Disclaimer: I don't own "Voltron," but all original characters are mine. Thank you so much for all of the feedback! I appreciate it!
Author's Note: Plautilla is inspired by a painting of young Catherine of Braganza, the wife of King Charles II of England.
House of Cards
Chapter Two
Sebastian grew somber when Sophie delivered to him the news of Plautilla's illness and what seemed to be her impending death. "And the King…how is he taking it?" he said.
Sophie chose her words carefully. "He doesn't seem to be affected by it, but perhaps he was in shock…"
"Perhaps he was," Sebastian murmured. One always had to be cautious about what was said during computerized communications. Who knew if they were being recorded or watched, particularly here? "Prime Minister Fosco and I will leave at once. I will contact the King before we land."
Sophie nodded, and the screen went black. She went toward Plautilla's bedroom to see that she was sound asleep and that one of her ladies kept vigil over her. She turned on her heel and went through the boudoir to the salon and stopped in her tracks when she heard voices in the anteroom.
She clenched her jaw when she heard the high-pitched croak of Haggar. "The King has sent me to see what I could do for the Queen," she explained. "Sometimes magic is the only thing that can cure illnesses."
The young lady-in-waiting answered, "The Queen is quite ill, and…" The girl's voice trailed off, and that was when Sophie burst into the room. "Archduchess!" she exclaimed.
Haggar raised her head a bit to catch Sophie's eye, and Sophie swore that she could see the faintest of smiles on the bent crone's ravaged face. "Archduchess Sophie." She bowed her head momentarily in acknowledgement of Sophie's rank. "As I was telling Mariana" -here she smiled saccharinely at the young lady-in-waiting- "the King has sent me to see if my magic could help the Queen."
"The Queen is asleep now, and is expected to remain so for some time," Sophie said evenly. "Perhaps you should return later?"
The crone's face lit up with something. Sophie tried to put her finger on it, but she couldn't decide if it was a look of triumph or of curiosity satisfied. "Of course, Archduchess," she assented. "Will you call me when she awakens?"
"I'll send for you when she does, Haggar," Sophie answered with an air of finality.
As soon as the witch had gone and the door was shut behind her, Sophie rounded on Mariana. "How did she get in here?"
Mariana's lips trembled. "She knocked on the door and came in, and then she simply began talking and…"
Sophie sighed. "She didn't get past the anteroom?"
"No, Archduchess."
Well, that was a relief. "She mustn't be let in again. Tell her that the Queen is too ill to be bothered. Do you understand?"
Mariana nodded. At that moment Hortense entered the room with a few handmaidens behind her. Sophie pulled her into the salon and explained to her what just had occurred. Hortense paled when Sophie mentioned that Haggar had simply come into the Queen's apartments without any invitation and had tried to persuade Mariana to let her past the anteroom.
"She's determined to see if the rumors about the Queen are true," Hortense posited, turning her head slightly to see if any of the handmaids were trying to listen to them. "We must keep her away from the Queen at all costs."
"I thought the same thing. She would no doubt use her magic to hasten the Queen's death." Sophie grew quiet as the handmaidens passed by them to the bedroom carrying fresh linens. The lady who was currently with the Queen, Rosaline, and Mariana helped Plautilla out of bed and led her to the daybed in the boudoir so that the handmaidens could change the linens.
"Do you think she knows about the charms?" Hortense asked Sophie, and Sophie's eyes traveled up to the bit of wall above the doorframes of the boudoir and bedroom. As a young bride, the Queen had been terrified of the stories of Haggar's magic, and so she had brought a wisewoman with her from Illyria to cast a charm over her rooms. The wisewoman had drawn sigils on the walls above the thresholds of those two rooms to protect Plautilla from Haggar's evil eye. They were very faint and it was difficult to find them, but if one knew what they looked like, they were easy to see.
"I think that she knows by now," Sophie answered. She watched as Mariana fetched a book from the shelf in the boudoir, sat down close to the Queen, and began to read to her. "If you'll excuse me, I must see to the princesses."
"Of course," Hortense responded, and she went into the boudoir to see to the Queen.
It had been inculcated into Sophie from the time she was a small child that as the daughter of an Illyrian archduke and the granddaughter of the Illyrian Grand Duke, she could the best of many things, but she always must remember one thing: her loyalty to her family was most important. Blood is everything. It was the motto and was emblazoned in the Vasary family crest, right below the picture of two swords crossed over one another and a red rose twined through them. Loyalty to family had gotten the House of Vasary to where it was now, with a daughter sitting as Queen of one of the most powerful empires in the galaxy and, moreover, close access to the King and all of the perks and privileges that came with it.
But it hadn't always been that way. Illyria had once parleyed with the Alliance in hopes of joining it, until an incident of what could have been considered friendly fire had ended it. One of the Terran ships had been involved in a skirmish with a ship from the Drule Empire, and the ship carrying the Archduke Nicholas and his wife Emma had somehow gotten caught in the crossfire. It was clear that a missile from the Terran ship had struck the Illyrian liner, and the archduke and archduchess and all other souls aboard were killed instantly.
Sophie had only been five at the time, and Sebastian had only been eight. She remembered bits and pieces of her parents: her mother playing the pianoforte, and then teaching her a song by the Terran composer Mozart; her father taking her on horseback rides on his charger, his arms about her as she sat in front of him clutching the reins as tightly as she could; her mother bending over her sketchbook while she and Sebastian played in the garden with their father. Those were happy times, and Grandpapa had been so proud of his family and of what they would accomplish and what they might accomplish.
And then it was all gone. Stolen from them in what some might call the casualties of war.
Grandpapa had changed after that. He became a man bent not on vengeance, but on finding another way to bring Illyria to greatness. And he saw the other path to it through betrothing his granddaughter Plautilla to Zarkon. Zarkon's first wife-or paramour, depending upon who was telling the story-had betrayed him in the worst way possible, and he had flown into a rage and killed her for it. In one story, she had come to negotiate on behalf of the slaves of her native planet of Arus. In another, she had refused to marry him even after bearing him a son. In still another, she had confided in the court witch Honerva, and Honerva-the young Haggar-had gone to the King, who also happened to be her lover, and then he had gone to confront his wife and had ended up killing her.
The informal ties had begun to form after that: Lotor, who had attended the Academy with Sebastian, had started spending holidays in Illyria instead of going home to Korrinoth. Sophie was never sure of whether or not Lotor and Sebastian were really friends. Sometimes they fought quite horribly, pummeling each other to a bloody pulp while Sophie would run for her governess. Grandpapa had broken up the worst and last of the fights. As punishment, both boys had had to muck out the horse stalls for the last two weeks of their holiday. Sophie wasn't sure if Zarkon had even heard about it, but after her grandfather's intervention, the boys called a truce and there was no more fighting.
It had become apparent that Zarkon and her grandfather were contemplating a marriage between Lotor and herself when Zarkon came to stay at the summer palace the year Sophie turned twelve. Sophie hadn't liked him at first, though she had hidden her disdain for him under a smiling face and charming manners. He had had the audacity to bring his concubine to supper each night, which had caused Aunt Tatia to stammer in dismay. His manners were gauche, he made noise when he ate, and he drank all of the best wine.
But he had sung praises of Sophie. He had assured her grandfather that she would make a wonderful Queen at his son's side, and that he would be proud to have one Illyrian queen sit on the throne after the other.
When their grandfather had died, though, and Zarkon had been able to appoint his own governor to rule Illyria, his tone changed. He became reticent to officially betroth Sophie to Lotor, though he did allow Sophie to come to Court as his wife's lady-in-waiting. There was talk of an engagement to this or that Drule lord, which never came to pass, and-most recently-the young soldier who had insisted he could beat Voltron and who had died trying. That had been a very lucky coincidence, Sophie thought.
And now that Plautilla was dying-it seemed as though the doctors were sure of it-would Zarkon's eye fall on her as his next wife, or had he had his fill of Illyrian women and committed himself to never marrying again? Sophie shuddered at this prospect. Cold hands and sharp claws.
She came to the door of the chambers her young cousins inhabited and knocked on it. The girls' governess let her in. Sophie followed her through the anteroom, and into the schoolroom where the Crown Prince sat talking quietly with his sisters.
It was a pity, Sophie thought, that the King took no interest in the upbringing of his daughters. It had fallen to Plautilla. And now who will see to them? Sophie wondered. Not the King. Never the King. Surely, it would fall to her.
Darya looked up when she saw Sophie enter, and she pushed herself off of her brother's lap and ran to Sophie. Sophie knelt down and took the little girl into her arms, listening to her sobs. Palmira was more reserved; she sat on the sofa, weeping quietly, wiping tears from her eyes and sniffling. Lotor's eyes met Sophie's, and he seemed at a loss as to what to do.
"Your cousin Sebastian will arrive some time tomorrow," Sophie told seven-year-old Darya.
"Will he take Mamma to Illyria where she can get better?" Darya asked Sophie, pulling out of her embrace and staring at her with a tear-splotched face.
Sophie took her handkerchief out of the pocket of her gown and dabbed at Darya's eyes. "Your mamma is going to stay here," she said, "but Sebastian is going to do everything he can to try and make sure that she gets well."
"But she isn't going to get well." Here ten-year-old Palmira interrupted Sophie. "She is dying, Darya. That means we'll never see her again, ever, and that Papa will find a new wife, and he'll forget all about us."
He already has forgotten them. "Don't say such things, Palmira," Sophie admonished. "Your papa loves both of you very much, though he might not always tell you. He is King, and he is a very busy man…"
Lies lies lies.
"He is a very busy man," Lotor added, putting his hand on Palmira's shoulder. "This is why he sent me here to tell you about your mamma and to kiss you good night."
He seemed ill at ease with this. Sophie couldn't blame him for it. His half-sisters worshipped him, considered them their conquering hero of a brother. They wrote him letters to open and read while he was away at war, they traced his journeys on the big map of the galaxy in the schoolroom, marking each place he had been with a pin. They spoke lovingly of him, unlike their father.
Three children, one bullied, the other two forgotten. Such a wonderful father he is, Sophie thought dismally as she kissed the girls good night.
Some moments later,. Lotor joined her in the corridor outside the nursery. "You've sent for your brother?" he asked her, and she nodded. "Good."
They walked through the silent corridor together. And what will he be like with the children of his third wife? If he takes a third?
"What are you thinking of, Sophie?" he said suddenly.
Her breath caught. Yes, he knew. He always knew when she was deep in thought. Her brow would knit and she would get a distant look in her eyes, and sometimes her expression would betray her feelings about the thoughts themselves.
"Once Plautilla is dead, your father will wait for an acceptable amount of time-after the mourning period back home, perhaps-and then look to take a third wife."
"And do you think it will be you?"
She looked away from him, inhaling shakily.
"You do!" Lotor crossed his arms and stared down at her with an ironic expression on his face. "I can assure you, Sophie, that he's not going to marry you."
"You can?" Sophie exclaimed, her voice strangely shrill. "How…how do you know?"
He smiled mysteriously. "There are rumors about him in the harem…that he finds it difficult to perform certain things."
She knew the meaning of that. As seemingly cloistered of an upbringing she had had, years in Zarkon's court had made her aware of such things. "Then that is why…"
"Then that's why he hardly went to Plautilla after Darya was born? Yes, that's why. He'd rather have a willing slave girl than a dutiful wife. Think of it as a reprieve, Sophie. You won't be his Queen."
She wouldn't be Zarkon's Queen. She felt lighter after she heard that, and she gladly dismissed any fear of that possibility from her mind.
They continued down the corridor and then down the staircase to the floor which held her apartments. It was still cold, though Lotor didn't seem to feel it.
They stopped in front of the door to her rooms, and Sophie placed her hand on the doorknob. She then turned to Lotor and asked, "Would you like to come in for a moment? I can send for tea or something else…"
He shook his head, a smirk forming on his face. Perhaps a solution to the war with Arus had come to him, perhaps a new battle plan to try. She opened the door to her rooms and bid him good night. She was about to shut the door when he called out, "Sophie!"
She stood there with the door ajar as he crossed the corridor and stopped a few inches in front of her.
"Yes?" she said.
"You were raised to be a queen," he said abruptly. From the look on his face it seemed as though an idea was crystallizing in his head.
"I was," she admitted. "But I've now found that it's possible for me to be a great many things."
"But still," he continued, as though she had never spoken, "you were raised to be a queen." He leaned closer to her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. "Do you want to be a queen?"
This! What was all of this? "What are you asking, Lotor?"
He frowned, glaring at her, almost, and he seemed annoyed at that. "Why not answer the question, Sophie? Do you want to be a queen, yes or no?"
She had never thought of it like that. A long time ago, she would have expected it, but now, with everything that had changed, she wasn't sure if it would ever happen.
But Queen-Queen! She would serve her family well, she would take them to greatness with her. And were she Queen, were she Lotor's Queen…
A Vasary would sit on the throne of the Drule Empire. This was what her grandfather had been preparing her for all along. This was why Plautilla had invited her to Court to begin with.
"Yes," she told him honestly. "Yes, I want to be a queen. As I was born to be."
"I knew that you would." He smiled, and his eyes gleamed. "If I told you that I could make you a queen, would you trust me?"
"When have I not trusted you?" she riposted.
"True, you've always trusted me," he muttered. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "And if you keep trusting me, Sophie, I'll make you a queen."
