457 H.E
She glides down the glimmering corridors of the Royal Palace of Rajmuat, a slim, imperious white wraith accompanied by a trailing retinue of ladies-in-waiting, the loveliest and most high-born daughters of the luarin nobility. Lustrous waves of hair the hue of overripe wheat frame her delicate, high-boned face. Her lips are a slash of crimson in her porcelain-white skin and her eyes bright and hard like the sapphires of the Tyran coast. She is every bit the daughter of the Royal House of Rittevon she was born in, though Duchess of Jimajen now. She is the Princess Royal of the Copper Isles, lying in seven-fold glory, a pearl borne on the sparkling waves of the Azure Sea. She is Lady Imajane the Graceful; let no man trifle with her.
She sweeps through the Queen's chambers. Shafts of light from the thick wax tapers, poised in their candelabrums of solid gold, dance off the tiny mirrors threaded into the walls, lavished with broidered tapestries, forming a jeweled lattice. The Queen's private apartments do honor to her beauty, to the wealth of her lord's fertile island kingdom, a wealth wrought from the sweat and blood, the tears and mother's milk of an enslaved race.
Impatiently, the princess pushes back the cherry-colored silk draperies that hang over the ivory doorframe of the queen's bedchamber and strides with the confidence of one who knows that she shall not be refused, through it. The Queen's taste is that of a young girl, and a young girl she really is, not yet seventeen. The massive room bears testimony to her sweetly – if extravagant – pastoral taste. Rosy-cheeked shepherdesses beam down from oval frames of varnished mahogany, on the black-and-white brocade wall studded with pink pearl, while bowls of Yamani porcelain bear the sensuous flowers of the isles on dainty ivory side-tables.
Queen Éliane sits on one of the silken-draped couches scattered around the room, a bundle in frothing ivory silk in her arms. Her nightgown, of finest printed Yamani silk, clings to her voluptuous figure, occasionally ruffled by the ghost of a breeze that creeps in from one of the opened casements. Her ladies rise, her maids kneel when Princess Imajane arrive and startled, Queen Éliane looks up with the luminous forest-brown doelike eyes that had enamored King Oron a scant year before, driven him to the heights of love-frenzy and made her Queen when she was only fifteen.
Imajane stops in the middle of the room and drops a brief curtsy, her white skirts fanning around her, a sneer of distaste on her face. It humiliates her to make her obeisance to this maiden so many years younger than her and of far baser blood. But in the court of Rajmuat, etiquette demands that a princess bow to a queen. And etiquette is the only thing that can guarantee one even a modicum of security – to preserve one's soul, one must first preserve the proprieties. A scorned Queen, one with King Oron's favor still, though scarcely a fortnight out of childbirth, is a force to be reckoned with.
"Rózčiane," Éliane murmurs, shifting her hold on her daughter, on the child princess. "Rózčiane, my sweet princess, meet your sister."
She speaks for all the world as though the twelve-day-old infant can understand her words, and perhaps she can. Perhaps, Imajane ponders, the stench of Rajmuat politics makes one age more quickly than one normally would. And let no man underestimate the power of the Rittevon blood that crafts statesman out of the princes and princesses of the Copper Isles before they are out of the nursery. For a flash she feels pity for the infant whose parents she despises, the infant whom she had prayed would be miscarried in its mother's womb. To be a princess in Rajmuat is not easy – Imajane knows, and cannot help but sympathize with the child, the female who will never pose any threat to her for the sheer fact that she is female and thus, will never inherit the Kyprin throne.
"A beautiful child," Imajane murmurs courteously after a glance at the unmarked, unlined babe's face. "One can only hope that she will one day attain her fair mother's beauty, even though she will never attain her mother's station." Your child will never rise above the rank of a Princess of the Blood, her malicious face tells Éliane. No royal house will wish to take a daughter of the House of Rittevon as a bride. She will never be a Queen.
"She may have brothers," Éliane says coldly. "His Majesty has only one son yet."
And Hazarin is barren. "Rittevon Queens do not last long," Imajane murmurs, her long lashes veiling her ice-blue eyes. My mother did not last over two years after my birth. You shall not last even one.
"A whiff of the stench of treason is enough to call for examples to be made at the Harbor Mouth," Éliane hisses dangerously, with the tactlessness to be expected from a sixteen-year-old. "Though you were born His Majesty's daughter, do not for an instant forget that you, My Lady Duchess, are a woman and therefore disposable."
"How can I forget the curse of my birth?" Imajane says quietly. "To be born female… ah that is indeed to be born disposable." And she cannot help but smile at Éliane, at the indescribably beautiful and foolish girl.
Five months later, Éliane's, late Queen of the Copper Isles, severed head is brought on a gold platter to the Lapis Pavilion and presented before King Oron. "Whore," he spits and turns away. Another queen, another woman executed at the whim of a mad king. Imajane lingers in the shadows, behind slim pillars of black jade, and smiles as the platter with the head is carried away. In her arms is little Princess Rózčiane, Rózčiane who shall never be protected by a mother or loved by a father. It reminds Imajane of herself and as she holds the silken bundle in her arms she sighs and runs a slender, white finger over the baby's blissfully asleep face. Pity and sympathy warm the coldness of her heart and somewhere deep down softness blooms in that hard pit in her chest for the motherless child, so like her.
461 H.E
Elsren Balitang is presented to the Court at the age of four. An early age perhaps for a child, but then of course Duke Mequen's heir is no ordinary child. Rittevon blood burns in his veins and the whole court knows that this pretty child, his eyes the same oddly amber hue as his mother Winnamine Fonfala's, will one day be king. He is after all third in line to the throne. His eldest sister, Lady Saraiyu, makes her debut at court that summer and is crowned the Queen of Beauty at the Grand Joust of Beltane. Imajane marks her father's lusty eye on the vain half-raka slut and wonders vaguely whether the girl will be warming the royal bed anytime in the future.
Highly likely, she thinks disdainfully, the raka are not particularly known for their strong sense of morals. Loathsome creature – if I were Queen I'd have her sold in the market as a common slave. Thinks she's a noble, does she? I'd show her she's nothing more than the most ragged copper wench that prowls the Honeypot at night in search of customers! Anger shimmers because she will never be Queen, because the half-breed will one day sully the blood of some noble luarin house and bred hybrids with copper-ivory skin like hers. But she is a princess born and her cool façade never wavers for a moment and of all the young maidens at court, she is by far the sweetest to Lady Saraiyu.
Little Elsren wandering down the flowery boulevards of the Royal gardens with his formidable great-aunt, Lady Nuritin and her friend, Lady Ankoret. He chances one day upon the littlest Rittevon Princess. Rózčiane has but time to smile shyly at Elsren before Imajane sweeps in with her most favored ladies, Edunata and Tyananne. She sees the two young cousins, such a pretty picture, their childish beauty shining through the heaviness of the courtly attire they are swathed in – Elsren, brown-haired like a son of the Balitangs and amber-eyed like the Fonfalas, in no way a Rittevon princeling but comely to look at, Rózčiane, blue-eyed like her sister, but with the glossy, streaming black curls of her mother, a vision in lace – and for a moment she forgets to acknowledge the elderly noblewomen's presence.
"My Ladies," she murmurs apologetically, her slim, bejeweled hands playing upon her gown of rose tissue and cloth-of-silver, when she marks their disapproval at her discourtesy. Sticklers for propriety. "A thousand apologies for my lapse."
But a plan sweeps through her cunning, manipulative mind and later lying in bed, in Rubinyan's arms she whispers of the power a regent and his lady would have over a child king, twice royal – first through blood, second through marriage to a child queen. "A brilliant idea," Rubinyan murmurs, in between caresses. "But you forget to consider Mequen and Winnamine… as young Elsren's parents, the regency would naturally fall to them…"
"Hazarin has infinite faith in your powers. As king I am sure he would not hesitate to name you Lord Protector in the time of Elsren's minority – after all you are more fitted to the title than one as weak as that father of half-raka daughters." Weak. A man must surely be weak to fall to the sorceress's charms of a raka maiden. What was Sarugani of Temaida? A pretty face and a cunning mind – the daughter of a raka baron she'd managed to snag a royal luarin duke for herself. That was called cunning. Imajane wished she had it in her.
"But you may be sure that the noble Winnamine will attempt to interfere in her son's affairs. Close contact with those halfbreed stepdaughters of hers has made her as self-important and interfering a hag as Genore Tomang. She has forgotten her place as a woman."
"She will not prove immune to a poisoned cup of mead," Imajane laughs lightly, the sound like the tinkling of glasses of white wine against eachother. "Or a chance stab from some wild, jungle raka attendant. Or, should circumstances fall as such, to high treason. The King's mother to be made an Example by the Harbor Mouth… doesn't that appeal to your sense of drama, darling?"
"You are your father's daughter, my love," he whispers, "One can only hope that your sister will follow your example." He does not say 'daughter' because both he – and she – know that she is barren. It does not matter, Rubinyan has other heirs – and some of those heirs have heirs of their own now – and Imajane loathes children. Rózčiane is an exception.
462 H.E
Imajane and Rubinyan follow the affairs of the Balitangs with interest. When the Balitangs are exiled, it is Rubinyan who buys Bronau's loyalty with a fortune embezzled from the Royal Treasury and commands him to trail them to Lombyn Island. And it is Bronau who woos the lovely, dim-witted Lady Saraiyu and lets the family think that he's hiding from court, in fear of his brother. After the initial week or two, there are few who believe his tales – Bronau is as foolish as the noble maiden he courts, he is a warrior and not a courtier. He is unable to sustain his lies behind a serene façade; he falters and makes mistakes – mistakes which the thin, nearly bald new slave girl at Tanair is able to perceive with ease.
The slave girl believes that it is the young ladies, Saraiyu and Dovasary, on whom the royal disfavor is tilted, that Rubinyan wishes for purposes of his own – she, with the arrogance of youth, assumes that she is able to perceive those purposes – to keep a closer eye on the daughters who bear the royal blood of Haiming and Rittevon. She is content to devote her energies to watching them, protecting them – Bronau's careful eye on little Elsren completely escapes her notice. It is Elsren whom Bronau woos, as summer whiles away, with sweetmeats and honeyed flattery as assiduously as he does the boy's half-sister with trinkets and melodious words of love. Soon the child, destined to be king, falls half in love with 'Uncle Bronau'.
"You're so beautiful with the children," Saraiyu coos to him during their improvised picnics on the rocky, sparse highlands, and nobody – from Winnamine, termed the Wise, to Dovasary the Sharp – is suspicious because Bronau has always been beautiful with children.
"He's a good man," Mequen says dismissively to the slave girl, after spending an evening watching Bronau teach Elsren chess – a task requiring almost a superhuman amount of patience. "I simply can't believe your words, Aly."
And then the blow falls. Oron bequeaths his throne to his only son in a deathbed confession and even before the coronation occurs, Rubinyan is able to convince Hazarin to recall the Balitangs – his successors – from exile. Imajane's private letter to her brother-in-law, though, damns Mequen and one day, whilst out riding Bronau stabs Mequen with a poisoned dagger. The murderer is painfully obvious but on Lombyn, there is no justice to be found. Saraiyu slaps Bronau screaming, "If I were a man!" tears trickling down her dusky cheeks, but even she is not foolish enough to do anything more. They bury the duke in Dimari, by a common inn and for the first time in years, Dovasary weeps. Bronau deems it advisable to retreat from the Balitang party and hire another ship back to Rajmuat. It is as well – Saraiyu spends the night after the burial sharpening her sword, a hard, brittle light in her light that even Aly is wary of.
"What happened to Uncle Bronau?" Elsren asks, wide-eyed, innocent, as the ship sets sail from the emerald-threaded, lush Lombyn, over churning, briny ocean waves.
"He killed your father," Saraiyu hisses before Winnamine can rehearse the consoling lie she's memorized for the sake of the children. "He is your enemy from now, Duke Elsren Balitang."
Duke. Heir Apparent. Prince of the Blood, Aly thinks and looks with pity at the little boy. Then wryly, I'm sure this is going to be a very long winter.
Rubinyan is no fool and egged on by his lady, he does not waver from the macabre fate she has decreed for her enemies. An assassin, deft with a bow, takes out the Dowager Duchess, Lady Winnamine as she sweeps down the gangplank of Rajmuat. Her lifeblood seeps down the front of her black mourning gown, staining it even darker, as she gasps her last few breaths a few feet from her two young children – six-year-old Petranne, five-year-old Elsren.
Hours later, Lady Nuritin, her brittle mask slipping away, her ice-chipped words and callousness belying her towering temper and heartache, sweeps down the Teak Sitting Room of Balitang House. "You will keep your heads down. You will say nothing that might be misinterpreted as mistrust of any member of the royal family. You will enact the role of two demure young noblewomen, wallowing in sorrow, meek, humble, and foolish. Unless you wish to be made Examples by the Harbor Mouth you will heed my words," she hisses to her elder, weeping grand-nieces.
Her eyes are as pitiless and hard as the slabs of black granite that border the formal flower settings outside, by the pool, as she finally sits down next to them and adds, "I will have vengeance." And they listen because adversity makes even the rash wary and fools grow as wise they can under her harsh reign. The old year fades away in a bristling winter and storms that drive all indoors and Lady Saraiyu watches it descend in the magnificent crimson bloodbath of the firmament, swearing retribution.
463 H.E.
His Majesty, King Hazarin II, dotes upon his youngest sister. Princess Rózčiane is a sunny-tempered child, all satiny dimpled cheeks, gurgling laughter and sweet little smiles. Precocious too. This small woman-child of the Rittevons, her innate woman's instinct or perhaps the Rittevon blood guiding her, knows, even at five, that it is in her best interests for Uncle Hazarin – he is more her uncle than her brother – to dote upon her. The happier he is with her the more toys, pretty clothes and diverting attendants and companions are lavished upon her – this she cannot fail to notice.
In the elder princess's crystal-and-sapphire boudoirs, in her formal parlors bedecked in the royal colors of the House of Rittevon, virgin-white and deep copper, Imajane whispers in her little ears and teaches her the art of statecraft before she is old enough to know what the word means.
"You must please Uncle Hazarin," she murmurs, plaiting Rózčiane's long glossy black curls and weaving a diamond circlet over the braids, like a loving sister. "You must make him love you as he has loved no other child – and you must love Elsren Balitang too."
"But why?" Rózčia pouts because sometimes she's more of a child than a princess, and that for a daughter of Rittevon blood can prove to be perilous. Imajane knows from experience – her siblings, Veranine, Hanoren, Gordaina, Kaltain, where are they now? For some reason unknown to herself she wants to safeguard this pretty, innocent child sitting so contentedly on her lap from an untimely fate – from a watery grave or a blood-drenched coffin. "I don't like Elsren," Rózčia continues, "He laughs when me and Petra play dolls."
"I and Lady Petranne," Imajane corrects her absently. "Always use their full titles, my dear, lest you wish to cause offense. And you must be very, very good to Elsren because one day he shall be King. Uncle Hazarin will have no sons, Rózčia, but you shall be Elsren's Queen someday. Queen Rózčiane Rittevon Balitang, sovereign lady of the Copper Isles, a Daughter of the Blood Royal – doesn't it sound well?"
"No," Rózčia announces decidedly. "It sounds too long."
"The longer your titles extend, the better," Imajane says darkly knowing that she can never aspire to anything beyond Princess Royal and Duchess Jimajen by right of marriage.
It is Rózčiane who, with many sweet pouts and pretty insistences, draws her brother away from wine and to healthier foods and diversions. "You have to teach me to ride, because you're the best!" she insists, flattering him, and Hazarin, after years of never so much as approaching the stables, mounts a stallion once more. He grows strong and healthy, his color improves and the resists the advances of diseases – it does not look as though Elsren will be king anytime soon. And that is as well, for Hazarin is a kindly – if negligent – monarch, repealing many of the conquerors' bloodier laws, riding out in the streets to meet his people (not because he's particularly interested in the rabble, but because he likes to ride outside the palace and Rózčia who invariably accompanies him is delighted at this novel experience and what pleases her pleases him).
Rózčiane's heart is tender for she is still a child and after listening to the grievances of the poor, she is not content with disgorging the contents of her little velvet purses and showering the less fortunate with gold like a fairy-tale princess. "You have to do something about it! They're so poor!" she cries, almost in tears, with the brutal frankness of a little girl. She pesters her brother until finally, half-amused, half-irritated, he agrees to sign laws reducing the land revenue and the gratuitous taxes on those of raka blood. Naturally, this doesn't go down so well with the luarin nobility and Rubinyan, with righteous indignation with him, takes him to task with words so sharp that they cut deep into Hazarin's kingly pride.
Too deep.
"Am I the king or am I not the king?" he bellows and physically hurls Rubinyan out of his office. Later Rubinyan comes back to apologize to His Majesty but by then the damage is already done. Hazarin alters the Law of Succession that night – Duke Nomru will be Lord Protector of the Realm in case of his death and Elsren's ascent to the throne, whilst in his minority. But there is still hope left for Imajane – in his anxiety to secure his beloved little sister's future, Hazarin betroths Rózčia to Elsren.
464 H.E.
Aly might once have been the daughter of Tortall's Spymaster, but for all her qualifications she is still not even eighteen. Still a bit raw, green at the edges, her self-assurance still not fully untainted by inexperience. She is not the goddess the raka, new themselves to the world of international espionage, fondly – foolishly – believe her to be.
She is all too fallibly human as the events of the March Hares' Revolt, as it is later termed, reveal.
A well-paid (and threatened) informer, a misstep in intricate calculations, mage-binding potions… is it so surprising that the lanes of Dockmarket stink of festering carcasses for the next few weeks? The Trickster, having dallied too long in the Mortal Realms, has no say in the matter as he's summarily carted off by his righteously indignant brother and sister.
Lady Alanna adds her silent vow of vengeance, vengeance for her daughter's sake, to the list of those in the Copper Isles who pray for the victims of the tyrannical arm of the Rittevons. But, she knows, it will probably remain silent forever.
Loathsome creature – if I were Queen I'd have her sold in the market as a common slave. Thinks she's a noble, does she? I'd show her she's nothing more than the most ragged copper wench that prowls the Honeypot at night in search of customers!
Imajane is not – and does not hope to be – Queen, but her brother is kind enough to gratify her wishes. Lady Saraiyu, once the beauty of Rajmuat, is paraded, with a host of nubile raka – whole or hybrid – maidens down the streets of Rajmuat, stripped of adornment and clad only in her degradation. Lord Ferdolin, for his audacity in making a plea for her, is confined to Kanodang for a day – for "contempt of royalty". The Balitang girls, according to an ancient statute of the Conquerors' Laws, being possessed of raka blood, are stripped of their properties – Tanair – and sold into slavery, much to Princess Imajane's gratification. Their servants are executed and become a column of carcasses in Dockmarket. Faceless, stinking ruins.
Elsren and Petranne are brought to Court and every effort is begun to wash away the memories. Their governesses and tutors, who all bow to Princess Imajane, flatter themselves and their royal mistress that the children have forgotten the hard fate of their treacherous family members – or have come to accept it as only justice. Rózcia certainly heeds her sister's words and believes that the penalties were justified – but of course Imajane was always careful lest she become too familiar, too close with the elder Balitang daughters – but… does Elsren?