’s not at all your type. He’s a wastrel. He’s notorious. He’s a drunk.’
Savine almost gasped at the hypocrisy but her mother caught her, fingers digging desperately tight into her arms. ‘You can’t marry him! He just wants your money. You just want his position. That’s no foundation for a marriage, you must see that—’
Lectures on the proper foundation for a marriage? From her? Savine shook her off. ‘It’s not about the money, or the position. I know everyone thinks he’s a fool, but they’re wrong. He will be a great king. I know he will. And a wonderful husband. I’m sure of it. He was there. When I really needed him, he moved mountains for me. People think he has no character but they’re wrong. I am what he needs, and he is what I need. What I didn’t even realise I needed.’ With him she could feel safe. Be the better person she had promised to become. With him she could turn her back on the horrors of Valbeck and look to the future. She gave a girlish giggle which was quite unlike her. ‘We’re in love.’ Fates help her, she wanted to sing it and dance around the room like a child. ‘We’re in love!’
Her mother was not dancing. She had turned positively ghostly. Now she sank down in a chair, one hand to her mouth. ‘What have I done?’ she whispered.
‘Mother … you’re scaring me.’
‘You cannot marry Prince Orso.’
Savine squatted in front of her. Caught her hands in hers. They were cold. Corpse hands. ‘Don’t worry. He will speak to the queen. He will speak to the king. They’ve wanted him to marry for years, they’ll be relieved he’s marrying a human! And if they’re not, he’ll convince them! I know him. I trust him. He’ll—’
‘You cannot marry Prince Orso.’
‘I know his reputation’s bad, but he’s nothing like people think. We love each other. He has a good heart.’ Good hearts? She was blathering but she couldn’t stop herself, going nervously faster and faster. ‘And I have sense enough for both of us. We love each other. And think of all the good I can do if—’
‘You’re not hearing me, Savine.’ Her mother looked up. Her eyes were wet, but there was a hardness in them, too. A hardness Savine had not often seen. She pronounced each word with stern precision. ‘You cannot … marry … Prince Orso.’
‘What aren’t you telling me?’
Savine’s mother squeezed her eyes shut and a tear black with powder streaked her cheek. ‘He’s your brother.’
‘He’s …’ Savine stared, cold and prickling all over. ‘He’s what?’
Her mother opened her pink-rimmed eyes. She looked calm, now. She slipped her hands from Savine’s, took Savine’s in hers, pressed them tightly. ‘Before the king … was the king. Before anyone guessed he’d ever be the king. We … he and I … were involved.’
‘What do you mean, involved?’ breathed Savine. The king had always behaved so strangely around her. So curious. So solicitous.
‘We were lovers.’ Her mother gave a helpless shrug. ‘Then everyone found out he was King Guslav’s bastard, and he was elected king himself and had to marry where politics dictated. But I … was already with child.’
Savine was having trouble getting a proper breath. The way the king had looked at her, at the last meeting of the Solar Society. That haunted look …
‘It was a dangerous time,’ said her mother. ‘The Gurkish had just invaded. Lord Brock had rebelled against the Crown. The monarchy was hanging by a thread. To protect me … to protect you … your father,’ and she winced, realising that the word could not quite fit the Arch Lector any more, ‘offered to marry me.’ And she guiltily bit her lip. Like a little girl caught stealing biscuits.
‘I’m the king’s bastard?’ Savine jerked her hands from her mother’s grip.
‘Savine—’
‘I’m the king’s fucking bastard, and my father’s not my father?’ She wobbled to her feet, stumbling back as though she’d been slapped.
‘Please, listen to me—’
Savine pressed her fingers to her temples. Her head was throbbing. She ripped her wig off and flung it into the corner. ‘I’m the king’s bastard, my father’s not my father, and I’ve been sucking my brother’s cock?’ she screamed.
‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed her mother, starting up from the settle.
‘My fucking voice?’ Savine clutched at her neck. ‘I’m going to be sick.’
She was sick, just a little. An acrid, wine-tasting tickle that she managed to choke back down, hunched over.
‘I’m so sorry,’ murmured her mother, patting her back as though that might do the slightest good. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She took Savine’s face in her hands and twisted it towards her. Twisted it with surprising firmness. ‘But you cannot tell anyone. Not anyone. Especially not Orso.’
‘I have to tell him something,’ whispered Savine.
‘Then tell him no,’ said her mother. ‘Tell him no and leave it at that.’
Drinks with Mother
‘When we heading North, then?’ asked Yolk.
Tunny looked down his nose at him as if at a woodlouse turned over and unable to right itself. ‘You didn’t hear?’
Yolk looked blank. His favourite expression. ‘Didn’t hear what?’
Forest let vent two perfect streams of curling smoke from his nostrils. He was as accomplished a smoker as he was a hat-wearer and military organiser. ‘Our new Lord Governor of Angland, Leo dan Brock, won a duel against Stour Nightfall, son of Black Calder and heir to the throne of the North and by all accounts a most fearsome opponent.’
‘A manly duel, Northern style!’ Orso thumped the table. ‘Man against man, in a Circle of men’s men! Blood on the snow and all that. Men’s blood, one presumes.’
‘Probably a bit far south for snow this time of year,’ observed Tunny. ‘Though not for blood.’
‘Tell me he got his damn fool head split doing it,’ said Yolk.
‘He was by all accounts picturesquely wounded,’ grunted Orso, ‘but his skull remains intact.’
‘Truly, there’s no justice,’ added Tunny.
‘This comes as a surprise?’
‘For some reason, I never stop hoping.’
‘War in the North is over,’ said Forest. ‘Uffrith is back in the Dogman’s hands and the Protectorate just as it was before.’
‘Little singed, maybe.’
‘So the Young Lion stole all the glory?’ moaned Yolk.
‘Glory just sticks to some men.’ Orso glanced down at his hands and turned them thoughtfully over. ‘Others it slides right off.’
‘Like water off a duck,’ threw in Hildi, from her place on the settle.