Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg stood in the middle of her gardens, lifting a white rose to her nose and taking in the delicate scent. She had become good at masking her impatience over the years, and where her eldest son was concerned, impatience was an emotion that came to her far too readily.
"What is this rose?" she asked one of the gardeners.
"A variety created by one of our indentured gardeners," the man said. "She calls it the Bright Star."
"Congratulate her on it and inform her that from now on it will be known as the Dowager's Star," the queen said. It was both a compliment and a reminder to the gardener that those who owned the indentured's debt could do as they wished with her creations. It was the kind of double-sided move the Dowager enjoyed for its efficiency.
She'd become good at making them too. After the civil wars, it would have been so easy to slide into powerlessness. Instead, she'd found the balancing points between the Assembly of Nobles and the Masked Goddess's church, the unwashed masses and the merchants. She'd done it with intelligence, ruthlessness, and patience.
Even patience had its limits, though.
"Before you do that," the Dowager said, "kindly drag my son out of whatever brothel he is ensconced in and remind him that his queen is waiting for him."
The Dowager stood by a sundial, watching the shift of the shadow as she waited for the wastrel who stood as heir to the kingdom. It had moved a full finger's breadth by the time she heard Rupert's footsteps approaching.
"I must be going senile in my old age," the Dowager said, "because I'm obviously misremembering things. The part where I summoned you to me half an hour ago, for example."
"Hello to you too, Mother," Rupert said, not looking contrite in the least.
It would have been better if there were any sense that he had been using his time wisely. Instead, the disheveled state of his clothes said that she'd been right in her earlier guess about where he would be. That, or he'd been hunting. There were so few activities her elder son seemed to actually care about.
"I see that your bruises are finally starting to fade," the Dowager said. "Or have you finally started to get better at covering them with powder?"
She saw her son flush with anger at that, but she didn't care. If he'd thought himself able to lash out at her, he would have done it years ago, but Rupert was good at knowing who he could and couldn't direct his temper at.
"I was caught by surprise," Rupert said.
"By a serving girl," the Dowager replied calmly. "From what I hear, while you were in the middle of attempting to force yourself on your brother's former fiancée."
Rupert stood there open-mouthed for several seconds. Hadn't he learned by now that his mother heard what went on in her kingdom, and in her home? Did he think that one remained the ruler of an island as divided as this one without spies? The Dowager sighed. He really did have too much to learn, and showed no signs of being willing to learn those lessons.
"Sebastian had put her aside by then," he insisted. "She was fair game, and nothing but an indentured whore anyway."
"All those poets who write about you as a golden prince have really never met you, have they?" the Dowager said, although the truth was that she'd paid more than a few to make sure the poems turned out right. A prince should have the reputation he desired, not the one he'd earned. With the right reputation, Rupert might even have the Assembly of Nobles' acclamation when the time came for him to rule. "Did it not occur to you that Sebastian might be angry if he heard what you tried to do?"
Rupert frowned at that, and the Dowager could see that her son didn't understand it.
"Why would he? He wasn't going to marry her, and in any case, I'm the eldest, I'll be his king one day. He wouldn't dare to do anything."
"If you think that," the Dowager said, "you don't know your brother."
Rupert laughed at that. "And you know him, Mother? Trying to marry him off? No wonder he ran."
The Dowager bit back her anger.
"Yes, Sebastian ran. I'll admit that I underestimated the strength of his feelings there, but that can be solved."
"By dealing with the girl," Rupert said.
The Dowager nodded. "I assume it's a task you want for yourself?"
"Absolutely."
Rupert didn't even hesitate. The Dowager had never thought that he would. That was good, in its way, because a ruler shouldn't shrink from doing what was necessary, yet she doubted that Rupert was thinking in those terms. He just wanted revenge for the bruises that marred his otherwise perfect features even now.
"Let us be clear," the Dowager said. "It is necessary that this girl should die, both to undo the insult to you, and because of the…difficulties she could represent."
"With a marriage between Sebastian and an unsuitable girl," Rupert said. "How embarrassing."
The Dowager plucked one of the flowers nearby. "Embarrassment is like this rose. It looks innocuous enough. It draws the eye. Yet it still has cutting thorns. Our power is an illusion, kept alive because people believe in us. If they embarrass us, that faith could falter." She closed her hand, ignoring the pain as she crushed it. "These things must be dealt with, whatever the cost."
It was better to let Rupert think that this was about maintaining the prestige of their family. It was better than acknowledging the real danger the girl represented. When the Dowager had realized who she really was…well, the world had turned into a crystal-sharp thing, clear and full of cutting edges. She could not allow that danger to continue.
"I'll kill her," Rupert said.
"Quietly," the Dowager added. "Without fuss. I don't want you creating more trouble than you solve."
"I will deal with it," Rupert insisted.
The Dowager wasn't sure if he would, but she had other pieces in play when it came to the girl. The trick was to only use the ones who had their own reasons to act. Give commands, and she would simply draw attention to the fact that this girl was someone worth watching.
It had taken all her strength of will not to react the first time she had seen Sophia, at dinner. Not to betray what she felt at the sight of that face, or at the news that Sebastian planned to marry her.
That her younger son had left in pursuit of her made things more complicated. Ordinarily, Sebastian was the stable one, the clever one, the dutiful one. In a lot of ways, he would make a better king than his brother, but that wasn't the way these things worked. No, his role was to live his life quietly, doing as he was commanded, not to run off, doing what he wished.
"I have another thing for you to do as well," the Dowager said. She set off on a slow circuit of the garden, forcing Rupert to follow after her the way a dog followed after its master. In this case, though, Rupert was a hunting dog, and she was about to provide the scent.
"Haven't you given me enough tasks, Mother?" he demanded. Sebastian wouldn't have argued. Hadn't argued with anything, except on the one matter where it counted.
"You cause less trouble when you're busy," the Dowager said. "In any case, this is the kind of task where your presence might actually be useful. Your brother has acted out of emotion, running off like this. I think it will take a brother's touch to bring him back."
Rupert laughed at that. "Judging by the way he set off, it will take a regiment to bring him back."
"Then take one," the Dowager snapped back. "You have a commission, so use it. Take the men you need. Find your brother and bring him back."
"In pristine condition, no doubt?" Rupert said.
The Dowager's eyes narrowed at that. "He is your brother, Rupert. You will not hurt him any more than is necessary to bring him home safely."
Rupert looked down. "Of course, Mother. While I'm at all this, would you like me to do a third thing?"
There was something about the way he said it that made the Dowager pause, turning to face her son.
"What did you have in mind?" she asked.
Rupert smiled and waved a hand. From the far end of the garden, a figure in the robes of a priest started to approach. When he got within a few paces, he swept into a deep bow.
"Mother," Rupert said, "may I introduce Kirkus, second secretary to the high priestess of the Masked Goddess?"
"Justina sent you?" the Dowager asked, deliberately using the high priestess's name to remind the man of the company he was now in.
"No, your majesty," the priest said, "but there is a matter of the utmost importance."
The Dowager sighed at that. In her experience, matters of the utmost importance to priests mostly involved donations to their temples, the need to punish the sinful who apparently weren't being sufficiently afflicted by the law, or requests to interfere in the affairs of their brethren across the Knifewater. Justina had learned to keep those matters to herself, but her underlings sometimes buzzed around, irritating her like black-clad wasps.
"He's worth listening to, Mother," Rupert said. "He's been spending his time around the court, trying to gain an audience. You asked where I was before? I was finding Kirkus here, because I guessed that you might want to hear what he had to say."
That was enough to make the Dowager reconsider the priest. Anything that was enough to make Rupert pull his mind away from the women of the court was worthy of her attention, at least for a short while.
"Very well," she said. "What do you have to say, second secretary?"
"Your Majesty," the man said, "there has been a most callous assault on our House of the Unclaimed, and then on the rights of the priesthood."
"You think I haven't heard about it?" the Dowager countered. She looked over to Rupert. "This is your news?"
"Your majesty," the priest insisted, "the girl who killed our nuns suffered no justice. Instead, she found sanctuary in one of the Free Companies. With Lord Cranston's men."
The name of the company caught the Dowager's interest, a little.
"Lord Cranston's company has been most helpful in the recent past," the Dowager said. "They assisted in fighting off a force of raiders from our shores."
"Does that-"
"Be silent," the Dowager snapped, cutting the man off in mid-rebuttal. "If Justina really cared about this, she would raise the issue. Rupert, why have you brought this to me?"
Her son smiled like a shark. "Because I have been asking questions, Mother. I have been very thorough."
Meaning that he tortured someone. Was it really the only way her son knew to do things?
"I believe the girl Kirkus seeks to be the sister of Sophia," Rupert said. "Some of the survivors from the House of the Unclaimed spoke about two sisters, one of whom was trying to save the other."
Two sisters. The Dowager swallowed. Yes, that would fit, wouldn't it? Her information had concentrated on Sophia, but if the other was alive as well, then she could be just as much of a danger. Perhaps more, judging by what she'd managed to do so far.
"Thank you, Kirkus," she managed. "I will deal with this situation. Please leave me to discuss it with my son."
She managed to turn it into a dismissal, and the man hurried from her sight. She tried to think this through. It was obvious what needed to happen next. The question was simply how. She thought for a moment…yes, that might work.
"So," Rupert said, "do you want me to kill this sister of hers as well? I take it we don't want something like that seeking revenge?"
Of course he would think it was about that. He didn't know the real danger they represented, or the problems that could result if anyone found out the truth.
"What do you propose to do?" the Dowager said. "March in and take on Peter Cranston's regiment? I'm likely to lose a son if you do that, Rupert."
"You think I couldn't beat them?" he shot back.
The Dowager waved that away. "I think there's an easier way. The New Army is gathering, so we will send Lord Cranston's regiment against them. If I choose the battle wisely, our enemies will be harmed, while the girl will die, and it will look like no more than another unmarked grave in a war."
Rupert looked at her then with a kind of admiration. "Why, Mother, I never knew that you could be so cold-blooded."
No, he didn't, because he hadn't seen the things she'd done to keep the scraps of her power she had. He'd fought rebels, but he hadn't seen the civil wars, or the things that had been necessary in their wake. Rupert probably thought that he was a man without limits, but the Dowager had found out the hard way that she would do whatever was necessary to secure the throne for her family.
Still, it wasn't worth thinking about. This would be over soon. Sebastian would be safely back with his family, Rupert would have avenged his humiliation, and two girls who should have been long dead would go to the grave without a trace.
